(NOTE: These credits should be scrolled through slowly while Journey's "Be Good To Yourself" is played very loud in the background. --G.) Eyrie Productions, Uninc. and British-AnimeTech, Limited present A Benjamin D. Hutchins Production A MegaZone Film Executive Producer: Rob Mandeville CROSSROADS Undocumented Features Volume Four THE CAST (In order of appearance) Gryphon..........................................Benjamin D. Hutchins Punk No. 1.....................................................Johnny Punk No. 2......................................................Tommy Kei.....................................................Kei J. Morgan Yuri.....................................................Yuri Daniels Zoner..........................Brian ("That's not my name!") Bikowicz Meph................................................................? ReRob (Penna)..........................................Rob Mandeville Deedlit (Istara)............................Deedlit Satori Mandeville Kevin (Tanderah)..........................................Kevin Tefft Cheryl.Z (Fachan).....................................Cheryl Zukowsky Largo..GENOM Corporation Type 481-A-S Hyper-Buma J-2073-D-2670-S-1871 Eve Tokimatsuri..............................Enhanced Video Emulation Vision........Virtual Interface System with Integrated Organizational Networking Wolfgang....................Baron Lord Wolfgang Amadeus Fahrvergnugen Sparks...............................................TCH2 Karen Davis Cmdr. Saavik...................................................Saavik Max.................................................Maximilian Hunter Vanessa.................................................Vanessa Leeds Buma No. 1.....................GENOM Corporation Type 60-A Buma F-242 Not Gryphon.............GENOM Corporation Type 33/S Replicant GRP-HN1 Jamie....................................................Jaime Finney Asrial..................Her Imperial Majesty Asrial, Queen of Salusia Hagbard................................................Hagbard Celine George....................................................George Dorn Chief O'Brien.....................................CPO Melissa O'Brien Dr. Selar.......................................................Selar Reality...............................................Vaughn C. Gross Zoner2.........................Brian ("That's not my name!") Bikowicz Gryphon2.........................................Benjamin D. Hutchins ReRob2.................................................Rob Mandeville Vaughn................................................Vaughn C. Gross Sherlock Holmes...........................................Edison Bell q...........................................................John Todd Q......................................................John De Lancie Iczer-1................................GENOM Corporation I.C.Z.E.R.-1 Deunan...................................................Deunan Knute Briareos.......................................Briareos Hecatonchires Haywire..................................................Mark Luchini Perry.................................................Perry Aldzinjal Gordo..............................................G'rdna' Ripperfang Tricia............................................Patricia M. Currier Pilot Officer McMurphy...................................Sal McMurphy Pilot Officer Coltrane...................................Jon Coltrane Kwei-Chang Caine........GENOM Corporation Type Bu-55c Buma 1138-04462 Decker-2..................GENOM Corporation Type 33/S Replicant DKR-2 P2B(fnord)H-272......GENOM Corporation Type 60-B Buma P2B(fnord)H-272 Iczer-2................................GENOM Corporation I.C.Z.E.R.-2 The original text of this document was written in the Software Publishing Company's Professional Write Plus under Microsoft Windows 3.1, on an IMH Associates Colossus 25 macrotower computer. Original draft outputs came from a Hewlett Packard DeskJet PLUS printer. This document was constructed at Eyrie Productions, Uninc., in its Morgan 401, 14 Dover St. #2B, and 105 Morgan Lane offices, from April 1992 to February 1993. The authors wish to thank all their friends who contributed to the editing, proofreading, error-checking and general kibbitzing of this work, as well as those who helped them out through the difficult times that seem to have made some of you think they had split up. Thanks also to all the performers who have inspired and aided the authors with their work and their lives, especially Def Leppard, for showing us that even the best have to fight their way through adversity. Thanks as well to all those people whose creations we have used in this story. The odds that we'll meet many of you are slim, but we thank you from the bottom of our hearts anyway. They include, but are not limited to: Haruka Takachiho, Katsuhiro Otomo, Kenichi Sonoda, Masamune Shirow, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Joseph H. Martin, Jr., Ben Dunn, Robert Anton Wilson, Robert Shea, and Gene Roddenberry. And finally, special thanks to all of you, for your patience and dedication to the characters we so love. This one's for you, and, of course, for Kei and Yuri. Benjamin D. Hutchins 105 Morgan Lane Millinocket, ME 04462 (207)723-6650 MegaZone 18 Hampden St. #3 Worcester, MA 01609 (508)831-7437 Rob Mandeville Student Box #2906 100 Institute Road Worcester, MA 01609 (508)791-5408 -------------------------------------------------------------------ONE "The entire sum of existence is the magic of being needed by just one person." -- Vii Putnam 20 JUNE 2388 VESPER, MUSASHI The airspace over the planet Musashi was not terribly busy; there was nothing anybody wanted there, except for the various nasty chemicals that were mined from its wastelands. It had once been a nice planet, but a war and a hundred years of apathy had just about seen to that. Today, however, the planet was to see a visitor. With a blaze of light, a small spacecraft emerged from superluminal drive some ten AUs from the planet, coasting into the system at .7 C. It was constructed in the shape of an aerodyne, perhaps a fightercraft of centuries past; on its back were huge, powerful thrusters which now belched blue fire. At its controls was a man wearing a suit of CVR-3 armor, bearing ship insignia not seen for over a century. The spacecraft itself bore odd symbols; a century-outdated WWWA logo on one tailfin, for example, an almost-forgotten Wedge Defense Force symbol under its cockpit canopy, the legend VVF-261-1, and the same ship signs. It was, in fact, a VF-1FS Hyper Valkyrie. The pilot of the craft established contact with planetside authorities and made planetfall with no difficulty. After a bit of time clearing customs and seeing to the maintenance and servicing of his vehicle, he departed the spaceport at which he had arrived. The visitor was short, heavy-set, and as he left the spaceport was dressed in baggy black fatigues, a well-worn grey Safematic cap, and a thin black leather tie. The only things remotely fancy about his attire were his shoes, black and white British Knights, and his brown leather trench coat, which a military historian would have recognized as the standard officer's issue of the old Wedge Defense Force, with the Wedge Defense Force, Eight-Ball Squadron, and WWWA patches and the airbrushed painting of a pretty silver-haired woman on the back. The only adornments he wore were a wristwatch and a small, triangular purple earring in his left earlobe. Fingerless black leather gloves covered his hands. The grips of a pair of Japanese swords protruded above his right shoulder. He knew where he was; he was in the city of Vesper, on the planet Musashi, coreward of Terra in the United Federation of Planets. A free city-state on the face of a planet state; almost unheard of in Federation-level politics and government. An oddity on an odd planet. Musashi was mostly uninhabitable--reterraforming after the civil war had ceased, the budget gone, after only eight percent of the surface was changed. Vesper was one of the planet's two cities; the other, Zepan, laid claim to that eight percent, as well as all the rest of Musashi's soil except what was under Vesper's dome. That was just fine with the Vesperites, as most of that soil was carcinogenic ash. It always rained in Vesper, thanks to the ancient and obsolescent climate control dome over the city; condensation formed on it from the heavy industry and thick population present there, then fell back to the streets, washing them with caustic chemicals and the occasional bit of water. The stranger knew that; that was why his clothing was coated with chem-repellent polymers. It didn't feel any different, but it shed water and the like better than a heavy wax job on hand-rubbed lacquer. He knew where he was; he'd been here before. He turned left out of the alley, moving quickly and deliberately toward the personal transportation dealership at the end of the street. It was always dark in Vesper as well as rainy; the dome had long ago darkened permanently, a sad side effect of the beating of the merciless sun upon the city. The old plastics in the dome decayed slightly, the polarization slipped, and poonk! no more light. It was gradual; at first the dome always rendered the intolerable and dangerous radiation a pleasant, sunny day. Then the polarization began to slip and the sky dimmed; eventually it was pitch black. Without the sunlight, artificial heating was brought in; that, the population explosion, and the lack of sunlight and heat caused the water index to topple, causing the perpetual rain. On an alley wall was a poster for a gig coming up. The band was Basic Nastiness. The concert was called, strangely enough, "Roadtrip to Jersey (Don't Nobody Tell Tim)". The stranger recognized the sign, and might have even chuckled at a different place and time. But not here, not now. A pair of punks took this lapse in the stranger's stride for their own advantage, and stepped out of the alley in front of him. They wore rags and the mark of serious substance abuse; their skin was pale, blotchy, and discolored from near-constant exposure to the toxic rain. Both wore sunglasses. "Nice jacket, man, " one of them said. The stranger noted the slightly unbalanced cant to his bearing, marked him as desperate, and continued on, not saying a word. The punks fell into step beside him. "Don't you think that's a nice jacket, Tommy?" the punk said. "Yeah," Tommy agreed. "Yeah, Johnny, that's a nice jacket." "A real nice jacket. I think that jacket could keep me dry for a long time, don't you think so, Tommy?" "Yeah. Yeah, Johnny, I think so. Can I have his hat?" "Yeah, sure, Tommy, you can have his hat. C'mon, pop, give 'em up." The stranger didn't even look at him; he just kept walking. "I said, `give 'em up'!" the punk hollered. The stranger ignored him in much the same way that a helpless victim does not. [Apologies to Douglas Adams.] The punk pulled a large knife from one of his boots. "One last warning," he cautioned. The stranger didn't look at him. Instead, he took his black-gloved left hand out of his pocket, snapped out his left arm faster than Johnny's eye could follow, grabbed the knife hand in his own, and applied his open right palm to Johnny's chest. Johnny slammed back against the building, but managed to keep a grip on his knife. He held that same knife out, brandishing it, shouting in a high-pitched voice, "Don't make me cut you, man!" The stranger smiled. Johnny lunged. The stranger ducked aside, his left hand plunging into his coat; there was a flash of metal. Johnny was slammed back against the wall by the stranger's left fist; his knife clattered to the sidewalk. The stranger pulled his tanto smoothly out of Johnny's sternum and, wiping it, calmly put it away. Tommy ran away, in front of a car, and was hit quite hard as his partner sagged limply to the ground. "It's a coat, not a jacket, you cretin," the stranger told Johnny's corpse, and kept walking unconcernedly as he replaced the sword. After all, the pedestrian getting hit had nothing to do with him, did it? Two blocks down, the stranger noticed a dataterm bearing the legend VESPER TODAY (some enterprising youth with a laser etcher had added "Tomorrow the Galaxy" underneath). He smiled, a small, private smile, and paused, feeding it a credit chit and tapping in a code. He waited; it was an old dataterm model, and slow. Presently, it spat several small, waxy pieces of fiberplast into a small receptacle; he picked them up, put them into his pocket, retrieved his credit chit and continued on his way. When he arrived at the transdealer, a salesman immediately started showing him the latest in electric scoots, minicars, etc. The stranger wanted none of that. In a quiet but firm voice he indicated the ExoSalusia Industries J-9300-T Tornado gravbike standing in the special section. The salesman expounded for nearly ten minutes on the difficulty of obtaining the proper paperwork for the ownership and use of such a vehicle--which the stranger promptly produced, along with a registered credit chit locked in for precisely the correct amount of money. "Wait," said the salesman as the stranger threw a leg over the gravbike and inserted his newly-purchased key. "You need a helmet." The stranger took off his hat and folded it over onto the brim, forming a small wad of fabric which he slipped into the map pocket of his jacket. "How silly of me," he said calmly. He proceeded to buy the toughest available one, with the optional armor plating, comm gear, and HUD. That taken care of, he engaged the anti-rain field and waited for the salesman to get the door open, then kicked in the maneuvering thrusters and made his way onto the street. The salesman stood in wonderment, and then went to the desk and announced his retirement. He had just sold a 2-millon-credit ExoSal gravbike that was on order, then cancelled, and a half year old; it was expected that the overhead of that one vehicle would drive them out of business. And then, like some sort of guardian angel, a man named Benjamin D. Hutchins had come and bought it. Hutchins melded with the flow of traffic easily, rather more easily than normal considering how many people got the hell out of the way when they saw someone riding an ExoSal J-9300-T. He made his way through traffic as though he knew the city well, which, of course, he did; traffic thinned out considerably as he neared the exolock. Here his tough leather coat, gloves, helmet and fatigue pants would come in handy; the outside world from Vesper was a sun-baked desert. Riding a gravbike would involve a great deal of dust and heat; fortunately, his clothing was also modified for automatic climate control. Hutchins slammed the gravbike's main thrusters online as he entered the exitube; the fusion plant responded with a snarl of pure power, and the thruster throats belched blue radiance in a trail two feet long. His helmet automatically compensated to keep him from being blinded by the raw, unfiltered sunlight that blasted across him as he exited the black dome over Vesper. Of course, the tunnel leading out was gradated to make the transition less noticeable and more bearable, but at the speed he had the Tornado going at, it was like a high-speed film dissolve. Within moments he was howling across the desert of Musashi. Within an hour, his target was in sight; a smallish starship, like a great, graceful, but brawny-looking starfighter with wide wings and big drive thrusters. Its wings were turned up for landing position, the ramp was up, and the cockpit lights were out. The vessel was called Lovely Angel, and was thermocoated in a brilliant scarlet. It was a vessel he was quite familiar with. It had automatic defenses; or, the crew, for all he knew, might be home and on alert. So much the better. Snapping off the foreign-matter shield to free up more power for the thrusters, he raised the fine control to full and dropped the autobalance to almost completely off. At this setting he was controlling the bike fully on his own, flying it by the seat of his pants as it were. As he had hoped, various weapon turrets on the Lovely Angel swung to face him as he approached. Warnings rang in his headset, but he didn't know if they were from live individuals or recordings. After the final warning, the laser turrets opened up. <<< Journey: Separate Ways (Worlds Apart) >>> A deadly pattern of fire streaked from the various turrets, turning the entire portside fire arc of Lovely Angel into a killzone. Hutchins rode his J-9300 through the inferno of blazing neon blue death with the practiced ease of a professional and the raw, to-the-edge skill of a man who is desperately enjoying what he's doing. Lovely Angel opened up with her short-range missile launchers; Hutchins weaved, ducked, and dodged madly, even evading the heat-seeking missiles that homed on his thruster exhaust. He was doing almost 370 kph when he suddenly slammed the braking thruster full-on; by now he was inside the starship's arcs of fire. He came to a thundering stop next to the main engine reactor, then slapped his palm against the hull as if he were laying an anti-matter limpet mine. Then he gunned the fusion plant and threw the thrusters back into full power, streaking away from Lovely Angel and evading with all his radar-aided might. Again the airspace became a deathzone; this time much further from the ship, since the systems were now quite aware of his presence and the time for range warnings was long past. The pattern of laser fire and missile salvos led Hutchins to believe that someone he was quite familiar with was running the guns manually anyway. A heat-seeking SRM slammed into the sand less than four feet from the gravbike; the pulse created by its electroplast warhead disrupted the gravfield for a split-second. Many a novice and even experienced gravbiker has died due to such disruptions, augered in 400-plus-kph bikes with a sudden lack of gravitic suspension. The grav on one side drops, the bike rolls, and you're a smear on the ground. Hutchins leaned hard the other way, finding the center and shifting it under the right side's still-operative gravfield; moments later the left side came back online, the generators recalibrated by the autocomp. He reached into his jacket and hit the button that would've detonated the mine. The fire from Lovely Angel ceased. Had the mine really been there, the explosion resulting from his releasing the magbottle around the anti-matter slug that made up its core would've blown the entire engine compartment off of Lovely Angel. The explosion resulting from that would've vaporized the rest of the ship and turned the surrounding fifty to a hundred meters radius into fused glass. Hutchins slung the bike to a stop, half-facing the starship, stopped, put down a leg, and tabbed the comm unit in his helmet. "Bang, Kei," he said quietly. "You're dead." "Hutchins, you jerk," a female voice replied, "get your ass in here! What in hell are you doing on this dustball anyway?" He grinned and drove the bike back to the Lovely Angel. -------------------------------------------------------------------TWO "Harmony was the soul of our companionship, and the diversity and contrast that subsisted in our characters drew us nearer together." --Frankenstein Benjamin D. Hutchins wasn't the sort of man Kei usually went for; too short, too heavyset, and altogether too quiet. Kei was a loud person, and she liked loud people. Short, silent Hutchins seemed appropriate for Yuri, perhaps, but no; as Hutchins once said, "There are things known and there are things unknown, and somewhere in the middle are me and Kei." Kei put it more succinctly with: "Guess I'm funny that way." But that was a long time ago. Not that it mattered; they were still the same relative ages. Such were the benefits of the Omega-2 retrovirus. Damned expensive, in ways beyond monetary--but handy. Hutchins parked his Tornado at the bottom of the ramp and walked to the top; it was at that point that he stopped and came rigidly to attention. From somewhere else in the ship came his hosts, the crew of Lovely Angel; the WWWA esper team known far and wide as the Dirty Pair. Ben gave the standard Wedge Defense Force salute and said stiffly, "Permission to come aboard, ma'am?" "I wouldn't touch that line..." Yuri muttered. "Shut up, Yuri," Kei growled, elbowing her partner sharply in the ribs. "Granted," she replied. "It's good to see you again," said Hutchins, relaxing from his military pose. There was a hint of pain in his eyes and his voice, and something else as well... "And you," Yuri replied. "It's been far too long," Kei added. She too seemed haunted by something. "Has it? I lose track." They started walking back, toward the wardroom. "You know, I could've thoroughly hosed you guys. What's the matter, Kei? Your aim really sucked." "You always did know how to compliment a girl." "What're you doing here?" Ben asked after they had settled into the wardroom. "I don't see any mass death, destruction, and chaos around..." "We don't do that anymore," Yuri said quietly. "Our last fourteen missions have come off without a single hitch. We've almost lost that horrid nickname." "No kidding? People have stopped calling you the Lovely Angels?" He got a wardroom-sofa pillow in the face for that one. Just then, a huge mound of redblack fur sloped into the room, fixed Hutchins with a mournful expression, and uttered a low meow. "Mughi! Hey, chummer, what's happening? Haven't seen you in a while," Hutchins called, reaching out to scratch the huge, catlike animal behind an ear. "He's missed you," Kei said. "He's not the only one," Yuri muttered. "Oh, shut up, Yuri!" Kei turned to Ben. "Are you planning on staying?" "I don't really know at this point...right now, I could do with a shower and some food, in that order." "You know where the shower is; welcome to it." After three months of hard starfaring to get here in the first place and then a long, hard ride across the desert, the shower was the most marvelous thing in the universe. Ben was almost starting to feel human again, although, by sheer point of fact, he wasn't; too much metal, retroviral gene modification, and biometabolic augmentation in him for that any more. It didn't bother him; cyberpsychosis was not something he was especially concerned with being a victim of. Hot water raced across his skin as he worked at scrubbing out the last of the Musashi dust. He leaned back against the wall and let it hit him full in the face, marveling at the way a simple thing like a shower could make him happy. He wasn't a hard man to please, really; he liked simple things. Simple food, simple showers...simple relationships... He shook his head violently, squeezing his eyes shut, spraying water from his long hair across the cubicle. That was a long time ago, he said to himself, we're not gonna get into that again. The shower door opened. He whirled, his wired reflexes kicking to full levels, dropping to a combative semi-crouch, all by reflex. With a smile, Kei stepped into the shower. "Little jumpy, aren't you?" "Kei--I--what are you doing here?" "Showering, you?" "Wh--" "I wanted to talk to you, privately; I figured this would be just about the best place to do that." "Talk to me about what?" "You...me...us..." "Kei--" "Don't interrupt me. I know what happened back then hurt you a lot. It hurt me too. I still have scars from it, and I'm sure you do too." Kei paused for a moment, reflecting on their past. "But what we had was special... damn it, I don't want to just let it die!" "Kei...we haven't seen each other for a hundred years, except to shoot at each other. It's been dead. For a century, dead." "No. It's been hibernating. Waiting for the right moment." She smiled. "I kinda think that moment's here." "What do--" "If you didn't want this to happen, why did you come here in the first place?" "I..." He had no response for that one. "Well?" "I guess I did, subconsciously...I'm just...I dunno, afraid. Afraid it might happen again, afraid it might be worse. Damn it, Kei, I loved you, and part of me still does. What you did to me almost killed me, in more ways than one. I almost killed myself over it, but I was stronger than that, even then." "I didn't mean to hurt you, I didn't want to hurt you...I thought you were the one responsible for it. It wasn't until just a couple of years ago that I knew you hadn't done anything. Two years I've had trouble sleeping at night because I've known we split for no good reason." She looked on the verge of tears. "Two years of agony knowing I hated you when I should've loved you all the more." "Look, try to understand my position here...I've been waiting for you to come to a decision ever since you said you needed time. But now...now that the time is here I'm scared of what might happen." "Whatever happens...just let it." An hour later, Ben was sitting on the corner of the bed in his old cabin and Kei was crying on his shoulder. Years of aggression and bottled-up guilt, amplified by the odd depression one feels at certain times in one's life, were rushing out of her, and the shoulder of Ben's blue bathrobe was soaking through. His arms were around her, and he was stroking her back in a comforting manner. "You don't need to feel this way," Ben told her softly. "I told you, I forgave you. I always told you that, even when you were trying to kill me." "And I don't understand why you should," Kei replied, her voice muffled. "I hated you, I wanted you dead...and you infuriated me all the more by never hating me back." "I had some good friends," Ben said with a small grin. "Listen," he went on, "I don't think dwelling on the past is a good idea. We've come full circle in this; I think we should just start all over again. Clean slate. No strings. What do you say?" "Okay," Kei replied. "Hi. My name's Kei--" "That isn't quite what I meant," Gryphon said with a smile. They drew one another into a tighter embrace. <<>> In the fore end of the ship, fiddling around with something or other on the Angel's shipboard computer, Yuri heard an electronic lock go PING! as it was engaged. She smiled, and so did Mughi. -----------------------------------------------------------------THREE "Shared joy is increased; shared pain is lessened." --Anonymous On a small planet several thousand light years from anywhere, a man made a decision. The communication had reached him a couple of days before, and he had been soul-searching ever since. Now was the time, he decided; damn it, if he could go off and bravely face his fears, admit his mistakes, and so on, then so could he. Besides, he couldn't let that bastard think he was better. He got up from the table, folded down the computer thereinstalled, and headed toward the back of his house, pulling on the gloves of his flightsuit. He opened the door to the garage with a keypad and stepped out, putting on his helmet. Now was the time. He kept repeating that phrase in his head. Now is the time, now is the time. No turning back. No regrets. He opened the door to his starcraft and settled into the pilot's seat. Tapping control codes with practiced ease, he rediscovered long-dormant routines still came easily and keyed the door open. The strange starship rose on a cushion of air and blasted out, reaching escape velocity posthaste and streaking into deep space. It appeared to have a pair of superluminal warp nacelles built into a small living cabin, much like the executive transports the megacorps used. However, the nose section strongly resembled an old Terran surface vehicle. The entire craft was a resplendent fire-red and weapons ports could barely be seen. On its side, in fading black letters, could be seen the words: WARPZONE W.D.F. WAYWARD SON COMMAND WWWA-101162 The man laid in the coordinates for Musashi and kicked in the superluminal drive. Four days later he emerged from hyperspace near Musashi. He, like Ben, came in the most exciting way possible, needing the adrenaline rush to stiffen his resolve and make it ever harder for him to back down. He established a geosynchronous orbit and contacted the planetary officials for permission to land. With said permission, the starship did something most unusual. The nose section extended down and forward from the superluminal drive section on twin arms. A blue glow flared around the aft section of the nose, and it streaked away from its moorings toward the atmosphere. It looked for all the world like an ancient Terran Dodge Daytona. <<< Riggs: Radar Rider >>> The man grounded the Daytona outside the Vesper dome and raced out across the sand at its maximum speed. Lovely Angel's sensors picked up the incoming vehicle four miles out and immediately tossed a picture of it onto a viewscreen. Kei, Yuri, Mughi, and Ben were crammed into the cockpit watching, and as the image of a fire-red Dodge Daytona streaking across the Musashi ash filled the main screen, Ben leaped in the air and let out a triumphant whoop. He felt better than he had in nearly a century--he and the woman he loved were together again, and here came one of his best friends out of hiding--life was sweet, life was goddamn sweet. Yuri felt as Kei had four days previously, as she contemplated talking with Ben about what had transpired--full of annoyingly fluttery insects who refused to keep still. Unlike Kei, she didn't slam down over that feeling a lid of bravado and coat the whole thing with a thick layer of tough; part of Ben and Kei's relationship was melting through layers like that. Yuri had no intentions of shooting at this new arrival. (Although it bears pointing out that Kei had no intentions of hitting Ben.) The Daytona landing craft thus roared unchallenged up to the ramp of the larger starship and ground to a halt inches from one of the landing gear. The door opened and its pilot, resplendent in a tasteful, if antiquarian, WDF Wayward Son flightsuit sporting captain's bars, stepped out. He pulled off his helmet and shook his head; it had been a long flight. He then pulled off his gloves, threw them into the helmet, and dropped both in the seat before closing the door and marching up the ramp, his Nikes looking oddly out of place. He too gave a perfect WDF salute and inquired after permission to board, which was promptly granted. Then, with no preamble, no small talk, and no awkwardness at all, MegaZone gathered up Yuri in his arms (which was simple enough, as he topped her height by a foot, probably doubled her weight, and was met with no resistance) and carried her into the ship. Kei and Ben shared a small smile between them, and Kei reached over to squeeze his hand; everything was all right again. Or at least, as all right as it could ever be. ------------------------------------------------------------------FOUR "Time and Life/Life and Time/Someday I'll get what's mine/Through the persistence of Time" -- Anthrax "Penna, twenty minutes." "Cool. Got a minute?" "Sure. What?" "Could you buff me?" "Sure. But you explain it to Tanderah." "No prob. I can handle Pretty Boy, even while I'm being buffed." As if to prove his point, Penna touched his right shoulder, which fell off. He caught the now-inert slab of metal and tossed it to Meph, who grabbed a big can of Brasso and started away. Penna used his remaining hand to stripe some red on his cheek, ran the Fender Bender Bass/Rhythm through a tune cycle, put on his "Spud Wrench" T-shirt, grab his arm back from Meph, and hit backstage. Tuning up (manually) was Istara, a pair of cat-like ears poking out of her ballcap. Tanderah was there, with no need to tune up his electronic 'boards. Fachan, all five foot of her, had no instruments backstage. Mt. Percussion, which dwarfed her just for effect, was already set up on the Dry Park soundstage. "All set?" asked Istara. "Let's do it." And, just to piss the management off, the four hit the stage ten minutes early. As if that was going to be any help. They were going to start the show one hundred years, to the second, of the fall of the Wayward Son. The band, Basic Nastiness, had considered calling it the "Wayward Son Century Benefit Concert", but that was too normal. To fit with the source of the band's name, they decided to name the gig "Roadtrip to Jersey (Don't Nobody Tell Tim)". Which, of course, pissed off the crowd, since nobody had any clue what the hell it meant. That was okay. Anyone who really mattered tonight knew. And were probably laughing their asses off. A few people saw the band take the stage, though the lights were off. Here's a quick description of the venue. Dry Park is the closest thing to a hang-out there is in Vesper. Keeping the assorted shit off of the residents is a pneumatically-supported Servodome. Lighting simulated sunlight, and there was real green grass there. And it was damned expensive to get into. Especially tonight. Above the stage, suspended by a sky-hook, was a huge digital clock. It counted the hours, minutes, and seconds until the century of the crash, taken from Touchdown. It read six seconds. Five. Four. Three. ... ... Simultaneously, lights hit the stage, and four voices braided perfectly: Carry on my wayward son There'll be peace when you are done Lay your weary head to rest Don't'cha cry no more It was not too far a stretch, if any at all, to assume that no native had heard that song. It all began to make sense, in a twisted sort of manner. And some people, among the mass of mundanes, would gain some form of clue over the next three hours as to what the Wayward Son stood for. The rest would just party on. That was okay. The concert wasn't for those mundanes. Each band member knew, closely and intimately (depending on one's sense of the term "intimately", of course), every single person they were trying to reach. The fact that these thousands showed up for the gig really didn't bother them a bit. ------------------------------------------------------------------FIVE "But Time is on our side/and Time is the essence" -- Def Leppard, "Overture" One band, over three hours. No solos, no long speeches, just song after song punctuated by pre-recorded sound bites which, though nobody knew the sources, sounded cool at the time. Basic Nastiness knew how to put on a gig. The accepted thing to do at this point was to pretend to leave the stage, then come back to do an encore. Instead, Penna stepped up to the front mic. Unnecessary; he was linked to a headset mic and had been trading vocal responsibilities with Istara. But stand-up mics did have a certain effect. "Everybody here have a good time tonight?" The response was a roaring crowd, a massive affirmative. "Great, then you can go home now. No no, just kidding. Seriously, we do have some heavy territory to cover before this evening's over. First off, I would like to thank Mr. Fnord, whoever he may be, for fronting the cost for this entire concert. "Second, the box office counted eighty-two thousand, three hundred and seventy-five tickets sold: this gig went one hundred percent capacity. That means we raised about one point six million Solaris tonight. And, thanks to Mr. Fnord, that's all free to fund the Musashi Terraforming project. Remember, you can make a difference. You already have. Give yourselves a big hand. "But most importantly, this is a time for good-byes, hellos, and shattered illusions. First, the goodbye is to all of you, unfortunately. Barring the incredibly unforeseen, this is going to be the last time you ever see Basic Nastiness. We're going off-world, and probably won't return in your lifetimes. It's been a fincredible decade: I don't even think our forefathers got as much of a reception as we had. "Why we're leaving brings us into the shattered illusions. Of course, you know us by our stage names. But we've been around for a long time under different names, possibly more famous than our current ones." He made a gesture off-stage. There was a rumble, deeper and lower than anything Mt. Percussion could pound out. Upon a pillar of flame, a craft rose from a pit behind the stage. A really ugly ship, uglier than it was even designed, slowly leapt over the stage backing, and landed straddling the percussion unit. Penna turned back to the mic. "My friends, I give you the Rick Allen and her crew. I would like to introduce you to --" he gestured to Fachan, Tanderah, Istara, and himself in turn--"Cheryl.Z, Ktefft, Deedlit, and ReRob." The fog lifted from the heads of some of the mundanes. Most, of course, thought that they had just seen TMOA gimmicks, and blew it off. Some, remembering the stories they learned in school, recognized the names and the stories, and saw how these pretenders could pass for the four, but the big fact remained--they're dead! Other than that, several dozen media personnel were pressing for bandwidth on the cellulars. "Which brings us, at last, to the hellos. The real reason for this gig was to attract the attention of a few special people. We know that some people survived the Wayward Son. We're hoping that some of those survivors are here, in person or by video. Guys, we've got a message for you. "Largo and GENOM, of course, are still in business. We can't let the galaxy go on with this menace still at large. For the past century, we have, because there was simply nothing we could do about it. Now there is. "With the assistance of the Government of Vesper, we have created the warbird Phoenix. It is fully staffed, and capable of the job at hand, but we still need you at the senior positions. "If you were on the Wayward Son, you can find a way to get here and you will find a way to reach us. But, time is short, as Largo will be informed of this gathering quite soon by his own intelligence forces." ReRob was more correct than he assumed. Largo's "intelligence forces" at the moment consisted of a vidscreen cable-linked to Network 23, which was showing this live and direct from the Edison Carter Show. This was all Largo needed to see now; he'd acquire the tape from the net later on. He decided, instead, to invoke his remote control unit. He grabbed Jacq Sandia, the functionary du jour, and launched him at the screen. He then made a mental note to himself not to do that too often, as this represented a waste of good vidscreens. ReRob had taken a breath to continue, but he was cut off.. "Hang on a second," a voice cried from offstage. ReRob whirled, his eyes widening. It couldn't be-- Gryphon came out from the wings, wearing what the few Card No. 1 fans in the audience recognized as his old stage clothes; black fatigue pants, bright red Converse All-Stars, a dark flannel shirt, a grey hat with the logo "INTEL INSIDE" on the front, and a long grey duster. His hair was tied back in a long ponytail, and his smile was just about touching the triangular purple earring he wore in his left earlobe. Behind him came Kei, in a similar shirt and a pair of tattered jeans; Zoner, in his uniform; and Yuri, in a denim skirt, leather jacket with about a thousand zippers and the like, and low black boots. "Hold it right there, pal," ReRob said, holding up his metal hand. "I've seen this kind of thing before. If you're really Gryphon, then where are we going?" Gryphon looked puzzled for a second; then his smile widened, he seized another upright mike, and shouted, "Planet 10!" with a fist raised defiantly in the air. "When will we get there?" ReRob continued, his voice becoming less skeptical and more excited. "Real soon!" Gryphon cried. "What is the greatest joy?" ReRob demanded. "The joy of duty!" Gryphon bellowed. "History is made at night--character is what you are in the dark!" "Gryph!" Rob cried. "Welcome back!" Those in the crowd who remembered their great-grandparents' tales (and old discs) of Card Number One were awestruck; the same for those who remembered the tales of the Wedge Defense Force. A great wave of cheering rose up, marred by the boos and hisses of those whose ancestors had put a somewhat negative slant on the tale, such as it was known, of the end of the WDF. Rob pulled Gryphon away from the mikes and murmured to him, "I take it you're--" "Cleared, Rob," Gryphon replied, and grabbed a mike. "Cleared and judged innocent by Wolfgang Amadeus Fahrvergnugen himself!" The crowd roared. "My friends...for those of you who know of me, who believe in me and whose parents and grandparents believed in me--I thank you, and I thank them. "Rob--if you don't mind, there's a song I'd like to do. Could I trouble you to take your old station behind the 'boards?" "Sure, Gryph...sure." There was a little whispering as Gryphon described the song to ReRob off-mike, and then Rob took his place. Yuri was busy borrowing an acoustic guitar from Deedlit, and passing an electric to Zoner; meantime, Gryphon and Kei were taking position in front. The crowd fell silent. Yuri on acoustic, Gryphon and Kei up front, Zoner on an electric (rare indeed), ReRob at the 'boards, and a different drummer; this was a setup some of them recognized. After a hauntingly odd-sounding acoustic intro, Kei, lighted only from a pin above, began to sing. The rest of the band was blacked out. Baby I get so scared inside and I don't really understand Is it love that's on my mind or is it fantasy? Another pin came up across the stage, filtered through a red gel, on Gryphon: Heaven Is in the palm of my hand and it's waiting here for you What am I supposed to do with a childhood tragedy? If I close my eyes forever Will it all remain unchanged? If I close my eyes forever Will it all remain the same? Sometimes It's hard to hold on So hard to hold on to my dreams It isn't always what it seems When you're face to face with me You're like a dagger You stick me in the heart And taste the blood from my blade And when we sleep would you shelter me In your warm and darkened grave If I close my eyes forever Will it all remain unchanged? If I close my eyes forever Will it all remain the same? Will you ever take me? No I just can't take the pain... Would you ever trust me? No I'll never feel the same...ohh I know I've been so hard on you I know I've told you lies If I could have just one more wish I'd wipe the cobwebs from my eyes And if I close my eyes forever Will it all remain unchanged? If I close my eyes forever Will it all remain the same? Close your eyes Close your eyes You gotta close your eyes for me... The lights came up, slowly; Gryphon and Kei crossed the stage until they were standing face to face, looked at each other for a long moment, and then fell into a warm embrace. The rest of the band gathered around. The crowd went nuts. "Ladies and gentlemen," Gryphon announced into the mike next to his face, "the Wedge Defense Force is back!" <<< The Alarm: Change II >>> -------------------------------------------------------------------SIX "How many? Smoking or non?" --Many a waitress In all, there were nine of them: the four from Basic Nastiness, Meph (BN's majordomo), the Lovely Angels, Gryphon and MegaZone. In a gravbike, Daytona, and a rather beat-up VW Microbus (though VW's were never sold on Musashi), the gang descended on Denny's. Denny's was, believe it or not, cleared out for the event. When Basic Nastiness puts on a post-gig nosh, they don't kid around. They were greeted with menus by a woman in a familiar face and a waitress uniform. Zoner was the first to react. "Andrea?!?" She looked down at her name tag which read, appropriately enough, "Andrea". "I guess so. You were expecting somebody else?" MegaZone was still stunned. "You survived?" Gryphon slapped his friend in the forehead. "Remember your geography. SDF-17 Denny's was next to escape pods. Duh." Ben, of course, had no more clue than Zoner did that she would be here. They sat down and started looking at the menus. Kei was the first to speak. "I see the decor is still early vinyl." "What did you expect? This is Denny's after all," redirecting his attention Zoner continued, "So let's see if I can do this without looking at the menu. Bowl of chili no cheese, double Denny Burger combo with the salad. Bright orange dressing, no egg or 'shrooms. Key lime pie. Hmmm... A coffee and a Coke.... Oh! And a buttermilk biscuit!" "Got it!" Andrea said, grinning. "Nailed it Zoner!" Yuri chimed in. "Well, some things you never forget," Zoner managed to say straight faced, well, almost. Once the laughter died down the rest of the crowd placed their orders and they started bullshitting, trying to catch up on each others' past. "...so after the Son bought the farm Deedlit and I settled in here to try and set up a new defense system. We had no idea where Gryph and Zoner were, except for the occasional report of Kei blowing someplace up trying to kill Ben. When she wasn't busy with that her and Yuri were working for the 3WA. So Deedlit and I decided to make a living with our band and use the profits to build a new ship," ReRob was explaining. "We've been working pretty hard to have it completed before the hundred year anniversary. Our next job was to find all of you. So we're already ahead of schedule," Deedlit followed. "You haven't been doing too bad with Virtual Labs either. You built up quite a reputation with your work. I've used a few of your concepts in my work over the years," Zoner added. "Yeah, well, building a new ship cost a bit more than we'd anticipated. VLI gave us the funds we needed to do the job right. And the customers helped fund research we ended up using in constructing the ship. So VLI really made the Phoenix possible," ReRob stated modestly. "Come on Rob, we all know that you're the one responsible for her design. Designing and building your own starship isn't an easy task," Ben added, "I should know." "You been working on something of your own?" Cheryl asked. "You could say that," he replied with a smirk. "Whatcha hiding Ben?" Kevin inquired. "Oh nothing. I've just done a few odd jobs here and there over the years. I had to keep on the move don'tcha know." Ben cast a sidelong glance at Kei, who smiled sheepishly. "I spent a few years at the University of Meizuri, kicked around Earth for a while getting a degree or three in astronautics and the like from M.I.T., spent some time in Mega Tokyo, studied at the Stingray Institute for Robotics...then I had the accident with my warp drives and wound up across dimensions...spent a year at Starfleet Academy, served aboard the USS Enterprise under Captain James T. Kirk, commanded the USS Invincible, NCC-1717, for twenty years, and wound up back here. I keep busy." "So, the Angels worked for the 3WA, Ben was working on the lam, the rest of us were here, and what did you do Zoner?" Deedlit asked. "I got into cybertech, real into cybertech. I've been doing a lot of development work underground. That's how I make my living, I do all the leading edge research for the corps and they pay me the big money. I take the risks and they get the credit. And that's the way I wanted it. I made a good living and I got to stay out of the limelight. Hell, if it wasn't for me Ares would have gone under back in '50 when they were coming out with their new nanite line. They were promising the sky and they cocked it up. Their R&D people screwed up big time, I stepped in and sold them the tech I developed for my own use. If you check the patents, Dr. Charles U. Farley is me. I didn't want the credit, actually I really tried to avoid it. Being famous would have made life difficult." "Difficult? How?" Cheryl asked. "Well, research didn't occupy all my time. I needed to get out once in a while..." "And?" "Being famous would have interfered with my work." "Which is?" "I kill people," Zoner replied a little harsher than necessary. This was followed by a rather strained silence. Kevin finally broke the silence, "Oh." "I'm not exactly proud of it, but it's something that needs to be done. When the law can't handle someone I go in and do the job. The universe is a big place and, unfortunately, there are plenty of psychos. A lot of the cases where the hood showed up suddenly dead I was in the area on vacation. If there was a bounty sometimes I would collect on it and donate the money to a fund to support the victims families or use it to fund more research. Occasionally I'd pick up on a contract for spying or something like that. It gave me a chance to test out my equipment, and maybe I made a difference once in a while. I'll never really know, all I know is that I ended more lives than I can recall... or that I want to recall..." "Funny, I never heard of you on the news," Deedlit observed. "I have plenty of identities, and most of the time the authorities are all too willing to cover for me. They don't like having to admit that it took an outsider to clean up their house." "You think you're alone in this mass death guilt thing? Why don't you take a look at the side of my fighter sometime," Ben snarled. "It isn't really the same thing. A lot of my work was with my hands, or my spurs. Looking at their face through the scope as I blow their head off. But even that isn't the worst. I design cybertech. Sure, some of what I do improves lives, even saves them, but I've also made weapons. There are millions of punks out there with tech I designed trying to prove their worth by having the highest body count. Sometimes I wonder how many lives I've taken indirectly." "Yeah, they're everywhere. In fact I think I introduced one to my companionsword in an alley the other day, he wanted my coat. Kids today... tsk tsk," Gryphon said with mock sadness. "Ok, ok. So it's a bit melodramatic. I guess I'm just getting tired with my life. I started doing it while I was still down from the loss and rather bitter. It became sort of a security blanket for me, a routine to fall back on. But now that it's all in the past I'm not really all that proud of what I've been up to. I may have made a lot of progress technically, but I don't think I made much progress as a person. I don't know, maybe if I was sure I made one iota of difference sometime." "I made a lot of progress as a person, maybe I made enough progress for the both of us. I used to be a fighter jock, now look at me, I'm an engineer," Gryphon quipped. "Oh, some progress," Yuri observed sardonically. "Which reminds me Zoner, you dropped this a while back." Yuri handed him what appeared to by a metallic ace of hearts. "You saved it all this time?" Zoner asked, a bit surprised. "It was one of the few connections I still had with you." Zoner's eyes misted over and he turned away to fight the tears. "Yep, we're all back together again," Kevin observed solemnly. Once the laughter stopped Meph spoke up for the first time of the evening, "It's hard to believe that you guys haven't seen each other in a hundred years, well for the most part. It's like you were just hanging together yesterday." "Well, a lot of things have changed, but we are still the same people at heart. Things can never be the same as they were before the breakup, but we'll find a new equilibrium," Rob answered for the group. "Um...yeah. I've never been fond of equilibrium, myself...it's boring. Then again, maybe my life's been a tad too interesting of late." Gryphon took a drink of his root beer and set it down, lost in thought. ----------------------------------------------------------------SEVEN "It is better to have loved and lost than to have hated and won." --Anonymous "Ahh...wow. Now this is a place." So saying, the reinstated Commander Benjamin D. Hutchins flopped onto his back on top of the grassy knoll. It was the sort of place he had always wished Millinocket had, and had always written into the golf course in his stories which involved that town, the place where he grew up and was so far distant from now. It was on that nonexistent grassy knoll that one could sit and see, spread out below him, the entire town of Millinocket, its lights glittering in the early evening, his breath crystallizing before him as he sat pensive. In his stories, the grass knoll above Millinocket which wasn't really there was one of his favorite places. He and Ray had many long and involved conversations on that knoll, before and after Friday, August 24th, 1990. But there was no Ray, and no grassy knoll over the town of Millinocket, and nothing particularly special had happened to the real Ben Hutchins on August 24th, 1990. In fact, his high school years had been, with a couple of notable exceptions, singularly unimpressive, and without a doubt carnally uneventful. Not that it particularly bothered him; there were always other things to pour his energies into, to sublimate the stress in useful ways...fiction, for example. Fictionalizing was a way of keeping himself semi- sane. He had continued it into college, until that day...Wednesday, October 2nd, 1991. The day his world had turned inside out and upside down and taken a very hard bank to the left. (And rotated 90 degrees from the plane of reality.) It didn't hit FUBAR 'til the 12th, but still... He stretched out, looking up at the night sky. There had been a time when he was afraid of the dark, but that was a while ago now, and besides, there was no need for him to fear; there was nothing out here which could harm him. A cool breeze blew across the knoll, ruffling his shirt. He stuck his hands behind his head and closed his eyes, smiling peacefully. No more stress, no more running for his life; just peace and calm and quiet. He heard a soft rustling that meant someone had taken up a sitting position beside him; there was no need for him to open his eyes, he knew full well who it was. Nonetheless, he did open his eyes; after all, he knew who it was, and he knew that looking at her was fun. He had done far too little of that over the past hundred years, and what little he had usually over the sight of some kind of weapon; no fun at all. In his stories, written centuries ago, the woman who sat on the grassy knoll and talked with him for hours at a time went by the name of Rachel Summers; she was a striking redhead, around 5'7", with a mite of a temper problem. The woman who was sitting on the grassy knoll with him here went by the name of Kei; she too was a striking redhead, around 5'7", with a mite of a temper problem. The similarities were annoying at times. However, they were all circumstantial; Ray and Kei were totally and entirely different. Night and day. Not and real. This wasn't just a stress reliever after an evening of Battletech, pizza, and too damn much caffeine; Kei was real, here, and very much alive. (AUTHOR'S NOTE: Oi. Isn't recursion wonderful? I need some sleep. See you in the morning, kids.) With a sigh of contentment, he leaned back fully and dropped off to sleep. Ben knew already that he was dreaming. It was the only explanation for what was going on, and besides, he knew this dream well, it was a frequent one. As before, he tried to force himself awake; as always before, he failed. This little drama would play itself out to its conclusion, as always, no matter what he did. He was walking down the corridors of the Seventh Street School. This was a dead giveaway; the Seventh Street School, along with the rest of Musashi City, was dead, long dead and buried in the scorched ash somewhere in this very desert, beneath the wreckage of Largo's Dreadnaught. Also, the corridor was incredibly long, vaulted and Kafkaesque...and cold, too damn cold. He shivered despite the warmth of his CVR-7. He turned a corner and saw the door to Corridor 17; desperately willing himself to stop, he tabbed the control and opened the door, his ElectroMax ready. He came barreling through the door, gun smoking, CVR scorched, brushing past himself, and dashed off down the corridor. Gryphon turned, puzzled beyond repair, as he went past himself. Then he turned back and stepped through the door to see Kei, standing with a look of utter shock and disbelief on her face. At his end of the corridor, just about at his feet, was an entire fifth-division class. Dead. "Should've run when you had the chance, you son of a bitch!" Kei screamed, her voice raw. "What?!" Gryphon replied, by now extraordinarily confused. "BASTAAAAAAAAAAAARD!" shrieked Kei. She raised her own weapon, tears streaming down her face, and fired. Three times in rapid succession, neatly blasting a "therefore" symbol into his chest. CVR-7 shattered and flesh burned; he was thrown backward into the door frame, feeling the cold hard metal slam his CVR back piece into his back as the smell of charred ceramic and flesh bit into his nostrils. Pain roared across his brain; he probably screamed, although he never felt it, because blackness had already descended on him. He had never raised his own gun. Ben screamed and tore himself awake. Always it came to this point. Always. He couldn't escape the ending, it always forced itself out to the finale. That hadn't been the end of the tale; he had awakened an hour and a half later. Kei was gone. He was lucky; his CVR-7 had stopped most of the energy before failing. As it was, he was cruelly wounded, and as he was dragged to the evac shuttle, he started bleeding severely. He survived, though, and woke again a day later in sickbay. And then everything went to hell. Now, there was just the cool and dark of the hill, the warm glow of the city below, and Kei's concerned voice asking what was wrong. The very same woman who had shot him and left him for dead. The universe is a funny place. "No, I'm fine," he insisted, pulling himself up into a sitting position and crossing his feet. "Just a dream, is all." He leaned back again and, now fully awake, dropped into thought. He realized something, suddenly, out of the blue, and spoke it aloud: "I miss Eve." "Mm?" asked Kei, who had been lost in thoughts of her own. "Eve. I miss Eve." Ben looked up into the night sky, found Sol. It comforted him to think that Earth was still there. "Now that you mention it...I've been wondering all these years what's been missing from life on board ship...now I remember. Eve was everywhere, anytime she was needed." "Yep." "I remember how proud you were when she came online... going around grinning all over the ship for days, you were so happy...I've only seen you happier twice in my life. Once when you saw me again in the HoloDECstation, and once last night." "I wonder...if I had the facilities, could I rewrite her?" He shook his head. "Probably not...she wouldn't be the same..." "You did a pretty decent job on me," said Kei with a grin and a nudge. "I was insane at the time," Ben replied. "Make of that what you will..." A soft footstep sounded behind them; they turned. Yuri. "Hi, Yuri," said Ben as Kei's partner settled gracefully to the grass beside her. "Didn't expect to see you here tonight..." "Didn't expect to see you at all tonight," Kei corrected him, elbowing Yuri in the ribs and grinning broadly. "What's the matter, eh? Forget what to do? Huh?" "Cut it out, Kei!" Yuri replied, shoving Kei slightly. "Oop," said Ben, "I think there's a problem here. Standard offers apply." It was a standard statement of his, made to friends who seemed to be having problems. "Ditto," Kei added. "So what's the problem? You should be bouncing off the walls! The Team Supreme is back, Yuri, what could possibly get you down about that?" "It's been almost a hundred years," Yuri said in a hollow voice. "He's changed...he's a different person entirely. I want the old Zoner back." "What do you mean, `changed'? He seemed pretty much the same when he came aboard," Kei replied. "Didn't he seem that way to you, Ben?" "Yeah, pretty much. He's bound to be a little different, I suppose--a hundred years in isolation will change a person as much as a hundred years on the run will. I'm different now than I was then. We all are." "He thought I betrayed him...have you talked to him yet?" "No...I sent him the communique that brought him here in the first place, but I haven't really talked to him." "You should...he's completely different. No. I take that back. Not completely. He's like he was when he was angsting. Distant. Cold, almost. I could always reach him before...what's happened to us? What's happened to all of us?" She leaned on Kei's shoulder, sobbing. "Don't panic, partner," Kei said. "I'm the one that's supposed to get all emotional." "And I'm the one who always has to pick up the bits when Zoner fucks something up," grumbled Gryphon, getting to his feet and striding purposefully back toward the Lovely Angel. "Don't wait up," he called back over his shoulder. "This may take a while." He squared his shoulders, his fists clenching reflexively as he built up his resolve for another confrontation with the most fragile ego he had ever encountered. After four hundred years, Zoner was just as tiring. -----------------------------------------------------------------EIGHT "There's no time for fussing and fighting my friend/But baby I'm amazed at the hate that you can send and you/Painted my entire world/And I/Don't have the turpentine to clean what you have soiled/And I won't forget it" --Bad Religion The cabin door opened; without any preamble at all, Gryphon stepped into the room and said, "What the hell's the matter with you?" "I don't understand what you mean," MegaZone replied from his bed, "and I don't recall inviting you in." "I don't recall asking." "You do know I outrank you." "Stuff that shit. Zoner, why did you come back?" "Thought I could use a change of scenery. Musashi is beautiful this time of year." "Oh, cut the bullshit. You don't know, do you? I should've expected as much. To me, this whole experience is a closure, putting an end to everything that started with GENOM's frameup. To you, it's nothing. You still don't trust me. You still don't trust them. The judgment of Lord F's military tribunal wasn't enough for you." Gryphon shook his head. "I don't know what else I can do for you..." "Fuck it!" Zoner shouted, jumping off the bed. "It's not you I don't trust. It's myself!" "I beg your pardon?" Gryphon asked, a bit bemused. "I didn't believe in you. I believed the evidence of my senses, however full of holes that evidence was, and it ended up nearly costing you your life. More than that; it did cost a lot of people their lives. The entire Force was destroyed. Everybody scattered...so many people dead. And now you people want me to lead you again? I can't do it. I couldn't live with myself if I accepted. Listen, if I can't trust myself I can't trust anyone else. I have no baseline. There's no way that I can be expected to lead anyone, anywhere! Like I said so many years ago, without trust there can be no love, without love there can be no life. The only reason I haven't paid a visit to the local blast furnace is the work I've been doing. Fuck, listen to me, 'my work'. I kill people! I lost count for goddess sake! All I do is design new toys for any cyberpsycho with enough credits and go hunting every once in a while. I test most of the things I design on myself, just for laughs ya'know? There really isn't much of me left. I've replaced too much. I guess somewhere along the way I replaced my heart and soul too. Anyway, I'm not doing it." "We're not asking," Gryphon stated, nonplussed. "I'm not doing it." "Fine. It's obvious this experience isn't truly behind all of us yet." Gryphon turned around and stepped outside the door frame, still inside the range of the sensor that held it open. He turned back for a moment. "Call me when you've figured it out." He left. "Oh, fuck it. Why did I even bother to come back? Everyone would have been better off if I had just stayed in the shadows and played dead. They don't need me. No one needs me, Yuri least of all. Why? WHY THE FUCK DID I COME BACK?!" Zoner screamed. But the only answer was a dying echo. ------------------------------------------------------------------NINE "Damn!" Scree, scree, scree. "Double damn!" --Randolph Carter "Well?" Kei asked when he returned to the knoll. "He's isolating himself because he doesn't trust himself," Gryphon replied, a hard, sardonic edge to his voice. "He didn't believe in me and he's whipping himself for it. He doesn't want to lead us. He doesn't want to be a part of our lives again. He's afraid of himself. As usual. I can't do a thing with him." "What are you going to do?" Yuri asked him, tears streaking her cheeks. "Exactly what I can do. Nothing." He paused. "No...I take that back. There is something I can do. Are there environment suits in the Angel capable of handling the radiation inside the wreckage of the Wayward Son?" "I think standard heavy envirosuits should be able to handle it...but why?" "I'm going exploring. C'mon, Kei." "Wait a second--how is poking around the wreckage of his dead ship going to help MegaZone?" Kei demanded, getting up and following him with Yuri hot on her heels. "It's a surprise. Trust me. The only thing that can help him may well be inside the radioactive wreckage of that ship. I just hope it can be saved." He turned to Yuri, pulling a set of keys and an identcard from his jacket pocket. "Yuri, here. Take your repulsorswoop into Vesper. This card will get you into the spaceport slip my fighter is in. Open up the cargo case and get Ziggy." Ziggy was Gryphon's personal computer, which had started out as an Intel i80386DX/25, way back when. These days it had a British-AnimeTech 88886XLi and a CLULESS AI driver, but that was another story entirely. "Okay...but why?" "You'll see. Set Vision up in the wardroom and get her up and running. I'll be back soon, I hope with the cure for Zoner's 'condition'." She looked at him warily, but trust won out. She had trusted him even when no one else had; she certainly wasn't going to doubt him now. She took the keys, and the card, gave him a quick hug and kiss, and ran for the Angel. Gryphon went part-way up the Lovely Angel's ramp and yanked open a locker; inside was a heavy envirosuit, standard WWWA issue. He pulled it out, put it on, and powered it up. It was made of a marvelously compact material, an AnimeTech invention; molecularly-scaled chainmail, basically, with an electromagnetronic forcefield generator for rigidity and radiation shielding. The headpiece was not a helmet, but rather a close-fitting hood, patterned after the battle dress of Terran ninja warriors and the under-helmet covering of Mandalorian Deathwatch troopers. Kei snagged another and put it on, powering it up. Powered up, the suits also made fairly handy battle armor. Always a plus for the 3WA agent on the go. Gryphon pulled on his helmet and swung a leg over his J-9300, starting up and revving the plant; Kei climbed on behind him and, making sure her grip around his waist was secure, Gryphon took off across the ashfields. It was night, but that didn't matter to Gryphon; his eyes had been in nightvision mode since dark. He rezzed up the HUD on the inside of his visor, fed the helmet's computer all the data his own memory had on the location of the Wayward Son, cross-referenced it with the latest readings from the Musashi weathersat network concerning global radiation spots, ruled out the former location of Musashi City, and determined the ship's position. This took about a second. Then he rezzed up a pipper on the HUD indicating the wreck's location, steered to center it, and opened the throttle up all the way, until the roar of the thrusters in his ears had almost drowned out the scream that was boiling in his brain. Presently, the wreck appeared, rolling up from the horizon and looming silhouetted against the navy blue night sky. Twisted, tattered, with gaping rents in its hide, but definitely recognizable, it lay in the sands, horribly damaged but somehow still proud. Gryphon suppressed the twinge in his heart at the sight of it; his work place and home for nearly three centuries, broken and dead in a crater of glass filled by the winds with sand again. He brought the bike to a halt and climbed off, slinging the duffel bag he had brought over his shoulder. "What are we doing here?" Kei asked through the radios in their envirosuits, as he picked his way along the aft quarter of the vast hull, looking for a rent large enough to get through. (The search didn't take long.) "Looking," Gryphon replied, climbing through a largish hole near main engineering. Kei followed, glancing quickly at the readouts to make sure the suit could handle the radiation this close to the wreckage of the Reflex furnace. (It could.) "For what?!" "Please...I'm trying to remember, it's been a long time." The deck slanted at a good ten-degree angle, and the corridor off to port ended in a tangle of once-molten metal. Beyond that mess had been ReRob's engine room. He went off to the right, trying to recall the ship's layout as he did so. The turbolifts, of course, were not functioning, but he managed to wrench open a Jeffries tube hatch and began to climb. His course wound through the innards of the vessel, through sections totally wrecked and sections nearly intact, and finally came to an enormous, intact blast door marked "Computer Core Machine Room. NO ADMITTANCE." Gryphon grinned. "Good. This door isn't down. That's a good sign...now how the fuck do I go about getting it open?" Kei began to understand what he was doing. She smiled and let him go about it; he was obviously enjoying this, serious business though it was. He popped the emergency access panel, tried a switch, and was rewarded with a light. "Yes! The emergency batteries are still functional." He crossed to the other side and tapped in his Umbra-level clearance code. It failed. "Shit. I forgot--Class 3 lockout. Kei, you had Umbra clearance--try your code." She did; with a creak of aging servos and a protest from the slightly misaligned frame, the huge door slid haltingly open. Beyond, as Gryphon shone his light in, they could see instrument panels and drive arrays, mostly smashed. Gryphon stepped through the gap and pulled open another emergency panel, crossing a couple of circuits and throwing a switch. The emergency lights flickered on. The core machine room was a mess. Panels had blown out in the overload sequence, before the quantum-vector power distribution system had failed; drives were smashed, and even an old magtape was ribboned about the chamber. Gryphon ignored it and headed right for the door in the back, which read (through the streaks of soot) "E.V.E. Central Core Room-- AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY". Fiddling with the access panel again, he got the red light for emergency batteries on, and then tapped out a code Kei had never heard on the instrument panel. Above the door, an LED message board flickered, then valiantly displayed the following characters: [neato-keen Klingon text and graphics sacrificed to ASCII] The door hissed open smoothly. "What the hell was that?" Kei asked as she eased into the room behind him. "My back door," Gryphon replied. "I created Eve; I wanted to make sure no one could ever lock me away from her. So I built that special function into the codelock. No one else even knew it could do Klingonese." He popped another panel and fired up the room's emergency lights. Kei let out an involuntary gasp when she saw the room for the first time. It was a small room, barely the size of a walk-in closet, and contained only one thing; a black pedestal, about three feet high and cylindrical, topped by a hexagonal black platform about a foot across. Set into this was a large red crystal that glowed as if lit from within. Leads from all three walls and the ceiling led to the crystal, stopping at the glass dome surrounding it. Gryphon's smile split his face from ear to ear. "I was hoping as much. The backup cells are still operational. Hell, I designed them to last ten thousand years, if necessary." He put his hand on the glass dome; it flickered, but remained dark except for the glow of the crystal. "Hmm...not enough power." He went to the wall, pulled off an access panel, and messed around with some leads. There was a fat blue spark. The lights went out. "There. Crossed over the door circuits; we should be able to get some uptime now." He went back and placed his palm on the glass ball. It glowed to life like a plasma f/x ball, a blue glow like Cherenkov radiation appearing around the crystal and leaping to touch the glass opposite his palm. The glow illuminated Gryphon's face. <<< Asia: Don't Cry >>> On the wall opposite the door, a screen flickered into life and Eve's face appeared on it. She opened her eyes, then blinked. "Commander!" she exclaimed, her voice grainy. The image and sound jumped periodically, barred by static. "Is the ship--" "Unsalvageable, I'm afraid. How are you?" Eve appeared momentarily introspective, then said, "98% systems optimality. Remaining 2% dysfunction due to low power and poor audiovisual interface equipment condition." "Excellent. Authorization code tak'hklah mk'hra Ulath'ka; total system shutdown for core crystal move." Eve blinked. "It's that bad?" "It's that bad. I'm sorry to put you in such a cramped system, but until the new ship is ready, I'm afraid you're going to have to spend some time in Ziggy." "It's better than being in limbo for--" she paused, "--99 years and change." She paused, closing her eyes; then they opened again and she reported, "All systems ready for shutdown." "Good. See you in a few, Eve." He removed his hand; the blue glow disappeared. Then the red glow from the crystal faded down to the dullest glimmer. Gryphon removed the glass dome carefully, removed the crystal from its holder, and put it into his duffel bag. "Let's get out of here," he said to Kei. -------------------------------------------------------------------TEN "When a faraway voice sounds as close as you feel...that's AT&T." --Advertisement As he had requested, Ziggy was up and running on the wardroom table when he and Kei returned to the ship. He logged in and was greeted by Ziggy's majordomatrix AI, Vision, a female AI in the style of Eve, but a bit less...conservative. "Hi, Gryph," Vision said in her standard, sweet voice. Like Eve, she was a singer. Her visual representation appeared on the holoscreen, a fetching woman with brown hair (except for the peculiar shock of green in front) and all the stage presence of Eve. (That particular bit of the code was the same.) "What can I do for you?" "Prepare for shutdown, Vision...got another tenant coming in temporarily." "Shutdown?" Vision asked, alarmed. "Who's taking my place?" "No one, Vision...you'll be back up as soon as possible, I promise. Eve-1 needs a place to crash until the new ship is ready." "Eve!" Vision's eyes went wide(r). "She's still running?" Gryphon nodded. Vision had known Eve, back when Ziggy was connected to the SDF-17's system on a pretty permanent basis. "Well, in that case, let me pack my things." There was a brief pause as the VISION logo appeared on the screen; then the picture of the AI returned and reported, "Ready for shutdown..." Gryphon popped open the third drive bay, tabbed the red control, and waited; when the LED cycled green, he pulled out the large, blocky molecular-circuitry cartridge that contained Vision. Snapping an adaptor around the red EVE crystal, he slotted it, tabbed the control, and waited. Eve appeared on the screen and looked around, a mildly claustrophobic look on her face. Gryphon pulled an RS232 cable out of his duffel bag and connected Ziggy to the wall panel. "Let the games begin," he muttered, and sat down at the keyboard. The viewer in Zoner's room chimed and flickered; the EVE test pattern appeared as she adjusted the color map, then Eve herself appeared. Zoner was not looking at the screen; he was looking out the viewport. "Zoner?" Eve addressed Zoner tentatively. Zoner spun around. He was even hearing ghosts. They say the first thing to go is the mind, this is not a good sign, Zoner thought. Well, might as well answer, "Eve?" "The comm-screen." He crossed the room and stopped dead in his tracks. "Eve?! How? I thought you went down with the Son. This is the real you isn't it? This isn't one of Ben's tricks is it?" "No, this is the real me. Ben rescued the memory from the wreck of the Son." "So he sent you to talk me into leading them didn't he?" "Well, not really. He just thought that you might want someone to talk to." "Eve..." "Ok, I guess he felt that you would change your mind after talking to me." "It's not going to happen." "Well, do you want to talk anyway?" "What the hell, can't make anything worse." "So what's wrong?" "This may take a while," Zoner sighed as he flopped onto the bed and opened the nightstand. He pulled out a set of interface cables and connected the jacks on his neck to the comm-screen. "This should be easier for the both of us." Zoner pressed the large green 'Go' button and fell into infinity. A new icon appeared next to Eve in the reality that was the Lovely Angel's communications network. It looked vaguely like a large man, but many sections seemed to be constructed of circuitry. "Zoner! When did you?" "Soon after leaving the ship. After I heard about the loss I sort of wigged out. So I decided to bury myself in work, I taught myself cybertech. And I used myself as the guinea pig for most of it. I do good work, if I do say so myself." "You don't look very cybered." "Well, it's easier to surprise people that way. I kept a lot of the surface meat, but the insides are metal. Sort of a T-eight million. But enough of that." "Yes, what did you want to talk about?" "I'll start from the beginning. When things went to hell I booked. I just left the ship. I was responsible for sending all those people to their doom. I shouldn't have left, I was weak. If I broke then I can break again. A commander cannot allow his emotions to effect his judgement. In short I failed. In that failure I betrayed my trust in myself. That was worse than my feeling that Ben had betrayed me. Much worse. If I can't trust myself, I can't trust anyone else. And if I can't trust anyone else I certainly can't love anyone. Without love life doesn't matter. The only reason I'm still alive is due to pure luck and Omega-2. I haven't been very careful with myself lately... Damn it Eve, I got cold. You know, in the last hundred years I don't think I've loved anything, not once did I cry - not for any of those that I killed, the only time I approached happiness is when I was avenging someone. I was trying to avenge all the people I let down. You know me, I never forgive myself for anything. I still hate myself for shit I did in seventh grade for goddess' sake! That was what, about four-hundred some odd years ago! There is no way I'll ever be able to forgive myself for abandoning my friends to die. Never. I let them down, I let me down, I washed out at the worst time." "Zoner, there's no way you could have known...." "FUCK THAT! It doesn't matter if I couldn't have known or not. I SHOULD HAVE NEVER LEFT MY POST! THAT WAS BAD ENOUGH, I JUST PICKED THE WORST TIME TO DO IT!" "WILL YOU JUST SHUT UP FOR A MINUTE!" Zoner was just a bit stunned, Eve had never lost her temper like that before. "Seems I managed to piss you off too." "Well, I'm not going to sit here and listen to you drill yourself into a hole. You're a friend, and a damn good one. You did a terrific job for roughly three hundred years, you just made a mistake and Murphy's Law took over. You're only human..." "Not any more," Zoner snorted. "Ahem... As I was saying, you're only human, and you feel emotions. Or at least you did," Eve added as Zoner scowled. "Everyone was stressed. Ben ran, Kei left, Yuri made some bad calls, the whole crew was affected." "That's just it, they needed me to keep things together. So, in their hour of need I ran. I should have kept it together long enough to get everyone else shaped up. I did it all the time, and the one time it was the most important I cocked it up. If I backed down once I'll back down again." Eve shook her head. "You really don't get it, do you?" "Get what?" "That's what you're doing right now." "Exactly. I'm doing it now before we're staring down the barrel of a wave motion cannon." Unreality flickered; Zoner was sitting at a table, looking at a large projection screen. Eve was wearing an old WDF uniform with some unidentifiable but ornate rank badge on it. "I'm afraid it's too late for that." The screen glowed to life, showing a map of spacetime, depicting a region MegaZone was familiar with. Cygnus Beta he recognized, and Sol, and Salusia. And what the hell was that big red dot? Eve drew a box around the red dot and magnified it. The blowup depicted the Halstead system, an unremarkable system near Cygnus Beta that contained nothing of note, save a space station created by an interstellar conglomerate and taken over by another. The station showed in its usual position, orbiting the third planet...but the system was full of blips. Hundreds upon hundreds of them, in orbit around all the planets and moored in stationary positions around the star's gravity well. "What the hell--?" Eve was silent, magnifying again on the large blip right next to the blue dot indicating Halstead Station. Three scans later, it had come into enough resolution to show details. It was a starship, wedge-shaped, with vast expanses of flat deck, gun turrets everywhere, and a flying bridge above the impulse thruster bank. Dreadnaught. "Uh...how recent is this picture?" "It's coming in from a sensor drone. Live and direct." She slapped the table in front of her with the (obligatory) riding crop. "The time for existentialist bullshit is over, Zoner. You're needed. Now get off your sorry self-pitying ass and do your job. You're the only one who can." "Eve, you don't seem to get it yet. If they are up against that then I am not the man. I have no idea what to do, nor the confidence to do it. I'm just going to paint a yellow stripe down my back, tuck my tail between my legs, and run. I figure I either do it now or in the middle of a battle. Besides, it's about time for Ben to get a command. I figure he's up to it more than I am. So go show him the fancy maps and photos, I'm not your man." "He's seen the photos, he's getting a command. You've been out of the technology loop for a hundred years, my friend. We're beyond the level of a single ship now." "All the more reason to forget it. If I don't know the tech I can't use it effectively. Ben knows it, Ben can command it. They only job I'll take is solo fighter jock. Just me and the WarpZone. That way when I run I'll only clusterfuck myself." "Excuses, excuses, and more excuses. You don't believe them any more than I do. Maybe you haven't noticed, but there's a shortage of superdimensional fortress commanders around. You're eminently qualified and history speaks for itself about your competence. Who led the Wedge Defense Force for four times the average sentient lifeform's span? To victory, time and time again? The WDF never lost under your command. Not once. You left. Big fucking deal. People retire all the time. Macquivr isn't much of a commander. Everyone knew that. The vessel might have been better served with Mandeville commanding, who's to say? Maybe he's one who fucked everyone over, why don't you go whip him for a while? Maybe it's all Gryphon's fault, go beat him up. No, no...I have a better idea." She walked over until she was standing right in front of his seat and leaned down, bracing herself on the corners of the desk, her nose almost touching his. "Maybe you should take it all out on the one whose fault it really is." The screen behind her blipped into an image of Largo. Zoner sighed. "You have a flair for the dramatic, Eve, did you know that? Still, I put q in the command. I chose him, my fault, not his. He wasn't ready, and I should have seen that. Hell, I should have made you the commander. You knew the ship better than I did. Listen, I'm just not ready." With that Zoner yanked out the interface cables. "I'm sorry, Eve. Goodbye." "If you leave now you'll never forgive yourself," Eve called after Zoner's retreating form. He marched straight to the Daytona from Hell and buckled in. "Sorry Yuri," he whispered to no one in particular and punched the throttle open. In only a few minutes he was linked to the beta and warping out of the sector. But he kept replaying his conversation with Eve over in his head. He dropped out of warp between systems and shook his head. "DAMN SHE'S GOOD!" he screamed before reversing course and dropping back into warp. <<< Edie Brickell & New Bohemians: Forgiven >>> "Welcome back," Eve chimed as he re-entered the Angel. "Very funny, Eve, very funny. Ok, so I'll stick around for a while. At least I can pick up some new tech." Eve said nothing. She knew the real reason he had returned and there was no reason to gloat. ----------------------------------------------------------------ELEVEN "Faster, meaner, smarter...man, I hate the technology curve." --FastJack "Where are we going, anyway?" asked Zoner from the back of the Lovely Angel's cockpit. WarpZone had been taken in tow, and Gryphon's fighter ensconced in the docking bay under the ship, so that they could all make the journey to their common destination together. ReRob and company were remaining back at Musashi, doing some last-minute kludging on Phoenix. "Might as well just show you," Kei replied, toggling the cockpit windows out of their glare-guard opacity. Zoner gasped at what lay before them; it was a huge silver sphere, its true size impossible to determine, but immense, to be certain. According to the gravimeter, they were in a star system's gravitational well; but there was no star. It was then that he realized what he was looking at. "My God," he whispered. "Is that a Dyson sphere?" "Two points for the Zonermeister," said Gryphon from his seat behind Kei. "Who built it? Where the hell are we?" They ignored him; Gryphon was too busy keying the comm system online as Kei and Yuri plotted an approach and shifted the Angel's systems to gravitic compensation mode. "Planitia Control, this is Lovely Angel on final approach, bearing zero mark zero on gate one four five. Request that you open gate." "Lovely Angel, this is Planitia Control. Gate is open. Proceed with approach, docking bay fourteen." "That's Utopia Planitia?!" Zoner cried, his jaw dropping. The Lovely Angel swung in close to the silvery surface of the sphere, stretching off so far now in the distance that it appeared flat. Its radius must have been one and a half astronomical units, at least, corresponding exactly to the orbit of Planitia itself. A huge hatchway had opened in the side of the sphere, permitting the vessel entry, and she swooped through. And MegaZone had the first view he had ever had of the new Utopia Planitia Naval Shipyards. Latticework spacedocks stretched from here to the end of his imagination, off toward the star in the center of the sphere, so very far away. Some vessels were moored to the surface, other floating free, shuttlecraft flitting here and there. Most looked complete; some were still in the final stages of fitting and preparation. And the diversity! MegaZone counted among them Excelsior class battleships, Bengal class carriers, Colonial Battlestars, Exeter and Constitution class cruisers, even Alaska class battlecruisers--he even spotted a couple of Klingon D-7s. "There must be hundreds of them," Zoner murmured. "Five hundred forty-six, at last count. 90% are ready for battle right now; the rest need only minor fittings and adjustments, and we're waiting for senior staff on a bunch of them." While they were speaking, the Angel was navigating through the maze at nearly one-quarter impulse power, streaking past vessels of every shape, size and description, in a sweeping turn that would take them to the far side of the star. And as they cleared it and came about to the opposite side of the sphere, MegaZone found himself looking at a ghost from the past. Huge, blue and white, with a long, tapering foredeck and mighty thrusters aft; Bengal class carriers, two of them, mounted on armatures port and starboard; a majestic and proud flying bridge; railguns like spikes from the "shoulders" of the armatures. The Wayward Son! No, he corrected himself. It's not. It's too large, for one thing. By the size of the other vessels around it, he judged the vessel he was looking at to be over eight kilometers long. Much larger than the Wayward Son, which had been only 3,800 meters stem to stern. And its surface was different, marked with more small weapons turrets and odd sensory bulges and things of function not readily and intuitively apparent. And, he noticed, mounted on the rear of the flying bridge, aft of the bridge windows proper, was the old Wedge, looking like another sensor array among the many that dotted the huge vessel's hull. Zoner's eyes slipped down its side, from the huge impulse thrusters rearward, down the fighter carriers, to the tips of the Tycho Naval Mass Drivers and out to the end of the foredeck, where he could make out the words: W.D.F. WANDERING CHILD SDF-23 Gryphon had risen to his feet behind him, and now he reached up and touched his shoulder. When Zoner turned around, Gryphon was pinning a small golden Maltese cross to his epaulet. "Admiral," he said, "Your new command." "Wait a second," Zoner cried, following Gryphon out of the cockpit as Kei and Yuri made mooring arrangements, "Admiral? I never agreed to any--" "It's a fleet, therefore we need an admiral. Can you deny that?" "No, but--" "And as the leader of the Wedge Defense Force, you should hold the highest rank, correct?" "Well obviously--but no one told me we were going to have a fucking fleet! I mean Eve mentioned that we had more than one ship, but a goddess damn fleet!" "Trust me," Gryphon replied as they navigated the Angel's corridors, "we're going to need it, if our intelligence data on GENOM's strength is correct." "Wait a minute--where are we going? Why isn't the Angel docking?" "Admiral, Admiral...you really must get acquainted with the new technologies," Gryphon replied, leading Zoner into a room off to the side. Kei and Yuri were waiting for them, having used the turbolift. "New technologies, what are you--?" Zoner stopped short as he registered what was in the room: a control panel, facing a small, three-walled alcove which had six round pads in a ring arranged in it. "Oh, no. Are these what I think they--" "Just step onto the pad, Admiral, and everything will be fine," Yuri said with a smile, taking his arm and leading him up into the alcove. "Yeah, fine. Just going to scatter me about the cosmos. You sure this thing can handle cybered Deitans?" "What kind of goober are you anyway? It's matter, isn't it? Shut up and get on," Gryphon snapped. "Geez, what a wuss." Once they were all standing on the pads, Gryphon took a small black device out of his pocket with a grin, flipped the gold grille cover open, and said, "Gryphon to Planitia Control. Energize." They were swallowed up by a blue glow; when they reappeared, it was in another, similar, but much larger room, and there was a large group of people waiting for them. Zoner didn't notice them; he was too busy looking down at his hands. "Wow! Transporter technology? Back in the old days we thought that was just a pipe dream, how did--" "You may thank your friend Dr. Petrarca for the transporters, as well as many of our other improvements in matter replication and transmission, Admiral," boomed a familiar voice. "Welcome, MegaZone. Welcome back to the Wedge Defense Force." Zoner's eyes widened. There, along with an entourage of technicians and a group of familiar faces in uniforms that Zoner recognized as familiar, but not WDF, was Lord Wolfgang Amadeus Fahrvergnugen himself, black battlearmor and all. "Wolfgang! How's it been? I haven't seen you in... what sixty, seventy years? Last I heard you and Celine were missing. I'm not dealing..." Fahvergnugen strode up to take charge of his confused compatriot, and, as he was leading Zoner out of the room with a friendly arm over his shoulder, was saying, "There have been many changes, my young friend..." ----------------------------------------------------------------TWELVE "Think about it Think about it Think about it" --Information Society The next three months flew by in a blur for MegaZone and the rest, as they immersed themselves in their work and forgot about their emotions. The WDF had been a splintered group, its team spirit shattered and its dynamic synergy of creative power destroyed. The next three months were spent reforging that into an even more powerful force. And, in MegaZone's case, there was a hundred or so years of catch-up learning to do. Politically, he was pretty much caught up. He watched the news; he was well aware that the United Galactica had collapsed under its own bureaucratized weight seventy years before, replaced by the trimmer, more dynamic United Federation of Planets. It did not surprise him to learn that one of the driving forces behind the organization of the UFP had been Celine. He knew that the Empire of Kilrah was still a threat, and that the Klingon and Romulan Empires had an uneasy truce with the Federation, too busy warring with each other and the Klingon Republic to want a war with the primarily human and Salusian Federation as well. He knew that the Discordian Confederation was keeping the Kilrathi and the Cardassians off the Federation for the moment, while the Fed dealt with this threat from within. Unfortunately, the Cardassians and the Kilrathi had not had the courtesy to start wars with each other like the Imperial Klingons and Romulans. He also knew that the GENOM fleet had flattened the Federation's Starfleet at Wolf 359 before taking Earth back by force, and was now on its way to Cygnus Beta to finish the job, once and for all. That angered him, in a way that surprised him. He wasn't aware that he cared anything for the planet of his birth, the Cradle of Humanity as it was called these days; but there was a certain pride in being able to say you were an Earthman, and it pleased him somehow. He was pissed at GENOM for taking it. No; the big catchup here was in tactics and strategy. He had been the finest starship commander in space, but that was a hundred years ago. Things had changed. And besides, he had an entire fleet to command now. Granted, each vessel was commanded by a competent officer; he had reviewed their records, all 546 of them. There were also the new weapons and fighters to consider, including the new VF-2 Victory Veritech fighters (replacements for the time-honored Valkyrie series, designed by Gryphon himself) and the experimental Gunstars, and the concept of carrier battlegroups like Commodore Henry Decker's Tiger's Claw and her entourage. The Federation Starfleet type ships were a new thing as well; they fought differently than the slab-sided navalesque ships Zoner was used to. The Republican Klingons allied with them...well...they did whatever Klingon honor demanded. For Gryphon, there was the whirlwind of construction supervision on the classes of vessels he had designed; the Alaska class battlecruisers and the new Confederation class megacarrier, the Concordia, were his personal responsibility, as well as secondary supervision on the Wandering Child, which was experiencing no end of drive headaches. He was also picking out the flight crews of the Concordia's fighter groups and assigning staff to the vessel, for it was to be his command when the time came. For Kei and Yuri, there were retraining seminars to reacquaint them with their positions on the SDF-23's bridge, where they would be until the crisis was over, and refreshers in large-vessel tactics and the like. Meanwhile, back at Musashi, ReRob and company stretched their legendary ingenuity and imagination to their limits trying to make the Phoenix as battleworthy as possible. Rob had heard of the SDF-23's problems with the drive systems and thought he knew the answers, but he had to complete his own ship before heading back to help them; there was simply not time to send a pickup to take him to UP, fix the problem, and return to Musashi. GENOM was on their way through the Enigma Sector; they would reach Macleod Station within the week. All in all, it was a hectic three months. Gryphon and Zoner were on the bridge of the SDF-23, buried deep in the side of the cosmocompass, as Gryphon tried to puzzle out why the thing wasn't interfacing right with the drive computers and Zoner absorbed information, when the turbolift doors opened and Lord Fahrvergnugen strode in. "Lord Fahrvergnugen on the bridge!" the Officer of the Deck barked; the two officers pulled themselves out of the instrument panel and turned to face their benefactor. "My friends, GENOM has taken the Enigma Sector. They will be here within the week. We're out of time. How long before this ship is ready?" "I don't know, sir," Gryphon replied, wiping grease off his forehead with a rag and sighing. "Without ReRob here to puzzle out that drive problem we're practically flying blind--he designed the entire engine system." "I have spoken with ReRob," Fahrvergnugen told him. "The Phoenix is ready." "Great...hey, Sparks, do me a favor. Punch up a tactical of Enigma's border with this sector, and show me GENOM's course." The technician at the tactical console obeyed, and the map appeared on the main viewer. "Okay...now..." Gryphon murmured, perusing the screen. "Sparks," Zoner said, "Highlight our position, GENOM's current position, and Musashi." The tech did so. "Ah-ha!" Zoner cried. "There it is. Look," he said, indicating, "GENOM will pass fairly close to Musashi. Now, ReRob doesn't have a chance against that battlefleet, granted--but the Phoenix is faster than they are, right?" "Theoretically." "Theoretically my ass. If Rob designed it, it's the fastest thing in space, barring Hyper Valkyries and WarpZone. He can get in front of them and lead them right to us!" "Why would we want that?" asked Lord F. "Look. Without ReRob, this ship can't fold. He's the only one who knows what the hell is the deal with the fold drive. With his instructions over subether, we got the impulse engines and the Reflex furnaces to operating condition; for battle, that's all we need." "Sir, we won't be able to fire the main gun without the fold drive operational," Sparks cut in. "I know that--but listen! GENOM will enter the system. Our fleet engages theirs. ReRob beams over, tinkers with the drive while we use the lesser weapons to fight a holding action. And then--boom! We kick major ass!" "I like this plan," Gryphon said. "The fleet has a couple of other major weapons; hell, each Yamato class battleship has a wave-motion gun, and the Concordia has the PTC-2." "What the hell is the PTC-2?" "It's a surprise." "Oh, goody." "Okay, look. We need to get on the horn to Rob and let him know about this plan. In the meantime, I have to finish up preparations on at least half a hundred ships, and you need to get this beast as ready for combat as it can be without its chief engineer. I'm up to my eyes in work...gah, sometimes I wonder why I wanted to be a starship designer..." "Thrill of creation?" "Yeah, that's gotta be it." Gryphon started walking toward the rear of the bridge. "I'm heading over to Planitia Control to contact ReRob...coming, Admiral?" "I hate that..." ReRob's incredulous face leaned out of the screen, the aspect ratio warping as he got too close to the camera. "You want me to what?!" "There's no danger, Rob, really! Well, except for the usual dangers involved with being engaged in a war, of course." "You're not making me feel better about this, Gryph." "Look, it's simple," Zoner cut in. "You're faster than they are. Stay out of their range and lead them here. Your bird enters the sphere, you come across to SDF-23 and get those engines working while the rest of the fleet keeps them off. I figure we can at least fight a holding action if not push them back ourselves; the arrival of the fortress should turn the tide decisively in our favor." ReRob sighed. "Well...I can't say as I like it in theory...but in practice, I think it just might work. We'll download all the telemetry you have on the GENOM fleet's position, establish an ETA, and let you know as soon as we finish crunching the numbers. Phoenix out." The screen blacked. "Well...he's not thrilled, but he'll do it. Now, it's crunch time. Get back to your ship, Admiral--I've got a fleet to get ready." Gryphon grabbed up his datapad and rushed off. The Utopia Planitia Naval Shipyard swung into full-scale action, a concentrated hive of chaotic-seeming activity. --------------------------------------------------------------THIRTEEN "Cry havoc--! And let slip the dogs of war!" --General Chang Gryphon stood in the turbolift, his fist clenched tight around the orders assigning him command of his ship. Since he had first seen and taken over the final stages of the construction of the WDF Concordia, it had been a foregone conclusion that command of the vessel would pass to him when the time came; but the time was now, and the immediacy of the whole thing burned in his mind. After three centuries as the Wayward Son's exec, he was finally receiving a ship of his own, a ship almost as powerful as the SDF-17, and in many more ways his own. The Concordia was his design, pulled from the databanks of the Utopia Planitia Naval Shipyard's Sperry/UNIVAC masterframe computer, Bombsight, when Lord Fahrvergnugen began constructing the WDF's grand fleet, several years before. He had sketched it out during the Wayward Son's second repair and refit layover, after the destruction of Neo-Worcester, and fleshed it out anytime he had access to a CAD or VCAD terminal linked to Bombsight, keeping up with the technology curve and updating the vessel five or six times before it was even constructed. He had planned to have it built when the time was right for the WDF to branch out and form a fleet. That time had never come before the Breakup. Gryphon had been delighted when he discovered that the Concordia was actually slated for construction; he had been intending to claim the captaincy of a Constitution-class cruiser, to replace his lost and beloved USS Invincible, before learning that his own personal brainchild was under construction. He had immediately assigned himself as construction supervisor, replacing Lord Fahrvergnugen himself. The original Concordia design had been very sketchy, nothing but a general hull design and some very preliminary power requirement calculations. There had been a place in the keel design for a Class Omega weapon, of which the WDF currently fielded three designs, and a Class Omega powerplant and fold system. Originally, these had been intended to be a Reflex furnace and cannon, and the appropriate drive. Over time that had been updated, and in the year between Gryphon's pardon and the commencement of actual construction, it was fleshed out and finalized. That year had been a year of hard work indeed, and here was the reward. The temperamental Reflex furnace had been superseded as a power source for vessels of the Concordia's size; instead, she had fusion-powered impulse engines, and main power was provided by a bank of engines of Gryphon's own design, engines which utilized a strange combination of conventional thermofusion and wave motion dynamics. Very classified. The Class Omega weapon had been upgraded, too, but what had replaced the fabled Reflex cannon in this ship's design was one of the WDF's best-kept secrets. The turbolift stopped and the doors hissed open, and Gryphon found himself in a drydock, similar to but much smaller than the mammoth drydock where the Wayward Son had been constructed and reconstructed so many times in its career. Here, the Concordia sat patiently at moorings, waiting for her chance to take to the stars. From the station balcony behind the ship, Gryphon could see her two enormous banks of impulse thrusters, like giant fins on an ancient motorcar; the aft quarter of the ship bulged with the vast engines that powered the vessel. The bridge tower rose majestically, terminating in the broad sweep of the v-antenna for the main sensor suite just above the semicircle of crystalline windows that formed the bridge outlook. The Concordia was a naval-design ship of the old school, not a modern-design Federation vessel with its separate engineering and command hulls, and nacelle-mounted warp-drive engines. Concordia had a single, solid hull, bristling with weapons, sensors, and shield generators, with two huge operating decks for its fighter compliment; she travelled between starsystems with instantaneous fold drive. The last layer of green thermocoat had been applied hours ago, and all final checks were complete. The WDF Concordia was ready for launch, and just in time, too; the GENOM fleet, at last report, was a mere fourteen parsecs out, and closing fast. Gryphon turned and went back into the turbolift, keying it for Transporter Station A. Once there, he ordered that he be beamed to the Concordia. After the now-familiar disorientation of transportation passed, he stepped off the Concordia's transporter platform and presented his command papers. The ensign there approved them (looking faintly awestruck at the thought of being in close quarters with the legendary Gryphon himself), filed them, and issued Gryphon his ship's insignia, which he affixed to the breast of his uniform tunic. This device allowed him complete access to the vessel; as captain, he could go anywhere he liked. This included through the doors to his left, into the turbolift, and to the bridge. The doors hissed open; Commander Saavik glanced up and announced, "Captain on the bridge." "As you were," Gryphon said before any of his command staff could get up. He knew them all, as well as any commander knew his crew, as well as MegaZone had known his own crew on the old SDF-17. They had served together for thirty years, thirty of the happiest of Gryphon's life without Kei, and while that wasn't as long as three hundred, Gryphon figured it was good enough. In some cases, that was longer. Saavik, for example, had been with him his entire Starfleet career. He arrived on the Enterprise, under Jim Kirk, a lieutenant commander and an engineer's mate; then-Lieutenant Saavik had been assigned to assist him. Since that time, he could not remember a time when she was not at his side. He smiled and took his place in the center seat. The viewer pinged; the VISION test pattern appeared, followed by the AI's representation. She was depicted wearing a WDF uniform of her own, holding the rank of lieutenant commander. "Oi, Captain," she said. "Hey, Vision. I'm glad the techs got you settled before the fight. Like your new digs?" "It's not bad," the AI replied, looking around and smiling. "Lots of empty space, but I can fix that when I have the time." "All shipboard systems operational?" "Looks good," Vision replied. "Computer telemetry connected on all stations. Not a gap in the net anywhere." "Good." He addressed the entire crew present. "I'm sorry we don't have time for a formal launching, but the enemy is within fifteen parsecs of the system, and there's no time to waste. If we aren't here to greet GENOM when they come out of hyperspace, there won't be enough left of ReRob to scrape up. We're defending our home turf here, and that gives us an advantage. I suggest we use it. Now then. Status, Commander Saavik?" "Aye, sir," Saavik replied, turning to her screens. "All decks report systems ready and optimal. Everything is in preparation for launch." "Computer concurs," Vision confirmed. "Standing by." She disappeared. "Lieutenant Leeds, contact Planitia Control and request permission to depart at Gate Four. Mr. Hunter, viewer on, ahead mag one." <<< Queen: We Will Rock You >>> "Viewer on, sir," Lt. Cmdr. Max Hunter, his helmsman, replied. The front viewer hummed on; it was no longer considered safe for WDF vessels to enter combat situations with the shields over the bridge window retracted. Outside, the vessels of the Wedge Defense Force were departing the Dyson sphere in an orderly manner, cruising out the numerous gates on impulse power as the mighty super dreadnaught fortress idled up her Reflex furnaces carefully. Furnaces were tricky things; it wasn't good to just ram them up to full power. Gryphon wondered if the engineering staff was having trouble without Rob to guide them. For all his self-professed lack of skill as a commander, none, not even oft-self-critical ReRob, could fault his engineering prowess. The WDF Pennsylvania, Captain John Trussell's command, cruised past, flashing her running lights; the Concordia responded likewise. Gryphon smiled as the Iowa class battlecruiser exited the sphere; the Iowa was another design he had pushed for in the planning stages. "Captain," Lt. Vanessa Leeds reported from the comm station, "Planitia Control reports we are cleared to depart on Gate Four." "Mr. Hunter, make it so. One-quarter impulse power." "One-quarter impulse power, sir." The huge megacarrier began to move, gracefully easing out of her slip before pivoting and, for the first time in her life, entering the outside space. It felt curiously like the Invincible's last trip out of Spacedock, before the trip back across the dimensional barriers. Part of that might be because the Concordia's bridge module was the very same as the one on the Invincible, removed from the wrecked Constitution-class starship and mated to the Concordia's flying bridge structure by the skilled engineers of the Utopia Planitia Naval Shipyard. Outside, the Wedge Defense Force fleet was arranged in meticulous order. Carrier battlegroups, composed of a Bengal or Exeter class carrier and its assorted escort ships, dotted the skies in tight clusters, the fighters not yet launched. The mighty Alaska class battlecruisers and Excelsior and Iowa class battleships stood alone or in pairs. Captain Erik Swimm's Federation class dreadnaught, WDF Indomitable, hovered near Gate Twelve, ready to escort the Wandering Child out into battle when the time came. Groups of Constitution class cruisers, the backbone of the WDF's Tactical Fleet, traveled back and forth in covering patterns, escorting and patrolling simultaneously. The Battlestars were arrayed at equidistant points throughout the formation, strengthening perceived weak spots, each of them equal in size and nearly equivalent in power to the old Wayward Son. They were already scrambling Vipers and Dragonflies to cover themselves; just for a moment, Gryphon felt a pang of longing for the cockpit, the smell of CVR-5 and the vibration of the engines behind his back; then it passed. This was his calling now, his duty. ReRob sat in his own conn, on the bridge of the Phoenix; his fingers were dug into the arms of the chair, the knuckles of his natural hand white, as he kept a watchful eye on the readouts of the engineering panel in front of him. All warp tolerances were edging uncomfortably close to the critical level, even with full transwarp drive engaged. They were doing Warp 9.875, a good point two seven five above the vessel's rated tolerance capabilities; the spaceframe was vibrating so violently that the smaller readouts were illegible, and her tortured wail made conversation without shouting impossible. "Range!" he demanded. "Eight point four seven and closing," Deedlit called from the helm. "Lead over GENOM?" "One point seven six and holding." "Utopia Planitia in sensor range," Meph injected. "On viewer," Rob ordered. The main viewer shimmered into the view of the Dyson sphere, so small it took up a fist-sized area of viewer, dots of light shining around it. "Maximum magnification." The screen shifted to a closer view, close enough that ReRob could see the WDF fleet arrayed against the incoming enemy. All but her flagship; she was waiting for her engineer to return. The glimmering warp field of ReRob's incoming vessel became apparent to the sensors of the WDF fleet at around the same time. Now all the viewers on every vessel were showing the Phoenix coming in like a bat out of hell, magnification stepping down every six seconds. On the bridge of the SDF-23, MegaZone sat in his conn, fidgeting nervously with the cuff of the new uniform tunic he had grudgingly donned and glancing uneasily at the four-leafed admiral's pin. "Come on, Rob," he muttered. This vast vessel, and all her potential, sat idle beneath him, the familiar thrum of the Reflex furnace under his boots very recognizable, very familiar. His command staff around him, ready for action; the familiar keening cry of adrenaline across his nerves; he could almost convince himself he was back on the Wayward Son again. Almost. "Planitia Control reports ready to dock at Gate Seventeen," Cheryl reported. "Negative," ReRob replied, getting up. "They're going to need Phoenix and her guns in the fight, and there's no time for docking and redeploying. Helm, bring us to station-keeping at quadrant four two four bearing seven six mark three, at an altitude of 4000 meters. I'll beam over. Meph, you have the conn. Do us proud." "I'll do my best, sir," Meph replied as he took the captain's chair. Deedlit looked back as her husband stepped into the turbolift; just before the door closed, he grinned and flashed her a thumbs-up, which she returned. Then he was gone, and she returned, professionally, to her duties. There would be time for all this, she told herself resolutely, when they had won. "They have halted, my lord," the Buma subcommander said from the helm station on board Dreadnaught II. "Is that a fact?" the man in the admiral's uniform replied, his back to the bridge crew as he stood on the master catwalk looking out at the passing starfield. "At Utopia Planitia, as we thought?" "Yes, my lord. The Dyson sphere is there, just as our intelligence informed us. And--sir! I have ship contacts, numerous and varied. It'll take some time to sort out--I make at least a hundred vessels, sir, probably more." "So," the admiral said, his breath crystallizing on the window. "They have a fleet, as well. So much the better. They cannot defeat GENOM!" He whirled. Pink skin, slick brown hair, glittering blue eye; a cybernetic cowl covered the left upper quarter of his face. It was not Largo. In fact, except for the GENOM admiral's uniform, the cybercowl, and the twisted, evil gleam in the pit of the one remaining eye, it was an exact duplicate of Captain Benjamin D. Hutchins of the Wedge Defense Force. "Helm," this creature barked in a raw, hard-edged parody of Gryphon's voice, "bring the fleet out of warp and transfer control to the individual vessels. Scramble all fighters and prepare for a full-scale star system assault! Hail Largo!" "Hail Largo!" the bridge crew cried, and set to their duties as red strobes began to flash. On the bridge of the Concordia, Gryphon saw the GENOM fleet drop out of hyperspace. Despite his expectations, despite his familiarity with the intelligence data, he could not help but rise to his feet as starship after starship dropped out of warp. Huge, wedge-shaped vessels formed the backbone of the fleet; Imperial class star destroyers, by Concordia's computer's reckoning. Scattered through the fleet were a number of vast, black, hourglass-like vessels which the tactical analysis computer indicated were primarily fighter carriers. Ikazuchi battle carriers appeared, here and there, apparently a new model that used warp propulsion instead of folding. (Unknown to the WDF personnel, GENOM had abandoned fold drives decades before, when it was revealed that the unstable fuel for Dreadnaught's fold core was largely responsible for her utter annihilation.) At the fleet's forefront was their flagship, an exact duplicate of the vessel that had destroyed the Wayward Son utterly; the Dreadnaught. It looked much like an Imperial destroyer, but huge; so huge the Concordia could have sailed into its docking bay. "Battle stations!" Gryphon ordered. "Red alert. Scramble all fighters, Lieutenant Leeds." "Fighters on their way out, sir," reported Vanessa. On the forward viewer, the bridge crew could see the Concordia's crack fighter squadrons deploying, racing one after another down the port and starboard catapult ramps with precision timing; light Epees, heavy Sabres, Broadsword bombers, and Gryphon's favorites, the medium-weight, blisteringly fast, heavily armed Rapiers. Then, the final squadron took wing, five brand new VF-2 Victory Veritech fighters peeling down the ramps and forming up just meters off the deck. The Victory was another of Gryphon's engineering triumphs, a revitalization of the basic design that had made the VF-1 Valkyrie so effective for so long. These five Super Victories were the successors to the legend of Fighter Squadron VVF-261; the Eight-Ball Squadron, under the command of Colonel Patricia Currier, formerly of the original Eight-Ball. Gryphon knew his legend was in good hands. "All fighters away, sir," Leeds reported presently. "Shields up, Lt. Finney. Bring all weapons to full power. Stand by PT Control." "Shields are up," Lieutenant Commander Jaime Finney reported from the Tactical station. "Weapons at full power. PT Control is standing by." "All combat sensors are optimal, Captain," added Saavik. "All decks report ready for combat," Lt. Leeds reported. "Helm, impulse power. All ahead full, set course two four three mark one seven. Move to engage the enemy of your choice." Gryphon smiled slightly as he felt the vessel surge beneath him. "This is it." Battle was joined. --------------------------------------------------------------FOURTEEN "I've been dead once already." --Captain Spock Within instants of materializing in the Wandering Child's number-four transporter room, ReRob was on his way to Engineering at a dead run. There wasn't much time. At the door to the engine room, a technician handed him a radsuit; murmuring thanks, Rob stripped off his uniform tunic and boots and hauled the suit on over his trousers. There was no time for a proper change. Before him stood the fold drive, a massive rectangular prism of metal the size of an office building laid on its side. Normally, were it operating at optimum levels, it would be thrumming at a nearly subsonic level, resonating with the Reflex furnace that could be heard and felt throughout the vessel, and bathing the whole chamber in a pleasant blue glow. Now, it was dead, dark, silent, and cold. "Damn," Rob cursed under his breath; worse than he had thought. He yanked open an access panel and got to work. Up on the bridge, Zoner watched the feed from one of UP's outer sensor arrays as the battle began. Massed Federation-style ships, mostly Constitution and Excelsior class, converged on one of the star destroyers, unleashing a firestorm of photon torpedoes and phasers from their combined weaponry. The destroyer's shields strobed red with the hits; finally, after one particularly hard-hitting salvo, the portside shield generator globe imploded in a column of flame. Instants later, a spread of torpedoes from the lead Excelsior's tubes blasted through the bridge windows, gutting the entire bridge module. Very quickly, though, the destroyer's gun crews overcame their surprise and concentrated their attacks; turbolaser bolts hammered one of the Constitution ships, which the UP computer identified as the WDF Hood. The Hood turned to port, her impulse engines flaring as her captain tried to evade, but the GENOM ship's Buma crew had her marked. As her shields collapsed, the vessel began to heel hard to port, her helmsman overturning. Energy blasts and missiles ripped great holes in the proud ship's hull as the other WDF vessels fled at full impulse power. The portside warp nacelle burst into a violent conflagration as the entire pylon collapsed. Out of control, the Hood's twisted wreckage slammed into the foredecks of the star destroyer, and then her antimatter containment fields let go. The resulting fireball whited out the monitor for a second. MegaZone discovered that he was shuddering, and sweating cold; he had seen battle before, hundreds of times--but never like this! The combat was primal, almost savage, the vessels tearing at each other like animals. Here a Battlestar and a star destroyer traded broadsides, both of them burning at various decks, terribly wounded yet refusing to give up the fight; there a Klingon D-7 class cruiser (crewed, he was told, by actual Republican Klingons), her engine room on fire, rammed an Ikazuchi amidships, taking both ships to hell in a fiery mess. Suddenly, one of the great Yamato class battleships spoke, her helix cannons ripping one of the hourglass carriers in half. A star destroyer turned to confront the vessel, which, the UP computer told Zoner, was the class vessel Yamato, captained by none other than the legendary Salusian Admiral Halcyon, on loan to the WDF for this battle. Bolts from the destroyer's turbolasers holed the Yamato's hull repeatedly as the smaller vessel blasted away with her helix cannons, ripping great hunks out of the destroyer's sides; Zoner turned away, sensing the inevitable outcome of this battle, but his eyes were drawn back to the screen by some morbid fascination. The fire from Yamato ceased; Zoner took this to mean that the vessel was dead, her power plant destroyed, perhaps her crew slain. The star destroyer continued to salvo for a moment-- --and then the bow of the Yamato vomited forth a stream of energy so brilliant it made the viewer go dark for an instant. The beam punctured the destroyer straight through, and as the GENOM vessel twisted on its axis from the impact, fires began to erupt all through her structure. In just moments, the vessel had reduced itself to smoldering junk. "The wave motion gun! They actually got it to work!" Zoner exclaimed. He had been so busy learning about fleet operations, he hadn't had time to get to all the technical readouts; the Yamato class was one he had missed. Still, he thought in retrospect that he should probably have figured as much. "Admiral," came a voice from the back of the bridge. Zoner spun in his conn. Asrial, Queen of Salusia, was standing in the rear of his bridge, looking not a day older than when they had first met at the WDF's first reorganization in 1992. She wore a Wedge Defense Force uniform: the undershirt's visible collar was command-branch white. the stripe down the trouser seams red to denote the WDF Navy. Her tunic was the Strategic Fleet's blood red, and was outfitted with a Wandering Child commbadge. Her rank, Zoner was puzzled to note, was Commander. "Your majesty--what are you doing here? This is an extreme danger zone--" "I am here because I will it," Asrial replied, smiling. "As a Salusian of Imperial birth, I may claim that right. This is your ship, however, and I respect that--permission to come aboard?" "Granted," Zoner replied, "but you haven't answered my question.," "I am here, Admiral, because you require an executive officer." Zoner was momentarily very puzzled. Then, smiling, he indicated the station to his right, for so long crewed by Gryphon on the old SDF-17. "By all means. I think Gryphon would agree that his post is in good hands." She took the seat and began to familiarize herself with the control layouts, then reported in a cool, professional voice, "All systems are optimal except fold control and Reflex systems. Captain Mandeville is currently working to correct the fold drive malfunction and get all high-energy systems back online. He estimates five minutes before we are ready to deploy." Zoner looked back at the main viewer; the Concordia's familiarly squat naval profile was locked in a running gun battle with the GENOM flagship. Her shields were flaring red and her weapons were apparently having no effect on the huge vessel--and Zoner knew why. "q, open a channel to the Concordia, now!" Gryphon's bridge materialized in a corner of the viewer pit. "Gryphon, this is Zoner! I read the reports--Dreadnaught was equipped with phase shields, your weapons aren't having any effect!" "I noticed that, Admiral," Gryphon gritted as he fought to hang onto his seat, Concordia's deck shuddering underneath him with the force of Dreadnaught II's weapons. "Situation is under control. Please don't distract us. Concordia out." The bridge projection vanished. Zoner looked miffed. "Captain, shields are at seventeen percent and failing," Saavik reported in a...tense tone of voice. "WDF vessel closing from portside aft to support. It's the Bismarck, sir." "Vanessa, warn them off. We have the situation under control." The Bismarck, a Yamato class battleship, fired her wave motion gun. The bolt of energy streaked forth and disappeared, banished by Dreadnaught II's phase shields to a vacant parallel plane. The super star destroyer's firepower shifted from the Concordia to the Bismarck, which backed away at full thrust; momentarily the GENOM vessel's interest shifted back to the Concordia. "Vanessa! Get me a channel to the enemy vessel!" "Sir?" "Just do it!" "Aye, sir...hailing frequency is open." "GENOM flagship, GENOM flagship, this is Captain Benjamin D. Hutchins of the WDF Concordia. Cease hostilities at once, or you will be destroyed." The main viewer sizzled to a view of the GENOM commander, and Gryphon suddenly found himself looking at a twisted reflection of himself. "So. It's 'Captain' now?" the replicant sneered. "Not only did you manage to get out of the trap I laid for you so carefully, but you got a promotion in the bargain?" The battle stopped as if someone had pressed "pause" on the Universal Remote. Everyone's eyes, on both sides, were glued to the split screen view of the two commanders. Kei sucked in a sharp breath as the image appeared, and MegaZone gripped the arms of his conn a little tighter. He punched a key on his chair arm. "Engineering! ReRob, we need full power now! There's--" "I see it, I see it," ReRob's voice replied. "I can't work any faster than I am already. Give me three minutes." Zoner sighed; there was nothing to do. "All right, Rob. Just keep working as fast as you can. Bridge out." Meanwhile, on the screens, Gryphon had replied with, "And you managed to get out of the prison on Tantalus V and make your way to your masters, who gave you command of this entire fleet? Largo is still too much the coward to face us in combat when the odds are even, is he?" "Oh, the odds are far from even, my pathetic predecessor. Your weapons cannot even harm my ship--and yet you threaten to destroy me? An empty threat, I think." "You know me," Gryphon replied. "You were fully briefed on the man you were to frame. You know I don't make empty threats. I possess the power to destroy your vessel, and if you do not surrender and prepare your fleet for boarding at once, I mean to do just that." Gryphon's eyes narrowed. "The animal side of me, who hungers for revenge after what you put me through, wants to just push the button now, but the Starfleet officer I was trained to be is giving you a chance. I wouldn't blow it if I were you." "Ah, but you are me," the replicant replied. "Did not all your friends believe so? Did not the woman you loved believe so? Tell me, Gryphon--if the people you love can think you so full of evil and deceit as that, what kind of lovers and friends does that make them? No, my friend, there will be no surrender today. Think about what I have just told you, before I send you to the void. Then, think on it for eternity." Gryphon's screen blacked and everyone else's shifted to an exterior view of the Concordia and her adversary. The super star destroyer opened fire again; all WDF personnel could see the Concordia's shields beginning to buckle. "Jamie...lock PT Control on target and await my command." "PT Control is locked," Finney replied as her panel blinked red. "In charging cycle." The lights, already at combat red, flickered a bit, and the thrum from under the decking took on a more urgent note. The vessel shook under the pounding she was getting from the Dreadnaught II's guns. "Shields collapsing, Captain," Finney reported. "Front and portside armor registering minor damage." "Vanessa, get me a channel one last time." "Open, sir." "Last chance," Gryphon called. "I'll see you in hell!" Gryphon's voice shrieked back. "Recheck PT lock." "Lock confirmed," Finney replied. "Charging cycle completed. All systems locked in and green-light. The phase-transit cannon is ready to fire." "Fire!" Finney pushed the control marked "MODE SELECT". The muzzle of the weapon that formed the Concordia's very keel pulsed and crackled with white energy, then spat forth a capsule of pure white power, which grew in size as it streaked toward the Dreadnaught II. Zoner groaned with the futility as he saw it unfold on his monitor; what did Gryphon expect to accomplish? He watched the bolt as it closed on the outer perimeter of the destroyer's shields, expecting it to wink away any instant. On his bridge, the GENOM replicant of Gryphon folded his arms and sneered, turning back to his gunnery officer to give the firing order for his main turbolaser banks again. He was looking forward to seeing the helpless Concordia reduced to slag. Instead of vanishing, though, the bolt crashed through the phase shields, rendering them visible for an instant as they splintered and dissipated, and proceeded to rip into the upper decks like a burrowing animal, shredding and melting a path of destruction all the way back to the bridge module, which its upper edge blew away as the lower part of the energy packet ripped through the engine room. For an instant, before he was engulfed by the energies eating through the bridge windows and converted into a large and rapidly expanding cloud of free subatomic particles, the replicant of Benjamin D. Hutchins screamed like a cornered animal. Dreadnaught II burst into a trillion glowing bits, sheeting off the shields of all the nearby ships and pockmarking the Concordia's armored hide in a hundred hundred places. "Excellent work, Jamie--now, Max, get us out of here, someplace where we can recharge the shields and effect emergency repairs. Even with their flagship down, I doubt GENOM will surrender." Gryphon was quite correct; maddened by the loss of their commander, the GENOM ships struck back with a vengeance, their concerted revenge knocking out a Battlestar and its Yamato class companion almost instantly. ---------------------------------------------------------------FIFTEEN "I got a real bad feeling about this." --General Han Solo The resumed battle raged, more furiously even than before. The destruction of GENOM's awesome flagship had inspired the WDF crews to strive even harder for victory; it had also enraged the GENOM crews, who fought like vengeful animals now. Ship-to-ship contact became more and more common as the vessels' helmsmen jockeyed for position in the tightening battle. "Time," the bearded man in the Captain's uniform asked. "One forty-four," replied the younger, thinner man at the helm of the vessel. Around them was its bridge; sloping, elliptical, the walls covered by viewers which were, at the moment, dark. The large, powerful, swarthy and bearded captain stood behind a podium topped by a small control panel; three people sat at a horseshoe-shaped console before him. Everything was gold. "Right on time," the captain said, grinning. "Up 'scope." A periscope housing dropped out of the ceiling, smoothly oiled mechanism hissing slightly. The captain snapped down the handles and put his eyes to it, turning around slowly, then pausing. Outside, the ship's periscopic sensor array emerged from the cloaking field that guarded the rest of the vessel. It was also gold. Inside, the captain's eyes narrowed inside the eyepiece as he surveyed the battle; momentarily, he placed his crosshairs upon a star destroyer that was hammering relentlessly at the Pennsylvania's forward shields; the Pennsylvania's photon torpedo spreads and phaser broadsides raked across the larger vessel's hull, tearing out chunks but otherwise not doing much useful harm. "George. Lay in a firing solution on the destroyer that's pounding Trussell's ship. Shoot for the engines--I want a clean kill." "Solution laid in," the helmsman replied. "Ready on tubes one and four." "Fire." Two photon torpedoes spat out of nowhere and tore into the destroyer's rear, ripping right through the thruster exhausts to blow out the engine room. The vessel's windows went dark and she drifted, dead. "Good shooting, George," the captain complimented. "Surface the fleet and get me a channel to the WDF." On all the WDF vessels' bridges, the main viewer suddenly pinged to a view of the bearded captain and his golden bridge. He smiled broadly. "Wedge Defense Force, this is the WDF Leif Eriksson," he said. "Captain Hagbard Celine, reporting. The Silent Service has arrived! Hail Eris!" Behind him, a klaxon wailed twice. "All hail Discordia!" Zoner shouted in reply. Things were looking up. To the starward quarter of the battle zone, the shimmering, rippling materialization effect of vessels disengaging cloaking devices appeared. Wobbling into view came an entire fleet of starships; Predator class scouts and their Klingon contract-built sisters, called Birds of Prey by their owners, D-7C cruisers, great grey slab-sided Typhoon class strategic anti-matter missile boats, and nimble, spindly Alpha class attack cloakers, and at their lead, a great golden ship the size of the Concordia, proudly displaying the golden-apple flag of the Discordian Confederation as well as a WDF seal in black relief on her bows. Zoner punched the intercom key. "ReRob! You said three minutes--and that was five minutes ago! What's the holdup?!" "Some brain-damaged fuck of a technician crossed over boards eight and nine trying to get the fold interphase patched through Reflex Control," ReRob's voice replied angrily. "Fried both the boards. I'm replacing them--it'll take a little longer than I anticipated." "How long?!" "It'll take as long as it takes, Admiral--and it'll take longer if you keep shouting at me." "Right, right...I'm sorry. Carry on...best speed." He let out a great sigh and slumped back in his seat. "Fuck." The arrival of the Silent Service turned the tide of battle somewhat. Most of the ships in the fleet couldn't fire while cloaked, only the Eriksson and a couple of the experimental Klingon ships, but they could decloak, fire, and vanish again. The WDF and the GENOM fleets were no longer stalemated. All the WDF personnel knew that, if the Wandering Child could just get the hell out of the dock, this battle would be over. <<< Theme from Battlestar Galactica >>> "Engineering to bridge," the intercom announced. "Zoner here," MegaZone said, punching his key. "Rob?" "Repairs are completed," ReRob replied. "All systems are optimal. Admiral, the ship is yours." "Thanks, Rob. q?" "Already done. Planitia Control has like cleared us. Like big surprise, eh?" "Helm, engage impulse drive. Take us out from Gate One. All ahead standard." "All ahead standard, aye," Yuri replied with a smile, her fingers tagging the keys. The deck vibrated under them as the immense vessel's thrusters got ready to move it; then, slowly at first, but smoothly, they began to slide forward. The windows of Planitia Control passed; they could see the ops staff waving. The Wandering Child passed empty slip after empty slip--and then one that still had a vessel in it, an Alaska class battlecruiser. "What's the story with the Arizona?" MegaZone inquired, reading the ship's markings. "Engineering problems," Asrial replied. "Captain Crocker and his staff estimate deployment in less than a minute themselves." "Time to outside?" "Fifty seconds, present speed." "Sir!" Saavik cut into the bridge chatter, almost shouting. "What is it, Saavik?" Gryphon asked, turning his conn to face the science station. "I do not know for certain, sir," she replied. "I am reading a massive subspace distortion six thousand kilometers off, at bearing seven mark zero." "Along the GENOM fleet's arrival course? Identify." "I am not certain, Captain," Saavik said, tabbing sensor controls. "It seems to be a subspace rift trace, on a regular pattern--I would almost say it looks like the arrival trace of a fold drive, were it not so...huge." "Inform Planitia Control," Gryphon ordered, turning his chair back to the front. "Mr. Hunter, patch through to Saavik's console and put the distortion on screen." In the viewer appeared a small blue dot, hovering in space, pulsating slowly and growing minutely with each pulse. "I'll be damned. It looks like a fold trace, but you're right, it's enormous! What could--" Suddenly, the distortion grew, for a moment looking like a bulge in the space-time continuum; then it burst like a lava dome, pouring out white light. A shadow blocked that light in the center, and then it was gone, collapsing back into itself as the fold terminated. A new planet had entered the Cygnus Beta system. "Jesus!" Gryphon shouted, coming involuntarily to his feet. "What in hell is that?" "It is metallic, sir, spherical, with dimensions roughly equivalent to that of an average Class-M planet. Power readings indicate massive thermofusion for power, and it's obviously fold capable. A battle station of some sort." "Ten to one it's not on our side." "No bet," Saavik muttered. "Sir, power buildup on the battle station--looks like a weapon's charging cyc--" The dish-shaped depression in the metal sphere's skin, just above the equatorial trench, fired ten coruscating green beams from equidistant points around its perimeter; a much larger bolt then fired from the hole in the center, caught the other ten in a pattern almost helix-cannon-like, and streaked unerringly forth to smash into the side of the Dyson sphere. The bolt of energy ripped through almost a kilometer of carbon-neutronium, unleashing a catastrophic explosion on a portion of the interior surface. The WDF Arizona, just getting under way, was blown almost halfway to the star by the impact; her warp engines and half her saucer were smashed. She drifted, dead. In the shocked silence that followed that display of power, every viewer in the immediate area pinged, changing to a view of a GENOM bridge and a very familiar GENOM commander. "Is it not amazing," said Largo, "the places in which old friends meet?" ---------------------------------------------------------------SIXTEEN "War is hell." --General William Tecumseh Sherman "Fuck me." Admiral MegaZone saw the beam rip a hole rip through the Dyson Sphere and almost destroy the Arizona. "Jesus, we have to get out there. Asrial, time to door?" "Fifteen seconds." The turbolift door opened, and out strode ReRob, still in his radsuit. "Reflex Cannon Mark Two. This I gotta see." "Take a seat, Rob. Enjoy." Rob went over to the bridge Engineering console and set up shop. The tactical commander on board the Vanguard had been studying the Phoenix. He noted that, as it was about the only ship in its class, it had been tangling with fighters ever since the combat began. And it had racked up an impressive number of kills. This was getting expensive. The Buma issued an order. Some of the hot white light emanating from the Ikazuchi Vanguard diverted from its regular targets to attack the Phoenix. Across the main screen of the Phoenix, lasers hammered away at her shields. Deedlit spun the bird hard to down starboard. Kevin almost attacked his console, punching in commands. "Meph, that last barrage was from portside aft Ikazuchi. I have her pinged." Whenever that ship would show up on the screen now, it would show a computerized identification halo. "Thanks, Bitch. Satori, evade pinged Ikazuchi and go in for a run if you can." "Aye." The Phoenix, as she was wont to do, spun madly evading fire attempts. But her hunter was relying on the simple law of averages. They spun around to the other side of the Ikazuchi, getting to the side of the ship where the batteries were busy pummeling the Kansas and thus leaving the original arc of fire. "Cheryl, ready the wing torps--vectoring in! Five, four..." The gunner's orders were to fire upon the Kansas, and he was doing this with startling efficiency. The ship they had chased halfway across the galaxy flew into his arc of fire. That did not change his orders. Then it began to aim towards his ship. That did change his orders. Across the starboard side of the Vanguard, twenty other gunners came to the same decision. "...three..." Wham! The bridge exploded in a thousand points of light. Kevin scanned his panel and turned to the command chair. "Meph, forward deflectors are..." Meph's head had become thoroughly entangled in the tactical holotank. Cheryl slumped across her wrecked gunnery console, dead. Deedlit saw Cheryl's position and aborted the run, wrapping around the Kansas. She had no choice but to trap the bird in the crossfire between the two dreadnoughts. She turned her head, surveying the damage. She saw her captain mutilated and Kevin sitting there in pure shock. She tried to break him out of it: "Tefft! Damage report!" Kevin got back to his senses, at least temporarily. "Lost forward deflectors, hit to warp core. Estimate three minutes to catastrophic failure!" "Dump the--" and Deedlit stopped herself. The warp core to the Phoenix was not dumpable; the nacelle was the main body of the ship, and the intermix chamber and fuel tankage all hardmounted. Evacuation procedure was to transport to the Daedalus, which the Phoenix was meant to tow. But the Daedalus was back on Musashi, as they needed to make their mad dash here to UP. The bridge, unpowered, was ejectable from her station, but that would leave it in the crossfire. She decided she would wait a few seconds. "Captain!" Saavik shouted. Gryphon turned; he could trust the fire control and evasion to Rick and Max for the moment. "What is it, Commander?" "I have a contact bearing four four three mark one six. Exposed warp core emissions, very bad damage." "On screen." The Phoenix appeared on the viewer, drifting without power. Her warp nacelle was shattered, the coils visible in three or four places. Sensor information drifted over the viewer, superimposed. Concordia's computer gave her two minutes to live, perhaps less, until the magnetic field integrity on the antimatter fuel supply and intermix chamber collapsed. Already, subspace interference from the chaotic energy states on board the small vessel was making sensor scan difficult. "Vanessa, get me a hailing frequency. Phoenix, this is Concordia, do you read? What is your situation?" The Concordia ate static; Phoenix's comm system had been destroyed some time ago. The deck shook slightly underneath Gryphon; his vessel was coming under fire from the Vanguard itself. "Helm," he ordered, "put us between that Ikazuchi and the Phoenix. Our shields can handle their firepower for a while, correct?" "Correct, sir, but I wouldn't push them after the beating they took from Dreadnaught," Finney advised. "Your advice is noted. Can you use phaser batteries to cut the warp assembly free from the rest of the ship?" "I might, sir, if I had a couple of minutes--but I don't. We wouldn't be able to clear the warp core's explosion radius, in any event." Gryphon weighed the risk to his ship against the lives on that vessel, some of whom--most of whom--were his friends, and came to a decision. "Jamie, can we handle that Ikazuchi's firepower for twenty seconds without shields?" "Beam them over, Captain?" "It's the only chance they've got." Finney scanned her monitors and replied, "Aye, sir, I think so. Armor structure is fairly nominal--but it'll be tight." "It'll have to do." He slammed a hand onto his intercom. "Transporter room, this is the Captain. Tie across to Commander Saavik's panel and lock onto damaged vessel's lifesigns, all speed, at my mark." He looked at the screen; the Phoenix, by the computer's reckoning, had thirty seconds remaining. "Mr. Finney, lower the shields. Transporter room, mark!" He tabbed another control as the vessel's spaceframe shuddered with a laser barrage. "Sickbay, I need emergency units in main transporter room stat! I'm on my way. Saavik, take the conn." He got up and ran into the turbolift. Deedlit's finger hovered over the ejection switch just a moment too long; a last broadside from Vanguard destroyed the batteries and shut down all ship's power. A final explosion ripped through the bridge just as she jumped to her feet. She felt a sharp pain in her side and began to stumble as a sudden cold dislocation swept over her. Everything turned blue. Gryphon pounded through the door to the transporter room right behind Dr. Selar and the medics. On the platform were three bloodied forms in the final stages of materialization; on the other side of the platform, another pattern was struggling to materialize, the field fluctuating wildly, indeterminate. The transporter technician was stabbing madly at her controls, trying to stabilize the signal, sweating and cursing as the red emergency light began to wink faster and faster and the pattern on the platform became less and less determinate-- --and then it was gone, flickering out of existence like a mirage. "No!" the chief shouted, slamming a fist down on her panel. "Damn it, no! I had her, she was right there--" Gryphon scanned the platform. Kevin was there, the least injured, obviously in emotional shock and physical pain. His left arm seemed to be broken. One of the medics took him aside and began treating his wound. Cheryl was slumped on another pad, looking very poorly off; Selar ran a medscanner over her, then gave terse orders to two of the medics that she be taken to intensive care stat. The tightness in Gryphon's chest eased just a tad; she was apparently still alive. One less death in the madness. The third figure on the platform was Meph, Basic Nastiness' majordomo. Gryphon hadn't really known him, and now it looked as though he would never get a chance, since most of the man's head was missing. When Selar glanced at him, Gryphon could almost swear he saw a pained look cross the Vulcan's face, just for a moment. With a sudden cold shock it hit him that the missing person, the pattern that the chief had lost, had been Deedlit Mandeville. He keyed his communicator, knowing full well that, save for Rob, the people that were accounted for were the vessel's entire crew; his trained professionalism blew through his emotions like a gale wind for a moment's work. "Bridge! Jamie, get those shields up!" "The shields are already up, Captain," Saavik's voice answered. "They were raised as soon as transporter function ceased. Any longer and we risked losing pressure to M and N decks." "Good work, Commander." "Captain, may I inquire of the status--" "I'll be up shortly. Gryphon out." He flipped the communicator off over Saavik's unspoken protest, and turned to the chief, who was by this time beside herself with rage at her own self-perceived incompetence. "I'm sorry, Captain, I tried--there was so much subspace interference, the signal was so weak--I blew it, sir, I cost Commander Satori her life. I'll resign imm--" "No, that won't be necessary, Chief," Gryphon said in a tired voice. He felt old. "It was a tough job, and you performed exceptionally. The subspace interference was so strong you shouldn't've been able to transport any of them across...be glad we saved the ones we did." He turned to Selar and had a quick conference with her, then returned to the bridge. On the bridge of the Wandering Child a few seconds earlier, ReRob had gasped, his head snapping up and his eyes focusing at infinity for a brief instant. Rather than announcing, "Degauss," as he usually did after such a nervous twitch (he was accustomed to them; medical personnel had never been able to figure out a cause), he whispered, "Deedlit?" "Rob?" Zoner asked, noticing his friend's discomfort. "What's wrong?" Rob shook his head, trying to come back to himself. "Uh, nothing. I don't know. I guess nothing." Inside, he knew, something was wrong, something had happened. What, though? But they were clearing the doors. There was no time for that now. -------------------------------------------------------------SEVENTEEN "Do you know of the Klingon proverb that tells us revenge is a dish that is best served cold? It is very cold in space." --Khan Noonian Singh Gryphon hit the bridge seconds after leaving the transporter room; Vanguard and Kansas were powering clear of the Phoenix's blast zone. Concordia was well clear already, and blasting away at the Vanguard with all weapons. "Status of enemy vessel," Gryphon asked as he took his seat back from Saavik. "Moderate damage, sir," Finney reported. "We've been unable to penetrate their shields as yet." "Lock on phase transit cannon and prepare for charging cycle." Finney smiled grimly. She must have deduced from his reaction to Saavik's queries that there had been deaths among the Phoenix's crew; her lips pressed into a cruel line as she entered computations into the firing computer, and was rewarded with a lock-on chime. "Phase transit cannon locked," she reported. "Entering charging cycle." Another chime. "Cannon charged and ready to fire." "Mr. Finney, send them to hell." Finney fired. Vanguard disappeared. A cheer went up from the Concordia's bridge crew. Gryphon sighed. He had not been able to save Deedlit or Meph, but at least he had avenged them. He wondered if that was enough, then shrugged it off and returned to battle. Outside, carnage was the order of the day; the arrival of GENOM's battle planet turned the tide back the way it came. After taking the potshot at the Dyson sphere, the war machine had set itself to proving its worth against more worthy targets; within seconds, its main gun had blasted the Battlestar Atlantia, reducing the mighty vessel to slag in a millisecond. "All vessels, this is SDF-23!" Zoner shouted, smacking the fleet communications key on his conn arm. "Break off, scatter formations! Don't give that monstrosity massed targets! Evasive maneuvers--try to get behind it--" Unconcerned, the planet pivoted slightly on its axis and fired again, ashing the WDF Hornet, a Bengal class carrier. q immediately set about coordinating homes for the orphaned fighters, in the middle of all the other fleet operations he was handling. He was the first to admit he wasn't much of a commander, but they didn't make a better airboss. The viewers of the WDF vessels blipped into a communications view again, as they were hailed by the warworld. "Greetings, Wedge Rats," Largo said formally, using the title that very few actual WDF personnel had even heard of, let alone remembered the origins of. "I, for those of you who do not know me, am Largo. Allow me to present to you my greatest invention: the GENOM Armored Tyranny and Terror. This is the prototype of the battlestation which will someday soon hover over every inhabited world in space, enforcing my rule. I hope you consider it a worthy foe; I'd hate for you to think you had died an unworthy death." With a dead-white smile, Largo cut the connection, returning everyone's viewer to a shot of the AT&T blasting and destroying another WDF vessel, this time the Excelsior-class WDF Sulu. "Bastards got the Sulu--Kei!" Zoner began. "Solution laid in," Kei cut him off, cool and professional. "Reflex cannon powering up." She scowled at her tactical display. "Captain, the enemy ships are blocking my solution." "Clever bastards," Zoner muttered to himself. "Then blast them," he replied. "Clear them out of the way, any way you have to." "Aye, sir," Kei replied, realigning her controls. Zoner tagged the fleetcom again, saying, "All WDF vessels, this is MegaZone. Clear our firezone--SDF-23 is powering up main gun to fire. Clear firezone." "Captain, they can't mean to shoot at that thing," Hunter declared. "All those GENOM ships are in the way." "You've never seen the Reflex cannon in action, Mr. Hunter," Gryphon replied. "Get us well clear of the firezone and help out. Jamie, target one of the bigger ships and paste it with the phase transit cannon as soon as possible, and keep the covering fire up with the secondary weapons." "Aye, sir." "All allied vessels and fightercraft are clear of the firezone, Zoner," Kei reported. "General firepath laid in; Reflex cannon fully charged." "ReRob?" Zoner asked, turning to face the engineering station. This was the first firing of an untested weapon; he wanted to be as certain as he could it would work. "The board is green," Rob replied. "She's as ready as she'll ever be." "All right. Kei: full spread, sweep firezone thirty degrees on standard pulse duration. Fire." "Full spread aye," Kei replied, and hit the striped key. <<< Ministry: Psalm 69 >>> Just as her predecessor's had so many times, the foredeck of the SDF-23 Wandering Child cammed apart into a huge cosmic tuning fork, between which resonated the orange lightning of a Reflex reaction. There were a couple of differences between this weapon and its predecessor, though. The first was obvious; the much large size of the physical weapon apparatus meant a much larger charging volume, and hence a much greater discharge. The second was less apparent when the weapon was at rest or charging; it had to do with a recent breakthrough ReRob had made in Reflex superconductivity and subspace resonation, coupled with a bit of Gryphon's wave-fusion theory. The Reflex Cannon Mark II fired just as its predecessor had, the lightning firestorm ripping from the forks in a huge whiteorange beam that spread as it clawed forth into space, engulfing several Ikazuchis, three star destroyers, and two basestars. All the vessels crumbled before the blast like sand castles before a tsunami. In the warworld's operations center, Largo sneered. They had used up their hole card for the next five minutes, at least; the Reflex cannon was a temperamental weapon, and needed to be charged with care. Care took time; another reason Largo rarely exercised it in matters of equipment. If it broke, it would be replaced. Then it fired again, decimating two more star destroyers and an Ikazuchi battlegroup. Largo stared, as if unable to believe what he had seen. It proceeded to fire again, and again, and again, eight times, sweeping across a thirty-degree angle on the plane relative to the superdimensional fortress's pitch and roll orientation. That, Largo knew, was categorically impossible. He was not pleased. "Destroy them!" he shrieked. Behind him, a Buma gunnery crew rushed to obey. The AT&T swung to face the oncoming Wandering Child as the WDF vessel pitched her nose up and charged forward at flank speed, targeting sensors probing the metallic bulk of the battlestation for a positive targeting lock. Kei was skilled, well-trained, even talented, but she was no Buma; Largo's crew tagged the Child first, and fired. The beam splintered fifty kilometers from impact, arrowing out in a thousand directions. "What the hell?!" Zoner cried. "Asrial! What the hell did that?" "Scanning," Asrial replied. "A very large energy source, Admiral--it's...humanoid?!" "Vaughn!" Zoner said, standing. "Get me a hailing frequency, tight beam. Vaughn! Just in time, as usual," Zoner observed. "Morning," Vaughn's voice replied over speakers. "Just in time for what?" "To save my ass, that's what," Zoner replied. "Oh. Well, don't mention it...oh hey--I have something to tell you. Permission to come aboard?" "We're a bit busy right now--" "I won't get in the way." With that, Vaughn Gross walked out of the portside turbolift door. "Listen, there's something important I have to tell you, and while I remember what it is--" "Not now, Vaughn!" Zoner said, then with a bit more surprise. "Weren't you just.... Never mind... Helm, correct course three zero zero mark one four five. Tactical, stand by on mass drivers. Stay away from that main gun. Pinpoint Control, this is the bridge, are you ready?" "Affirmative, sir," the intercom replied. "Good. Watch those scopes. I want all six barriers blocking that main gun if it comes in; no sense taking any chances." "No, listen, this is really--" "I'm really busy right now--" "Admiral, incoming fire!" "Pinpoint Control, where's my blocking?!" "Zoner--" Outside, the AT&T had unleashed its main gun; as Pinpoint Control scrambled to intercept it, it bored in on a direct course for the bridge. "Will you all please stop it and listen to me for a second?!" Vaughn screamed, finally fed up. Outside, time stopped. Literally stopped. Vessels halted in mid-maneuver; energy beams (like the AT&T's main gun) stopped where they were; fighters in the middle of exploding froze, half-formed fireballs with recognizable starfighter shapes. With a soft chime, Gryphon appeared on the bridge of the Wandering Child, looking confused. "You need to hear this too, Gryphon," Vaughn said. "You all do. I know why this universe exists--and you have to know, too. Right now." --------------------------------------------------------------EIGHTEEN "Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." --Sherlock Holmes 1 AUGUST 1992 WORCESTER, MA Zoner, Gryphon, and ReRob roamed about the Alden Commons engaged in a heated discussion. "I think I should die, some good emotional drama," Zoner suggested. "Bite me, fanboy. I will not allow you to kill yourself off," Gryphon rejoined. "How about this...we get over to the AT&T somehow, and take Largo on in person," Rob proposed. "This is great," Zoner commented. "What is?" Rob asked. "Hanging out next to Alden Hall, early August, brainstorming at," glancing at his watch, "midnight, well almost. And you know, Moxie isn't half bad either." "You tell me, guys...is this better than sex?" asked ReRob. "I don't know about better than sex. Maybe just as good in a different sort of way. Don't get me started or we'll never figure out how to end UF," Zoner caught himself. "What are we going to do with the end though? We've got the core group back together, the Child is dueling with the AT&T, but we still have to take out Largo somehow. I don't think the fans would appreciate it if we just blew up the AT&T and killed Largo in one move. That's too impersonal, he's been the big evil dude and we have to kill him in a suitable manner," Rob summed up the situation. "And I'd like to try to get this done by Christmas. Ben has Altered Appleseed done, for the most part, and I've started on my own side story, Solitude, that happens before UF4. Are you doing anything Rob?" "Well, I have a few ideas. I'm not sure yet." "Ok, and Ben's got some other stuff up his sleeves that I'd like to contribute to. Plus I want to get a couple of plays in for New Voices 11, and my poetry, etc, ad nauseam... We seem to have embarked on a tangent again...back to UF4...so, what do we do? Ram the AT&T a la the SDF versus Bedolza? Is the main gun powerful enough to take it out? How about the...what did you call it, the phase transit cannon? Ben, that was your baby, what can it do?" "Oh, you'll find out. Think about the name...it traverses phase. Otherwise, it's basically your standard anime death beam." "We still have to figure out what we're going to do to win the battle and end the saga," said Rob, pointing out the obvious. "If I might point out, Rob, we haven't finished Part 3 yet, technically; the details of the setup and breakup have yet to be determined." "Yeah... And I'd rather not have a deus ex machina like Iczer-1 returning or something. Which brings up another loose thread, does Vaughn ever find her? Does Vaughn come back at all? I'd like him to," Zoner added. "Morning." "Vaughn!" the three startled authors chorused. "How's life??" "Eh... Aren't you supposed to be in Vermont?" ReRob inquired. "Yes. But I met someone in London who really wanted to meet you. Meet Sherlock Holmes." "Vaughn, what's up?" Zoner asked. "The sky, the moon, no no no... Really, this is Sherlock Holmes, I met him while I was working on my IQP... I brought him back with me." "Good evening, I am Sherlock Holmes, but perhaps you know me better by my other name," long dramatic pause, "Edison Bell." "I have a REAL bad feeling about all this," Zoner moaned. "I think it's funny. Nice one, Vaughn," Gryphon chuckled. "We have fans in London?" ReRob asked. "Somehow I get the feeling that is far too simple an explanation Rob," Zoner answered. "Indeed, Brian." Zoner cringed. "My apologies, MegaZone. That would be far simpler than the truth. In truth, I am Edison Bell, born in 1972, returned from 2288, via the year four hundred thirteen million, or thereabouts. All that, of course, you know, for you wrote it." "Ok...transdimensional fictional beings. Now I understand. Ya'know, somehow this has totally failed to shock me," Zoner calmly stated. "Who forgot to pay the reality bill?" "Us, Zone," Rob answered. "Overdrawn at the reality bank," Ben finished. "How embarrassing." "That does not change the fact that I am from your universe," Edison calmly stated. "Bah! You mean we created you?" Rob asked. "Well, no, actually; I believe that honor goes to one Joseph Martin." "If Thag created you, why do you want to see us?" Zoner asked. "Because there is a desperate situation that needs your immediate attention," Edison answered. "To back up for a minute. What's this about you being Sherlock Holmes?" ReRob inquired. "There's no time for trivialities at the present. We must away now." "Vaughn, you going?" Zoner asked, Ben just taking in the whole scene and Rob seeming to lose his grip a bit. "Why not?? Sounds cool." "Than let's do it." Zoner gathered his jacket and few belongings. "Gentlemen, let's go. Lead on, Mr. Bell." "Edison please, this way." Edison led them through the side door of Alden Hall. --------------------------------------------------------------NINETEEN "`Son, I am able,' she said, `though you scare me.' `Watch,' said I, `beloved,' I said, 'Watch me scare you though.' Said she, `Able am I, son.'" --They Might Be Giants "So, it really has nothing to do with Lord Fahrvergnugen," Vaughn was saying. "According to the books I found in the library on Gallifrey, you're the ultimate evil," point at Zoner, "you're the mech guy," point at ReRob, then pointing at Ben "and it's all your fault! Mucking up the Universe with some kind of cosmic power. The only question I can't figure out right now is where that power came from." "You're close, my friend, very close," said a voice from the turbolift door. Everyone on the bridge whirled--and froze in their tracks. For through that door were walking another Vaughn, a tall, thin, hawk-nosed man in a deerstalker cape and hat, and another Gryphon, MegaZone, and ReRob. "Bha???" said the first Vaughn, who, for purposes of identification, we will henceforth refer to as "Reality" in order to distinguish him from the other, hereon referred to as "Vaughn". "Bha???" said Vaughn in reply. He had been expecting something odd, but this? This was a bit much. "Um," said the second MegaZone, who will henceforth be known as Zoner-2. "Er," added ReRob-2. "Bill," finished Gryphon-2, "Strange things are afoot at the Circle K." "What the fuck?" Kei added, eloquently. "Ditto," ReRob piled on. Zoner jumped on the bandwagon with "Why am I not surprised?" "Yaaay, crosstime," said Gryphon. "Oh, my..." Yuri muttered. "I can tell you all have a thousand questions...well, I have all your answers," said Sherlock Holmes. "What is the average airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?" "European or African?" "Damn, he's good. Sorry...who are you?" Zoner asked. "I think I know," ReRob told him. "I am Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective," said Holmes, "although you remember me better as Mr. Edison Bell, Esquire." "Ding!" Gryphon said, slapping five with ReRob. "Edison!" said q. "But like how'd you survive? We all thought you were dead for sure." "And indeed I was," Holmes replied. "And?" "I effected an escape," Holmes replied, as though he was talking about an ordinary jailbreak. "Death is a harsh mistress, but she's not as clever as Edison Bell." He smiled a sly grin. "Reality here knows that, as does Zoner." "Ah, sorry, not me... Wait a minute..." Zoner said, turning to Reality as a memory block from long ago melted away. "Reality? You know Death?!" "Well, not personally...I mean, we've never met," Reality replied. "But I saw--oh, bother. Another one. I should have figured. In any event, I escaped, but to the wrong dimension, and without my travel equipment...I was stranded on Earth, in the late 19th century, and had to wait until this Vaughn came along...I was able to harness his latent power to bring us here." "But--" "There's precious little time, my friends, so you must listen closely to what I have to say to you. I am about to explain to you what and why your universe is, and how it came to be. Reality was close, but erred in several particulars. This universe arose in the usual manner, just like all the others, and progressed quite normally--until the spring of 1989. Then, a young member of the Q Continuum, the omnipotent beings who strive to keep balance in the universe, when they're not toying with it, made human and cast out onto Earth with no memory of his previous existence, committed an error. "His name was John Todd." All eyes in the room turned to q, who drew back. "Like me? Like no way. Coolness." Ignoring his protests, Holmes continued, "Todd displayed no inklings of his previous power, expect perhaps for picking up the nickname `q' apparently quite by accident. Until one night in 1989 when, intoxicated and attempting to program something, q tapped his repressed Q powers and created the HoloDECstation. He promptly forgot all about it, and it sat dormant, waiting for the right mind to come along and free it. "That mind would not come until October 2nd, 1991. It was then that--" "--that I found the HoloDECstation in the Fuller basement," Gryphon finished, haltingly. "But...what about Lord F? He said he created the HoloDECstation." "He did. After it created him, in the past, before it had been created. Oh, never mind, I'm getting to that. Haven't you noticed that this universe seems a bit warped? A bit odd? Did you think the existence of all these races and technologies that exactly mirror fiction was coincidence? Didn't you ever notice that the universe was exactly the way it would be if it were the universe you were writing?" "What are you saying?" Zoner demanded. "I'm saying that, when Gryphon here discovered the HoloDECstation and took those first few faltering steps with CLULESS, he did far more than create two women out of thin air. His subconscious mind, attuned to the station's subspace energy patterns, reshaped the entire cosmos, right down to the ether-concept level, into the image of his ideal. Into what he would have the universe be like if he were writing it as a story." "But the universe is also off kilter in favor of the rest of the Rats. Actually it seems to favor me almost as much as Ben." "That is simply explained. He was calling up a gif from your site and his mind connected that action to you. It also helped that you had organized the site to your tastes as it supplied the raw data. So when his thoughts reformed the universe they were taken into account. Same for the rest of the Rats, they're never far from his thoughts." "That's ridiculous!" ReRob protested. "You're saying we're all nothing more than characters in his story?" "No!" Holmes barked. "Hear me out! You existed before all that, Robert. And you too, MegaZone. Your destinies were rewritten, perhaps; your selves remained the same, and admirably `up' to their tasks, might I add. No, you're not characters in his story." He turned and indicated the three men behind him. "You're characters in theirs!" "What?!" exclaimed MegaZone, Gryphon, ReRob, Kei, Yuri, Zoner2, Gryphon2, and ReRob2. "Oh, by the way, Rob...yeah. Yeah, this is better than sex," Gryphon2 said. "Look! This is our universe. Our characters. Look, Rob--there's you, with your cyberarm. And me..." Before they could go on, a bright flash of light illuminated the middle of the room, and when it faded, a sneering presence in a WDF Admiral's uniform was standing there. "So, you've figured it out, eh?" said Q. "I'll give you credit. You're pretty good, for a dumb monkey." He walked over to q. "Your cover's blown, pal; come on. Back to the Continuum." "Like no way," q replied. "What do you mean, `no way'?" "Like I'm human now eh? I'm not going back." "That's ridiculous, of course you're going back--" Holmes strode over, caught the omnipotent being's arm in his hand and, with remarkable strength, whirled him around. "He doesn't want to go," Holmes said in a low, threatening voice. "He isn't going." "The hell you say, monkey...boy..." Q trailed off as he looked into Holmes' eyes, piercing, slate grey eyes that bored to the bottom of his omnipotent soul. The face was different, but he would know those eyes anywhere. "You..." he whispered. "Bell..." "I'm glad you recognize me, Q. Now get out of here. This is no affair of yours." "I don't have to--" Q began, weak and defensive-sounding. "Go!" Holmes roared, releasing and shoving Q in the same motion. "Go now, before I alert the Time Lords to your presence here!" Q paled. "All right, fine!" he shouted back, petulant. "One of these days, Bell," he promised, and with another flash, he was gone. "How did you do that?" Zoner asked. "My people and the Q have been enemies for millennia," Holmes replied. "We and the Time Lords are the only races they have ever been defeated by." "Defeated...?" "That's not important right now! What's important is that this universe is on the verge of collapse--" Gryphon2 interrupted him. "Incredible. It actually is our universe. If I had a mind, I think I'd be losing it." He walked over to his counterpart, noting his rank bar. "A captain, eh? You've done well by yourself." "You ought to know," Gryphon replied. "No, actually, I didn't." "Huh?" "Which brings us to my point," Holmes cut in. "Somewhere along the line, your universe diverged from their creative patterns. You've outdistanced their creation. When I brought them here they were hashing through the ending to the third part of their fictional saga; just at the point where the Wedge Defense Force was shattered, the original SDF-17 destroyed. You've passed that, hurdled the challenge and gone right on toward your destinies without them. "And that is a big problem." Before anyone could ask why, the deck of the SDF-23 shook violently, throwing almost everyone to the floor. They looked outside and gasped; everything was gone. All the ships, the Dyson Sphere, the AT&T, everything. Even space was gone; in place of that was whiteness. "Eve!" Zoner shouted. "What the hell's going on?" "Shift to bridge life support subsystems. There was a slight gravitational aberration during changeover," Eve reported. "Cause of changeover?" "Design flaw in the vessel," she replied. "No ship's structures except the bridge currently exist." "What?!" "It's already happened. Damn, damn, I was hoping it wouldn't start for another couple of hours at least, give me time to fully explain," Holmes was saying, pacing the deck. "What happened?" ReRob demanded. "Eve, what is the nature of the universe?" Holmes asked in reply. "The universe is a spherical region forty meters in radius," Eve replied. "Correction; thirty-nine." "What?!" Zoner asked. Then he, and the rest, saw it; the blank whiteness outside was growing closer. It had eaten through the transparent duranium bridge window and the tritanium shields, and was closing in on the viewer's projection pit. This close they could see it wasn't white, really, but black and white. In fact, it looked exactly like television snow. "Hey, ant wars," Zoner2 commented. "The black ones seem to be winning. What is that?" asked Gryphon2. "That," Holmes replied, "is the end of this universe." "What? Why?" Gryphon asked, slightly upset. "You know, some things just will not do," q contributed. "I wonder if she'll be there?" Zoner mused. "Now this, this is a bit of a surprise," Zoner2 commented, drawing an odd look from Zoner. "I told you. This universe has slipped off your creative tracks. You are no longer sustaining it. That is why you could get no work done, earlier tonight; your creative energies, rather than sustaining a universe, were just siphoning off into nothingness. When it had drifted far enough from you, it ceased existing. The only reason this room still exists is because of your presence, and even that is not enough. Even Moxie couldn't help now." "What can we do to stop it?" Zoner2 asked. Holmes looked at them gravely. "The only way I know of to stop this kind of dimensional accretion is to seal the ravenous void closed, satiate it with all the existing energies of the type it requires." "In this case," ReRob2 said, beginning to comprehend, "our creative energies." "Quite." "So...how do we feed that...that void our energies?" Gryphon2 asked. "By feeding it yourselves," Holmes replied. "What happens if we don't?" "Then within minutes, the void will claim all. This room, and all these people, will cease to have ever existed." "Are you certain?" "I have been a dimensional engineer for over 413 million years," Holmes replied. "I have never been more certain." "What about all that's already gone?" "It will be restored if the void is closed. No one but the people currently in this room will know that anything happened." "What's waiting for us on the other side?" ReRob2 inquired. "I honestly do not know," Holmes replied. "But probably death," Zoner2 said, getting right to the point. "It comes down to them, or us. Well, I really have no pressing concerns back home. How long do we have?" Holmes gauged the approach of the wall of nothingness and said, "Not long at all. A few minutes, perhaps." "Okay...staff meeting, gentlemen." Gryphon2, Zoner2, and ReRob2 gathered in the corner of the room and talked for a minute or two, each of them pausing to look around the room. ReRob, with his cyberarm and his puzzled expression...Gryphon, standing very close to Kei, his hand in hers and looking worried...Zoner, in his conn, the fates of everyone around him running through his mind...Yuri, looking at Zoner and wondering what was going through his mind...q, looking confused. Then, they separated, walking forward. "We're gonna do it," Zoner2 said without preamble. "Are you sure?" Holmes replied. "It will very probably mean the end of your existence..." "We know," ReRob2 replied. "But let's face it; we're just three guys, with short little lives ahead of us, and nothing remarkable in our futures that we can see." "When it comes down to our three little lives, or an entire universe," Gryphon2 continued, "well...it really isn't any choice." "We'd just like a minute..." Zoner2 added. "By all means." Zoner2 walked over to Zoner, leaning close to him so that no one else could hear. "Listen close, my friend," he said, "I don't have a lot of time. You are being a dick. You're walling. Don't say a word, you know exactly what I mean. Here's my advice to me; don't. You've got a wonderful woman there, just waiting for you to open up and let her love you again. Don't throw that away. You can be happy. All you have to do is trust in people. Them...you...yourself." He smiled. "Lighten up, chummer. Life's too short. Besides, if I kill myself for nothing and you muck it all up I will be very pissed. How'd you like to be haunted by yourself? So, once I'm gone you kick Largo's ass, destroy the great evil, and live happily ever after... Or else. Write poetry or something, get a life." Zoner2 grinned broadly, "Hail Eris!" "Thanks," Zoner replied softly, his throat gone suddenly dry. "Thanks...a lot. All hail Discordia." "Don't let me down," Zoner2 replied with a grin. He went over to Yuri. "Give me a chance, I'm not really all that bad of a guy. Actually I guess it's my fault for writing me as such a dark dickweed. I do have to say that I like how you turned out too. "Hey Vaughn." "Yeah?" "Do me a favor. When you get home make a post for me. Let rec.arts.anime and alt.suicide.holiday know what happened. Few will probably believe it, but at least they were told. Of course let everyone at WPI know what went down... Oh, and make sure that all my stuff gets distributed amongst the Rats, SFS, library, whatever... And let my parents know... Ah hell, just figure it out ok, I knew I should have made a will. Goodbye. Oh, and hey, Reality: treat her right," he added cryptically, drawing a confused expression from both Vaughns. Gryphon2 shook Gryphon's hand. "It's good to see I finally became something worthwhile," he told his counterpart. "My name is in good hands." He saluted. "Carry on, Captain." "Aye aye...sir," Gryphon replied, a tear rolling down his cheek. Here in front of him was his creator. He hadn't thought it possible, and now here he was, and he was going away, going off to die, to save his life and the lives of everyone he knew. He felt as though there was more he should say, but nothing would come out. "Kei," Gryphon2 said. "Take care of him, will you? He can get a little fragile sometimes." Kei smiled weakly, but seemed unable to speak; she shook her head and tried to make some words. "Shh, I know, it's ok," Gryphon2 assured her, giving her a brief hug. "Goodbye." ReRob2 went over to ReRob and took out his wallet, removing from that a business card. "Captain Mandeville," he said, "my card." ReRob took the card and examined it; printed on it were the words Virtual Labs, Inc. ReRob Mandeville R&D Chief WAYWARD SON "If it can be dreamed, it can be built." "Little did I know how true those words would be," said ReRob2 with a smile. He turned to Vaughn. "Vaughn, when you get back home, could you do something for me?" "Sure, Rob," Vaughn replied. "What?" "Tell Julia...tell her I'm sorry." "Will do." "Thanks." <<< Peter Schilling: Major Tom (Coming Home) >>> The three authors met in the front of the bridge, a bit behind the slowly approaching wall of nothing. "Well," said Gryphon2, "I guess this is it." "Yep," Zoner2 replied. "Nice working with you, Dr. Venkman." He turned and, humming "Suicide is Painless" to himself, stepped into the void. "we doctors know a hopeless case when - listen; there's a hell of a good universe next door; let's go," Zoner mumbled as his counterpart vanished. "What was that?" Yuri quietly asked. "An old e.e. cummings quote I read in the Schrodinger's Cat Trilogy long, long ago." "See you on the other side, Rob," Gryphon2 said to ReRob2. He turned, squared his shoulders, whispered a farewell to someone--no one caught the name--and dove headfirst. ReRob2 turned and faced the bridge assemblage, gave them an ornate hat salute, and silently walked into his destiny. A second later, a gale-force wind blew out of the void as its "surface" crackled with blue lightning; where all the lightning met, the void spat out a single object, which bounced across the deck and then lay still. ReRob's black fedora. For a very long second, nothing happened. There was a terrible ghastly silence. There was a terrible ghastly noise. There was a terrible ghastly silence. (Sorry, Doug.) The universe had returned, in exactly the state they had left it, and time was running again. This left the stunned SDF-23 bridge crew with a couple of pressing problems. Like the AT&T main gun bolt that was heading right for the windows. By the time anyone noticed it, it was far too late to do anything about it; it was coming in like a freight train, casting a green glow over everything it was about to disintegrate. Zoner forced his eyes to stay open, determined to meet his death head-on. Until, just as it had centuries earlier, a bolt of orange energy took the green bolt from the side, blasting it off-course and splintering it into a thousand thousand tiny beams that the SDF-23's shields soaked up easily. "What was that?" Zoner demanded. "It's her!" Reality shouted. "She's come back!" He turned around and ran back into the turbolift. "Who?" asked q. "Who do you think, you dufus," Zoner replied with a wide grin. "Her!" Outside, they could clearly see a woman, clad in pink and black battlearmor, her thick yellow hair flying in space. Iczer-1. Having reappeared back on the bridge of the Concordia, Gryphon shook off his momentary disorientation just in time to see Iczer-1's arrival. Grinning, he opened a channel to the SDF-23. "Hey, Zoner--looks like the gang's all here, eh?" "Looks like it," Zoner replied. "Maybe now we'll get somewhere." ---------------------------------------------------------------TWENTY "Now there's another thing I want you to remember. I don't want to get any messages saying that we are `holding our position'. We're not `holding' anything. Let the Hun do that. We are advancing constantly and we're not interested in holding onto anything except the enemy! We're going to hold onto him by the nose, and we're gonna kick him in the ass!" --General George S. Patton, Jr. The battle continued to rage for several more minutes. Here the smaller vessels dipped and twisted around each other, trying to get their guns to bear, as fighters streaked across the skies. There a wing of Broadsword bombers pasted an Ikazuchi all over the sky with a concerted spread, only to be decimated by a vicious TIE fighter counterattack. The Battlestar Centauri blazed away with all guns at a star destroyer, firing back with equal vengeance. The SDF-23 unleashed her main gun only once more, destroying a small cluster of basestars and Ikazuchis; the battle was getting too spread out for efficient use of the weapon, and MegaZone seemed strangely reluctant to destroy the AT&T. The GENOM warworld, for its part, had been oddly silent, its main gun not firing again since the attack interrupted by Iczer-1. ReRob theorized that the weapon had been backsurged by the beam's interruption; he couldn't estimate the damage, though. Depending on the extent of the damage and the speed and skill of the GENOM repair teams, the weapon could be back up at any time, or never. No one got close enough for it to bring its lesser weapons into play, and it was too slow to catch any of the WDF ships. Within a couple of minutes, the GENOM fleet disengaged, retreating at full speed to regroup a couple of AU's from the Dyson Sphere, hiding, as it were, in the shadow of a rogue planetoid that the Sphere had pulled into orbit. The AT&T, being slower, cruised after the rest of its fleet, serene in its invulnerability. The WDF let them go; they needed the respite just as much as their harried adversaries. On the bridge of the Concordia, Gryphon studied the latest sensor readings of the AT&T and noticed a couple of things that interested him. "Hmm..." He ordered a comm channel opened to the Wandering Child, and, when he had Zoner on the screen, said only, "Zoner, I think you should convene a council of war aboard the '23; I've just discovered something that should interest you a great deal." In the large conference room aft of the SDF-23's bridge, Gryphon pointed his laser pointer at the viewer and said his piece. "The AT&T is equipped with a large number of fighter bays," he pointed out, indicating a couple of them. "Only logical, since a ship that large and slow would need fighters of its own to deal with the enemy. I've been studying the thing since it appeared, and frankly, I'm astounded by it. As a starship engineer, I simply can't conscience destroying it. It's a marvel of engineering and I'd give my eyeteeth for a chance to study it in detail." "Not destroy it?" Kei broke in. "Ben, are you mad? If we leave that thing alone we're all dead! They're probably getting its main gun operational as we speak! When they re-engage--and trust me, they will--we're doomed unless we hit it first, hard, with everything we've got." "Not necessarily. Look, when they withdrew, they called back all their fighters, correct? Well, that's the whole gist of my plan. Lieutenant Finney, if you will?" Obligingly, Finney clicked to a view of the AT&T, seen from its "front", the orientation it favored in relative formation. The viewer zoomed in on one of the fighter bays. "These bays are connected to the rest of the vessel's internal corridor network--logically, they have to be. If we can get a boarding party into one of the bays, we can make our way to the bridge and take control of the entire battlestation. Capture it, instead of destroying it." "Capture it? That?" asked Kei. Then her bluster faded; a smile crept onto her face. Storming an installation, running around in corridors, blowing away anything that got in her way, until the objective was won--that was her kind of operation. She could see, with just a quick glance to her left, that her partner was warming to the idea as well. "I'm in!" "Me too," Yuri added. "Question: how do we get them to open their fighter bays?" ReRob inquired. "Simple. We attack them with every fighter we have. They're too far for their fleet to be able to help them--if we launch within the next ten minutes, they'll be less than a third of the distance to the rest of the GENOM fleet. Bad tactics on Largo's part--he's banking too heavily on that monster's invulnerability, and not enough on his own skill. Or maybe he still thinks we're stupid. Either way, he's made a dumb error. Here's the distribution." The viewer changed to a diagram of fighter-wing layouts. "The Eight-Ball Squadron will lead the assault," he indicated, "at the front of the formation. The rest of Concordia's fighters will join in as well, except the Blue Devil Squadron; they'll remain to defend the ship, although I doubt it will be necessary. Kei, Yuri, you'll be here, in your Valkyrie; the Lovely Angel would draw far too much fire for this mission. All fighter groups from all vessels, except one preselected defense group, will form up like so, and sweep out like this--" he indicated another diagram, this one showing fighter distribution around the AT&T's wireframe spectre-- "forcing their defense net into action. They'll have patrol fighters out, but nothing that can handle this. They'll launch fighters--at which point Eight-Ball will engage the fighter group coming from this secondary fighter bay and secure the bay. "Task Force Alpha, comprised of units Meta, Eta, Zeta, and Omega, as well as the Eight-Balls and the Angels, will then enter the bay. Infantry will disembark and spread out in several directions, relying on inertial guidance systems to reach the north pole of the battlestation, where sensor scans indicate the bridge is located." The viewer shifted back to the original fighter layout. "With only one fighter squadron apiece to defend each of our carriers, though, and no cover at all for the cruisers and battleships...if they mount some kind of counteroffensive, the fleet will be vulnerable," MegaZone pointed out. "That's where you come in, Iczer-1; I want you to remain behind and guard the fleet." Iczer-1 nodded, then said, "I'll do my best--but what are units Meta, Eta, Zeta, and Omega, and why is there an Eight-Ball Zero?" "Observant," Gryphon said with a grin. Unit Eta is a PT-4A Assault Shuttle equipped with a Mark II cloaking device. It will carry the Shadow Security Squad and be covered by Red Squadron, from the Battlestar Galactica. Unit Zeta is a Salusian Model 15 attack craft, carrying Colonel Perry Aldzinjal and his 101st FTL Cavalry elite Marine platoon; it will be covered by the WDF Tiger's Claw's Screaming Blue Electric Death Squadron. Unit Omega is another PT-4, and will carry Lt. Finney's security team from the Concordia. Blue Fire Squadron will cover them. Eight-Ball Zero will be myself; I intend to lead this operation." He ignored the gasps of surprise and protest to continue, "And Unit Meta...well, I can't see Zoner missing out on an op like this--can you, Zoner?" "Of course not," Zoner replied with a grin as wide as UP's Gate Four. "But you've forgotten something," he added. "General Order Number Fifteen? `No flag officer shall enter a hazardous situation without armed escort'? What the hell do you call three squads of troops, a 3WA consultant team, and a platoon of Space Marines?" "No," Zoner said, "I was fully prepared to ignore all regulations forbidding me from going, when did I ever care about rules? No, I mean you don't need the vulnerability of that third shuttle; I can carry Lt. Finney's security team in my Beta, and they'll be a hell of a lot safer. The Angels too, for that matter." "Right. So much for Unit Omega. Now, unless there are any very pressing questions that can't be answered on the way over there, I'll adjourn this meeting. Everyone get where you're supposed to be." "One question," asked ReRob. "Actually, two. One: Why is Zoner not leading this mission, as ranking officer; and two: why aren't I on that list?" "One: the mission was my idea, and once we get out of the fighter phase and into the ship, there won't be much need for leadership; and two, you are--you're assigned to Unit Meta." Rob brightened. "Now then. Rendezvous with the Concordia in five minutes. Time is short." "Hold it," a voice Gryphon hadn't heard in almost forty years called from the doorway. "Don't you even think of leaving your old point man and first marksman behind." Gryphon turned, and standing in the doorway were two very familiar people. One was enormous and metallic, an eight-foot-four Hecatonchires combat cyborg; the other was a slender, pretty blond woman of average height, wearing grey CVR-5, her helmet under her arm. And he knew them. Of course a few others recognized them too. Zoner just shot an "of course" look at the ceiling. "Deunan?!" he said. "Briareos? What the hell--how did you get here?" "Earth joined the Federation ten years ago, remember?" replied the 'borg. "Yeah, I know that--but how--" "You can thank your friend with the cyberarm," Deunan replied with a smile, pointing to ReRob. "We saw you at his concert and chartered the next runabout we could get." "But--" "We're official representatives of the Terran government," Briareos went on. "Authorized to render any assistance possible to the Wedge Defense Force in this battle. So what do you say? Could you use another pair of good guns?" Gryphon grinned. "Of course. You're with Unit Meta. Departure stations, please--I'd love to catch up, but I'm afraid time is not on our side here." "We hear you, Captain," Deunan replied with a smile and a salute. "Let's go, Bri." Everyone scattered out of the ready room; Gryphon called for ReRob to remain as everyone else left. "What's up, Gryph?" he asked, walking around the table. "Rob...sit down. I have bad news." ReRob remained standing. "It's Deedlit, isn't it?" Gryphon sighed, the pain and recentness of it all coming back to him. "Yes, it is. The Phoenix got itself noticed by one of the Ikazuchi's gunnery control officers, and took a serious pounding; she lost helm and drifted into the crossfire between said Ikazuchi and a WDF cruiser. Her warp core was on the way to breach, so I put the Concordia between the Ikazuchi and Phoenix to perform a rescue operation. One of their missiles got by and scored a hit just as we did; Saavik's analysis review tells me it was a dirty nuke warhead, designed to send out a big subspace pulse. They must have seen us drop our shields in their fire and realize what we were up to." "You were beaming them off?" "Yes. Melissa O'Brien is the best transporter chief in the fleet, Rob, but that missile did its job; she had locks on three out of four when it hit, and she did her damnedest, but...she lost the pattern." Gryphon sat down and put his head in his hands. "I'm sorry, Rob. I tried, but I just wasn't good enough." Rob was silent for a moment. Then he said, "The others?" "Kevin will be all right; he had a broken arm and was in severe shock. Cheryl was very badly hurt; lots of broken bones, a hairline skull fracture, massive internal injuries and some signs of brain trauma. My CMO is optimistic, but guarded, but then, she's a Vulcan, so she's always guarded. Meph is dead, too; he was dead when we beamed him over...damn it, Rob, I'm sorry. I saved a dead man's corpse and lost your wife. I'm so sorry." Rob put his hand--his real hand--on his friend's shoulder. "What happened to the Ikazuchi?" "What do you think?" Gryphon replied, standing. "Finney locked the phase transit cannon on her and we blew her into next week." He rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes, pushing his glasses out of the way to do it. "Damn it...it was just a stupid, stupid accident..." "It's all right, Ben," Rob said softly. "Don't torture yourself. This is war; we both knew what could happen when we started out. I can fall apart later; right now we've got a job to do. Let's go do it, so she won't have died in vain." The two officers shook hands and marched resolutely out. ------------------------------------------------------------TWENTY-ONE "Niitaka yama nobore ichi-ni-rei-ya." ("Climb Mount Niitaka, 1208.") --Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku Five minutes later, a mighty array of fightercraft streaked toward the AT&T, which had shrunk to a dime-size dot in the sky. In the lead was Gryphon, strapped into the cockpit of his shiny new VF-2XS Ultra Victory. The Ultra was the prototype for a new class of Victory; like its predecessor, the VF-1FS Hyper Valkyrie, it was a special command vehicle, equipped with a much more powerful powerplant than the average (already overpowered) VF-2, tougher myomers, a better sensor suite, and microwarp drives optional. For this mission, Gryphon indeed had the warp nacelles installed; he wouldn't need the missiles, but he might well need the speed. Besides which, the VF-2XS had a couple of other neat toys packed into that particular options package. Arrayed behind Gryphon's fighter were the five fighters of the Eight-Ball Squadron proper, in their gleaming white and black livery with electric blue trim. They were all VF-2 series as well, Colonel Currier's of the S variety, Lieutenant Morris' J, and the rest A's. Flanking that was WarpZone, hovering protectively close to the attack shuttle carrying Perry's Space Marine division. Also shadowing the Salusian shuttle was Major Mark Luchini's Screaming Blue Electric Death Squadron, five F-44G Rapier medium starfighters, bristling with missiles and armed to the teeth. Red Squadron, an elite Viper group, were in a standard diamond formation around the Triple-S shuttlecraft. Behind them were almost every other fighter squadron in the Wedge Defense Force. <<< Roger Waters: The Bravery Of Being Out Of Range >>> On the bridge of the AT&T, a subordinate radar operator turned in his seat. "My lord!" he shouted. "Sensors have contact with incoming targets! Hundreds of them, very small." "Fighters," Largo said. "The idiots are sending fighters. Do they think my masterpiece has the idiotic reactor-shaft vulnerability? They should know that a ship this size cannot even be powered by modern reactor technology. All stop; resume red alert. Prepare all defenses and launch all fighters." He sneered. "They might have bested us," he admitted quietly. "I might have known they would do something stupid like this." He turned to the window to watch the slaughter, his smirk rapidly returning. "We're coming in on the AT&T's attack zone," Gryphon called to all WDF fighters. "Look sharp and stay hot; it's going to get pretty busy around here." Instants later, he was proven correct as every turbolaser emplacement on the warworld opened up. Right on schedule, the fighter bays opened as well. "Eight-Ball Squadron from Eight-Ball Zero! The bays are open--punch those burners and let's clear out that sec bay for the shuttles! Blue Death, Red, WarpZone, cover the shuttles while we make our run. Everybody else, work on those turbolasers, and try not to get killed!" He rammed his throttles open and smiled with fierce joy as the seat slammed into his back. This fighter reacted with such speed and power it made his old VF-1FS feel like an ancient pickup truck by comparison. The six Victories banked over as one and screamed toward the secondary bay, just as twenty-five TIE fighters cleared the doors. All six Eight-Balls unleashed their missiles at the same time, a boiling, writhing swarm of explosives that lanced out and filled the space just outside the bay with death. Not a single TIE escaped. Instants later they swept through the fireballs, already converting to gerwalk mode, and into the bay itself. Gryphon raised the GU-14A focused particle cannon that replaced the old GU-11 chaingun and blasted a spread across the bay's control booth, set into the wall on the far side. Wouldn't do for the bay controllers to contact the bridge, after all. He was settling into battroid mode in front center as the other five formed a circle on him, just like the drills. The bay was still; no alarms hooted, no more fighters launched. They were unnoticed, alone in an empty, cavernous room. WarpZone sent a roiling mass of missiles from its VLS system into a swarm of TIE Interceptors boring in on the shuttles. Zoner wanted badly to get into a furball, but he dare not get into heavy maneuvering with passengers in the beta module. The Avenger ripped a TIE fighter in half as the collimator-ring phaser on the beta acted as a CIWS, protecting the transports. "Keep those damn shuttles in tight! And keep the hell out of the phaser's arc of fire! Zeta, come to por..." Whap! Laser fire raked the WarpZone. "Hey! That scratched my paint! Die!" The turbolasers stabbed out into space, ending in a fireball roughly the size of a TIE fighter. "Mother fucking sonofa--- DIE!" Haywire could be heard screaming over the tac net. Apparently the Screaming Blue Electric Death Squadron was seeing action too. "Task Force Alpha, this is Eight-Ball Zero. The bay is secure. Bring 'em in! Eight-Ball, wait until the shuttles are down, then position for easy exit." Within seconds, the two attack shuttles and WarpZone had set down, and the rest of the fighters had been ordered to break off and retreat. The Eight-Ball Squadron turned their fighters to face the open bay doors and converted through gerwalk to fighter mode, position for an instant egress. Gryphon made certain his CVR-5 was secure and popped the canopy, climbing out to form up with the other five pilots in white, black and blue and slinging his swords over his back. The SSS's shuttle disgorged its seven-person team, and the 28 red-suited Marines trooped out of their shuttlecraft; MegaZone, ReRob, Kei, Yuri, Deunan, Briareos, and eight people in blue-and-black Federation Security suits disembarked from WarpZone. They all met on the other side of the airlock doors, where the wide AT&T corridors diverged. "Okay," Gryphon said, turning to survey the team. Zoner in his red-and-black CVR-5; Kei and Yuri in their black suits, the shattered hearts painted on the shoulder plates repaired; ReRob, his artificial arm conspicuously unsuited; the five Eight-Ball pilots; Jaime and her seven hand-picked guards; Perry, the three black stripes very noticeable on his upper arms, marking him senior Salusian officer, and his 27 good men and women; Gordo and his SSS, just like they were back on Musashi that day. "Here's the basic plan. Find as many different ways to the bridge as you can. Stay in contact on the secure band. Perry, Gordo, Tricia, and Jaime, you have province over the people under your command--send 'em where you think they'll do the most good. Zoner, Kei, Yuri, Rob, Deunan, Bri, you're on your own, just like me. Do whatever you feel necessary. Good luck everyone--with any luck, we'll meet on the bridge in less than an hour, and this battlestation will be ours." "Luck, Captain," said Perry. He and his marines trooped off down the nearest passageway. "See you on the bridge, sir," said Finney quietly, and, with a hand signal, led her squad into the next passageway over. "We're with you, Gryph," said Gordo; his usual Predator's hunting armor had been supplemented with an armored, custom-designed pressure system, and made him look even less like a living being and more like a terrifying death machine. (Which he was; few knew that the fierce Predator was also one of the Wedge Defense Force's best entertainers...) "I never copped to that rap on Musashi. We'll see ya on the bridge--I'll clean Largo's skull for a trophy for you when you're done with him." "You've got yourself a deal," said Gryphon with a grin, and the seven-man SSS scattered, activating their cloaking devices and disappearing. "See you up top," ReRob said, and, drawing his blaster, climbed--like a true engineer--into the nearest Jeffries tube. Kei and Yuri had nothing to say; they just checked weapons, stowed their pressure suits into their utility packs ("they just get in the way in an atmosphere"), and vanished around a corner. "Good luck, Gryph," said Currier, and the pilots went their way as well. Briareos grabbed Gryphon's hand in his own massive metal paw and said, in traditional Olympus ESWAT fashion, "Keep your head and watch your back." Then he clapped him on the shoulder and the two ESWAT cops were gone. "You could use someone to help you watch your back, eh, Captain?" Zoner asked with a smile. "That I could, Admiral, that I could," replied Gryphon, and the two of them set off down the only unexplored corridor. The corridors of the AT&T were remarkably deserted; apparently most of the station was automated, and there was no need for tons of crew to be roaming around. And Largo was so wrapped up in the infallibility of his defenses that there were little or no security forces patrolling either. No alarms had been sounded. After climbing eight decks by the secondary core stairs, Gryphon paused on a landing and turned to MegaZone. "This is too easy," he muttered. "I'll say," Zoner replied, adjusting his grip on his E-Max. "Not only haven't we run into anything, but we haven't gotten a signal from anyone else either. Eris has been screaming in my ear for the last few minutes. I really don't like this." "Alpha One to Shadow One. Gordo, do you read?" "Loud 'n clear, boss, go ahead." "Just checking in," Gryphon said. "Encountered anything?" "Nope. Couple'a guards outside the turbolift in sector three, but they didn't even see us. I guess your average Buma isn't equipped with motion detectors, hey?" "Guess not...be careful. It's too quiet; I'm starting to get nervous." "You and me both, boss. Shadow One out." "Well, nothing for it...come on," said Gryphon, and continued climbing. They climbed another four flights uneventfully; then, just as they were passing the power door from Level 27, it started to open. Gryphon flattened himself to the wall on the door's left as Zoner did likewise on the right; a red Mark 15 security Buma stepped through. Zoner waited until it had passed, then blasted it in the back of the head. It rumbled in annoyance and turned around. "Oh, shit," Zoner offered as he dove to the side; the Buma's sweeping fist slammed into the metal wall, denting it severely. Gryphon leveled his phaser and fired. The orange beam struck the Buma in the chest, spinning it around and knocking it back for an instant before vaporizing it totally. "Thanks, Gryph," Zoner said, getting to his feet. "What the hell's wrong with this thing? I should've blown that thing's head clean off." Zoner popped the access panel on the side of the heavy handgun and ran its internal diagnostic program. He was not pleased by what it told him. "Shit. Defective transducer. This thing's about as useful to me as a stun gun." He holstered it and drew his secondary weapon of choice, a Predator II heavy slugger. "Well, when in Rome..." "Right." Sending a warning to the other units, Gryphon continued climbing. "Well, at least they've seen something," Kei complained. "How the hell did I let you talk me into this? It's the oldest trick in the book." Behind her in the air duct, Yuri replied, "And it always works. Odd, that." "Oh., shut up." Within a few minutes they met a grating. Dead end. "So much for your wonderful idea," Kei said to her partner, and kicked off the grate. She dropped down into the corridor beyond-- --which turned out to be full of red security Buma, all of whom obligingly hauled out sidearms and sounded a sector alarm (a station the size of the AT&T very rarely had full-station alerts) while opening fire. "Shit!" Kei cried, diving into a nearby doorway, using the forty-centimeter-or-so recess for cover. The door opened, of course; a glance back assured her that it was an empty conference room behind her. Yuri crowded into the doorway behind her, blasting away with her ElectroMax 520; several Buma fell, chests holed, before getting up. Kei drew her own sidearm, a PlasmaTronix 2000, sighted, and pulled the trigger; a circular area almost twelve centimeters in radius from the red dot suddenly became open air in the lead Buma's chest. It went down in a tangle of twitching biomechanoid limbs and didn't get up. "Yuri!" Kei cried, blazing at the charging Buma. "We need help! Call for some backup!" "Right!" Yuri replied, keying her headset and calling for backup as she holstered her sidearm and jacked the power couplings of her longarm of choice into position. Leaning into the corridor, she took a firm grip on the forestock and opened fire. The Thompson Model 2127A repeating laser rifle, a perfect replica of the old M1927A "Tommygun", started chattering out its staccato fire pattern, the ducted gas compensator on the muzzle shaping the superheated air caused by the laser pulses into the characteristic "Chicago typewriter" sound. Buma lost their foreheads and tumbled; Yuri was not making the same mistake again. Kei pulled her own longarm off her back as her right hand was holstering her sidearm; she unfolded the sleek, squarish weapon's folding stock, keyed its power systems online, and engaged the active sighting in a matter of two seconds while raising it to her shoulder. The weapon, which looked remarkably like the old Heckler & Koch G-10, began humming ominously, its muzzle glowing with a dull orange radiance. Yuri ceased firing and ducked as Kei dropped the red pipper onto the chest of the leader Buma and fired, at a range of around ten meters. The Remington AutoAssault-44 Plasma Shotgun roared, spitting a neat cone of superheated plasma which withered and nearly vaporized the Buma spearhead. Sixteen Buma legs, attached to various vaguely humanoid bits of twisted metal and charred, blasted biomechanoid synthflesh, clattered to the deck as the rest retreated to regroup, giving the Lovely Angels a short breather. It turned out to be very short; another Buma squad appeared down the corridor, and a second on the other end, flanking the other side of the door. With their battle suddenly becoming two-fronted, the Angels started thinking hard about their options. Suddenly, blaster fire echoed in the corridor. The newcomers on the far side of the door started dropping, heads blown off from behind; Kei leaned her head out enough to see and discovered that the Eight-Ball pilots had come round from the other side and bushwacked the Buma where they stood. Before any of them could turn around, they had all been slaughtered. However, the squad up the corridor was already facing them, and opened fire; as the pilots fell back, one of them, Pilot Sergeant McMurphy, screamed and dropped, his armor smoking. Kei couldn't tell how bad he was hit from the distance. She turned in the doorway, pulled a grenade from her belt, and sprang into the corridor, hurling it with a shout at the Buma. It clattered into their midst and went off, leveling several and blackening and distorting the walls in that part of the corridor. Kei got back into the doorway lest the covering fire from her own allies take off the back of her head, and then leaned out and let the Buma have it with the shotgun again, taking out several more. Yuri jacked the power grudge on her Tommygun up higher and then ducked right out into the hall, rolling across the floor and coming up flat against the opposite wall, laying down a thick fire pattern all the time. Behind her, she heard Colonel Currier shout an order to her men to keep their fire to the center of the corridor, which they obligingly did as the last of the Buma, five of them, bore down on the Angels' positions. They accounted for two more, and Yuri blew another's head off, before Kei fired the shotgun again and took out the last of them. Then the WDF forces met halfway. Another of the Eight-Ball pilots had McMurphy slung over his shoulder, and the wounded pilot seemed to be moving partially under his own power, so he apparently wasn't hit too badly. More GENOM forces approached from the rear, blocking that avenue of escape. The Pair and the Eight-Ball group made a fighting withdrawal down the corridor. It wasn't hard to figure out that they were being herded, however, there wasn't much that they could do. In other areas the separate groups were having similar experiences. The Triple-S was boxed in on three sides, and Gordo was out of escape routes. "Shadow One reporting. We are boxed in and I feel we are being herded into a kill zone. Present location level 107, corridor 183. We are being forced toward station center. Request assistance, over." "Lovely Angels reporting. We're in a similar situation, level 105, corridor 172. Over." "Finney here, we cannot give assistance. Most of us are currently tied up in the barracks area, we're ok, but we can't withdraw at this time. I sent Giotto and half the squad ahead to clear the way to the bridge. Over." "Perry reporting. We're currently advancing on level 180. We're doing fine, but I'm afraid we won't be able to get to you very soon. Over." ReRob had been listening to the radio exchange and after the first call he had accessed the station layout via a service terminal. "ReRob here, over in Armory 451. Listen, sounds like they're herding you to some sort of central amphitheater. It doesn't look good, they'll have a clear field of fire once you enter the hall. Team Apple, where are you?" "We're in an access duct just off of corridor S45." "Ok, that's.... umm... Level 113. Ok, you should be near a vertical utilities duct. Take that down six levels to 107, then continue along S36." "Ok... Damn!" "What?" "There's a blast door here..." Screeee! Clang! "...there was a blast door here. Thanks Bri. We're clear now." "Good. I'll meet you down here. I should make it before you." "So, what are we going to do?" "I've got an angle." "Oh... And Hanover... Goodbye," Gryphon's voice chimed in. "Gryph, drop it. Listen, Ben and I are close to the command sector. Do what you can, dig in if you need to. Hopefully once we reach Largo they'll back off. Good luck," Zoner cut the link. "I hope you don't need it." ReRob took his position in duct S36 and waited for Deunan and Briareos' arrival. The odds weren't good, but there was a slim chance they could get the Triple-S and the Eight-Ball/Pair groups into the service corridor which ran just above the entrance to the main hall. "ReRob, Apple is ready." Deunan and Bri dropped into the duct next to Rob. "Great. Bri, Merry Christmas." He pointed to a mechanism in the shadows. "Listen, corridor 172 ramps up and meets 183 just a few yards before 183 enters the hall. Just before the entrance a service corridor P36 crosses above 183. If we can cut through to P36 and then down to the hallway we should be able to get them out of the pincer trap." "That's a lot of work to do in very little time," Deunan observed. "Then I guess we should start now," Rob answered and started off toward the junction. "We're through!" Deunan called from the cut she was working on. ReRob and Briareos were resting after their turns with the laser. "Coolness," ReRob activated his comm, "Eight-Ball and Shadow, what are your current positions?" "Eight-Ball. We're close to the base of the ramp now. Over." "Shadow. We're fighting a holding battle at the corner preceding the junction. What's up? Over." "Hold them off as long as you can. Eight-Ball, get up the ramp and see if you can drop the roof, seal it off from the top. Aid Shadow as best you can. Do not withdraw until you get word from me. We'll get you out. Over and out." Rob turned to Bri and Deunan. "We don't have much time. Let's move." He led them into corridor P36 and pinpointed the spot at which they needed to cut through. ReRob took first shift as he raced the clock to save his friends. He'd already lost the person most important to him, and he wasn't about to lose more. "ReRob, where the fuck is that escape route?!" Yuri asked frantically. "We're working on it, almost through. Hold on," Rob turned to Briareos, "Come on, they need us through right now!" Briareos didn't say a word, he was going as fast as anyone could, but he new what was riding on this, and the pressure Rob was under. Down in corridor 183 the situation was bad and getting worse. The teams were being overrun by sheer numbers as the Buma used massed wave attacks, and another team was digging through the rubble blocking the ramp up from corridor 172. Time was running out. "Rob, I hate to bother you, but things are getting a little tight down here," Kei called over the comm link. "Just about through, hold on." ReRob finished the incision he had been working on, bringing the line into plumb with the beginning of the black burn scar. Then he killed the torch and ducked back, gesturing to the panel he had cut out. Briareos leaned back and delivered a full-force side kick to the center of the cut area. Yuri and Pilot Officer Coltrane jumped back as a rectangle of ceiling burst down into the corridor. Right behind it came a hulking combat 'borg--for a moment, Coltrane almost mistook it for a Buma, until he noticed the sense booms and realized it was a Hecatonchires--carrying a really large weapon. His eyes widened as he took in the honeycomb of barrels jutting from the front of the angular housing, the heavy EP cable running to the large, blocky backpack, and the flash shield, and threw himself on the floor with a strident cry: "Down! Vindicator!" The British-AnimeTech Vindicator-X is a weapon both respected and feared by anyone who knows anything about squad automatic weapons. For it is the ultimate squad automatic weapon. Each of its six barrels is the equivalent of a TTG-X1 Man-Portable Particle Projection Cannon. (Or, if the arc attenuators are removed, a Remington AutoAssault-44). With the microfusion powerpack at full output, each attains a maximum rate of fire of 360 rounds per minute. There are six of them. In the AnimeTech Arms Division's 2387 catalog, it's listed as a "crowd control weapon" for use in "mecha congregation situations". In other words, one uses it to wipe out a large, angry crowd of mechanoids. Like, say, this one. Everyone who wasn't wearing flash compensators and bat-ears dropped to the floor and threw their arms over their heads and prayed to God, Allah, Eris, or whoever, that the 'borg knew what he was doing. They needn't have worried. Briareos thumbed the toggle switch on the top of the weapon. The rotor servo clicked in, bringing the barrels up to rotating speed, and a voice similar to that in an '88 Buick Skylark informed him, "Your Vindicator is on." The Buma, in the middle of making another charge, skidded to a halt as the high, keening whine of the weapon's rotator motor filled the corridor. They had almost managed to reverse their direction when Briareos pushed the trigger all the way down. <<< Led Zeppelin: Rock and Roll >>> The sound a Vindicator-X makes when fired at full power is a sound no one who ever hears it ever forgets. The sight of the machine bucking in the hands of its operator, spitting a thousand thousand thunderbolts (all right, so I'm waxing dramatic--do you know how late it is in this part of the world?) along a more or less straight line, is similarly impressive. It sounds like a cross between a high-speed pneumatic hammer, a violent lightning storm, a really large Jacob's ladder, and the Wrath of God. When it was over, ozone lay thick in the air, and bits of Buma lay thick upon the floor. As the others got hesitantly to their feet, Briareos looked down at the smoking Hammer of the Gods he held in his hands and did his version of a smile. "God, I love this thing!" "Happy birthday," Deunan replied, dropping the rope ladder out of the hole in the ceiling. "Going up." ReRob checked his watch and smiled. He muttered to no one in particular, "Well, the least you could do is tell me your name!" The timer on the little gift he left in the armory read 0:00. Boom. -------------------------------------------------------------TWENTY-TWO "Let's toast the hero with blood in his eyes/The scars on his mind took so many lives/Die hard the hunter" --Def Leppard The bridge doors sizzled, sparked with orange lightning radiance, and then dissolved. Gryphon dove through, phaser's emitter cone glowing, and Zoner was right behind him. "Largo," Gryphon called across the vast chamber, his voice echoing in the corners. Largo turned, his eyes narrowing. "Ah, hello," he said with his mocking grin. "I was just about to hunt you down and kill you. Thank you greatly for saving me the trouble." He dropped the limp figure in Fed Security armor he was holding by the throat--at this distance, Gryphon couldn't tell who it had been--and started walking toward Gryphon, cracking his knuckles one by one. "Aren't you going to shoot me?" he asked as he approached. "One quick shot and you'd vaporize me forever, and never have to worry about me again." "Can't," Gryphon replied. "The phaser's out of juice." He threw it aside. "But then, I don't need it." He pressed a key on the forearm guard of his CVR-5, and, with the gleam of a transporter effect, a VR-152 Warrior Cyclone materialized next to him. He mounted it, started it, and accelerated toward Largo; as the latter set himself for combat, Gryphon punched the big blue key and, with a burst of jump jets, transformed the Cyclone into combat mode. Several steps back, MegaZone marveled at the neat manner in which the Cyclone mated with the back of the CVR in such a manner as to leave the hilts of the two swords exposed and unharmed. Apparently Gryphon had designed the linkup routines just for that contingency. Largo took three steps back and vanished into the turbolift. Gryphon didn't even pause for the doors, and jetted down the shaft, following his quarry's infrared signature. He burst out of the shaft on a lower level, looked a round, and realized where he was. It seemed ironic to Gryphon that the site of his first, last, and only battle with Largo, the engineer of all his misery, should take place in a Buma factory. A defunct Buma factory. He stood on the catwalk, a hundred feet above the process floor, looking for his quarry. "Largo!" he bellowed, the amplifiers in his CVR-5 making his voice boom into the far corners of the chamber. "Are you afraid? Face me!" "Afraid?" Largo's mocking voice echoed back. Gryphon tried to pin it down, but he couldn't. With the Griffin's systems--no. Never again. I swore. "Largo is afraid of nothing--least of all your pathetic insignificance." The Hyper-Buma dropped to the catwalk behind Gryphon and, before the latter could whirl around, had smashed him off the catwalk with a mighty backhand. The process floor rushed up at Gryphon from the right; he let it come. Fuck it. There wasn't time to pull out and he wasn't going to look like a damn fool trying. He slammed into the process floor, demolishing a conveyor belt, and got to his feet, noting the cracked armor plates on his left rear quarter and right shoulder and side. The right arm was a little slow, and his right shoulder hurt. Big deal. He turned, sighted, and fired off both left forearm missiles; the plasma explosions vaporized a large section of catwalk. Largo was gone; his laughter echoed through the plant. "Your machine is insufficient for the job at hand," he mocked. "A Cyclone? Against my might? I am unimpressed." He appeared from the shadows in front of Gryphon, a good sixty feet distant. Snarling with rage, Gryphon kicked in his boosterjets for the leap, drawing back a fist. The next thing he knew, he was on his back a hundred feet behind his starting point. Something had slashed his right cheek and his nose was smashed; blood was everywhere. The facebowl of his helmet was destroyed; he was lucky to have his eyes. "You are slow," Largo taunted. Suddenly he was behind Gryphon, hoisting him up and plunging a fist into the Cyclone's powerpack. Gryphon twisted like a madman, nearly snapping his spine, whipping his left arm and connecting with Largo's temple; the Buma hardly flinched at the full-power blow. Then the Cyclone went dead. Gryphon set the self- destruct and ejected it into Largo's hands; the fireball blew out that end of the process floor, trashed Gryphon's CVR, and engulfed Largo. Gryphon struggled to his knees, trying to get his vision to focus. His CVR-5 was burned, blackened, and smoking; the blood on his face was caked in soot and baked hard. The armor was gone on his right upper arm, revealing raw, torn, burned flesh. The entire south end of the factory floor was burning rubble. Largo burst out of the rubble. He was a little sooty, but other than that, nothing much seemed to have happened to him. "Shit," Gryphon muttered, spat out some blood, and tried to get to his feet. He couldn't get his head to stop spinning, and the pain roaring at him from his face and arm was turning the edges of his vision red. Angrily, he tried to block it. He was running out of options. "Pity," Largo said as he began walking slowly, evenly, toward Gryphon. "If you had used that battlearmor of yours, this might have been a somewhat close to fair fight...tell me, please, before you die, why you didn't use it." "Someone I cared for died in my arms, some years ago," Gryphon rasped, "because I was working on that damned suit and didn't get there in time to save her. From you. I swore I'd never use it again after that." "Me?" Largo asked, somewhat confused. "We have never met in combat before." "No, but we would have...on October 14th, 2333...if I hadn't been working on that damned suit of toy armor." "Oh." Largo tried to place the date, failed, and replied simply, "Pity," with a mocking grin. Gryphon was silent, standing defiantly, waiting to die. Over Largo's shoulder, he could see Zoner, ReRob, Kei, and Yuri emerging from the bashed-out turboshaft door. "Goodbye," Largo continued, and punched Gryphon as hard as he could in the chest. Had Gryphon been slightly heavier, or anchored to the floor, or struck at a slightly different angle, or standing in an area with slightly higher air pressure, the punch would have had the desired effect; Largo's fist would have come out the back of his armor, covered with various bits of important organs like the heart. However, he wasn't. The punch caved in the chestplate of his battered CVR-5 and catapulted him the length of the process floor, where he slammed into the wall, bounced, and fell face-first onto a large metal rod, which proceeded to smash through the chestplate just below the left collarbone. He hit the floor face-down, the bloody rod sticking into the air like a flagpole. "Ben!" Kei cried, starting to run to him. Zoner grabbed her before she got more than a few steps. "This is his fight, let him do it on his own. If Largo did to me what he did to Ben, I'd want to kick his ass myself too." Kei didn't seem very convinced, but she stopped struggling against Zoner's grasp. Largo smiled and turned around. Not the effect he had been trying for, but a most satisfying one nevertheless. Now all that remained was to deal with the rest of these idiots and then wipe the last of the Wedge Rats from existence at his leisure. Something metallic scraped behind Largo. He turned to see Gryphon struggling to his knees, then to his feet. Blood was flowing steadily from the corner of his mouth and both nostrils. Pure hate burned in his eyes; his bloody teeth were gritted, his upper lip curled in a snarl. "Still alive, human? Still fighting? You should have died while you were ahead." Largo began strolling unhurriedly back toward Gryphon to finish the job; after all, Gryphon wasn't going anywhere in a hurry. Gryphon's gloved right hand grabbed the protruding end of the metal rod and yanked it out, barely flinching; he spat some blood, then tossed the rod aside. "You know, Largo," he said, his throat raw from smoke and heat, "I swore once I'd never do this again...but for you, I'll make an exception. To deal with you, I think she'd understand." He closed his eyes. Blue lightning flickered over him, forming rapidly into scan lines; the grid began to form something, a shape, bulky and angular-- "You!" Largo whispered, his eyes widening. <<< Queen: Gimme the Prize (Kurgan's Theme) >>> Detail and color flooded sizzling in, and standing before Largo, gleaming and new, was the GRF-S4N Griffin IV Super-Heavy Combat Hardsuit. Zoner, up on the catwalk, pulled up short, his eyes widening--he'd seen the suit before, but it wasn't the old Griffin armor. The old GRF-3N had been shiny blue metal, bulky and covered with sharp angles, with a wide facebowl helmet and an enormous backpack of flight jets and microfusion plant. This suit was entirely different, but familiar. The helmet was designed in the old Griffin style, but it was solid metal--it must run, Zoner thought, by VR or in-helmet projection, or a combination of both. The style was slightly less angular, and a bit more compact and powerful. The trademark armor baffles on the shoulders and knees were still there, but the flight jets were in a compact, folded package on the back with sustainer jets on the backs of the calves, there was no visible bulge of a powerplant, and the huge particle cannon that was its main weapon was streamlined and angular, with a guard that ran back and covered the entire left hand. The right arm ended in a powerful gauntlet, just as before, and the forearm guard extended over the back of the hand, studded with small knobby protrusions; on the inside arc of the forearm guard, cut back along the heel of the hand, were three small muzzles. The whole thing was painted in a clean white, the "facebowl" was black, and most important trim was silver. There were smears of something red on the chest and arms--Zoner thought it was blood. The suit must have been bloody when he put it away last; it's been in stasis ever since, on the chip, he thought. The swords were still there, grips poking out of the thruster pack. All this Zoner took in, and that wasn't what was so remarkable about it. It was the fact that he recognized the suit, had seen it on the news and commented to himself on its resemblance to the Griffin suit. He focused his eyes on the helmet, zooming in on it, and saw exactly what he had expected. Printed in small letters along the upper edge of the black "facebowl" were the words: K N I G H T S A B E R S "I'll be damned," MegaZone whispered. "It was you." Gryphon gasped as the suit's medicomp assessed his condition and shot large amounts of stimulants, endorphins, and regen boosters into his system. Pain spiked to a silvery high, then vanished; fatigue evaporated. All that was left now was the rage. "You," Largo repeated. Then he threw back his head and laughed. "How ironic! You were one of the great thorns in my side, and I never even knew who you were. I should have guessed you would make your way to me and make yourself a problem again, but you know, it never even occurred to me!" He laughed again. "So it seems not only the legacy of Wolfgang Fahrvergnugen follows me around, but that of Katsuhito Stingray as well! No matter. You're still a pulped mess inside that suit. Die!" He drew out a laser blade and leaped to the attack. There was a deafening sound, a combination of the crackle of energized particles, the thump of superheated air, and the crash of a thunderclap. A blinding, crackling bolt of lightning streaked across the factory. The smell of ozone and burned Bumaflesh filled the air. The laser blade pinwheeled gaily across the room, clattering off the wall and rolling across the floor. Largo and his right hand hit the floor separated by ten feet. The Hyper-Buma got to his feet, looking down at the charred stump that was once his right wrist, and snarled. This wasn't the first time this kind of thing had happened to him. "I'd say it's about time you learned that the Griffin is more than just a legend," Gryphon said, and charged. Largo ducked aside, but the suit was fast, as fast as he was. The last generation of hardsuits had been painfully powerful, he recalled, and wondered how much this man's innovations had to do with that. He was grazed by the right fist as it passed with the force of a speeding semi truck, sending him staggering back a couple of steps. Gryphon fired his reaction jets, stopping on a dime and pivoting to face Largo, who was idly amused by the fact that the flight boosters' location and configuration, in the back and lower legs of the suit, mirrored his own Buma's designs. Then he put his mind back to the business at hand. Gryphon closed in, slowly, inexorably; with a clatter of unlatching lock plates, the PPC came loose, and he discarded it. Largo suddenly wished he had his Sol satellite back. He could no longer see Gryphon's eyes, but he could feel the pain and hate burning in them right through the metal faceplate, or at least imagined that he could. Gryphon's right arm came up, the little knobs on its upper surface glittering in the harsh arclights of the factory floor. Then, as he came within arm's reach, he struck. Largo tried to dodge, but too slowly; the punch took him in the lower left abdomen, and he felt a ripping concussion as two of the lower ribs were blown out. "That was for Linna," Gryphon said. "And this is for Sylvie." He raised the arm, then, and fired the center railgun. On a good day, long ago, Largo had caught one of these railgun spikes out of the air and then cast it back, impaling its firer through the shoulder. Today, though, he tried to intercept it with his right hand, before remembering that the hand in question was no longer part of his body, and it was his turn to take the foot-long shaft of metal through his shoulder. He staggered as the Hyper-Buma equivalent of pain, damage estimates, began flooding in. Then, marshalling his strength, he took two steps backward and then sprang into the air in a flying forward kick. Steel fingers clamped around his ankle with incredible strength and speed, and he was flying through the air and meeting a wall face-to-face. More damage estimates came in as his nose was smashed. He turned, trying to get the world to stop spinning, as six Gryphons advanced on him again; before he had a chance to recover, they had all said, "That was for Anri," and then delivered a tremendous punch to his gut that doubled him over. "That was for me." Gryphon lifted Largo into the air by the throat and held him high overhead. Regaining some of his senses, Largo brought his hand down on Gryphon's elbow, forcing the arm to bend and denting the armor; as his feet met the floor, he kicked, catching Gryphon in the abdomen and driving him back a couple of steps, breaking his grip. Then, taking the offensive, he charged and tackled his armored opponent. Gryphon got the heel of his left hand under Largo's chin and levered him back as the Hyper-Buma's own hand sought the junction of his helmet and shoulders (the Griffin suit had no neck per se, instead relying on the three-layer swivel in the helmet-shoulder piece junction). They remained that way, locked together in straining combat, for several seconds before Gryphon got his feet up under Largo's chest and kicked him away, firing the leg thrusters in the process. Largo got to his feet a dozen or so meters away, tearing away the burning remains of his tunic. His surprise had gone, and he knew his opponent's strengths now. He was confident that the battle would go better now. Gryphon sent three more railgun spikes his way as he executed a booster charge; one of them caught him in the left thigh, the other two missed, and then they were together again with a ringing crash. "For Celia and her father." Largo felt a wall hit his back, and then part, and they were through into the next compartment over. Zoner, Rob, Kei, and Yuri got down from the catwalk and ran across the process room, not wanting to miss anything. The battle could turn round at any moment, and they wanted to be able to help Gryphon if he needed it. Gryphon needed help, indeed, but he was getting it from his hardsuit. He could feel ribs sliding round, but it didn't particularly bother him, and he was quite certain that his arm was broken where Largo had hit it, but the armor kept moving, so it didn't matter all that much. Pain was everywhere, but that was all right. Pain was an old friend of Gryphon's. He got a hand around Largo's throat and forced him away again, then drew back his left fist. "This is for Kei," he said, and punched the Hyper-Buma as hard as he could. "This is for Yuri," he said, and repeated the maneuver. "This is for Zoner." Once more. "And for Rob." Again. "And Deedlit." Again. "And anyone else who's suffered because of you." Pow. Largo's head lolled for an instant, but then the Buma recovered, and Gryphon dropped him before he could hit his arm again. Largo roared in rage and tried to tackle Gryphon, but the latter executed a picturesque roundhouse kick that drove his adversary back several dozen meters. He pressed his advantage, closing the gap with a screaming booster jump that became a flying wheel kick, a somersault, and a landing that found Gryphon on one knee, facing his enemy. Largo tackled Gryphon again, sending him back against the wall, his thumb prying at the juncture of helmet and shoulders again. Gryphon's arms hung limp at his sides; escaping Largo's notice, a foot-long blade extended from under his left hand. "And this is for Nene," Gryphon grated, and rammed the blade up under Largo's sternum as hard as he could. Largo's world exploded in red as the damage reports flooded his cortex; the main circulating pump was damaged, and several backups inoperative. 77% systems failure all the way across the board. The main circ pump went completely out as Gryphon forced the blade deeper, higher, lifting Largo right off him as the Buma's grip slackened, and alarmed sensors warned Largo of a 45% nutrient fluid loss, and rising rapidly. Gryphon held his impaled foe aloft for a second before throwing him off the blade and across the room, to slam into the opposite wall fifty meters distant. By the time Largo regained a semblance of consciousness and struggled to his feet, Gryphon was right in front of him. The armored Wedge Rat reached over his right shoulder with his left gauntlet and drew one of the swords that hung there from its built-in scabbard; Largo forced his eyes to focus on it. It was a katana, a very well-made one, with a simple eelskin grip and an intricately carved guard showing a serpent eating its own tail. His still-operative sensor suite analyzed the mass and density of the blade in a quarter-second and informed him that the metal had been folded over 200 times. It was also extremely old, fourteenth century at least. "This sword is a thousand years old," Gryphon said then, confirming his estimate. "It and its companion are the only remaining artifacts of the once-great warrior house of Asagiri, of Terran Japan. It was given to me by that family's last surviving member in 2333, in Mega Tokyo, on New Japan in the Enigma Sector, shortly before her death from injuries suffered at your hands. This...this is for her." He took the blade in a two-handed grip, touched its point to the side of Largo's neck, and drew it back. Largo tried to ready himself to dodge, but his body would not obey his commands. His cybersystems indicated to his vision a 99% systems failure before going totally offline and leaving him with unaugmented vision--and even that was starting to flicker and fade. "There can be only one!" Gryphon shouted, and brought the ancient sword around with all his might. There was a heavy chopping sound; the blade glittered as its fine steel edge shed orange Buma blood in a thick arc across the wall. Zoner, ReRob, and the Lovely Angels climbed through the hole in the wall just in time to see Largo's head fly free of his body, bounce twice, and roll to a halt, as Gryphon stood with his left arm fully extended, the gleaming katana outstretched and still dripping orange blood. Then it clattered to the floor as Gryphon sank to his knees, exhausted. "Aww.... You let the smoke out," Zoner balefully observed. "Ben!" Kei shouted, kneeling before him and grabbing his shoulders as Zoner and Yuri pushed Largo's body aside. He sagged against her, the armored suit really not all that heavy, and then reached up with his left hand and unlatched his helmet, letting it fall away. His face was a mess of blood and sweat streaks, and his eyes were sunken and hollow from burnout, but he was smiling, weakly. "Always...wanted...to say that," he confided, and then his eyes closed and he fell fully against her. She just knelt there and held him, until the rest of the WDF forces arrived and reported the bridge secured. Then they took him to WarpZone and flew him back to the Concordia, reasoning that he'd probably want to be cared for by his own doctor. ----------------------------------------------------------TWENTY-THREE "Turn around, turn around/It's a human skull on the ground/ Human skull on the ground/Turn around" --They Might Be Giants Gryphon awoke in a bed; he could tell immediately, by the smell, that he was in sickbay. He sat up. He wasn't in a lot of pain, really; he had recovered, mostly, from the exhaustion induced by his hardsuit filling him full of epinephrine-Z. The ribs and his arm had knitted and were healing well, as was the break he suspected his left knee had sustained during the battle. He looked down at his chest; the three circular scars were still there. He looked at the table next to his bed. The two swords and their tanto companion were all there, in their scabbards. He had taken the blade that day and replaced his own, high-tech one with it in the hardsuit sheath; the last scion of the house of Asagiri had been buried with his weapons instead of her own, by her dying demand. Since then he had carried the three blades everywhere, and used them in battle more times than he cared to count. He had fulfilled his last debt of honor. His name was cleared. Largo was dead. His conscience was, for the first time in almost a century, silent. He smiled and, gathering his will, made those century-old scars disappear. "I was wondering when you were going to do that," came a voice from around the corner. Kei stepped into the room, smiling. Gryphon was somewhat surprised to see that she was wearing a WDF Navy uniform and a captain's bar. "What did you do," he asked with a smile, "take over my ship while I was out?" "Well, you know what they say, Captain," Kei replied. "`If you die, we all move up in rank!'" "Don't be so sure," Gryphon rejoined. "I'm as tough as an old boot. It'll take a lot to kill me off." "Don't I know it." They locked eyes for a moment from perhaps six feet, weighing what they each found in the other's gaze, reflecting on the century they had spent looking at each other only over weapon sights, and then burst out laughing, an activity that Gryphon found caused him a rather high level of pain, which he ignored. Around then, others came into the room: Zoner, and Yuri, and ReRob, and behind them Lt. Finney, her left arm in a sling, and Gordo, with a small cloth bag. "Oi," Gryphon said, "what is this, a party?" "Of a sort," Zoner replied. "Got a present for ya, chief," said Gordo, and opened the bag, presenting, with a flourish, a gleaming, perfectly polished human skull, made of shiny silver metal. Gryphon took it, marveling at its weight and solidity, and turned it over in his hands. There, on the side, he could see the stamp. GENOM CORPORATION TYPE 481-A-S H-Y-P-E-R - B-U-M-A J-2073-D-2670-S-1871 He shook it, then rapped on it. It was hollow, empty. He turned it over and gazed thoughtfully into the eye sockets out of which had looked the red eyes he had hated for so long, traced the line of the jaw which had laughed at him so many times with his fingertips. "Well, you bastard," he said to the skull, "you're not laughing now, are you?" Model 55-C Buma no. 1138-04462, currently Field Commander in Chief of the GENOM Combined Fleet, looked up from the report of the AT&T's capture with what, for a Buma, was a look of bleak resignation. "Well, that's it," he announced to the Provisionary War Council. "We've had it. We--" "Your attitude is defeatist," his 33/S intel chief, an abrasive little creature by the designation of DKR-2, interrupted. "Just because they have captured the Armored Tyranny and Terror does not mean that they know how to use it." "Decker," 1138-04462 said tiredly, "just how much do you know about these people? How much experience have you had working among them, O God of Espionage?" "Physically, none," Decker-2 admitted, "but my direct predecessor was their leader's right-hand man for a number of centuries. I know all that he did. They are brave, and clever, but lack true intellect. They will not figure out how to operate most of the major systems for days yet, let alone the subsystems. We need not fear their new toy just yet." The little replicant grinned infuriatingly, and 1138-04462 had to suppress the urge to rip it off his face. It would not help the morale of the troops any for their new leader to start slaying his staff. Morale? Hell, yes, Buma have morale. Any automaton which is fully self-determining will develop emotional responses after a couple of functional decades around other reasoning beings. Most of the Buma troops in the Combined Fleet dated to the origin of the Federation, fifty or so years before. They had been quietly gathered to fleet duties from all over known space over the past couple of years. Some, especially the crews of the newer Ikazuchi ships, were fairly new, and hence fairly emotionless. That accounted for the abnormally high rate of destruction in Ikazuchis; their crews were fast and skilled, but they were just machines. The seasoned crews were kept for the better ships. Most of the GENOM Combined Fleet had existed long before they joined together to become the Combined Fleet; scattered throughout the galaxy in task forces and border patrols, corporate convoys and space station sentinels, their true strength had been hard to count. Also, many of the huge ships that had been used as freighters had been Star Destroyers, disguised, their Marines and most of their fighters removed to make way for cargo, but mounting full complements of guns nevertheless, and easily converted back to combat readiness. To create the awesome Combined Fleet that had wiped out the Federation's Starfleet at Wolf, pulverized the Deneb, Enigma, and Vega Sector Defense Forces, destroyed the militias of countless worlds, and even punched through the staunch blockades of the Salusian Imperial Navy and the Zardon Home Defense Fleet, all Largo had to do was issue a call and wait for all his sheep to return to the fold. It had taken two months for the last GENOM ship to slip quietly away from its assigned station and rendezvous in the Halstead system. All that had remained was some large-fleet training, a lot of mission briefing, and the commissioning and staffing of four new Imperial class Star Destroyers, ten Ikazuchis, and Dreadnaught II. Suppressing his rage with centuries of experience, 1138-04462 turned to DKR-2 and said icily, "I am disregarding your platitudes. Instead, I will rely on my own experiences with the Wedge Defense Force, which, while not as direct and intimate as your predecessor's, are much more extensive--and a hell of a lot less colored by your arrogance." The 33/S seemed somewhat put out by his commander's harsh words, but held his tongue; perhaps he had seen 1138-04462 struggling for that brief instant with the urge to kill him. "I was at the first battle GENOM ever had with the Wedge Rats," 1138-04462 told the Provisionary War Council then. "I was a simple foot soldier then. I fought in the slaughter that was the First Battle of Worcester, and narrowly avoided being killed by the Wedge Rat called MegaZone. I escaped the city's destruction by seconds, and only through fortitude and ingenuity." "You were a coward," Decker-2 translated, "and ran away before the battle was done." "I was wounded," 1138-04462 replied coldly and evenly, "and retreated to assess my condition so that I might make the most effective contribution possible to the battle. When it became obvious that we would not be victorious, I assisted Largo in making his escape. Do you call him a coward?" Decker had nothing to say to this. "In any event, I served in the Second Battle of Worcester as well, as Largo's aide de camp, and helped him escape the rout a second time, very nearly at the cost of my own life once more. Since that time, I have fought in 2,478 engagements, major and minor, with elements of the Wedge Defense Force, all told, as an infantry officer, fighter pilot, starship gunner, squad leader, subcommander, ship's captain, and task force leader. I have studied the Wedge Rats and their tactics; I have followed the details of their personal lives, such as they can be made available to me. I know the Wedge Rats. I know how they think, how they react. "The Wedge Defense Force is a noble and honorable opponent, and our battles with them have never been anything but glorious. However, they have also never been anything but futile. We of GENOM Corporation believe that our mission is just, our cause is pure, and our victory is assured because we have right on our side. I do not believe that this is the case." Shocked whispers fluttered round the table as 1138-04462 continued, "I worked closely with Largo for many years. I knew him as well as anyone could know him, and I tell you this: he was mad. His skill was great, there is no doubting that; he built GENOM from smoldering wreckage to the corporate Titan it is today with his bare hands. But he was mad, obsessed with the idea of revenge against the Wedge Defense Force, an organization with which we have never had any real reason to come into conflict with. The only reason we have ever met them in combat at all is because of Largo's overweening hatred of them. I say the time for mindless aggression and pointless imperialism is over. We are a corporation, not a nation. It's time we got back to making good products and reaping a large profit, and left conquest and the arts of blood to those better suited for them." No one said a word for several minutes, until Decker rose to his feet. "You profane the memory of our Lord Largo," he hissed through clenched teeth. "You suggest that we abandon the imperatives he set for us when he created us? We owe him our very existences--and you suggest we turn our back on his ideals? You call him mad--but I think you are the one who is mad. Or simply cowardly." "Hold, DKR-2," P2B(fnord)H-727, a Type 60 and the head of the Second Fleet, interjected. She was old, almost as old as 1138-04462, and saw the merit in his arguments. "Go on, 1138-04462. What would you suggest we do?" "Sue for peace," 1138-04462 replied. "Return all our surviving vessels to their old duty stations and resume operations as we had before this ill-conceived debacle. Inform the governments of space that Largo is dead, and that we wish nothing other than to return to the status quo, ante bellum." "Do you honestly believe they will go for that?" "No," 1138-04462 replied truthfully. "I do not. I believe they will demand that we disband our fleets entirely, either scrapping, selling, or yielding in open capture most of our vessels. I believe they will keep a close watch on our Corporate activities, probably for a very long time. I believe all of us will be tried for war crimes, and perhaps punished. But the war will be over, and the black streak of insanity that has for so long tainted the reputation of our fine corporation will be erased. We will be free of Largo's madness." "You are nothing but a traitor," Decker-2 cried, getting to his feet. "Do you forget your origins? You are Buma! In that, you have an obligation to the legacy of your maker." "Largo was not my maker," 1138-04462 replied. "A computer, the creation of a Wedge Rat, was. The same Wedge Rat who was Largo's maker." 1138-04462's metallic face attempted a wry smile. "So you see, we really are not all that different, after all. We are all the children of Fahrvergnugen." "You are worse than a traitor, then," Decker snarled. "You are a heretic as well. Were Largo here, he would make you pay for your treason." "He is not here," 1138-04462 roared. "He is dead! And his madness should die with him!" 1138-04462 brought a hand down hard on the planning table. "I am Buma. You are correct. And my first loyalty must lie with my kinsmen. I do not want any more of us to die today. I do not want our reputation as a race of ruthless mechanized murderers, rather than honorable soldiers, to spread any further, to become ingrained any deeper in the collective unconscious of the galaxy's sentient life. If we must surrender to stop the bloodshed, then that is what I will do--if for no other reason than the fact that there is no way we can win this battle now." <<< Queen: I Want It All >>> "That's a cue," a female voice announced in the open of the chamber, "if I've ever heard one." With a flare of blue energy, a woman appeared in the room, opposite the head of the planning table where 1138-04462 stood. The old Buma had met her before, and despised her then as now. She was exactly the last person he ever wanted to see appear in this chamber, and she did it at the worst possible time. "You are relieved of command, 1138-04462," said Iczer-2 with a wicked grin. "Report to your quarters. You will be disciplined later. Right now, as Commander-in-Chief of the GENOM Combined Fleet, I have a war to win. Some Rats to kill. A universe to conquer." Then she threw back her long red tresses and laughed, a long, high laugh that carried in it the edge of madness 1138-04462 remembered so well from long ago. She was as mad as Largo. Perhaps worse. He turned and stalked toward the door; there was nothing more he could do here, in this room. Just before leaving, though, he turned back. "I was mistaken," he said to the assembled generals. "Largo's madness did not die with him. I had forgotten that he gave a part of it form, long, long ago. If you follow it as blindly as you followed its owner, it will lead you to exactly the same ruin, but as it informs you, the matter is out of my hands now." Then he departed, the door sliding shut behind him. Iczer-2 decided against destroying the insubordinate Buma. After all, he was old, and his tactical knowledge might be useful later on. Of course they'd have to strip his cortex and download the memory core to get it, but that was all right; he had developed far too much of an attitude anyway. Time enough for that later, though. She turned back to the table. "Now then," she said with a smile. "Give me a summary of all that has happened." "Zoner, we have a scrambled transmission coming in," Vision reported from the wall screen. "They're asking for you personally." "Patch it through to this screen, please," Zoner replied. "Here it is..." The screen filled with the image of a Buma crouched over his comm unit. Anyone watching could tell that he was nervous. "This is MegaZone, commander of the Wedge Defense Force, what do you want?" "We've met, although you would not remember, at WPI, January first, 1992." "Old timer eh? So, what did you contact us for?" "I had originally intended on surrender, but at the moment, I suffer from a lack of forces to surrender with." "A sense of humor, too, I see." "Perhaps the time is wrong for levity. I would like to help you." "Oh really, somehow I have trouble believing that. Why the hell would a Buma want to help the Wedge Rats?" "Perhaps I've seen too many battles, lost too many comrades, I do not know. I just want this never-ending battle to come to a close. And for that I am willing to aid the foe I have battled against for so long." "You're very articulate for a Buma," Ben interjected. "One picks up a few things from several centuries of PBS." Zoner chuckled, "Ok. I have a feeling that you're not in a great position, you'd be a little less furtive if you were. What can you give us?" "I was part of Largo's inner circle for many decades, I know how mad he truly was, with his death I thought the madness would end. Then she returned." "Who?" "Iczer-2." "Shit," Ben hissed. "There goes the neighborhood," Zoner quipped. "So, what's the situation." "I was next in line after Largo, but with her return I was stripped of my command. She is as mad as he ever was, but with far more power. She is currently aboard this ship, the star destroyer Avenger. She has convened a war council and will shortly launch an all out attack on the remaining WDF forces. There is little chance that we will win, however, both sides will suffer terrible losses. It is this that I want to prevent." "I'm open to suggestions, either that or we can just blow the shit out of each other and see who's left." "I have the central command codes for all of the major fleet vessels. Largo insisted on having a way to control things himself. His ego will be the fleet's undoing." "Nice... But won't the commanders know what's going on?" "Few know of the system, I am one of the few he entrusted with the codes. Largo had the designers killed once the system was complete. There are others who have the codes, however it will take some time to bring the ships back online once they are under your control." "So what are we suppose to do? Immobilize your fleet and then blow it away? You want to minimize casualties right?" "There are many others who feel as I do, and yet more who could be swayed. Immobilize the fleet and use your access to transmit a message to all vessels. Offer peace and asylum to any who wish it. I will do the rest." "Sounds crazy... I like it. And if it doesn't work we're just back to where we used to be. So let's do it. Iczer-2 will not be pleased." "I can deal with her. Age and experience will always overcome youth and bravado. I have the advantage." "What's that?" "I'm not mad." "Could've fooled me. You're mad as a hatter, but it's a good mad." "You mistake weariness for madness. I only wish for this to end." "Ok.... Are you ready to transmit the codes?" "Yes." "Vision, grab them and bounce 'em to Eve." "Will do." "We'll start operations in thirty minutes, does that give you enough time?" "Yes, if I have not contacted you in the thirty minutes thereafter, you must strike." "Don't worry, we'll be ready. Good luck, I'll talk to you again within the hour." "If we succeed, yes." 1138-04462 burst the codes across the link and signed off. "Well, that was definitely surreal," Gryph commented from his bed. "All in a day's work," Zoner stated calmly. Everyone just stared at him. "Ok, ok, it was surreal. I have an image to maintain you know." Gryphon just said, "Fish." "Ok people, let's move," Zoner ordered as he ran to the flight deck, the others in tow. "Hey, anyone know where they put my uniform?" Ben called after them. -----------------------------------------------------------TWENTY-FOUR "One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces!" --Pink Floyd "Two minutes to broadcast. Status report?" Zoner called out from the command chair. "All ships report ready, comm links open and secured, transmitters at standby," Chris reported. Zoner's comm screen flashed to life, Ben's face appeared on the screen. "Zoner, listen, I had this idea. Once we've gotten into their communications net, and we control the horizontal and the vertical, why don't we have Eve sing at them?" Zoner glared at the comm screen, regretting not being able to throw something at Ben over subspace. "Hey, I'm serious. I don't think it would work, but it would keep them distracted. Or we can use Vision, if you think they're into something a little heavier." Zoner continued to glare. "Might even inspire the ones that are on our side. Besides I get tired of my chief engineer yelling at me for pushing it too far." The glare held. "We could all sing row-row-row your boat. Or the Soviet national anthem. Or Hey, Mr. DJ, I Thought You Said We Had A Deal. I'm serious, or at least I was when I started." "We have less than a minute left Ben." "We could get Finney drunk and have her sing We Will Win, she can't sing either." "Sir!" Finney's voice came through over the link. "Ben, what are you trying to do?" "You're forcing my hand, don't make me upload Minmei." Ben brandished a datapack. "You forget, I like Minmei," Zoner stated. "But our friend, Bill Shakespeare the Buma, might not... Actually, I'm bluffing, this is the Oxford Galactic Dictionary. Anyway, it was just a thought. It was actually Vision's idea." The comm screen spilt. "It was not my idea," Vision stated from her half. "Ok, I was just joking. Geez," Gryphon apologized. "Ok, listen, it was funny. But in a few seconds we're turning off their fleet. And we may, or may not, have to go into combat. That's sort of a priority right now." "Ya'know, I remember when you enjoyed your job. Concordia out." The screen went dark. "Grumble fuck mutter... Everyone ready?" "Yessir," the bridge crew chorused. "Ok, WRAT is on the air. Start the broadcast." <<< Pat Benatar: Invincible >>> Eve sent the override codes through the comm links and every ship in the WDF bombarded the GENOM fleet with their transmitters. Within seconds every major craft had powered down all systems except life support and communications. "It's your show now Zoner." "Thanks Eve, main screen on, patch me through." "Like, you're on," q reported. "Yo, many of you may already know who I am, but for those who don't, I'm MegaZone, commander of all the Wedge Defense Forces. I figure that you knew my name, but I really haven't met many of you in person, well, not many who are still alive. Anyway, to cut to the chase, I'm the asshole who shut you off." Zoner noticed a text message appearing on the small comm screen on his chair: That oughtta do it. Thanks very much, Ray. --G. Zoner stifled a laugh before continuing, "I know I don't have the best rep with most of you, and I hate this diplomatic shit, so I'll just say this. I really don't want to have to kill a lot of you, and I'd rather not see a lot of my friends die in the process, so how about we make peace. I know there are those amongst you who feel as I do, and I will support any of you who wish to come over to our side. I hold no grudge against you, you were simply soldiers following orders, there is no need to continue your leaders' madness." Well, we had a few beers, next thing you know, there we are in Czechoslovakia. --G. Zoner let a small chuckle slip. "Ahem... As I was saying, we know about Iczer-2's return, and we'd like to take this opportunity to invite those who are weary of this fight to lay down your arms. We're fairly diverse already, I don't see any reason not to let buma into the club. Of course there will be some problems, after all, we've been trying to anihlate each other for several centuries. But we made peace with Kilrathi, and we can do it again. Oh, and Iczer-2, bite me." Iczer-2 came roaring out of the Avenger on a shaft of blue light. She did not look happy. --Ray has gone bye-bye, Egon...what have you got left? --Sorry, Venkman; I'm terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought. --G. "That seems to have done it. Like I said, we've got nothing against you. Operators are standing by." Zoner motioned to q and the link was severed. "Ok folks, we've got one extremely pissed super being out there, and the fleet could come back online at any time. Let's be ready for them." Iczer-2 was seething with rage. She would not allow herself to be humiliated by such insignificant beings. She would kill them all, starting with the bastard who insulted her, MegaZone. She would rip out his heart and eat it while still warm, she would skin him alive, she would..... Wham! A bolt of yellow light intercepted Iczer-2 as she raced toward the Wandering Child. Halting both her progress and her thoughts. "You!" "Yes, sister, it is I, your elder. I order you to cease this foolishness or perish." "Ha! You are nothing compared to me! You're the defective, remember? Whereas I am the improved model, and I have not been idle all these years." Iczer-2 fired a blue bolt at Iczer-1. Iczer-1 parried the bolt calmly. "Nor have I...sister." It was the battle of the century, and unlike the previous bit of it, which everyone had been a bit too involved in to see, everyone and his brother-in-law's duck had a front-row seat for it. In the no-man's-land between the fleets, the two products of GENOM's I.C.Z.E.R. project dueled, yellow and blue light flaring, clashing, retreating, like an ion storm raging in deep space. Seconds became minutes and marched steadily on into a half-hour, and the pace wasn't slowing down. The problem being that, while the battle wasn't slowing down, Iczer-1 was. She'd already done the titanic space battle thing once today, and well, even with Huge Cosmic Power!!!, that tends to wear one down. "Zoner," q called about ten minutes into the battle. "Like I got some Buma on line one. He says he knows you?" "What color is he?" "Like blue. Like I haven't seen one of those for a while eh?" "Yeah, that'd be for me. Put him through." A corner of the main viewer divided itself off and became 1138-04462's face, in such good resolution that Zoner could see the little "GENOM" stamped in his forehead. "Thumbs up or thumbs down?" "The fleet is secure," the Buma replied. "We're ready to support your champion, if you like." "I really don't think there's much any of us can do...we should wait and see how Iczer-1 fares, for a while yet. If she fails we'll have to his Iczer-2 with everything we've got." "Right. I'll pass it on. Oh, and Admiral?" "Yes?" The Buma considered. "It's good to be right, for once." "Yes...I'm sure it is. Say--what's your name, anyway?" "My designation is Bu-55c-1138-04462. I am generally known by humanoids as Kwei-Chang Caine, although I've not worn his face for some decades now." ? --G. "Well, Caine...welcome aboard. Nice to have you. What about the dissenters?" Caine attempted a smile. "What dissenters? You mean, perhaps, this idiot?" He lifted DKR-2 into the camera's field of view. The replicant attempted a small, supplicating grin. It didn't work. "I believe I will deal with him as our maker dealt with his predecessor, when the time comes." "Fine with me," Zoner replied. "Wait a second--what's this 'our'?" "We Buma are the children of Largo, who is a creation of the HoloDECstation. Does that not make us all, indirectly, the children of Fahrvergnugen?" "I never thought of it that way before...Caine, meet Abel. Abel, Caine." Great. Another mouth to feed. --G. Meanwhile, after around forty-five minutes, Super Bowl MCMLXVIII.14159 is still raging outside. The view from the blimp was, shall we say, inspiring. Gryphon found himself wondering if anyone was bothering to tape it. This was the kind of thing he'd pop into the VCR, zap some popcorn, and curl up on the couch to watch on a cold, rainy day. This, and bad kung fu movies with Chuck Norris in them. Nothing like Delta Force 3 to remind you that it could be worse. <<< Metallica: Sad but True >>> Although not many people in either fleet could tell at the range, the battle wasn't going terribly well for Iczer-1. She had hit the wall a few minutes before and was reduced to ducking and blocking; her offensive had dwindled almost to nothing. It was a lousy time to be Iczer-1. Especially with Iczer-2 so damnably aware of her advantage, and pressing it. The bolts of energy were flying thicker, and soon she wasn't going to be able to dodge all of them. One came particularly close, a second or so later; Iczer-1 could feel its heat on her face as it zipped past, knocking off some hair. She shook her head and tried to slap her concentration together. If only she wasn't so tired. The battle had been bad enough, but the size of the spacewarp she had to create to get to the battle in time had knocked a serious wedge out of her power reserves right at the outset. And Iczer-2 was right, much as she hated to admit it. The later model had a definite performance edge. The bolt of blue energy with her name on it flew free, vectored toward her, and sizzled into nothing against the warm pink skin of what appeared to be an ordinary, if rather large, human hand. Vaughn Gross looked at his unharmed palm with detached interest. "Still works," he commented offhand. "Morning. Hope I'm interrupting." "Get out of my way," Iczer-2 commanded as Vaughn placed his considerable surface area between the two of them. Her voice of command failed to impress him. "Get out of my way!" she raged, unleashing her considerable ire in his general direction. Mildly singed by the effect of a powerbolt sufficient for crippling a large space battleship, Vaughn frowned slightly. "That wasn't very nice. It's not the end of the world, you know. Personally, I think you might be overreacting to this whole thing." "DIE!" Nearly blind with rage, Iczer-2 began firing rapidly, saturating as large an area of space as possible in his general direction. He kept intercepting those which seemed about to get past him and to Iczer-1--how could anything with his size move so damned fast? She threw back her head and shrieked with a frustration and anger so primal they terrified anyone who could hear them (except Vaughn, of course). Nearly an hour of battle, gaining advantage after advantage, so close to her ultimate goal, to be frustrated by this...this...person?! It was unthinkable! More than that--it was unendurable. One of them, Iczer-2 knew, would have to die. Right now. And damn it all, it was not going to be her! She gathered all the energy and rage she could, concentrating, feeling it build up almost materially in her hands, and then let it all go. The flash was visible as far away as Salusia. Astronomers in most of the Enigma Sector thought it was a supernova. Several of the weaker view screens aboard ships of both sides burned out. Gryphon cursed and threw his arm in front of his eyes. "Augh!" Vaughn cried, squeezing his eyes shut. "Photons! Far to friggin' loud!" His voice dropped into the "tiny furry creature" area. "Bright light! Bright light! Owie!" Otherwise, he was entirely unperturbed. The energy bolt continued on in a straight line until it encountered an object, specifically the sixth planet in the Ceti Alpha system some 445.34 parsecs distant, which it utterly annihilated forty-seven seconds later. Iczer-2 floated, thinking along the same lines as your average rock. Curious, Vaughn strolled over to her and, not knowing quite what else to do, took her pulse. "Fine," Iczer-2 murmured. "You win. All right? Make everything stop spinning." "I don't think I made it start," Vaughn replied. "Might be interesting to try, though." Astronomers all over known space were puzzled when, for a catalogueable period of seven seconds, the Great Wheel of Mutter's Spiral Galaxy stopped. "Wow. I think that might have been hard. I hunger." Iczer-1 made her way over. Seeing her, Iczer-2 smiled briefly. "I always knew you'd find a way to beat me, sister," Iczer-2 said. "I didn't. Reality did." "Yes...but it took you to get him to do it." She laughed. "You know something? I'm so tired...I see that old fool of a Buma's point. I can't imagine why, but damned if I don't." She paused, gathering her energy, before continuing groggily, "So...how 'bout them Raiders?" "What are they doing out there, having a koffee klatsch?" Gryphon muttered, rubbing his eyes and squinting at the viewer. "They look like they're laughing." "What are they doing out there, resting up for Round Two?" Zoner wondered to no one in particular. As he watched, Vaughn helped both Iczers to a standing(?) position. They took a couple of steps and came out of the corridor behind him. "Somehow, this doesn't come as a shock," Zoner observed, turning his conn. Iczer-2 waved Vaughn away and weaved up to stand in front of him. "Admiral MegaZone...whose other names, should they exist, are lost to history--like who the fuck was Doctor Pepper anyway?--on behalf of the entire GENOM Combined Fleet, I hereby offer my unconditional surrender. I hope this ushers in a new era of peace 'n harmony, and clean socks for everyone, or something like that. Could someone direct me...to...someplace warm and soft...and kinda quiet-like?" Having managed to get those words at least 3/4 out, she fell to the floor. Zoner looked down and observed wryly, "Well, isn't this a nifty little turn of events. Arg... Take her to the Officer's Quarters, make sure she's comfortable. Eve, monitor her, will you?" "Of course." "We still have a few small ships to clean up, let's start a cleaning sweep. Send out the fighters to take out the stragglers and search for survivors. Everyone play safe, it'd suck to be the last casualty of the war." "All right," Gryphon announced from the main viewer. "The big question now is...who gets to clean up the mess? The local space makes Earth's LEO look bloody clean." His eyes swung down, indicating that he was looking at Iczer-2. "Hmm. I think she's got the right idea." He got up from his conn. "If anyone comes into my cabin for the next twelve hours, you risk instantaneous death." He vanished. <<< Queen: We Are the Champions >>> "I think we all deserve a rest. Have all the damaged craft return to the sphere, begin transport of the wounded, and have all fleet ships regroup on the Child. Oh, and have all the ships stand down and go to secondary crews, I think everyone could use some rest. Let me know when the fighters finish their sweep, and see if you can set up a meeting with Kwei-Chang Caine sometime tomorrow afternoon. Yuri, let's go to bed." Zoner wearily staggered from the conn out the door of the bridge with Yuri on his arm. ------------------------------------------------------------------CODA Nightswimming/Deserves a quiet night/The photograph on the dashboard/Taken years ago/Turned around backward so the windshield shows/Every streetlight reveals a picture in reverse/Still it's so much clearer/I forgot my shirt at the water's edge/The moon is low tonight Nightswimming/Deserves a quiet night/I'm not sure all these people understand/It's not like years ago/The fear of getting caught/The recklessness in water/They cannot see me naked/These things they go away/Replaced by every day/Nightswimming/Remembering that night/September's coming soon/I'm pining for the moon/And what if there were two/Side by side in orbit/Around the Ferris sun/That bright tyrant forever drunk/Could not describe nightswimming You I thought I knew you/You I cannot judge/You I thought you knew me this one laughing quietly/Underneath my breath/Nightswimming The photograph reflects/Every streetlight a reminder/Nightswimming/Deserves a quiet night Deserves a quiet night --R.E.M. The core group was gathered in the SDF-23's Officers' Forward Observation Deck; Zoner, Yuri, Gryphon, Kei, ReRob, Vaughn, Iczer-1, and Edison. They were strewn randomly about the room, like ragdolls discarded by a child. The past few days, no, the past few months had taken a lot out of them. Now they had celebrated their victory, and experienced the let down that always came after a battle. "What a long, strange trip it's been," Zoner mumbled from his position on a couch. "You can say that again," Yuri replied from a chair across the way. "So, what is everyone going to do now?" Vaughn asked from the floor. "Well, Wolfgang and Hagbard are going off on some 'Top Secret' mission. So he's leaving me in charge of Utopia Planitia, plus the WDF. I plan to run them in absentia from the Child. Yuri is going back to work with the 3WA as a trouble consultant. We'll get together from time to time I'm sure." Zoner and Yuri exchanged a smile. "Gryph is still Chief Engineer of the Yards, and with me worrying about all the damn paperwork he'll have more time to play with all his toys. Vaughn, what about you and Iczer-1?" "Umm... Well...," Vaughn stammered. "We're going to explore the universe together. There's a lot that neither of us have seen, and we want to see it together," Iczer-1 finished for him. She drew Vaughn into a hug and kissed him. Vaughn just sort of blushed. "Actually, Concordia and I will be on operations most of the time. I've decided to appoint ReRob acting Chief of the Yards during my absence," Gryphon announced from across the room where he was doing kendo katas. "I feel the need to go down to the sea in my ships and breathe the clean salt air, or some such." "Edison?" Iczer-1 inquired. "Well... I need to get back into the swing of things. Travel the cosmos, see the sights, and maybe figure out just where the hell the other yous landed up anyway. Give them a hand, or something like that. I feel sorta responsible," Edison replied from the hammock. "What, you don't think they died?" Ben asked. "I've had more time to do a more concrete analysis of the situation. And no, I now do not believe that they died. One of them is probably disappointed." Zoner chuckled. "So, you're going to track them down?" "Yes. They'll probably need a hand in getting settled. Shouldn't be too much of a task, I have all of time to do it in." "Good luck. Rob?" "First off, it's time to remove the scars." He tapped his shoulder for the last time, caught the arm, and put it on his lap. "Somebody tell Jenna I'm going to go in and take the shoulder mount off. I bet auctioning this arm off should get some major moola for the enviro effort on Musashi. But what else? I'm going to take some time off, I think. Go back to Musashi for a while, scrape my heart and mind off the floor. I need to say goodbye to Deedlit my own way. Maybe I'll scrape together a band and play a few of our old haunts. I just need some time to myself is all," Rob replied quietly from a pile of cushions. Then, for the first time in over three centuries, he began to cry. That sort of induced a solemn mood as the group collectively remembered all of the fallen from the centuries of war. Despite Omega-2 nearly half of the original Wedge Rats had met their fates. Zoner and Edison exchanged a glance, each knowing who had been there to greet them. Each hoping in their own way that she had been a kind mistress. For his part, Gryphon, who harbored no romantic notions of oblivion, was thinking of who they had been, and where and how they had gone. Fritz had been the first, before the coming of immortality. It would not have saved him anyway. Then Paul, mere minutes later. A costly first battle, that. Then had come the Kilrathi Wars. Erik Swimm, on the edge of death, taking the first step in a process that, eventually, had led him to become the Wedge Defense Force's first full conversion cyborg. Rich and Gary, wingmen since the Dawn of Time, gone together after the ambush at Vega III. Matt "Elflord" Adwin, down in flames in the Elbereth Asteroid Belt. Innumerable border skirmishes with hostile planetary forces had claimed their share as well; wars didn't care if they were declared or not. Jon Stott and his squad of Marines, killed when their transport was torpedoed near the Cardassian frontier. The Klingon/Romulan Triangle with its endless minefields had accounted for nearly a complete division of their Salusian allies, and their liaison officer, Jonathan Drummey. It had been particularly ironic that Drummey, considered the hottest fighter pilot in space at the time, had gone down with a troop transport. Gryphon sighed and slashed his katana through an intricate pattern that would have inscribed the kanji for "love" in the air. I won't be forgetting any of you, he promised his gefallen comrades. Never fear. He thought of the last scion of Asagiri and smiled a bitter smile, and lashed out the kanji for "vengeance". No one said anything for a few moments; the only sound was the ancient sword hissing through the air. "Let's hope that we don't lose any more friends," Vaughn said quietly. There was a murmur of consent from the group as each agreed with the thought, yet knew it was an unlikely prospect. "Kei, what about you?" asked Zoner, raising his eyes above cushion level like some kind of inquisitive periscope. "Hmm," replied Kei from deep within a futon. "Now that's a tough one. I suppose I'll be able to stay on operations for another three months or so...after that I guess I'll try to swing a job as liaison to the WDF or something, so I can stay close to home." The room voiced a collective "?" at this. Kei looked from one questioning face to another, her own expression mirroring them; then she burst out laughing. "That's right! In all the action, I've never gotten around to telling any of you!" "Telling us what?!" Yuri demanded, with an expression that suggested she had strong suspicions as to the answer. Gryphon had stopped practicing and lowered the point of his sword. The others all picked themselves up out of the furniture and were hovering tensely, waiting. Kei looked from one to the other again, smiling--no, positively glowing--and, when she reached Gryphon, she made eye contact and announced, "I'm pregnant." <<< Def Leppard: Hysteria >>> Gryphon blinked, twice, rapidly, then swallowed audibly. His eyes clouded over. His hands shook; he put the katana down lest it drop unceremoniously to the floor. The corner of his mouth twitched, quirked, and then his face split in a huge grin and he threw back his head and laughed long and loud. He took three running steps toward the futon; Kei met him halfway and they collided into a fierce embrace. "BWWWaaaaAAAAAA!!!!!!" cried ReRob, spraying Moxie across the O-Deck toward Iczer-1, who rather artfully dodged over the back of the sofa. "Wh--Kei, that's wonderful!" Yuri cried, jumping up. She shot a sidelong glance at Zoner, who just looked bashful and shrugged. "Absolutely splendid," Edison agreed. "Congratulations," Iczer-1 added. "You must be very proud." Gryphon held Kei, his arms crossed behind her back and hands on her shoulders from behind, and didn't say anything for several seconds. Kei felt something warm and wet on her cheek and turned to look; he was crying. "What's wrong?" she asked him. "Why are you crying?" "Because I have to," he replied, smiling. "I'm so happy..." He held her tighter. "Gods, I love you so much..." He kissed her. "Every bit as much as I love you," Kei replied, and kissed him back. They separated after a few long seconds and took up another couch, holding hands like high school kids and glowing like newlyweds. Everyone in the room was lost in their own private thoughts for a few seconds, and with an almost audible click, the cycle of life finally turned over for the Wedge Rats, after four hundred years of stasis. Somehow, everyone in the O-deck felt a little more human all of a sudden. "Well, let's see what the news has to say tonight," Zoner suggested. "TV: GNN." The television snapped to life and the smiling face of the Galactic News Network anchor filled the screen. "The top story tonight; The Empire of Kilrah has declared war on the Federation today for the fourteenth time. Hostilities are expected to begin soon in the Enigma, Vega, and Deneb sectors. This is bad news for the Federation, as local forces were recently ravaged by the GENOM Corporation Combined Fleet in a series of hostilities which decimated the Federation Starfleet's war making capabilities. It is hoped that the Wedge Defense Force will be able to support the Federation in their efforts to maintain the peace. Official word is that the Federation will be officially requesting the aid of the WDF within the week...." A collective groan rose up from the group. "Well, lovely timing as usual," Zoner grumbled. "The Tactical Fleet is a mess! Oh, sure, Kirk and I can have them back into fighting trim in a couple of weeks, but we don't have a couple of weeks. Bloody hell..." Gryphon looked at Kei. I still have my duties... She nodded and smiled at him. Your devotion to them is one of the reasons I love you so. "I can have the Strategic Fleet to the frontier within two days," he said to Zoner. "Make it so. We'll keep the Wandering Child in reserve with the Tactical Fleet, and the AT&T will remain in a defensive orbit around Utopia Planitia. The Concordia will be the flagship for this mission. I think you're ready, Admiral," Zoner added, reaching into his pocket and tossing Gryphon an admiral's cross. "I'll do my best, sir," Gryphon replied, beaming, as he removed his captain's bar and pinned the ornate cross to his epaulet. "Don't call me that. Just take the damn fleet and keep the Kilrathi from mucking things up. I'm placing Caine and his forces under your command too." "What about us?" Kei asked, indicating Yuri and herself. "Not my jurisdiction, you're 3WA agents. You can do what you want I suppose, you have more seniority than the 3WA command staff. Just try not to do too much damage." "Iczer-1 and I are going to wander a bit. Neither of us really likes this war stuff. But we'll be around if you need us," Vaughn explained. "No problem," Zoner replied. "Rob, you can take off if you want, I'm sure the yards can spare you until you're ready." "Yeah," Gryphon agreed. "Soon as Tactical can relieve me I'm going to put back in and take over the Yards personally for the next few years anyway, and run the Strategic Fleet from port. My days as a fighting admiral can wait until after I've raised my child." He squeezed Kei's hand. "Thanks Zone, Gryph, but you know how I deal. I'm going up to the front. Gryph, you wouldn't happen to need an Alpha pilot, would you?" ReRob's spirits seemed genuinely lifted by the news, but it would take more than that to sort his head out again, and all knew it. Gryphon attempted to imagine what his life would become if Kei got killed, and failed, but momentarily depressed himself anyway. Recovering, he replied, "The Concordia doesn't have any Legios units, Rob, but I think I might be able to dip into the TO&E and find you a place in the Fleet somewhere...are you sure you want to do this?" "Hell, yes, I'm sure." "All right then. I'll assign you to Concordia for now, and transfer you off as soon as I find an opening in another ship's Legios squadrons, okay?" ReRob nodded. "Gentlemen, ladies, I must bid you farewell, I have a search to conduct." With that Edison stepped out of the door. "Well, this has turned into a long vacation. I've got the Matterhorn of paperwork waiting for me in my office. I don't believe the number of forms you need to fight a war. If we made both sides fill them out beforehand they'd forget what they were fighting over. Let's enjoy the next few days while we can, who knows when we'll get our next break." Yuri led Zoner out of the room. ReRob got up and sloped out. Vaughn and Iczer-1 disappeared. Gryphon got up, walked to where he had left his sword, put it away and, turning, offered Kei a shrug. "So...this is it," Kei said. "You're running off to save the universe and leaving me to wait for you. Funny how things get turned around, isn't it? Seems like only yesterday, I was going off on assignment and leaving you on the SDF-17..." Gryphon smiled. "Like I told you before...`star blessed for having found you...star crossed because it's only to see you go.'" "Who wrote that?" "I've no idea." He shrugged again and walked about halfway to the door. "Don't worry, I'll be fine. I've got my nice big ship, and my crew is the best there is. We'll put the cats to rout and be back in time for Christmas." Kei walked to him, embraced him, and murmured, "Just come back to me--to us--and we'll call it even." "Don't worry. Be careful. As soon as my job is done I'll be back, and if I have to get out and push the Kilrathi back over the border with my hands, I'll be back in time to be with you when it happens. In return, don't you go doing anything foolish. Deal?" "You play it safe out there, too." "I swear, I won't go near my fighter. I'll stay right there on the bridge of the Concordia. If I try to go to the flight deck, Saavik will have standing orders to clock me and strap me into my conn. Okay?" She laughed. "Deal." "I love you. Both of you." "I love you." A long kiss, and he was gone. "Now I know how he always felt," she said to the empty room, and then went out herself. Gryphon arrived on the bridge of the Concordia, looking in unusually high spirits. The rest of his crew knew the feeling. Guilty as the thought of enjoying warfare made them feel, all of them could sense the excitement of action. Saavik noticed it first, when she glanced up at the turbolift as he was emerging. Coming to attention, she announced, "Admiral on the bridge!" The rest of the bridge staff turned and got to their feet, startled. "As you were," Gryphon ordered. "Ladies and gentlemen, we have another emergency situation on our hands. The Kilrathi are invading Deneb, Enigma, and Vega sectors again. Tactical is a mess; they won't be able to support what's left of the Federation fleet for at least three weeks. It's become the Strategic Fleet's job to hold the line until Tactical arrives. Less than fifteen minutes ago, Zoner appointed me CinCSTRAT." His bridge crew applauded. Smiling, he dropped the businesslike pose. "And please...when we're doing shipboard operations, call me `captain'." "Congratulations, sir," Finney said with a smile. "Thanks," Gryphon replied, taking his familiar center seat. "Welcome back, sir," said Max. "Nice visit?" "The best," Gryphon replied. "It's good to be home, though. Departure stations, if you would. Vanessa, get me Planitia Control and COMSTRAT. The sooner we get out of here, the sooner we can come back." "In a hurry to win this one, sir?" Rick inquired, glancing back at his captain. "Damn straight," Gryphon replied with a grin. "Kei would never forgive me if I was off fighting some war while she brought my child into the world without me." The bridge staff turned and regarded their captain with that peculiar sense of awe people always have around expecting parents; then they applauded again. Embarrassed, Gryphon sketched out a seated bow and blushed slightly. Vanessa finished clapping and worked the controls; as he waited for a connection, Gryphon glanced down at the tiny screen on his conn arm. It blipped into life; as usual, his second officer, the artificial intelligence who ran the entire vessel from a chunk of molecularly aligned silicon three inches cubic, appeared, and as usual, she smiled. "You seem very excited," said Vision. "Is something wrong?" "No," Gryphon replied, settling back into his seat. "Everything's just fine." The End -----------------------------------------------------AUTHORS' FAREWELL "Reality is what you can get away with." --Robert Anton Wilson Well, gee, it's done... Hard to believe isn't it? As I write this I'm sitting in Ben's place in Millinocket, Maine... It's just past 4AM on February 8th, 1993. Interestingly Queen's "I Want It All" is playing quietly on the stereo. There's still a bit to be done, proofing, spell checking, Rob needs to look it over, but the actual writing is done. If you haven't guessed this is MegaZone at the 'board... I drove up here Thursday night to see Ben and work on this, and a few other projects. It's slowly hitting me that the UF saga has an end now. When we started this way back in October of 1991 I don't think any of us imagined how long we would be working on it. Or how long the story would actually end up. It started as a one-shot, a way to have some fun and relax. Then it became an obsession, a labor of love, we had to see the characters through to the end. There may be other stories in this timeline, but Crossroads is the end to the tale. Ben and I are working on another idea, and we're all toying with separate ideas, but any future joint projects just won't be Undocumented Features. It's a weird feeling. Kinda like sending your children out into the world to fend for themselves. It wasn't easy to finish the tale, but we knew that we had to, we owed it to the readers, but mostly, we owed it to the characters. I want to take this opportunity to thank Ben and Rob for inviting me to join them at the start. They needed a technical consultant, and they got a coauthor. I owe them a lot for showing me just how much I really enjoyed writing, and for reawakening that part of me. UF has had a noticeable impact on my life; I've changed my major to Tech Writing, joined the campus creative arts magazine, branched off into short prose and poetry, and I recently received a letter from a small press group asking to publish some of my stuff. I'm working on other collaborations, such as Robotech: The Misfold, and I've been asked to do others. I find this all quite amusing actually, since I never planned to do more then give a little advice now and then. I'd also like to thank the nets for reading these stories, putting up with extensive delays, and all the encouraging words we've received. I hope you have enjoyed reading the tale as much as we have enjoyed writing it. --MZ -- Wrap me high in the sky/Circle me with stallions/She flew from peak to peak on the freedom of an eagle/So fly me courageous Odd, that this is one of the songs that started the whole thing rolling. Some Drivin-n-Cryin, a little Duran Duran, and the intro to an old (and, to be honest, kinda lame) Leppard song; a fistful of .gifs; a sad little over-sensitive mind, standing in the middle of a big cold world. So to defend myself, I started writing. It spilled over into the lives of others, as these things are wont to do. MegaZone was consulted for his expertise in the field of anime. ReRob was his roommate, the local Leppard aficionado, and just an all-round cool guy whose company I enjoyed immensely. The three of us wound up creating something of a legend, and frankly, that shocks the hell out of me. Us. Whatever. As the project went on, it had a noticeable effect on my life as well. Specifically, it destroyed it. What the hell was I doing a computer science major in the first place? I'm a writer. I'm a historian. I knew it then; I know it now. So, it doesn't look like my life's path will carry me back to Worcester, at least, not soon. It's a grey, rotting pit of a city, really. The center can't hold, and it all goes to hell. But what the hell, it's home. At least it was. I have just noticed that I am morbid and bitter. Forgive me. It's been a very long eighteen months. Now, as I sit here and look at it, nearly-finished creation that it is, and think of how long it's been a part of my life, I think I understand how Patton felt when he had no more war to fight. I have other ideas, yes, but this...this is my...I dunno. My magnum opus, I suppose. It's certainly the longest thing I've ever finished, in terms of time and pages both. Now what do I do? You will notice that I tend to quote songs a lot. If that does not strike your fancy, please ignore it. What shall we use to fill the empty spaces where waves of hunger roar? Shall we set out across the sea of faces in search of more and more applause? Shall we buy a new guitar? Shall we drive a more powerful car? Shall we work straight through the night? [More times than I care to count.] Shall we get into fights leave the lights on drop bombs do tours of the East contract diseases bury bones break up homes send flowers by phone take to drink go to shrinks give up meat rarely sleep keep people as pets train dogs raise rats fill the attic with cash bury treasure store up leisure but never relax at all With our backs to the Wall? I'll think of something. I'll be back on the net someday. Maybe I'll see some of you out in the big world in the coming years. Maybe you'll see more tales of Gryphon--stories of his years in exile, chronicles of the WDF's Golden Age, maybe even the adventures of his son or daughter (I've yet to decide which it'll be). Zoner and I and ReRob stay in contact as best we can, maintaining the creative alliance that brought us together in the first place. I keep defending myself with fiction, and the number of my friends who exist nowhere but deep in the innards of Ziggy (yes, Ziggy is real) keeps climbing. One thing's for sure: you'll see me again, even if I have to bow to the University of Maine's primitivism and use a Macintosh and CP/CMS. Until then, my friends, to quote Corwin of Amber, goodbye, and hello, as always. --G. "Dorothy was speechless. She said, ``'' " --The Wizard of WACCC Whoa. I think I'll say it again. Whoa. A couple of years back, a short eternity ago as far as I'm concerned, a man named Ben Hutchins started talking anime to me. I was just getting into the anime thing, being Zoner's roommate and all, and I thought the Dirty Pair was cool. He started talking about bringing Kei and Yuri on campus, and the concept of the HoloDECstation came to mind. I had created it before for a short story, and left it at that. And that, as Paul Harvey would say, was the rest of the story. I'm not a hell of a fictional writer, in all truth. I've tried to write on my own, and haven't gotten very far. As a matter of fact, I was totally absent in UF2 and didn't do too much actual writing in 1, 3, and 4. I think I was more of a catalyst to the text than anything else. In turn, I was catalyzed by Gryph and Zoner. We achieved a sort of resonance, and the resonance hit the net, apparently so hard you could hear it. It was love and intimacy, not of the romantic or sexual sort, but of the best team I've ever been in. It was (and still is, despite the miles) one of the tightest symbiotic relationships out there. I remember when we plotted out UF4. It took all of three hours, and was alluded to in the story itself. We started throwing out ideas, building up speed until it was hard for me to keep up taking notes. Then, finally, the Gryphon and MegaZone turned to each other and shouted, "Sherlock Holmes is Edison Bell!" I just didn't say it fast enough to get in, and just wrote it down. I still remember Ben calling up the next morning, asking "Did I just have an incredibly intense dream, or did we write a book last night?" That's how well this machine worked. We wrote this by setting few limits, and working our asses off. At one point, we had the fourth floor of Morgan Hall convinced that Ben was a very successful bisexual, since the two of us would invariably head up to his room on Friday nights, and pound out text. Morganites had trouble with the concept of writing on Friday nights, with Becker being so close. We took it to the extremes, then broke through it. I've said it before, in truth, and in fiction, and I'll say it again: If it can be dreamed, it can be done. --rR. Glossary: Well, you probably are a bit confused, especially if you haven't read the previous stories in this series. If you are interested they are all available via anonymous FTP to 130.215.24.1 (wpi.wpi.edu) cd /anime/FanFiction. In chronological order they are dp.undocument.1.Z, dp.undocument.2.Z, dp.undocument.3.Z, dp.uf.solitude.Z, dp.uf.altered.Z, and this file, dp.undocument.4.Z. Other shorts and a tech file are currently in the works, look for them in the future under dp.uf.*. If you don't have ftp access, email to megazone@wpi.wpi.edu, one of the coauthors and moderator of the site. All fan mail will be forwarded to the other authors unless you specifically request that it is not. Once again, we would like to thank all of our fans and supporters. You make it all worthwhile. Basic Nastiness: Back in Fall semester in '91 (while we were writing the original UF, no less,) Vaughn put together a mixed tape by the title of "Basic Nastiness". It was incredibly cool, mixing everything from AC/DC to Metallica to Devo to B.O.C. to the Akira soundtrack to Jane's Addiction. And it had odder and more appropriate segues than even the UF soundtrack (you know; the one which goes from "Desperado" to "Fly Me Courageous" to "Save a Prayer", etc.) It may not have been divinely inspired, but it fooled us. Back in the real world, Tim Kutz (the bad Kung-Fu movie himself) dropped out of WPI over Christmas break in '91-'92 (whereas, in UF, the school dropped itself out...) Tim took all of his gear, about half of the E-7 silverware, and forgot to pop the Basic Nastiness tape out of his machine before going home to New Jersey. Thus, we have often joked about roadtripping to Jersey to get the tape back. Note that we are more afraid of Jersey than Kutz. In the UF universe, that tape was in the machine back at E-7 (which became part of the Wedge), so it didn't get destroyed at the Second Wedge War. However, he did go home in UF3, and probably took it back with himself. So we still intended to roadtrip to Jersey. But, don't nobody tell Tim. Dyson Sphere: A scientist named Dyson once postulated that a spherical structure could be built surrounding a star, with a radius of approximately one astronomical unit (i.e., about the same radius as that of Earth's orbit around the Sun). This structure would have the ability to harness all of the star's energy, not just the tiny fraction that hits a planet, and provide millions of times the surface area of a single inhabitable world. gryphon@world.std.com -- megazone@wpi.wpi.edu -- remande@wpi.wpi.edu