TUESDAY, MARCH 2, 2410
                    TEST SETTLEMENT ONE ("SOLUSTON")
                       HALO, SCANDIA-CN38 SYSTEM
                      QUARIAN UNION, KRESGE SECTOR

        Though she had been here many times in her young life,
Tali'Zorah nar Rayya always found that entering Soluston gave her a
weird feeling.  Like every member of her species, she had never seen an
actual quarian town - only holos of what they'd looked like centuries
ago, on Rannoch or Venachar, Lubnaig or Haestrom, or one of the other
long-lost worlds of the ancient Rannoch Hegemony.  The permanent
structures of Halo Test Settlement One had been built by combined teams
of quarian engineers and human contractors based on those holos and what
few architectural records remained from the era before the Evacuation.
        As such, it had a slightly artificial feel, like a movie set or
an idealized version of the Old Country in a theme park on some ex-
colony world.  And as the Halo Acclimation Project had progressed and
the test groups had spent longer and longer in the town, it had grown
and evolved, starting to take on a unique idiom all its own, one
influenced by the style of the structures that had stood on Halo's
surface for millennia before the quarians came.  There was nowhere else
in the galaxy quite like Soluston.
        Tali walked down the settlement's main street.  The place seemed
particularly strange now, for the simple reason that it was largely
deserted; the Acclimation Project was between phases right now, testing
having been suspended for the winter, and the new spring's first group
of volunteers wouldn't arrive for another two weeks.  That made it seem
a bit like she had always imagined the towns on Rannoch would be now,
eerie and empty. Did the geth live in the cities they'd driven their
creators out of?  Did they have any understanding of the architecture,
know what the monuments stood for - did they have any feelings at all
about the people they'd displaced all those centuries ago?  She'd always
wondered.
        She shook her head, banishing the reverie.  She had no time to
muse on the geth right now; she was here for a very particular reason.
        There was one house in Soluston that was unlike all the others.
Where the rest of the town - particularly the Science Center, the grand
building that stood at its center and housed all the research efforts -
was built in duracrete and glass, in that odd fusion of classical
quarian and native Halo styles, the house called (for reasons that
eluded most quarians) Spare 14 was a simple plastalloy colony prefab,
known throughout human space (for reasons that also eluded most
quarians) as an IKEA.  Actually, it was two of them, because it had an
attached garage that was made of another, identical shell that had been
fitted with a larger door and no interior walls.
        This house was unique not only because it didn't match anything
else in town, but also because it had stood there -before- the town.  It
was a relic of the previous settlement to stand on the site, a human
farming colony called Goodyear.  Nowadays, it was the private retreat of
the only quarian to have lived in Goodyear, whose house it had been in
those days as well.
        And it was where Tali'Zorah was bound, because that quarian
happened to be her grandmother.
        She knocked at the door - no doorchime in a structure as basic
as this - and was admitted a few moments later by that grandmother, who
greeted her with a hug and ushered her inside.
        An observer would have been hard-pressed to tell the two women
apart, and not only because they were both quarians, anonymous in their
full-body environment suits and semi-reflec helmet visors.  At
seventeen, Tali was as tall as her grandmother, and they had the same
slim, athletic build, honed by hours of diligent training.  Their voices
even sounded similar - enough so that, with a little effort, Tali had
occasionally been able to fool her father into thinking he was talking
to his mother, not his daughter.
        Tali's grandmother's name was also Tali, which occasionally made
for confusion in its own right.  Tali'Shukra vel Halo - Tali the Elder,
as she was known around the fleet - was quite a famous woman in the
Quarian Union.  She was widely, if a bit inaccurately, acclaimed as the
discoverer of Halo, and had led the efforts to understand the quarian
people's most curious possession for quite a lot longer than Tali the
Younger had been alive.
        "Well, well, well," said Tali'Shukra, stepping back to look her
granddaughter over.  "So the day has finally come.  You must be
excited."  She shook her head.  "Listen to me.  I'm saying exactly the
same ridiculous things your great-grandmother said to me when I was
leaving on -my- pilgrimage."
        Tali'Zorah shrugged.  "Tradition is important," she said, gently
mocking one of her father's favorite pronouncements.
        Tali'Shukra laughed.  "That it is," she agreed.  "Come with me.
I have something for you."  She led the way around the half-partition
that served to sketch in the house's tiny vestibule and into the living
room.
        It always amazed Tali'Zorah how homey her grandmother had
managed to make this dingy little prefab.  She should've expected it -
it was a quarian national gift, the ability to make the drabbest, most
cramped living space into a warm and welcoming home - but it somehow
seemed like a more vivid accomplishment in a human-built colony shelter
than in one of the warren-like habitation holds of a starship.
Centuries of living on the move had made the quarians a ruthlessly
unsentimental people when it came to material possessions, but their
place in the quarian heart was usually occupied with a vengeance by
holograms and photographs, and Tali'Shukra was no different.  The living
room walls, like those of her quarters aboard the Archangel before this,
were like a summary of her life in carefully selected still images.
        The younger Tali's attention was pulled away from the pictures
by the sight of what lay, neatly laid out, on the low table in the
middle of the room.  It was an encounter suit, not unlike the ones they
both wore, but obviously of higher quality than the standard model
Tali'Zorah was wearing.  Which is not to say that hers was poorly made;
rather, the one laid out on the table was exquisite, with fittings and
fabrics that had obviously been made, quite laboriously, by hand.
        "This was my pilgrimage suit," Tali'Shukra explained, gesturing.
"Your great-great-grandfather, Kevirin'Zorah, made it for me many years
ago.  Now that you're leaving for your own pilgrimage, I want you to
have it."
        Tali'Zorah blinked.  "Grandmother... I... I don't know what to
say."
        "You don't need to say anything," Tali'Shukra said fondly.
"Just wear it with pride.  It saw me through many a tight scrape before
my pilgrimage was done.  If anything, I expect yours will be even more
eventful."
        "Thank you.  I will."  Tali'Zorah looked around.  "I've never
noticed - do you have a cleanroom here?  I want to change before I leave
so you can see me in it."
        "That's... something else I want to discuss with you before you
leave," Tali'Shukra said.  "Something else I've given you.  Though I
didn't realize it at the time."
        "... I'm not sure I like the sound of that."
        "It's nothing bad.  At least I don't think so.  You'll have to
make your own decision about that... eventually.  But I should start at
the beginning."  She gestured to one of the armchairs and seated herself
in the other one.  "It started not long after I first met Benjamin... "

        An hour later, dressed in her new encounter suit and with her
head very gently spinning from all she'd just learned, Tali'Zorah
embraced her grandmother in the doorway of her house.
        "Thank you, Grandmother.  I... I don't really know what
everything you've just told me -means,- but... thank you.  I'll keep in
touch as I can.  And good luck with -your- mission," she added.  Then,
with an impish smile in her voice, she added, "This will be, what?  Your
-third- pilgrimage."
        "Some of us remain pilgrims all our lives," Tali'Shukra told
her.  Then, with another hug for good measure, she said, "Be well,
Tali'Zorah.  Be careful - but enjoy yourself.  Keelah se'lai."
        "Keelah se'lai, Grandmother," Tali'Zorah said.  She looked back
once as she walked up the street, waving, and then went into the Science
Center to say goodbye to Mordin.
        That didn't take long, not because Mordin was dismissive, but
because he did everything, including sentimental farewells to beloved
pseudo-nieces, quickly and efficiently.  She'd always liked that about
him.  Growing up quarian, steeped in a society where everything could be
and generally was debated at length, it had been very refreshing to have
one friend who always got straight to the point.
        Presently she emerged, bearing further gifts and well-wishes,
and headed for the shuttleport at the edge of town.  That was all her
goodbyes said.  She'd parted from her schoolmates at graduation the
previous week, and her few friends on the Rayya over the weekend.  Now
she'd been seen off by her grandmother and Mordin.
        In the Read Messages file on her omni-tool, she had a coolly
cordial email from her father, which was all the sendoff she had
expected from him in the first place.  She wasn't going to see him in
person; she had too much to do to be making special trips to his
flagship just to hear him say in person that he disapproved of her
choice of pilgrimage destination and the company she intended to keep
once she got there.  He'd made that plain enough already.  She hadn't
given a damn then and she didn't give one now.
        Time, she thought as she boarded the shuttle that would take her
up to the Scandia-1 fueling station, to be gone from this place.  She
had two hours to make her rendezvous with the Red Arc Line freighter
currently making the run from the Lucas sector to Zeta Cygni.
        Next stop: New Avalon.


                 I have a message from another time...

                      Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
                                presents

                 Undocumented Features Future Imperfect
                 THE ORDER OF THE ROSE: A DUELIST OPERA

                            Third Movement:
                       First Dates and Firefights

                          Benjamin D. Hutchins
                            Philip J. Moyer

                 (c) 2013 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited


                  FRIDAY, MARCH 5, 2410, 1238 HRS GST
                             HANGAR BAY 44
                 INTERNATIONAL POLICE STATION BABYLON 6
                   B'HAVA'EL SYSTEM, CENTAURUS SECTOR

        Corwin Ravenhair was in a hurry.  He had a fleet rendezvous to
get to, and he was already behind schedule because he'd stopped on the
way to the hangar in order to kinda-sorta get married.  As such, there
were -many levels- on which he really didn't have time for Old Home Week
featuring Succubi I Have Known right now.
        Of course, it didn't really look like Nanami Kiryuu was here
looking for a repeat of last Christmas Eve, anyway.  Granted, she -did-
have Nall on his back, but it was only to hold him at sword point.
        "Nall," Corwin asked.  "You okay?"
        "Sure, fine," Nall replied, his voice a bit higher than normal.
"Just showing off for all my fans."
        "Now let's not do anything -hasty- here," Nanami purred.  "We
wouldn't want anyone to get hurt."
        Next to Corwin, the sleek and gleaming form of his recently made
robot friend Eve edged forward a few microns, weapon deployed, targeting
system still locked on the center of Nanami's forehead.
        <Not the girl, Eve,> Corwin whistled in his approximation of
droid audio burst code.  <The weapon.>
        <Understood,> Eve coded back, shifting her aim fractionally.
<Ready.>
        <Go,> said Corwin, throwing himself into motion as he did. Eve's
ion pulse got there before him, naturally, striking Nanami's wickedly
curved Muspel-iron scimitar just above where the blade met the hilt and
sending the weapon hurtling from her hand.  She had just enough time to
react with shock, yelping and pulling her stinging hand back, when
Corwin hit her amidships with a flying tackle.  Nall scrambled clear as
the two rolled several yards across the hangar bay's steel deck, winding
up near the base of Daggerdisc's ramp.
        It dawned on Corwin relatively slowly that, having been disarmed
and then tackled, Nanami wasn't really what you would call -fighting
back.-  She made no particular effort, for instance, to break free and
recover her weapon or counterattack.  Instead, she was grappling with
him... well, more or less -playfully-.
        So it was that, about twenty seconds later, Thor Ironhammer
strode into the docking bay to find Nall sitting on the floor looking
puzzled and Corwin sprawled on his back, partway up Daggerdisc's ramp,
and apparently not so much fighting the lithe blonde on top of him as
trying, with limited success, to fend her off.
        "Corwin!" he bellowed cheerily as he entered the bay.  "Are you
still here?  I would ride into battle with you, if - ... oh!"  He
advanced toward Daggerdisc, halting at the base of the ramp with just
his boots in Corwin's somewhat limited field of view, and added, "Am I
interrupting something?"
        "Fortunately, yes," Corwin grunted.  "A little help, please?"
        Thor hesitated.  "Uh... that really isn't my - "
        "JUST GET HER OFF ME," Corwin roared.
        "Oh!  I can do that."  Thor strode forward, seized Nanami by the
scruff of the neck, and picked her up with no more effort than he
would've shown picking up a sofa cushion.  Then, taking a closer look at
her, he asked in a tone of slight puzzlement, "Now what?"
        Corwin clambered to his feet, dusted himself off, and gave the
blonde (who wasn't bothering to struggle against Thor's iron grip) a
grumpy look.  "Honestly?  I've got no really strong preferences there."
        "A person would think you weren't happy to see me," Nanami
pouted.
        "What are you DOING - " Corwin begain, then stopped himself.
"No.  I don't have time for that.  All right, bring her along, we'll
figure it out on the way.  Nall, are you coming or what?"
        As he got to his own feet, Nall gave Corwin a halfhearted glare
and said, "Beg pardon, I was a little busy trying not to get stabbed."
        "Yeah, well, waitin' on you now," Corwin called back over his
shoulder as he stalked up the ramp and into the ship.
        Thor looked at Nanami, who shrugged.  The thunder god shrugged
in turn, slung her over his shoulder like a bag of laundry, and followed
his nephew up the ramp with Nall and the robots in tow.

                            /*  Klaus Badelt
                         "The Medallion Calls"
    _Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl_ (2003)  */

        Utena Tenjou strode through the Valiant's corridors, nodding
acknowledgements to the greetings of crewmen she passed.  The ship had
more than a full complement aboard; most of the people who'd brought her
through from Zeta had stayed on to help with the upcoming fight, since
her own crew was both scattered throughout the task force and likely to
end up involved in the ground operation.  The halls seemed unusually
crowded and unusually formal with all these uniformed personnel.  There
was a definite buzz in the air, a going-to-war vibe that made everything
seem that much more immediate - that much more serious.
        She entered the turbolift and rode it to deck C; when she
emerged, a team of damage-control crewmen was waiting to get on.
        "Hey, Commodore," said the red-headed young man in the lead.
"Back in the saddle again, eh?"
        "Will Evans," said Utena, grinning.  "What are you doing here?
I thought you were on the Newcomen."
        "I was transferred to the Insouciant last week, but she's not
finished fitting out.  When the call came in for this mission, I figured
I'd tag along and get some Defiant-class experience."
        She shook her head, still grinning, and clapped his shoulder as
he entered the lift.  "We should all be so dedicated," she said.  "Glad
to have you, Will."
        She arrived in the engine room to find it, too, abuzz with
activity and sporting a far larger crew than usual.  Corwin usually ran
things down here with two or three assistants; now there was a crew more
like would be found aboard a conventional ship this size, a dozen or
more people, some in IPSF tech jumpsuits, some in the blue coveralls of
International Police Tech Division shipyard workers.  She had expected
to see Zed Cochrane down here riding herd on the gang, but instead, the
person standing in the middle of the room doing the supervising was
somebody she knew, but hadn't been expecting at all.
        "Tali!" she cried, delighted.
        The young quarian turned at the sound of her name, her body
language brightening at the sight of Utena, and returned the captain's
hug with enthusiasm.
        "You made it after all!" said Utena.
        "Barely," Tali'Zorah replied.  "There I was, so proud of myself
for having made it to New Avalon by this morning, only to discover that
you weren't -there,- you were on Babylon 6."  She shrugged.  "But, as
they say, Keelah provides."
        "Well, hey, you're out, that's the main thing," said Utena.
        "And heading straight into a battle, no less," Tali said wryly.
"Father would be furious.  Oh, wait, he is anyway."
        Utena grinned and made a dismissive gesture.  "He didn't -have-
to sign the waiver.  And hey, thanks to this, you didn't miss the
wedding."  She frowned thoughtfully.  "Mostly.  Not sure what we're
going to do about that yet.  Ah, well, one thing at a time.  Speaking of
which, I'd better get to work.  Got everything you need down here?"
        "Please," said Tali.  "You're talking to a quarian in the engine
room of a ship that's practically brand new.  My biggest problem will be
the lack of things to fix."
        Utena put a hand behind her head and smiled a little ruefully.
"Oh, I'm sure we'll take care of that soon enough."
        "Or Earthforce will," Tali agreed.  "I was actually expecting to
be bumped out of the job when we got here - where's Corwin?"
        "He's bringing Daggerdisc."
        "Ah.  Good idea.  You never know when you might need to blow
something up very, very much," Tali said with a phantom wink.  "At any
rate, Commodore, we're ready and able down here."
        "Good to have you here," Utena said, giving her another quick
hug, and then she returned to the bridge.
        Once there, she just had to pause for a moment and take a slow
look around.  Here in this familiar compact space, with her crew taking
their stations and getting to work all around her, she felt... pride?
Confidence?   All of that, really, but above all she felt -comfortable.-
At home.  Like this, above anywhere else, was where she belonged right
now.
        She took her center seat, settled back, and watched on the main
viewer as the rest of TRIDENT Group Red formed up and prepared to jump
to lightspeed.  The Klingon battlecruiser HoSghaj had a place in that
formation, and Utena smiled at the sight.  Years before, Gryphon had
arranged for Utena to spend a spare day aboard HoSghaj, which was then
stationed at what was, at the time, still the Babylon Station
construction area.  She hadn't known it when she agreed, but he'd also
arranged for to be put in -command- of said battlecruiser for his
(Klingons always called their ships "he") day's patrol of the B'hava'el
system.
        When questioned about this, Commander Krontep had explained, "He
told me he thought if you once tasted command, you'd never rest until
you had it back."  At the time, Utena had though that was silly.  Her, a
Space Captain?  She was, at the time, just a girl in her mid-teens, one
who had grown up in a world where there was no such thing as space
travel, to boot.  It had seemed like one of Gryphon's little jokes, a
lark to spend an afternoon with.
        Except that he'd been absolutely right.
        Noting a gap in the formation, she thumbed one of the comm keys
on her conn's armrest.  "Daggerdisc, Valiant.  What's the holdup?"
        "Picking up a hitchhiker.  I'll tell you later," Corwin replied,
sounding slightly disgruntled about something.  "Getting under way now.
Stand by."
        Utena arched an eyebrow at the comm panel, but said nothing; she
knew that whatever was going on over there, it was sufficiently annoying
to put Corwin in Terse Mode, and pestering him with follow-up questions
wasn't going to do anything to improve matters.  A few moments later,
Daggerdisc emerged from Babylon 6's forward docking bay and moved into
formation.
        "Okay, listen up, Red Group," Utena declared on fleet all-call.
"We're going in by the Blue Route today; it'll be a lot less obvious
than warping into the system or punching a metapoint at the far end, and
for -damn- sure less obvious than using Illustrious's wave motion
spacefold.  Set your helms to hyperspace slave and let's go make the
donuts."
        "All task group ships are online and tied across in hyperspace
slave mode," Gus Grissom reported from the helm station as
acknowledgements flowed in from the various vessels on the overhead
speakers.  "I have control; the board is green."
        Miki Kaoru finished punching keys at the navigator's station and
reported, "Master course plotted and locked in.  All stations online."
        Utena nodded.  "Commence hyperspace countdown on my mark...
-mark.-"
        "Group Red, this is Valiant," Grissom said crisply, his fingers
plying the helm controls as if he'd been operating a Defiant-class
destroyer in flag mode all his career.  "Fleet hyperspace maneuver in
ten seconds.  Nine.  Eight.  Guidance is internal.  Six.  Five."  The
main viewer switched to the view ahead; B'hava'el slid to starboard as
the Valiant's automatic maneuvering system positioned her for a clean
jump out-system, the tactical plot in the lower right corner of the
display confirming that the rest of the flotilla was changing course to
match.  "Hyperspace motivators online.  Preliminary maneuvering
complete.  Two.  One.  -Lightspeed!-"
        The stars smeared into lines and then hurtled aft as the ship's
motivator drive flung her into hyperspace with the rest of the flotilla
close behind.

                            OHTORI INSTITUTE
                                ORIPHOS

        "He can see things before they happen," Aarok Sifu-Dyas had said
once to Anakin Skywalker's mother.  "It's a Jedi trait."
        Technically that wasn't quite correct - it was a trait shared by
some who were strong in the Force, not specifically anything to do with
the philosophy of the Jedi Knights - but it was true as far as it went.
For as long as he could remember, Anakin had been subject to little
flashes of intuition (most of them unconscious) that guided his hand,
for example, at the controls of a vehicle.
        He doubted that the insight he was having right now had anything
to do with the Force, though.  It didn't take a metagenetic connection
to the universal lifeforce to see Shuten Doji making for him across the
central courtyard of the Institute and know that, unless he did
something about it, he was in for an ass-kicking.
        That the youngest of the warlords from Kaneko had it in for him
was not news to Anakin.  With Akio Ohtori out of town and the neurotic,
ineffectual wizard Mikage in nominal charge of the Institute in his
absence, the time was right for anyone considering an internal power
play, or any other activity the Fallen Prince wouldn't have approved of,
to spring into action.  Discussing the matter earlier, Anakin and his
master, Kyouichi Saionji, had both fully expected all manner of old
scores to get settled.
        All things being equal, Anakin would've liked his chances
against Shuten.  They'd sparred many times under the watchful eyes of
their masters, and the score was about even.  Three factors that were
different now gave him pause, however.  One, he knew that the young
warlord had been training especially hard of late, for purposes that
hadn't been clear until just now.  Two, their masters were nowhere in
sight.  And three, Shuten had a dozen people with him - advanced
students from the faction within the Institute that followed Darth
Venger, the self-styled Sith Lord, who had no love for Saionji or his
apprentice either.
        The signs were abundantly clear that something was about to kick
off, and if Anakin had learned one thing so far in his time with
Saionji, it was that there were times to charge ahead and times to get
the fuck out of Dodge.
        He abruptly turned and headed off across the courtyard at an
angle, picking up his pace a bit.  Sure enough, he saw Shuten and his
posse change course, vectoring to intercept him.  He'd foxed them for
the moment, though; he'd make the side entrance to the practice hall
well ahead of them.  Suspicion confirmed, he stepped up to a very
brisk walk.
        As he went into the building, he met someone coming out, and
with only a moment to consider his options, he caught her arm and spun
her around, taking her back inside with him.
        "Hey!" cried Leyna Tarrant, one of Mikage's senior students,
with a combination of dismay and indignation.  "What's the - "
        "You don't want to go that way anyway," Anakin told her
breezily.  "Too much riffraff out on the Quad."
        "Wha - " Leyna began, trying to pull her arm free so she
wouldn't have to be dragged along beside him.  A moment later the door
he'd just come in through slammed open and in came Shuten, Venger's
students filling up the hallway behind him.
        "Skywalker!" Shuten bellowed.  "I want a word with you."
        "We should run now," said Anakin calmly, and seeing the looks on
those faces, Leyna couldn't help but agree.

                            /*  Fall Out Boy
                               "Beat It"
                       _Folie à Deux_ (2008)  */

        She considered trying to make it clear that she wasn't -with-
Anakin and exiting the situation posthaste, but the determined way
Shuten and his gang gave chase as soon as they broke into a run
convinced her that this probably wouldn't work, so she just concentrated
on staying ahead of them.
        The chase took them through the practice halls and halfway
across campus, using side passages, service corridors, and alleyways
Leyna had in most cases not known were there.  At least twice they
passed places where it seemed to her they could have broken off the
pursuit altogether and made their escape.  Anakin always passed them up
in favor of a more direct route that kept them ahead but didn't get them
out of harm's way.
        "Few people understand the psychology of dealing with a renegade
Kanekan warlord," Anakin remarked to her questioning look as they ran as
fast as they could through the many-columned gallery of the Central
Hall.  "Your normal Duelist will panic and immediately go on the
offensive."  He shook his head.  "This is wrong.  It arouses contempt in
the loser heart.  Make the bastard chase you."  He glanced back over his
shoulder, saw Shuten still in hot pursuit, and smirked.  "He will
follow."
        By this point they seemed to have outlasted several of Shuten's
followers, who were apparently not as committed to the chase as the
warlord himself.  Laughing merrily, not even winded yet, Anakin put on
more speed and made for the tall double doors that led out onto the
tower plaza - the one place on campus that would be far too public for
Shuten to make his move, even with Akio away from the school.
        Just before he reached them, the doors crashed open and the
half-dozen of Shuten's followers who had dropped out of the chase burst
in, fanning out to block the whole approach to the portico.
        "... Crap," said Anakin, who just managed to skid to a halt
without plowing into them.
        "I guess you're not quite as smart as you thought, huh,
Skywalker?" Shuten sneered as he and the rest of his gang completed the
cordon around Anakin and Leyna, who now stood warily back-to-back and
tried to watch them all at once.
        "Technically, I think it's that you're not quite as -dumb- as I
thought," Anakin replied.  "Which is really not that much of an
achievement," he added offhandedly.
        As Shuten roared with fury and charged in for the attack, Anakin
saw that he still had an escape route if he wanted it.  There was a
series of skylights in the ceiling of the gallery, a couple of which
could be reached with relative ease from the transverse rafters that
held up the vault.  Even for him it would've been a difficult jump to
reach the rafters, but not impossible, particularly not with this kind
of motivation... but that would've meant leaving Leyna right in the
middle of it all, and since it was his fault she was involved in the
first place, he couldn't quite bring himself to abandon her that way.
        So instead, he used his last moment of grace to marshal the
Force to his will, then use it to propel her - much to her and their
surprise - straight through the cordon of Venger's students and out the
door.
        That moment was very satisfying.  Those that followed, not so
much.

                              1307 HRS GST
                               BABYLON 6

        Kaname Chidori Sterling knew only three things for certain at
this point.  One: That was the weirdest turn she'd ever heard of a
wedding taking.  Two: She had taken a wrong turn herself at some point
between the Garden and the shuttlebay serving Port Jeradar.  Three: She
really didn't like the looks of the area she'd ended up totally lost in
as a result.
        It's your own fault, Kaname, she told herself grumpily as she
tried to look in all directions at once without actually looking like
she was that concerned.  You should've paid more attention to the
directions that usher gave you.  Or to where you were going when you
tried to follow them.
        Admittedly, she'd had good reason to be distracted.  At the
breakup of the wedding, most of her friends in attendance had gone off,
in essence, to war - not something one often thought of as likely for a
high school student, but part and parcel of the Duelist's lot when
something like the Earthforce reconquest of Tau Ceti came along.  She'd
been caught somewhere between envying them the action, worrying for
their safety, and wondering whether she was letting down some kind of
family legacy by not saddling up and taking part, and before she knew it
she was... here.  Wherever here was.
        Kaname hadn't realized Babylon 6 -had- slums, but the area she
was in now sure looked - and smelled - the part.  It was some kind of
machinery level, the kind of place that was normally off-limits to the
public.  The architecture of the hallways, compartments, and whatnot was
the same as it was everywhere else on the station she'd been, except
here it was all covered in a haphazard veneer of improvisation and
neglect.  It reminded her of photos she'd seen of the ancient Walled
City of Kowloon on 20th-century Earth, where tens of thousands of people
had been squatting in one gigantic abandoned building.  The stalls and
makeshift shops had the air of a low-rent version of the Zocalo in Red
Sector, but with a much more distinct air of menace - and almost no
cellphone reception, much to her chagrin when she tried her phone
earlier.  She suddenly felt very conspicuous.  Her old Jindai High
uniform was sharp, which was why she'd kept it for special occasions,
but it was also quite colorful compared to everything else here.
        She rounded a corner and found herself face-to-face with a
bulkhead on which was painted a large and confusing diagram labeled
(unpromisingly) YOU ARE, ALAS, HERE.  Above it, in the more official
typeface to be found on station signage throughout, was the legend BROWN
SECTOR 21.
        "-Brown- Sector?" Kaname muttered to herself.  "I didn't even
know there -was- a Brown Sector."
        Kaname didn't really understand the curious psychic connection
she had to her Invid heritage.  The crossroads of the human, Meltran,
and Invid genetic lines, with the added wild card of Detian heredity
thrown in for good measure, was a place that had been visited precisely
twice in the history of biology so far, and it was as a result not very
well-charted.  What she knew was that she sometimes brushed the vast
collective semiconscious of her father's people, and sometimes plunged
headfirst into it, and there seemed to be little controlling when it
happened or how thoroughly.
        Regardless, it wasn't the collective that whispered to her now,
because it wasn't that -kind- of psychic.  Rather, what pricked Kaname's
awareness in this suddenly elongated moment was a plain vanilla sixth
sense, having more to do with her upbringing than genetics and springing
entirely from her own resources.  Unfortunately, this was something she
hadn't much cultivated either, as part of her lifelong, mostly futile
search for normalcy, and so its warning didn't come fast enough.  She
started to turn and move back before consciously realizing why, but not
in time to fully avoid the blow.
        The weapon was a neural disruption stun rod, standard-issue to
riot police and prison guards around the galaxy, and the first thing
Kaname noticed about it was that getting hit with one hurt a lot more
than it looked like it did in the movies.  Guys who got hit with stun
rods in the movies simply fell down, unless they were serious A-list
badasses like Duke Newcomb, in which case it mostly just pissed them
off.  In neither case did the screen treatment convey the full nerves-
on-fire anguish of the experience.  Nobody ever went down screaming at
the top of their lungs.
        Kaname's belated attempt to dodge meant that the rod only
brushed her shoulder, rather than striking her square in the back of the
neck.  That was good; the latter was the "sweet spot" for such a weapon,
the point on the body where its energies would be instantly dispersed
through the entire nervous system and shut it all down, except for the
deepest autonomic functions.  On the other hand, it was bad, because
that meant instead of losing consciousness instantly, she got to feel
every single nerve in the left side of her body light up in full alert
and then go dark at once.  It actually hurt too much to scream, so at
least that part of the movie version was accurate, if only accidentally.
Kaname had always thought that was a cliche, but no, here it was.
        "Huh," said the man with the stun rod, a skinny, amphibian-
looking semihumanoid whose precise species she didn't recognize.  "Not
my best work," he admitted ruefully, collapsing the rod and sticking it
inside his ratty leather jacket, "but it'll do.  OK, boys, all yours."
        -Now- the murmurs came, but indistinct, half-audible - filtering
in fits and starts into her jangled mind like a video signal through
heavy interference, telling her things that were -interesting- but not
necessarily -useful-.  She suddenly knew, for instance, that the man
with the stun rod was a salarian, that two of the four "boys" he was
addressing were wearing outdated Corellian Security Force jackets with
the insignia stripped off, and that the one who was taking hold of her
ankles had a Sternsnacht anti-matériel pistol in his shoulder holster -
not a weapon you wanted to be using inside a pressure hull.
        None of which helped in any way.
        That made Kaname angry, and that, in a way, -was- helpful,
because it concentrated her mind.  Her left arm and leg still didn't
want to work, which was awkward, but once she regained her wits - which
took much less time than the salarian and his "boys" were obviously
expecting - she found that the ones on the right side worked just fine.
She put out her right hand as if trying to find some support and get
back to her feet, grabbed a fistful of the closest man's CorSec jacket,
and suddenly pulled as hard as she could, twisting her body to add force
to the throw.  Taken completely by surprise, the man, who had been
leaning over her anyway, was catapulted over her and slammed headlong
into the man on the opposite side.  The grip on her ankles slackened as
the man with the Sternsnacht looked up in surprise; she capitalized on
that by yanking her right foot out of his grasp, then kicking him in the
face with it, which made him let go of the left as well.
        Anger and panic are both great motivators; the fact that Kaname
was able to pull herself to her feet and even make a vaguely creditable
attempt at running away in her present condition was proof of that.  To
be sure, her leg had been further from the partial stun rod strike than
her arm, and was recovering faster, but it still felt pretty much like a
block of wood as she stumbled as fast as she could through the warren of
little lanes, grubby shops, and makeshift dive bars that made up Brown
21.  There was, she noted, no sign of her supposed bodyguard, Sosuke
Sagara.  She must have managed to lose even him in the course of
wandering into this hellhole, which was ironic given that she hadn't
even been trying to do that.
        She tried to get the first few vaguely reputable-looking persons
she saw - who were by no means the first persons she saw, full stop - to
call security, but all that came out was the kind of noise that made
accosted bystanders reply, "Go sleep it off someplace else, honey," or
else issue a crudely worded proposition.  Normally she'd have punched
the latter, but she was too busy right now.  She plunged blindly around
another bend, having no idea where she was now and just hoping she'd
have the good fortune to happen upon a security station, or a turbolift,
or SOMETHING helpful.
        What she found instead was a dead end.
        She turned around, thinking she might have been able to build up
enough of a lead on her pursuers to double back and try another
direction, but that hope was dashed immediately.  Not only were they
right there at the corner she'd just rounded, there seemed to be more of
them than there had been before.  She'd apparently attracted the
attention of a few more of the district's finer citizens with her
blundering attempt at flight.
        They all paused for a moment, sizing up the situation.  One
human girl, about 20 feet of hallway, some old crates and random
detritus... and no way out.  The salarian smiled and began advancing,
drawing his stun rod from within his coat and energizing it again.
Behind him, his crew and the newcomers spread out so that the whole
corridor was blocked.
        Kaname had most of the feeling back in her leg, and enough in
her arm that she could at least make a fist.  She didn't think there was
any way she could defeat this many opponents, even if the whispers chose
that moment to come flooding back in force as they had a few times
before in her life.  Spirit knew this would be the one time in her life
to date when she would have welcomed the sensation with a joyous heart,
but there was nothing.
        OK, well, fine, she thought, but that doesn't mean I'm going
down without a fight.  I'm a Sterling.  That's not how we roll.
        As the salarian broke into a trot, the completely irrelevant
thought flickered across her mind: I wonder if Sosuke will get fired for
this?

                            /*  The Darkness
                     "Get Your Hands Off My Woman"
                    _Permission to Land_ (2003)  */

        A moment later the bulkhead segment just ahead of her and to her
right burst inward with a sound like a hundred popped paper bags, nearly
clobbering the salarian and filling the dead-end hallway with smoke.  As
Kaname coughed and stared in disbelief, a hand emerged from the char-
edged hole the implosion had left in the bulkhead, seized her by the
arm, and pulled her through.
        She stumbled on the lower edge of the hole and fell into the
arms of the person who'd pulled her, and was it her imagination, or did
those arms hold her for an instant longer than they strictly needed to
before setting her back on her feet?
        Kaname decided it must have been her imagination, because the
look on Sosuke's face as he urged her, in a businesslike way, to follow
him was even grimmer than usual.  His was not the face of a man who was
feeling in any way frisky.
        "Can you run?" he asked her tersely.
        "I think so," she replied.
        "Good.  This way.  We have to get out of Brown Sector before
that salarian's entire underworld network is mobilized to cut us off."
        "Underworld network, what are you talking about?  You mean those
guys aren't just... muggers?"
        "Hardly," said Sosuke flatly.  "They're 'talent scouts'.  This
level is one of the chief sources of supply for the galaxy's illicit
organ and tissue transplant industry... and you are obviously a very
healthy specimen."
        Hearing po-faced Sgt. Sagara utter an evident double entendre
almost pulled an inappropriate giggle out of Kaname, but it was
squelched by the sudden, cold horror of realizing that it would never
even occur to him to joke about something like that... so it must be
true.  The thing about Brown 21, anyway.  She was not prepared to offer
an opinion, even to herself, as to whether he'd intended anything with
the "healthy specimen" remark.
        "I - " she said, but he shook his head.
        "Just run," he said.  He didn't ask how she had even gotten down
here, which was just as well, since she didn't know.
        They ran.  They got as far as the central hub corridor, within
sight of the turbolifts, before they found their path suddenly blocked
by a group of beings numbering nearly a dozen who melted out of side
pathways.  Sosuke skidded to a halt, pulling her up short alongside him,
then turned.  Another group was approaching from behind, led by the
salarian.  He didn't look amused now, and he had a blaster in his hand.
Apparently he'd decided he didn't need -all- her organs intact.
        Sosuke's only visible reaction to this apparently hopeless
situation was to loosen the knot of his tie by approximately one inch
and unfasten the top button of his shirt.
        Then he murmured to Kaname, "Whatever happens, stay down until I
call for you," and before she could ask any questions, he shoved her to
the floor behind a packing case, produced a polymer-ceramic holdout
blade from his sleeve, and leaped at the salarian with, Kaname was
surprised to notice, no sound at all.
        Although she knew in her head that Sosuke Sagara was a genuine
soldier, born and bred on the battlefields of some war-torn Outer Rim
rock, Kaname Sterling had never really believed it deep down in her
heart.  The whole situation in which she found herself confronted with
him on a daily basis was just too... -silly-, on some fundamental level,
for her to accept that fact in any but a purely rational way.
        Until today.
        Today she saw with her own eyes that he was not just a soldier
but, under the right conditions, a warrior - a fierce and merciless
killer of men.  He cut down the salarian too swiftly for her to even
follow exactly how he'd done it, took his blaster, and dropped three of
his confederates before they'd even had a chance to react to their
boss's demise.  Startled, the rest of that group fell back, all but the
man with the Sternsnacht pistol.  He apparently -knew- his gun wasn't
suitable for this environment, which made some part of Kaname wonder why
he even had it; instead he pulled out a combat knife that made Sosuke's
look like a toy and bullrushed him, the young mercenary's one snap shot
passing over his head before Sosuke was forced to use the weapon to
parry the man's knife instead.
        This curious duel went on for no more than seven complicated
seconds, until at last Sosuke managed to catch the knife blade on his
appropriated blaster's trigger guard, twist it until the knife almost
slipped free, and fire the blaster at point-blank range into the knife
wielder's side.  A few degrees either way and he'd have missed; a few
degrees either way and the blade would have come free and sunk into his
chest instead.
        Through it all, his face was as expressionless as it was when
Kaname teased him over the morning newspaper at the breakfast table in
Hamlin Hall's dining common.  Even when he held up the dying man long
enough to take his Sternsnacht, then dropped him to the deck, Sosuke
remained a cipher: his feelings, if he had any, completely concealed.
        The second group, blocking their path to the elevator, was
approaching now, not to say charging.  Without hesitation, Sosuke did
something to the blaster pistol he held, then spun the knife-scarred
weapon across the metal decking.  It stopped just before the charging
mob arrived at it,
        and then exploded.
        The blast was relatively small, as these things went, but in
this confined space it was still enough to set Kaname's already aching
head to ringing.  It hurled members of the mob back and out to the
sides, slamming them against bulkheads and to the floor.  Most didn't
offer to get up.  Of those that did, only one, a big, strapping man
easily twice Sosuke's size, continued advancing.
        His face still expressionless, Sosuke leveled the Sternsnacht at
him and thumbed off the safety.
        Sternsnacht heavy anti-matériel pistol, the faintest of whispers
said in the back of Kaname's head.  Manufactured on Dutch Valeria.
Single-shot break-open pistol.  Fires 21mm hyper-velocity fin-stabilized
discarding-sabot kinetic kill vehicle.  Primary use: disabling of
vehicles.  Extremely unsafe to use in pressurized habitat environments.
Also, recoil will break an ordinary human's arm in three places.
        Sosuke's one remaining opponent seemed to know all that too.  He
sneered and said, his voice barely audible through the ringing in
Kaname's head, "You can't fire that in here.  You'll break your wrist
and kill all three of us."
        Sosuke smiled very slightly and very coldly.  "What makes you
think any of that bothers me?" he asked.
        Kaname knew - or thought she knew - that he was bluffing and she
-still- found his demeanor intimidating.  The effect on this guy, who
didn't know him from Adam, was dramatic.  Though twice Sosuke's size, he
wilted visibly and backed up.
        "Come on, Miss Chidori," said Sosuke, not taking his eyes off
the big man's face.  He held out his free hand and said, "We're going."
        Hesitantly, she took it and let him lead her past the big man,
whom Sosuke kept covering with the Sternsnacht until they had sidled
past and were on their way to the lift.
        "Keep your eyes front," Sosuke murmured as he backed down the
hallway alongside her, still training the Sternsnacht downrange.  The
turbolift opened as they approached; Kaname stepped in, Sosuke backed in
after her, and he kept the weapon aimed at the big man until the doors
closed in between them and the lift was off up the shaft to Red Sector.
        The release of tension and the pounding in her head combined
were too much for Kaname; she wobbled away and was violently sick in the
far corner of the voluminous lift car, then made her way unsteadily back
to Sosuke, put her back against the wall, and slid down into a seated
position on the floor, putting her head in her hands.
        "Sorry about the mess," she said in a low, dispirited tone.
        Sosuke knelt down beside her, placing the fingertips of his free
hand gently under her jaw and feeling her carotid pulse.  "Post-
neuroshock syndrome is setting in," he said matter-of-factly.  "The
sooner you reach Medlab the better."
        "Sounds like a plan to me," Kaname replied, trying (and mostly
failing) to sound jaunty.  "Hey.  You should probably secure that cannon
now."
        Sosuke looked at the Sternsnacht as if he'd forgotten he was
holding it, then smoothly decocked it and put it down.
        "It isn't loaded," he said.
        Kaname blinked.
        "How can you tell?" she asked.
        "It's too light.  The 21mm HVFSDS KKV employed in the
Sternsnacht weighs almost two pounds by itself.  The absence of that
mass disrupts the balance of the weapon.  Its former owner must have
carried it simply as a psy-war tactic."
        Kaname giggled.  "The sad part," she said dazedly, "is that I
understood what you just said."  Then, pulling herself together with a
visible effort, as her head was really and truly spinning now, she
caught his hand in both of hers and said, "Listen.  Thank you.  I mean,
really.  Thanks.  You were... amazing."
        Sosuke inclined his head.  "It's my job, Miss Chidori," he said.
"Now you've seen it.  This is what I do."
        "Well... "  Kaname smiled a blurry sort of smile, her eyelids
drooping.  "I'm glad you were here to do it to me."  She frowned.
"Uh... that's not what I wanted to say, is it?  What I mean is," and she
passed out.

                              1521 HRS GST
                              IPS VALIANT
                               HYPERSPACE

        "Priority burst transmission from HMS Unfathomable," one of Lu
Durgo reported from the comm station.  "Looks like that briefing they
promised us."
        Utena nodded.  "OK, let's have it."
        After a moment's pause, the main viewer changed from the tumult
of hyperspace to a non-humanized Cheltari Salusian.  Slightly to Utena's
surprise, the man wore no identifiable part of a Royal Navy officer's
rather elaborate, old-fashioned uniform, at least on the part of him
that could be seen, from mid-chest up; instead he had on a slightly
grubby grey crewneck sweater, to the shoulders of which were affixed the
black shoulder tabs of a U-ship captain, and a peaked cap like WDF
officers wore, similarly soiled and a little bit crushed.
        "TRIDENT Command, priority GOLDCRYPT traffic from HMS
Unfathomable, Lieutenant Ivar Merkretsch commanding," he said.  "We've
completed a preliminary survey of the Earth Alliance naval forces
currently besieging Tau Ceti IV.  This task force appears to be made up
of ships drawn from the Earthforce Navy Third Fleet, Centaurus Sector
Command."  The image switched from Merkretsch to a slightly fuzzy long-
scan visual of a warship in Earthforce charcoal grey.
        "As you see here," Merkretsch's voice continued, "their flag is
a Nova-class battleship; we have positively identified her as EAS
Clytaemnestra.  She's one of the latest Block IV Novas, less than two
years out of the graving docks at Lunarville Nine."  Tabbing through a
sequence of images as he spoke, he went on, "She's accompanied by four
cruisers, two Hyperion-class and two Nebulas; a three-ship Patriot-class
destroyer squadron - most probably DESRON 14, the battleship's usual
escorts; a Salyut-class aerospacecraft carrier, which we believe is EAS
Komarov; and a Retiarius-class Perimeter Control Vessel, which is what
Earthforce calls interdictors."
        The image switched again, this time to the blocky, slightly
awkward shape of a vessel clearly not intended to fight other starships.
        "Accompanying the naval strike force is this vessel, which
we have identified as EMCS Suribachi, an Earthforce Marine Corps surface
assault vessel.  Suribachi is the command ship of the Tenth Surface
Assault Corps, so we have some idea just from that what the opposition
on the ground is going to look like."
        The screen switched back to Merkretsch, looking grave.  "Tenth
SAC is a hardcore outfit, the kind of unit you send if you figure you're
going to have to pacify a whole planet.  We've watched them deploying
dropships to every major population center on Tau Ceti IV; most of their
forces have dropped in Tau City, unsurprisingly, but they seem to be
determined not to leave any side doors open.
        "It's safe to assume Earthforce has a flag officer aboard
Clytaemnestra for this operation, but we don't have any intel on who
that might be.  Clytaemnestra's CO is Captain Hanna Davidson, Earthforce
Academy Class of '95, an experienced officer who commanded a cruiser
during the pacification of Proxima Centauri a few years back.  Assuming
they haven't made any major personnel changes, Tenth SAC is under one of
the Earthforce Marines' hard-chargers, Major General Westford Drake.  He
might be overall flag for the operation; he's senior enough."
        Cracking his first smile of the briefing, Merkretsch added, "And
no, before you wonder, I didn't know all that ahead of time; I had to
look it up after we ID'd the units involved.  Much as I hate to pre-empt
any reputation this might give me for omniscience.
        "That's all the information I have at present.  We're undetected
at this time; once we finish transmitting this report, we'll slip back
in and see what else we can learn before it's time for us to break off
and report to the initial point for fleet rendezvous.  Then we'll pass
along whatever more we've learned.  Clear skies, Red Group, and we'll
see you at the IP.  Unfathomable out."
        Utena sat back in her conn and sighed as the viewer returned to
a forward view of hyperspace.
        "It's not going to be one of the easy ones, is it, Miki?" she
asked rhetorically.
        From the navigation and gunnery station forward, Miki Kaoru
smiled and replied, "Has it ever been in you to do things the easy way?"
        Utena laughed.  "Are you saying I have a reputation?"  She got
up from her conn and went back to the situation table at the back of the
bridge.  "OK, Lu, let's have that map of Tau City.  No plan survives
contact with the enemy, but we probably should still -have- one when we
get there."

                              2300 HRS GST
                               BABYLON 6

        Lieutenant Malcolm Reed clocked on for his security shift at
2300 hours, wondering why it was that, in all the centuries since
organized policing had come about, no one had ever been able to work out
a way to soften the impact of switching from days to the graveyard
shift.  At least everyone in the department had to take a turn at it -
even Chief Garibaldi, who was due on at midnight.
        The chief arrived a couple of minutes late, but to make up for
it he was carrying two cups of coffee from the fancy little coffee stall
on the Zocalo, one of which he put down on the duty officer's desk in
front of Reed with a yawn.
        "Sorry I'm late," he said.  "They're still dealing with the Tau
Ceti thing upstairs.  What've we got down here?  Anything interesting?"
        "You could say that," Reed replied with a dry smile.  "Only one
person in the cells right now, but he's one for the books."  He handed
Garibaldi a datapad.  "Got into a firefight down on Brown 21 this
afternoon and, judging by the sector officer's report, wiped out about
half of Dr. Saleon's gang, including the good doctor himself."
        Garibaldi's eyebrows went up as he skimmed the report.  "And we
locked him up?  That's the kind of service to the community that should
earn a man a medal."  He frowned, reading on.  "'Sosuke Sagara'.  Says
he's a private security officer.  Did his ID check out?"
        Reed checked his own desk terminal.  "Affirmative," he said,
"but he hadn't checked in with us when he arrived and his weapons were
undocumented, so whoever was duty officer at the time decided to let him
cool his heels pending your personal assessment."
        Garibaldi sighed.  "Why do I even -have- subordinates?" he asked
rhetorically.  "Guess I better go talk to him."

        "So," said Garibaldi pleasantly a few moments later, sitting
down opposite Sosuke at a table in the security office's main interview
room.  "Sergeant Sagara.  I'm Michael Garibaldi.  I run security around
here."
        Sosuke nodded.  "I know," he replied.
        "Did you also know the plastic explosive and the knife you were
carrying were illegal on this station?"
        Another nod.  "They represented the absolute minimum I was
willing to operate with in the field.  I left all my ballistic weapons
and heavier explosives behind."
        "And yet, with just a toothpaste tube of plastique and a ceramic
shiv, you took down the self-proclaimed boss of Brown 21 and most of his
guys."
        "Failing to do so was not in my mission parameters."
        "Mm.  Yeah, I can believe that.  And that girl you were
protecting will have reason to be glad about that, once she wakes up.
That was some impressive work, particularly for someone your age."
        "A wise man once said, 'It's not the years, it's the mileage,'"
Sosuke replied calmly.
        Garibaldi laughed.  "True," he said.  Then, becoming serious
again, he went on, "But you know what -should- have been in your mission
parameters?"  When Sosuke didn't reply, the security chief got to his
feet, put his hands on the table, and leaned over the young man.
"Checking in with this office when you boarded the station.  My people
tell me your credentials check out.  If you're a legitimate PSO, we've
got procedures for that, you know.  You didn't have to sneak your kit
through the checkpoint - hell, you could have carried all the gear you
wanted if you'd just bothered to let us know what you were here for."
He sat back down, shaking his head.  "That's the trouble with you mercs.
Always got to go your own way, even when there's no damn reason not to
play nice."
        Sosuke considered that, then nodded a third time - really more
of a seated bow.
        "I apologize," he said.  "I've been a covert operative in much
more restrictive environments that this for a long time.  Functioning
openly is not... my instinctive response."
        Garibaldi glanced at the datapad on the table in front of him
again, then looked up and met Sosuke's eyes with a level gaze.  "My
colleague Chief Odo of the DSM Campus Police concurs with that
assessment," he said.  "When my guys checked on your ID this afternoon,
he reported that you pulled a similar thing with him when you first got
to DSM.  Well, up here that kind of cowboy stunt is a little more likely
to get you -and- your girl into a world of trouble."  He stood up.  "So
you better see that it doesn't happen again.  Anytime you come back to
my station, this office had better be your first stop after the docking
bay.  Got me?"
        Sosuke blinked slowly at him.  "Are you releasing me?" he asked.
        "I am," Garibaldi told him, "and if you're smart you won't make
me regret it.  That might make me angry."  He smiled slightly.  "You
wouldn't like me when I'm angry."
        Sosuke stood up, came to attention, and saluted.  "Thank you,
Chief Garibaldi.  I won't repeat my mistake."
        Garibaldi looked slightly taken aback, as if he hadn't returned
a salute in a long time.  After a moment's hesitation he did so, then
said, "OK, let's get you signed out.  I assume you're heading to Medlab
when you leave here."
        Sosuke nodded, following him to the outer office.  "Affirmative.
Miss Chidori is unlikely to be in any further danger - I believe her
encounter with the criminal element of Brown 21 was a simple accident -
but my place is with her, regardless."
        "In that case, you'll need better equipment," Garibaldi mused.
When Sosuke gave him a surprised look, he smirked faintly and said, "I
wouldn't send one of -my- guys to guard a high-security patient without
a weapon.  Reed!"
        "Sir?" Reed asked, looking up from his workstation.
        "Sgt. Sagara here needs some hardware.  Issue him a phaser-1."
        Knowing from long experience that there was absolutely no point
in arguing with Garibaldi when he had that look on his face, Reed just
nodded and went to the armory.

                        SATURDAY, MARCH 6, 2410
                              0305 HRS GST

        To say Babylon 6's executive officer was having a difficult
whateverthehell time of day it was, was to severely understate the
point.  The day before had been merely somewhat trying by comparison:
just traffic for a wedding, no big deal.  But TONIGHT the space assets
of several militaries across the entire sector were being rapidly
shuffled like a deck of cards - and guess who had to manage it all?
        Admittedly, she wasn't the only one having a hard day, and she
would take directing all this traffic over what the Chief of the IPO had
spent all night and into the wee hours of the morning doing.  Commander
Susan Ivanova's skill set was extensive, but it did not reach to
preventing a border skirmish - if that was what you could call the Tau
Ceti incident - from sparking a Federation-fracturing civil war.
        "Commander!" the voice of "Bruce" Corwin interrupted her train
of thought.  "Incoming ship from the metagate; telemetry indicates
it's... a battleship?"  He frowned, double-checking his readings.
"No, wait.  It's a battlecarrier, Ikazuchi class."
        "Oh, what -now-," Ivanova grumbled, and she turned her
attention to the main viewer.  Outside, she could see the gate arms
maneuvering to the correct opening width, and the flashing lights
proceeding along their length as the gate itself activated.
        Ivanova had seen quite a few starships emerge from the
redblack whorl of metaspace by now, some of them hesitantly, some of
them confidently, others with their guns readied in anger.  This was the
first time in her recent history, however, that she could recall seeing
a starship exit the gate with -intent-.  She wondered how their helmsman
did that.
        The Ikazuchi in question, like its older sister ships, was a
blocky, slab-sided vessel, long and narrow with massive sublight
thrusters sticking out the back end.  These thrusters were going full
burner, propelling the ship towards the station relentlessly.  For a
brief moment, Ivanova wondered if the ship was going to attempt
something as foolhardy as ramming the station, but her concern was
unfounded.  As she watched, the carrier rapidly slowed, coming to a halt
two-thirds of the way to the station.
        Now that it had stopped, she was able to see the ship's
markings.  A large WDF sigil decorated the sides of the starship near
to its prow, but it was dwarfed by the much larger inverse black
triangle with a superimposed stylized "M" that accompanied it.
        Now it was Ivanova's turn to be puzzled.  "What the hell is
Mars Division doing here?"
        "Commander, the Voronda Elendil is hailing us.  They're
requesting permission to send over several members of their crew."
        "Do they have anything more specific than that?"
        "They're here to see their daughter."

        Elsewhere, the daughter in question slept in Medlab.
        Well, that was something of a misnomer.  Kaname Sterling's
-body- slept, but her mind was going a mile a minute, destabilized by
the aftereffects of post-neuroshock syndrome on a nervous system that
wasn't quite human.
        Jumbled facts and information rippled across her mindscape
while snatches of memory from her own life, and of other people's,
floated in and out of her semiconscious perception.  Buffeted by the
random currents of thought, it was all Kaname could do to keep some
sense of self about her -- and even then, she didn't notice that for
all intents and purposes her self-image was naked.
        She had no idea of how long she floated in the faintly
glowing blue-green hallucinatory expanse of her mind, processing
thoughts that she didn't understand.  A small part of her felt regret at
the fact that she hadn't plumbed her father's mental inheritance further
in the past, for if she had, would she have had better control over this
entire experience?
        The rest of her was more concerned with just surviving the
ordeal.  She didn't want to be officially listed as crazy before she hit
21, after all.
        And then, suddenly, the tempo of the entire mindscape changed.
No longer were the images and words coming haphazardly, now they came
in a tidal flow, roaring through her mind as she could feel the
knowledge surging upon her as a giant, towering wave that was sure to
swamp her -
        - and then, heeding some unknown instinct, she dove straight
through it.
        The sudden calm that followed was perhaps even more
overwhelming than the chaos that preceded it.  She floated there on
the tide of thought, a brief moment of utter tranquility that almost
broke her heart to experience it.  She could feel the sun rising
in her mind, and she knew that, whatever happened past this point, it
would be all right.
        With a smile on her lips, and an old song in her heart, she was
enveloped by the light.

        All this was lost on Mizuki Inaba, who was currently sitting at
her friend's side in Medlab.  She hadn't originally planned to come to
the Duelists' Wedding of the Year, not being particularly associated
with the Society, but she was never opposed to a good party with cute
guys in attendance, and -somebody- other than Kaname had to help keep
Sagara in line.  The guy couldn't handle even a simple meet-and-greet
down at DSM; who knew how he would behave at a full-out wedding
reception?
        But apparently he could handle himself in a scrap, which is
why he was here sitting at attention by the opposite corner, keeping
watch over the room.  Mizuki had never really bought into his line about
being a soldier, and had been somewhat concerned that Kaname and Lindsey
had swallowed it hook and line, but given the fractured reports she'd
gotten from Dean Montaigne when she and her friends had finally noticed
that Kaname and Sosuke hadn't made it back from Babylon 6, she was
starting to have her doubts about the whole affair.
        Mizuki had to force herself to suppress a shudder.  The thought
of what could have happened to her friend if Sosuke had not
intervened... well, it wasn't the kind of thing that a person
particularly cared to dwell upon.  Fortunately, as a distraction, the
video monitor was on in Kaname's room.
        Unfortunately, it was currently tuned to one of the multiple
news channels which were reporting the fourteenth hour of the "CRISIS ON
TAU CETI IV!".  This was unfortunate mainly because Network 23 didn't
have anything much to report about said crisis at that point, since no
reporters had managed to get into the system yet.  Even Network 23's
anchors could only stretch an extremely sketchy story for so long before
it became obvious that they were just filling airtime until something
happened, and Mizuki had stopped paying attention to the recaps of
Earthforce's seizure of the planet, which had taken place the previous
morning, after about the fourth iteration.
        In the corner of the room, Sosuke Sagara sat silently and
watched everything at once without seeming to be looking at anything.
At first, when he'd arrived after being cut loose from Security
detention at midnight, Mizuki had assumed that he'd taken up that
position because it was close to Kaname's bed, which struck her as cute;
then she realized he'd done it because he could see both entrances to
the room and the ventilation duct at the same time from there.  She had
initially found that slightly creepy, but when she reminded herself to
filter her reactions through what she knew of Sosuke's rigidly military
mind, she decided that it was still cute in a... unique... sort of way.
        "I'm amazed Earthforce was able to subdue a whole planet so
quickly," she said, more for something to say than because she expected
a reply, but to her surprise she got one.
        "The Cetiani were unprepared for a surprise attack," Sosuke
replied.  "They expected any application of force by the Earth Alliance
would be preceded by the establishment of a diplomatic pretense, however
flimsy - as did the IPO.  If Earthdome's Foreign Ministry wasn't made
aware of the invasion, that implies a rogue operation, albeit one
sanctioned at the highest level: President Greeley exploiting his status
as commander-in-chief of Earthforce to take action without the advice or
consent of the Senate.  He must hope to complete the reconquest before
anyone can react and then present it to the Federation as a military
fait accompli.  That level of brinkmanship is inconsistent with his
record - that's why the Cetiani and their defense coalition were caught
so badly off-guard."  He folded his arms and assumed a look of grim
satisfaction.  "If I were a betting man, Miss Inaba, I would wager that
Chief Gryphon and his command staff won't make that mistake again."
        Mizuki blinked at him.  Not only was that the longest speech
she'd ever heard Sosuke Sagara make, it was a demonstration of such big-
picture thinking that she had to take a few moments to digest it all.
        Then she said, "Wow.  That's... I hadn't considered any of
that."  Trying to make a joke of it, she added, "And here I thought you
were just a grunt."
        "A soldier who can't understand the strategic ramifications of
his situation cannot be 100 percent tactically effective," Sosuke told
her.  "I learned that lesson the hard way on Helmajistan."
        Mizuki might have pursued that line further - it was rare for
Sosuke even to mention his past, much less allude to details of it, and
after his little dissection of the cosmopolitical implications of Tau
Ceti, she felt intensely curious - but her attention was abruptly
diverted by a change in the status monitors attached to Kaname's biobed.
The neural activity graphs, which hadn't been all that level to begin
with, abruptly spiked, becoming chaotic enough that it triggered an
alarm.  The other monitors weren't doing so hot either.  Whereas before
they had been relatively calm, they started to oscillate more rapidly.
        Startled, Mizuki shot to her feet in concern.  By the wall,
Sosuke had also moved into action, coming to the opposite side of the
bed.  She was about to hit the call button to summon Doctor Bashir, but
before she could do so, the graphs immediately calmed, lowering briefly
to a nearly flatlined state, before rising again to what even Mizuki
could see was a standard humanoid biorhythm.
        "What the -hell-?" she asked nobody in particular, clearly
perplexed as she looked down at her friend.  "What just happened?"
        "A very good question, Miss Inaba," replied Dr. Julian Bashir
from behind them.  He waved a medical tricorder over Kaname's forehead,
and then consulted its screen.  "It should have taken her several more
hours - a full night's sleep on top of the afternoon's she'd already had
- for her neuroelectrochemistry to stabilize, but here it appears as if
her mind has totally... reset, for lack of a better word."  He looked at
his readings again and smiled, his eyes twinkling.  "-Fascinating.-"
        Kaname stirred, blinked her eyes open, and sat up, only
registering Bashir's presence when she reflexively brushed his
restraining hand off her shoulder.
        "Easy, now," the doctor said.  "I'm not sure what just happened,
but after the day you've had, I'm still fairly certain you shouldn't be
moving around too much."
        Kaname rubbed at her eyes, then gave him a puzzled look and
said, "What are you talking about, I feel fine.  Oh, hey, Mizuki.
What're -you- looking so freaked out about?"
        "What am I - KaNAme!" Mizuki blurted, feeling perversely
indignant that her friend seemed to be perfectly all right after she'd
spent all night worrying about her.  "You got zapped with a stun rod,
you've been asleep for 14 hours, and then your monitors all go crazy and
you just -sit up- and you're all 'What?'  Aaargh!"
        "Hang on, hang on, -14 hours?-" Kaname asked.  "Seriously?"
        "Very nearly," Bashir confirmed.  "And I still need to get quite
a few more readings before I'm comfortable with what you just did."
        Kaname eyed him dubiously - as far as she knew, not having
really registered that part of what Mizuki had just said, what she just
did had consisted of waking up - but she let it pass and asked, "So
it's... what?  Three in the morning?"
        "It's 0311 hours, Miss Chidori," Sosuke informed her without
looking at his watch.
        Seeming to notice him for the first time, Kaname passed swiftly
through a remarkable set of emotional evolutions, all of which
registered plainly to Mizuki: delight, faint surprise, gratitude,
embarrassment, uncertainty, and finally a sort of smiling nonchalance
that was mildly but distinctly forced.
        "Oh, hi," she said.  "Have you been here all night?"
        Sosuke shook his head.  "I was detained by the security
department until just after midnight.  I've only been on post here since
my release."
        "Huh," said Kaname.  "I'm a little surprised they cut you loose,
now that I think about it."
        "Chief Garibaldi agreed that I was acting within my authority as
your personal security operative," Sosuke reported.  "His only objection
was that I failed to notify his department of my presence aboard the
station beforehand, an oversight I promised to rectify in future."
        Kaname smirked faintly, simultaneously tickled and nettled by
Sosuke's unbending air of professional stolidity even after what they'd
been through, and settled back on her pillow, remarking, "0311 hours,
huh?  When do you sleep, 007?"
        "Never on the firm's time, Miss Chidori," Sosuke replied without
hesitation.
        The response was the correct one, and yet so unexpected that it
jerked Kaname back up from her pillow to turn and stare at him for a
second in surprise.  He looked back at her, his face its usual impassive
blank, and then gave her just the faintest hint of a smirk of his own.
She gave in and flopped back onto the pillow, laughing aloud, and then
turned her head to regard him without sitting up again.
        "Thanks," she said, her voice quieter and more personal.  "I
think I needed the laugh right now."
        Sosuke nodded, his expression perfectly neutral again.  "It's
all part of the service, Miss Chidori."
        "That - is - remarkable," Dr. Bashir remarked, straightening
from his examination of the bedside monitor panel.  "This system's
readings correlate with my initial tricorder observations.  You
experienced what I can only describe as a... neurological -restart-.
I've never encountered anything like it."
        "Yeah, well... don't look at -me,- I was unconscious at the
time," Kaname said wryly.  "I - ... "  She trailed off, raising a hand
as if for silence and tilting her head to listen for something nobody
else could hear.
        Mizuki blinked.  "What is it, Kaname?"
        Kaname's expression blanked for the briefest of moments, and
then she looked up at Mizuki, Sosuke, and Bashir with clearing, worried
eyes.
        "It's my parents.  They're here."

        Ten minutes later, Kaname's parents stepped through the
isolation bay door.  Mizuki had met them, albeit briefly, once
before; she recognized Miranda Sterling, her green hair braided as
usual, and her husband Thade, who had his long wavy blond hair tied
back in a ponytail.  Privately, she thought he looked a lot more yummy
with it loose around his back and shoulders (like it had been at last
year's Parent-Teacher Open House), but when she'd expressed that opinion
to Kaname, the latter had threatened to hit her with the largest item at
hand at the time (a laptop computer), so she resolved to keep such
opinions to herself this time around.
        Accompanying them was another person, a woman that Mizuki didn't
recognize.  She assumed that she was a doctor, if the crisp white lab
coat was any indication, but very few doctors in her experience tended
to wear a short, tight skirt with what appeared to be a one-piece racing
swimsuit and black stockings underneath.
        There was nothing unprofessional about the woman's expression,
however.  She took Bashir's diagnostic datapad from his hand as if he
were there specifically to hold it for her, scanned it briskly, and
handed it back, then said, "Good, the stories were true.  You -do- have
half a brain.  The name's Lyneh; I'm Miss Sterling's physician of
record."  She stepped to Kaname's bedside, reached down to take her
pulse, then glanced up at the baffled Starfleet medico with an
expression that fell just short of "Are you still here?" and asked,
"Yes?"
        Bashir gaped at her for a moment, though Mizuki couldn't tell
for sure whether he'd been thrown more off-balance by her brusqueness or
her looks; then he recovered himself and said with an air of slightly
frosty wounded dignity, "I trust you'll find everything in order, Dr.
Lyneh.  We may not have a great deal of experience treating patients of
Miss Sterling's specific background here, but this facility -is- on the
very cutting edge of xenomedicine."
        "I did say you appeared to live up to your reputation," Lyneh
told him coolly.  "And now, if you would excuse us, Doctor Bashir, I
must consult with my patient and her parents.  Confidentiality, you
understand.  However, I will ensure that you are forwarded all the
appropriate information for her further treatment, should it become
necessary.  Good day."
        Bashir regarded her with a look of mingled indignation and
appreciation for a moment, then nodded stiffly and absented himself.
Almost immediately, to Mizuki's surprise (but not to Kaname's or her
parents', she noticed), Lyneh's body language shifted from that of a
hardass medical professional to something more "down home" - and Mizuki,
an accomplished actress herself, realized that the entire coolly
dismissive professional thing was an act, a consummate performance for
the benefit of Babylon 6's chief medical officer and no one else.
        "Did you -really- need to rake Dr. Bashir over the coals like
that, Aunt Lyneh?" Kaname asked, a trifle sternly.  "He's only trying to
help."
        Lyneh sighed, a wry smile crossing her face as she moved over
to the side of the bed to give Kaname a seated hug.  "I know, dear, but
the man has a reputation for more than just competence.  If I'd once
given him the slightest opportunity to start asking questions we'd never
have gotten rid of him."  She shook her head.  "'The cutting edge of
xenomedicine,' indeed."
        "All the same, that was pretty harsh.  I mean... he -means-
well.  And everyone says he's a great doctor."
        "I suppose I may have been a little too hard on him," Lyneh
admitted with a sigh.  "But I wanted to get straight to work, and I
couldn't do it with him hovering around.  You're right, though.  I'll
see about making it up to him later," she promised.
        "I would like to state, for the record, that I am in -awe- of
your acting skills, Dr. Lyneh," Mizuki stated, clearly impressed.
        Lyneh smiled at the blonde teen.  "Please, just call me Lyneh.
Any friend of Kaname's is practically family, as far as I care."  She
then turned and shifted her focus to Kaname, pulling a tricorder out
of her lab coat pocket and performing several scans.
        "So, um... now that Doc Bashir's out of the room, can -you-
explain to me what's up with Kaname?" Mizuki asked, concerned.
        Lyneh paused in her examinations and gave Kaname a thoughtful,
questioning glance.  Kaname considered for a moment, and then nodded
back to her doctor.
        "All right.  Since Kaname's informed me that you know some of
what she is already, I'll tell you.  However, I would prefer it if you
don't spread what you learn around -- while it's not classified, and
I've written several medical journal articles on the subject, it's not
exactly common knowledge, and we'd prefer to keep it that way."
        "You got it.  I know that Kaname's a quarter Meltrandi and
half-Invid, but I'd never even -heard- of the latter species until I'd
actually -met- her and we got to talking."
        "Mmm, I'm not surprised.  There's not very many of us in the
galaxy right now, no matter how long and hard Ariel has been working to
correct that."
        "At least it's better than it was in the old days," Miranda
interjected, patting her husband's hand.
        "This is true," Lyneh replied with a smile.  "Anyway, to put it
simply, we Invid aren't telepathic with other species, but among
ourselves, there's a... subliminal connection, a 'mindlink', between all
Invid, across the galaxy.  No matter our origin, no matter how far apart
we are, we all share in it; though its -strength- is variable, dependent
on a number of factors.  For most of us, it's been a constant presence
in our entire lives.  Every Invid grows up with it, learns to use it,
adapts to be able to tune it out or even block it if they want privacy."
        "But Kaname..."
        Kaname sighed.  "My connection is... screwy.  Which I'm pretty
sure isn't a medical term.  And the neuroshock didn't help matters any."
        Lyneh nodded.  "It effectively deranged Kaname's connection
to such a degree that immediate recovery would not have been possible
without an outside source of assistance to provide a baseline
purge-and-reset.  Like, say, a starship with a sizeable proportion of
Invid crew aboard."
        "Ohhhh." Mizuki looked thoughtful as she tried to digest all
this new information about her friend.  "So what you're saying in effect
was that her mental cellphone reception was crap, and it took an outside
source to force a reconnect?"
        "Not quite, but that's a good enough analogy for now.  And as
for -you-, young lady," Lyneh said, pointing at Kaname's forehead, "I
understand and sympathize with one of the reasons you came to Satori
Mandeville in the first place, but if you want to prevent incidents like
that... 'network noise' from happening again, you are going to -have- to
begin some serious mental exercises.  Right now your connection to the
mindlink is still woefully underdeveloped, especially for somebody of
your age."
        "Most Invid my age had full access before they were even
-uplifted-, Aunt Lyneh," Kaname protested.  "-And- they're adults by
now."
        "That still doesn't change the fact that you need to strengthen
your mind, if at least just to have the skill to perform blocking when
you don't want stray thoughts from the rest of us."
        Kaname sighed, defeated, and leaned back on her pillows.  "All
right, all right.  Gimme a regimen to follow and I'll get right on it.
('Cause I didn't already have -enough- to do,)" she grumbled in a lower
voice.  Then she looked past the doctor at her parents, gave a wry
smile, and said, "So!  Uh... how are things?"
        Miranda returned her daughter's wry smile and said, "Well, -I-
feel better now that I've seen you're all right.  At least I think my
heart's started beating normally again.  Your Aunt Maia, on the other
hand, is two steps short of -apopletic-."  Miranda grimaced.  "On the
way down, I briefly heard her threaten to go down into Brown 21 to
'cleanse' the place, by herself... and to be honest, I don't know if
I could bring myself to stop her."
        "Korgu is much the same, regrettably," Lyneh added.  "He's been
all but clawing the walls, ever since the first aftershocks got
through the mindlink.  Lieutenant Mao has him currently confined to the
gymnasium, so he doesn't do -too- much property damage."
        "Fortunately for us all, Chief Garibaldi gave us a quick
briefing on the situation on the way down here.  So as much as it may
disappoint Maia and Corg, we'll have to forgo the 'Scouring of the
Sector' today," Thade dryly commented from where he stood with his hands
crossed, leaning against the wall.  "For which I think we all have cause
to be thankful."
        "Speak for yourself, dad," Kaname muttered.
        "Well, at the very least, we can be thankful for the Sergeant
here."
        Lyneh and Miranda blinked at Thade, then again at the person
toward whom he was directing the smile.  Kaname and Mizuki turned to
look as well, and were surprised to find that Sosuke had gotten to his
feet at some point while none of them was looking at him, and was now
standing next to Kaname's bed at a rigid parade rest.  Now, with
Miranda's eyes upon him, he came to attention and saluted her crisply.
        "Sergeant Sosuke Sagara, TechCom Security Solutions," he said.
"It's an honor to finally meet you, Commander."
        "Uh... "  Miranda was at a loss for a moment, then - it seemed
only sporting - returned his salute.  "At ease, Sergeant."  Sosuke
returned to parade rest, his arms folded behind his back.  "So you're
our international man of mystery."
        Sosuke looked puzzled.  "Ma'am?"
        "Never mind.  I understand you've been looking out for Kaname
for some time.  Is this the first time you've had to take serious
action?"
        "Affirmative, Commander," Sosuke replied.  "Previous incidents
have all been false alarms or misunderstandings; this was our first
alpha crisis."  Reddening slightly, he corrected himself, "That is to
say, -my- first since receiving this assignment."
        Thade tsked slightly, shaking his head.  "Kaname, Kaname,
Kaname," he chided his daughter.  "Didn't your mother and I raise you
better than that?"
        Now it was Kaname's turn to look puzzled.  "Uh... come again?"
        "You know very well," Thade told her gravely, "you're not
supposed to let a boy fight an entire gang for you until the -third-
date at -least.-"
        Kaname went very red.  "-Dad!-" she protested.  "You call -that-
a -date?-"
        "Don't rile the poor girl up, you," Miranda told her husband.
"She's had a long enough day as it is."
        "I'm fine, Mom," Kaname told her.  Then, giving her father a
reproachful look, she added, "A -date,- indeed."
        Thade smiled an inscrutable smile and said, "Your mother and I
have had stranger... but that's probably a story for another time."
        "You -bet- it is," Miranda agreed.
        "Well, we'll get out of your hair, Kaname," said Lyneh, putting
away her tricorder.  "As it happens, I agree with your own assessment -
you're fine - but no doubt Bashir will want to keep you around a little
while longer for 'observation', and loath as I am to admit it, this
-is- his Medlab."  She shrugged.  "I'll work up a set of mental
exercises for you.  In the meantime, you might as well try to get some
more sleep."
        Kaname opened her mouth to reply, then closed it again as the
repetitive cycle of stock footage and talking heads that had been
running silently on the TV since she awoke suddenly changed.  Blinking,
she gestured to Mizuki, who had the remote, and said, "Turn it up!"
        " - munications blackout of the Tau Ceti system has just been
lifted," Avalon 17's famous virtual anchorwoman, Rei Tracy, was saying
below a bright red BREAKING NEWS banner that had just splashed onto the
screen and drawn Kaname's attention.  "We take you now live and direct
to John Trussell."
        The screen changed to a view, initially very confusing, of a
space battle in progress.  A Network 23 News with John Trussell graphic
in the lower right corner identified the scene as a live feed from the
media starship Swordbreaker, time code 0334 GST.
        "Thank you, Rei," said the instantly identifiable voice of
Truss.  "We're live and direct in the Tau Ceti system, just outside the
orbit of Tau Ceti IV's single moon, where a combined task group of the
International Police Space Force and the Wedge Defense Force has been
fighting a pitched battle with the Earthforce Navy's Tau Ceti invasion
fleet for the better part of an hour.  The joint task force, codenamed
Task Force TRIDENT, under the overall command of IPSF Commodore Utena
Tenjou, has just captured the ship responsible for the communications
blackout Earthforce has imposed on this system since about 10 o'clock
yesterday morning.  With that ship in IPO hands, we were able to enter
the system and begin transmitting these pictures to you.
        "It's difficult to say exactly what's happening right now - the
battle is very chaotic, doubly so as a Confederate Freespacer squadron
arrived to reinforce the IPO-WDF group just before we got here.  Based
on my own experience as a WDF officer, though, I would say Task Force
TRIDENT has the upper hand here - and I'm told that a surface assault is
already underway."
        Trussell paused, panning the Swordbreaker's camera across the
battlefield; already, the ship's sophisticated scanning and tracking
systems were painting identification markers and other clarifying
indicators over the scene, helping him make sense of it for himself and
his viewers.  Then he resumed his narration, breaking the action down
piece by piece and methodically making it all intelligible despite the
chaotic sprawl it seemed to be at first glance.
        "There's the Prometheus!" Kaname cried, pointing.  "Aunt Komi
and Aunt Terry are there?"
        Miranda nodded, smiling.  "And I'm sure Earthforce had no idea
what was about to hit them," she said.  "After all, what can one old
Hawkbat-class carrier do?"
        "Besides that," Thade added with a note of dark satisfaction as,
in one corner of the screen, a magnified inset showed the Prometheus's
wing of Astrofortress space bombers scoring several direct hits on one
of the Earthforce battle group's destroyer escorts.
        "OK, so much for what I said about getting some more sleep,"
said Lyneh.

                  0621 HRS GST, 5:21 AM TAU CITY TIME
             (OPERATION TRIDENT MISSION ELAPSED TIME: 04:21)
                              TAU CETI IV

        It would have been stretching the point beyond a point's tensile
yield strength to say that getting the upper hand in orbit had been
the easy part - Utena Tenjou was not the kind of commander who would
ever casually classify an operation that cost six of her spacers their
lives as "easy" - but from her perspective, the space battle wasn't as
grueling or as confusing as the ground ops that followed.  There were so
many different things going on dirtside that she had felt like one of
those old-timey performers who kept plates spinning on poles since she
arrived.  Somehow she'd managed to pull off the first phase, with a lot
of help from her friends, but there had been times when she felt that
just one false step would bring the whole mess crashing down into an
insoluble tangle.
        Case in point: Preparations to move out from the beachhead at
Tau City International Spaceport and commence the final, decisive
assault on Government Plaza in the heart of the city.  By the time she
took the decision to make that move, she had people spread out all over
the city, all with different objectives and all at different stages of
getting those objectives done, all converging on a single point.  They
all had to arrive at that point at roughly the same time, from the right
directions, in the right numbers, or the big finale of the morning's
hard work would fizzle rather than flash, and she'd be left,
strategically speaking, holding a very big bag.
        As if reading her thoughts, Sgt. Pete Stacker of the Repo Men
surveyed the Earthforce barricade at the end of the airport access road
from their impromptu observation post at one corner of the spaceport's
passenger concourse, currently marking the (very fluid) line between
territory recaptured and territory still held, and muttered under his
breath,
        "Those ODSTs don't make their IPs on time, we're all gonna be
left standing out here with our dick in our hand."  A moment later,
Stacker seemed to realize that he'd said that out loud; he cleared his
throat, reddening, and said, "Uh, sorry, ma'am."
        "I was just thinking the same thing," Utena replied without
looking away from the enemy line, "only not quite so concisely."  She
glanced to her right, where the towering green-armored figure of Master
Chief John Spartan formed a sort of reassuring bulwark.  She thought
she'd heard the Master Chief chuckle at the byplay between herself and
Stacker, but she wasn't entirely sure.  You could never be entirely sure
about that kind of thing with the Master Chief.
        Cortana rezzed up from the little holocomm unit built into the
left vambrace of the Master Chief's MJOLNIR armor, which made it look as
if her one-sixth-scale avatar were perched on his arm like a hunting
bird.  The thought made Utena smile as the AI told her,
        "Major Orman's people are on schedule, as is the 66th Legion.
One-thirty-one SMF will be here in four minutes.  Everybody else is
holding position."  She folded her holographic arms and smirked
slightly.  "Compared to making half the Klingon Navy fight the other
half, keeping track of all this is easy."
        Utena laughed.  "If only we could all have tenth-order computer
brains," she said.
        "Well, I'm not one of those AIs who like to go on and on about
the inefficiency of the organic cerebrum," Cortana said, "but there ARE
bionic neural implants available... "
        "No thank you.  Inefficient and squishy as it is, I'll keep what
I've got."
        Utena's communicator beeped for her attention, then said, "Kirk
to Tenjou."
        She took it from her belt and flipped it open.  "Go ahead,
Admiral," she said.
        "Commodore," James T. Kirk's voice replied, "there's been an
interesting development up here.  Northumberland and Bellerophon just
left the system."
        Utena raised an eyebrow.  "Just the Starfleet ships?"
        "For the moment.  Earthforce's task group is still out near Tau
Ceti V's orbit.  I think they're trying to regroup for a counterattack,
but they're not making very much progress.  I - ... wait one."
        Utena waited, noticing as she did that every eye in the command
post was on her, or more accurately, on her communicator.  A few
unnaturally long moments later, Kirk's voice returned: "Correction - now
most of the Earthforce contingent is bugging out as well.  Clytaemnestra
just opened a metapoint and the whole task group exited through it,
except the Marine assault ship and her remaining escort."
        "Well.  That's damn peculiar," Utena observed.
        "That's what I said," Kirk replied, sounding mildly amused.
Despite his youthful appearance, Kirk was an old spacedog of the pre-WDF
Reformation era, but if it bothered him to be subordinated to a young
woman in her early twenties - one whom he technically outranked - he
didn't show it; rather, he seemed oddly tickled whenever they proved
to be of the same mind, which had happened quite a few times so far
tonight.
        "They could be forming up with a larger counterstrike force just
arriving outside the system," Utena said.
        "Possibly," Kirk agreed.  "Though if that's the case I can't
think why the Starfleet ships left, or why they left the Suribachi
behind.  My instincts tell me something stranger than that is going on,
but I can't put my finger on what.  With your permission," he said, and
again there wasn't a trace of irony in his tone, "I intend to keep the
fleet at red alert and redeploy in an outward defensive formation, in
case that -is- what they're up to."
        "Sounds good to me," Utena said, too preoccupied with the
situation to be self-conscious.  "Task Unicorn, Illustrious, and
Charlemagne to cover the more heavily damaged ships and send Whippet,
Assailant, Valiant, and Scimitar to run pattern-theta patrols."
        "Commodore," said Kirk with an air of satisfaction, "you read my
mind.  I'll com you if anything new develops.  Kirk out."
        Utena closed her communicator, put it away, and regarded her
onlookers with a thoughtful look.  "Thoughts?"
        The Master Chief grunted.  "Probably just cut and ran," he said.
        "Typical swabbies," Stacker remarked, taking the opportunity to
needle the SPARTAN, whose title was a naval rating.  "Take any excuse
they get to leave the Marines in the lurch."
        Before the Master Chief had a chance to take or leave that bait,
one of the Valkyrie, faceless in her visored, red-striped black armor,
dropped lightly into their impromptu observation post through the shell
hole in the roof.  Straightening, she crossed to Utena's position with
brisk but unhurried strides and saluted.  A moment later her helmet
deconstructed, its components stowing themselves fractally away into the
suit's collar, revealing her to be a violet-eyed, black-haired woman
with no facial marks.
        "Our teams are in position, Commodore," she reported with a
smile.  "General Ravenhair sent me to mediate comms in case they get
their broadcast jamming up again."
        Utena grinned and remarked with faint, good-natured
exasperation, "Gin, if any more of my ground commanders find excuses to
send me bodyguards, I'll have everybody over here and no one will be
left to fight the bad guys."
        "Guilty!" Virginia Shepard replied cheerfully.
        "Well, stick around," Utena conceded.  "We might need that rifle
of yours before we're through here."
        "Aye-aye, Commodore."  Shepard saluted again, and then, still
grinning, turned and looked up at the towering SPARTAN next to her.
"Hey, John.  Long time."
        The Master Chief glanced down at her, but if he was surprised to
see her, he gave no sign; just nodded cordially and replied, "Shepard."
Facing front again, he added conversationally, "Heard you were dead."
        Shepard shrugged.  "I got better.  Thought the same about you,
though."
        The Master Chief gave a dry chuckle.  "SPARTANs don't get
killed," he said, "we just go MIA sometimes."
        Cortana looked up as if listening to something the others
couldn't hear, then said, "Commodore, Major Orman's people and the 66th
are at their IPs and the rest of 131 SMF is arriving now.  I've got your
entry options mapped and we'll be ready for final briefing in two."
        "Guess I'd better go over the map one more time, then," said
Utena.  "Com me if they move."
        "Aye-aye, ma'am," Stacker acknowledged, and Utena crossed the
dozen yards or so of tarmac between the OP and the main operations tent,
where the holotank and whatnot were set up.  A few moments later a pair
of blue Tac Div Warthogs arrived with the rest of Stacker's squad.
        "Hold on," said the Master Chief as Stacker went to greet them.
He raised his S2-AM sniper rifle and peered through the scope.  "We've
got movement."
        Stacker paused, raising his electrobinoculars.  "The hell's
going on out there?" he mused.  "Looks like a civilian car just ran that
roadblock... "
        The Master Chief lowered his rifle.  "It's the Stig.  Looks like
we don't have to send a rescue party after the Top Gear guys after all."
        Stacker grinned.  "Well, hot damn," he said, and ran toward the
lead Warthog.  "Get your ass outta that seat, Mendoza, I'm driving," he
said.
        "Why do -you- get to drive all of a sudden?" Mendoza asked.
        "Because I am your god damn sergeant and you will do as you're
told!" Stacker barked in his not-entirely-serious bark.  Mendoza made a
great show of feeling oppressed as he yielded the driver's seat, and
with a battle roar from Tuncer at the chaingun, the 'Hog peeled out to
go to the Stig's rescue.

                                ORIPHOS

        For just a second, as he trod the line between unconsciousness
and waking, Anakin Skywalker relived his thirteenth birthday.  As that
had been approximately the worst day of his life, this was not a
pleasant experience, but he supposed, as he lurched upward through
layers of dreamlike memory to something resembling consciousness, it
beat waking up dead.
        Even once he was fully awake and knew he wasn't really reliving
that day, the sensations were very similar.  He hurt all over, worse in
some places than others, and the main source was down at the end of his
right arm.  Or, well, midway down the arm, if he took proprioception's
word for it, but he knew from experience that there wasn't going to be
anything beyond that point any more.  Last time that had been because
the arm had been cut off by the man who killed Master Sifu-Dyas.  This
time it was because Anakin had blown up his own cyberlimb, by setting
off its built-in concussion blaster while it was in direct contact with
another surface, to wit, Shuten Doji's breastplate.
        On the plus side, the look on the sonofabitch's face as he went
out the side window of the Central Hall gallery had been worth it.
Well... mostly worth it.
        Anakin sat slowly up, suppressing the kind of groan that would
give rise to haunted-house rumors under the right circumstances, and
looked around.  He didn't recognize the room at first: dark-timbered and
high-ceilinged, it might've been almost any room on campus.  Only on a
second look did he notice the bookshelves, the low table at the far end
covered in alchemy equipment, the armillary sphere.  A wizard's study.
-The- wizard's study.
        "Ah, you're awake at last," said Souji Mikage with a faint
smile.  "You've had a busy day, young man.  Miss Tarrant tells me you
did a gallant but foolish thing."
        "Yeah, well, that's me," Anakin said, swinging his legs off the
long table on which he'd awakened.  "Surprised they didn't finish me
off."
        "They might've, if Miss Tarrant hadn't come and fetched me,"
said Mikage.  "Oh, don't get up," he added as Anakin braced himself with
his one remaining hand and made ready to hop down from the table.
"You're in no condition, and besides, I haven't finished my work yet."
        Anakin frowned at him.  "What work?  I have to - "
        Mikage shook his head and gestured; some force Anakin couldn't
see or identify pushed him back down onto the table, stretching him out
like the Frankenstein monster on his slab.  Anakin gritted his teeth and
tried to rise, but whatever this force was, it wasn't -the- Force, and
his own connection to same didn't seem to be availing him much against
it.  Or maybe he just couldn't concentrate because what was left of his
arm hurt so much.  Stupid cybernetic interface.  A proper one would've
had a feedback cutout for such a catastrophic system failure, but then a
proper one would also have cost more than cr5.95.
        "I don't know what you're planning to do," he growled, "but I
can tell you this: it'll be a mistake."
        "Not at all," said Mikage.  "I'm doing you a favor.  Now do be
quiet and let me work.  These operations are quite delicate.  In fact,
it would've been better if you hadn't regained consciousness just yet.
One does find all the screaming a bit distracting."
        "Screaming, what screa - " Anakin asked, and then he found out.

                              0623 HRS GST
                               BABYLON 6

        Breakfast in Medlab was a lot more lively than Kaname had been
expecting.  With the continued presence of Mizuki and Sosuke, the
addition of her friends Maya Mukai and Shiori Kudo, and the updates of
the situation on Tau Ceti from Network 23, the whole thing had the
feeling of an oddly reversed slumber party.  Although Sosuke's presence
could have theoretically caused some hesitancy, by now all four girls
had gotten used to his presence and tuned him out unless he spoke up.
        Live coverage was now being beamed from at least three sources
on the planet's surface.  Truss was dirtside, as was Big Time's Nanami
Jinnai, and one of the IPO irregulars accompanying the task force had
camera assets of his own, which made sense, given that he was a
filmmaker by profession.  Unlike the two network newscasters, Chad
Collier wasn't talking, just letting his camera track along with what he
was doing, which appeared to be helping several of the black-armored
women who had accompanied the strike force recapture a hydroelectric dam
from Earthforce.
        An editor somewhere between the reporters and the viewers -
Mizuki, who was something of a fan, was betting it was Truss's Net23
controller/producer, Murph Rosenberg - was skillfully weaving the three
streams together with occasional updates from orbital cameras, creating
a fast-moving but coherent stream of coverage that switched from Truss
and Nanami's straightforward reportage to Collier's cinema-verite
interludes and snatches of the ongoing battle in space to give the
billions watching the incident unfold around the galaxy a surprisingly
coherent picture of what was happening.
        Which, as far as Kaname could tell, was that the good guys were
kicking ass and taking names, but they had an awful lot of ass to kick
before they could declare "job done."
        At this hour, Truss was at Commodore Tenjou's command post,
preparing to go in with the commodore's main force as they commenced
their assault on the city's government center.  Nanami was at the
headquarters of the local police, covering Tau City's Finest as, newly
sprung from their own jail by a detachment of IPO tactical operators and
irregulars, they geared up to strike the Earthforce position's flank in
concert with the main assault.  Collier and the group he was
accompanying at the dam had run into pretty stiff opposition, resulting
in part of the city being blacked out, but they'd won through in the end
and were now getting set to form still a third prong of the offensive.
        The main stream switched back to Truss as the main assault on
Government Center began.  The action was spread out over a large,
rubble-strewn area, and Truss's camera could pick out only so much of
the action at once, but the overall impression was of a furious, fast-
moving engagement in which the Earthforce defenders were wrong-footed
and falling back almost from the start.  The IPO task force was an ad-
hoc arrangement and its people were equipped with such wildly different
gear that they seemed almost like a ragtag mob in comparison, but under
the surface they had the gropos completely outclassed.
        Afterward, Kaname and her friends would only have clear recall
of individual moments, like snapshots of the battle, as the lens moved
from point to point and picked out fleeting instants amid the melee:
        - An ODST from the Illustrious going down to PPG fire.
        - One of those people who looked like high-tech Roman
legionaries bullrushing a gropo with his brightly painted full-body
shield.
        - A big red-bearded man in ornate scale armor, easily holding
his own against a dozen or more troopers with nothing more than what
appeared to be an iron mallet.
        - Utena and a black-armored woman with a red stripe down her
right gauntlet back-to-back in the middle of the plaza, Utena fending
off a shockstick-armed trooper with her sword while the woman in black
armor blazed away at something offscreen with a curiously antique
marksman rifle.
        The view blurred, the camera's wielder swinging to train it on
another sector of the battlefield, and suddenly a petite blonde figure
in a slightly tattered DSM uniform lunged into view.  With one hand she
used a katana to parry the shotgun of a helmetless riot cop who had
apparently chosen to side with the invaders.  Unhesitating, as the
shotgun discharged harmlessly into the ground to one side, she hauled
off and slugged the man in the face with the other fist, flattening him
to the ground.
        "OhmygodisthatLINDSEY?!" Mizuki blurted.
        "Daaaamn, she's got a hell of a left cross," Maya observed,
impressed.  "That guy's gonna be eating through a STRAW for a while."
        "Apparently my initial impression of her tactical value was in
error," said Sosuke mildly.
        "That was a COP!  She punched out a COP!" Shiori cried.
        Maya shrugged.  "In fairness, he was trying to shoot her."
        "My God, they could close the whole SCHOOL for this," said
Shiori.
        With a sigh, Kaname told her, "Will you relax, they're deputized
IPO officers engaged in the lawful restoration of the Cetian government.
Nobody's gonna close the school."  Maya turned and gave her a look she
had a hard time reading.  "What?"
        "Think about what you just said," Maya said.  "I mean, I realize
you're from an old-line military family, Kaname, but... "  She gestured
to the screen.  "Kids from our school in the middle of THAT crap?
That's crazy.  THEY'RE crazy."  She shook her head.  "I'm as impressed
as the next girl at how they're handling it, but what are they even
DOING there?  I mean, minors in a war zone?"
        "Yeah, when their parents had to sign that thing that said
'yeah, we know, this club does dangerous stuff, it's OK,' I bet they
weren't really thinking of this," Mizuki agreed.
        "That's not - " Kaname said, but then ground to a halt as she
realized there was really nothing she could reasonably say to that.
        Not having anything a person could reasonably say had never
stopped Sosuke Sagara, though, and now he piped up from his corner,
saying calmly, "They're very effectively using the expectations you just
summarized, Miss Mukai, to their own tactical advantage.  Expectations
which are also held by the Earthforce troopers and rogue law enforcement
officers constituting the OPFOR.  It's very well-done."
        Maya blinked at him.  "Sorry, what?"
        "In a conventional force scenario," Sosuke explained, "properly
trained and equipped youth or even child combatants can be an amazingly
effective asset for the side willing to deploy them."
        Maya looked sidelong at him, then turned back to the TV,
mumbling, "OoooK, that just seriously spiked my creeped-out-o-meter."
Leaning toward Kaname, she said in an even lower voice, "(Are you
seriously hitting that?)"
        "(No!  Shut up,)" Kaname replied, her face going red.
        "Shut up, shut up, look!" Mizuki interrupted, pointing.  Leaning
toward the set, she cried as if the images could hear her, "Lindsey,
look out!"
        After hitting several other hotspots in the ongoing fight
outside Government House, the camera had swung suddenly back to Lindsey
Willows.  She was facing the wrong way, looking off to the right at
something out of view, as a trio of Earthforce troopers appeared from
the left, one with his sidearm drawn, the others leveling their rifles.
Lindsey apparently heard them - the one with the pistol seemed to be
shouting, though he couldn't be heard on the TV - and whirled, but too
slowly.  Kaname drew a sharp breath as all four girls steeled
themselves, expecting the next second to contain something terrible
happening to their friend.
        Instead, a man in that segmented Roman-style armor appeared as
if out of nowhere.  He had a red cape, wore no helmet, and carried no
shield, instead wielding one of those short swords in one hand and a
blaster pistol in the other.  One of the soldiers learned of his arrival
by being struck down where he stood; the other two pivoted, but the
Roman shot one and deflected the other's snap shot with his sword, then
cut him down as well.  There was no hesitation in him, but - Kaname
wasn't sure how she could tell this, exactly, but she felt sure of it -
no malice either.  She'd seen the same in others on this chaotic
battlefield, but it especially stood out in this one: the weight of his
experience, the firmness of his decision, the willingness to do whatever
was necessary, absent both joy and sorrow.
        It was, she realized with a shock, exactly the same thing she'd
seen in Sosuke on Brown 21.
        That shock, however, paled in comparison to the one she got when
he finished his grim work and turned to Lindsey.  As he did, his face
came fully into view, lips silently forming the words "are you all
right".
        "Oh my - !" Maya blurted as his profile came into clear focus.
"Isn't that Rory Williams?!"
        And it was.
        Kaname looked back over her shoulder at Sosuke, whose gaze was
fixed intently on the screen.  He looked to her, met her eyes, and
nodded gravely: I told you.
        The camera moved away, following the battle as it swept into
Government Center.  Neither Lindsey nor Rory appeared again.  Within
another half-hour, the fighting was over, and the analysis began.

                  0944 HRS GST, 8:44 AM TAU CITY TIME
            (OPERATION TRIDENT MISSION ELAPSED TIME: 07:44)
                              TAU CETI IV

        Utena Tenjou stood on the balcony of the presidential residence,
Government House, looking out over Tau City, and reflected on the
satisfaction of a well-done morning's work.
        "One of these days," she remarked wryly to President Kallon,
"I'm going to have to see what this town looks like when it's -not- on
fire."
        Kallon, who looked even more exhausted than Utena felt, laughed
wanly.  "I'll do my best to arrange that," he said.  Then, sobering, he
added, "Kidding aside, it would have been a lot worse if you hadn't come
back.  Thank you."
        "Hey, a deal's a deal," Utena replied with a tired grin.  "Tell
you what, if you really want to thank me, find me someplace where I can
hole up for a few hours, go over these casualty reports," gesturing to a
stack of datapads on a table nearby, "and maybe get some sleep while we
wait for the other shoe."
        "You still think there'll be one?" Kallon asked as she gathered
up the datapads.
        "With Earthdome, there always is," Utena observed.
        "Mm," said Kallon glumly.  "Well, our own defenses are on alert
this time.  Between that and your forces remaining on station for the
present, we should at least be better-prepared if a counterattack does
come.  In the meantime, I imagine there isn't anywhere on this planet
where you wouldn't be welcome to grab a nap," he added with a smile,
"but my personal quarters on the third floor would probably be best.
They're within easy reach of the situation room."
        Utena gave him a skeptical look as they went back inside his
office.  "Don't you want to use them yourself?  No offense, but you look
beat."
        Kallon gave another dry laugh.  "I am, but for the moment, I'm
needed here.  After the last 24 hours, my people need to know that I'm
in my office and on the job."
        Utena nodded.  "All right, then.  If you're sure I won't be
putting you out, I'll take you up on that."
        They made arrangements from the phone on Kallon's desk for all
comms relating to Task Force TRIDENT to be routed to the third-floor
situation room, and then she took her leave of the president and made
her way down to that level.
        As she went, navigating the unfamiliar corridors of the palace
carefully, she reached out with her Lens and made contact with various
other members of her ad-hoc command staff, making certain that her
mismatched forces were disposed to best effect and ready for whatever
might develop in the next few hours.  The last contact she made was with
Corwin, whom she'd barely seen since the operation began.  If all was
going according to plan, he'd be back at the Tau City spaceport now,
with the Valkyrie and most of the ODSTs from Illustrious, consolidating
the reopening of the planet's principal external supply line.
        <Corwin.  What's up?>
        <Im Westen nichts Neues,> Corwin replied, <except I can't find
Nanami anywhere.>
        <Nanami from Big Time TV?  Pretty sure she and Truss are still
at the broadcast... thing... they set up 'cross the way there.>
        <Wrong Nanami.  I'm talking about Nanami-from-Cephiro Nanami.>
        Utena took a moment to digest that, then said, <Nanami Kiryuu?
She's here?!>
        <Oh, yeah, I guess I didn't get a chance to mention that
earlier, huh,> said Corwin.  <It's kind of a long story.  Anyway, she
WAS here, but she seems to have wandered off.  Which would frankly be
fine with me, except I'm not sure I like the idea of her roaming around
unsupervised.>  His mental shrug came clearly to her through the link.
        There were a number of follow-up questions Utena could have put
to him, but in the end all she said was, <Hum.  Well, she'll turn up.
She always does.>
        <Is that a hint of jealousy I sense?> Corwin asked impishly.
        <Pff.  THAT seems likely,> Utena replied.  <Anyway, I'm going to
crawl under a rock for a few hours and try to get some paperwork done
and some sleep, probably in that order.  Ping me if anything comes up.>
        <Roger that.  When I get done here I'm going down to TCDF HQ to
see if I can help their quartermasters get the rest of their Destroid
force operational.  The Earthforce goons tried to spike most of their
heavies' reactors, but I think they did a pretty halfassed job.  With
Eve and Wall-E's help, me and Lenneth and Tali can probably get 'em back
on their feet in a few hours.>
        <We've been married for 20 hours... kind of... and you're
already having geekout time with old girlfriends,> Utena teased.  <It's
disgraceful.>
        Corwin chuckled.  <You could come help if you didn't have
eleventy million other things to do.>
        <Go on with you, then.  As you so diplomatically point out, I
have work to do.>
        <Best get to it, then.  Hey.>
        <Yeah?>
        <Love you madly.>
        Utena smiled.  <Get to work, you pirate.  I love you too.>

        Elsewhere in the city, the rest of the Task Force TRIDENT ground
contingent were either digging in to face a potential counterattack or,
having done what they felt they could to prepare for same, finding their
own ways and places to shed the tension of battle and get some much-
needed rest.  The irregulars in particular, of whom there were many, had
completed what preparations they felt they could do in fairly short
order.
        The Duelist contingent had established their command post just
downstairs, in the lobby of Government House, with camp beds and other
temporary furnishings borrowed from the Tau City Constabulary.  By this
point most of them were either out or asleep, apart from Mitsuru
Tsuwabuki, who was sitting upright, cross-legged, on his cot and seemed
to be in some sort of meditative trance, and Peregrine Took, who sat at
what had been the reception desk, polishing a burn scar off the blade of
her sword.
        Anaximandra Drax returned to the lobby from the ladies' room
down the hall and saw her vaettir friend still awake.  Crossing to the
desk, she pulled across a spare chair and sat down next to Peri.
        "Hullo," Peri said cheerfully, carrying on with her work.  "An'
hoow's herself, then?"
        "I'm well, thank you," Anaximandra replied.  She paused for a
moment, considering ways of introducing the topic that was on her mind,
then decided to just come out with it - Peri was exactly the sort of
person who would respond to a blunt inquiry, it matched up well with her
own personality.
        "Peregrine... was today -typical- of an Order of the Rose
outing?" she asked.
        "I thought we agreed nae t'be so formal," said Peri with a
smile.
        "Sorry.  Peri, then.  The question remains."
        "Better.  Well, Ana, I wouldna say it's exactly -typical,- I
mean, 'tis nae as if we go tae war on a regular basis, but... "  Peri
shrugged.  "If the bell rings, we answer i'.  Part o' the job."  She
eyed her svartelven roommate speculatively.  "Does tha' surprise ye?"
        "A little," Ana admitted.  "In my relatively short time at
Tenjou Academy, I had formed the impression that the Order was simply
a... a school club.  An unusually influential one, to be sure, but...
well, to be suddenly involved in an armed incident in Midgard was a bit
of a surprise."
        Peri chuckled.  "Surprised or no', ye handled yuirself well.  Ye
could've just sat the whole mess out.  Nobody expected ye tae ge'
involved."
        "After all you and Mitsuru and the others have done for me, I
could hardly stand idle or hide," Ana replied, a trifle stuffily.  "I do
have my pride."
        "Fair enough."  Peri finished polishing her blade, examined it
with a critical eye, then nodded with satisfaction and put it away.
"Noow.  I dinna know abou' you, but I'm starvin'.  The rest o' this lot
can sleep awa' the mornin' if they like, bu' this Shire girl is gonnae
ge' some second breakfast in 'er."  She hopped down from her seat and
declared, "Let's you and me see if the President's kitchen staff is all
it ought tae be."

        Across town at the spaceport, Peri's second cousin (twice
removed) Aeryn (of the Long Cleeve Stonefists) was not particularly
preoccupied with second breakfast.  That was more of a Westfarthing
practice anyway, and besides, Aeryn was unusually indifferent to cuisine
for a Shireling.  She could feast with the best of them when the
occasion called for it - she was a Valkyrie, after all - but when it
didn't, she was just as happy to cram down some field rations and call
it a day lunchwise.
        Just now she was much too sleepy to consider eating anyway.
When the fighting ended, one-fourth of the corps of Valkyrie on the
scene - the ones who had been on duty for the graveyard shift before the
intended wedding and thus had been on the move for nearly 36 hours at
that point - were dismissed to rooms in the spaceport's attached hotel
with orders to get some rest and report to relieve the midwatch at 1600.
Aeryn had been among them, but she was too wired from the battle to get
to sleep immediately.  She'd needed to burn off some of that nervous
energy first.
        The solution she'd found to this problem had worked
spectacularly well, if she did say so herself.
        "I thought you said your people didn't appreciate being
manhandled," said Xander Cage, amused.
        "Well," Aeryn mumbled, resting an arm over his muscle-ridged
midsection as she went to sleep, "in practice that depends on the man
doing the handling."
        Cage put a hand fondly on her shoulder, chuckling seismically,
and then reached with his free hand to set the alarm.

        The 66th Einherjar's scout century had wasted little time in
clearing the area immediately adjacent to Government House of debris,
then erecting a field camp of such elaborate sophistication that an
untrained observer might have thought they were planning to stay
permanently.  Past masters of the art, the entire legion could make or
break camp in little more than an hour if need be.  Not just a cluster
of tents to sleep in out of the rain, either, but commissary,
infirmary/dispensary, quartermaster's stores: in short, everything the
legion would need to operate for a day, a week, a year.
        A single century's encampment was a bit simpler than that, but
not much, and it was a fully equipped (if small) quartermaster tent
which Rory Williams entered three hours after the battle.  He was back
in the school uniform he'd been wearing for the wedding, though he'd
stuffed the tie in his top pocket rather than put it back on.  Stepping
inside, he put the collapsed suit of lorica electromagnetica he'd been
wearing for the fighting on the counter, then placed a neatly folded red
centurion's cloak and holstered blaster pistol atop it.
        "Ave, praetor," said the quartermaster, saluting him with fist
to chest.
        "Uh, hi," Rory said, looking faintly embarrassed.  "I'm just
returning this?"
        The quartermaster frowned.  "Why?" he asked.  "It's yours."
        "No, no," Rory told him.  "I just borrowed it for the - "
        "Nonsense," said another voice from the back of the tent, and
Praefecta Flavia Satori emerged from the stacks of equipment cases and
provisions behind the quartermaster.  She'd shed her armor, but still
wore the gold-trimmed red tunic of her office, and with hands on hips,
she regarded him severely for a moment, then said, "I must insist you
keep it, Centurion.  I won't have it said that the Pugnus Mortis
repossessed equipment from a veteran of the great 20th Valeria Victrix."
Rory looked faintly startled; Flavia held the severe look on him for a
moment longer, then smiled and told him, "Griffonifer Eudoxia recognized
you; she knew you in Britannia of old.  Roranicus of Corinium, Sentinel
of the Pandorica, the Ever-Faithful.  She's told us your tale a thousand
times, around a thousand campfires."  The prefect's smile became a
little wry as she added, "To be honest, I thought she was having us on."
        "... Probably best if you go back to that," Rory said after a
few moments' musing.
        "After your performance in the field this day, it matters little
to most of us -who- you are," the quartermaster spoke up.  "It would
break this old soldier's heart to take back the arms of such a man.
Please."
        Rory looked at Flavia; she shrugged, still smiling.  "Quintus is
a sentimentalist," she said.
        "Well... " said Rory.  He hesitated, then picked up the stack of
equipment again.  "Uh, thanks."
        "Thank you, Centurion," Flavia replied.  "You do my legion great
honor by accepting our gift."
        "... You're welcome?" said Rory, clearly feeling a bit awkward.
"Right, uh... I should go."  He turned, but before he reached the exit
of the tent, Flavia's voice turned him back:
        "Whatever became of your charge, Roranicus?  Were the legends
true?  What -was- the Pandorica... and do you watch over it still?"
        Rory considered his answer for a moment, then smiled.  "All
legends are true," he told her, "for certain values of true."  And,
leaving that for her to think over, he left the tent.
        He'd just put the gear down on the camp bed he'd staked out in
the corner of the Government House lobby when Amy Pond arrived.  She was
rumpled and tired-looking, like him (and for that matter pretty much
everyone else he'd seen in the last hour or so), but also weirdly
radiant, her green eyes bright, as she approached.  For all that Amy was
essentially a kind and loving woman, Rory reflected, she did dearly
love a good scrap.  Scottish.
        "Hey," she said.  Noticing the armor, she gave him a questioning
look.  "I thought you were giving that stuff back when the fighting was
over."
        "I was," Rory said.  "They made me keep it.  It seems my
reputation precedes me.  Among Romans, at least," he added wryly.
        "Heh, that's usually my line," said Amy.  Then, without further
preamble, she took advantage of the absence of adult supervision by
hugging and kissing him as if trying to dislodge his stuffing.
        Disengaging after 30 or so seconds, she grinned at his slightly
disoriented face, thrilled as ever that she still had the power to do
that to him after all this time, and said, "What do you say we find
something to eat?  I'm starving."

                              1210 HRS GST
                               BABYLON 6

        By the time noon rolled around on the station, Kaname was
starting to get antsy.  Mizuki, Maya, and Shiori had gone back down to
Jeraddo, to forward Kaname's messages and to get ready for their Spring
Break.  The news on TV, which had been the topic of choice through the
entire morning, had shifted to a "post-battle-analysis" mode, where more
pundits and talking heads were discussing what had happened in
excruciating detail.
        And there was the continued presence of Sosuke Sagara, seated
and on-guard at the corner next to her biobed.  She had made a few
attempts at small talk, just to fill the time, but they never ended up
the way she would have expected them to go, so after a while she just
shelved the idea.  Instead, she tried to catch up on some long-deferred
sleep, now that it appeared that the cosmopolitical shitstorm had blown
over for the moment.
        Unfortunately, her stomach had other ideas.
        "oh, come -on-," Kaname muttered as she turned over on the
biobed while trying hard to ignore the growling of her stomach. Finally,
with a disgusted sound, she sat up again and ran a hand through her hair
as she looked around.  "Wonder what one has to do to get some service
around here..."
        She looked on both sides of the biobed to try and find a call
button, but when she looked over towards Sosuke, she saw that he was
addressing his own lunch concerns.
        Kaname tilted her head, studying the small, thick rectangular
biscuit that he munched on like most people would an energy bar.
"What's that?"
        Sosuke chewed, swallowed, and then nodded.  "CalorieMate.  It
provides a sufficent amount of nutrition to allow me to keep functioning
during long periods."  He reached inside his jacket to pull out a gold
foil pouch.  "I have some extra, would you like some?"
        Kaname considered for a moment, and then nodded.  "Hm, sure..."
She accepted one of the bars, chewed, and tasted it.  The biscuit had a
consistency like dry shortbread, and tasted faintly of maple.   She
swallowed.  "... not bad.  Better than rat bars, at least."
        Sosuke blinked. "... -you've- eaten ration bars?"
        "Yeaaahh... we went on a camping trip that went off the beam
a few years back, and... well, I don't want to talk about it," Kaname
muttered, looking to the side in embarrasment.
        "Oh, but I -like- that story, Kana-chan!" a cheerful voice
announced from the doorway.
        Kaname's head snapped around.  "... Kyoko?  Tessa?  What are
-you- two doing here?!" She looked at the two women entering with
surprise, and then flinched as the blonde who'd spoken took a quick
picture with a tiny camera.  "Ack!  Hey!  No pictures!"
        "I believe you could consider this an intervention, Kaname,"
said the second entrant with braided platinum hair as she carried a
cafeteria tray filled with food.
        "We brought lunch!" said the first, gesturing towards the tray
with her non-camera hand.
        As the two women entered, Sosuke sized them up.  They were both
short and petite, and could have been mistaken for young teens of
Kaname's social circle, if it weren't for the fact that they were both
wearing khaki Mars Division duty uniforms - the blonde with the bars of
a senior lieutenant, the platinum-haired one those of a commander.
Given these facts, Sosuke made note not to underestimate either of them,
or their apparent ages.
        Finally blinking the spots from her eyes, Kaname relaxed and
smiled, settling back on her pillows as the tray was attached to the
portable table next to the biobed.
        "Spirit of Light, you're just in time." Kaname gestured to
the two women, who nodded in turn.  "Sosuke, these are my 'aunts',
Kyoko Tokiwa and Teletha Testarossa, but you can call her Tessa,
everybody does.  They've been in Mars Division with mom and Aunt Maia
since forEVER."
        "All the way back since the bad old days."  Kyoko nodded, and
came over to Sosuke's side of the bed, studying him behind her thin
data glasses.  "So, -you're- the guy Kana-chan just won't stop talking
about?  Hmm, not bad..."
        Sosuke blinked, while Kaname sputtered and went red.  "Kyoko!"
        On the opposite side, Tessa regarded Sosuke speculatively,
making a thoughtful sound.  Kaname turned where she sat and gave Tessa
her trademarked Look, the one that had a tendency to freeze freshmen
in their tracks with guilt.  But Tessa just giggled, and with a smile,
backed off.
        Kaname rolled her eyes.  "Anyway, now that we've gotten -that-
out of the way... how're you doing?"
        "Not much to report at the moment," said Kyoko, removing the
cover from what proved to be a plate of decent-smelling chukaba shyam.
"Nothing concrete anyway.  -Big- upswing in Federation subether traffic,
mostly on the diplomatic freqs, but I'm not cleared to intercept it.  It
might have to do with the Tau Ceti thing, but... "  She shook her head.
"I dunno.  I don't like it."
        Tessa nodded.  "What's weird is that Earthforce is on full
alert, but they only did that four hours -after- TRIDENT hit Tau Ceti,
and there's no sign that they're preparing to reinforce the Tenth.  In
fact, it looks like they're falling back to the core of the Alliance -
Earth and the Rigel colonies."
        Kaname eyed her.  "I'll have to take your word for it that
that's weird," she said, forking up some lunch.
        "Weirder still is what -Starfleet's- doing," Kyoko said.  "Or
rather not doing.  They pulled their observers -out- of Tau Ceti at the
same time Earthforce went to DEFCON 2 and - "
        Kaname flopped down on her back, eyes glazing.  "Going.  Back.
Into.  Coma."
        "Sorry," said Kyoko.  "Hey, you asked."
        "I asked how -you- were," Kaname said, sitting back up.  "not
for a galactic sitrep."  She shook her head with resignation and went
back to eating her shyam.  "-Military- people," she grumbled, closing
one eye and glancing at Sosuke with the other.  "Honestly."
        "Oh.  Well, I'm fine, and Tessa is... "  Kyoko glanced at her
colleague, who was looking at Sosuke with that speculative half-smile
again.  "... obviously plotting to steal your new GI Joe doll.  But you
must be used to that kind of thing by now, right?"
        Kaname pointed imperiously at the door, but was unable to keep a
smile entirely off her own face.  "Out.  Out, out, out.  Thank you for
lunch, wonderful to see you, we must do it again sometime."
        "You were right, Tessa, she's being completely ungrateful," said
Kyoko airily as she got up to leave.
        Tessa nodded.  "It's probably the start of a rebellious phase."
        "Yeah," Kyoko agreed.  "Next stop, tattoos and weird piercings.
Maybe we need to revive the Jump Street plan after all."
        Kaname sighed.  "You're killin' me here," she said mock-
plaintively.
        "If you think -we're- being bad," Kyoko told her, "wait until
Mao and Weber get here with your change of clothes."
        "You know," Kaname said conversationally, "I didn't -have- a
headache when all I had to deal with was neurological trauma."  Then she
dropped the pose; she and Kyoko giggled together, heightening the
latter's resemblance to a teenager.
        "We've got to get going anyway," said Kyoko.  "Got to get back
to the ship and see if we can get a handle on what's going on.  Tessa,
when's your debriefing with the Chief?"
        "Seventeen hundred," Tessa replied.  "Hopefully by then we'll
have a clearer idea of what's happening."
        "Thanks for coming, you guys," said Kaname.  "Even if you -are-
troublemakers," she added with a smile as they left.
        When they'd gone, she turned to Sosuke and said, "Funny, I was
expecting you to chip in.
        Sosuke shook his head.  "Negative.  They brought up several
points that I had yet to learn; I'll have to consider how they fit into
the larger picture before I have anything meaningful to say about it.
Besides," he added with a completely straight face, "I knew that the
topic wouldn't be conducive to your digestion."
        Kaname snorted.  "Never stopped you before," she muttered,
returning to her lunch.  She didn't speak again until she'd finished
eating, at which point she re-covered the tray, pushed it aside, and
said,
        "Soooo... what'd you think of Aunt Tessa?"
        Sosuke appeared to think the question over for several seconds.
"Hm.  Well, she is quite charming."
        Kaname looked blankly at Sousuke.  "..."
        "What?"  Sosuke gave Kaname a bland look.  "I'm not a -droid-,
Miss Chidori."

                                ORIPHOS

        Anakin awoke for the second time in however long with the
distinct impression that his head was capsizing.  This time, though,
when he pried his eyes open, the first thing he saw was not the dark-
timbered ceiling of Souji Mikage's study, but rather Leyna Tarrant's
face.
        "Hey," she said.
        "Hey," he replied.
        "What a day, right?" said Leyna.  Then, turning, she called,
"Professor, he's awake."
        "Ah, good," said Mikage, who appeared in Anakin's field of view
a moment later, leaning over him on Leyna's left.  "You should be able
to get up safely now," the wizard told him.
        Anakin sat slowly up, rubbing his left hand down his face.  As
he did so, he felt an unexpected sensation at the end of his right arm.
The pain was gone, there as, he was pleased to notice, everywhere else,
but in its place there was a strangeness.  It took a few moments'
concentration to pull the experience together into a context where his
mind could make any sense of it, but when it did finally resolve, what
it resolved into was a -hand.-
        Blinking in surprise, he raised the arm, noticing the unusual
weight of it as he did so, and found himself confronted with not a
mechanical replacement like the one he'd destroyed, nor (his second-
most-likely scenario under the circumstances) some sorcerous
regeneration of the flesh-and-blood limb he'd lost years before.
Instead he found an object that appeared to have been sawn off a statue,
if there existed anywhere a statue depicting a ten-foot-tall man wearing
segmented plate armor.
        "What the... ?" he muttered.  He flexed the fingers of the
strange replacement; the faint scraping sound it made, and the extremely
peculiar sensation its movement produced, confirmed what his eyes were
telling him, as did a tentative touch with the fingertips of his left
hand (which he was faintly startled to feel from both sides, as it
were).  The surface was smooth, though not polished, and faintly warm to
the touch.
        "It's made of -stone,-" he said, incredulous.  He looked up at
Mikage's curiously delighted-looking face.
        "Yes it is!" Mikage said.  He bent and peered at the transition
between Anakin's flesh and the stone, just below the elbow.  Anakin
looked more closely as well.   The join appeared seamless, in spite of
the wild disparity of the two materials.  After turning the arm over in
his hands and examining the connection through a jeweler's loupe, the
wizard straightened up and clapped Anakin on the shoulder.
        "The graft appears to be a complete success!" he declared.  "It
will be most interesting to observe the effects."
        Anakin got to his feet, gazing thoughtfully down at his slightly
disproportionate new forearm and hand; then, moving with a sudden speed
that startled both Mikage and Leyna, he seized the wizard by the front
of his robes with the stone hand and lifted him clean off the floor.
        "What did you do to me?!" he demanded.
        "I -repaired- you," Mikage replied, seeming unconcerned at his
predicament.  "And gave you a very valuable gift in the process, so you
might at least consider showing some gratitude," he added a touch
huffily.
        Anakin stared hard at his face for a moment, then let him slowly
down and released him.  "What is this?" he asked in a somewhat calmer
voice, regarding the hand again.
        "That is the Hand of Wrath," Mikage replied.  "One of a set of
stone hands wrought, I believe, by the same artificers who made the
Blazing Throne and the Seed of Destruction at the dawn of time.  It is a
thing of some infamy; its name appears, in translation of course, in the
legends of cultures throughout the universe."
        "What does it do?" Anakin wondered.
        "I've no idea," Mikage replied cheerfully.  "None at all.  It's
said to be indestructible, but beyond that the legends are rather vague.
Some claim its wielder becomes invincible, though I doubt that's
literally true or it wouldn't have been lying around Trigon's palace in
Muspelheim with no one attached to it.  Others speak of plagues, fire,
slaughter of innocents, the bloody scourge - all the usual things," he
said dismissively.  Seating himself at his desk, he opened a large book,
bent his head over it, and went on without looking up, "We'll just have
to see what you discover.  Off you go, now.  I have work to do.  Let me
know if it does anything... unusual."
        Anakin looked from the hand to the wizard and back again a
couple of times, then shook his head resignedly and left the office.
        "You're welcome," said Mikage pointedly just before the door
closed.  He kept reading for a moment longer, then looked up to see
Leyna gazing at him, a puzzled expression on her face.  "Well?  What are
you standing there gawping at me for?" he asked.  "Go with him.  Unless
I miss my guess, he's about to do something interesting."
        "R...right," said Leyna, and she hurried after Anakin.
        She caught up with him partway down the hall, where he'd paused
by a window and was looking at his hand in the light.  It was, Leyna
thought, oddly beautiful - not its shape, which was a bit clunky and
utilitarian, but in the weird midnight-blue lustre of its matte surface,
particularly in the bloody glow of Oriphos's perpetual twilight.
        Anakin heard her approach, glanced up, then looked at the hand
again.  "Hand of Wrath, huh?" he mused.  Then he set off again, his long
strides making Leyna trot to keep up.
        "Where are you going?" she wondered.
        "First, my room," Anakin said.
        "And then?"
        He smiled, a little cruelly.
        "Test drive," he said.

                  1527 HRS GST, 2:27 PM TAU CITY TIME
            (OPERATION TRIDENT MISSION ELAPSED TIME: 13:17)
                              TAU CETI IV

        Anthy Tenjou woke from a nap in the presidential bedroom off the
Government House situation room to find Utena seated at the little desk
near the bed, regarding the screen of a datapad.  A half-dozen others
were scattered on the desk in front of her.  From where she sat propped
up in bed, Anthy had her in profile, her one visible eye lowered, lips
curved down in a glum frown.  After a moment she noticed herself being
watched, turned, and mustered a slightly wan smile.
        "Sleep well?" she asked.
        "Rather," Anthy replied, rising.  "Not that I -did- anything in
this particular adventure," she added wryly, "but I do seem to be
sleeping a lot lately."
        "How'd that happen?" Utena mused.
        "I wonder, I wonder," said Anthy, giving her husband a kiss on
the way past her to the fresher in the corner.  When she emerged, Utena
hadn't moved except to put down one of the datapads and pick up another,
which she was regarding with, if anything, an even graver expression.
        "What's wrong?" Anthy asked.  Silently, Utena handed her the
pad.  Anthy scanned it quickly, her eyes going wide; it was the casualty
list from the Valiant's part in the space battle before they had landed.
She had known a few members of the vessel's ad-hoc shipyard crew were
killed, the first time such a thing had happened aboard the Valiant; now
she knew who they were.  Most of the names she didn't recognize, but one
jumped out at her as familiar: EVANS, WILLIAM G (PO2).
        "Oh," said Anthy quietly.  She handed the pad back and put her
hand on Utena's shoulder.  She remembered Will Evans: a cheerful, very
polite young man from the Crown Colonies, he had been an engineering
staffer on one of the ships that had taken part in operations with
Challenger the previous fall, when Utena had temporary command of the
flagship and the fleet.  He had dined at the commodore's table once,
selected more or less at random, and made an excellent impression.
Anthy remembered Utena remarking that he had a bright future ahead of
him in the Space Force... and now he was dead.
        "I'll have to write to his mother," said Utena, not really
looking at her or anything else.  "I'll have to write to -all- their
mothers."  She sighed, long and slow.  "Or fathers, or husbands, or
wives, or whoever.  Whoever will miss them most.  Personnel will know."
She raised her hand and patted Anthy's where it lay on her shoulder.
Suddenly returning from wherever she'd been, she looked up and met
Anthy's eyes, her own solemn and intense.  "Promise me you'll never let
me take that lightly," she said.  "That you'll make certain I always,
always count the cost."  She closed her eyes, a tear slipping down one
cheek.  "No matter how hard it is."
        Anthy lowered herself carefully to her knees next to Utena's
chair, leaned in, and kissed away the tear, reminding Utena with quite
sudden and startling intensity of her brother (the good one).
        "I hardly think you'll need -me- to make certain of that," Anthy
said softly.  "But I will."
        "Thank you," Utena said, almost inaudibly.  They held that
tableau for a few seconds; then Utena pulled herself together with a
visible effort, sighed again, and picked up another datapad.  "Back to
work," she said with a weak attempt at jauntiness.
        Anthy rose and kissed her again, on top of the head this time.
"I'm going for a walk," she said.
        "Be careful," Utena said automatically.
        Anthy didn't laugh, though under the circumstances it had been a
rather silly thing to say; she just said that she would, and that she
loved Utena, and then left the room.

                              1534 HRS GST
                               BABYLON 6

        At long last, Julian Bashir had admitted that there was nothing
more he could do or observe in the strange case of Kaname Sterling.
She'd just finished dressing (in regular street clothes her "recovery
party" had retrieved from somewhere) and was standing by her bed,
packing the few things she'd brought with her in a Mars Division kit
bag.  Mars Division's Kurz Weber and Melissa Mao loitered by the door,
waiting for her to finish up so they could accompany her back to
Jeraddo; probably not necessary, but you didn't argue with Miranda when
she was in this kind of mood.  In the corner, the TV was still playing
quietly, various highlights of the footage from the Tau Ceti incident
repeating between the ongoing, and not very interesting, commentary and
analysis back in the studio.
        "There," she said, looking around.  "Am I forgetting anything?
Not that I had much stuff to forget."  She looked into the open bag.
"Old Jindai uniform, dressy shoes... "  She patted the pockets of the
light jacket she now wore.  "... keys, ID, cellphone, discharge
paperwork... "  She glanced at the corner of the room, where Sosuke,
naturally, still sat.  "... mercenary.  Nope, that's the lot."
        Kurz grinned.  "Then let's get outta here and get you back to
some fresh air."
        Mao looked about to agree, then perked up a little as she caught
something one of the people on the TV were saying.  Turning, she thumbed
the volume-up key.
        " - the scene in the Tau City Government Center emergency bunker
just a short while ago."
        "Wait wait wait wait!" she cried.  "We can't go yet!  Kaname,
you gotta see this!"
        The screen changed to the slightly grainy signal of a field
camdrone, PREVIOUSLY RECORDED AT THE SCENE flashing in the lower right
corner.  "The scene" was a smallish, utilitarian room with ferrocrete
walls and a number of computer consoles scattered around the walls
between giant holographic maps of an urban area.  At one side was a
small group of armored Earthforce Marines, drawn together in a tight
defensive knot around a couple of officers.
        At the other, a somewhat larger group of Salusian ODSTs and
people who appeared to be high-tech Roman legionaries had plainly just
stormed the room through the mangled remains of the blast door behind
them.  In the lead, the unmistakable tall, pink-haired, slightly scuffed
and rumpled figure of Utena Tenjou, flanked by that woman in the red-
striped black armor and the equally unmistakable towering shape of
Master Chief Spartan.
        "Colonel Plummer," said Utena, her voice sharp and rendered
slightly tinny by the recording, "your forces are surrounded and your
defenses destroyed.  Your operation has failed.  In the name of the
International Police I require your immediate surrender."
        Watching the replay, Mao nearly -wriggled- with delight,
whispering, "Waitforitwaitforitwaitforit - "  Kaname duly waited for it,
as did Kurz, though he'd seen it many times before.  In the corner,
unnoticed, Sosuke was the only person in the room paying no attention to
the screen.  He was focused instead on the display of his mobilecomm.
        The leading Earthforce officer, red-faced under the brow of his
helmet, gritted his teeth.  "It'll be a cold day in Hell before my
Marines surrender to a child!" he barked.  Apparently unconcerned about
the two dozen or so rifles Utena's people had pointed at him, he reached
to his belt and drew a combat knife.  Then, advancing a step, he
snarled, "Let's see what you've got, little girl."
        "Aaaaaaaand - " said Mao.
        With a speed and fluidity that didn't seem possible in a man of
his armored bulk, the Master Chief darted forward and - before Plummer
even had a chance to react - clobbered the Earthforce officer on the
side of the head with the butt of his rifle, sending him sprawling full-
length on the floor.
        " - BAM!" Mao cried, miming the same move.
        Without appearing to miss more than one beat, Utena turned to
the other Earthforce officer and said, "Let's try that again.
Lieutenant Colonel Kopala, -your- forces - "
        "I know," Kopala replied.  Then, addressing her own troops in a
leaden voice, she went on, "Stand down, boys and girls.  It's over."
        "And -that-, ladies and gentlemen, is how you do -that,-" said
Mao with a tone of immense satisfaction.  "Man, I could watch that all
DAY."
        "And you pretty much have," said Kurz dryly.
        "The miracle of modern media," Kaname said.
        "Seriously, that is the best thing ever," Mao insisted.  "I want
that clip to play as the startup screen on my workstation."
        "It's pretty good," Kaname admitted.  "Can we go now?"
        "Sure, sure.  Grab your gear and let's head out."  Raising her
voice slightly, Mao addressed Sosuke: "You ready to go, there, cowboy?"
        Sosuke returned his mobilecomm to his top pocket and rose from
his seat, nodding.  "Affirmative."

                                ORIPHOS

        Passing through the Great Gallery, Mia Ausa was just wondering
why there was blood on the floor when a voice commandeered all of her
attention:
        "Miss Ausa.  There you are."
        She looked up to see Darth Venger standing a dozen yards away,
his feet apart, arms folded.  He looked calm.  Confident.  Mia didn't
think she liked that.
        A moment later she knew she didn't, as a double line of his
Black Rose apprentices appeared behind him, fanning out to either side
and blocking the full width of the gallery.  She knew without turning
that another group had just entered through the main doors, cutting off
any line of retreat.  A few of those by Venger looked battered, bruised,
as if they'd already been in one fight today, but they all had that
menacing deadness in their eyes that she associated with poorly tutored
flirtation with the Dark Side of the Force.
        "I require your answer in the matter we discussed some time
ago," said Venger pleasantly.
        Mia looked casually behind her, conveying a faint sense of
boredom with her body language - I know they're there, the gesture said,
I only want to get a look at them - but a jet of real shock almost made
her break character as she saw, in the lead of that second group, the
youngest of the Kaneko warlords.  He, too, looked bruised, his elaborate
armor scuffed, and there was a slightly grudging sneer on his face, as
if he didn't really want to be there.  A favor called in, then, she
concluded.
        "It's no use looking for your little -ninja- friend," Venger
told her, misinterpreting the glance back.  "She's in Midgard, running
errands for our self-styled black prince.  She can't rescue you this
time."  He smiled slightly.  "Now.  To business.  Your answer, please."
        Mia took a couple of slow, casual steps toward him, producing
her collapsed denn'bok from within her robes.  When she'd reached the
exact center of the gallery, she stopped, squared herself to him, and
said calmly,
        "With regret, Lord Venger, I shall have to decline your very
generous offer."
        Venger narrowed his eyes slightly.  "Unfortunate," he said.  "A
very short-sighted decision."  He ignited his lightsaber; so, too, did
several of his more advanced students, while the rest drew their black
iron swords.  "Also your last," he added, beginning to walk toward her.
        "I thought you might say that," said Mia.  She triggered her
weapon, which sprang to its full length with its characteristic singing
rasp, and prepared herself.  As she had feared, they were -all-
approaching; plainly they weren't going to leave this matter to their
master and merely block her escape routes.  She began precasting her
best battle augmentation spell in her mind, so that all she would have
to do was speak the last word when they broke and rushed her.  That
would save her perhaps four seconds, which might be four seconds longer
than she would otherwise live.
        An instant before Venger would have broken into a run, a voice
addressed them all from behind the Sith Lord:
        "You might want to re-think this strategy, Roger."
        Venger froze, then whirled to see Kyouichi Saionji standing in
the open far door, his own lightsaber in hand but not yet lit.  Gathered
around him was a third group of students, these belonging to the Mikage
faction, armed and evidently spoiling for a fight.
        At the other end of the gallery, the main doors boomed open
again, and in strode the armored figures of Shuten's fellow Masho, none
of them looking particularly amused.  Anubishu, in particular, betrayed
a cold fury as he passed through the line of Venger's students as if
they weren't there and addressed his apprentice:
        "Shuten.  This is none of your affair."
        "I - " the younger warlord began, but elder cut him off:
        "I know.  You owe Venger a favor for his help earlier today."
His gauntleted hand flashed out and seized Shuten by the throat, lifting
him from the floor, and Anubishu's visage was terrible indeed to behold
as he raised Shuten's face level with his and went on, "His help in
exceeding my instructions.  His help in taking the coward's way out!"
Furiously, he dashed the young man to the floor like a man throwing down
a bad hand of cards.  "His help in DISHONORING US ALL!"
        "Don't kill him," said still another voice from the rafters
above, startling everyone (even Anubishu, a little) in the room.  All
looked up to see a figure silhouetted among the shadows; then Anakin
Skywalker dropped lightly down, landing next to Mia.  His stone right
hand struck the floor with a sound like a shotgun blast, sending a
spiderweb of cracks in the marble raying out from the point of impact.
A moment later, Leyna sprang down beside him.
        Straightening, the young man cricked his neck, rolled his right
shoulder, and went on, "That's my job."  Then he glanced back over his
shoulder at Mia.  "All right?"
        "So far," she replied, smiling slightly.
        Shuten struggled to his feet, still a bit stunned from his
impact with the floor.  "How... how can you be back on your feet?  Where
did you get that hand?"
        "I've got friends in low places," Anakin replied.
        Shuten gritted his teeth, then turned to Anubishu.  "I can atone
for my earlier failure, Master," he said.  "Let me kill him now."
        Anubishu frowned.  "I hardly think Lord Trigon would appreciate
that."
        "Oh, let the boy prove himself, Anubishu," said Rajura with a
smirk.  "You and I both know Trigon's approval is irrelevant at this
point.  Our work here is nearly complete."
        The Masho leader growled under his breath, then turned to
Shuten.  "Very well.  Destroy him.  Do not fail me again."
        "I won't," Shuten promised.  Stepping away from his master, he
uncoiled the chain of his kusarigama from around his body and started
its weighted end whirling.
        Anakin took a step away from Mia and Leyna, reached to his back,
and unlimbered the greatsword he'd found when he'd first sparred with
the latter.  The two women eased away, edging to the side so that they
could clear the center of the gallery without moving toward Venger.
Saionji walked around to join them, passing students of Venger who were
so intent on what was happening that they didn't even think to try and
stop him.  For his part, the Sith Lord stood transfixed with fury, but
also fascination, at this blatant upstaging of his big moment.  This
wouldn't get him any closer to possessing the half-caste Minbari, he
supposed, but it was sure to be interesting, and it was probably about
to rid him of another impediment.
        "Did you hear?" Shuten demanded as he advanced toward Anakin.
"No more games.  Your doom approaches!"
        Anakin grinned nastily.  "You've tried that once today and only
made me stronger," he said.  "And you know the best part?  This new
hand... "  He fitted his greatsword into his stone hand, which closed
around the grip as though made to hold it.  The blade glinted an
opalescent deep violet, contrasting subtly with the blue-black of the
stone.
        For a second the two young men stood glaring at each other,
Shuten's face a mask of fury within his helmet, Anakin's alight with a
faintly malicious glee.
        "... It's a FIGHTIN' HAND," young Skywalker declared as he
commenced his attack.

                     1547 HRS GST, 3:27 PM DSM TIME
                          HANNIBAL HAMLIN HALL

        "Miss Sterling!" said Professor Kesselring in surprise.  "I
vasn't expecting to see you back here until D-term, considering."
        "As soon as my bag's packed and everyone else is checked out of
the fourth floor, I'm off," Kaname assured him.
        "Ah, ever dutiful," said the professor with a twinkle.  "Vell,
you take care of yourself, young lady.  No more adventures!"
        Kaname went a little red.  "Does everybody know?" she wondered.
        Kesselring smiled.  "I'm your building's faculty-in-residence,"
he told her.  "It's my job to know."  He tapped the side of his beaky
nose with a bony forefinger and winked.  "Chust put your signout form
under my door if I'm not here vhen you leave.  See you after break."
        After parting from the professor, she didn't speak again until
they reached her room, at which point she said, "Well, uh... here it is!
Just like last time you saw it, except without as many spy gadgets."
Then, with slightly forced casualness, she went on, "So, listen, my
family's going to Jezebel for spring break.  Normally we do it in the
summer, but it got moved up this year.  I, um, may have forgotten to
mention this before, on account of I -might- have been planning to ditch
you under the outside-the-B'hava'el-system clause in the Protocol,
buuuut after what just happened... "  She hesitated, not quite sure how
to say the next part, then went on in a rush, "it'd be OK with me if you
wanted to come along.  So you should probably go pack for the beach."
        Sosuke took all that on board, then replied with a trace of
regret, "I can't go."
        " - er, wait, what?  Whaddaya mean, you can't go?  Is it your
English Lit final?  I bet you have to make it up, I told you to study
harder - "
        Sosuke shook his head, gravely. "Negative, Miss Chidori.  I've
been recalled by the central office to report for debriefing, in light
of current events."
        "... oh," Kaname's voice trailed off, momentarily at a loss for
words.  While it had just recently been acknowledged by her mind and
heart that Sosuke Sagara was a soldier and a warrior, apparently they
both had forgotten that he answered to somebody else in the hierarchy,
and eventually he would have to account for his actions.
        Now that she thought about it, who -did- he report to?  She had
no idea, aside from the general name of his security company and its
parent.  She'd never seen him take time off to report to somebody else
earlier in the term, when there had certainly been enough weirdness
going on, so why now?
        Kaname shook her head, returning herself to the here and now.
"All right, fine," she said brusquely, as she verified that another
student was ready to depart, before returning to her own packing.  "So,
how long will you be gone?"
        Was it her, or was there a brief moment of hesitation before he
continued?  "Most likely the full two weeks.  Commercial travel to the
Corporate Sector is not optimal at the best of times, and given the
circumstances I am unable to arrange for sponsored transport."
        "Oh.  Well..."  Her mind scrambled for some sort of appropriate
reply, and even the collective didn't appear to have any good ideas
right at the moment.  "... good luck, I guess."
        "Thank you, Miss Chidori."
        Kaname's expression then turned stern, and she waggled a finger
at him.  "And you BETTER be back on time for D-term!  Comprende, Mister
Military?  I don't want to have to explain to all my friends again and
again and again where you wandered off to."
        There was the faintest hint of a smile as Sosuke replied, "Of
course, Miss Chidori."

                  1602 HRS GST, 3:02 PM TAU CITY TIME
                              TAU CETI IV

        Around the back of Government House was an extensive semiformal
garden, and by some miracle it had remained untouched amid the chaos of
the coup and countercoup that had swirled around the building for the
last day.  Anthy spent a pleasant half-hour or so meandering aimlessly
around its gravel paths, remarking to herself on the skill and diligence
of the presidential groundskeepers.  Here and there she encountered
other Duelists who had also found the place conducive to their desire
for rest or just quiet.  She discovered Kaitlyn, Sergei, and Juniper
sitting under one of the latter's namesake trees, sunk deep in
meditation (well, possibly Serge was napping); in another place she
found Keiko Sonoda stretched out on a bench, fast asleep.
        Out at the far end of the garden, a thrice-lifesize statue of a
winged woman with her arms upraised in triumph stood overlooking a
grassy ridge that sloped down through unorganized woods to the city
below.  There Anthy found two of the contingent from Jeraddo, and a
smile touched her face as she stood and regarded them.  Amy Pond and her
boyfriend, whose name momentarily escaped Anthy, sat propped against the
marble base of the statue, wrapped in the red cloak he'd worn during the
battle, their heads leaning together in sleep.  They were quite the
cutest thing Anthy had seen in some time.  She didn't know Amy well -
the redhead was a sophomore, so she'd arrived at DSM well after Anthy's
time and they'd only met on Alumni Days - but she liked her; the
dauntlessness and honesty of her had a certain pleasant resonance.
Anthy seemed to recall having heard that Amy was from Scotland itself,
not one of the Scottish Crown Colonies, and as such must have run a
considerable gantlet just to attend DSM in the first place.
        She turned to leave the pair to their rest, then pulled up short
as she first noticed, then recognized, the blonde figure who stood at
the end of the path leading back into the garden proper.
        "Nanami!" she whispered.
        "I need to talk to you," Nanami said.  Anthy put a finger to her
lips for quiet and went to Nanami's side, urging her out of earshot of
the statue.
        "People are trying to sleep," she explained to Nanami's puzzled
look.
        "Oh," said Nanami in a quieter voice, retreating a little way up
the path.
        "I... I had heard that you were... alive again," said Anthy
hesitantly.  "Corwin said he'd seen you at Christmas."
        Nanami's pale cheeks went a trifle pink.  "Uh... yes," she said.
"He, uh... he did a bit."
        "You don't need to mince any words with me, Nanami," Anthy told
her.  "Corwin doesn't conceal such things from me or Utena."  She smiled
slightly.  "I'm not sure he could."
        "Ah."  Nanami thought this over.  "Actually, I think you just
made me feel -more- awkward."
        "You shouldn't," Anthy said.  "Under the circumstances, it was a
great act of kindness.  And... "  She hesitated, choosing her words
carefully, then went on, "... I think I may understand your reasons for
doing it."  With a wry little smile, she added, "Two of them, anyway."
        Nanami was unable to restrain a little snort of laughter at
that.  "Yeah... I suppose you would, wouldn't you?" she asked
rhetorically.  "Anyway... you're probably wondering what I'm doing
here."
        "A bit, yes," Anthy admitted.
        "Well, it depends on who you ask," Nanami said.  "If you asked
my boss, he'd say I'm supposed to sow doubt and discontent among you.
Approach one would be bragging about... uh... what you already know
about, so that wouldn't have worked anyway.  Approach two, well, you
don't need me to draw a diagram."  She paused, her fists clenching, eyes
closed as if in sudden pain.  "There's a... compulsion... in me.  Part
of what makes me... what I am now.  It -drives- me to do just that.
It's gnawing at my guts right now, as I speak to you.  But I'm not going
to give into it."  Her smoke-grey eyes snapped open, fixing on Anthy's
with a sudden blazing fierceness.  "I refuse."
        Anthy's expression was an even mix of compassion and dismay -
but not pity, Nanami was hypersensitive to pity these days, and by the
grace of some forgotten god there wasn't any there - as she put a hand
on the blonde's shoulder and whispered her name.
        "What I'm going to do instead," Nanami went on in a low,
overcontrolled voice, "is betray my master."  She reached up and seized
Anthy's hand.  "You must be on your guard.  Don't underestimate the
thing that was your brother, because he's so, SO much more now than he
was when you killed him.  He hates you and all you love with a passion
that moved the Great Fire himself.  Think of that," Nanami whispered,
her face gone bone-white with dread now.  "A hatred so pure that the
Enemy of All perceives it as -beauty.-  That's how he came to be Duke
of Sheol in the first place.  That's what's arrayed against you now.
        "I know you think he came to your lovers' wedding just to... to
-trouble- you," Nanami went on, "but you're wrong.  He came to -warn-
you.  To show you that he'll never rest until he's taken away everything
you've come to care about since you escaped his thrall.  Until he's
taught you... what loss is."  Nanami winced and closed her eyes again,
tears leaking out.  "I can't say any more," she gasped.  "I think... he
knows I've said this much.  It's... aaah!" she cried, nearly bending
double.  Anthy reached for her, but Nanami waved her back.  "No, no,
it's all right, I'm all right.  It's just... the recall... hurts.
Particularly if you resist."
        Anthy pushed aside her hands and took hold of both her
shoulders.  "Nanami," she said intently.  "Listen to me.  We'll go to
Corwin.  We'll go right now.  He's one of the Aesir, he can give you
sanctuary.  Break the hold Akio has over you."  She shook her head.  "I
can't imagine why he didn't think of it at Christmas."
        "He did," Nanami said through gritted teeth.  "But too late.  He
thought... I wouldn't accept."  She actually managed a laugh of sorts at
that.  "Sentimental fool.  As though... I have it in me... to take
offense at being treated like... what I am."  She straightened herself,
gasping, and took hold of Anthy's elbows.  Her grey eyes now unfocused
with pain, she met Anthy's horrified gaze as best she could and told
her, "Too late for me now.  Forget me.  But don't forget... what I've
told you."
        "Nanami - !" Anthy cried, but Nanami was gone, slipping through
her fingers like smoke.  With the sudden vanishing of the resistance
against her hands, Anthy nearly lost her balance, recovering with a sort
of hopping step backward.  Tears came to her eyes as she regarded the
spot where the blonde had just been.  That's -twice,- she thought, twice
Nanami has put herself in harm's way to warn me.  Twice she's suffered
for it.  Possibly even twice she's died for it.
        In older days, Anthy might have been overcome with grief and
self-reproach at that realization... but that had been a long time ago.
Now she felt only a steely sort of resolve settle over her.  No more,
she thought, straightening her spine, clenching her fists at her sides.
No more!
        "Anthy?" said a voice behind her.  "Is something wrong?"  She
turned to see Amy and - Rory, that was his name - standing at the mouth
of the path, looking concerned.
        "Was that you shouting?" Rory asked.
        "It's..."  Anthy paused, took a deep breath, and let it out
slowly.  "Thank you," she said.  "It's hard to explain.  I'm all right,
but... I've just learned that a... a friend is in terrible trouble."
        "Anything we can help with?" Amy asked.
        "I doubt it, at least right now," said Anthy.  "But thank you.
There may come a time... "
        "Any time you need us," said Rory.  "You just ask."
        "Absolutely," Amy agreed.  "We're here to help."

                                ORIPHOS

        Anakin didn't know about invincible, but after throwing down
with Shuten Doji, he could definitely say that the Hand of Wrath made
its owner feel pretty damn badass.

                             /*  The Heavy
                         "How You Like Me Now?"
                 _The House That Dirt Built_ (2009)  */

        Oh, Shuten was tough, there was no doubt about that.  He had
that nearly indestructible armor, for one thing, whereas Anakin was
dressed for a day in the dojo, rocking something very similar to the
Jedi padawan look he'd once worn as a matter of course.  His weapon had
a giGANtic reach advantage, even over Anakin's enormous greatsword,
mainly because it appeared to have some kind of freakass ninja magic
going on whereby the chain would become as long as required for any
given situation.  Several times Shuten hurled the weighted end with such
force that, when Anakin parried it, it nearly took the head off some
hapless bystander, or knocked a chunk out of the far wall.
        On the other hand, Anakin came to appreciate one of the Hand's
features very early on.  It was a great, massive, heavy thing that would
probably prove quite clumsy in everyday life.  He was used to that,
since his old cyberhand had been built by a one-handed slave out of junk
in an aerotaxi garage and wasn't what you would call a precision
instrument.  In the day-to-day it was probably going to be a bit
annoying - but in a fight it was better than a sledgehammer.
        Anakin had always been noted for his unusual strength, and once
he got the feel of it he barely noticed the Hand's weight - but Shuten
did, every time Anakin smashed it into him.  That magic armor might be
almost impenetrable, but Anakin didn't have to penetrate it to bounce
the man inside it around a bit.  He soon settled into a new style in
which he handled the greatsword almost exclusively with his left hand
and let the Hand do its own talking on the right.
        Ultimately, he wound up relying entirely on the latter, as a
slightly mismanaged parry jangled the sword from his stinging hand and
left it stuck in the floor near the middle of the room.  Forced to leap
away from a whistling sweep of the kusarigama's bladed end, he was
unable to retrieve it, and instead had to do a bit of a dance to keep
from being julienned.
        "Your life is OVER!" Shuten roared, whirling the weighted chain
until it thrummed like a helicopter's rotors.
        ("He can see things before they happen.  It's a Jedi trait.")
        Anakin's lips curled away from his teeth in a furious grin as
Shuten loosed the weight again, sending it arrowing straight for his
head.  He let it come, staring it down as if attempting to intimidate
it, and then, an instant before it would've shattered his skull, he
suddenly burst into motion and -seized- it with his stone hand.  Sparks
flew as the chain links shrieked across his palm in the moment before
the fingers closed and halted its flight.  The weight missed his head by
an inch, hit the limit of its extension, and swung away, whirling
outward.  With a contemptuous flick of his arm, Anakin harnessed its
momentum to take three turns of the chain around the Hand of Wrath, then
set himself and pulled with all his might, yanking the bladed end from
Shuten's startled hand.  He let the chain unwind from his stone arm and
fall to the floor, leaving the whole weapon piled in a useless heap at
his feet.
        The young warlord stared at his opponent for a half-second in
shock.  Then, his face contorting with fury, he drew a short-bladed
knife, but before he had a chance to use it, Anakin was upon him.  In six
furious seconds, the young ex-padawan had -leveled- him.  Standing over
his fallen, bloodied foe, Anakin put out his left hand; the Force tore
his blade from the floor and delivered it to his grip.  He whirled it
through a completely superfluous flourish and put its tip under Shuten's
chin.
        For a second, possibly two, the room fell silent.  Everyone
watched to see what Anakin would do, the adults tense and curious, the
students barely daring to breathe.
        From behind the other Kanekan warlords came the sound of slow,
sarcastic applause.  The warlords and Venger's students parted and drew
back to make way as the slim, dark figure of Akio Ohtori advanced into
the gallery, still clapping.  Nanami Kiryuu walked at his side, a pace
or two behind, looking drawn and weary.
        "Nicely done, Mr. Skywalker, I believe you've made your point,"
he said casually, and then, in a slightly harder tone of voice, "Any
student not in quarters within five minutes will be disciplined."
        Like magic, the crowd of students melted away and dispersed -
all but Leyna, who remained by Mia and Saionji as they moved closer to
the two fighters.
        Anakin held his position for a moment longer, then stepped back
and withdrew his sword.  Shuten struggled to his feet, holding one arm
across his midsection - even through his armor, he suspected that Anakin
had cracked a few of his ribs - and glared at him.
        "You'll regret letting me live," he spat.
        "I -already- regret letting you live," Anakin replied with a
dark little smile.
        "Now, now, gentlemen," said Akio dryly.  "Surely there's no need
for vendettas within our organization."
        "Your organization is a farce," said Rajura.  "You were gone
for, what, a day?  Two?  And it all but completely fell apart.  Your pet
Sith Lord schemes against the Minbari witch, the green-haired madman
plots against -him-, the students take sides and that ineffectual fop of
a wizard you left ostensibly in charge does nothing whatever."
        Anubishu grunted agreement.  "There was very nearly a -war- here
today.  It's merely luck that this -other- battle took place, and you
didn't arrive to find this room strewn with corpses!"
        Akio gave him a faintly patronizing look.  "You think it was
mere -chance- that put Skywalker and your apprentice onto their
collision courses?"  He made a mocking you-may-have-a-point sound and
walked away from him, took hold of Anakin's stone hand, and examined it.
"Hm.  I see Mikage has been helping himself to my things.  Well, never
mind.  You seem to be putting it to good use."  He let the hand drop and
patted the young man on the shoulder, adding with a friendly smile, "I
shan't repossess it.  And as for the rest of you... "
        "Ohtori!" Anubishu barked.  "We're not finished."
        Akio wheeled, giving the warlord a mild look.  "Aren't we?  Your
boy lost, but kept his head.  It seems to me the matter is quite
concluded."
        "We are returning to Ishiyama," the Masho leader declared.
"This exercise has been a waste of time."
        "Ah," said Akio, unconcerned.  "Well, I'm sorry you feel that
way, but if that's what you feel you must do, I won't stand in your way.
Do keep your signets; you're all welcome back here at any time, should
you change your minds.  We can still do great things together... "
        "Hnh," Anubishu snorted.  "Masho - away."  As the warlords left
the gallery, the others could hear him growling to Shuten, "I will deal
with YOU once we're back in Kaneko... "
        Akio watched them go, then turned back to the others with a
little sigh.  "A shame," he said.  "They could have been very helpful.
Still, one has to make do with the material one is given."  He paused,
then crossed to stand before Leyna.  "Miss Tarrant."  He glanced at his
watch.  "You now have only forty-five seconds.  Given where your
quarters are, I don't think much of your chances... "
        Leyna went a little pale, but Anakin broke in: "She's with me.
We were on our way to spar before... this."
        Akio turned back to him, gave him an appraising look, then
nodded.  "Of course.  One imagines you're no longer in the mood for
that... "  He smiled.  "... but that's your business.  Carry on."
        "Th-thank you, Lord Akio," Leyna stammered.
        "Not at all.  Always glad to see my students bettering
themselves."  Akio turned away from both of them, dismissing them
utterly, and walked toward Venger.  "Kyouichi, Mia, Lord Venger... we
have to talk."
        "(Nice save,)" Nanami whispered to Anakin with a tired but saucy
wink as she followed Akio to the far end of the gallery.
        "Let's get out of here," said Anakin to Leyna, and they went the
other way.
        "We're not really going to spar, are we?" Leyna wondered when
they'd cleared the building.
        "Pff," Anakin replied.  "Not bloody likely.  All I want to do is
go find a tub and soak for an hour.  And then maybe eat a sandwich about
the size of my head."
        "That sounds good to me," Leyna agreed.  On impulse, she took
his arm; she was on his right, so that arm ended in the stone hand,
which she ran her fingers over thoughtfully.
        "I can feel that, you know," he said.  "It's magic."
        "Oh, sorry."
        "I didn't say I didn't -like- it," he added with a faint grin.
        "Hand of Wrath, huh?  Professor Mikage said it was part of a
set.  I wonder if there's one for each of the deadly sins.  If so,
you're lucky you didn't get the Hand of Sloth."  She giggled.  "Or the
Hand of Lust, though personally I'd be OK with that."
        Anakin glanced sidelong at her, unsure how to take that remark,
then laughed.

                              1705 HRS GST
                     BLUE SECTOR IPO OFFICE COMPLEX
                               BABYLON 6

        "So I understand the kids did all right," Maia Sterling
remarked.
        Gryphon nodded.  "Not bad at all.  Most satisfactory, as my old
kenjutsu master liked to phrase his highest praise."
        "That isn't the face of a commander who's had a job turn out
'most satisfactory,' said Vince Grant thoughtfully.
        With a rueful chuckle, Gryphon admitted, "It's not
dissatisfaction, just preoccupation.  The whole job was laid on in such
a rush, and we had such a scramble at the top, that I feel like I may
not have given the task force all the tools it really needed.  That
Utena and her crew got the job done anyway is more a reflection on them
than me, not that I'm the kind of boss who gets grumpy about that," he
added with a wry grin.
        "How so?" Maia asked.
        "Well, Utena hasn't had time to do up a formal after-action
report yet, obviously - technically the operation's not even complete
yet - but from the sound of some of the preliminary info I've been
getting, it seems like there were a few dicey moments.  I gather TRIDENT
could really have used some Destroid coverage for the initial assault,
rather than relying on getting the TCDF back up and running in short
order - if that part of the plan had hit a snag the whole thing could've
come undone."  Gryphon shrugged.  "Sometimes these things can't be
helped, I guess.  I mean, with that aerospace cover there's no way we'd
have gotten a Destroid dropship through in the first wave."
        Tessa Testarossa hadn't looked like she was really paying
attention for most of the conversation, but now she suddenly looked up
as if struck by an idea.  Without explaining why, she tabbed her
communicator and asked the Voronda Elendil's comm operator to beam her
straight to her quarters, then vanished in a wash of energy.  Gryphon
and the others looked at each other with faint bemusement for a few
moments.
        Then she just as suddenly returned with a heavy armful of files,
turned to the right, took one step, discovered that she'd beamed back a
few feet closer to Gryphon than she'd been expecting, and crashed full-
steam into him before she could stop herself.
        "Well," said Gryphon amiably from the floor, somewhere
underneath the engineer and all the files.  "This takes me back.
It's just like being back on Ishiyama."
        "Oh my goodness, Chief, I am so sorry," Tessa sputtered, sitting
up and scattering folders and data solids further in the process.
        "Ah, don't worry about it," Gryphon replied, getting to his
feet.  "You know," he mused as he crouched to help her pick up the
papers, "this is why Lu keeps trying to get me to go paperless.  Though,
to be fair, it hasn't worked."  One of the folders he was picking up had
partly disgorged its contents; he moved to slide the documents back
inside, noting as he did that they were technical diagrams of some kind,
and then his practiced eye caught a few of the details and, instead of
pushing it back into the folder, he took it the rest of the way out.
        "'Proposal for a Trans-Atmospheric Submersible Stealth-Capable
Light Destroid Carrier and Assault Craft: TDD-1'," he read quietly.
Arching an eyebrow, he went on in a low murmur, as if to himself, "What
in the name of... ?"
        Still sitting on the floor gathering up the rest of the
documents, Tessa glanced away and reddened a little.  "It was a thought
exercise."
        "Hm," said Gryphon abstractly; and then, as he took in more
details of the general arrangement diagram, he said in a firmer voice,
"Wow.  This ship is a dessert topping AND a floor wax."
        "Oh man, the -Tuatha De Danaan-?" Maia said.  "Damn, it's been a
while since I last even -thought- of that."  At Gryphon's curious
eyebrow, even as he continued looking at the specifications for the
ship, she elaborated, "Back around the late 2360's, Mars Division had
gotten big enough that we were starting to think about expanding our
operations to more than just one ship and a home base.  Especially with
some of the missions we were executing, ones where having a Horizon
transport as the delivery vehicle for the task force just wasn't cutting
it."
        Vince picked up the thread.  "So the idea was to shop around for
something that could handle a small dropship/carrier role for tactical
insertions that would be easier to manage than the Elendil in hot
locations.  Yeah, I remember us going through the available ships at the
time, but nothing seemed to really fit our needs.  Man, the
'discussions' we had about that."  He shook his head.  "And then Tessa
here comes up to us with -her- idea..."
        "It -was- a good idea," Miranda continued, in order to placate
Tessa's mildly indignant expression, "And we -had- started saving up for
it, even though building a ship from scratch with untested technologies
would've cost a LOT more than getting one out of the used starship
lots."
        "But then the Wedge Defense Force came back, and well..."
Maia shrugged, apologetically.  "The whole idea got shelved."
        "But it would've been perfect for the Tau Ceti operation," Tessa
insisted.  "The Tuatha De Danaan could have performed the role that
Salusian U-ship played, then slipped past the Earthforce blockade and
onto the planet before the main body of the strike force arrived.  When
the signal came to commence the surface assault, her Arm Slaves could
have been on station within ten minutes."
        Gryphon flipped to another page of the diagrams, studied a
couple of performance estimate tables, and then gave the engineer a
speculative look.  "She might have had more trouble running the blockade
than you're assuming, and I'm not sure how much help a pair of Arm
Slaves would've been in the opening phase of the ground fight... "  He
smiled to forestall any disappointment his critical points might have
caused and added, "But it would certainly have been worth a shot.  And
the thing about launching small Destroids as IRBM payloads?  That's
-brilliant.-"  He closed the folder and handed it back to its owner.  "I
tell you what, Tessa, if you can't get Maia to pay for that, you come to
me.  I'll build it just to see if it works."
        Maia coughed; Tessa blinked in surprise and said, "But you're
the busiest man in the galaxy."
        "If I'm ever too busy for crazy submarines, that'll be the day
it's time to hang it all up," Gryphon declared positively.

                     1712 HRS GST, 5:12 PM DSM TIME
                          HANNIBAL HAMLIN HALL

        Being a meticulous sort of person, Kaname took her time packing.
She'd had to kill a couple of hours while everyone else checked out with
her for break anyway, and she'd used the time to get her suitcase packed
-exactly right-, a skill of which she was rather proud, even if most of
her friends considered it borderline neurotic.  All that was left now
was to hang up her old Jindai High uniform in the closet, since she
wasn't taking it with her, and - with the checkout sheet fully completed
and ready to be slipped under Professor Kesselring's door - she'd be
good to go.
        As she was hanging the uniform up, she suddenly felt as if she
had forgotten something.  Something -important.-  Or... was that it?
She hesitated, her hand still gripping the shoulder of the uniform
jacket on its hanger, and tried to push her suddenly jumbled thoughts
back into something like order.  She felt.. -anxious-.  As though
something terrible were happening just beyond the corner of her eye.
        Without consciously knowing why, she ran down the deserted hall
to the common room and switched on the television, which - like almost
every other set on campus - was still tuned to Network 23.
        The BREAKING NEWS graphic was still emblazoned across the top of
the screen, and John Trussell was still speaking from the plaza in front
of Government House in Tau City (now somewhat less strewn with rubble
than it had been earlier), but he wasn't talking about the Tau Ceti
situation at all now.  The text below him, bold and white, said it all:

                  FEDERATION PRESIDENT SANTIAGO KILLED

        She'd caught Truss just as he was restating the lede of the
story, which he'd plainly gone through at least once already: the
starship USS Danzig, a Galaxy-class Starfleet battleship, had suffered
some as-yet-unknown massive casualty while transporting United
Federation of Planets President Luis Santiago and much of his cabinet on
some errand of state.  Kaname would realize later that Truss must have
specified what the errand was, but she completely failed to retain the
information, possibly because it was of such patent unimportance under
the circumstances.
        "Reports from the Starfleet task force investigating the site
are still incomplete, but they state one fact unequivocally," Truss
said.  "Whatever the cause, and it will be months before that can be
named, the Danzig has been lost with all hands.  President Santiago,
Vice-President Crane, and most of the Federation Cabinet are confirmed
dead.  A spokesman for the Federation Senate would only confirm that
legal machinery designed for just such an emergency is in effect now,
and insisted that there will be, quote, no discontinuity of governance."
        Truss adjusted his glasses, took a single beat to collect
himself, and then went on, "At this time we have no information as to
who in the constitutional chain of succession remains, nor how long it
will take for President Santiago's successor to be located and sworn in.
The situation in Paris is, understandably, chaotic at the moment.  To
repeat, if you're just joining us... "
        Kaname switched off the TV and stood in blank-faced thought for
a second.  Truss knew, of course.  He was too smart, and too well-
informed, not to know.  He simply wouldn't say it on the air yet because
it hadn't been officially confirmed.  There had been a title and a name
conspicuously absent from the list of those confirmed dead, and the
former denoted a prominent place in the line of succession to the
Federation presidency:
        Speaker of the Senate William M. Clark, Senator from the Earth
Alliance.  Former president of said Alliance, and widely reputed still
to be the silent power behind current EA President Greeley's chair.
Architect of the 2406 crackdown and the 2405 extension to the Psi Act
before it.  Outspoken critic of the International Police Accords, the
Babylon Foundation, and the IPO-Psi Corps détente compromise of 2407.
Staunch supporter of the movement afoot in the Federation Senate to
abandon that compromise and fully federalize the Psi Corps.  Unashamed
user of phrases like "the psion problem" in public discourse.  Coiner of
xenophobic slogans that would have been hilariously corny if they hadn't
been so disturbing ("Earth for humans!  Let's keep it that way!").
        Spirit, she thought.  No wonder I'm on the verge of freaking
out.  I must still be a neurological mess from earlier, and now my
father's entire species is collectively thinking, "Oh crap."
        She took out her cellphone and thumbed a speeddial code.  The
scratchy buzz of the other end ringing sounded twice in her ear, then
cut off with a click and a crisply enunciated, "Sagara."
        "You.  Back here.  -Now,-" Kaname said.
        There was an infinitesimal pause.  "Miss Chidori?" Sosuke said,
sounding faintly startled.  "What's happened?  I'm no longer on Jeraddo;
I'm back on Babylon 6.  Now awaiting transport to - "
        "I don't care where you think you're supposed to be going, damn
you," Kaname snapped, surprising -herself- with the on-the-verge-of-
tears tone in her voice.  "I need you.  Wait where you are.  I'll come
to you."  Then, not waiting for him to protest further (if in fact he
was going to), she cut the connection.
        Now what in the hell did I do that for? she wondered, standing
looking at the phone.  Then she shook her head, put it away, went back
to her room for her suitcase, and left the dorm.

                  1722 HRS GST, 4:22 PM TAU CITY TIME
                              TAU CETI IV

        Utena signed off from a terse conversation with a very harassed-
looking Starfleet captain, switched off the comm console, and walked
slowly back across the situation room, her face deeply pensive. Corwin,
who had made it over from TCDF HQ just in time to be there when she
received the news of the Danzig's loss, followed her silently into the
adjoining presidential quarters.  There, seeing that Anthy was standing
by the desk and the way was thus clear, she tossed herself backward onto
the bed, sprawling full-length in a single motion with her arms thrown
wide, and sighed at the ceiling.
        "OK, this is officially the second worst wedding reception in
galactic history now," she declared.
        "What was the worst?" Anthy wondered.
        "The siege of Troy," replied Utena sourly.  She propped herself
up on her elbows, glowering around the room in a general dudgeon, for a
moment, then turned a wry half-smirk to Corwin and said, "Teach -me- to
try and have a big formal day.  Maybe we should just get Charlie to do
it.  He's the president of the planet, surely he has the authority."
She looked up to see Wakaba Shinohara entering the room.  "What do you
think, Wakaba?"
        "About what?" Wakaba asked, having missed the beginning
entirely.
        "I was just telling Corwin we should skip trying to restage the
senior prom," she said, letting herself flop down on her back again.
"Just get President Kallon to sign a form and call it a day."
        Wakaba gave her a shocked look, then marched over next to the
bed so she could lean over it and stare down at her, fists on hips.  "I
think you canNOT be serious," she said sharply.
        Utena blinked up at her.  "... OK, so that's a 'no' vote?"
        Wakaba wheeled on her heel and walked away from the bed, raising
her hands in an exasperated gesture.  "I can't believe after all this,
you'd think of just taking the easy way out like that."
        Utena rose to her elbows again.  "I was half-kidding."
        Wakaba spun back to give her an accusing look.  "But half-
serious!"
        "Wakaba, I'm -tired-," Utena said.  "We're all tired.  And I
think we're going to have a lot to do in the very near future, as are
most of our guests.  We can't expect - "
        "The hell you can't!" Wakaba blurted.  "Now more than ever,
you've GOT to put on a show.  In fact," she said with an abstract sweep
of her hand, "in light of what happened yesterday, you've got to go
BIGGER!"
        "You were the one who said we should call it off altogether!"
Utena protested, a trifle indignantly.
        "I was wrong!" Wakaba cried, gesticulating.  "And you didn't
listen to me anyway!  Which was good!  Why are we yelling!"
        "I don't know!" Utena insisted, sitting fully up and crossing
her legs.  She shot a vague glare at Anthy and Corwin, who had moved
together near the door and were - in spite of the sobering nature of
much they had learned in the last half-hour or so - now leaning
shoulder-to-shoulder, giggling as quietly as they could.
        "It's just that I -know- you're tired, but you've got an
obligation," Wakaba said, slightly less heatedly.  "I've been thinking
about it all day, in between getting shot at."  The cooldown was short-
lived; she started to pick up momentum (and volume) again as she went
on, "An obligation not just to all the family and friends you have here,
but -everyone- back home!  The Pillar of Cephiro getting married?  The
-last- time something like that happened the WORLD ENDED."  She turned
to Corwin.  "People are going to need reassuring!  Especially since you
guys are GONE most of the time."
        "Don't look at me, I FIXED that!" Corwin protested.  "Now I'm
yelling too!"
        Utena got up from the bed and approached her oldest friend,
putting a placating hand on her shoulder.  "Wakaba, calm DOWN," she
said, but that just made Wakaba spin once more to point accusingly up
into her face.
        "It's not about YOU and it's not about ME, it's about EVERY
CEPHIREAN and DON'T TELL ME TO CALM DOWN!" she snapped.
        They stood there making fierce eye contact for a few seconds;
then, virtually simultaneously, both women cracked up laughing and fell
together into a powerful embrace.
        "OK, OK, you made your point," Utena said, then kissed Wakaba on
the cheek and added, "Drama queen."  She disengaged and stepped back,
one hand behind her head.  "So... now, as soon as the situation here is
something like stable,  we have to round up all our guests again, on
ridiculously short notice.  And then convince them to do the retake in a
-pocket universe-."
        "I think Clef just volunteered to put in some overtime!" said
Wakaba cheerfully.

                     1731 HRS GST, 5:31 PM DSM TIME
               PORT JERADAR SHUTTLEPORT ("THE BUS STOP")

        It was a mark of the kind of day - weekend, at this point -
Kaname was having that she arrived at the Port Jeradar shuttleport just
in time to see the 5:30 to Babylon 6 leave without her.  Sighing, she
sat down on the bench in the waiting area and looked up at the
flickering holoschedule on the opposite wall.  The next one was
scheduled in nine minutes.  At least they seemed to be running on time.
        Two minutes later, another person entered.  Kaname recognized
her, and was slightly surprised to see her: T'Par, one of DSM's handful
of Vulcan students.  Slim, dark-haired, and neatly but stylelessly
groomed (like every Surakian Vulcan Kaname had ever seen), she wore
dark, subdued street clothes, the first time Kaname could remember
seeing her out of uniform, and carried a plain black nylon bag.
        "Oh, hi, T'Par," said Kaname.
        The Vulcan girl inclined her head about three degrees.  "Miss
Sterling," she said.
        "I'm surprised to see you here," Kaname admitted.
        T'Par arched an eyebrow.  "Indeed?"
        "Well, it's just that you're a Duelist," Kaname said.  "I
thought you were on Tau Ceti with the others."
        "Plainly not," said T'Par.
        There was a brief silence that, at least on Kaname's part, was
slightly awkward.
        "Mind if I ask why not?" Kaname finally said.
        "No," said T'Par.
        Another silence.
        Vulcan, thought Kaname after a moment's bafflement.  Right.
        "Why not?" she asked.
        "Involving oneself in the armed conflicts of strangers is not
logical," T'Par said flatly.
        "... Ah."
        Another silence.
        "So... where are you headed?" Kaname wondered.
        "Vulcan."
        "Ah."
        T'Par stood looking blankly off toward the vacant shuttlepad for
a few seconds, then said suddenly, "I am doing it again, aren't I?"
        "Sorry?"
        "You are using a conversational format which is meant to be
sustained by the volunteering of extra information in response to
follow-up questions which are implied by context but left unvoiced."
T'Par turned her head to regard Kaname with a faintly inquisitive look.
"And I am failing to respond in the expected fashion, which is making
you experience feelings of awkwardness and doubt.  Is this correct?"
        "Uh... well, yeah, that pretty much covers it, yeah."
        T'Par nodded.  "My apologies," she said.  "One of my fellow
Duelists routinely informs me that I am, quote, rubbish at the
conversation thing, end quote."  Was that the very faintest hint of a
sardonic smile?  If so, it was gone almost instantly as T'Par went on,
"In answer to -your- unvoiced follow-up question, I must consult with my
parents and the Foreign Ministry regarding the advisability of remaining
off Vulcan in the wake of today's astropolitical developments.  I assume
you are aware of the death of Federation President Santiago?"  Kaname
nodded.  "His most likely successor is known to support draconian
legislation affecting members of psionic populations.
        "Like all Vulcans, I am significantly telepathic," T'Par went
on.  "Should the Compromise of 2407 be abandoned, and the mandate of the
Psi Corps be expanded into the rest of Federation space, my situation
could become... awkward.  I must inquire of those better-placed to
assess such matters as to the probability that this will take place
before the end of the school year, and I prefer not to do so on open
interstellar communications channels. I am therefore going in person."
She arched her questioning eyebrow again.  "Does that answer your
question?"
        "... Quite comprehensively," Kaname said.
        "Excellent."
        As silence fell once more, Kaname felt a surge of entirely
irrational annoyance at how composed T'Par was.  This was doubly silly
in that she was a -Vulcan-, raised in the full Surakian tradition, and
obviously composure was a -thing- with them.  Still, her situation was a
lot more uncertain than Kaname's, and yet there she was, coolly waiting
for the bus, not knowing whether she was ever going to be back, and
apparently just totally OK with that.  It made Kaname feel a bit silly
about the surge of panic she'd felt when she first heard the news,
though she knew it was at least partly because of her wonky link to the
Invid telepathic web.  She was not a girl accustomed to having the
vapors, and her whole response to the matter was starting to feel
uncomfortably and embarrassingly like that.
        By the time she reached Babylon 6, she felt fully ridiculous.
She almost commed up Sosuke from the shuttlebay to tell him to forget
the whole thing, but no, she'd told him she'd find him, and now she felt
obligated to do just that.
        He was in the Trans-Enigma Spacelines departure lounge, awaiting
the 6:15 to Omega: one of the few scheduled runs from B6 that would get
him anywhere near the Corporate Sector.  There was a lot of noise and
hubbub - apparently a gravityball team from somewhere in the Terminus
was also making a connection at Omega, and from the sound of them,
they'd gotten good and ripped on the Zocalo before turning up for their
flight.  Kaname didn't envy the cabin crew, although if they were always
on a scheduled run to Omega, she supposed they'd probably dealt with
worse on a fairly regular basis.
        Sosuke rose as she entered the lounge, a flicker of concern
crossing his face.  "Miss Chidori," he said.  "You're just in time; my
flight will be called any minute.  What's the problem?"
        Kaname stood and looked at him for a moment.  She almost asked
him to stay anyway - make some excuse or another to his bosses, tell
them that in light of what had just happened he felt it imprudent to
leave her at this time, something like that.  Then, remembering how
she'd felt while speaking with T'Par, she told herself sternly to pull
herself together and said,
        "Never mind.  It was nothing.  You heard the news about the
Danzig?"
        Sosuke nodded.  "A great loss to interstellar statesmanship," he
said, and seemed both to mean it and know what he was talking about,
which surprised her slightly.
        "Yeah.  Well... I don't know, the day I've had, I got a bit...
rattled."  She felt herself blush a bit at coming right out with that
admission, but she felt he deserved the truth rather than bluster for
once.  For once, and maybe as a matter of policy, now that they'd seen
Brown 21 together.  She filed that away for later consideration.
        "Anyway," she went on with forced offhandedness, "I'm better
now.  You get along to your big important meeting.  I'll... I'll see you
when school's back in.  Yeah?"
        "Of course.  Assuming I'm not reassigned, I'll be there."
        Kaname stared at him.  That possibility had not even crossed her
mind until he'd said it, and here she was making all these plans to
consider changes in ongoing policy.
        "That's not... likely, is it?" she asked.
        "I very much doubt it is," Sosuke replied at once.  "If
anything, recent developments may cause your security detail to be
expanded.  If that happens there is a -small- chance that I'll be
removed from the assignment and a whole new detachment sent in, but
given my experience with the environment - "
        "Shut up," she said suddenly, and hugged him.  "Just don't say
anything."
        "... shutting up," he said after a moment's startled silence.
        The hug lasted a fairly long time - long enough that it left
Sosuke entirely bewildered when she at last pulled away from him, which
she did when the overhead voice announced the boarding call for Trans-
Enigma 437, nonstop service to Omega.
        "Better go," Kaname said briskly, back in command.  "Don't want
to be the last one looking for a seat with all those gravball jerks on
your flight."
        "Miss Chidori - " Sosuke said, but she was already propelling
him toward the airlock.
        "You're giving a report to your bosses, yeah?" she said.  "Make
it a good one.  Tell 'em DSM can't possibly survive without you and your
revolutionary campus security plan.  Tell 'em anything you have to.
Just be back in two weeks."
        Sosuke paused in the doorway, turned to face her, and saluted
crisply, his face entirely professional, as it had been at their first
meeting.
        "Instructions received and understood, ma'am," he said.  "I will
comply to the best of my ability.  Sagara, out."
        And then he was gone, and Kaname was casually punching out one
of the hooting gravballers on her way out of the lounge, because she was
in absolutely no goddamned mood to be hooted at.
        Head down, fists still clenched, she went straight across to the
Gold Star Line lounge, where - as she had expected - she found several
people she knew waiting for the 6:25 to New Avalon.
        "OK," she said, "who wants to come to Jezebel with me?  If Bill
Clark is gonna be President of the Federation, I say we've ALL earned a
week at the beach."

                            /*  Big Country
                          "Hardly a Mountain"
                       _Rarities III_ (2002)  */

Eyrie Productions, Unlimited            She still dreams about their time
presented                                 together
Undocumented Features FI                Wide awake in the dark morning hours
The Order of the Rose:                  It was never gonna be forever
A Duelist Opera                         Moments fade like a lover's blush
Third Movement:                         Then she rises to get through the
First Dates and Firefights                morning
                                        Doesn't dress until the afternoon
The Cast                                What's the use of it when no one's
(in order of appearance)                  calling
Tali'Zorah nar Rayya                    She wouldn't want to come far too soon
Tali'Shukra vel Halo
Corwin Ravenhair                        And there's hardly a mountain that
Nanami Kiryuu                             I would not climb
Nall Silverclaw                         A sea I would not swim
EVE-35-001                              No there is not a river that I would
WALL-E No. 366117891                      not cross
Thor Ironhammer                         To be with you again
Utena Tenjou                            No there's hardly a mountain that
Will Evans                                I would not climb
Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom                 A sea I would not swim
Miki Kaoru                              And there is not a river that I would
Anakin Skywalker                          not cross
Shuten Doji                             To be with you again
Leyna Tarrant
Kaname Sterling                         He likes to say that he's too busy
Dr. Saleon and his Gang                to worry
Sosuke Sagara                           Then it's with him out on his own
Luornu Durgo                            They can't help that everything is
Ivar Merkretsch                           a hurry
Malcolm Reed                            He's in safer hands when he's alone
Michael Garibaldi                       But in the quiet of an endless evening
Susan Ivanova                           Too much time to think, too much to
David "Bruce" Corwin                      fill
Mizuki Inaba                            He still dreams about their time
Julian Bashir                             together
Miranda Sterling                        We come and go like we always will
Thade Sterling
Lyneh                                   And there's hardly a mountain that
Rei Tracy                                 I would not climb
John Trussell                           A sea I would not swim
Pete Stacker                            No there is not a river that I would
John Spartan                              not cross
Cortana                                 To be with you again
James T. Kirk
Virginia Shepard                        No there's hardly a mountain that
Adrian Mendoza                            I would not climb
Tuncer                                  A sea I would not swim
Souji Mikage                            There is not a river that I would
Maya Mukai                                not cross
Shiori Kudo                             To be with you again
Nanami Jinnai
Chad Collier                            No there's hardly a mountain that
Lindsey Willows                           I would not climb
Rory Williams                           A sea I would not swim
Charles Kallon                          No there is not a river that I would
Anaximandra Drax                          not cross
Peregrine Took                          To be with you again
Aeryn Stonefist                         There's hardly a mountain that I
Xander Cage                               would not climb
Quintus Publius Accius                  A sea I would not swim
Flavia Satori                           No there is not a river that I would
Amy Pond                                  not cross
Kyoko Tokiwa                            To be with you again
Teletha Testarossa
Anthy Tenjou                            /*  Fall Out Boy
Melissa Mao                             "Young Volcanoes"
Kurz Weber                              _Save Rock and Roll_ (2013)  */
Michael Plummer
Andrea Kopala                           When Rome's in ruins
Mia Ausa                                We are the lions
Roger Tremayne                          Free of the colosseums
Kyouichi Saionji                        In poison places
Anubishu                                We are antivenom
Rajura                                  We're the beginning of the end
Friedrich Kesselring
Akio Ohtori                             Tonight
Maia Sterling                           The foxes hunt the hounds
Vince Grant                             And it's all over now
Wakaba Shinohara                        Before it has begun
T'Par                                   We've already won
and the rest of the Duelists, the       We are wild
Masho, the Black Rose Order,            We are like young volcanoes
Earthforce, the TCPD, bits of the       We are wild
IPSF, and so forth and so on            Americana exotica
                                        Do you wanna feel a little beautiful,
Writers                                   baby, yeah
Benjamin D. Hutchins
Philip Jeremy Moyer                     Go on make it easy
                                        Say I never mattered
Wakaba's Stanislavsky Coach             Run it up the flagpole
Janice Collier                          We will teach you
                                        How to make boys next door
Readers                                 Out of assholes
The EPU Usual Suspects
                                        Tonight
And the usual plethora of sources,      The foxes hunt the hounds
some of which are lost to history       And it's all over now...


                                ORIPHOS

        Akio Ohtori entered the Headmaster's office in a bit of a
dudgeon, having made it as plain as he could to his remaining faculty
members that open warfare among the instructional staff would not be
tolerated.  His mood was lightened slightly at the sight of the person
who awaited him there.  The only member of his infernal court he'd seen
fit to bring into the Oriphos project, she had originally been the
castellan of his palace in Sheol.  Here in Oriphos, her function was
more akin to that of a provost or vice-chancellor, but since "Castellan"
was the only name Akio had ever known her to claim, that was what he
still called her.
        The Castellan was a Muspellite of indeterminate breed; though
attractive enough in a dark and pointy way, she was far too reserved to
be a succubus and, Akio would have thought, not violent enough to be a
pit fiend.  All he really knew or cared to know about her was that she
was very efficient, indifferent to the political maneuverings of his
other underlings, and completely loyal - loyal, unlike the others, by
her very infernal design.
        Now she said, calmly as always, "Welcome back, milord.  How went
your excursion to Midgard?"
        Akio seated himself behind his desk and sighed.  "It had its
moments," he replied.  "Nanami exceeded her instructions."
        "As expected?" inquired the Castellan.
        "Precisely as expected," said Akio with a satisfied smile.  Then
it switched off as he added grumpily, "However, I'm not sure it was
worth the trouble my absence invited.  I swear I have fewer problems
with the children than I have with the so-called adult supervision
around here."  He glanced up at her as she stepped to the end of his
desk.  "I should have left you in charge while I was gone, not that
imbecile Mikage."
        "Such an assignment would probably have violated my geas of
servitude," the Castellan pointed out a trifle primly.  "At any rate, it
may help to know that I've completed my current research and found
several very interesting prospects."
        Akio raised an eyebrow.  "The children on Jeraddo?"
        "Yes, as you requested, I've identified several among them who
have potential.  However," the Castellan went on, placing a file folder
on the blotter in front of him, "much more interesting to me are these
two... on Earth."
        Intrigued, Akio opened the folder.  The first document he found
inside it was a sheet of age-yellowed paper, enclosed in a glassine
envelope to prevent damage from finger oils.  It was covered in a
cramped, spidery handwriting he couldn't read at a simple glance.
        "This record seems quite old," he observed.
        "It is old," the Castellan confirmed.  "It's from the journal of
a man who died in 1941."
        "I told you before, no time travel," Akio snapped.  "The favors
such an undertaking would require me to call in are much too costly."
        "None required," the Castellan told him, the very faintest trace
of a smile touching her dusky-red lips.  "They'll come to us.  All we
have to do is send someone to collect them."  She made a small gesture,
indicating that he should look at the next page.  He did so, read it
over twice, then sat back in his chair, looking intrigued in spite of
himself.
        "Fine," he said.  "Touga can - "
        "I recommend you -not- send Mr. Kiryuu, milord," interrupted the
Castellan diplomatically.  "These particular prospects may tend to find
him somewhat... alienating?"
        Akio looked through the file in silence for a few seconds.  "Mm,
yes, I see what you mean.  Very well.  Nanami can retrieve these two.
I'll send Touga to assist Mikage with the Jeraddo operation.  For once
in this enterprise, our resident wizard's peculiar expertise may
actually prove useful."  He closed the file and slid it to his right.
        "Very good, milord," said the Castellan.  She collected the
folder and, with a slight bow, departed.


                            and introducing
                         The Castellan of Sheol
                               as herself

                        The Symphony will return

                          E P U (colour) 2013