OCTOBER 14, 2410 MATHEWS MEMORIAL SPACEPORT, NEW AVALON, ZETA CYGNI ABOARD THE SALUSIAN SPACEWAYS CRUISER ASRIAL'S CORONATION DAY "This is a crazy idea, Logan." Geoff leaned back in the slightly-too-small seat on the spaceliner. "Totally insane." "Hey, you were the one said you probably needed a wilderness survival skills refresher," Logan pointed out, regarding the 'no smoking' sign balefully. Geoff shrugged, and went back to reading the thick sheaf of paper he'd been reading before. "Whatever." "What's that?" "Letter from Yomiko." Logan raised an eyebrow. "I thought you two weren't... y'know." "We weren't. Aren't. Whatever." Their first actual date had been, well, Geoff's first date ever. He'd felt like a clod, and halfway through, Yomiko had figured out what he hadn't: that neither one of them was really suited to being involved that way. Both had unresolved issues: Geoff was a recovering assassin, and Yomiko had watched a lover die, leaving a wound that had never really healed. She'd let him down so gently he hadn't realized she'd done it until he was already home, and they'd managed to remain friends afterwards. She still preferred writing letters, and he usually had a fifty-page letter about what was going on in her life waiting to be read at any time. "She just likes to write long letters," Geoff added. Logan grunted, nodded, and closed his eyes to get some shut-eye before they landed on Ice Planet Halloran V. Geoff put his headphones back on, only to be nudged by Logan. "What the hell are you listening to, bub?" "Band I caught on Zardon a few weeks ago when I was there for that history seminar. Called themselves the Amateur Surgeons. Retro- thrash-punk stuff, but more happy than angry. I picked up their crystal." He showed Logan the case, which depicted a set of young, cheery looking men in surgical scrubs standing around an operating table, one of them holding a large hammer, as well as the band name and the apparent album title, "Sledgehammer Appendectomy". Logan shook his head and went to sleep. "I have a message from another time..." Eyrie Productions, Unlimited And Bacon Comics Group Present UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES FUTURE IMPERFECT SPECIAL ASSIGNMENT/TALES OF THE LENSMEN TWO-IN-ONE SPECIAL #7 ICEBREAKER/THANKLESS scripted by Geoff Depew pencils & inks by your imagination letters by Geoff Depew & Benjamin D. Hutchins editor: Benjamin D. Hutchins Bacon Comics chief: Derek Bacon Part I: Icebreaker Geoff Depew woke up covered in snow. He took a moment to clear his head. Snow meant winter. Logan had been talking about winter survival training on... OK. He was on Ice Planet Halloran V. His head pulled itself together and he remembered the rest of it: they'd landed, picked up survival gear, and tromped for miles across a snowscape until Logan figured they'd found a place to camp. They'd set up the portable cabin, had dinner and gone to sleep... ...and that tingling on his back, Geoff realized, was what remained of being blasted by a heavy stunner. It all fit together now. Logan had stunned him, probably dragged him a few miles, and dumped him. It fit the smaller man's concept of 'survival training'. Geoff made a note to do Logan a similar favor someday soon, then put it in the back of his head. He sat up, dislodging the snow. There'd been a snowfall while he was out - snow was always falling somewhere on this iceball - and he'd been covered in about three inches of it. His pockets contained a few food bars and a collapsible cup. Geoff shrugged mentally. He'd dealt with worse. One bar and some cold water later, his head felt totally clear - neuroshock was a bitch on the nervous system. Turning around carefully in place, he made out a set of depressions in the snow - almost certainly where Logan had gone. Geoff made to follow. The trail was hard to follow, but Geoff was able to make it, at one point having to bury himself under the snow as one of Halloran V's flash squalls - what the locals called "darligvind" - blew by. The microbursts could drop air temps a hundred degrees in a minute, and men had been found frozen solid in the unending drifts of snow. Geoff's habitually obsessive preparation had served him well, and he recognized the telltale signs of one incoming. After digging himself out, he kept going the way he had been going, despite the fact the wind had blown away most of the signs. Working on pure instinct, he found his way back to the campsite. What he saw made him pause before entering. Their camp had been a standard military shelter - a sturdy memory-plastic cabin that started as a thick sheet of plastic designed to be unrolled, then activated. It then expanded to form the walls and roof. It had an integrated heater and a pair of hard bunks. Now it was partially collapsed and bore a number of burn marks. Outside, a divot appeared to have been taken out of the snow. Blood spatters dyed the surrounding area incarnadine, and small shimmering glints could be seen as well. Geoff drew his Jackal and began to circle the camp, looking for anything else. He found nothing on the perimeter and moved closer. One of the larger blood spatters led to a lower arm that had melted into the snow from its body heat. The arm was clad in a brown sleeve and green glove. Geoff noted it, but left it there. The cabin itself was a loss, but Geoff was able to salvage the small camp stove and supplies. As he packed, something caught his eye. He reached under the now-sagging bunk shelf and pulled out a ball. It was a stun grenade, and it smelled of burnt plastic. "Coil burned out," Geoff murmured, and put it back. It wouldn't be useful to him, anyway, in that state, but it did tell him that Logan had probably been taken alive. He slung the pack over his shoulders, and then went outside. The divot was easy to figure out: the pattern of the snow being blown around made it the landing trace of some kind of small aerodyne, probably what brought the attackers in. Geoff moved away from the campsite, towards a mountainous area a few miles away, just in case there was still surveillance, and the back of his head started working. His working hypothesis was that the cabin's heater set off an IR scan, and the people who did this showed up to find out who was doing it. That meant a fairly good security perimeter. The clothing on the severed arm, once he had a moment to put it all together, made him smile, just a bit nastily. "Galactor," he whispered, and felt a great swell of glee. Life was always better with a bunch of mooks to thrash. And Galactor mooks were really, really thrashable. Crossing the snow, he made his way carefully to some of the protruding rocks that made up what would be called 'hills' on this world. Sharp-faced stone blocks upthrust from the world when it was warmer, now rounded after centuries of snow, ice, and wind, formed the backbone. And just barely visible from ground level were two entrances: one a human-sized door and the other sized for a small shuttle. There was a pair of aerodynes visible from Geoff's vantage point, one of which was being worked on. With a small grin, Geoff recognized Logan's particular brand of craftsmanship on the flyer. The winter clothing Logan had gotten Geoff was dark in color, and so were the jeans, baseball jersey (New Avalon Knights: "Next Year For Sure!") and sneakers (well, the sneakers were white and black) he wore. After all, neither of them had expected to actually NEED winter camo gear. He dumped the winter gear and circled around, keeping an eye out for cameras. He'd just gotten over to the bluff when he heard the sound of a trickle of water. He followed it, and found a Galactor trooper amusing himself by writing his name in the snow in the time-honored tradition. Unfortunately, he was about to have his bladder completely emptied as Geoff brought his Canon's heavy grip down on his neck, dropping him to the snow. With the trooper's mask, shirt and, most important, ID card, Geoff was able to get in through the personnel door without incident. He ditched the Galactor stuff - it made him itch, at least mentally - and dredged up memories of Big Fire and Galactor base construction. The way this place was put together - exposed stone and prefab mechanisms - meant it was almost certainly a set of caves they found and used, but the question he couldn't understand was why. Why a base on the frozen end of the universe? The only advantage Galactor could get out of infiltrating Ice Planet Halloran V was a decent feel for next season's Galactic Hockey League draft. Then again, who'd bother looking there? Probably made a good place for staging, or sending guys who had screwed up, but not enough to earn execution. The corridor he was creeping through emerged into an elevator gallery. Along the walls were posters exhorting the staff to follow the orders of Berg Katse and their local commander, blah blah blah, yakkity schmackity. Geoff was tempted to pull them down, but that would give too much away... An elevator dinged, and Geoff's head and right arm spun to check. No one exited it, and Geoff moved closer. "Hey, Shim, you up for a poker game?" The voice was audibly coming closer. He glanced the other way, decided not to risk it, and slipped into the elevator. He found himself confronted by a purple-haired woman in tactical armor, who had two wide-bore blasters leveled at his head. The elevator started to descend. "Well," Geoff noted, as he had the Canon aimed at her stomach, "the question is, which side are you on?" As if to make the afternoon go completely around the twist, the ceiling maintenance hatch of the elevator popped open suddenly, adding a third factor to the standoff. When the shuffle was all over, Geoff had the Jackal on the woman he'd been dealing with before, and the Canon on the new person. The new person was a woman with dark hair, white skin, pale eyes, and insanely steady hands. She also, Geoff recognized with a moment of shock, looked a lot like like Dorothy Wayneright wearing an Ignatine combat cassock. With the preternatural time stretching that Geoff had felt happen in moments of extreme danger, he noticed that her two pistols - lighter cousins of the Jackal, standard issue for Grammaton Clerics - were ornately damascened with a vaguely Arabic flair. The new woman looked at the Canon, then at him, and then at the woman with the purple hair. "Carggian standoff," the new woman said in a voice that seemed almost too delicate for the garb and weapons she carried, except for the subtle hard edge in it. "Well, we moved from Mexico when you showed up," Geoff replied. The purple-haired woman snorted. "We're going to get caught if we don't resolve it somehow. I'm sure as hell not Galactor security." "She's an Ignatine," Geoff said, twitching the Canon's barrel a little to indicate the dark-clad woman, "and I'm Geoff Depew, IPO." "Sister Destiny of the Holy Order of Saint Ignatius," she said, "and I know your name. Brother Partridge sent me to find you." She raised her left-hand weapon away from Geoff's head. Geoff blinked. "Wait, wait, what? Why did he do that?" Now that he had a few more seconds, he was able to see her hair was black instead of Dorothy's auburn, and her eyes were blue, not black, making their artificial nature more obvious. With her extremely humaniform construction, most people would probably think they were cybernetic implants. "Well, if we're all going to introduce ourselves: Konoko Kokoromi, Royal Salusian Ministry of Public Security, Section 9." The purple-haired woman raised an eyebrow. "Pause for ID?" Geoff holstered the Canon and displayed his ID, and Konoko did the same. The elevator opened on a dark corridor, and the three slipped into it after Geoff, being the tallest, re-secured the roof hatch. "Machinery area," Konoko said. "I picked this as a place to use as a retreat point. Most of what's down here is the fusion plant and recycling. Not a lot of visitors unless something goes wrong." "Makes sense," Geoff nodded. "So now we figure out why we're all here, and how we help each other out?" "As I said, Brother Partridge bade me come and find you. I tracked you to this area, then saw your tracks. If I'd been a few moment earlier," Sister Destiny said ruefully, "I would have made contact outside." "Why did he send you to ME? I'm not exactly an exemplar of the Rule." "He said," she said delicately, "he thought I would find your story and your insights highly applicable to my own issues." Geoff nodded. "That is so Brother Partridge. We can swap stories later. What about you, Agent Kokomori?" Konoko shrugged. "They're selling arms out of this base. I'm tracking them down. It would've been nice if the IPO had told us they were sending someone on the same mission." Geoff shook his head. "We didn't know anything about it. My bishop - Logan, SA1, Lensman - brought me here on a survival refresher course - " "Wait," Konoko interjected, "he brought you here for SURVIVAL training?" "Logan's got some extreme ideas about things, and besides, where better for winter work?" Geoff noted. "Anyway, he knocked me out and buried me in snow - hey, I said he had some extreme ideas - and when I found where he should have been, Galactor had apparently surprised him, captured him, and brought him here, along with what was left of whoever came to take him out." "Someone took down Logan?" Destiny asked, one eyebrow arched. "How many stun grenades did it take, and how many people lost limbs?" "I found one grenade that had burned out its discharge coils, but from the blood I'm figuring that they lost about ten men before taking him down. Only one guy left a piece behind." "So what do we do?" Konoko queried. "Take them out, rescue Logan, get their files and call the IPO for pickup," Destiny said calmly. "Nice plan," Geoff cracked, "but we should work it out a little more. Konoko, do you have a tap into their physical plant computer?" Konoko grinned and led them through a door into a side room. Aside from a few racks of fusion reaction parts, there was a sleeping bag, a duffle and an arm-cyberdeck in the room. Wires led from the deck to a junction on the wall. "I cracked the security. I can override the whole thing from here." "Nifty!" Geoff grinned. He and decking weren't friends - something about the effects of the Daodan on the nervous system made full immersion neural interface a nauseating experience, as a couple of IPO people had found to their (and their uniform's) distress. "And since you have that, you also have a map of the entire complex," Destiny said, a small smile on her face. "But of course." "So you know where the self-destruct bombs are, but I'm betting the control isn't tied into the base wiring, it's in the command systems. Hrm." Konoko flipped open a panel, and a hologram sprung up, showing the layout of the base. "Section 9's finest infiltration software." The bombs glowed faintly. "What's got the most power draw right now?" he asked. Konoko plied the deck and found one room that had a pretty sizable draw of juice. "After main control, the heaters, the lights and the cafeteria? Right there," she said, reaching into the hologram to indicate. "Records show it as 'special interrogation room'." "Torture chamber," Destiny said, eyes narrowing. "How's the air venting in this place work, anyway?" Konoko chuckled, and then brought that plot up. "Sorry, but the ducts average six inches wide. If we were Imskians or Durlans or something... but no, we're going to have to do this the hard way." There was a sudden click from Destiny's hands as she flipped her pistols' safeties off. "We can DO the hard way." The three of them shared not-particularly-nice smiles and prepared to move out. Logan was actually sort of bored. These Galactor guys didn't have the kind of talent at torture that he had come to expect. They weren't even as good at this stuff than your average crazy doctor. Sure, it hurt, but he just kept breathing regularly and clearing his mind, and that all stopped being an issue. Samurai training and his natural healing factor meant that this stuff was all water under the bridge. They'd been kind of funny when they tried to use a Klingon agonizer on him, mostly because the translated directions of the thing said to attach it to 'the shoulders, right behind where the ears are in humanoids'. "You guys wanna take a break? 'Cause you probably gotta look that up on the Internet," Logan had wisecracked at that little piece of confusion. After that, they'd just spent time hitting him in the groin with a bat, which was painful and irritating, but hell, he'd been hit a lot, by better than these guys. Even being suspended by his arms wasn't that exciting, compared to some of the stuff that Apocalypse, or even the Weapon X project, had done to him. He heard something - faintly, but his hearing was better than most. He figured that these mooks couldn't have heard it, but just to be sure, he let out a cry of agony to cover the gunfire outside. The mooks looked pleased, and one of them yanked Logan's head back by his hair and snarled, "Tell us, idiot, why is a Lensman here? What does the International Police know? Whom are you working with?" The door slid open and the answer to that last question came to the head torturer as a .50 caliber bullet to the chest. Geoff turned his dive into a forward roll, letting Konoko and Destiny polish off the others with rapid gunfire of their own. Logan grunted as Konoko hit the release switch for the chains, while Destiny regarded him with an oddly muted interest. "You keep getting the easy jobs, Logan," Geoff said as he gave Logan a towel to wipe the blood off, then the shorter man's clothes. "Yeah, and you keep picking up the girls. Who the flamin' hell are they?" "Watch your language and put on your pants, there's a nun present," Geoff replied. He indicated the two women in turn as he said, "Konoko's with Section 9, Sister Destiny's an Ignatine. We already did the verifications." Geoff picked up Logan's watch with the Jackal's muzzle and handed it to him. Logan slipped his Lens on and concentrated for a moment. "OK, then. We got some help incoming in a couple hours from New Avalon - Gryphon's sending some reinforcements." "So we have a few hours. We go back to the basement, we wait it out." Everyone looked at Geoff like he was crazy. "You're right. Let's go do what Logan does best." Logan popped his claws. "Now you're talkin', bub." "What do you mean," Master Terrapin said with the tone of a man at the limit of his patience, "that we have lost contact with the torture chamber?" "Just that, sir," said Trooper Grantz. "I tried to page them, but no one replied. Maybe they went to lunch?" Master Terrapin closed his eyes for a moment. While Galactor troops were selected and trained for their viciousness and brutality, that didn't mean they were chosen for their intelligence or inventiveness. As a result, you had people who were unable to think things through all the way. Such as Grantz. Well, if nothing else, there was one thing idiots like Grantz were good for. "Grantz, take a squad down there to check things out." "Do you think there's a problem?" Master Terrapin gritted his teeth. "That is why you are being sent down there. To find out if there is a problem." "All right, sir. If we find a problem, what should we do?" This, the Galactor commander thought, is my punishment for not eating all my vegetables as a child. "If people caused it, kill them. If it's a broken intercom, send a tech." Master Terrapin knew that he was pushing things by using a three-syllable word like 'intercom' to Grantz. "Kill them, yes, sir!" Grantz got a squad together and went down to check the interrogation section. The quartet had left behind their scene of havoc at the interrogation section, and moved carefully through the complex. Their goal, based on Konoko's map, was the main computers. From there, they could pull down the base's database of arms sales, and maybe disable the self-destruct. Two guards stood in front of the doors of the data center. Geoff did for one of them, while Logan took out the other. Just like clockwork. The doors slid open to reveal four technicians, three of whom pulled guns while the fourth began typing furiously at his console. Geoff fired two shots, dropping two of the mooks, while Destiny ventilated the third. Logan and Konoko used the gunfire as cover to get to the typist, knocking him over. "It's too late," he crowed, "I already locked down the database!" Konoko clocked him with the butt of her pistol. "Time to see if Flint was right about the auto icebreakers in this thing." She pulled out a lead and stuck it into the apropos place in the panel, then started tapping the deck. It took a few moments, then she cursed. "Not good enough." "Let me try," Destiny said, then stuck her finger where the jack cable from the operator's brain should go and became stock-still. "Cyber-rejection syndrome?" Geoff asked Konoko. "Sort of," Konoko evaded. Sister Destiny's icon was photorealistic, the same as her normal form. She checked her inventory, to find herself with a broken rocket launcher, three rockets, and a pistol. Being a positronic AI robot with cyberspace combat training, however, this situation wasn't actually an issue. She exerted her will, and the rocket launcher flowed back together. Then she pointed it at the wall, and launched a rocket. The lockout wall went away with a horrible SPNK (sound effects sometimes worked oddly in non-standard environments like this), and Destiny smiled slightly, then jacked out. "You did it!" Konoko sat down and started typing as Destiny removed her finger. "Of course I did. It wasn't that hard from inside." A moment later, the console emitted a ping and a data solid. "Just what I needed," Konoko said, smirking. "All the arms sold out of this base, the buyers, the delivery points." "And the bombs?" Logan asked. "Those are controlled on the command level, major lockout. Best thing for us to do is exfil before they figure out that something is - " The lights went red and sirens began to wail. "... wrong." Konoko shrugged. "So much for that idea." Geoff poked his head out into the hallway. "Clear." They all slipped out. Logan sniffed the air. "We got company coming." The pack started running down the corridor, and came to a double door. Geoff tapped the button and then turned to the rest of them. "Locked." Logan grinned and advanced on the door. "I got this." Konoko was using the armdeck with a monocle display. "This is their central staging area. This floor, skips the next, then a maint level, and above that is command. There's a stair to the maint level back ten feet." "Awright," Logan growled, "You three go up there, see if you can get to their command station. I'll take care of the mooks." As the other three headed back, Logan jammed his claws through the door and started to carve a half-circle in one of them. The titanium parted with horrific screeching sounds. Within, fifty Galactor troopers had been sitting around, waiting for orders, playing some cards or reading - this was not considered a heavy-duty station - but the moment that something poked through the door and started slicing through, they all prepared themselves, readying rifles and pointing them at the door. Geoff, Konoko and Destiny made it to the catwalk thirty feet up just as the door fell inwards, and Logan said, "Aw, you put out the welcome wagon for me. I'm touched." Then the short man lunged forwards, snarling with rage and leading with his claws. Geoff flexed his left hand, setting off the medpack he kept in the wristband. The chemicals pumped into his system, and the Daodan woke up. His hair suddenly grew out, going from its usual short length to hang around his shoulders, and the bioradiation glow flowed out from him. Konoko, for her part, stared at him in shock. "You've got a Daodan!" "Yes," Geoff said, too busy to be surprised that she knew what that was, and then leapt over the railing and charged the Galactor troopers. /* Toshihiko Sahashi "The Holy" _The Big O_ */ He took a step and threw himself into space, guns in his hands. He grinned as his feet hit the wall and he started sliding down it, using the contact to slow his speed. (Logan had taught him this trick, except Logan used his hands - in overdrive, Geoff could use his feet.) Fifteen feet up, he slammed one foot down hard and kicked off. The Galactor troopers noticed him at that point, and as they brought their guns up, he opened fire. Logan kept moving, clawing through body armor and goon. As Geoff landed, the thunder of his guns was joined by other sounds: Sister Destiny landing with a thunderous wet crunch on a Galactor trooper in a spray of gore; the yelp of Konoko's sniper rifle. "I told ya to hit command, ya knucklehead!" Logan yelled, annoyed. "And leave you to have all the fun?" Geoff said, straightarming the Canon into the barrel of a blaster carbine and firing, letting the chamber and powerpack backwash over two of the Galactor troopers. "Besides, there's no access higher up there - the elevator's in HERE." Logan shook his head, gutted a mook, and threw him backwards into two of his buddies. There was a sudden flash of heat behind him, and Logan turned to watch a Galactor trooper collapse, dropping a vibroknife, with a hole burned into his head. Konoko locked eyes with Logan, nodded, and then the two went back to their jobs. Sister Destiny was not idle herself - idle hands being, of course, the devil's workshop. Seeing no reason to waste ammunition in close quarters, she had reversed her weapons, deployed their close combat studs, and was using her skills and inhuman strength to disable Galactor troopers. A small pile of groaning or utterly still forms was growing around her. The three on the floor were moving closer to the elevator to the command center, which was being fiercely guarded by a half-dozen... five... four... Konoko's sniper skills were making their defense collapse, even as they fired back at her. "Damn you, hold the line! There are four of them, and you are troops of Galactor! You can hold them!" The large screen blinked on. "Master Terrapin," said the Mistress of Galactor. "Lady Katse!" he gasped. "Your base has been discovered. You have failed." "No, Mistress!" he protested. "We can stop them!" "One of them is a Lensman, and he has certainly called for assistance with his Lens. You are now a liability, Master Terrapin." One slim, manicured hand pressed a button on the arm of the chair that the violet-clad woman sat in. "Goodbye." The screen blinked out, and was replaced by the number 300. It clicked down to 299. "She... she abandoned me..." Master Terrapin whispered. He sagged into the chair. "After all I've done..." Then he steeled himself. "Enough! We are Galactor troops, and we will die fighting!" He opened the arm of the chair, pulling out a hot-rodded blaster pistol. The rest of them grabbed the rifles slung across the back of their console chairs. "When the doors open," he yelled, "open fire! LET THEM DIE AT OUR HANDS!" /* David Clynick "Title (Perfect Dark)" Perfect Dark Zero Original Sound Track */ The elevator dinged and the doors began to slide open. Before they were even a quarter open, blaster fire started to pour into the car. Smoke filled the air as the superheated plasma of the blasters burned metal and plastic. About thirty seconds later, Master Terrapin called for a stop to let the smoke disperse. He really wished he hadn't. Because the four intruders were in the car, COMPLETELY UNHARMED. Despite the ruin of the back wall of the elevator, none of them even appeared to have been hit. That was a good trick, Geoff though. Ride on top of the elevator, let them shoot the hell out of it, then drop in while the smoke cleared. He was not so happy about one thing, though. The hell of using pistols like he did was the ammunition situation, and right now he was running low. Well, that was why Ignatines were trained in hand-to-hand, too. He and Logan dashed forward, into the mooks, still stunned at the sight of their targets not just standing but unharmed. Konoko started to lay down some suppression fire to the right, and Destiny to their left. There was, Geoff mused, deep personal satisfaction at knocking the teeth out of the head of one of these goits. He'd have to polish the guns, though. Master Terrapin watched in unbridled terror as they carved their way through his troops. If he'd had a larger contingent, perhaps this would have been better, but no, Galactor needs money, and thus Galactor will sell some of their arsenal for that money. What happened, he thought, to the good old days of extortion and robbery? Hard being on the wrong side of the law these days. Still, they were doing their job: Buying him time to get away. And thus, while his twenty loyal associates were being shot, carved, and beaten until unconciousness or worse, he ran for a door that slid open at the touch of his hand. The Incom T-47 Snowspeeder in the small hanger started and opened its hatch as the door opened. The remote operation feature was a godsend. "Logan, we're losing the boss!" Geoff tried to break free of his furball, driving his knee deep into the gut of one man and ignoring the vomit on his pants as a result. Logan, his clothes and hair decorated with blood and less pleasant things, snarled. "DUCK," came Destiny's voice, and Geoff did so. The remaining standing Galactor troopers caught medium-calibur bullets to the head - with their helmets, that wasn't even fatal, but they were all knocked way out of the ballpark. "Nice," Konoko said, then headed for the main control console. "I'm going to try to override this!" Geoff and Destiny rushed to the door, jockeying to go through; then she used her superior strength to pop through first. Geoff could feel the Daodan charge starting to fade, and muttered as the snowspeeder began to accelerate out of the tube. A hundred yards, and he'd be free. They could see him laughing through the back klaster. The two Ignatines narrowed their eyes in an eerie match. Not going to happen. In utter synchrony, they extended their arms, guns in them, and began to fire in a rotating manner - left and left, right and right. A bullet from the Canon went through the fuselage; Destiny's first shot widened it; one of the ion bullets went in and shut down one of the antigrav units, and the fourth shot went in right afterward, blowing that unit to Hell. The snowspeeder dipped on the right side, scraping on the floor with a loud squeal and sparks, seemed to recover for a second, then left the tube. The right side dropped completely, turning it on its side, and it veered to the right. It went out of sight, but there was a gratifying smashing sound indicating it wasn't going to be going much of anywhere anytime soon. "You two done?" Logan said from the door. "Cause we gotta evac." Konoko glanced at the screen, which was showing 37 before clicking down again. "We've got .... about half a minute." "Ah," Destiny commented, "the inevitable 'we've lost, let's blow the base up' routine. Galactor is so very unimaginative." Logan grunted in agreement. "Time to roll." They all got out of the launch tunnel about two seconds before the first charges went off. Chunks of rock went flying overhead as they tumbled down the snowy hill. As they skidded to a stop, Logan shook snow out of his hair and let out a howl of pure joy. Geoff joined him, with Konoko watching them curiously and Destiny coming up in a cover position. There was a moment of pensive silence, a pregnant pause... and then Destiny pointed up the bluff and yelled, "AVALANCHE!" Things got even more hectic after that. Geoff woke up covered in snow, with a tremendous sense of déjà vu, having started the day like that. He felt a little woozy with post-Daodan comedown, but it all must have happened after the avalanche hit. Just as he'd gotten his bearings as far as up and down were concerned (he was head-down at about a 30-degree angle), something grabbed his ankles and yanked him out. He was unsurprised to find it was Logan and Konoko doing it. "We lived." "Yup." Logan pulled out a bent cigar and lit it. "Now we got some heavy lifting to do." He pointed, and Geoff turned to see Sister Destiny's head sticking out of the snow. "Excuse me," Destiny said, archly, "but if someone doesn't get me out of this snowbank and up onto something more solid I'm going to rust, and then you'll have to listen to me complaining about needing an oil can all the way back to civilization." The rescue ship landed just as they'd gotten Destiny out of the snow and onto a rock. SERGEANT WILLIAM PRESTON MEMORIAL SPACEPORT PORT ARTHUR ICE PLANET HALLORAN V "We're for Tomodachi, what 'bout you?" "Salusia. Have to report in for debriefing. Do you have any twos?" Sister Destiny smiled and said, "Go fish. I think I will need to go to Tomodachi with Geoff and Logan. Brother Partridge thought it was quite important he and I spend time together." Geoff chuckled as Konoko drew a card, then grinned widely and dropped a pair of twos onto the table. "We can talk it over on the way, if you can get a seat with Logan and I on the liner." "Actually," Destiny said, "I have a ticket, but I don't think it's near yours. Apparently Salusian Spacelines nearly filled that flight, and I'm routed to Tomodachi by way of Medu." She shook her head. "I've discovered I hate layovers." Geoff snorted. "Well, if you get stuck on Medu, or get in the middle of something and need a hand, call me." Konoko glanced over. "Does that count for me, too, even though I'm not an Ignatine?" "Sure," Geoff said, not realizing that one word would have some significant impacts on his future. Logan, however, being a wiser man, shook his head faintly and wished they'd let him smoke in this place. Interlude I: Travel "Here," Logan said as they settled into their seats on the liner, "Kurt told me to give this to you." Geoff put down his lapframe (he had some homework to catch up on, as he was taking distance-learning classes for a degree in criminology from Hotohori University) took the envelope, regarding the 'Official Correspondence of the Zardon Justice Department" logo on it, and opened it with his thumb. Withdrawing a piece of paper, he unfolded it, and read it. He paused, rereading it, and then folded again and put it back into the envelope. "What's it say?" Logan asked. "It's nothing, Logan. Just some paperwork." Geoff turned to look out the windows. "No, it ain't." "Save it, Logan!" Geoff snarled. For a moment, Logan caught a shimmer of something ugly in Geoff's eye. "It's gonna eat at you, bub." Geoff grimaced, then tossed the envelope at Logan. "Here." Logan opened it and read: Dear Mr. Depew: As per the request of the International Police Organization, we have located the interment location of your parents and younger brother... The older man stopped. "What's wrong with knowing where they are?" "I'd figured you'd understand, Logan. You, of everybody I know, would get it. I know where they buried my parents and my brother." Geoff took a long, ragged breath. "I don't even remember I HAD a brother." Logan closed his eyes and leaned his head back. His time here, without a past to come catching up with him (except with Jean, the nasty voice in the back of his head muttered), had softened him a little bit. He'd forgotten what it meant to not know. "How you wanna play this?" "I don't care." "You DO care, or this wouldn't be a problem! Flamin' hell, Geoff, you got a past. You've made peace with a lot of it. Might want to at least accept this piece of it. But hell, not like I can tell you what to do." "Could have fooled me," Geoff said coldly. Logan took that as his due. "Yeah, I tell you stuff to do, but it's for your own good." God, Chuck would laugh at me right now, Logan thought, but then he corrected himself. No, he wouldn't. He'd just give that smile he used to give me when I complained about Jubilee, and then say something that made it all make sense. Interlude II: Fates OCTOBER 20, 2410 SECURITY SERVICES JOINT HEADQUARTERS (THE TRILITHON) SAENAR, SALUSIA The shaggy-haired Salusian regarded the datapad dispassionately, then dropped it on the desk. "Konoko," said Shinichiro Togusa, Operations Director for Public Security Section 9, "I've read this, but it still makes no sense. Are you that unsatisfied that the only thing you can do is resign your commission?" "No, sir, but I don't feel I can keep it and still pursue my other interests." She stood at attention, in civilian gear. Togusa's face softened a bit, and he pressed a button on his desk. The shades of his office windows louvered closed and the lights shifted. "Off the record, Konoko," he said more gently, "what is it? I read your report on the Galactor weapons smuggling operation. Nothing more went wrong that I can make sense of - the caches were destroyed and the records obtained. You took care of it the best you could." "I know, but... I've talked to you before about... what's inside me." "Your Daodan, of course. Was there an issue with it on the mission?" "No, sir, but.. I left something out of my report." Togusa started. Konoko's conscientiousness at her reports was a thing of legend - it was why she'd ended up unofficial records officer for Section 9. "What? Why?" "The IPO agent - the one that wasn't a Lensman... he had one too. He didn't have problems with it, the strange urges..." She trailed off, and Togusa understood. It was widely held, but never discussed, that Togusa had his own contacts with Public Security's sister/rival agency, the Ministry of Imperial Security's Secret Intelligence Service, inherited in part from his predecessor, and that most of his people were watched from time to time by SIS agents to insure they weren't being followed, blackmailed, or in other ways threatened... and to ensure they weren't bent. That the rumors were true wouldn't have actually bothered the team - they were professionals and understood that trust went only so far in a professional context. "Your odd food binges, for example? Don't look at an old man like that, Konoko - part of my job is to make sure you're working as efficiently as possible. A sudden order from your apartment for four pizzas with extra cheese, a bottle of bryl'nik and a side of zuuko wings? That brings up a flag. But your efficiency never dropped, so I... didn't mark it as negative." Konoko, startled, nodded. "And other urges." She finally sat down in the chair across from Togusa's desk. "The Hidalgo mission, when I had to activate the Daodan?" "I recall that Flint indicated you'd been particularly brutal, but chalked it up to the fact you'd been deeply involved in the entire investigation." Hidalgo had been a slaver - specializing in children. Konoko had killed most of his men and blasted off both of Hidalgo's legs at the knee. It had worried Togusa, and he'd had a covert watch placed on her by some of Public Security's best psychiatric observers. This part, however, was new. "The Daodan... it's not really sapient, it doesn't speak, but sometimes I can feel it pushing me to do things. And against Hidalgo, it knew I was angry and I felt like... it was pushing me to just kill him. I had to work just to shoot his kneecaps, and not go for his heart or head." Togusa frowned. "I'll be honest: this is very troubling to me, Konoko. And I can understand why you might feel you need to resign. But consider this: in Section 9, at least those urges can be channeled." "You don't understand! That IPO agent, Depew - he had a Daodan too! And he didn't seem to have a single problem with it! It was like... like he KNEW how to use it, instead of IT using HIM! He had -control- over it!" She had leaned forwards during this, her eyes becoming wild. "I need to find him and find out how he did it. I need to know how so I can know when I want to do things and when the Daodan wants to do things." She rubbed her eyes. "I'm losing myself, and that's a danger to me, the team, Public Security, and the people we serve." Togusa nodded, eyes thoughtful. "Well, you don't have to resign. I'll file it as paid medical leave, and you can go to Tomodachi." Konoko looked surprised, then smiled. "And you don't lose a valued operative, and when I come back you'll expect I have some skills that'll improve my usefulness." He nodded. "Just so." She shook her head. "You're a real piece of work, sir. Thank you." Togusa flipped the switch and brought the office back online, tapping at his computer. "And done. I'm... going to need your badge until you come back." Konoko paused, then nodded. "That didn't occur to me," she admitted, pulled it out of her jacket pocket, and placed it on his desk. He took it and put it in a drawer. "Good luck, Konoko. I hope you find what you need." "I know I can find it. I'm just not sure I can learn what I need to learn." She saluted, and then left the office. Dashiell "Flint" Fairborne, Section 9's field commander, looked up from where he was standing across from the door. "Do I need to escort you out of the building?" She'd told him her intent, and a little bit of why - she felt it was only fair he know. "No. The Chief put me on medical leave instead. So I guess you get to work solo." "Fine with me," the human said with a grin, "gives Jaye and me a chance to get some REAL work done around here." She laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. "C'mon," she said, "I need to find an apartment in Nekomikoka and get moved out of the S9 dorm." "Nekomikoka, eh? How we gonna get you back to Salusia after a restful stay in that small town? You'll be addicted to sitting around." Interlude III: Soul Food OCTOBER 30, 2410 8:10 PM FUDDRUCKER'S NEKOMIKOKA, TOMODACHI The three young people sat at a table at the Tomodachi Fuddrucker's, chatting. To watchers, it was maybe three college students getting some food: two girls and a guy, just chatting. One of the girls was dressed in more somber clothes, but maybe she was just a goth? If they'd seen the Robochrist around her neck, they'd figure she was just a little odder than the average goth. The truth of the matter was that Geoff Depew, Konoko Kokoromi and Sister Destiny now constituted one of the single most dangerous households in the western half of Nekomikoka. After the amusement of the latter two crashing in Geoff's studio apartment not far from Hotohori U, they'd decided the hell with it and rented a three-bedroom house not far from the Griffins. He wasn't home much, and the IPO salary he made was enough for a bigger place, but until now he figured why get more than he needed? Still, with his new roommates, it seemed a good idea. Besides, the place (which once belonged to a survivalist) had a huge basement that was easily convertible into a gunnery range. Armed with all of this, they'd moved in earlier that day with the help of the aforementioned Don Griffin, who had some things that made it much easier to transport things than using a truck. Don had been invited along for the after-move dinner run, and so had his wife Kitty, but they'd begged off, claiming having to get ready for the next day. (They were expecting a lot of trick-or-treaters.) So they were going over their own personal stories while Geoff worked his way through a 2/3 pound burger (onions, lettuce, pickles, ketchup), Konoko through a taco salad, and Destiny through a book of Sudoku. "... and he sent me to talk to Kurt Wagner, and apparently that was how I got recruited into the IPO instead of going to the chair." Sister Destiny smiled a little. "Yes, Brother Partridge talked about that. He said it was interesting that the IPO does what God doesn't let the Order do." "OK, you two," Konoko interrupted, "You've mentioned this Partridge guy a bunch of times, and this Order, but I have no idea what's going on. Can you give me the ten-credit rundown?" "Well," they chorused, and then Destiny gestured that Geoff should continue. "The Holy Order of St. Ignatius the Protector is a Catholic monastic order, based on the teachings of an obscure saint," Geoff said. "There's St. Ignatius Loyola, the one who founded the Society of Jesus - the Jesuits? St. Ignatius the Defender is a different guy. He was a knight who supposedly had a vision during a battle." "They say Christ Himself appeared and saved Ignatius's life during a battle, then bade him take the cowl," Destiny said. "But the Lord told him to keep his skills sharp, for he would need to take up arms once more in his life. He survived the battle, though he was lamed by his wounds, and renounced his wealth and status to join the Order of St. Benedict." "During the Ottoman invasion of Europe, Ignatius became abbot of a Benedictine monastery in eastern Austria," Geoff said. "When the Turkish armies drew near the abbey, the local bishop ordered him to give the place up to them. He remembered his vision, said no, died in the fight, got canonized, and in the aftermath, some of the surviving brothers of his abbey founded a new order in his name. "The Rule of St. Ignatius is based on the Rule of St. Benedict," Geoff went on, "but it has kind of a warrior-priest thing going on - which includes a martial art. It's evolved since then. Nowadays the training includes empty hand, swords, staff, but centers around the gun kata, which is what Destiny and I use." He grinned. "We're also banned from most casinos, because a lot of the gun kata training is based on working out probabilities and vectors in your head." He took a bite of the burger. Destiny took up the story again. "Today, the itinerant branch of the Order is called the Grammaton. The members of the Grammaton - we who focus on the martial aspects of the Rule and travel the galaxy serving the Lord according to St. Ignatius's wisdom - are called Clerics. Brother Errol Partridge is one of the Tetragrammaton, the four highest-ranking members of the Order. He's Cleric Master-At-Arms, responsible for training. I am a fully ordained Cleric, myself, albeit only recently. Brother Partridge thought Geoff could assist me with... socialization. As itinerants, we must deal with people apart from our brothers and sisters in Christ, and... " She shrugged. "I've never been very good at that." "I'm surprised," Geoff said, "he didn't send you to Brother Ghost, or Brother Preston, or Brother Neo. Within the Order, you outrank me. I'm not even a full initiate, let alone a Cleric." "Brother Partridge considers you an initiate second rank," Destiny replied. "Besides which, you and I have similar backgrounds before we came to the Order." "Okay, this I know something about," Konoko said. "I got my boss to use his BPGD database access to let me look at his," she said, pointing a fry at Geoff, "and I know you're a Big Fire assassin turned anti-Big Fire vigilante turned IPO agent. And you," she said, gesturing at Destiny with the same fry, "match the descriptions of a wanted criminal on Kane's World called the Red Destiny, excepting the hair and eye color, and like Red Destiny you're a ringer for Dorothy Wayneright. So how'd you get here?" Destiny got, for a moment, a farway look. (This made it obvious her eyes were artifical, as the pupils were visibly mechanical when they shifted.) "When I met my sister Dorothy on Kane's World last year, I thought I'd killed her. But she reappeared, rebuilt and more powerful than ever. I'd been damaged badly in the first fight, and my repairs were burning me out. She... saved me. Repaired me to most of my original specifications. And I hated her for it. I hated her for being built second, for having the life I should have had. She offered to take me in as her real sister, to give me a life with hers, and I hated her for it. I left Kane's World, found someone to modify me so I wasn't instantly recognizable and fix the remaining damage I had, and wandered. "I ran into a bunch of Commers on some world whose name I didn't know, or care about. It didn't matter anymore. I had no life to speak of, nothing I could really call my own anymore, but their very existance offended me, so I decided to kill them, or let them kill me - I was that far gone. One of them got me with a restrainer spike in the back, damaging my power management circuitry, and I felt everything start to go dark - like it had just months before, fighting Dorothy. It made me angry, so incredibly angry, but I couldn't DO anything about it, between the restrainer and the damage. And then... "Then the dark became light, and I heard a voice. It told me that all the creatures of the Universe could gain forgiveness if they sought it. Then, the voice told me, 'The next person your eyes see will be the path to your forgiveness, and your new Destiny.' And then suddenly the restrainer was gone and I could see the rest of the world again. "The next person I saw was Brother Preston. He commended me on my spirit, if not my methods, and I asked him if I believed in forgiveness. He told me about the infinite forgiveness of God, how even all I had done could be forgiven if I let it happen. About how God loves all creatures, even me." She paused, gathering herself. "I understood. I accepted the power of God in my life. I stopped hating and started to let myself be forgiven by the power of the Lord, because He had spoken to me, sent Brother Preston to save me, and I was not going to deny His wisdom." There was a strong power, the power of belief, in her voice, instead of the usual slightly acerbic tone she spoke with. "A year later, I earned the right to call myself Cleric, and Brother Partridge told me to find a former aspirant named Geoff Depew, who was with the International Police. Given my past, I didn't think going to New Avalon and asking was a good idea..." She shrugged. "I encountered Brother Neo on Babylon 6. He told me some of my old criminal associates on Kane's World had joined with Galactor, and that they had sold members of the Church of Man a great deal of ammunition. He was going after the Commers, and he asked if I could, perhaps, track the source." She smiled slightly. "When one is a manufactured lifeform, one doesn't decline to do a favor for the Hammer of God. I accepted his request and started tracing, and ended up on Ice Planet Halloran V - where, by the grace of God, I found the answer to my other search as well." Konoko nodded. "And then we all ended up beating on Galactor. Wow." "Now dish," Destiny said. "You said you came to Tomodachi to learn something from Geoff, but not what it was. Your turn." Konoko coughed a couple of times, then took a drink of her birch beer. "Okay. I... have the same kind of implant he has." Geoff's eyes twitched. "A Daodan? Where did you get it?" "No idea," she said. "I woke up five years ago in a hospital on Salusia, no memories of my past at all. I was obviously combat trained, which is why they sent Flint over to talk to me." "Flint?" Destiny interjected. "Dashiell 'Flint' Fairborne, former member of the Earth Defense Force Special Unit called 'GI Joe', now field leader of Salusian Public Security Section 9," Geoff filled in, wondering idly if he would ever get out of the habit of reciting these rote mini-dossiers just as he'd absorbed them from the Big Fire threat database. "Ah," Destiny replied, enlightened. "There hadn't been any military issues, terrorist attacks, or anything like that on Zardon or Salusia in the past few months, I had no ID, my genotype wasn't in any database... I was a blank. I knew my name and that was it. He recruited me into Section 9, I think mostly so they could keep an eye on me. But a trained special forces op, with no history? That's golden in that kind of situation. They got Lloyd Batou back from the IPO for a two-month training and certification course, since he's one of the best trainers out there." She brushed a fry through some mayo. "But the Daodan... it's... intelligent. It drives me to do things when it's active. And I'm afraid I'm going to lose control." She sighed. "So... since Geoff here has one, I thought I'd see if he could teach me control." Geoff looked a little stunned. "Wow. I've... I had that when I first got it, when I was... geez, when I was 13. Except they wanted me to indulge my violent instincts, not suppress them. I just kind of adapted to it. But Logan... he can help you." Konoko looked dubious. "A short hairy guy with wolvers can help me get control of myself?" "He's a kenjutsu master, for starters. He was conditioned to be a berserk killer, and he got over it. If anyone can help you, it's him. And we've both got Daodans, so I'll be available too." He reached over to ruffle her hair impulsively, and when his hand touched her head, there was a purple spark. Konoko shook her head. "...what was that?" Geoff shook his hand. "No idea. Some kind of Daodan reaction charge? Weird." Destiny hmms. "Perhaps the symbiotes can communicate directly through the touch of their hosts. You've never actually had any skin- to-skin contact before, correct? When we all shook hands at Preston, she was wearing gloves." "Okaaay," Geoff said, "someday soon we're going to go to Boyce Memorial over on New Avalon and talk to my doctor about this. You'll like him. He specializes in weird stuff like this. He saved my life after I was nearly burned to death. Figured a way to leverage the Daodan for it." Konoko regarded him somewhat dubiously. "That's got to be a story." "Yes, Grandpa Geoff," Destiny said sardonically, "tell us a story." With a sour look at Destiny, he began: "I was at a diner..." Part II: Thankless SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2410 UNDISCLOSED LOCATION NEKOMIKOKA, TOMODACHI "We require your decision, sir. Will it be yes, or no?" Obergruppenfuehrer Franz Wilhelm von Draken smiled thinly at the perspiring politico across the table from him. He'd requested this meeting specifically to ensure that the man would have to commit. Commissioner of Trade Kozu Mitsuwa patted his damp forehead with his handkerchief. How had he gotten into this mess? But he knew: ambition that outreached his skills, and an offer of someone to give him a chance to seize the power he craved. But it had turned in his hand like some story of a magic sword that struck at one who was not pure, and now he had to choose. The Nazi was a tall, well-built blond man in the black uniform of the Schutzstaffel; the absolute picture of their ideal. He slammed his swagger stick down on the table and barked, "YES OR NO?" Mitsuwa drew up what little remained of his dignity and said, "Yes. But I want to know how you expect to do that - embarrass every major polity in the galaxy." Von Draken smiled a thin smile. "We have obtained a small nuclear weapon - large enough to ruin Embassy Row, but not enough to destroy the whole of Nekomikoka." Mitsuwa half-rose, in mixed shock and fright. "How did you get one of those?" The Nazi tilted his head. "A branch of Big Fire required funds, and acquired them by selling armaments. We... were a customer. Unfortunately, they were closed down, or we could have purchased a few more." He lifted a hand and checked the points of his exquisitely formed moustache. "However, one will suffice." He smiled a bit more at Mitsuwa. "Do not worry, Commissioner! History shows that when the National Socialists work with the Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, great changes happen. GREAT changes." Mitsuwa sat down hard in the chair, reached for his handkerchief and mopped his forehead again. Was the presidency really worth making a Faustian bargain of this caliber for? Regarding the grinning Nazi leader, he remarked gloomily to himself that it was a bit late to be considering that now. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2410 3:34 PM EMBASSY ROW NEKOMIKOKA, TOMODACHI Logan flashed his Lens to the door guard as he entered the mobile command post. The guard lowered his weapon and let the Lensman pass, watching the tall broad man and the lithe women follow him. A man in a Tomodachi Defense Force uniform looked up, his shoulder flash revealing him to be a Colonel. He saluted. "Greetings. I am Colonel Tomoyuki Tanaka. We welcome the IPO's assistance in this matter. Please, let me show you the current status." Logan, Geoff Depew, Sister Destiny and Konoko Kokoromi examined the plot in the holotank. "Impressive," said Konoko, who was no stranger to counterterrorist actions. "They've got the place fairly well bottled up. Do they have control of the automatic defenses, too?" "Yes," Tanaka said, nodding. "The embassies themselves are still autonomous, but apparently the attackers managed to get control of the Row's defenses. The Row defense programs feed the OKs to the various embassy computers once people are validated and badged, and that was enough to let these slime into the buildings." "Hostages?" Logan's eyes hadn't left the plot. "They let most of the staff go, only keeping a few nonessential personnel from the Earth Alliance and Zeta Cygni embassies." "Cooks and maintenance staff," Geoff stated. "This way they can keep hostages while not having to worry about bringing in their own foodstuffs or the possibility of equipment breakdowns giving someone a chance to break in." Tanaka appraised the big man. "You know a lot about hostage situations." Geoff met Tanaka's eye. "You could say I've had insurgent training." Tanaka nodded, and figured if a Lensman was here, the big guy was either OK or under control, which was all he cared about. "Sir!" A comm-tech turned around. "We're getting a message from inside the Row!" "Put it in the tank," Tanaka ordered brusquely. The tank resolved a 2-D screen. The man visible wore the black uniform, peaked cap, and collar tabs of a high-ranking Nazi SS officer. He was perfectly blond and sculpted, and his mustache was drawn into little points. "Good afternoon, citizens of Tomodachi. Permit me to introduce myself: I am Obergruppenfuehrer Franz Wilhelm von Draken of the First Goldeneradler Kommando. We have taken this place as the first step toward the liberation of the galaxy from the control of aliens and the race traitors who permit them to rule. We will hold it until our demands are met. Should anyone attempt to enter the Row, we will take swift and devastating action." He stepped back, sweeping his arm to reveal a bullet-shaped device sitting on a table. "That is a Salusian Barjak-class tactical nuclear weapon. If we are attacked, it will be detonated. If we are infiltrated, it will be detonated. If we notice snipers setting up outside the perimeter of Embassy Row, it will be detonated. Any and all actions that may be considered hostile will cause it to be detonated. Our deaths will demonstrate to the galaxy that the Nazi Party is prepared to end the mongrelization of galactic society by any means necessary. The scar our common grave leaves on the face of this city will be a permanent reminder." The camera focused on him again. "Our demands are simple. One: the deportation from Tomodachi of all non-human creatures and part-human mongrels that claim to be intelligent. Two: immediate reforms to insure they cannot return. Three: the immediate appointment of a planetary president of our choice, to ensure the enforcement of these laws. Four: the immediate execution of any and all race traitors - anyone who has willingly performed miscegenation with an alien. Those who have been forced to do so will be spared, following a physical examination and cleansing. Five: the revocation of so-called declarations of independence for clockwork servants posing as sapient beings. "Finally, there will be a repudiation of the Pact Babylonica, the International Police Accords and the Wedge Defense Force Pact. You have 48 hours to do as we say, or Nekomikoka's weather becomes very, very unpleasant." The screen cut out. "Charming fellow," Destiny said in a tone that said she thought he was anything but. "Dammit!" Konoko's hand slammed into the console. "I'm willing to bet that's one of the arms deals that Galactor set up. There's a half-dozen of those bombs missing - we tracked down four of the six." "Now we have number five located," Tanaka said grimly. "And it's surrounded by Nazis who sound willing to use it." Logan frowned at the blank screen. "Way it looks, they set it up so that there's no way to get in there without them setting it off - they got the Embassy Row security. We know what embassy they're in?" "Earth Alliance," Tanaka said, pointing at the map. "Almost dead center." Geoff took the map in, then nodded. "I have an idea, but I need to make a call and a visit to see if we can pull it off." Logan raised an eyebrow. "Wanna let us in on it?" Geoff looked around, then leaned in, gesturing at the other three, who huddled with him. "I have a contact - someone I know - who might be able to get the detonator of the bomb out and disable the security systems before we send in a crew to stop them." Tanaka frowned. "I need a name." "All you get is his nickname - Mouse." Konoko blinked. "You know Mouse?" "Yeah. He talked me out of taking out a Big Fire cell here about two years ago - he asked me not to, if he could promise their exposure. Turns out they had something he wanted to steal, and he turned the evidence over to the police, who raided the base and arrested them." Konoko chuckled. "The Osaka bust? I heard it was an anonymous tip, but I didn't know it was an anony-Mouse tip." The three men and Destiny ignored the joke magnificently, and Logan said, "OK, Geoff. Who you gotta call?" "I'm going to ask the most wanted thief on Tomodachi for help. I think I should get the OK from the Chief before I go pulling a stunt like that, Logan." "Hold on." Logan closed his eyes in concentration, and a few moments later opened them. "Gryphon'll deal with the Nekomikoka police. You take care of your part." Geoff nodded and headed out. Tanaka watched him go, then looked at Logan. "He seems most intent." "He takes things like this seriously. He's the only defector from Big Fire who's ever turned around and become a major threat to them, and I think he sees the fact that the Nazis got the bomb from Big Fire as a personal kinda failure." The Lensman shrugged and headed towards the door. "Where are you going?" Tanaka demanded. "Need a smoke." "Please, allow me to join you." Tanaka removed a pipe and a small pouch from his uniform's jacket pocket. Konoko rolled her eyes and pulled out her datapad, working on her inevitable report for Togusa, while Destiny closed her eyes and pondered the mysteries of the universe. Nekomikoka is, paradoxically, not a very urban city: the downtown isn't that huge, the suburbs are clean and well trimmed, and the people are, in general, well to do. Still, there is a rich section of the city proper. And the richest family in that section - jokingly referred to as Imperial Row - was the Muon clan. The eldest son, Sorata, dabbled as an art teacher at the local high school, and the family indulged him. If he wanted to teach, so be it - he had double-majored in Business Administration and Art Education in college, and when the family needed him to take over, he'd be there. Or so conventional wisdom went. The truth of the matter was that the wealth of the Muon clan was, for the most part, originally from two different families of thieves. The original Muon clan had begun stealing from overly rich samurai and merchants in the Tokugawa era of Japan. The other family that had married with theirs was descended from the Gastons, a French family of thieves descended from a young man in the 17th century who believed that, as long as his lineage committed no violence, they would be forgiven the sin of theft. (Family legend said it was thanks for exposing a corrupt bishop and freeing a pair of lovers from their curse.) Thus, Sorata Muon was the current Mouse. While he did have both degrees, and he did dabble in art education, he was more in control of the family's funds than most outsiders knew. He was also the most wanted thief on Tomodachi. Knowing this, Geoff Depew kept his hands firmly away from his guns as he walked up the brick driveway, lined with verdant greenery (expecting most of it hid antipersonnel weaponry). As he approached the house, the front door opened, revealing a curvaceous blonde woman in a red skirt-suit. "Mr. Depew," she said, "welcome. Master told me to bring you to the study." "Miss Momozono," Geoff replied, bowing. "Thank you." She led him through the expansive house to a well-established study, where the lord of the house sat in a chair. The entire tableau was broken a bit by the fact that he had a slender, athletic girl with green hair in his lap, apparently trying to kiss him forcefully. Meanwhile, a brunette worked at a datacenter in the corner, studiously ignoring them both. She was typing and using a datajack at the same time - signs of a skilled networker. "Hazuki, we have a guest." "But Master..." She finally relented, then backflipped over the arm of the chair, somersaulted in the air to land on her feet, and flopped on the couch. Sorata rose and walked over to take Geoff's hand. "It's good to see you. I've heard about your new employment. I'm pleased for you." Geoff was quickly seated and handed a cup of tea. He took an appreciative sip, then got to business. "You've heard about the Embassy Row situation?" "Yes. Yayoi is gathering information now." The brunette looked over her shoulder and waved. "You're here about that?" "I've secured Gryphon's promise to keep the police off you. I need the best thief I can get to steal the detonator off that nuke." The three women all stared, and Yayoi squeaked, "Nuclear weapon?" Geoff nodded grimly. "They have a Salusian tactical nuke in there, and if they get any sign of a major incursion, snipers... they're going to set it off, take out Embassy Row." Sorata leaned back in his chair, eyes looking at the ceiling. "You want Mouse to sneak into the embassy compound while it's on high alert, then into the Earth Alliance building, also on high alert, inside that compound, and then steal a component off a nuclear weapon that's almost certainly guarded." Geoff nodded. "Yes. And we've got 47 hours before they set it off no matter what." Sorata shook his head. "No. That's a bluff. They gain nothing; they lose a great deal." Geoff's face was grim. "Normally I'd agree with you, Sorata, but these are Nazis we're dealing with. They don't think like normal people. You don't get many outright fanatics here on Tomodachi. I've dealt with their kind before." Sorata might have replied, but before he could do so, Yayoi touched a control and activated a hidden holoprojector. A narrow-faced man in a dark grey suit was speaking. The news channel identified him as the Tomodachi Minister of Trade, Kozu Mitsuwa. "We must accede to these demands," he said in a reedy voice, "or our world, our lovely gem of a home world, will be scarred! I have already requested all available transports be made ready, and demanded that the Department of Taxation produce a list of all non-humans currently living on Tomodachi. And I am submitting a request to the Foreign Minister that we sever our ties to the Babylon Project and the International Police, and officially expel the Ambassador from the Republic of Zeta Cygni. They have done nothing but bring us strife, and we must make our planet safe at any cost!" Mei Momozono narrowed her eyes. "He must be in on it. The timing is too perfect. They had to have everything prepared in advance. Which means... which means Mr. Depew may be right. They might really mean it about that nuke." Sorata's head rose from its recumbent position. "I'm in." He smiled, and as he did so his body language changed completely, becoming utterly, maybe even frighteningly deliberate and controlled. "Even the Nazis will learn that there is nothing that Mouse cannot steal." Geoff had called Logan, and the Lensman and Konoko had met him in a small park about a half-mile away from Embassy Row. With him was a man in deep violet and dark grey, with his face covered up. "Logan, Konoko, this is Mouse." Logan sniffed the air. "He brought backup." Three women, dressed in similar - if somewhat more abbreviated - costumes to Mouse landed just behind the young man, dropping out of the tree behind him. "We are his assistants." Konoko rolled her eyes at the legless, sleeveless and open-collared costumes they wore, while not ignoring they were all well-toned and obviously very athletic. Logan nodded and tossed a chip to Geoff. "I brought what you wanted - Gryphon gave me the Earth Alliance Embassy's security override codes, from wherever he got them." He glanced at Mouse. "And a message that he'd appreciate it if you'd leave the art alone." While Geoff busied himself with the package and his holsters, Mouse's eyes smiled, his lower face invisible under the mask. "I'm not planning on doing anything that risky, Logan-san." He touched his chest. "I am a scion of Tomodachi - this is an insult to my national honor." He took the chip, then bowed. "If you would like to come along to the sewers?" They dropped into the sewer pipe, walking along the raised walkway in the center. "We infiltrated their computers, turned off the sewer security, rerouted the camera feeds, and disabled the sewer intercoms," Mouse explained. "This means we only need to worry about if they have placed live guards into the sewer, and even then they cannot get far from the entrances without losing contact." "Nice," Logan admitted. "I'd always intended to steal the Earth Alliance Ambassador's seal," Mouse admitted candidly, "and perhaps I will someday soon, but the point is, I have spent time preparing for the entry into this building. But this effort is considerably more important." They stopped about 300 meters away. Mouse took an IR scope from his equipment belt and took a look. "They have two guards at the door, both armed, but without vision gear or a motion detector," he reported. "Foolish - they only have about fifty yards of sight in each direction." "Small favors, bub," Logan said, hunkering down. Geoff and Konoko did the same. Destiny peered. "They're dressed in field grey - Waffen-SS kit. It's equivalent to light body armor. Their weapons look like KG99s." "We will be using one of the air shafts to get in," Mouse decided. "From here, it will take us above the room where I believe they are keeping the weapon. Then we will descend, disarm, and return here with the detonator, leaving the rest of the device intact." "Gee," Konoko muttered, "would you like to be any more baroque?" "I do have a reputation to think of, Miss Kokoromi," Mouse said. With that he seemed to rise up the featureless wall, into the darkness. A slight noise from above marked the opening of the vent; then the three women followed him. "Now's the hard part. We wait." Logan smiled grimly. "And once they get back, we do some damage." Mouse grinned under his mask. This was what life was all about, he thought, as he crawled through a dingy aircon vent. Hazuki was right behind him. Yayoi had found a router with an open port and linked in to give electronic overwatch. Mei was guarding Yayoi. Now, if the Nazis did things the way he thought they did - bombastically and obviously - he knew precisely where they would keep that bomb. "Yayoi," he said softly into the link, "find me the fastest way from this location to the main auditorium. They're going to keep the bomb there." There was a pause, and then Yayoi's voice came back, "Ten meters ahead, there's an upward vent. Take it up to the third junction, go east to the second panel. That will put you right above the stage." "Excellent." He climbed up and across as directed, and looked through the vent. The bomb was visible from the vent, as were the two guards on each side of it. "Two guards," he said quietly. "armed and wearing gas masks. Tricky. Hazuki, pass me the device we lifted from that Romulan agent, the low-power acoustic suppressor, and the demolitions kit." The athletic girl rummaged in her bag, bringing out a soft belt, a small box, and a pouch. He fastened the belt around his waist, hung the pouch from it, and then touched the box. He suppressed a sigh - it really felt like cheating to do this, but time was of the essence. It suddenly became very quiet near him. He popped the vent, attached the box to a rope, and lowered it down. The guards seemed unaware of its presence. Perfect. He touched the belt's buckle and faded away. Only flickers remained as he climbed down the rope. This personal cloaking field was highly unstable, ran hot, made a high-pitched whining noise when running, and had the irritating addition of making its wearer unable to see at all in the visual spectrum at all when it was active. And this was a bomb he didn't know well. Thankfully, he'd worn contacts that let him see into the ultraviolet, but the other factors were still problems. Well, he told himself with a wry smile, that's how you live up to the title 'best thief on the planet'. He opened a panel in the bomb, blinking a couple of times to get used to the visuals. Tricky. Then he pulled a pair of probes out of the kit and started working. It was difficult work, harder than he'd expected - this was top-of-the-line Salusian military hardware, specifically designed to resist what he was doing. But he was the best on the planet, and despite a pair of heart-stopping moments, he finally teased the detonator out. Pocketing it, he climbed up the rope, pulled it and the silencer up, and put the vent back in place. Hazuki waved at him, and he turned the silencer off. " - them in. All of them except the guards. I must remind them of our purpose here." "Jawohl, Herr Obergruppenfuehrer." The two thieves watched a man in an officer's uniform take up position near the bomb, then reach up to scratch at an itch at his neck. With a shared nod, they withdrew from the area, alerting Mei and Yayoi to get out as well. A small device landed in Geoff's lap. He opened his eyes and looked up to see Mouse and his assistants dropping to the ground in front of him. "No problems?" "We were unseen, but there may still be a problem. Just as we were leaving, we heard the leader call for everyone not on guard duty to the bomb room for a rally. If they examine it and find the detonation chips gone, they might still be able to set off the weapon, given time to improvise." "Awright," Logan said, putting a claw through the detonator, "time to clean up. You in?" The burly Lensman turned to where Mouse had been standing, only to find the man and his assistants gone. "It's part of his beliefs, Logan. If he initiates an act of violence in anything other than self-defense, he thinks he's going to go to Hell. And, uh, take all his ancestors with him." Geoff shrugged. "Besides, he did his part." "True, that." Konoko had spent the time switching her rifle into a sniper configuration. Fifteen seconds later, the four were at the door and two dead Nazis lay on the concrete. She checked her watch surreptitiously, and figured her surprise would be showing up soon. Logan turned and looked at the door to the basement. He touched it, he listened a bit, he even sniffed it, then reared back his leg and kicked the thing in. Absolutely no alarms went off, leaving them all somewhat disappointed. The basement door led into a corridor, and the three raced down it, up two flights of stairs, and to the doors of an auditorium. This was where the bomb had been held, and the Nazis had been gathered here, apparently for some kind of rally. The bomb itself stood on a platform, and next to it was the Nazi leader, in front of ranks of his followers - there must have been almost two hundred of them. Behind him, a giant display screen showed the Nazi flag. "Gentlemen, this is our moment. Tonight everything changes. Tomorrow, Tomodachi will either be the first world of the New Galactic Reich... or the first to learn the folly of standing in its way." The leader smiled coldly. "To be honest, gentlemen, I hope they defy us. We all know the Reich will be reborn in violence. It -must- be. Only fire and blood can cleanse a galaxy as deeply stained as ours has become. If we do not do the cleansing, I promise you, my friends, someone else will - and that will never do!" Warming now to his topic, the speaker became more animated, his eyes flashing, his teeth showing more often as he bit the words off with his lantern jaw. "-We- represent the power of untainted humanity! -We- understand the meaning of strength, of order, of unity! -We- are the future of this galaxy: a future of peace and order! And men like -this-... " He gestured to the screen behind him, causing an image of Chief Gryphon to appear. "... men like THIS have NO PLACE in that future. "This man has sold his heritage to the Salusians, the Klingons, the Vulcans... whoever will pay his price in gold and she-aliens. He plots to rule by creating his own -false- 'master race' of immortal half-alien bastards to help him oppress true Earthmen... but he will not succeed! He will be the first to die when Operation Vengeance begins!" Becoming suddenly quiet, he lifted his arm, bending it at the elbow so his clenched fist was in front of his chin, and smiled a cold and horrible smile. "You and I, my friends... we will see to that when we are finished here. That, and so much more. All the enemies of the race will pay. That I promise you!" Logan growled under his breath, Geoff bristled, Konoko twitched, and Destiny was absolutely, horribly still. Each of them were, they knew, examples of the things that the Nazis would love to exterminate. Logan was a mutant. Geoff and Konoko were both having their bodies rebuilt cell by cell by an alien implant. Sister Destiny was an android. This had just gotten very personal. Then the moment went from chilling to horrifying, as the speaker snapped bolt upright, heels together, his arm raised in the Nazi salute, and barked two words - two words that the modern Nazi Party had always set itself apart from the historical one by NOT using: "Heil Hitler!" /* Nobuo Uematsu "J-E-N-O-V-A [FF7 AC Version]" Final Fantasy VII Advent Children Soundtrack */ It was too much for Logan. With their characteristic 'snikt!' sound, his claws popped out from the backs of his hands. Abandoning all semblance of control, he launched himself into the room behind a blood-curdling feral roar. Surprise was total. The furious Canadian carved a bloody swath through the ranks of the stunned, terrified Nazis. Geoff looked at Konoko. Konoko looked back. Both of them supercharged their Daodans, drew weapons, and followed him into the melee. Geoff felt his hair grow from its usual short shag to shoulder-length as he charged in. Idly, something in the back of his brain wondered why that didn't happen to Konoko. Sister Destiny was a monochrome shadow, flitting from place to place, laying down gunfire with deadly accuracy. The four danced a bloody tango across the auditorium. Nazis fell, some dead and some just wounded, unable to deal with the sudden, unexpected assault. Quickly, though, they rallied, some bringing pistols to bear, buying time for other weapons to come into play. Von Draken bellowed a near-inarticulate German obscenity, yanked a mini-detonator from one of his pants pockets, and thumbed the button on top. When nothing happened, he whirled and stared in incoherent fury at the bomb for a second, then threw the switch aside and drew his sidearm. he roared to his men, his voice cutting through the chaos of the room. The Nazis started to pull themselves together, moving to encircle. Logan's berserk fury was in full effect, and he cared nothing for their counterfire, despite bullets tearing bloody furrows in his flesh and sparking from his metal-clad bones. Konoko would have marveled at it, but she was busy trying to keep her own killer instincts under control as she found herself dodging the gunfire. Geoff took a moment to work the odds, then glanced at Destiny. He popped a clip from the Jackal, drew the Canon, and - much to Konoko's surprise - began to sing, his voice rising above the cacophony of battle in a simple, ancient melody: Gloria in excelsis Deo... Destiny favored him with a small smile, and leapt over the heads of the Nazis she was in hand-to-hand with, landing behind Geoff with her back to him. Her voice replied, clear and pure, ... et in terra pax homínibus bonae voluntatis! The call and response came from one of the fundamental canticles of the Rule of St. Ignatius: the cue for the Dance of the Seraphim. This is one of the few Ignatine techniques devised for multiple practitioners, and legend said that the full Order had used a pre-firearm version of it to annihilate an entire Ottoman army during the battle in which Ignatius was martyred. Now, even with just two of them, it was devastating. Instead of separate shots, their fire sounded like a single extended gunshot, as they wheeled around each other in eerie silent synchrony, the rest of the canticle playing in their heads, arms moving but never touching, shots hitting home. Then it was over, both of them needing reloads. Geoff holstered the Canon, hearing the droid start its work, and reached for a fresh Jackal clip. A bullet caught him in the shoulder, knocking him off balance but not going through the heavy armorweave shirt he wore under his baseball jersey. He bobbled the clip, almost dropped it... ... and then it seemed to hang there, as if held. And for a moment, he saw a man there, holding it, and he knew the man even though he'd never met him before. "Thank you, Lord Jesus, for helping me keep my ammo." "Think nothing of it. I help those who help themselves." The moment passed, the man disappeared (no one else seemed to have seen him), and Geoff rammed the clip into place. At that moment, the three sets of double-doors at the other end of the room slammed open. Five cyborgs, massive black-and-red constructs of metal with only their lower faces visible, goose-stepped into the room. "ACHTUNG! EISENSTURM KORPS! Prepare for battle!" said the one in the middle, who bore a set of inlaid gold bars on his shoulders. As one, they raised their arms, electricity crackling over the tines that had replaced their left hands. The rest of the Nazis got out of the way at a hellacious rate. The cyborgs fired massive blasts of lightning, arcing across the room. Konoko's laser rifle caught one of them in the left arm, blowing out its tubes in a flare of light. The other four moved of their own accord towards Logan, whose metal skeleton was, as one might expect, practically a lightning rod. When they hit, he screamed in untold agonies, body jerking, his adamantium skeleton actually glowing visible through his flesh. His hair crisped, his clothes caught fire, and when the lightning stopped, he dropped like a stringless puppet. "Shit," said Konoko, "not good." "He's been through worse," Geoff said quietly, "and he's come through." The reloader droid in the Canon's holster pinged. "WE ARE THE EISENSTURM KORPS!" the cyborg leader bellowed. "SURRENDER AND WE WILL MAKE THE EXECUTION OF THE MEN MOSTLY PAINLESS. THE WOMEN WILL BE TAKEN WITH US TO PROVIDE THE NEXT GENERATION TO RULE THE GALAXY!" Geoff looked at Konoko, then at Destiny. He drew the Canon, straightarming it, and said, "On behalf of my friends, I'd like to tell you to go fuck yourself with the dick you left in the labs." Then he fired a shot into the leader's chin. A panel began to come down to close, but too late for him - the bullet went right in. Being one of Geoff's special ECX bullets, it hit the back armor of the neck and exploded inside the armor, reducing what was inside to the consistency of strawberry jam. Destiny matched his shot with the one to the right of the leaderborg. She lacked explosive bullets; hers, however, had a matchless aim and shattered the fiber optic bridge that had replaced his spinal column, locking him in place while he drowned on his own blood. Konoko's rifle was spent, so she drew another weapon, a small chrome-plated sphere. Her thumb jammed down on the button on top, causing the ball to emit a low whine and start glowing blue around the middle. Destiny shot her a speculative glance. "Bet you can't stick it," she said with a little smile. Konoko, seeming to ignore her, lobbed the grenade. It arced across the room and stuck to the center of the disarmed trooper's chest panel. He had just enough time to cry, "Nein, so was!" before the plasma grenade went off, reducing him to a pair of metal legs. Konoko spared a half-second to give Destiny a triumphant grin, which she acknowledged with a smiling bow of her head. The remaining two Eisensturm troopers charged, bringing up their right arms. These had manipulators, but also wicked axe-blades mounted on their forearms. This, Geoff thought, is gonna suck. He hit one of them with two shots from the Canon, cratering armor but not penetrating it. Oh, max suckage, he restated, dropping under an axe, only to watch Sister Destiny take advantage of the cratering by jumping over the axe and slamming a fist through the weakend part of the chest plastron. The big borg made an electronic distress kind of sound and shuddered, and Destiny's fist came out stained red and clutching something meaty. "Heartbreaker," Geoff said, as the Nazi borg fell over backwards. "It's a gift," she said modestly, then they turned their attention to the other cyborg. Konoko was in a deadly dance with him, dodging the axe and trying to get around to his back. The problem there was that he had apparently released some of his restrictors, and was spinning around at the waist every time she turned. Still, he didn't have eyes - or optic sensors, or a sonar emitter, or something more esoteric - in the back of his head, so Geoff and Destiny opened up on his back instead. He spun at the sudden incoming gunfire... ...and Konoko slapped her second plasma grenade on his back, then tumbled away with a cheery cry of "You know, for the Master Race, you're pretty dumb!" He had a second to ponder this, and then got blown to hell. Konoko finished her roll, came to her feet, and then five glowing bolts of energy flew out of nowhere, striking her painfully. As she cried out, another man in an SS officer's uniform flickered into view. He gestured with a wand, sending a small glowing sphere shooting from his hand toward Geoff and Destiny. "Crap! Wizard!" Geoff said, throwing himself out of the way. Destiny did the same thing, just before the sphere reached where they'd been and exploded into a blast of fire. Unfortunately for the Nazi sorcerer (Zaubereikraftberechtigung, to use his proper title), Konoko hadn't been killed, or even stunned, by his mystic missiles, and he started another spell only to catch a Section 9 standard issue combat boot (size 6) in the face. She was faster than he was at the best of times, and Daodan-fueled she was far beyond him. It was the work of ten seconds to beat him completely unconscious. Geoff and Destiny had moved in to help her, then realized they were against a wall. And the Nazis were all aiming at them. "Well," Sister Destiny said philosophically, "God has a plan. I just wish His plan didn't include us apparently about to get killed." "I trust that He has something to help us," Geoff said. /* Glenn Frey "Party Town" */ And then... "HOOODY-HOO! Time for the magical fandango of violent looooove!" a man in a red and black ninja suit howled as he swung down from the balcony of the auditorium with a silent shadow in black behind. Geoff gaped. "DEADPOOL?! And Snake-Eyes?" He glanced at Konoko. "You called them?" "Rule one: always arrange proper backup. Batou was always very strict in enforcing that," she replied with a small grin. The backstage door opened with the bang of a grenade, and a pale-skinned woman in black combat gear dove in, rolled, and came up firing, adding to the havoc that had suddenly engulfed the room again. One of the Nazis tried to hit her with a chair, but she dodged it easily. "There's nothing you can do when you're the next in line," Beatrice 'Domino' Watanabe smirked, then kicked him in the gut, folding him up like a cheap suit. Her left eye glowing red, she glanced around for a target. "Looks like Logan called in backup too," Geoff said, cracking a Nazi's jaw with the Canon. Destiny shook her head as she kicked one in the face. "Mysterious ways indeed." Deadpool had, by this time, burst into song while beating up Nazis with a set of martial arts maneuvers that was one part capoeira, one part karate and one part disco dancing: "I blow them up, I knock them down Doesn't really matter in Nazi Town Some run away and some try to fight But they can't beat my studly might Right here in Nazi Town, Yeah, yeah I'm knockin' Nazis down, Yeah, yeah And when I kick their nuts It comes out of their butts! I beat up Nazi Town!" The silent shadow of Snake-Eyes followed his manic brother, a killing machine covering his brother's back. Domino blasted through two of the Nazis, moving in on the bomb as if to disarm it. Geoff finished a complex spinkick-and-punch maneuver to see the Nazi leader running out the side door. He jumped over Logan (who was starting to revive) and followed, yelling, "INTERNATIONAL POLICE! YOU ARE UNDER ARREST!" The leader stopped and turned around. "You fool. You do not understand. I cannot be stopped by the likes of you." As Geoff charged, von Draken raised his hand - and a red mist sprayed out of the man's sleeve into Geoff's face. Suddenly Geoff felt like his head was on fire. He dropped his guns and fell to his knees, clutching at his face. He was unable to do anything for a moment, as the man who called himself von Draken walked up to him. "Let this be a warning to the International Police." Geoff heard the click of a Luger's safety being taken off. Almost by reflex he twitched his left hand. This time, he was prepared - this medpack had three doses of Miraculon in it, and the hand motion pumped the last two into his veins. The burning went away as his hair grew from his shoulder blades to his waist. Geoff Depew focused on one thought, one action, and the aura of the Daodan faded away from most of his body. It centered around his right fist as he rose up from his knees, giving von Draken a tremendous, Daodan-fueled uppercut. Bone crunched against his knuckles as the Nazi went flying back, hitting a wall hard enough to dent it, then steadied himself. "I have not been hit like that in many years," von Draken said in a slurred, pained tone, "and I expect you will not hit me that way again." He fired his Luger, and Geoff actually managed to dodge the bullet, barreling in for another punch. He blocked two punches - von Draken was amazingly strong, but not quite as strong as he was - before getting the Nazi in the side. He felt ribs crack under his fingers, and von Draken let out a pained grunt. He returned the punch, and Geoff took a moment to be surprised at the man's speed and - Damn!, he thought as he felt one of the bones in his forearm greenstick under the counterblow - strength. He wasn't quite in Geoff's weight class, but he was top of the line. It reminded Geoff of getting worked over by Steve Rogers in training. He dodged, then kicked low. The Nazi officer leapt over the legsweep, bringing his knee up with it to connect with Geoff's chin and stun him for a moment. It was pure instinct that enabled him to evade another kick that would probably have snapped his neck. Muay Thai, Geoff thought, and then surrendered to The Turks Surround Saint Ignatius. It was one of the first learned maneuvers, and its intent was to get the hell out of the way while you pulled your head together. That done in a few seconds, Geoff wove around another knee strike and an elbow strike before going up the middle with a gun-extended punch to the chest. His opponent twisted, and the gun broke ribs but didn't get the sternum. The Nazi's eyes, this close, seemed tired, red-rimmed, but glowed with a mad intensity. He spat blood and saliva at Geoff. "Nein! I will not let you take me, mongrel!" he snarled. "I will never fall until I have faced my old foe and killed him at last! Tell the Captain that Johann Schmidt looks forward to a reckoning." He threw himself sideways, pressing his belt buckle, and disappeared in a shimmer of light, leaving behind what looked like a rubber bag. No, not a bag, Geoff realized. A mask. Whoever von Draken had been, it was an assumed identity. He left the mask where it was and turned to rejoin the melee in the ballroom when he heard an amplified voice. "By order of the International Police Organization, all members of the National Socialist Federation Workers' Party here are under arrest!" thundered the Chief. The front doors of the embassy blew open and blue-suited Tac Div troopers, led by the redoubtable Tuncer and the Repo Men, charged in to take over the situation. Gryphon himself was right on their heels. Geoff stared at the scene, knowing the Daodan crash was coming, and struggled to give a report before the weakness started to make his legs shake. "Are you all right?" For a moment Geoff thought he saw a kindly-faced man in a rough cloth robe - the same one who had helped him before - helping him keep his balance. "You have kicked some righteous ass in My Name, my son, and it will not be forgotten. My blessing upon you." And then he walked away, right through a wall. Sister Destiny skidded around a corner, to see Geoff starting to wobble. "Are you all right?" he said, and Geoff nearly choked, holding a bark of laughter back. "I should warn you, I just crashed from -three medpacs-. My serotonin level is FUCKING ASTRONOMICAL and I could stop making sense at ANY MOMENT." She just nodded and moved to support him. "By the way, Brother Geoffrey... when you grabbed your last reload, just as the firefight peaked... who were you talking to?" "Jesus." Destiny blinked. "Beg pardon?" "Jesus. I saw Him." Geoff turned to her, his face so absolutely earnest that she didn't even think of reproaching him for his blasphemy. "Jesus Christ was passing my ammo." "... You should lie down, Brother Geoffrey." "You're damn right I should, Sister Destiny." Geoff had nearly fallen over right there, but the medics had managed to find a place for him and Konoko to lie down when their Daodan boosts wore off. He woke up before she did, got his bearings, and headed back into the embassy. Warrick Brown looked up as he walked in. "Man, you are one big-ass trouble magnet," the dark-skinned criminalist said with a grin. Geoff had spent some time with the CSI night shift, for class credit on his criminology degree, and once they'd gotten over his past actions - he'd held guns on Gil and Sara, for crying out loud - they'd been pretty decent to him, especially when he made a point of staying the hell out of the way and watching them do their jobs and asking questions later. "Comes with the territory, Warrick." He didn't offer a hand to shake - Warrick was gloved and working. Gil Grissom poked his head into the room and said, "Warrick, I need you to - oh, hello, Geoff." He also was gloved, but nodded pleasantly. "Come to watch the clean-up?" "Actually," Geoff said, "I was going to offer to lend a hand if I could. I've made enough of a mess." "Well," Gil said, "you're not a rated criminalist, so unfortunately, I can't allow you to do any of the evidentiary work. Still, another set of eyes can't hurt, and I see you've already got the boots on, so if you see anything, please call out and we'll get it processed." Geoff nodded. "I shall do as you command, my master," he said in a sonorous tone, and bowed. Gil rolled his eyes and went back to what he had been doing, which was telling Warrick to get samples of the blood in the auditorium. Geoff went into a side hall, which he remembered as the place he'd fought von Draken. Nick Stokes was there, futzing around with a tricorder. "Hey, Nick," Geoff said. "Hey, Geoff." "Transport trace or weird biologicals?" "Why those two?" "Two main reasons I can think you'd be using a tricorder." "Well," the burly CSI said as he checked the readings, "both, actually. I already dealt with the transport trace, but I wasn't able to get a reading on the origin point. The biologicals, well, these are weird, all right. Some kind of synthetic mycotoxin." Geoff replayed the entire thing in his head, and tilted his head. "It was a red dust. When I inhaled it, it felt like my head was on fire. I couldn't breathe, my skin was burning, and it also felt tight." Nick nodded. "That sounds pretty painful. It was in the IPO database, stuff called Roterschädelstaub. That's what we have on its effects, but thanks for confirming. It's listed as 100% lethal. Your Daodan must've kept you alive." As she passed on her way to another part of the scene, Catherine Willows grinned and added, "Score another one for weird science!" Geoff chuckled, then ran his mind back over what Nick had just said, translating. "Red Skull Dust? Evocative." "Yeah, if you get hit with it, it suffocates you, then desiccates and dyes your skin so you look like a red skull. It's been used a couple of times in the last few years on people who got in the way of the Nazis... and we think it's how the Minister of Trade got it too." Geoff blinked. "Minister Mitsuwa is dead?" "The local cops found him while you were under. Sitting at his desk in his office with his head turned into a red skull," Nick confirmed. "Greg and Sara are working it, but so far it looks like the Nazis left their inside man a parting gift." Geoff shook his head. "That's just messed up." "Want something more messed up? There's evidence of the same stuff inside that mask." He pointed to the mask, lying nearby inside an evidence bag. "Except it's mixed with shed skin cells. Whoever wore that got a faceful of it and lived. Just like you. Somehow." EPILOGUE MONDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2410 10:22 AM NEW AVALON IPO HEADQUARTERS Steve Rogers was reviewing notes on the Tomodachi embassy incident. It had ended up a clear victory. The bomb had been disarmed before anyone had gone in. Exactly how that was done was officially listed as 'sales fraud', but Steve knew the truth. He signed off on the various after-action reports, reviewed the Earth Alliance's damage claims (including claiming the ambassador's seal had disappeared), and then turned to the physical evidence. Steve Rogers always made a point to read all the paperwork on an incident of this scale, if only because he liked to know what had really happened. One page - of Geoff's report - made him stop cold. He dropped it, then picked it up again. A cold chill stole into his heart as he re-read it. A second page, linked to it, detailed the skin cells, and a note on it from Gil Grissom said, "Steve - the owner of this DNA is no more than twenty-seven years old. It couldn't be him, it has to be a copycat." Still, he flagged it for the Chief's attention with his personal 'major response may be required' code. Then he got up and stood looking out his office window for a long time. He wasn't looking at New Avalon; his eyes were looking back almost five hundred years, remembering the dark secrets of Nazi medicine. EPILOGUE 2 DECEMBER 1, 2410 12:15 PM TOMODACHI Geoff sat next to the stream, eyes closed, clearing his mind in the way Logan had taught him. While the samurai disciplines weren't completely compatible with the Ignatine, the Big Fire training that formed the basis was, in part, based on Jeet Kune Do - the ability to adapt anything to fit. Thus, he was mentally reciting Latin in his head when he reached out with one hand and caught the apple thrown at him. He opened his eyes. "Hey, Logan." The short man hunkered down with his cigar and grinned as Geoff took a bite of the apple. "Just figured I'd stop by and give you this." He handed Geoff a small flattish box. Geoff tilted his head, and opened the box. Inside was a pendant that looked familiar. He picked it up and examined it. Instead of the rune Beorc, which had been on the pendant lost when he was nearly killed by a flamethrower, the rune inscribed on it was Tiwaz, the rune of Justice. "Belldandy told me to give that to you, with her regards, since today was an important day for you." Geoff blinked, and thought, then his eyes widened. "One year." "Yup. One year since you got caught, bub, and your life started all over again." Logan offered him one of his cigars. Though he normally didn't, Geoff took it this time. "I never smoke, but hell... one's not gonna kill me." "Oh no you don't," a woman's voice said, and the cigar disappeared from his hand, leaving a stinging sensation behind. Sara Sidle was suddenly standing there with a smile on her face and the cigar in her hand. "I hate the smell of these things," she said. More people arrived - Kurt, Peter, the Griffins, the Morisato clan, Urd, Yomiko, Diana Prince, Gil Grissom, Konoko, Destiny, and finally Gryphon, Raven and Koriand'r - and they sat there, next to the creek, in the sunset, with the picnic that had been brought up with them, and celebrated Geoff's Rebirthday in a grand but quiet style. After an hour, as it was getting dark (and Belldandy had done something to make twinkling lights appear around the area), Geoff stood up. "I'd like to thank you all, and I need to tell people something." He took a deep breath. "I think I'm going to take a leave of absence from the International Police, if the Chief will allow it." "I'd say," Gryphon said wryly, "I'd like to know what for. I mean, you're still technically in custody, after all," he finished with a grin. "I'm going to finish something I should have started. I'm going to go back to Barsaan, and finish my training. I'm ready now. I'm going to become a Cleric. And then, I'm going to come back and be ready for what's needed from me." "I expected this," Logan said. "Really?" came the reply from Gryphon. "I didn't, and I've been reading your reports." A chuckle went around the group, and Logan pulled a box from his Gladstone bag. "Yeah. You gotta finish it. You owe it to yourself, bub." He handed the box over to Geoff. "Called in a few favors for this. Use it wisely." Destiny and Konoko had come to look around his shoulders (Konoko came up to his shoulder, and Destiny was only about an inch taller), and all three of them blinked when the case was opened. Geoff reached in and pulled out a large, slab-sided pistol in blued steel. Engraved on the side was, "MORGAN ARMS CUSTOM SHOP .454 CASULL". He turned it, and on the other was inscribed, "STORMWIND". "That," Logan said, "is what happens when you let me come up with an idea, then turn Don and Skuld loose on it. 'Course, if you screw up, it'll blow up in yer hand, but risk is risk." Geoff put the gun back in the box and handed it to Logan. "Hold it for when I come back, Logan." "I didn't say you could go yet," Gryphon objected mildly. "But it seems fate is against me (and Destiny is giving me the Look), so I suppose I'd best just say yes." Geoff smiled. "I'll stop in your office when I come back, Chief. I'm sure you'll have some need of me." The party, a little more subdued, continued on until it got too chilly out to appreciate. The next day, Geoff transferred the lease on the house to Konoko and hopped a freighter for Barsaan. /* Jon Anderson and Vangelis "I'll Find My Way Home" Friends Of Mr. Cairo */ Geoff Depew You ask me where to begin Logan Am I so lost in my sin Konoko Kokoromi You ask me where did I fall Sister Destiny I'll say I can't tell you when Master Terrapin But if my spirit is lost Suchon Grantz How will I find what is near Madame Berg Katse Don't question I'm not alone Shinichiro Togusa Somehow I'll find my way home Dashiell "Flint" Fairborne Obergruppenfuehrer Franz My sun shall rise in the east Wilhelm von Draken So shall my heart be at peace Kozu Mitsuwa And if you're asking me when Col. Tomoyuki Tanaka I'll say it starts at the end Mei Momozono You know your will to be free Muon Sorata Is matched with love secretly Hazuki Kakio And talk will alter your prayer Yayoi Kuribayashi Somehow you'll find you are there. Wade Wilson Slade Wilson Your friend is close by your side Beatrice Watanabe And speaks in far ancient tongue Warrick Brown A seasons wish will come true Nick Stokes All seasons begin with you Sara Sidle One world we all come from Kurt Wagner One world we melt into one Peter Rasputin Don Griffin Just hold my hand and we're there Katherine Griffin Somehow we're going somewhere Keiichi Morisato Somehow we're going somewhere Belldandy Morisato Urd Snowmane You ask me where to begin Yomiko Readman Am I so lost in my sin Diana Prince You ask me where did I fall Benjamin D. Hutchins I'll say I can't tell you when Raven But if my spirit is strong Koriand'r I know it can't be long No questions I'm not alone Mr. Tanaka's appearance Somehow I'll find my way home courtesy Toho Studios Somehow I'll find my way home Somehow I'll find my way home Many apologies to Glenn Frey Somehow I'll find my way home for what was done to his song "Party Town" (It's all Deadpool's fault, really) Thanks to Cryptic Studios for assistance with set design on "Icebreaker" The man in the dark coat knocked at the imposing wooden door. It swung open and a young man, in his late teens, poked his head out. "The blessings of Saint Ignatius upon you, sir. What may I do for you?" "Please take a message to Brother Partridge, if you will," Geoff said, and watched the young man blanch a little. "Tell him that a prodigal has returned, begging for his kindness and wisdom again." The door closed, and Geoff waited. A moment later, it swung fully open, revealing an Asian man in a dark suit. He regarded Geoff impassively for a moment, then smiled. "Welcome home, Brother Geoffrey. We've been waiting for you." Geoff bowed low. "Thank you, Brother Ghost. I don't want to keep Brother Partridge waiting." His steps felt light as he entered, and the door closed behind him.