I have a message from another time... Eyrie Productions, Unlimited presents UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES FUTURE IMPERFECT - SYMPHONY OF THE SWORD No. 5 - Second Movement: Clarion Call Benjamin D. Hutchins with Janice Collier (c) 2008 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2410 GREEN SECTOR CENTRAL HABITAT ("THE GARDEN") INTERNATIONAL POLICE STATION BABYLON 6 B'HAVA'EL SYSTEM, CENTAURUS SECTOR Skuld Ravenhair never got tired of the Garden. By her lights it was the cleverest thing about Babylon 6's design. She'd always had a bit of a fondness for space habitats that tried to be more than just a hull to keep the air in, and the sensation of standing in B6's hollow center and looking up at the inside-out world of the habitat ring was one of the finer examples of the genre. B6 wasn't the biggest space station around, it wasn't the most luxurious, and it for damn sure wasn't the most technologically advanced - it didn't even have artificial gravity in the normal operating regime - but it did have this one peerless place. A fitting spot for her only son to get married in. Finding a venue for the occasion hadn't been easy. Most of the places she and her sisters had thought of first turned out to be too small, given the truly spectacular number of people who had, as a matter of course, to be invited. Those on the original list that were large enough were, by and large, lacking the right... the right -atmosphere- for such an occasion. For example, the Avalon County Colosseum would probably have done space-wise, but there was no way Skuld was going to agree to that, and while both she and Corwin might've been all right with the second choice on the list - the New Avalon Battledrome - Belldandy had vetoed that one. At their wits' end, the sisters had turned the matter over to the father of the groom, who hadn't managed to think of anything better. In the end, it was someone entirely unconnected to the occasion who made the winning suggestion. < BACK: WEDNESDAY, MARCH 3, 2410 "... And we still don't have a decent place to -have- the thing. We thought the Castle was going to be plenty big enough, until we actually bothered to do the -math-." "Gryph," said Derek Bacon mildly. "I mean, if it were summer, we could do it outdoors in New Avalon, say in Avalon Centre Park or Veterans' Park. Or on Jeraddo, out -next to- the Castle. But it's freaking -March- and of course we HAD to put DSM in a climate band that more or less matched with New Avalon." "Gryph," said Derek Bacon mildly. "So -that's- no good. Everybody'd freeze to death." Gryphon threw up his hands. "Site prep needs to start no later than tomorrow morning. This is a complete disaster. Corwin's going to kill me, if Utena doesn't get to me first." "Gryph," said Derek Bacon mildly. "'Oh, hey, leave it to me,' I said." "Gryph," said Derek Bacon mildly. "I figured, what the hell, I'm Mr. Big-Time Organizer, right? I put the Wedge Defense Force back together. I organized the IPO. I kicked off -New Avalon-, for Christ's sake. How hard could it be?" "Gryph," said Derek Bacon mildly. "But can I do a simple thing like find a place for my son's wedding? Nooooo. That's apparently a task quite BEYOND my - " Derek put a hand on Gryphon's shoulder and said in a tone only fractionally less mild, "Gryph." Gryphon skidded to a verbal halt and sighed. "Yes, Derek." Derek pointed out the window of the Babylon 6 core shuttle they were both riding. "Have it there," he said. RETURN > Now Skuld and her sisters were on the scene, supervising the station's public affairs staff as they prepped a grassy area in the middle of the habitat ring to serve as the venue for an "outdoor" ceremony. Truth to tell, there wasn't really a lot of supervising to be done. This was far from being the station staff's first rodeo, as it were. They knew how to handle the basic, broad-strokes stuff; all they needed from the Norns was help with the specifics. Bell had the catering well in hand, of course, and - though the very thought still filled some part of Skuld's soul with fear - Urd was looking after the entertainment. For once, Kaitlyn would be able to participate in the occasion without having to wrangle the musicians as well. Fortunately, Urd wasn't seeing to that -personally-, but she was overseeing the arrangements, all the same. Which left Skuld with a task important not so much to the ceremony itself as to its traditional preparations. The meadow where the ceremony was to be conducted was physically already prepared: the chairs were arranged, the dais, the canopy, all of it ready to go. Skuld's job was to see to the construction, a short distance away, of two proper Asgardian bath-houses. Unlike the setup for the wedding, this was something the staff of Babylon 6 had no previous experience with, though they were proving to be highly adaptable and competent as Skuld directed them through the process. They'd have the houses up and functional in plenty of time, though she didn't even want to ask where they'd found the wood, either for it or for the feasthall Urd was seeing to at the other end of the meadow. All in all, and despite the fantastically short notice, there was no indication that the thing would come off in any way other than well. Many of the really -important- preparations weren't dependent on the venue and had been taken care of weeks before, and the last-minute uncertainty over the location wouldn't be a problem for anyone on the guest list with the kind of transportation network this particular couple could call upon. They'd all known they'd be going -somewhere- on Friday the 5th; it was up to the guides to make sure they got wherever it was. No problem. Yeah. It looked like this was going to go according to plan after all. INTERNATIONAL POLICE VISITING OFFICERS' QUARTERS BLUE SECTOR, BABYLON 6 Having been told in no uncertain terms to take himself out of the way while more competent persons handled the rest of the logistics, Benjamin Hutchins had little to do with himself, so he spent the morning in his seldom-used office on Babylon 6, mostly chopping through the expediting paperwork for his latest unofficial project. With that done, he resisted the urge to go snoop around the Garden and instead took himself down to the VOQ, a block of staterooms set aside for the use of, as the name implied, IPO officers without a permanent billet aboard the station. As he stepped off the lift into the corridor segment set aside as the VOQ, he paused for a moment to return the salute of the uniformed Tac Div officer on duty (must be a new guy, he thought), then headed down toward the second room from the end. As he approached, Gryphon thought he could hear faint music seeping into the hall. That was slightly odd, given how heavily insulated all the quarters were aboard the station, but he didn't think too much about it. If anything, it gave him a mild feeling of nostalgia. It felt like walking down a dormitory hallway of an early evening in those near-forgotten mythic days before the universe took a sudden right turn, feeling the bass of somebody's favorite study music rumbling through the floor but able to make out little else about the tune. He stopped at the room he wanted, keyed the annunciator, and waited. Nothing happened. He keyed it again; still nothing. Well, he thought wryly, I -am- the Chief. He punched an override code into the keypad. The door opened - - and a wall of sound nearly bowled him over as it poured out into the corridor from the room beyond. Gryphon staggered briefly, more out of surprise than anything else, then regrouped and stepped inside... and damn near burst out laughing. There was really no other response a resonable man could make to the sight of two robots, one sleek and ultramodern, the other blocky and utilitarian, dancing together to the sounds of 20th-century rock music blasting at an imprudent - but, Gryphon noted with approval, crystal- clear - volume from the chest panel of one of them. If it feels all right Maybe you can stay all night Shall I leave you my key? But you've got to give me a sign Come on girl, some kind of sign Tell me - are you hot, mama? You sure look that way to me Gryphon tried to keep quiet - why intrude on such a carefree moment if he didn't have to? - but the deck was stacked against him, and when the little tracked robot managed, despite his awkward construction and the fact that his dance partner had no legs at all, to pull off a nice approximation of a spin-and-dip, he couldn't stop himself from laughing any longer. A lot of men would have been, at the very least, annoyed to find themselves in this situation. The more sophisticated robot was - soon, he was fairly sure, to be "had been" - his property, the brand-new product of a concerted research and development effort spanning nearly ten years and costing a number of credits he hadn't even bothered to have anyone count for fear of finding it depressing. Had been, until he'd sent her off on her shakedown mission and she'd returned, not only with the object of her search, but also with a beat-up antique WALL- series trash compactor droid and the unmistakable signs of true sapience. Gryphon wasn't a lot of men, and anyway, he happened to think robots developing true sapience was -pretty damned cool-. It didn't appear as though Eve had really gotten accustomed to the idea yet, though. At his laugh, she turned her head, blinked, and then reached out with a lightning-quick hand to punch the "STOP" key on Wall-E's playback controls. The music stopped instantly and Eve snapped to something as close to attention as a levitating robot whose arms and head were not, strictly speaking, actually attached to her body could manage, her uncannily expressive blue LED-matrix eyes wide with surprise. Wall-E, facing away from the door and thus unaware of precisely how the situation had changed, kept dancing for a couple of seconds, before Eve gave him a sharp poke akin to an elbow in the ribs and hissed his name in an exasperated tone out of the side of her hidden vocoder. Puzzled, Wall-E slid to a halt and gave his companion a confused look. Eve tilted her head toward the door and muttered tersely, "Chief!" "Huh? Oh!" Wall-E about-faced smartly and at last took notice of their visitor. Instead of reacting with startled embarrassment, though, he waved cheerfully and made a carefully modulated electronic noise that was almost but not quite "Hi-o!" Gryphon collected himself, but didn't stop - couldn't stop - grinning as he stepped into the room and let the door shut behind him. "Good choice of tune," he observed. "'Hot Blooded'. Foreigner, 1978. At ease, Eve, you're off-duty," he added with a wink. "Anyway, I have good news. I just got off the phone with the Turing Institute. They're sending a field evaluator to have a look at you this afternoon. She'll run a few simple tests, and I expect that'll be that. You guys won't belong to anyone." Eve blinked, her eye-expression changing from embarrassed surprise to simple astonishment. Gryphon figured he knew more or less what was running through her head. She'd been online for just over a month, she'd completed only a single mission, and already she was on the verge of becoming a free intelligence? A lot of robots spent their entire operational careers and never developed that strange, ineffable spark, and here were -two- of them, two who had found each other, to boot. What were the odds? (As Gryphon thought it, he realized that Eve could probably calculate them.) "Anyway, it's nothing to worry about - having seen you two in action, I can't see how it's anything other than a formality - but I wanted to warn you ahead of time so you had a chance to get ready. You know... psyched up." He grinned and had a better look at them. "You look good," he told Eve. "Those scuff marks buffed right out." She bobbed slightly in the air, looking a trifle bashful. Gryphon turned his attention to Wall-E. "How about you? Feeling good?" Wall-E nodded vigorously. Truth be told, he found it all a little overwhelming. All his life he'd known only the grunge and toil of the scrapyard, with only the endless vistas of refuse to look at and only Hal, his pet cockroach, for company. To be suddenly swept up and transported to this place of clean, precise lines, shiny new machinery, and friendly people... well, he wouldn't have traded it, for certain, but all the same, it was going to take some getting used to. All this was quite beyond his ability to articulate, doubly so since he wasn't fitted with a vocoder and so could only roughly approximate speech using his industrial signaler, but that didn't bother him either. He was quite capable of doing all the communicating he needed to do. "Well, I won't keep you," Gryphon said. "I'll be back when I escort the Turing evaluator down, probably in a couple of hours. In the meantime... " He gestured, smiling, to Wall-E. "Carry on." Wall-E perked up and reached for his PLAY button, but before he could press it, Eve held out a hand in a "just a second" gesture and then darted to intercept Gryphon before he could leave. "Chief... " she said, looking a bit worried. "Yes?" he asked. Eve paused, as if considering how to put what she had to say. Though she -was- equipped with a proper vocabulator, she didn't talk much; Gryphon wasn't sure whether she hadn't developed a full free- speech facility yet, or was simply taciturn by nature. Finally, trusting him to understand what she was getting at, she looked searchingly at him and said, "... Directive?" Gryphon blinked. "Directive," he mused. Then, brightening, he said, "Ah, I get it. Don't worry, we'll talk about that after the evaluator's made her decision." With a twinkle in his eye, he added, "I'm pretty sure we'll be talking about a job offer." Eve looked relieved, and more than a little pleased, as she moved out of his way. Gryphon smiled to himself as he walked up the corridor, hands in pockets, and heard the music start up again before the door whined shut in his wake: Is my timing right? Did you save your love for me tonight? The security officer saluted again as he drew near. Gryphon paused, returned the salute again, and decided to let the kid in on the game. "It's okay if you don't salute me," he said, smiling. "We're not in the army." The young officer blinked. "Uh... yessir. ... May I ask a question, sir?" Gryphon hit the button to summon the lift, read the man's top- pocket name tape, and said, "Fire away, Tac Officer Cassidy." "My watch commander told me this was a temporary posting. Why special security on this level today?" "Just a precaution," he said. "I have a couple of friends in the VOQ today, and I don't want them to be bothered." "The two robots?" "That's right." With a look that was more questioning than challenging, Gryphon asked, "Got a problem with a man having robots for friends, Cassidy?" The crewcut young man went slightly pink. "Oh, no sir," he said quickly. "Absolutely not, sir, I'm from Ragol!" "Ahh," said Gryphon. "We're seeing more and more of you guys joining up since Sgt. Barlow started making the news. What section are you from?" "Purplenum, sir." Gryphon nodded. "Well, carry on, Officer Cassidy. Nobody enters this floor without my authorization, at least until after our guest from Turing III makes her appearance." He smirked slightly. "After -that-, any half-wit bot-basher who gets it into his head to tangle with Eve is on his own." Cassidy chuckled. "Amen to that, sir. Those guys don't last long back home. Usually, just long enough to run into their first RAcast." At the prescribed distance from the station, a black, wing- shaped spacecraft thundered out of hyperspace in a flash of light, then coasted quickly to a near-halt before its sublight thrusters spooled up to power. In the cockpit, an unshaven, slightly scuffed young man smiled a tired smile, guided the vessel into the approach traffic pattern, and dialed his comm system. "Babylon Control," he said, "this is Hotel Delta Kilo eight two one two, private starship One-Hit Wonder, requesting permission to approach for docking." "Roger, One-Hit Wonder, I have you on my scope," replied the voice of Babylon Control. "Your vector looks good; you're cleared for approach. Is that you, Lt. Corwin?" Corwin Ravenhair grinned. "It is indeed, Lt. Corwin." He wasn't a lieutenant, strictly speaking, but what was the point of having a private joke if you weren't willing to bend the facts a little to accommodate it? "Your parents are causing quite a stir down in Green Sector today," Lieutenant David "Bruce" Corwin informed him with audible amusement. "So I've heard," Corwin replied wryly. As if to underline the point, the Wonder slid past the sleek silvery-white bulk of IPS Challenger, the International Police Space Force flagship and until very recently his father's own command, parked and keeping station a few miles from Babylon 6. Not far away was the sleek and imposing bulk of a Salusian Arcadia-class battleship in the colors of the Imperial Guards. "I'm forbidden to go see what they're up to until tomorrow," Corwin added. "Ah. Well, good luck!" "Thanks. I'm in the lane now. Request docking clearance." "Roger, One-Hit Wonder. Docking clearance granted. Stand by for ADC handover." A moment later, a light appeared on his helm console indicating that the station's automatic docking control system was requesting handover. Corwin flipped the appropriate toggle switch from OFF to AUTO. In a small window below the switch, a mechanical indicator switched from displaying a blank grey flag to one with alternating grey and white slanted stripes. "Thank you, Babylon Control," he said. "ADC is barberpoled; you have control. One-Hit Wonder, out." Guided by the tractor beams and remote helm inputs of the ADC, the Wonder flew serenely into the yawning opening on the front of Babylon 6, then was shunted off from the central core, through an atmosphere retention field, and to a gentle landing in one of the smaller hangar bays - one she shared, Corwin noticed, with his father's slightly newer Corellian, Daggerdisc. Disembarking from the ship, he locked up, shouldered his duffel bag, and walked across the hangar, past Daggerdisc, to the exit. When he emerged into the interior hallway, he turned right without thinking about it, intending to head for the quarters in Green Sector (outboard, nowhere near the Garden) where the Valiant's crew always stayed when they stopped aboard B6. Just before he reached the lift, though, he noticed a figure blocking his path and stopped. "Wrong way, champ," said his mother with a smile. "You're in the VOQ tonight." Corwin sighed, his shoulders sagging. "This is ridiculous," he grumbled as he let Skuld turn him around and start guiding him back the other way. "This is what you asked for - a traditional Asgardian ceremony with all the trimmings - and this is what you get. You're lucky your grandmother's even letting you have it in Midgard. She would certainly -not- stand for you seeing your bride the day before the wedding." Corwin rolled his eyes and replied, "Just for the record, -I- asked for -no such thing.-" "Yeah, well, when your grandparents are the All-Father and his wife, sometimes you just have to humor them," Skuld pointed out. "Anyway, how'd it go? Did you get it?" Corwin shook the duffel bag on his shoulder a little bit, eliciting a muffled metallic rattle. "Yes, and remind me never, ever to do anything like this again." "I can't believe I raised a son with such a stunted sense of adventure," Skuld jokingly complained. Knowing he wouldn't win anyway, he let her guide him to the Visiting Officers' Quarters, past the security officer (why a security officer here?), and to the stateroom all the way at the end. "Stay on this deck," Skuld told him. "Don't roam around. We don't want to take any chances." Corwin sighed. "Yes, ma'am," he said heavily. Skuld smirked slightly, kissed him on the cheek, and said, "Just one more day. Your attendants will be here at 10:30." Corwin acknowledged the implicit instruction to be ready, endured a few moments of sentimentality from his misty-eyed mother, and saw her off, then shut the door and wondered what the hell to do with himself for the next - glance at watch - 20 hours. Well, there was always sleeping. Gods knew he hadn't done a lot of -that- in the last 48. With that in mind, Corwin flopped onto his bunk, sighed, and lay there for a few minutes with his forearm across his forehead, regarding the ceiling expressionlessly. Then, as a thought struck him, he moved his arm away from his head and regarded his wristwatch for a moment. Hell, I'm not going to -see- her, he thought, and reached out with his consciousness. The contact took only a moment to establish, and when it was made, he felt a combination of surprise and faint, conspiratorial amusement filter back to him. he said. Utena replied. she said, and Corwin snickered a little bit, because she sounded just like his father when she said that. <'Course I will. Mind you, I'd be just as happy if you showed up in blue jeans and one of my old Pendleton shirts.> Utena observed, her smirk carrying across the Lens link. Corwin asked rhetorically. he agreed. he added, unconvincingly nonchalant. Utena replied. he said, and then the link was gone. He looked at his watch again and gave himself a wry smile. Good night, it wasn't even 3 PM yet. If he went to sleep now, he'd be waking up sometime in the evening, his schedule completely disrupted, unable to go back to sleep at all and with a grueling day of rather complicated, almost entirely unrehearsed theatricality to get through. No, that wouldn't do at all. He'd have to stay awake until at -least- 2100, 2200 would be better, and with that, he fell asleep. COLONIAL BATTLESTAR AURORA (SDF-100) UNDISCLOSED LOCATION Kozue Kaoru (Prospective Warrior No. 326-3827, Viper Squadron VX-1 Cadet Group A) stood in the corridor just off the battlestar's portside hangar bay, not far from the door leading to the Rogue Squadron ready room and thence to the squadron commander's office. She'd just landed following a practical flight exercise in one of the squadron's VT-8 Logan Veritech trainers and was still dressed in the orange pressure suit that marked her as a trainee, helmet in one hand. Out there in the black, she'd been cool, collected, on top of things. In here, on the other hand, she was fighting a small battle with herself. What she -wanted- to do was go in there and ask Wedge Antilles to find an excuse to send her to Babylon 6 tomorrow. There was no provision in Colonial regulations for granting leave to PWs during Selection, but Wedge had been known to bend the regs concerning student field exercises to accommodate real-world needs, and her scores in the ongoing evaluation were near the top of her group. If she pitched it right, he might just oblige her. But how would you pitch something like this to a person who was even relatively near normal? "Listen, Wedge, it's just that my ex- boyfriend is getting married tomorrow to the girl I dumped him so he could be with, and I'd like to be there. You know. Show my support and that." Sure, that'd be fixed up. She might get the weekend off, but it'd be for a psych evaluation, not Corwin's wedding. She wrestled with it for a few minutes, but finally decided that there was no way she could explain the situation that wouldn't seem completely stupid to an outsider. She'd just reached that conclusion when one of her roommates, Kara "Starbuck" Thrace, came around the corner from the landing bay and saw her. "Hey, Kaoru, what're you doing?" she asked. Then, as she remembered the outcome of -other- cadets' bouts of introspection outside Wedge's office, she added with some concern, "You're not thinking of quitting, are you?" Kozue turned and gave her a look. "Of course not," she scoffed. "Just... thinking about something." "Yeah, well, think about it and walk at the same time, whatever it is," Starbuck advised, sweeping Kozue into step as she passed. "Stand around in the hall all afternoon and you'll miss chow call." CHIEF'S OFFICE IPO OFFICE COMPLEX BLUE SECTOR, BABYLON 6 Somehow, Gryphon knew before the Turing evaluator spoke that she wasn't going to say anything he wanted to hear. The young Vulcan didn't (or rather did) disappoint him. Putting her duraluminum briefcase on the floor, she sat down in the chair facing his desk, fastidiously smoothed the skirt of her dark-colored, severely cut professional suit, and said as diplomatically as a young Vulcan could, "I have bad news for you, Chief. Your request is denied." "... Maybe you'd like to expand on that, Dr. T'Kir?" Gryphon prompted after a few seconds' cool silence. "You will receive a copy of my report when it is filed with the Board," T'Kir told him; then, seeing him scowl preparatory to objecting, she relented slightly and went on, "But in simple terms, there are very specific criteria governing what subjects are eligible for field certification, and neither of the two subjects you are sponsoring on this occasion meet them." Gryphon considered his next statement, then said carefully, "I'd be obliged if you would elaborate a bit further." He could have sworn T'Kir was suppressing a sigh as she weighed his request, then said, "Subject One is the only operational example of a brand new robot type about which we have received very little in the way of technical information. It has been functional for only seven weeks. I do not have a sufficient foundation of baseline information on which to base a finding for - or against - certification." "Eve," said Gryphon. "I beg your pardon?" "Her name is Eve. She's not an 'it'." "I am not here to defend my choice of pronoun," T'Kir said, just a touch frostily. "As for Subject Two, there we face the opposite problem. There is a great wealth of data available on the U.S. Robotics WALL series, the Class E units especially. More than twenty million of them were manufactured, many individuals remained in service for more than a century, and there are -no documented cases- of a WALL-E unit ever achieving certifiable sapience. Again, instant field certification is not indicated in this case." Gryphon considered pointing out the intangible factors he'd recognized in both robots since their arrival following Eve's field mission, but decided he'd be wasting his time. Many Vulcans, even those trained at the Science Academy, were capable of spotting and appreciating such nuances. It was fairly apparent that T'Kir wasn't one of them. It wasn't because she was Vulcan, of course. It was simply that she lacked imagination. Or situational zanshin. However you wanted to phrase it, she just Didn't Get It, and there wasn't anything Gryphon was going to be able to do about it. "What happens next?" he asked instead. "I will submit my report to the Board. They will consider the matter and decide whether to proceed with a conventional evaluation. If they choose to pursue the matter, you will be notified when to present yourself and your sponsored subjects at the Institute. Since your initial request was for a field certification, the process will automatically be expedited. You should receive notification within three Standard weeks." She rose, collected her briefcase, and nodded cordially, but without any semblance of warmth. "My part in the process is concluded at this point. If you have further questions, please direct them to the Institute advocate here on the station. Good day, Chief." Annoyed though he might have been, no one could fault Gryphon's manners; he rose to his feet, presented her the Vulcan salute, and said with apparent (if resigned) sincerity, T'Kir's near-blank affect cracked just a tiny bit as she gave a single blink of surprise. Over the course of five years with the Institute, including three as a field evaluator in the new Instant Certification program, she'd grown accustomed to humans telling her to "take it easy," or "have a good one," or, if she'd just failed to meet their preconceived expectations in some particularly irritating way, "get the hell out of here." To receive a proper Vulcan farewell from one was just a little bit startling. Still, she recovered almost instantly, inclined her head with less perfunctory cordiality than before, returned the salute, and replied, Then she turned and left. A moment later, as Gryphon was lowering himself back into his chair and sighing, amber-eyed Luornu Durgo looked around the doorway from the outer office and remarked, "I bet -she's- the life of any party." Gryphon chuckled. "Well, she's got a job to do," he said, trying to show equanimity. "And she'd determined to do it by the book." He sighed. "-So- tempted to conquer the universe right now." Then he picked up the phone on his desk and grumbled, "Guess I'd better give the kids the bad news. Looks like we're gonna have to do the whole damn dog and pony show." VISITING DIPLOMATIC QUARTERS GREEN SECTOR Once more, Utena Tenjou read over the list of things she'd be expected to do, know, and say the following day. Once more, she was quite certain she'd committed it all to memory - until she put it down, at which point she became equally convinced that she'd forgotten at least one important step. Not since she'd helped conclude a diplomatic protocol securing the independence of Tau Ceti from the Earth Alliance on galactic TV had she been so keenly aware of the importance of getting the dance right. She sighed, tossed the list onto the coffee table, and then flopped sideways on the couch, rolling onto her back. "We should've just gone to Vegas," she grumbled. "You don't mean that," the other person in the room chided her. Utena raised herself up on her elbows and looked across to the armchair, where her Asgardian advisor-cum-chaperone, the person assigned by the implacable forces coordinating her impending wedding to ensure that she knew what to do, what not to do, and when to do and not do them, sat smiling impishly at her. "No, I suppose I don't," Utena admitted. Then she let herself fall onto her back again and added wryly, "I'm sure when it's all done with I'll only remember the sense of occasion, and not the fact that the prep work was like doing my taxes." "Tch," said Vigdis Brightblade. "Such a cynic. What happened to that idealistic little girl I used to know?" "Big talk from an overgrown twelve-year-old," said Utena. "Hey, now. That was a long time ago. If I hadn't adjusted my age, I'd be eighteen now. When -you- were eighteen, you'd already conquered the universe." Then, shifting gears, the redheaded Valkyrie rapped out a quick question. "What's the first thing you do when you reach the top of the platform?" Utena blinked. She'd known the answer to that until one one- hundredth of a second after Vigdis asked it, but now her mind was a complete blank. "Um... " "Quickly, quickly," Vigdis said, snapping her fingers insistently. "Everyone is staring at you." "Uh... I... make obeisance to the All-Mother," Utena said, convinced she was wrong. "Correct. Very good," Vigdis said. "And then?" "And then... um... then I... " Utena trailed off, then sat up again and gave Vigdis a comically exaggerated dark grin. "Then, in all likelihood, I snap and challenge someone to a duel." Vigdis sighed. "I wish you'd take this seriously," she said, her tone holding more resignation than reproach. "I know it's not a way you're accustomed to acting, but our traditions are important to us in Asgard, and by playing along, at least for a few minutes, you show that you respect the culture you're marrying into." Utena's grin faded away. She pulled herself the rest of the way upright, folded her legs under her, and sighed, propping her elbows on her knees. "I know, Vee," she said. "I really do. And I'm trying, honestly I am. I just... it's... hard. I know, I know, this was -my idea,- and it's damned late in the game to be having second thoughts, but I can't help it. I have to find a way to do all this without... without feeling like I'm compromising my principles. I worked -so hard- to make sure I would -never- be anyone's princess... " "I know," said Vigdis, nodding. "And now you're accustomed to thinking like... well, like a -man-, more or less. You're the husband in your marriage to Lady Anthy, and thanks to the way the Grand Tournament was framed, you have a lot of emotional baggage attached to the term and the concept of being someone's bride. But you can put your mind at ease on at least one account." "Oh?" Vigdis smiled. "You've never been - you will never be - a princess to Corwin. He wouldn't know what to -do- with a princess. Oh, he'd rescue one, sure, he's a knight in shining armor, after all, but then he'd just take her home to her castle and ride off into the mist. You're something entirely different to him." She got up from her chair and moved to the end of the couch, drawing herself up into a position similar to Utena's, facing her. "You met Corwin when he was little more than a Midgardian boy, and though you've watched him grow into a man and a god, I think that first impression still colors some of your expectations, unconsciously," she said. "But you must always bear in mind that he is, first and foremost, one of the Aesir. He is, in his heart of hearts, a Norseman; and Norsemen are not like other men. They have no need, no use, and no -wish- for their wives to be helpless chattel. A Norseman needs a wife who stands -beside- him, not behind." She smiled again and went on, "In the old days, when marriages in Asgard were usually arranged, the first question a young man asked when told that his elders had found him a bride was not, 'Is she beautiful?' It was, 'Is she good with a sword?'" The smile became a faint smirk as she added, "It's just a sign of how much Corwin is favored by fate that you're both." Utena laughed, then sobered and said, "I think I see what you're saying. Honestly, I'm not worried that Corwin's going to... to change, to suddenly come over all... -domineering-. That's just silly. It's just that a lot of the symbolism in the ritual... " She shook her head. "It's my damage, not yours. I'll survive." Vigdis reached and took both of her hands, looking her intently in the eyes. "I don't -want- you to simply 'survive'," she insisted. "I want the day to be joyous for you. Else what's the point? You could simply file some papers at City Hall in New Avalon and be done with it. I'm trying to make you understand. You look at our customs, our ceremony, through the prism of your own experiences and see symbols of... of subjugation, but they're -not-. They're tokens of the highest respect. In some cases, of... " She searched briefly for the word. "... of -exaltation-." The young Valkyrie hesitated, then plowed on, "I'm probably not supposed to say this in so many words, but think about it: We are, in effect, making you a goddess tomorrow, Utena." Utena blinked, struck speechless. "You are marrying Corwin," Vigdis replied to the astounded look in her eyes. "You are joining his family. His mother is a Norn. Her father is the All-Father. Any woman Corwin would choose to take as his wife must be worthy to stand among the gods themselves. This isn't just symbolic to us. Odin and Frigg would not have permitted this - much less taken a personal hand in making it happen - if they did not believe you were such a person. At best, they would simply ignore the matter and hope the fancy passed - as they did, at first, when Verthandi married Keiichi Morisato without permission. At worst, one or the other of them, probably Frigg, would step in and take action to see you parted. "Instead, they're taking part. I know you probably see it as in-law meddling and frippery, but they're taking it very, very seriously. They honor Corwin's choice with their involvement. The All- Father intends to see you welcomed to his family by the hand of his own wife, the goddess of -all- wives. I can't possibly exaggerate the significance of that." Warming to the subject now, she went on with passion in her voice, "This is a tremendous honor. All Asgard is prepared to hail you tomorrow. Utena Gripensdottir, Tenjou the Bold, who won the right to call the Midgard-knight 'father', and the very heart of Valhalla's Cavalier in Silver and Black, with her courage, skill, and virtue." With chin high and flashing emerald eyes almost defiant, Vigdis declared, "So wear your wedding-crown with pride tomorrow, my sister, because it isn't meant to represent a shackle, like the trappings of your old foe's cruel game." Lowering her voice and gazing straight into Utena's eyes, speaking with the careful intensity of one who wants to make sure she is absolutely understood, Vigdis finished, "It's a victor's laurel. You are a conquering hero, and tomorrow's ceremony is your triumph." Utena just stared at her for a few seconds before at last finding her voice. "Vigdis, I... I never thought of it like that. Thank you." Then, letting out a wide-eyed, cheek-puffing breath, she blinked and added, "Boy. No pressure -there-... " Vigdis laughed, as if consciously shrugging off the gravity of her little speech. "Sorry," she said. "I didn't meant to lay it on quite that thick. I mean, it's all true, but it's best not to dwell on it at length. Keep it in mind, but don't let it dominate your thoughts. Not the easiest balancing act in the world, I admit." She sighed, coming down from the high of emotion that had swept her along as she made her speech. "I'm sorry," she repeated. "I shouldn't have laid it all out so bluntly as that. Now you'll be hard-pressed not to feel even -more- self-conscious. And to think I started talking because I wanted to put you at ease!" Utena smiled and took her hands again. "It's okay," she said. "Actually, I feel better knowing what the stakes really are, probably because of all the time I spent blundering around in the dark during the Tournament. I have a lot of respect for the cultures Corwin comes from - both of them; but you're right. I understand his Earthman half more or less instinctively. Understanding his Aesir half... that takes a conscious effort, and until just now, I was so caught up in the physical details - what to say, what to do, when to do it - that I never took the time to see the context. I was so bogged down in what and when that I never thought about -why-." Then, with a wry grin, she added, "See, this is why sequestering me from Anthy for the preparations was a -bad- plan. She's the one who usually thinks of these things for me." Vigdis grinned. "So noted," she said. "Now," Utena said, leaning to retrieve the list from the coffee table. "Let's go over it again. I want to make -sure- I get this right." IPO VOQ BLUE SECTOR Corwin woke to find the lights of his stateroom automatically dimmed. He knew from experience that, on Babylon 6, this meant it was sometime between 2100 and 0500 hours, and that meant, like as not, that he had blown it. He turned over, looked at the time display in the instrument cluster on the bulkhead next to the bunk, and sighed. Yup. 2115. 9:15 PM, Avalon Standard Time. "Shit," he grumbled, sitting up. It was, he knew, no good trying to go back to sleep now. If he was lucky, he'd be able to grab a nap on the other end - an hour or two before his attendants came to roust him - but in the meantime, the long night shift stretched empty before him. He wasn't worried about being tired for the ceremony tomorrow; he had reserves to draw on, ways of ensuring that he'd be wide awake. He didn't need (though he would gladly take, weather permitting) as much sleep as a normal man anyway. There was just the question of what to -do- for the next 11 hours, especially since he wasn't technically supposed to leave the VOQ. Well, he thought, I've got the run of this resblock. I can at least go for a walk. Indeed, if he played his cards right, maybe he'd even be able to slip down to the Wonder and get his book, which, like an idiot - he could see it in his mind's eye - he'd left sitting on the table in the wardroom. There was still a uniformed security officer on duty by the lift, though it was a different guy. Corwin wondered idly whether he'd try to stop him from leaving the floor, but in fact he just looked up from whatever he was doing on his portable terminal, nodded, and went back to it. Corwin was able to get over to the hangar deck, and aboard the Wonder, unchallenged. He supposed, wryly, that his mother and the others probably didn't feel it would be necessary to post anyone to keep him from -leaving-. He found his book right where he expected it to be, collected it, and made ready to leave. As he locked up the Wonder again, he pondered that perverse impulse that always nags a man to do whatever he's least supposed to be doing. On an ordinary Thursday evening, without an explicit ban on stopping by Green Sector, he might well spend the night alone in the VOQ, or aboard the Wonder, or wherever, and not think twice about it. But because he was specifically -not supposed to- go to Green and see anyone there tonight, he found himself unable to muster much enthusiasm for doing anything else. Sighing, Corwin headed back upstairs, resigning himself to an evening of distractedly reading the same page over and over again without comprehending what was on it. He waved glumly to the security guy when he arrived back on the VOQ block, and had almost reached his quarters when the door of the second room from the end opened and a sleek, white, pod-like figure nearly collided with him. "Whoa!" he said, half-dancing back as the white shape skidded to an aerial halt and backed up a little. He knew what it (she, his instincts at once corrected him) was immediately, having followed the development of the EVE series from afar with a professional's interest, but he'd never actually seen one before. As far as he knew, only one existed, though the last he'd been aware, the prototype was still on test assignment. He didn't know more than the basic spec-sheet stuff about the series, since he hadn't been involved in the actual development process, but, watching the floating robot's body language as she backed up, looked him over, and then glanced up the hall at the security man, he got the distinct impression she was anxious about something. She was about to turn and make for the lift when Corwin asked, "What's the matter? Maybe I can help." Eve looked at him again, hesitating. Then a blue-white light shone from beneath her smooth white casing, on her right side just below the rim of her repulsor-field "neck", and scanned him up and down. As it did so, a row of three white lights below the scan source, on what Corwin supposed you'd call her chest, lit up one by one, followed by a larger green one that was accompanied by a musical tone. Eve's light-matrix "eyes" blinked, then widened, as her internal sub-ether link to the IPO's master database returned a positive identification based on her scan. << Ravenhair, Corwin V.; born June 25, 2391, Nekomikoka, Tomodachi; son of Ravenhair, Skuld (IPO prime technologist) and Hutchins, Benjamin "Gryphon" (IPO chief). Roboticist, weapons engineer, spacecraft designer. Creator of record, Armored Knight G-Kaiser, Getter Robo series, Gaogaigar system. Sponsored personal robot ("R. Dorothy Wayneright"; xref) for Turing certification, 2405. Suitability: HIGH. Confidence: HIGH. >> Eve immediately aborted her original plan, which was to get to the lift shaft and try to summon help from the station's robot repair facilities down in Red Sector. Instead she grabbed Corwin's sleeve (like his father, he was struck by how cunningly articulated her hands were) and tugged him into the room from which she'd just emerged. Gesturing to another, much less sleek robotic figure in the middle of the room, Eve turned pleading eyes to Corwin and said, "Help." Corwin blinked, put his book down on the table by the door, then went and crouched by the other robot. This was a much earlier model, a small and blocky utility droid, and it'd obviously seen a lot of wear and tear. It took Corwin a moment to realize that he was at least passingly familiar with the model: a U.S. Robotics WALL-E unit. He'd seen one in the Tomodachi Colonization Museum. "Hello," said Corwin. The industrial robot turned its binocular-like head toward him, its optics focusing, and then slowly, shakily raised one fork-like manipulator. "wwwwaaaaaall-e," it croaked. Corwin looked momentarily taken aback, then realized that the robot wanted to shake hands. In even that small gesture, his practiced eye could see that this, too, was no mere "it". He smiled, shook the offered hand, and said, "Hi. I'm Corwin. Looks like you're having some motor problems." Wall-E nodded. His head was about the only part of him he could move without difficulty, it seemed. He seemed alert, and he didn't look particularly alarmed - just a bit puzzled. "Can you fill me in, Eve?" Corwin asked his impromptu patient's hovering companion. "Wall-E's having a hard time getting his signaler working." Then, switching to a weird, high-pitched trilling language, he added, Eve was markedly taken aback by this development. She'd never encountered a human who could -understand- the audio-streamed burst code robots commonly used to converse among themselves (when they weren't using packet radio), much less -speak- it. His accent was horrible - it wasn't a form of communication that humans' speaking apparatus was very well-suited to - but intelligible. she coded when she'd recovered from her surprise. "Hmm... maybe," Corwin mused, speaking normally again. If he thought it at all weird that two robots had been dancing in an otherwise empty stateroom on the VOQ, he gave no sign. "I'm not too familiar with his model, but the old SAINTs always did this kind of thing when their motivator diodes blew. Have you got a Phillips screwdriver?" Better than that, she had a -sonic- screwdriver. They had Wall-E's front panel off in seconds. "Hmm," said Corwin, peering inside with the aid of a spotlight Eve was projecting, like her scan grid, from within her casing. "Well, you've got a lot of corroded leads in here, little fella, that can't be helping." He gingerly moved a couple of circuit boards, leaving them connected by their faded old ribbon cables, and then nodded. "Yup. Looks like your central motivator diode has failed, and the backups... well, they look like they were already gone." He turned to Eve. "I don't suppose you've got any spares around." she replied, looking alarmed. Corwin sat back on his haunches and rubbed the back of his head thoughtfully. "If we were in my workshop back in New Avalon, I could fix this no problem. I've got a whole box full of stuff that'd work. And all my tools, for that matter." Then, remembering something he'd seen on the EVE Mk 35 spec sheet, he turned to Eve with a smile spreading slowly onto his face. "How'd you like to run a little search-and-retrieve mission for me?" he asked. Eve became instantly attentive. "Directive," she said aloud. In the small stateroom set aside for him next to his office up on the admin level, Gryphon looked up from the book he was working on at the chime of the intercom panel. "Chief, Stargate Control," said a voice. "Go ahead, Stargate Control," he replied. "Chief, Lt. Perkins here. We just had an uncommanded stargate activation and that new Stark Industries probe droid came through here like a bat outta hell. Looks like the destination was HQ New Avalon. What's your recommendation?" Gryphon raised an eyebrow. "Ah... I recommend you don't stand in front of the gate, Lieutenant," he replied. "If she went through alone, she'll be back." "Roger that, Chief. Stargate Control out." While Eve was gone, Corwin busied himself with a deeper investigation into which systems needed overhauls (which was pretty much all of them) and what parts they had on hand. Wall-E was in no particular danger from the particular hardware failure that had befallen him, so while he took stock, Corwin made light conversation. "Seems like you've really been through the grind, my friend," he observed as he jotted a diagram of Wall-E's main subprocessor array on a piece of VOQ stationery. "How'd you end up here on B6?" Wall-E tilted his head, considering how to reply, and then croaked, "eeee... va." Corwin smiled. "Ah," he said. "Cherchez la femme, eh? I don't blame you. She's beautiful." Wall-E mustered the effort to wiggle slightly, clearly pleased that Corwin thought so. He wasn't completely naive; he knew most humans would simply have been humoring him with a remark like that, but some bit of cybernetic intuition told him that this human was different. This one meant it. He could see; he understood. That knowledge made Wall-E much more comfortable with the prospect of being in his hands - with the help of Eve's, of course - for the delicate repairs to come. FRIDAY, MARCH 5, 2410 8:30 AM AVALON STANDARD TIME GREEN SECTOR DIPLOMATIC QUARTERS To her considerable surprise, Utena slept pretty well that night. She woke feeling refreshed and (almost) ready for the day ahead, only to find herself, after a shower and a light breakfast, with an hour or so to kill. Lingering over her morning coffee, she pondered how to go about killing that hour, then smiled as she hit on the perfect thing to finish settling her nerves. With motions made smooth by long practice, she dug her simsense deck out of her suitcase, unpacked it, set it up on the coffee table, and taped on the 'trodes. Then, settling back on the sofa, she reached out and thwacked the green button. The fizzing sensation of simsense transition picked her up from the sofa and dropped her in a small white room with a control panel and an old-fashioned telephone on the wall. There was a thin, hawk-nosed man in a white coverall and cap standing by the panel, making some notes on a clipboard. He looked up as she arrived and smiled broadly. "Ah, guten Tag, Captain," he said with a marked German accent. "What can I get for you today?" Years before, when she'd set out to learn what she needed to know in order to earn a starship master's certificate, Corwin had taken Utena into a sensory simulation for the first time in order to illustrate a point. The simulation had been of the launch of Apollo 11, the first expedition by Earthmen to their planet's only moon, 30 years before First Contact. Over the years since then, she'd made something of a hobby of collecting simulations of early space flights, and by 2408 she'd amassed a sizeable number - enough that keeping track of them was starting to become a pain. Corwin had solved that problem by developing an expert shell program to help her manage them and presenting it to her on her birthday that year. He'd based that program's persona on Gunter Wendt, the leader of NASA's launch pad crew back in the 1960s, the character version of whom was a fixture in many of the sims. Gunter-the-program wasn't a true AI, but he was a pretty sophisticated interactive shell, and Utena had become inordinately fond of "him". Now she smiled and said, "Good morning, Gunter. Let's have... hmm... Apollo 8 today. I don't have time to do a landing." Gunter nodded and made a couple of notes on his clipboard. "Excellent. I assume you'll be playing ze role of Frank Borman, ja? A marked improvement, if you don't mind my saying so, and zat's no reflection on Frank. Let me chust get it set up for you. Shall I leave Lovell and Anders or scrub zem?" 9:30 AM THE GARDEN By 9:30, the guests were beginning to arrive. The ones arriving this early would have a fairly long wait - the ceremony wasn't scheduled to begin until 11:30 - but there were a lot of people to get seated and those who could had been specifically asked to stagger their arrivals, in order to make the process go a little more smoothly. In the meantime, there were tables of appetizing snacks laid out in the meadow and cheerful uniformed ushers to direct people to their seats. Since the wedding was being conducted on an Asgardian basis, the seating arrangements deviated slightly from the standard sort of breakdown. Utena had no living blood relatives, and she was the adopted daughter of the groom's father, so instead of the usual "family of the groom"/"family of the bride" arrangement, Corwin's maternal relations and people who had known him before he met Utena were being placed on his side, while his paternal relations and Utena's proliferation of friends and colleagues gravitated toward the other. The two of them had practically no friends not in common anyway, so the whole thing had been at once simple to arrange and complicated to balance. The real difficulty, of course, was that there were so -many- of them. The lives of the two principals in today's little drama had intersected a -tremendous- number of others, and almost all of those whose lives they had touched were invited, from the core diplomatic and operational staff of Babylon 6 to members of no fewer than four space navies, independent operators, private citizens, university professors, Duelists and Jedi Knights, divinities and demons. And most of those who were invited were making the scene. Dressed in formalwear or uniform, armor or ornate native garb, they numbered in their hundreds, and they were still arriving. Fortunately, the ushers - who were actually members of the Einherjar, the immortal army of Valhalla, permitted to visit Midgard this day thanks to a special dispensation from the All-Father - were well-drilled and on the ball, and as the place filled up, there seemed to be no difficulties. Duelists arriving from Cephiro - here! Corwin's childhood playmates from Asgard, Tomodachi, and New Avalon - there! Friends Utena had made in the course of her adventures with the International Police Space Force - so! Everyone had a place and nobody seemed to mind who they ended up near. With so long to go before the ceremony, most people mentally marked the location of their seats and then repaired to the snack area to mingle and chat, giving the whole thing something of the air of a reception at the wrong end of the day. Standing next to Corwin's Aunt Belldandy, the master organizer of all this, Lieutenant David Corwin took note of it and asked, "Isn't it more customary to feed people -after- the ceremony?" Bell smiled. "Oh, we will, certainly. That's what that building over there is for. This is just to make sure no one falls over -during- the ceremony. Besides, if some of the guests are angling for hors d'oeuvres, it makes it easier for the boys to herd the rest into the right seating areas." Bruce, observing the ebb and flow of the meadow's increasing human tide, had to admit she had a point. "Well, things seem to be going smoothly so far," Bell said. "I must be off. I have an important part still to play." Chad Collier stood at the corner of the snack table, eyeing the assorted Asgardian fare and pondering how best to sneak another bacon- wrapped scallop onto his plate. He'd sent Spark out to take some candid shots of the reception guests while Janice and X staked out a path to their seats in case there was a rush when the gong sounded, or however it was that they'd be notified that it was time to sit down. Engrossed in logistics as he was, he didn't notice the approach of another guest until the other man spoke. "Chad Collier?" "One and the same," Chad said, turning to greet the newcomer. At first, Chad took him for some associate of Sumire Kanzaki's. Middle-aged, gray ponytail, Mandarin collar on an expensive suit; the other man wouldn't have been out of place at any pitch meeting at the studio, sitting in the corner and asking hard questions about budgets and completion bonds. The left-handed handshake he offered Chad was unusual, though, as was the plain, unadorned metal cap that terminated the man's right arm. "I thought so," the older man said. "There aren't too many Kilrathi cult filmmakers out there these days." Chad returned the handshake and smiled. "Yeah, well, raised on Alderaan, human parents, what's a boy to do," he replied with a self- deprecating shrug. The other man smiled, a bit sardonically. "Affront to everything your species stands for, what," he said dryly. "I guess a lot of native Kilrathi would think that," Chad replied. "I try not to hang out in those circles." The other man's smile broadened into a smirk. "I bet they'd just hate this, then," he said... ...and before Chad's eyes, he *changed,* growing taller, broader, heavily furred and scarred, still missing that hand... that -paw,- Chad corrected himself before realizing just Who, precisely, he was looking at. The enormous white-and-black Imperial Kilrathi with the ice-blue eyes looked down on him, expressionless, silent. "... -You,-" Chad managed, every hair on the back of his neck standing erect. "Me, indeed," Sivar replied. "We have much to speak of, Chad." "I dunno," Janice said, toying with her margarita a short distance away. "Everything's a little pear-shaped, I guess, and there's been a lot going on." X nodded. "Nothin' wrong with that, Red," he replied. "None of us exactly have a nice, placid suburban life to fall back on, y'know." "Better than anyone," she said with a wan smile. "I don't know if I'd have it - " She cut her sentence short as a low rumble echoed through their end of the garden. X's head snapped up. "Chad," he said. "How do you - " "No time," X said. "C'mon." They got up and made their way back over to the buffet table as decorously as possible, Mitra and Riddick in tow. About thirty feet away, they both saw it: Chad, fangs bared and hackles raised, facing off with an older man in a dark business suit. X motioned Janice to a stop. "You know that guy?" X said quietly. Janice shook her head. "Never seen him before in my life," she replied. X remained still, expression wary, body tensed. "If Geek starts some shit here," he replied, "you gonna cover me?" Janice nodded. "Good enough," X said. "Beyond that, we're gonna wait right here." Chad struggled to contain his emotions. "You're responsible for... all this," he said. "All the years people have figured I'm some kind of fucking -wild animal,- some sort of goddamned religious fanatic. All the shit I went through proving to Kariyn's parents that I wasn't going to snap and sacrifice their daughter to you. Your fault. I have -nothing- to discuss with you, Sivar War-God." "I would that we would speak with sheathed claws, in the manner of the civilized," Sivar replied, unruffled. "The civilized?" Chad replied derisively. "Like your priestesses? Like those Kilrathi who go forth to rape and murder in your name?" "I am still not speaking to them," Sivar replied, "and I am still speaking to you, my son." Chad froze, recalling a years-ago adventure with Raoul Duke and Ezri Tigan on a long-lost ringworld. "You -son- of a -bitch.- Where have you -been?-" "I have turned my back upon those who call me their god," Sivar replied; the ringing finality in his voice made some part of Chad's hindbrain flinch. "I do not expect to be received with reverence by those who have rejected me... and yet, among their numbers I find my true children." "We've had this discussion," Chad said coldly. "I'm not convinced. Where the hell have you been, all this time since Tatooine?" "Have your comrades in the International Police not moved against those who call themselves my archpriests?" Sivar asked. "Have you and your sworn brother Xander Cage not spoken valiantly in the defense of Shan Bastila against those who would have seen her expelled from the Jedi Order? Have you not lifted your own claws against the tyranny and fanaticism of the Covenant upon the Great Ring? "Have I not been with you, Chad Collier? Have you not acted to stem the tide of darkness that threatens your friends, your family, your entire galaxy? Have I not looked upon your works and found them worthy of honor?" "There is a -lot- of roaring going on over there," Janice observed calmly. Her hand was beginning to ache from its grip on her Varista. "Indeed," 343 Guilty Spark replied. The little protocol drone had completed his photographic tasks for the time being, and come back to find his master in... well, certainly it was trouble, just not any sort of trouble Spark would have recognized as such. "I didn't know Master Chad spoke Imperial Kilrathi," Spark added. "His fluency is impressive." X's eyebrows shot up his shaved head. "He doesn't." Chad still stood frozen. "You were a voice in my head," he said softly. "A drug trip. Duke whacked me up on mescaline and my brain dreamed you up to scare the shit out of me." Sivar shrugged. "And yet I remember our conversation, such as it was," he replied. "I remain convinced that I spoke the truth, as I speak the truth now. I have not been with the Kilrathi, whose creation I oversaw, whose hearts are now closed to me, for many years... with very few exceptions." "You've been the fanged sword hanging over my head every time I met a Kilrathi who wasn't Brit, or the Bastard Sons," Chad said. "The model of Kilrathi warriorship, the epitome of everything I never want to be. 'Mighty Sivar.' I hated myself every time I bought into a piece of that... and now I'm not sure what to think." "I am still Sivar War-God," the white Kilrathi replied, "of that you may have no doubt. But if I am somewhat less than you expected, you are more than I could have imagined. The powers of darkness have come to strike at the heart of your adopted kin, and you have set them back, time and again. Your loyalty - your love, although you do not speak of it easily - is the true way I had intended for my people." Chad looked down to the floor, suddenly overcome. "Thank you, sir," he finally managed. "I know your heart, Chad Collier, as do others among my company," Sivar said. "We are a warrior race, a band of hunters, a people set apart - and I will have my final hunt, my revenge against those who have defiled my worship and dragged our people into a dark age. I will yet see them cast low. But you must promise me something." "...if I can do it, I will," Chad said. "Avert your course from mine until I have conquered my prey," Sivar said, gripping Chad's shoulder tightly. "Avert your eyes from my hunt until its final moments. Upon that day, you will behold my wrath, and the punishment given to heretics, and I would subject my children to neither." Chad nodded numbly, almost unable to comprehend the words. "I will," he said haltingly. "I... I'll stay away. I don't know where you're going, but I'll stay away." Sivar nodded. "That is all I may ask until my hunt is concluded. Shall we attend to other matters?" With that, the Kilrathi war god assumed his Norse aspect once more, plucked a single scallop from the platter, and placed it on Chad's plate with a smile before moving off to another part of the Garden. Janice sighed and relaxed her grip on the Varista. "I, er, guess we're not supposed to know what that was all about," she remarked. X shrugged, then pivoted smoothly on the ball of one foot and put a hand down on a passing Valkyrie's shoulder. Or he would have, if she hadn't sensed the gesture coming, slipped aside, slapped his hand smartly away, and faced off with him in a martial-arts ready stance, poised and ready. On the face of it, that confrontation should have seemed a little silly to an outside observer (like, say, Janice), in large part because the Valkyrie in question was no more than three feet tall and proportioned accordingly, with tiny fists no bigger than billiard balls. Without a scale reference, she'd have looked like a perfectly normal, if rather petite, woman, but viewed against Cage's six feet of solid muscle, the disparity was stark and a bit ridiculous. At a glance, it looked like X was being challenged by a four-year-old. A closer look, though, dispelled the illusion immediately. Aeryn Stonefist, the Valkyrie close-combat specialist, was hardly a four-year-old. She was a native of Vanaheim's northern Shire, and the look in her cool blue eyes as she fixed them on X's was anything but childlike. Having made her point, Aeryn relaxed slightly and said, "Sorry, Cage, but you ought to watch where you throw those hands. You'll find that few vaettir appreciate being manhandled by the Big Folk." X grinned and held up his hands in surrender. "Sorry," he said. "I'm just lookin' for a little information." Aeryn relaxed fully, raked her thick black hair back from her forehead, and said, "What do you want to know?" "That guy over there in the suit," said X, gesturing with his head. "Who is he?" Aeryn turned, then blinked and regarded X with surprise. "You - well, no, I guess you couldn't be expected to know," she said, shaking her head. "That, my dear sir, is Tyr Grimjaws, the leavings of the wolf Fenris. The Aesir's great champion - Asgard's god of war." She watched for a moment to see if he wanted anything else, then concluded from the rather blank look on his face that he didn't and continued on her way. "... Fuck," X said. Janice just stood there, looking uneasy. "...I'm... entirely at a loss," she finally said. "Someone should probably get Chad a drink, though." When the door of her borrowed diplomat's quarters opened at 10:15, Utena had finished her simulation run and was sitting on the couch, not really watching the news. She looked up and smiled as her half of the wedding party entered, reflecting as she did that "wedding party" was really the wrong term for the group of people tasked with attending and assisting the bride and groom in this particular deal. "Wedding Special Mission Force" might be closer to the mark, if you wanted to use the IPO Tactical Division term for such things. Oh, they didn't look all that formidable right now, but then, they weren't arrayed for battle yet. An uninformed observer might take them for a simple clutch of college girls, but Utena knew much better. If it came to it, she'd be just as confident going into a fight with these four women at her back as she would with an entire army. Maybe more so. "Morning, Utena," said Kaitlyn Hutchins cheerfully. "Are you ready?" Utena stood up, hugged her best friend, and said with equal cheer, "I sincerely doubt it, but let's go." The five - Utena, Kaitlyn, Wakaba Shinohara, Vigdis, and R. Dorothy Wayneright - walked from the Visiting Diplomatic Quarters to the back corner of the Garden. They followed a route, mapped out for them by the station's executive officer, Susan Ivanova, through station service corridors to a special accessway so that they wouldn't be seen by any of the people beginning to gather in the adjoining area where the ceremony was actually to be held. They started out chattering among themselves as friends do, but as they drew closer to their destination, they became slowly quieter. By the time they emerged from the access passage, they were all but silent, filled with anticipation and wrapped in a kind of reverent hush. A sense of occasion had settled upon them all, the first true realization, with heart as well as head, of what they were all there to play a part in. The passageway gave onto a warm, fragrant room, paneled in cedar and dominated by a large, circular tub of steaming water, on the surface of which - naturally - had been scattered handsful of white rose petals. Waiting for them there, smiling beatifically, was Belldandy. No, Utena corrected herself. In those elaborate blue and white robes, with her hair down and her gold and silver accoutrements shining, this was Verthandi Wishbringer, not just Corwin's lovable Aunt Bell Morisato, greeting them. "Welcome," she said. Under anything -resembling- normal circumstances, Utena Tenjou would have felt at best rather silly, and at worst extremely weird, as five women, even these five (maybe especially these five), divested her ceremoniously of her everyday clothes, bathed her, and then dressed her in entirely unfamiliar garb. It was not the sort of thing she would customarily submit herself to, to say the least. Somehow, though - maybe because of her conversation with Vigdis the day before, maybe because of Verthandi's soothing presence, maybe some of both - it all felt -right-. It was a most uncommon experience, but then, this was a most uncommon day. Cleansed and clad in her brand-new finery, she sat seiza on an immaculate woven mat while Verthandi slowly, methodically, but sparingly applied makeup - another thing she almost never bothered with - to her face. Once that job was done, and with even greater ceremony than had gone before, the Norn of Today unwrapped a black velvet parcel and fitted the item it had protected carefully upon Utena's head. Then she raised her charge to her feet and said, "Your preparations are complete. Are you ready?" Utena smiled and answered truthfully: "No." Then she added wryly, "Ironically, I've spent my entire life quite deliberately being -not ready- for this moment." Verthandi chuckled indulgently. "I thought as much. Well, then, this should fit in with all the other defining moments of your life in one respect: The hour has come whether you're ready or not." "She's right, you know," said Wakaba. "Don't have a clue what you're doing, grit your teeth and bull through anyway, end up looking like you had a plan from the start... " Kaitlyn nodded agreement. "It's very you." Utena rolled her eyes. "Thank you, ladies." Then, turning back to Verthandi with a faintly troubled expression, she said, "I -know- what to -do.- I just... don't know if I'm the right person to be doing it." Verthandi took her hands, gave her one of the most loving smiles she'd ever received, and said, "You know... a few years ago, I helped with the wedding of another young woman who, at the eleventh hour, wondered that same thing. I'll tell you the same thing I told her: I know the truth of a lover's heart. If I didn't think this was right... I wouldn't be helping." Utena considered the Norn's words gravely for a few seconds, then grinned, looking much more her usual self. "That was just what I needed to hear," she said. Verthandi beamed. "It's a gift," she said modestly. Utena laughed. "Let's do this thing." At about the same time Kaitlyn and her detachment reached the diplomatic quarters, another group of "wedding commandos" arrived at another stateroom on another level of the station to find an entirely different set of circumstances waiting for them. Nall Silverclaw (in his human form), Thor Ironhammer, Lenneth Winternight, and Gudrun Truemace didn't actually reach Corwin's assigned room in the VOQ; instead, their attention caught by the raucous rock music blaring from the open door of the next room over, they glanced inside and spotted him in -there-. /* Creedence Clearwater Revival "Up Around the Bend" _Cosmo's Factory_ (1970) */ Far from being tense and impatient, as Nall had expected, Corwin seemed completely happy: down on one knee, wrench in hand, bolting down the front panel of a small, cube-shaped robot while another, much more sophisticated, repulsorlifted model watched over his shoulder and bobbed gently with the beat. He was so relaxed, in fact, that he was even singing along with the blasting music: "You can ponder perpetual motion Fix your mind on a crystal day Always time for a good conversation There's an ear for what you say" "Corwin?!" Nall blurted, staring at the scene without fully comprehending it. Corwin looked up. "Oh, hey, Nall!" he yelled over the guitar solo. Then, reaching to the small robot's front panel, he turned down the music a little. "Is it that time already? I'm just finishing up here." So saying, he closed up the cube-shaped robot's front panel, gave the speaker set into that panel a quick going-over with some canned air, then gave the robot a friendly thump. "There! How's that?" The robot's forklike, three-fingered manipulators weren't well- suited to giving the thumbs-up, but he tried anyway. "Good deal," said Corwin. Straightening up, he brushed at his knees and added, "Good as new, and just in time!" With a gleeful expression, he shared a high-five first with the square robot, then with the hovering white one. "What the - what the hell are you -doing?-" Nall sputtered. "Making new friends," said Corwin with a smile. "Guys, this is my buddy Nall. He's going to be best man at my wedding today." "Eve," said the white robot, bobbing in the air in a sort of anti-gravity curtsey. The older robot rolled over on well-polished tracks and extended a scrupulously clean manipulator. "WaaAAaall-E," he burbled, shaking Nall's (rather slack) hand. "Uh, hi," said Nall distractedly. "Nice to meet you. Would you excuse me for a second?" Then, edging past them to advance on Corwin as he washed his hands at the kitchenette sink, he hissed, "You are supposed to be -ready-." Corwin shrugged. "Yeah, ready to -get- ready." He finished washing his hands, dried them on a dishtowel, then presented himself, hands open at his sides, and added, "Which I am." Nall stood and stared at him, hands working ineffectually at his sides. Corwin looked - well, about as Nall would expect him to look after pulling an all-nighter overhauling some ancient robot: rumpled, grease-stained, and generally besmirched. The mere mortal hand soap provided in the VOQ kitchenette hadn't even dented the grunge under his fingernails. "You idiot!" Nall burst out. "The -bath- is just part of the -procedure!- It's supposed to be symbolic. There's no provision for you actually being all -greasy- and shit!" Lenneth laughed and clapped the distraught dragon on the shoulder. "Relax, Nall. You don't think we have a protocol for this kind of thing in place by now? That's why I was chosen to be one of his attendants. If I could make him presentable for the Vanaheim Hunt Ball half an hour after we finished overhauling a jet engine - and I did - I can handle this." Corwin surveyed the chaos of tools, parts, and scrap materials scattered around the floor and tables in the stateroom, then sighed and said, "Guess we'll have to clean this up later. C'mon, you guys." Nall blinked. "You're bringing the robots along?" he asked, sotto voce. "Sure," Corwin replied, unconcerned. "Didn't I just say? They're my friends." The group, now seven strong, took a circuitous path designed to keep them away from the meadow and also negate any possible chance of their running into the -other- team. Presently they emerged from another, similar access tunnel into another, similar cedar-paneled room - though in this one, Verthandi was not waiting, since even she could not be in two places at once. The proceedings that followed weren't as ceremonious, at first, as their counterparts in the other bath-house; for instance, the groom wasn't expected to just sit there and let his attendants do the washing. That would just have been weird. What ensued instead was more like a regular trip to the Valhalla banya after a hard day's Valkyrieing, and since he'd grown up having such days all his life, Corwin didn't find anything awkward in the fact that two of his attendants were women. "I wonder if it's a bad omen if we can't actually get heat sink paste out of his hair," Gudrun wondered. "How did you get it in your -hair?-" Nall demanded. "Obviously you've never overhauled a robot," said Lenneth. "Hold -still,- Corwin." "Ow! That's -attached,- you know... " "Laugh it up, godboy. If we can't get this out, we'll have to shave it, and you'll be married with the Nine Worlds' worst comb-over." Thus it went - at least until the cleaning was done (thermal paste removed successfully!) and the time came to get dressed. That was a much more involved and elaborate process than usual, as the two Valkyrie assembled upon their comrade a set of raiments much more complex than even the ornate dress uniforms they themselves had donned. At the very end, Eve got in on the act as well, using her hover capability to help him on with his coat so that Lenneth could fasten it. "Perfect," Lenneth remarked. "Very nice," Nall agreed. "Ooo," Wall-E and Eve concurred. "Outstanding," said Thor. "I haven't seen its like since... well, since Balder's return from Hel, I think." Corwin laughed. "You're one for the photo album yourself, Uncle," he said. "I can count the times I've seen you in something other than jeans and a T-shirt on one hand." "Aye," Thor replied, grunting as he wrestled his way into his ceremonial armor's breastplate, "and now I can't quite remember how this all goes -together-... " "Here, let me help," Gudrun tutted. "Hold still." While the thunder god and the Valkyrie struggled with that, the side door opened and the tall, grizzled figure of Odin Winterbeard - even more imposing than usual in his finest of Aesir finery - entered. The All-Father's face brightened at the sight of his grandson fully bedecked, and he turned a blind eye (figuratively speaking) to Thor's battle with his armor as he spoke. "You look well, Corwin," he said. Corwin half-bowed. "Thank you, Grandfather." Stepping closer, Odin smiled and put his hand on Corwin's shoulder. "Are you ready?" he asked. Corwin grinned. "Nope," he replied happily. While all that was going on, Mitsuru Tsuwabuki stood in a small knot of Duelists from the Cephiro and Jeraddo chapters at the edge of the meadow, chatting with his DSM counterpart, Boba Fett, and generally feeling good about the occasion. The last of the guests - the contingent from Asgard, including the Aesir Council themselves - were arriving now, the snacking and seating were going smoothly. T minus - he checked his watch - 27 minutes and counting, and everything still looked good. By his side, the Tenjou Academy Order of the Rose's recently- arrived guest, Anaximandra Drax, stood shaded under a parasol and took in the scene with wide blue eyes that contrasted starkly with her ink- black skin. Though not actually a Duelist, the svartelven refugee was recently-enough arrived that Tsuwabuki had been reluctant to leave her behind at the Academy while he and his colleagues attended the wedding, and the word from both Utena and Corwin when asked was "sure, bring her along," so he had. "This is amazing," she murmured. "So many people from so many different worlds." Pointing across the meadow, she added, "Look! Even Svartalfheim has sent an ambassador." Tsuwabuki blinked. "What? No, the svartelven government specifically -declined- their invi - ... " His voice trailed off as his eyes followed Anaximandra's pointing finger and saw the individual she was pointing to: a dark-skinned, thin-faced man in red-trimmed black, adorned with a diplomatic sash and medals. He had silver hair swept back in a ponytail, and on his arm was a tall blonde woman in silver and white Asgardian robes. The pair of them stood just outside the door leading onto the Meadow from the "building" that was really the main access point to Blue Sector, surveying the scene. For a moment, Mitsuru Tsuwabuki's mind simply could not -grasp- what he was looking at. Once it did, it took him a few further seconds to find his momentarily misplaced ability to speak, and when he did, what came out, in a low, dread-fulled murmur, was, "... Shit." Boba Fett, who had missed the byplay with Anaximandra, turned and arched an eyebrow at Tsuwabuki. "What?" "Over there," said Tsuwabuki, gesturing with his chin. Fett looked, blinked, and said in a disbelieving tone, "-No.-" Tsuwabuki nodded glumly. "Yup." "-Shit,-" Boba growled. Then, instantly businesslike, he raised his hand and tabbed the comlink on the back of it to life. "Fett to Shinguuji," he snapped. "Go ahead, Boba," a slightly puzzled young woman's voice replied. "Mimi, we have a problem. Akio Ohtori is here." A silent beat; then, "... Say -again?-" At almost the same moment, Master Chief Petty Officer Sir John Spartan, RSN, KDSC, etc., was scanning the other side of the crowd with gimlet eyes. He wasn't honestly expecting trouble, but old habits die hard, and in a big open space like this, his instincts told him to be wary - not of any specific thing, but wary, all the same. An instant later, Cortana's voice spoke directly into his aural nerves (as well as Janice's, X's, and Chad's). John, who knew Cortana as well as, if not better than, he knew himself, recognized her tone of "voice" instantly as the one that usually heralded some kind of crisis. "Heads up, Team Spartan," she said. "I just got the final rev of the guest list and there's probably going to be trouble." Across the meadow, Boba Fett had pulled up a copy of the same list on a wrist-mounted holodisplay and was scowling at it. "It looks like he was invited by Lady Freyja of Vanaheim," he said, both to the Duelists gathered around him and to Mimi Shinguuji via his still-open comlink. "Oh, for - ... What do we do?" Mimi asked. "I need you to notify your mother and the others from Ishiyama," Boba told her. Tsuwabuki turned to two of his Duelists. "Kard, you're on the rest of our group. Keiko, you take bath-house G." "Juniper, bath-house B; Lindsey, I need you to warn the New Avalon contingent," Boba continued. "Sakura, inform Lieutenant Corwin. I'll see if I can get to the Chief. And let's get this done as quietly as we can, people. He -wants- to cause a panic. Let's not oblige him." "Bruce" Corwin ran full-tilt down the long corridor linking Turboshaft A to the station commander's conference room (which happened to be in the "top floor" of that same false building leading from Blue Sector into the Garden), burst through the door, and breathlessly announced, "There's a problem." At the conference table, Ivanova, Captain Derek Bacon, and Security Chief Michael Garibaldi turned to face him with looks of mild surprise, thought it quickly became clear that it was surprise at his entrance, not at his message. "We know," Ivanova said. "Sit down." Down on the meadow, Akio Ohtori was thoroughly enjoying himself. As he and Freyja made their entrance, he could sense the frisson racing through the gathering, and if it wasn't quite the open commotion he'd been rather hoping for, it was still satisfying. A lot of these people had no idea who he was or what importance his presence held, of course, but the ones who -counted- did, and they knew he was here. By now, presumably, word was being run to the happy couple, wherever they were lurking while they made their final preparations. He wondered if they would still go through with it. If they didn't, of course, that would be a significant victory... though the sweetest outcome of all would be the outbreak of a fight. He -ached- for one of Tenjou's hotheaded young disciples, the children he was sure had heard of him but who had no real conception of what he truly was, to confront him, challenge him, try to drive him away. "Freyja, darling, why don't you go ahead and mingle with the others from Asgard," he said calmly to his date. "I'm going to stay here for a little while and just... take it all in." Freyja nodded, smiling, and moved off toward the corner of the crowd where most of her peers had gathered. Akio, gleefully conscious of the eyes following him, made his way to one of the tables and had just selected a glass of mineral water when he became aware of one set of eyes watching him a bit more intently than all the others. Akio Ohtori had had many strange experiences in his life, but he couldn't recall ever having been faced down by a small dog before - but here was one now, a hound of some description, tan and white, staring up at him with naked hostility in its brown eyes. The dog wasn't actually snarling, but it was emitting a low, sustained growl that packed surprising menace coming from so small an animal. He was just considering whether to give it a discouraging kick when it was joined by another, this one of similar build but leaner, sporting some black in its coloration, and wearing dark goggles. This one didn't even growl; it just -stared-, giving him the eerie impression that, inside its goggles, its eyes were faintly glowing. "They don't like you," explained a burly, bald-headed young man dressed in an IPO commando sweater, neatly pressed fatigue pants, and spit-shined tanker boots. Akio blinked slowly, regarded the two dogs, looked at the man who'd addressed him, and then said dryly, "I'm sorry." Xander Cage picked up a glass of water from the table, tossed it back in one gulp, and put it back down. Then he regarded Akio with a look almost as intense as the two dogs' and added, in what was probably as casual a tone as his deep, rock-cutting voice could manage, "I don't like you either." Akio didn't quite know what to make of that, and said nothing. "You better watch yourself," X went on. "Riddick has the death sentence in twelve systems." The tricolored dog's lip curled back from one gleaming white canine tooth, but he still didn't growl. "I'll be careful," Akio replied patronizingly. You'll be -dead,- X thought, but all he said aloud was, "Yeah. I bet you will." Then, turning his back dismissively, he said, "C'mon, boys. He ain't worth it." The two dogs continued staring Akio down for a few moments longer, then turned and trotted after X. Akio looked after them for a moment, deeply bemused. Then he turned to head the other way - and pulled up sharply as he nearly collided with an even weirder figure. He couldn't even tell just what this one -was-. It was just a tall shape, draped so heavily in richly patterned fabric that he couldn't even tell whether it was humanoid, with heavily armored - shoulders? - and a turretlike head sporting one softly glowing, mechanical-looking green "eye" on the front. Vorlon Ambassador Kosh Neranek gazed silently at the Fallen Prince for a few moments, then spoke. As always, his real voice was a collection of strange musical tones and muted sounds, incomprehensible to any human or human-like ear. Underneath those sounds, hushed Standard words issued from a glowing panel on his "chest". <> said Kosh. Akio blinked, then summoned his haughtiest look and replied, "I happen to be an invited guest." Kosh shook his head, just once, imparting to the gesture an utter finality. <> he said. He moved slowly closer, appearing to glide over the ground, and the baleful blank glow of his one green eye seemed to look right through Akio. <> Kosh declared. Then he moved closer still, until he was almost touching Akio. The iris of his eye widened to its fullest extent as he inclined his head to look the Fallen full in the face and intoned, <> Then, seeming to dismiss Akio entirely from his awareness, the Vorlon ambassador backed away slightly, pivoted, and glided away, vanishing into the crowd. Akio frowned. Perhaps this wasn't going -entirely- to plan... As he walked away from the table, X keyed his bionic tac-comm. "Target identification complete. Red, you in position?" "Roger that," Janice replied subvocally. From up on the top of one of the mock buildings at the meadow's edge, a few hundred yards from the snack tables, she adjusted the holoscope on her Justy one click, double-checked her triangulation from Mitra, and nodded with satisfaction to herself. "If that son of a bitch so much as twitches," she reported to the rest of her team, "I'm gonna blow him straight to Derna." Hmm, mused Chip Mui to himself as Lindsey hurriedly explained the situation. This is going to complicate my selection of sightlines, unless I want to spend most of next month holoshopping him out of frame. But hey, nobody said being the wedding photographer to the gods was going to be easy. If the Duelists and their friends were doing their best to maintain an even strain, Frey Lightwalker was -livid.- "I cannot -believe- you would do such a thing," he said to his sister in a furious whisper. The two stood off to the side while the rest of the Asgardian contingent tried, with varying degrees of success, to give the impression that they weren't paying any attention. Freyja looked faintly bored. "Whom I choose to invite as my guest is none of your concern, Frey," she said. "Lord Trigon is a diplomatic envoy from the Court of Flame -and- the new realm of Oriphos. You've supported detente with Muspelheim before. Why the sudden change of heart?" "'Lord Trigon' is a fraud and you know it," Frey hissed. "This is a deliberate provocation. It is an affront to the dignity of Vanaheim itself and it is -beneath- you." Freyja gave her twin a cold glare. "You weren't so concerned about affronts to the dignity of Vanaheim when you let the boy get away with mortally insulting me, my brother. This is the -least- he has earned." Frey managed to simultaneously sigh and seethe. "You bring shame upon all the Aesir and Vanir. The All-Father will not forgive you." Then, his voice nearly inaudible with fury, he added, "Nor will I," before turning on his heel and stalking away. In bath-house B, Anne Cross's full-speed arrival and breathless message changed the atmosphere instantly from one of happily reverent preparation to something more akin to a council of war. Utena's first instinct was to throw open the door, charge across the meadow, and just -throw down-, motherfucker, get it -over- with. Only the earnest entreaties of Bell, Kate, and her loyal bridesmaids - and the fact that, since R. Dorothy Wayneright was one of them, NO ONE was getting out that door if she didn't think it was a good idea - dissuaded her long enough for the first hot surge of temper to ebb. When it did, and a certain clarity of thought returned, then she was - barely! - in a mood to listen to Wakaba's analysis of the situation. "He has to know that, if he tries anything here and now, he'll be buying -way- more trouble than even he can pay off," Wakaba pointed out. "Besides all the Duelists and special agents and space pirates and warrior princesses and all the other badass friends you've managed to make over the years, this place is full of -gods- and -warriors of Valhalla-. He's not -stupid-." Utena considered that, then gave her old friend a surprised look. "You know, you're right. So... he came all this way just to -piss us off?-" Wakaba nodded. "Sure looks like it to me." "Huh." Utena thought that over some more, then smirked faintly. "When you put it that way, I feel... weirdly honored." Sobering, she added, "I wonder how Corwin's taking it." In bath-house G, it had to be admitted that Corwin wasn't taking it particularly well. "Son of a BITCH!" he snarled, smacking the nearest non-fixed object - a bottle of shampoo - off the railing next to the tub and sending it ricocheting into the corner of the room. Nearby, Wall-E collapsed into storage mode in surprise at the sudden outburst, then peeked warily out. "How did this happen?" Corwin demanded, rounding on Keiko Sonoda. "Hey, don't shoot the messenger, boss," Keiko replied. "-I- didn't invite him." Corwin glared at her a moment longer, then subsided, looking slightly ashamed of himself. "... I know," he said. "I'm sorry, Keiko. It's just... " Keiko nodded gravely. "Yeah, I know. 'Sokay." She hesitated, then went on, "It, uh... it looks like he came with one of the guests from Asgard." Corwin stared, incredulous. "What?! Who among the gods would do a thing like... " His voice trailed off as the answer to his unfinished question dawned on him. "-Freyja,-" he said, his face darkening. At that very moment, as if summoned by his sister's name, Frey burst through the side door into the bath-house. "Corwin!" he said. "I apologize for the intrusion, but I must speak - oh. It seems you know." Corwin gazed levelly at the Vanir prince for a few long moments, then said in a carefully restrained voice, "I'll give you this, Frey. You've got -balls- walking in here right now." By his side, almost unnoticed, Odin slowly, slowly slid a restraining hand onto his wrathful grandson's shoulder. "I swear to you," said Frey, "I had no idea of my sister's intentions. If I had, I would have done everything in my power to stop her." Corwin narrowed his eyes. "You've helped her make my life hell before." Frey shook his head. "Not this time. What she's done today, it's... it's -obscene.-" He clenched his fists and hung his head, clearly filled with shame. "Corwin, I've... It's true I've abetted Freyja's wrongs against you before. I'll confess these things even before the All-Father, right here and now. But this is too much." His formal facade cracking under the weight of his frustration, he looked up, met Corwin's eyes, and blurted, "I've had my -fill- of Freyja's crazy shit. This madness must end... " He looked down at the floor again. "... for now I truly fear that's what it is." Corwin kept glaring at him for a moment longer; then he slowly let the tension drain from his body, stepped from under Odin's hand, and sat down heavily on a bench. "Okay, Frey. Okay," he said. Pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes, he sat still for a long moment, then dropped his hands into his lap and gave a massive sigh. "Dammit." Wall-E finished retrieving the shampoo bottle and putting it back where it belonged, then rolled up alongside the bench, positioning himself solicitously nearby. A moment later Eve joined him, hovering into place next to Corwin. the sleek white droid coded. Corwin replied. Eve scowled. With a sharp CLACK, her right arm transformed from a slender, wing-like structure with a manipulator at the end into a full-length, large-bore cannon, complete with coaxial targeting laser. "Directive?" she asked, her voice harsh. "No, no, no," Corwin said hastily, putting a hand on top of the gun barrel and pushing it down. "Tempting though it is, no." He shook his head. Eve seemed unconvinced for a couple of seconds, then stood down, stowing the weapon. "Understood," she said reluctantly. Corwin looked up at Odin, who stood with arms folded, giving Frey a look that was not calculated to be particularly reassuring. "Grandfather," he said, "I know it goes against tradition... but I -have- to talk to Utena about this. There's no other way to handle this... " With a wry smile, he added, "... and at this point I just don't see how the whole good luck/bad luck thing is relevant." Odin scowled, but nodded. "Agreed," he said. "What happens next cannot be your decision alone, nor hers." Anthy Tenjou had been trying to stay out of the scrum all day. Both Utena and Corwin had offered her a prominent - indeed, a starring - role in the proceedings more than once, but she had politely declined every time, insisting that this was to be -their- day, not hers, and that she wished merely to observe from the sidelines like all their other friends. This attitude had taken both of them aback at first, and there had followed many long and probing question-and-answer sessions in which first Utena, then Corwin, and then both of them together had worked to make -absolutely certain- that Anthy wasn't slipping into her old habit of being fanatically, in some cases destructively, selfless. The whole thing had amused and touched Anthy at the same time that, if she were being quite honest, it annoyed her. After all this time, a person would think her beloveds still didn't trust her to know her own mind. She hadn't participated in the planning or the execution of any part of the ceremony or its attendant trappings; she wasn't wearing a fancy dress (which she would've been ill-suited to wear at this point in any case); she didn't have to follow any stage directions. She was just going to sit in a chair with friends all around her and watch as the two people she loved most took the final symbolic step to cement the bond that, in many ways, had saved her own life. Anthy wasn't entirely sure, even after all that had gone before, that she'd ever really been able to make either Corwin or Utena understand that point, exactly - that she believed without reservation that the love which had grown between the two of them during Utena's exile in Midgard was directly responsible for Anthy's continued existence, to say nothing of the near-perfect life she felt she was now blessed to live. On some level, some deep-rooted cultural programming still compelled both of them to feel surprised that she didn't find it threatening. She'd decided long ago that she would probably never -be- able to explain it in words, and determined that instead, she would simply demonstrate it with her actions. And so she was here, sitting among the Duelists who had come from Tomodachi and New Avalon - that "first generation", many of them Cephirean veterans of the Grand Tournament itself, who best understood the long and rocky road Anthy Himemiya, the Rose Bride, had walked on her way to becoming Anthy Tenjou, High Priestess of the Pillar of Cephiro. She would be part of the ceremony without -taking- part in it. And as she waited for it to begin, she felt perfectly, blissfully happy. Until Lindsey Willows ran breathlessly up to the group and informed them of Tsuwabuki's discovery. Once, Anthy might have felt fear at the knowledge that her tormentor of so many years, the revenant thing that wore her beloved dead brother's face, had come to this place. That was a long time ago. Today, she felt only... ... what was this feeling called? Oh, yes. -Rage.- Sitting next to her, Miki Kaoru saw the muscles at the corner of her jaw jump and gently covered her hand with his. "It'll be all right," he said calmly. "Don't you see? This is a hollow gesture. Toothless. Pathetic. He can't -act-, not under these conditions. He thinks that simply by -showing- himself, he can spoil the day." He shook his head with a sad smile. "You know, in a way, I pity him." "Mm," Juri Arisugawa agreed from her seat on the far side of Miki's. "And to think he held such terrible sway over all of us once. What's he reduced to now? Petty tricks and nonsense." "All he's accomplished with this stunt," Miki declared, "is to add fuel to a fire that will one day destroy him." Anthy sighed. "I suppose you're right," she said. Juri read her expression, reached across Miki's lap, and added her hand to his. "You want to confront him," she said. "Don't. You shouldn't even show him your face." Miki nodded. "I concur," he said. "He doesn't deserve to see you, much less speak to you." Tom Palmer walked up, caught the last bit, and catcher-crouched in front of Anthy, taking her free hand in both of his own. "If he tries to engage any of us in conversation," he said flatly, "we ignore him. Mitsuru suggested it and we all agreed it was the best way. To just pretend he isn't even here." With a slight smirk, he added, "For an attention whore like him, that should be worse than a punch in the face." Anthy couldn't help it; she smiled slightly, if a little wanly. "Language, Mr. Palmer," she mock-chided him. At the front of the seating section on Corwin's side, others were finding it difficult to muster any kind of smile at all. "Are you all right?" Gryphon asked the petite, dark-clad figure of his apprentice. "No," Raven replied in a voice like scraped glass. She could, Gryphon knew, be excused for feeling that way. After all, Akio Ohtori was her very own father, and not three months before, he'd tried to deceive her, seduce her, murder her, and steal her soul - and very nearly succeeded in all four things. "Let me rephrase the question," he said, taking her hand. "Will you -be- all right?" Raven turned her head and looked up at him, her violet eyes huge and dark, and when she replied, her quiet voice had a faint eldritch edge in it. "Every fiber of my body. Every instinct in my heart. Every -quantum- of my -soul- is -screaming- for his blood," she said. Gryphon nodded slowly. "I know," he said. "But will you be all right?" She looked down for a long moment, her hand tightening on his. Then she looked back, tears unshed, and said, "I will." And then, in an even quieter, nearly inaudible voice, "I have to be." Gryphon put an arm around her shoulders and drew her tightly to him. "Brave heart," he murmured, and somehow when -he- said that kind of thing to her, it didn't seem patronizing. While he did his best to comfort Raven, the voice of Derek Bacon suddenly touched Gryphon's mind. he replied wryly. Derek told him. <... Damn. Okay. Here's what I need you to do. Get Lu in the loop with you and make it happen, quick and quiet.> Corwin was standing by the bath-house door, leaning against the doorframe, lost in thought, when he heard the familiar sound of his Aunt Bell arriving through the full-length dressing mirror in the corner of the room. He turned - and just stared, all the stress and annoyance of the last few minutes wiped off his face in an instant by the sight that greeted his eyes. /* Jerry Goldsmith "Overture/Ilia's Theme" _Star Trek: The Motion Picture_ (1979) */ He had neither seen nor heard anything about the outfit Bell had prepared for Utena to wear today. He knew it wouldn't be a traditional wedding dress (which was fine, because in all honesty he had trouble even envisioning that), but no more. If he'd been asked to speculate, he wouldn't have come anywhere close to what he now saw. As it happened, though, it was a garment he knew, in passing. In centuries past, before the Valkyrior had adopted the military-style dress uniform with which he was closely familiar, they had, like all the other gods and goddesses of Asgard, worn elaborate formal garb for official court functions. Over the years, the use of that garb had faded away, the newer dress uniform supplanting it in all uses, and by the time Corwin came along, no Valkyrie had worn it in hundreds of years. He'd seen it only once, as a young boy, when his mother had worn hers to invest her son as a Valkyrie in his own right. The clothing Utena wore now was clearly derived from the ancient Valkyrie court robes. It had a snug, wasp-waisted, high-collared coat with long, tapering tails that reached nearly to the floor, and a cutout cloak that draped her shoulders, but then split into two more, knee- length tails, leaving her back uncovered. Black-traced gloves with gleaming gold shock caps - for these were clothes intended to be worn by the Valkyrie, after all! - covered her hands. For only the second time in his life, he saw that she was wearing a skirt, cut trim and snug like the jacket, reaching just below her knees, with a slit up the right side for mobility and sleek black tights underneath. Even more surprising, she was wearing shoes with heels, of modest height to be sure, but heels nonetheless. It had never occurred to Corwin that she would even know how to walk in heels. What set the outfit apart from the old Valkyrie court garb was primarily in its coloration. Where the Valkyrie of old had worn a twilight grey chased with midnight blue, Utena's version was colored a bit like the uniform she wore as Prince of Cephiro, an almost impossibly pure white. Deep scarlet piping traced the outlines of all four winglike tails and around the two polished gold buttons that affixed the cloak at her shoulders; the high collar, sleeve cuffs, skirt hem, and buttonless closure down the front of the jacket were edged in the darkest black. At her waist she wore a sword on a gold-chased belt of black leather, but it was not either of the usual ones he'd have expected to see her carrying. He'd never seen this one before, but even in its scabbard he could clearly tell that it was in the traditional Viking pattern, a single-handed blade with a leather-clad hilt and a pommel worked into a symbolic representation of his Uncle Thor's legendary hammer, Mjollnir. The handiwork of Dannen Ironbridge, almost certainly, and wrought no more than two days ago. Utena was faintly made up - just enough, from Belldandy's expert hand, to accentuate without overdoing - but the blush in her cheeks was mostly natural as she stood and just let Corwin look at her. It took him several seconds to realize that there was something odd about her face, too, and several more to realize what it was: She was marked, like him and all his Asgardian kin. She bore three carefully inked markings in dark blue, twin triangles to accentuate her high cheekbones and a more elaborate symbol on her forehead. The forehead mark was circular, like Corwin's, but where his had a simple central dot, hers was crossed by a neatly geometric line, sharply bent into the semblance of a bolt of lightning. It looked almost like the kind of symbol Corwin would have drawn on a blueprint to represent a live power source. Above that, nestled in her rose-colored hair, she wore an Aesir wedding-crown, a finely worked silver coronet, wrought by Alfheim's finest silversmith by the personal order of Frigg Fjorgynsmaer, wife of Odin, herself. To be fair, Utena wasn't -just- letting Corwin look at her; she was also looking at -him-, and there was plenty there to look at. After all, she'd never seen him wearing full-dress Aesir robes either. He hadn't -had- any until this occasion made them necessary, since in almost any situation that might call for them in Asgard, he was entitled to wear his Valkyrie dress uniform instead. For this, though, he'd kicked out all the stops. With Bell occupied - and rightly so - preparing the bride's raiments, Corwin had instead consulted with his Uncle Balder, a man well-known in Asgard for his sartorial elegance, and Balder's wife Nanna. Between then, the deities of the Sun and the Moon had devised a look for Corwin that was at once entirely unlike anything he'd worn before and entirely right for him. Unsurprisingly, it was mostly black - black trousers, black leather square-toed boots, black coat over a stark white undertunic. The trousers, boots, and tunic had a beautiful simplicity about them, perfectly fitted with an ever-so-slightly-relaxed cut; they reminded Utena a bit of the eveningwear-like Armani pajamas he liked. The coat, though, was the piece de resistance, a spectacularly detailed but elegant garment, spare yet sumptuous. Like the tails on Utena's jacket, it reached nearly to the ground, belling a little behind him as he moved; its sleeves were full and likewise slightly flared, almost like the sleeves of a monk's cassock. Over his shoulders it had an Inverness-style half-cape that came halfway down his chest and back, with four long, slender tails reaching from the corners down his sleeves. The coat's hemline and sleeves were chased in silver brocade with a subtle diamond pattern; further, larger diamond-shaped inlays rayed out from the neckline on the half-cape, pointing toward its silver-trimmed edges. The half-cape also bore the circuitry-like silver pattern of a Valkyrie dress uniform's overcoat, subtly woven into its substance. The inside of the coat's bell tail was lined with a rich midnight-blue satin, and he had a broad sash of the same material tied around his waist with an elaborate knot, leaving a long, neatly fringed tail to hang down on the right side to just short of his knee. Though the inner coat had no closure, the half-cape fastened at the throat, and it was there that Corwin wore his only ornament besides the magnificent coat itself, the earring representing the Midgard-seal on his divine power, and his Cephirean rose seal ring: the silver rose clasp Utena had given him for Christmas years ago. At his side he, too, wore an unfamiliar sword, this one a simple, classical crusader's sword with cruciform hilt and plain round pommel. Perhaps fifteen seconds had passed since Utena's arrival, in which time Bell showed the other members of the bridal contingent through the mirror and followed them over herself. Bath-house G was a bit crowded with the full complement of bath-house B added to it via the mirror in the corner, but this wasn't really the time to be worrying about that. For another five seconds or so after Bell let the mirror go dark, no one said a word. "Wow," Corwin and Utena said as one. "You look fantastic," Corwin went on. "So do you." "Let's get married." "Let's." Corwin angled his head vaguely toward the door. "What about what's-his-name?" "Pff," Utena replied. "He had his chance. The hell with him." "Okay." "Um," said Wakaba. Both of them turned questioning looks to her. "... Okay, look, I hate to play devil's advocate here, and it's real nice that you guys are both able to let it roll off you, but... there are a -lot- of people out there, and some of them are probably not going to be able to cope with this. You ought to consider whether it's fair to them to go ahead, keeping in mind that they're going to remember today for the rest of their lives." "So what are you suggesting?" Utena asked. "Call it off? Send everybody home? Back down with our tails between our legs? That's what he -wants-, Wakaba. These people are going to remember today -anyway.- I'd rather they remembered it as a win for our side than a loss." Corwin raked his hands through his hair with a pained look on his face. "-Dammit.- No, Wakaba's right. We can't put all those people through a wedding when half of them will be wound to the breaking point waiting for World War VII to break out in the Garden. I know it leaves a bad taste, but... I think maybe stepping back and regrouping is the only fair thing to do." He turned to Odin and said semi-formally, "Grandfather? Yours is the wisdom of Mimir, for which you gave your right eye. What say you?" But Odin shook his head. "The choice is not mine to make, grandson," he said. "Know this, though: -Should- you choose to wait, Freyja will -not- repeat this effrontery. I will see to that myself." "Couldn't we just make him leave?" Keiko wondered. "I mean, he's only outnumbered about a million to one." "He came at Freyja's invitation," Corwin said, shaking his head. "I expect he manipulated her somehow into extending it, but that's neither here nor there right now. We can't ask him to leave without insulting her. The last time I managed to insult her, we came within an ace of a full-blown throwdown, and -that- was in -private-. I can just imagine what she'd do in response to such a public affront. Damn, damn, damn." With one hand on his face, he peeked through his fingers at Utena with one eye and said with a rueful smile, "You were so right about Vegas." Utena smiled back, but before she could reply, the side door opened and two more people crowded into the room. One was Anthy, looking grim. The other was Gryphon, looking even grimmer. "We have another situation," Gryphon said. Utena slumped slightly. "God, what -now?-" "I didn't want to tell you about it at first," Gryphon went on, "because to say that you've got enough to worry about right now is the understatement of the year, but... you need to know. You would expect me to tell you, even now, and I respect you too much not to." He paused, looking around the room, then addressed Utena directly. "Earthforce has attacked Tau Ceti." Utena blinked. "... -What?-" "The Earthdome mouthpieces on ISN are claiming that the new government has failed to meet Neville Greeley's six-month deadline for the establishment of a secure republic on Tau Ceti, so they're taking it back. Excuse me. They're 'intervening to ensure the safety and liberty of the colonists.'" "Those sons of - the Cetiani had their elections in December!" Wakaba burst out. "-Weeks- before Greeley's cockamamie deadline." "I know. And now the Dome is claiming that President Kallon stole it. Ergo, the Republic of Tau Ceti is a false republic in the hands of an antidemocratic tyrant; ergo, the deal's off; ergo, send in the Marines." Utena stared at him. "Charlie didn't even -run!- He was elected by -huge- popular demand!" Gryphon nodded. "I know, I was there. He went to bed one night a private citizen and woke up the next day back in charge of the planet again." "There isn't a more democratically elected official anywhere in space," said Utena. "This is - " "Exactly what I was afraid would happen when we started," Gryphon finished sadly for her. "Greeley's a snake, and he answers to the king snake, Bill Clark. I had a feeling this was only a matter of time... but I didn't think the situation would develop this fast. Normally there are weeks of ultimatums and saber-rattling before any real -action- in a case like this. I guess Zoner's doing his job -too- well. Greeley, or Clark, must've figured the diplomatic hand- waving would never stand up on its own, not with the Babylon Foundation monitoring developments on Tau Ceti so closely, so they cut straight to military action. Easier to justify a fait accompli. Possession is nine-tenths, as they say." "That's the same stunt they tried to pull with Titan," Wakaba growled. "So now we come down to it," Gryphon said. "I'm trying to pull together as many Space Force assets as I can on such short notice and rally them in the neighborhood of Tau Ceti. The Wedge Defense Force and the Confederate Freespacers are doing the same. Daver, Terri Curtiss, and I are going to honor our commitments to the Republic, even if it means we finally end up in that shooting war with Earth we've been dancing around for the last few years. "What I'm getting at is, there are plenty of people on the case here already. You guys -don't- have to get involved. But you were there at the beginning of this mess, and I know how you feel about seeing things through, so... there's a place in the counterstrike force for you if you want it. Valiant's already here, a shipyard transport crew just brought her through from Zeta C. Problem is, the last report I had said that Earthforce Marines were already in Government House. If we move now, we can get involved before their fait accompli is complete - but if we delay, our job becomes a whole lot harder. So we can't wait for you. If you're going, it has to be now." He looked from one to the other and back. "It's up to you." Utena looked for a long moment at Corwin, while everyone else stood looking at them. "Well," she said in a slightly hushed voice, "I guess that's the decision made for us, then." Corwin nodded. "Looks like it." Turning to Gryphon, Utena said, "Give me one minute." Gryphon looked at his watch. "You can have five." She didn't need them all. It was with considerable surprise that the gathered guests - many of whom didn't really understand what was going on, just that there was a tense sort of wrongness in the air - saw Utena emerge from the small building off to the right of the stage alone, and with no corresponding emergence from the small building off to the left. Stranger still, she wasn't dressed for a wedding. Utena was a woman who wore tailored jackets and neckties as everyday wear - she was a sharp dresser and all her friends knew it - but right now she wore only an unfamiliar sword over the scarlet-seamed black trousers, bloused black boots, and bright red mock turtleneck undershirt of an International Police Space Force duty uniform. No one there had known what she planned to wear, but they knew Utena. Surely she'd at -least- be wearing the -dress- uniform, and all of it, at that. Right now she didn't even have a jacket. She mounted the stage alone, turned to face them all, and held up a hand to silence the current of curious murmuring that raced across the meadow. For the barest instant, she quailed slightly at the thought of addressing, and disappointing, all these people... but then the task at hand pushed all such concerns out of her mind. "Um... hi," Utena said. "I know this isn't exactly what you were expecting to see today, but... " She paused, seemed to gather her thoughts, and then plunged on in a more decisive tone. "Corwin and I wanted nothing more than to share this special day with you - take this solemn oath before all your eyes - just as we'd all planned. But years ago we swore -another- oath. We swore to protect the innocent, give aid to the helpless, and lend our strength to the powerless. We swore to conduct ourselves with honor, integrity, and justice, in all times, in all places, against all the many foes of freedom and peace. "And now, on a day when we had planned to do nothing more than share our joy with so many people we love and respect, we have to go instead and uphold that oath. The many foes of freedom and peace, it seems, are no respecters of special days." Utena's tone as she spoke the last sentence was light, wry, even a little self-deprecating; but the look in her azure eyes as she sought out and made fleeting eye contact with a particular member of the silently watching throng made it clear that she'd taken note, and would not forget. "I'm sorry to have called you all this way and then left you with nothing to show for it," she went on. "I hope you understand why Corwin and I feel we have to do this. I expect you will." With just a hint of humor, she added, "You're the sort of people we'd invite to our wedding, after all." She stood silently for a moment, scanning the crowd with her eyes, pointedly -not- looking for a second time at the man sitting, his face settling into an uncomprehending frown, next to Freyja Lightwalker. Then she inclined her head, said simply, "Thank you," turned, and left the stage, crossing the meadow and vanishing again into the little building whence she'd come. Before everyone could start talking at once, the Garden was filled with the hooting of an alarm, and the voice of David Corwin boomed from public-address speakers throughout Babylon 6: "This is an International Police Organization all-points notice. All IPO installations in the Centaurus sector are now on yellow alert. Space Force and Space Force Reserve personnel, report immediately to the administrative staging area on Blue 3." A significant chunk of the guests got up and made for the Blue Sector exits immediately. Ushers and Babylon 6 security personnel moved in on their heels to answer the questions and allay the concerns of those who remained, most of whom didn't quite know what was going on. Akio got up from his seat, looked around, and spotted a good- looking woman in a uniform different from those of the ushers and security officers. Moving toward her, he caught her eye and asked in his calmest, smoothest voice, "Excuse me. My name is Akio Ohtori; I'm the ambassador to Vanaheim from - " "Yes," the woman cut him off, her tone not -quite- objectionably curt. "I know who you are. Is there something I can help you with?" "Well... I'm just a little concerned. I'm an old school friend of Miss Tenjou's, and what she was just talking about sounded a bit... dangerous. Can you tell me what's going on?" Susan Ivanova shook her head. "I'm afraid not, Ambassador Ohtori. But don't worry. It's nothing to do with Babylon 6 itself. Normal starship traffic to this system should be restored within the hour. Do you need help adjusting your travel plans?" "No, thank you... but what could be so urgent that she'd abandon her own wedding for it?" "She explained that part better than I could," Ivanova told him. "She's an International Police officer and a starship captain. It's a matter of honor." With perfect cordiality, she added, "In your position, you probably wouldn't understand. Excuse me, Ambassador." And then, before he could remonstrate with her, press her further for information, or try to charm her, she was gone. Frustration welled up inside Akio. The kind of frustration that gave him strength. The kind of frustration that made him especially want to hurt someone. And speaking of which... "Nanami," he snapped into the encrypted microcomm concealed in his jacket collar. "Follow them. You know what to do." Gryphon and Raven formed the point of a flying wedge of Duelists, Space Force reservists, and other dangerous types as they all swept up the corridor leading to the IPO staging area. "Talk to me," he said, so preoccupied with what he was trying to pull together that he was holding his half of a Lens conversation out loud. "What've we got? ... What? That... No, that's not good enough! Dammit, I've -had- this conversation with - Oh -really-. No. No, you tell Kimball if he doesn't pull his thumb out in the next -45 seconds- I'll find someone who will." A few paces behind, Utena shrugged into her uniform jacket on the move and said to anyone who cared to answer, "What're we bringing to this party? Anyone have any idea?" "Kuratai stands ready," said Liza Shustal at once. "We fought for Tau Ceti once and we will do it again." "Garon," said Amanda Dessler into a hand communicator, "drop whatever you are doing and set course for the Tau Ceti system immediately. Yes, it's an Imperial command if it'll make your paperwork simpler." "My people won't be much use in a space battle," Mitsuru Tsuwabuki offered, "but you know we're willing to help on the ground if you can get us there." "AaAAAaaa kaba REEPOmen takada," Tuncer declared. "Count us in," Jay McCandless added. "And us," said the Master Chief. "I am with you, Captain Tenjou," Shan Bastila chimed in. "You know I'm in," Anne - no, Utena reminded herself, must use her new Jedi Master name now - Atin-Vae Springsteen said with a grin. "Spark, get down to the Train and crank her up," Chad Collier ordered. "-Chad?-" said a voice from the cluster of Duelists who'd come from Jeraddo. "Oh wow! Hi!" Chad whipped around to look so fast he nearly fell over, since he was still striding briskly down the corridor in pace with the rest of them. "Ezri?!" Grinning broadly, Ezri Tigan detached herself from the pack and gave him a hug, as best she could given his huge height advantage and the fact that they were both still trying to keep up with the rest. "You're in Starfleet now?" Chad asked, noting her uniform. Ezri nodded. "Third year at the Academy," she said. "What are you doing - " But for the fur, all the color would've drained from Chad's face. He looked furtively around the corridor and blurted, "OhgodHE'Snothereishe?!" Ezri looked puzzled. "What? Oh, no," she said, laughing. "I'm here with the Duelist crew from Jeraddo. I'm - well, it's kind of a long story. Anyway, no, Dr. Duke's not here. Though I heard the Mad Chef was around someplace - helping with the catering, I think." "Time's UP," Gryphon said suddenly, causing a few people near the front of the pack to jump until they realized he wasn't talking to anyone who was actually there. "Is Kimball still -faffing around?- Then he's -sacked.- " Scowling, he turned and said, "Well, that was special. Utena, I've just fired my -fifth straight- IPSF fleet commander and I need someone to take point on this joint task force. You in?" Utena grinned. "Do you even have to ask?" "Man's idea of a quick force response is measured in -hours,-" Gryphon grumbled. "What, does he think starships have to wait in port until they have -steam up- on all their -boilers?-" Utena shook her head and flipped open her communicator. "FLEETCOM, this is Commodore Tenjou," she said. "Looks like I'm in charge again, for the moment. What've you got for me?" Alongside her, despite all the stress of the day, Corwin - much less debonair now, in jeans, jump boots, and a dark blue wool shirt - smiled privately at the sight of Anthy deftly swapping out the rank insignia on Utena's jacket, despite the fact that Utena was wearing it, walking, and talking to FLEETCOM at the time. Seconds later, they emerged from the long access corridor into the IPO staging area, a large, auditorium-like briefing room in the Blue 3 office complex. The holodisplays at the front of the room were already displaying maps representing Fleet Intelligence's best estimates of the situation in the Tau Ceti system, as well as lists of probable assets available for the counterstrike. As she reached the front of the room, Utena put her communicator away and switched on the comm panel on the lectern instead. "Am I on?" she asked. "Go ahead, Commodore," came back the voice of Challenger comm operator Hoshi Sato. "Okay. The code name for this operation is... " She glanced down at the lectern display. "Trident. The strike force will have three core elements. Group Red will assemble here at Babylon 6 and transit via metaspace to the Initial Point at the trailing edge of the Tau Ceti heliopause, here. Blue Group and Grey Group will rendezvous with Red at that point. The flag for this operation will be IPS Valiant. Once we're all together, but in any case no later than 0200 Avalon time tomorrow, we're all going in. "The space strike force's main goal will -not- be to defeat all the Earthforce assets in the Tau Ceti system. The objective is to get past them long enough to insert a surface force into the capital, Tau City, on Tau Ceti IV, and then keep them busy so they can't launch any orbital strikes on that surface force." She tabbed a control, swapping the center screen's map of the Tau Ceti system for a diagram of the streets of Tau City. "Once on the ground, the surface element's primary objective is to recapture Government House, here, from Earthforce, determine the status of President Charles Kallon, and hopefully restore him to office. Secondary objectives will be to secure the headquarters of the Tau City Constabulary, here, and the Republic of Tau Ceti Defense Force, here. Hopefully we'll be able to help the cops and the TCDF get back on their feet and in the fight; intel on the ground situation is all but nonexistent right now, but it's likely that by the time we get there they'll be pretty well pinned down or in the bag. Questions?" Jay McCandless put up a hand. "You're kidding me with the hand up, aren't you, Jay?" Utena asked, cracking her first smile since being swept into command of the crisis. "Sorry," said McCandless, returning the grin for an instant before becoming all business once more. "Force of habit. What's our approximate strength, space and ground assets? Do we know yet?" "It's a little sketchy, since we're pulling the thing together in such a hurry. Right now it looks like Group Red will be Valiant, Challenger, HoSghaj, the private starships Kuratai and Gravy Train, the Gamilon Crown Starship Lorica, and HMS Illustrious of the Imperial Salusian Guards. Blue Group will be an ad-hoc task force from the Wedge Defense Force Strategic Fleet - I don't have a list yet - and Grey Group will be whatever IPSF assets are within sprinting distance of the IP. Again, not sure who that'll be yet." "What about the Freespacers?" asked Boba Fett. "They're mostly to hell and gone on the far side of Enigma right now," Utena said. "Aya Nakajima'll probably make it to the IP in time to be in on the strike, assuming she doesn't blow a warp stack cap trying." That got a laugh out of those in the room who knew Aya. "As for ground forces, a lot of that depends on who makes it to the rendezvous from Grey and Blue Groups. Some of the IPSF ships may have Tac Div action teams aboard, and most WDF StratFleet ships carry a couple dozen marines. Apart from that, and the ODSTs in Illustrious, it's pretty much what you see in this room." Pete Stacker stood up, looked slowly around, and considered. "So... a bunch of Duelists, a Tac Div SMF, a White Legion Special Assault Squad, two Jedi Knights, a Gamilon princess, a handful of Romulan Gamilon Guards... uh, the suspicious-looking group of women in identical black armor... three AEGIS ops, three superheroes from New Avalon, a couple of Experts of Justice, a SPARTAN, and whateverthehell crazy shit Cage and Barlow are." Stacker looked up at the back of the room as a late-arriving group filed in, took his best guess based on what their uniforms looked like, and added without missing a beat, "And a Roman legion." Then, shaking his head with a smile, he sat back down and said, "Damn, I feel bad for these Earthforce pukes." Up in the back corner of the room, one of the wedding guests approached Gryphon and said in a quiet voice, "I understand that you can't have one of our warships involved in this operation. Since we're not part of the Tau Ceti defense pact, it wouldn't be politically expedient. But if I just happened to just... -accidentally- wander aboard the Valiant, do you think you could find a place for me?" Gryphon smiled guardedly, hands folded behind his back, and did not quite look directly at Corwin's old playmate Achika Shannon - Princess Achika of Jurai - as he replied, "Commodore Tenjou is in command of this operation, Your Highness. Any action that might result from your turning up in the combat zone would be up to her. Given the broad authority that task force commanders have in open crisis situations, you would probably find yourself conscripted for the duration." Achika didn't smile directly at him either as she said to no one in particular, "Excellent." Then, briefly touching his arm, she turned and walked away to join the others. "As for the expected opposition," Utena went on, "we're still putting that together too." Consulting the lectern display again, she added, "Our friends in the Royal Salusian Navy have one of their U-ships in the system, HMS Unfathomable - nice name - and they're in the process of gathering intel on the Earthforce strike group now. They'll have a report for us when we reach the IP. Anything else?" No one had anything else. "Okay," said Utena. "Now we just have to figure out how to get everybody here onto the ships we have available. Corwin, I think you should bring Daggerdisc; we may need her to put part of the surface element down if they're jamming transporters, and you never know when we might have to knock a really large hole in something." "Roger that," Corwin replied, grinning. "It's too bad Daggerdisc doesn't have a big enough spacefold wake to move Red Group," said Nall a tad wistfully. "They'd know we were out there for sure if we did that, anyway," said Corwin. "Reflex spacefold isn't exactly a subtle way to travel." "We have space for a dozen or so," Liza spoke up. "Lorica has room for perhaps fifty," Amanda added. "She carries a much smaller crew now than she was originally built for." Utena nodded. "Okay. Repo Men, SAS-779, you're with us on the Valiant. Everyone else can go in Challenger, Lorica, and Illustrious. Move out, people! We're burning daylight." As the room started emptying, Utena watched them go and felt a deep satisfaction. Okay, it wasn't the complicated operation she'd -expected- to spend the day carrying out, but on the other hand, she was, however unexpectedly, in -charge- of this one. It felt good. Getting back in the saddle always did. Climbing the stairs to the back of the room, she was met by one of the people Stacker had spotted entering at the end of his rundown. Utena had no idea who they were - their uniforms were entirely unfamiliar - and she'd half-assumed they were some IPO special unit she hadn't heard of before. They really -did- look like some kind of modern-day Roman soldiers. The person approaching her now wore segmented armor of golden metal over a padded scarlet bodysuit similar to that worn underneath a Tac Div Frame, a high-tech Roman-style helmet with a scarlet brush on top, and carried on her back a large, curved shield by a heavy leather strap. As she approached, she took off her helmet, tucked it into the crook of her left arm, and came to attention, saluting with her right arm straight out in front of her, palm down. "Hail, Commodore," she said. "I am Praefecta Flavia Satori of the LXVI Legion. My lord Legatus Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa bids me place myself and my detachment at your service in the coming battle." Utena blinked. "... You -are- a Roman legion? Wait a minute, you're -Salusian.-" Flavia smiled. "We are Einherjar," she said. "Though we have not permanently exercised our Right of Return, we all hold it, and the All-Father sent us to serve your aunt Verthandi as ushers and guards for your wedding." Looking genuinely contrite, she added, "I regret that I cannot place the entire 66th at your disposal. I have with me only Century II of the Tenth Cohort - the Legion's scout century - but you will find us equal to any challenge. Even without our repulsor steeds, we are a swift and agile force, adept at fighting on the move. We will suit your own style of battle well." Utena blinked a couple of times, processing this new information, then nodded. "I'll take all the help I can get," she said, shaking Flavia's hand. "A hundred of you, huh? Tenjou to Challenger." "Go ahead, Commodore," replied the voice of Lore Soong. "Can you make temporary room for a hundred people?" "Hmm. Tricky. We just finished making space for the rest of the Valkyrie and their gear... " "We require little space," Flavia said. "We have only the equipment we carry, and we're accustomed to hard marches. Any room large enough for us to stand up in will do." "Lore, did you get that?" "Yep. Simplifies things. I can put 'em on the main hangar deck if they don't mind the slight risk of depressurization," he added, apparently serious. "The old Klingon Marine trick." "We've had worse," Flavia said. "Okay, we'll get ready," Lore said. "We move the shuttles around a little, they'll even have room to sit down." "You spoil us with luxury," Flavia told him, and though she was smiling, she didn't seem to be indulging in sarcasm. Then, saluting Utena again, she said, "We'll go prepare. I look forward to fighting alongside you, Commodore." Utena was still mulling that development over - strange woman, even for an Einherjar soldier - when Corwin matched step with her in the hallway outside. "Well," she said wryly with a glance at her watch, "This isn't what I figured I'd be doing by this point in the day... " Corwin chuckled. "No kidding," he said. "Listen, I just thought - with Kozue gone, if I'm flying Daggerdisc, who's going to drive the bus for you?" Before Utena could reply that she hadn't thought of that, a shortish, slender, grey-jumpsuited man with a black buzzcut and a look of faint amusement stepped out of a corridor junction ahead of them and said, "That's a cue if I ever heard one. I think I can help you out with that, kid." Corwin halted, a look of astonishment on his face. Utena stopped too, her train of thought derailed. Why did this man look so -familiar?- She could -swear- she knew him from somewhere, and yet she was just as certain that they'd never met. "-Gus?!-" Corwin blurted. Then, shaking the man's hand and slapping his back at the same time, he asked happily, "Jesus, who let you out of your cage?" "Are you kidding? Miss your wedding?" the man replied. "I heard an Einy group was going to come work security and I thought, 'That's the place for me to be this weekend.'" Then, grinning, he said, "Are you planning to introduce me?" "Oh! Sorry. Yeah. Utena, I want you to meet an old friend of mine from Valhalla." Then, drawing himself up and putting on his most formal tone (with a slightly ironic smirk), he said, "Commodore Utena Tenjou, International Police Space Force: Lieutenant Colonel Virgil I. Grissom, United States Air Force." "!" said Utena as the pieces fell into place. "Call me Gus," said Grissom, shaking her hand with a grin. "I... wow. This is really an honor," Utena said. "I've seen you in simulations, I should've known you'd be in Valhalla." "The honor's mine," Grissom said. "I've heard a lot about you. You guys are in a hurry, right? Fill me in as we go. From what Corwin was just saying, it sounded like you need a pilot." It took Utena two doors' worth of hallway to give him the short version; thus informed, Grissom excused himself to make a fast trip to the quartermaster's on his way to his new duty station. Different groups of erstwhile wedding guests peeled away from the mass as it advanced, heading off down side hallways to different transporter rooms or to collect some last-minute equipment, until finally, only Utena, Kate, Corwin, Nall, Anthy, and Corwin's two new robot friends remained. "Guess I better get headed down to the hangar deck," Corwin observed as they approached the door to Transporter Room 1. "See you guys at the IP." The transporter room door opened. "A moment, Grandson," said the person who emerged. Corwin's eyebrows went up in surprise. Since she had been thwarted by exigency in her aim of conducting his wedding ceremony, he had expected his grandmother would have left the station by now, returning to Asgard with the other Aesir, but no. It was very rare for anyone outside Gladsheim, the great hall of government at the center of the City of Asgard, to even -see- the queen of the Aesir these days. Since the thwarted Ragnarok, she had held herself largely aloof from the politics and daily dealings of the gods, immersing herself in the greater mysteries of the universe and seeking the true meaning of the Ragnarok's failure. She was reputed to be a seeress of great power and skill, and even in Asgard, such a reputation will tend to set a woman apart. Frigg was a tall and regal woman even by the standards of her tall and regal people, and she did not look even a fraction of her immense age. The only outward signs she bore of her long years were the steel-grey color of her tightly plaited hair and some fine lines at the corners of eyes and mouth. She held herself very upright and wore her voluminous robes with an easy grace. Though adorned with a great weight in gold and jewelry, she yet wore a plain white kerchief upon her head, after a fashion long since abandoned by younger wives even in Asgard. Corwin could still remember the first time Nall had ever seen her, years before, when they were both children visiting his grandfather's palace in Asgard. Frigg had appeared to them briefly, passing from one place to another on some inscrutable private errand; she had greeted them warmly enough, bade them go in peace, and vanished into another part of the palace. "-That's- your grandmother?" Nall had inquired. "Well... yeah, what of it?" "Uh... nothing. I guess I just expected someone a little more... matronly. You know. Based on the lore." "Well, based on the -lore,- Aunt Urd is a withered crone." "... Point." For his part, Corwin had never found her all that intimidating. She was a bit -odd,- to be sure, but there were plenty of odd people in Asgard, and besides, she was his grandmother. He couldn't be sure, but there were times when he suspected that she had a particular fondness for him - moments when she showed him special favor, flashes of warmth and kindness that, while always cordial, she did not commonly show others. Now she gave him a private smile as she stepped into the corridor before the small group and regarded them. "This day was ill-starred," she said, "but before some things even the gods stand powerless. It cannot be helped." "I'm sorry to have brought you all this way for nothing, Grandmother," Corwin said. "When this situation is resolved... " Frigg nodded. "As I said, it cannot be helped. And when this crisis is over, perhaps we -will- be able to try again, all of us... " Here she gave a wry little smile before continuing, "... in the time before the -next- crisis arises. In the meantime, though, there is a matter that is of great concern to me." "What is it, Grandmother?" "The two of you are going off to war. There is a chance, however small, that either or both of you may not return. Though we haven't time to do the thing properly, I would not see you go with swords unexchanged." Corwin, understanding the reasons for his grandmother's request at once, bowed his head. "As you wish," he said. Utena considered protesting that they didn't have time for that either, but even she hesitated to say "no" to a heartfelt request by the All-Mother. Instead, she echoed Corwin's gesture. Frigg gave them another slight smile. "Fear not," she said - and, with a small gesture, she caused Utena's wedding-crown to reappear upon her head. "An old woman's fancy shan't delay you long." /* Mason Daring Instrumental score, episode 5 ("Spider") _From the Earth to the Moon_ (1998) Episode elapsed time ca. 51:12 - 53:56 */ Reddening slightly, Utena unbuckled the swordbelt she wore, gathered it about the scabbard of her new sword, turned, and offered the whole assemblage to Corwin while Kaitlyn and Nall looked on in something very like awe and Anthy observed with a calmly beaming smile. Behind them, Wall-E turned in some puzzlement to his companion and asked quietly, "Eeva?" "Shh," Eve replied in a low voice, without taking her rapt attention from the scene unfolding before them. "-Important.-" Utena had prepared a little speech for this bit of the actual ceremony, of course. Even under these strange circumstances, her extra work with Vigdis the day before told through; the words sprang to her mind at once. "This sword is Ragnhildr, from the forge of Dannen Ironbridge," she said. "My hands helped shape her. My eye has made her true. My blood has made her strong. So long as my neck does not bend to tyranny, nor shall she. So long as my love for you does not dull, nor shall she. So long as my heart does not break... nor shall she. Before these witnesses, I present her now to you... " She hesitated for the barest instant, not -reluctant- to say the next words, but still faintly incredulous that she -was- saying them: "... My husband." Smiling, Corwin accepted the blade, buckled it on, and removed his own. Next to the gleaming newness of Ragnhildr's haft and scabbard, the sword Corwin presented in turn looked a trifle shabby, with its plain black leather grip, simple cross-hilt and round pommel, its scabbard worn with many years of hard use. "This sword," he said, "is one of three made by Ivaldi the Ancient, most legendary smith in all the Heavens, for the three sons of Borr: Odin, Vili, and Ve. This one belonged to Vili the Strong until his death aeons ago in the Great Battle of Vallgatr. Since then she has passed through many hands and been known by many names. Having sought her throughout the Nine Worlds, I have reclaimed her for the house of Odin. Before these witnesses, I entrust her now to you... my wife." Utena took the ancient blade, regarded it for a moment with a look of wonder, then belted it on and took both of Corwin's hands in hers. "Aaaahhh," murmured Wall-E in an I-get-it-now tone, reaching up to interlock his fingers with Eve's. "Before these witnesses, my blessing upon you both," Frigg said softly. "Go now. I have delayed you long enough." Smiling slightly once more, she added, "We can conclude the formalities another time." For a few long seconds, Corwin and Utena gazed at each other while Kaitlyn wiped away tears with a handkerchief offered by a smiling Anthy. Then Corwin cracked a grin, breaking the silent spell that had held them both. "You're not changing your name, right? 'Cause I gotta say," he said, brushing a hand through her long pink hair, "that'd be a bit silly, considering." Utena laughed, drawing him into a readily-returned crushing hug, then gave him a fierce-but-brief kiss before tearing herself regretfully away. "Maybe you should change yours," she quipped, then called back over her shoulder as she entered the transporter room, "See you at the IP, Corwin." Kate paused to give her brother a hug of her own, congratulated him, and went through the doors as well. Anthy's hug was not as crushing as Utena's, nor her kiss as fierce, but the merriment and pride in her eyes said all she needed to say. "Great job," Nall said, his usual smartassery wiped away by the moment. "I'm gonna run down and warm up the 'Disc." After they were all gone and only he and the two robots remained, Corwin turned to Frigg, bowed, and said, "Thank you, Grandmother." "Thank you, Grandson, for humoring me," Frigg replied. "Even though time is so short, I almost feel like we should've said more," Corwin confessed, rubbing at the back of his neck. Frigg merely chuckled indulgently. "You said everything that needed saying years ago, Grandson, in a place called the Monolith." At his look of surprise, she laughed and added, "Oh yes, I heard you. You spoke with such passion, such truth, how could I not? I never -have- explained to your grandfather why he came home to find me weeping that day." Corwin blinked, then did the only thing he could think of under the circumstances: bowed and thanked her again. "Go," Frigg replied, touching his shoulder. "Uphold your oath, young Cavalier." Grinning, Corwin saluted, turned, and ran toward the side corridor to the hangar bay service lift, gesturing for Wall-E and Eve to follow him. They were about halfway down in the service lift when Corwin's handlink trilled for his attention. "Yeah, Nall." "Uh... I think we have a little problem here." Corwin's smile slipped away, replaced by a look of mingled resignation and annoyance. "Ymir's bones, -now- what?" "You'll, uh... you'll see in a minute. Just get -down- here." Before Corwin could ask for more illumination, Nall clicked off. The young god finished the elevator ride with a sense of deep impatience, then darted down the corridor and around the corner into the hangar bay. "Okay, Nall, what's so - " Corwin skidded to a halt so suddenly that Eve and Wall-E almost collided with him from behind. Eve zigged, Wall-E zagged, and they ended up flanking him instead, all three standing in a line abreast and gazing with dismay at the scene before them. Nall was sprawled on his back, hands raised by his head in surrender as the point of a long, cruelly curved sword just touched the skin of his throat. Reading the situation in a nanosecond, Eve went immediately to combat mode, eyes narrowed, her cannon arm up and ready. The red dot of her laser sight flicked on, resting unwaveringly... ... in the precise center of the space between the two sharply angled Muspel-brands on Nanami Kiryuu's forehead. "Hello, Corwin," said Nanami with a smile. /* Joe Satriani "The Meaning of Love" _Super Colossal_ (2006) */ Eyrie Productions, Unlimited presented UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES FUTURE IMPERFECT - Symphony of the Sword No. 5 - Second Movement: Clarion Call The Cast (in order of appearance) Skuld Ravenhair Benjamin D. Hutchins Derek Bacon EVE-35-001 WALL-E No. 366117891 Michael Cassidy Corwin Ravenhair David Corwin Utena Tenjou Kozue Kaoru Kara Thrace T'Kir Luornu Durgo Vigdis Brightblade Victor Perkins Gunter Wendt 1.2 Verthandi Wishbringer Chad Collier Tyr Grimjaws Janice Barlow Xander Cage 343 Guilty Spark Aeryn Stonefist Kaitlyn Hutchins Wakaba Shinohara R. Dorothy Wayneright Nall Silverclaw Thor Ironhammer Lenneth Winternight Gudrun Truemace Odin Winterbeard Mitsuru Tsuwabuki Boba Fett Anaximandra Drax Sumire Shinguuji John Spartan Cortana Kardon Felz Keiko Sonoda Anne Cross Lindsey Willows Susan Ivanova Michael Garibaldi Akio Ohtori Freyja Lightwalker Wolfgang Richard B. Riddick Kosh Neranek Charles Mui Frey Lightwalker Anthy Tenjou Miki Kaoru Juri Arisugawa Tom Palmer Raven Elisabeth R'tas Shustal Amanda Elektra Dessler Tuncer John Jay McCandless Shan Bastila Atin-Vae Springsteen Ezri Tigan Hoshi Sato Pete Stacker Achika Shannon Flavia Satori R. Lore Soong Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom Frigg Fjorgynsmaer Nanami Kiryuu Written by Benjamin D. Hutchins with Janice Collier and the aid of Chad Collier Geoff Depew Philip J. Moyer Rob Shannon and all the EPU Usual Suspects The Symphony will return in "A Song of War" E P U (colour) 2008