I have a message from another time...

                     Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
                               presents

                UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES FUTURE IMPERFECT
                      - SYMPHONY OF THE SWORD -

                     Sixth Movement: Hunted Rose

                         Benjamin D. Hutchins
                           Kris Overstreet
                          with Janice Barlow

                (c) 2001 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited


                         SUNDAY, MAY 1, 2405
                   WORCESTER PREPARATORY INSTITUTE
                   WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS, EARTH

        Utena Tenjou beamed into the Wedge at noonish, still feeling
fresh-scrubbed after the quick sonic shower she'd taken aboard the
One-Hit Wonder.  She waved gaily to the startled inhabitants of the
common area, two freshmen trying to study for their Introductory
Physics final, and trotted off toward the Morgan Hall stairs.  Real
time-savers, those transporters; without having to land and drive her
back to school from the local spaceport, Corwin would make it home in
time for dinner.
        She let herself into Morgan 412 and was almost ready to burst
out with a cheery "good morning!" for her roommate when she realized
Kaitlyn was still asleep - and, moreover, that she was not alone.
        Despite the many incredible things she'd seen in her life,
Utena would never have believed it if anyone had ever told her that
she would someday see Juri Arisugawa sleeping in a chair.  The sight
was so unexpected that Utena had to pause in removing her jacket and
just walk slowly around the uglier of the room's two armchairs, taking
it in.  Yep, that was Juri all right, arms folded, head sunk upon
them.  She was, Utena reflected, going to have a wicked crick in her
neck when she woke up.
        Curious.  Odder still, Juri was still wearing her Ohtori
Academy Student Council dress uniform, which she'd worn to the
previous night's Spring Formal.  Apparently, she hadn't made it home
last night, despite the fact that "home" was across the hall - Morgan
413.  Utena turned and looked at the upper of the two bunk beds.
Kaitlyn was, as usual, more or less hidden in her bedclothes, but one
outflung arm revealed that she was wearing her usual tiger-striped
pajamas.  Closer examination of the visible quarter or so of the
girl's face revealed that she was looking a bit tear-streaked.
        Utena now felt distinctly uneasy in addition to surprised and
puzzled.  As she went to her wardrobe to hang up her jacket, she
wondered how long it would be before the suspense would be broken.
        As it happened, it wasn't long at all; at the sound of the
wardrobe's door opening, Juri stirred, then looked up and saw her
standing there, jacket in hand, ready to put it on a hanger.
        "Good morning," said Utena quietly.
        "Good morning, Tenjou," Juri replied, disgustingly
self-possessed for somebody who just woke up in a chair.
        Utena looked around with affected furtiveness and asked,
"Listen... is there something going on I should make myself scarce
for?"
        Juri's mouth quirked in a small smile.  "Utena Tenjou,
offering to butt out of something?" she inquired.
        Utena felt her cheeks heat up a little.  "Yeah, well," she
said, feeling a bit awkward.  "It's not every day I come home to find
you crashed in my armchair.  And Kate looks like she's been crying.
Naturally I'm concerned."
        Juri nodded.  "You've a right to be," she allowed.  "I was
just making a little joke."
        "Juri Arisugawa, making a joke?" Utena said, mimicking the
redhead's inflection.  To her surprise, Juri smiled again, a little
broader this time.
        "I suppose," said the redhead dryly, "I earned that."
Becoming more serious, she added, "Kaitlyn and I had an... interesting
encounter on the way home from Coffee Kingdom last night."
        "Oh, so that's where you disappeared to," said Utena.
        "Mm.  We had... things to discuss.  But that's not really at
issue."
        Nodding to indicate she was still listening, Utena went back
to hanging up her jacket.  It was new, a gift from Kate's father, and
she wanted to make sure it didn't get wrinkled, as she thought it was
quite sharp-looking - part of a dress uniform for the International
Police Organization's Space Force, a new galactic defense corps the
elder Hutchins was in the process of putting together.  The uniform
was his answer to her complaint that, on the eve of the Formal, she
had nothing to wear.
        "We were coming across the parking lot," said Juri, "when we
happened upon Elizabeth Broadbank."
        "Mm-hmm," said Utena.  "And what was old Liza up to in the
parking lot?" she asked, her tone creeping toward snide.
        "It appeared," Juri replied levelly, "that she was about to be
raped by her date."
        Utena fumbled with the hanger and dropped her jacket into a
heap on the wardrobe floor.  Appalled, she whirled to face Juri, her
face pale.
        "Oh my God," she whispered.  "Kate - "
        "Let's go across the hall," said Juri, "and talk there, so we
don't disturb her."
        Utena agreed, and once they were across the hall, Juri sat
down in her desk chair while Utena perched on the edge of the
redhead's bed to listen to her.
        "Kaitlyn... I've never seen her that way before," Juri said,
and she sounded actually -shaken-, if she only showed it faintly.
"She separated them.  Violently.  She drew her sword and put it to the
young man's throat, and told him to get out of her sight - which he
did, as if the hounds of Hell were snapping at his heels," Juri added.
        "I suppose Liza was her usual gracious self."
        "Liza," said Juri flatly, "was drunk, and utterly ungrateful,
but Kate... Kate was too angry to notice.  As I said, I've never seen
her that way before.  All the way back here... the -rage- on her
face... I never would have thought her capable of it."
        "You didn't see her take down Saionji when he first got here,"
said Utena.  "And he was only trying to kill me."  She looked down at
the ugly brown carpet.  "... My God.  Poor Kate... "  She glanced up
at Juri.  "Did she tell you anything?"
        "We talked through the night.  I understand I'm only one of
three, aside from her immediate family, who know what happened to her."
        Utena nodded.  "If you count Zoner and Marty Rose as immediate
family, which in that group... "
        "Exactly," said Juri.  "At any rate, I... "  Juri looked
awkward, another rarity in Utena's experience.  "I did what I could.
I'm... not very good at comforting people... but eventually she got to
sleep, sometime around dawn."  She shook her head and sighed tiredly.
"Not a good omen... "
        "I'll say... "  Utena looked lost in thought for a moment,
then seemed to come back to the conversation from a new angle, looking
surprised.  "Since when did you believe in omens?"
        "I don't," Juri replied.  "It's only a figure of speech."
        Utena gave the redhead a curious look.  "Juri... is there
something I ought to know?"
        "I'm... not sure," said Juri thoughtfully.  Now she looked
-nervous-, as if she were determined to show -all- the moods Utena
thought rarest for her, as she went on, "I think... Kaitlyn and I...
we may have the beginnings of a... relationship."
        Utena looked across the room at her old schoolmate, a very
peculiar look on her face.  It was the look Utena Tenjou's face took
on when she was trying very hard not to laugh.  Laughing out loud
would be bad; Juri wouldn't take it in the spirit it was intended.
For someone who projected such an air of cool unflappability, the
redhead was really very easy to offend.  It wasn't easy to hold it
back.  The look of immense gravity on Juri's face as she spoke, as if
she thought -she- might be giving offense, was just too funny, all
things considered.
        After a few tense seconds, the spasm passed and Utena felt
safe in relaxing her face and letting it smile, at least.
        "Juri, that's great," she said.  "I hope it works out."
        Juri gave her a small, relieved smile.  "I was a bit worried,"
she admitted, "that you might object."
        Utena cocked an eyebrow.  "Object?  Me?  No way!  I think it's
terrific.  If you've actually got to where you think you can move
on... and, well, Kate deserves to have something go right... "  She
shrugged.  "I just think it's... great."  She shrugged, feeling a
little foolish.  "Just... be careful, is all I ask."
        A number of responses came to Juri's mind, but most of them
ran afoul of her truce with Azalynn in one way or another, so she
simply smiled.  Despite everything, as Kaitlyn's roommate and best
friend, Utena's opinion -was- important to Juri in this matter.
        Juri might have been about to comment further, but the rattle
of a key in the lock on the door forestalled her.
        R. Dorothy Wayneright, Juri's roommate, entered, closed the
door behind her, then noticed that Juri had company.
        "Oh," she said.  "Good morning, Utena."
        Utena raised an eyebrow.  "Just getting home, Dorothy?"
        Dorothy nodded and went to her wardrobe.  She was still
wearing the scarlet and black dress she'd worn to the Spring Formal
the night before; it was a bit wrinkled, but didn't look as if it had
been slept in.  You don't suppose - no, that's ridiculous, thought
Utena.  She probably just didn't sleep.  It's not like she needs to.
        "Have I missed anything?" Dorothy asked nonchalantly as she
got her bathrobe and some weekend clothes from her wardrobe and
drawers.
        Juri suppressed a laugh; Utena didn't bother, which drew a
mildly quizzical look from the robot girl.  Utena waved it off, and
Dorothy, shrugging slightly, went off to shower.  Utena had been
surprised to learn that she did that daily; it had seemed to her that,
only having to worry about environmental dirt, Dorothy could get away
with putting it off, but she never did.  She was down in the showers
every morning, just like everybody else.
        With the most urgent part of their conversation finished,
Utena went back to her room to finish changing out of her IPO Space
Force uniform while Juri got her -own- morning shower underway.  Then,
more comfortable in Martian Army-surplus red battle-dress trousers and
an Art of Noise t-shirt, she slouched in her ugly armchair and played
a three-way game of toss with the two little robots who shared Morgan
412 with her and Kaitlyn.  She knew she should have been studying -
finals started tomorrow - but somehow, after last night, she just
couldn't get into an academic groove just yet.  Maybe after lunch.
She wondered if Kate would wake up before Utena got hungry enough to
eat without her.
        That question was answered a few moments later, when Kate
turned over, sat up, and yawned, stretching and thumping her upraised
left fist gently against the ceiling.
        "Morning," said Utena.
        "M-m-morning," Kate replied, blinking her slightly unfocused
brown eyes down at her roommate.  "Wh-when'd you g-g-get in?"
        "Ten, fifteen minutes ago," Utena replied.  "Listen... Juri
was here," she said, her tone serious.  "She told me about what you
guys ran into last night.  Are you OK?"
        Kate considered the question as she climbed down from her top
bunk, found her glasses, and then started rummaging through her
drawers for fresh underwear and clothes for the day.  Once she had
them in hand, she turned to face her roommate, and, to Utena's
surprise, she was smiling.
        "I'm w-way better'n OK," Kate replied.
        Utena blinked.  "Well... that's good," she said.  "Not what I
was expecting, but good... "
        Kate grinned.  "It's am-mazing w-what a little s-sleep will
d-do for your p-perspective," she replied, and went off to shower.

        Wakaba Shinohara had grown accustomed to sleeping on the
floor.  Her body no longer complained about the rather unyielding
nature of that surface when she woke up in the morning; the only times
she ever felt any discomfort now were when the quilt she put
underneath her got bunched during the night and part of her, usually
an elbow, had wound up rubbing against the rather harsh institutional
carpet for most of the night.
        As such, she felt distinctly out of place waking up in a bed.
Disoriented, she disentangled herself from the covers, sat up, and
looked around.
        This was Institute Hall room 301, all right, be it ever so
cramped and industrial.  She just generally didn't see it from this
angle.
        "Saionji?" she inquired.
        "Rrm?"  A somewhat indistinct figure arose from a heap of
quilt on the floor at the foot of the bed and regarded her somewhat
owlishly.
        "What am I doing in your bed?" asked Wakaba calmly.
        "Until a moment ago," Kyouichi Saionji replied dryly,
"sleeping."
        Wakaba gazed levelly at him for a moment, closed her eyes,
counted to wa'maH, and tried again.
        "-Why- am I in your bed?"
        "Because you were so tired after the Formal," Saionji replied,
"I didn't have the heart to make you sleep on the floor."
        Wakaba thought that over, then shrugged acquiescently and put
her fingertips thoughtfully to her forehead.  "Man... I only remember
getting as far as the steps downstairs."
        Saionji nodded.  "That's where you fell asleep."
        "And you," said Wakaba with a wry smile, "carried me upstairs
and put me to bed."
        "My penance for not convincing you to leave when you started
yawning," he replied, returning the smile.
        Wakaba chuckled, yawned a waking yawn rather than a fading
one, and then regarded him - shirtless, tousled, with part of a quilt
over his head like a monk's hood - for a few moments with a
considering look.
        "Just how long," she inquired, "are you going to go on being a
gentleman?"
        Saionji blinked as if surprised by the question.  "The rest of
my life, I hope," he replied.
        "Oh.  How boring," said Wakaba.  "I guess I'll have to look
elsewhere, then."
        Saionji looked quizzical.
        "Oh, come -on-, Saionji," said Wakaba irritably.  "You're not
going to make me -throw- myself at you -again-, are you?"
        The green-haired Duelist shrugged off the quilt, raked his
hands back through his hair, and then gave her a serious look.  "I'm
not sure what you're getting at," he told her.
        Wakaba sighed.  "All right, we'll do it the hard way, then,"
she said.  "Look, we've both changed a lot in the last few months, you
and I.  You're not out of your mind any more, and I'm not the naive
little Pollyanna I used to be, which might be the only favor Akio
Ohtori ever did anybody," she added wryly.  "You held back from taking
advantage of me before, when I was young and stupid, and I appreciate
that more than I can say, but... "  She grinned.  "Now that I -know-
better than to go out with guys like you, I'd like to go out with you."
        Saionji regarded her with an interested, thoughtful expression
for a few moments.  If he'd had a beard, he'd have stroked it
contemplatively.
        At length he said, deadpan, "You're -that- desperate to get
off the floor?"
        Wakaba's jaw dropped; she stared at him in horrified
astonishment that had just begun to turn to anger when she noticed the
twinkle in his violet eyes.
        She couldn't help it.  She threw back her head and laughed.
        A moment later, there was a knock at the door, and the muffled
voice of Institute 3rd's Resident Advisor said plaintively, "C'mon,
Shinohara!  I can't cover for you if you let the whole -block- know
you're here."
        "Sorry," said Wakaba, covering her guilty little grin with her
fingertips.

        That afternoon was as idyllic as any Sunday afternoon on the
eve of final exams can be.  Despite the hustle and bustle of the last
few weeks, the Duelists and their friends actually felt -prepared- for
this round of exams (which, according to Devlin Carter, was a sure
sign that at least one of them was going to fail miserably).  Despite
his doomsaying, they were all relaxed, all confident, all at their
ease.  They spent the afternoon and evening scattered in little
pockets here and there, talking, getting in some last-minute studying,
and enjoying the last minutes they would probably have for the next
week that weren't taken up with examinations, preparations for
examinations, and all too little sleep.
        At 8 o'clock that evening, Kate was fooling around with a bit
of matrix encoding, testing her memory of a few concepts for the
morning's computing dynamics final, while Juri sat in one of the
armchairs and re-read a chapter in her Galactic History text and
Dorothy tinkered with a little melody on Kate's piano.  Part of Kate's
attention was subdivided away from her project, listening to Dorothy
play, and after a few minutes, it occupied more and more of her
consciousness until the project was squeezed out and she turned.
        "D-Dorothy?" she said.
        "Mm?" said Dorothy, pausing and half-turning to face her.
        "Th-there's something d-different about your p-playing
t-tonight," Kate mused.  "It's... f-freer, maybe.  Not as... "  She
paused, searching for a word that wasn't as potentially insulting as
the first one that had come to mind, when Dorothy smiled slightly and
supplied that word anyway:
        "Mechanical?"
        "W-well... "  Kate shrugged a rather Gallic shrug, which
brought a quirky smile to the corner of Juri's mouth, though the
redhead pretended not to be paying attention.
        Dorothy's smile broadened a little.  "I don't mind," she said.
"I know my playing has always been overly regimented.  I suspect it's
because I was -programmed- to play, rather than -taught-.  But I've
been working to overcome that handicap and play more... humanly.  Your
comment indicates I may be succeeding.  Thank you."
        "Y-you're w-w-welcome," Kate replied.  "A-anything in
p-part-ticular you c-credit with your suc-c-cess?"
        Dorothy was about to answer when, with a knock, Miki Kaoru let
himself in through the not-quite-closed door.  He smiled to see
everyone.  Then, to Kaitlyn's nearly infinite surprise, he approached
the piano bench and, a bit hesitantly, as though he weren't quite
convinced he ought to, he leaned down and gave Dorothy Wayneright a
quick but by no means perfunctory kiss.
        When it was finished, he went rather red and smiled
sheepishly.  Dorothy merely turned to Kaitlyn and gave her a
conspiratorial little grin.
        "You were asking me a question?" she said placidly.
        "W-withd-drawn," said Kate, still amazed.  Juri, looking over
the top of her book, arched an eyebrow (reminding Kate of Professor
Stuvek, the Institute's now-absent Vulcan teacher) and said nothing,
though the impressed look she gave Miki made him redden still further.
        Dorothy's smile remained unchanged as she turned back to the
piano and returned to work on her sonata.  Miki sat down next to her,
quietly consulting at various points.  Kaitlyn, who still looked
slightly shell-shocked, shook her head as if she'd just been shown
definite proof that the world was flat and went back to her
programming experiment.
        A few minutes later, Amanda Dessler stopped in.  "The Earthman
is a consummate weakling," she announced grumpily.  "He's gone to bed
already."
        "W-well," said Kate mildly, "it -is- F-Finals Eve."
        "Barely," Amanda said, plunking down in the other armchair.
"Not even twenty-thirty hours and he's in his rack.  Alone.  'Never
before the big game, eh, what?'" she added in an eerie impression of
Devlin's Lord Peter Wimsey accent.  "Whatever -that- is supposed to
mean... "  The Gamilon propped her elbow on one arm of the chair and
braced her chin in her hand, looking disgruntled.
        From behind the white sheet curtain separating Utena's bottom
bunk from the rest of the room came the sudden sounds of photon
torpedo fire, a tearing crash, howling alarms and the cries of several
very agitated-sounding individuals.
        "Tenjou, what in the -world- are you watching in there?" asked
Amanda.
        Utena lifted the sheet, looked out with a grin, and said,
"'may'Duj bortaS'."
        Amanda stood up.  "'Battlecruiser Vengeance'?!" she blurted.
"Where did you get that?"
        Utena grinned.  "One of Captain Gryphon's officers is related
to Professor Kraalgh," she said.  "When I visited his ship yesterday,
he was really impressed to hear that I beat Kraalgh in a Rose Duel.
He gave me their house's baldric and a datacrystal full of 'bortaS'."
        "How much?"
        "All of it," said Utena smugly.
        "-All-?  Even the movies?"
        "And the Animated Series," Utena replied.
        Amanda raised her one remaining eyebrow, then composed herself
and bowed respectfully.
        "I salute you," she said.  "Your good fortune is supreme."
Then she smiled and said, "Shove over.  Which episode is this?"
        "It's the one where these weird aliens steal Science Officer
SpoQ's primary brain," Utena replied, making room.
        "And Doctor ma'Qoy has to operate him by remote control?  I
-love- that episode!"
        Amanda's abandonment of the armchair for half of Utena's bed,
the better to watch the old Klingon TV show on the holoproj field at
the foot of the bunk, was fortunate; it freed the chair for Wakaba
Shinohara, who arrived a few moments later.
        "Hey all," she said cheerily, then plunked herself down.
"Everybody ready for finals tomorrow?"
        "You're a fine one to talk about that," said Juri, but her
tone held no heat, only dry amusement.  "You don't have to take them."
        "No, but I will anyway," Wakaba said.  "That way I'll know
what it's like when I have to take them for real next year."
        "Admirable sentiment," said Juri.
        "I try," Wakaba replied.  "Is Utena here?"
        "W-watching TV," said Kate, angling a thumb at the
sheet-shrouded lower bunk.  Wakaba raised herself from the chair, went
to the side of the bed, crouched down, and raised the sheet.
        "Oh, hi, Amanda," she said, unflapped.  "Wouldn't it be more
comfortable to set that thing up on the windowsill?" she asked them
both collectively.
        "I was watching it by myself," said Utena.  "Didn't want to
bother the others.  What's up?"
        "Oh, well... I just wanted to warn you ahead of time, so you
don't freak out or anything - Saionji and I are sort of actually
-dating- this time."
        Utena blinked.  "... OK," she said.  "That's cool.  Long as he
stays sane, anyway."
        "I'll try not to derange him too badly," Wakaba replied with a
grin.  "Anyway, I just thought you ought to know.  Y'know, so if you
see us necking or something, you don't think he's attacking me and cut
his head off."
        "I'll, uh, try to keep that in mind," said Utena wryly.
        "I suppose congratulations are in order," said Juri.
        "Thanks," said Wakaba, beaming.
        "My," Dorothy observed.  "There's a lot of this going around
today."
        "Huh?" said Wakaba.  She tired of her catcher's crouch and sat
down on the floor next to the bed, turning to face the piano bench.
"What do you mean?"
        "Yours is the third new relationship I've heard of, arising in
the aftermath of the Formal," Dorothy replied.  Then she gave Miki a
curious look and added, "If what you and I have can be considered
one... "
        Miki looked a little bashful as he replied, "I, uh, think it
can, yes."
        Wakaba gave them an astonished look.  "No WAY!" she blurted.
"Um, not that there's anything -wrong- with that, you understand," she
added, holding up a conciliatory hand.  "It's just - I never would
have thought... "
        Kate caught Juri's eye and gave her a questioning look; Juri
smiled, nodding slightly, and said, "It appears it's a good day for
ex-Student Councillors all around."
        Wakaba gave her a puzzled look, then glanced from her to Kate
and back again, and grinned.  "Well, I'll be damned," she said.
        "Hold it," said Utena, leaning across Amanda (who was taking
the whole thing in with a look of silent bemusement).  "Did I hear
that right?  Did Dorothy just say she and Miki are - "
        "Yup," said Wakaba.
        "What a day," Utena said with a sigh.  "I'm happy for
everybody.  What a -world-," she said, and returned to her place.
        "Tell me about it.  Say, what does Azalynn think of this new
development, Miki?"
        "I haven't had an opportunity to discuss it with her," he
replied primly, "but I suspect she'll be quite pleased."
        Wakaba turned to his companion.  "How'd you do it, Dorothy?"
        Dorothy looked taken aback; for a moment, she thought the
auburn-haired Duelist was asking for a technical description of the
previous evening's activities themselves, which, though interesting
and possibly instructional, wasn't really the sort of thing one
discussed in a group setting.  Then she realized what Wakaba really
meant and replied with an enigmatic smile,
        "I asked."
        "That's it?  You -asked-?"
        "That's it.  I asked."
        Wakaba shook her head.  "You just asked and he... heh!  You
really -are- Kozue's twin brother!"
        Juri blinked, then raised her emerald eyes to Wakaba's and
said with very firmly reined amusement, "That was extremely cold,
Shinohara."
        "Sorry," she said, to that and Miki's look of faint offense.
"Really, I liked Kozue.  We were on our version of the Council
together.  She was my vice-president.  She's a lot better nowadays."
Wakaba chuckled.  "Actually, she's even a little -uptight- now.  I
asked her about it once, and she told me, 'There's nobody more
obnoxious about smoking than somebody who quit,' which I guess was
supposed to be a metaphor.  Back in the Bad Old Days, though... "  She
shrugged, shaking her head again in wonder.  "Man.  what a -world-.
Saionji's -nice-, Juri's -happy- and Miki's -easy-!  What the hell is
going ON around here?"
        Miki reddened again.  "I hardly think - " he began, but Wakaba
forestalled him with a raised palm.
        "I'm kidding," she assured him.  "Poor Kozue... she's not
going to know -what- to make of you when she sees you again."  She
sprawled back on the floor, grinning up at the ceiling, and said,
"Well, good luck to all of us."
        "Am-men," said Kate.
        "Anybody know what they're doing for the summer yet?"
        "I haven't thought past surviving finals," said Utena.
        "Nor I," Amanda concurred.
        "I've scheduled my Turing Board examination for the first
weekend in June," said Dorothy.  "I hope you all will be able to
attend, or submit testimonials on my behalf if you can't arrange
passage to Turing III."
        "Really, that's great, Dorothy!" said Utena.  "When did you
finally decide to file?"
        "This morning," said Dorothy with a smiling sidelong glance at
Miki.
        "I'm sure C-Corwin can g-get anyb-body who's n-needed to
T-Turing, if we can all f-free up the t-time," said Kate.
        "I'll be there," said Utena.
        "I would not miss it," Amanda declared.
        "Nor I," said Juri with a smile.
        "I'll certainly go," said Miki.
        "Your testimony ought to be interesting," said Wakaba with a
wicked grin.  Miki, to her pleased surprise, didn't get further
embarrassed; he just raised an eyebrow at her and grinned back.  She
decided she was very much enjoying this new dimension of her old
schoolmate, who, though nice and of course very cute, had always
struck her as a tremendous stiff back in the old days.
        "We'll all g-go," said Kaitlyn.  "All w-we have to d-do," she
added with a wry grin, "is surv-v-vive Finals... "

        Janice Barlow, as the resident advisor of Morgan 4, had been
personally assigned her responsibilities by Claudia Montaigne herself,
in a brief meeting at the beginning of the year.  She'd been told that
her appointment reflected her sterling qualities as a campus citizen -
her willingness to go out of her way to help a fellow student, her
diligence in her studies, whatever.  Her ability to wake up in a good
mood before ten AM, however, had not been mentioned, and for good
reason - it simply didn't exist.
        Thus, when the sounds of repulsorlift engines outside reached
her ears at precisely eight-thirty, she was Not Pleased.  "Oh, what
the hell," she growled, rolling out of bed in a heap of covers and
managing an undignified crawl to the window.  She pushed the blanket
out of her face long enough to look down... and sighed deeply at the
sight of uniformed Psi Corps personnel spilling out of the blocky
shape of a Federation-style shuttlecraft, which was parked across the
access road that led from Institute Road behind Morgan Hall to the
ring road around the Quad.  They were sealing off the campus, and that
meant, though Janice's room was on the wrong side of the building to
see it, they were probably all over the Quad, too.
        "I assume this means exams are cancelled," she mumbled,
sleepily extricating herself from the rest of the sheets and grabbing
the nearest available clothing.  Shrugging into a well-worn dark gray
shirt and black fatigue pants, she ran a brush through her hair and
gathered it back into an auburn ponytail.  "Guess I'd better try to
get over to Miss Montaigne's office... Mitra, where the heck have you
gotten to?  C'mon, you."
        Muffled sounds of struggle emerged from the heap of blankets
on the floor.  Janice sighed and carefully pulled them aside to expose
the source of the noise.  A small creature that looked rather like a
chitinous football with a photoreceptor and a small antigrav unit flew
out of the chaos and took up a station behind her right shoulder.
        Janice chuckled and gave the creature a gentle rap on the
chitin.  "You KNOW you're not a dog, right?  Then why do you insist on
trying to cuddle up at night?  It only gets you tangled in the
sheets," she chided gently.
        Janice gave herself one last once-over in the mirror and
shoved her feet in her Ragolian colonist's standard-issue boots.
Before she could grab her keys and ID and head out, though, her
desktop terminal beeped-- not its usual plaintive *blat*, but a
somewhat more urgent chirp.  She turned to it with a frown.
        "I'm kind of busy right now, you know," she told it
matter-of-factly, smacking a few keys and bringing up the screen.
        She wasn't terribly surprised to find an email from Durandal,
the somewhat erratic campus AI - although this time, at least, the
message was clearly legible:

Return-Path: <durandal@durandal.wpi.k12>
Date: Mon 2, May 2405 08:31:48 -0500 (ET)
X-Sender: durandal@localhost.localdomain
To: "Janice Barlow" <jbarlow@wpi.k12>
Subject: action

DURANDAL_1707

*** INCOMING MESSAGE FROM DURANDAL***

Your schedule for the week has been cleared.  Apparently, there's
something about the presence of armed troops on campus that makes
people.... unwilling to make plans involving the furtherance of higher
education.  Imagine that.

I trust that you will find some method of bringing yourself, your
armament, and your disregard for the toy soldiers outside to Fuller
Labs within the next half-hour.

Yours in disdain for authority,
Durandal

        Janice looked at the screen and sighed.  "Pushy bastard, isn't
he," she commented, possibly to Mitra, possibly to the air.
        She took another look out the window, using her cybereye to
enhance the view.  The Psi Cops down there, setting up their
barricade, appeared to be a mixture of normal personnel, which were
frightening enough even if you weren't psionic yourself, and
black-armored Enforcers, the iron fist of the Corps.  She snapped the
eye back to normal magnification - handy thing to have, but she could
have done without the accident involved in getting it - and went to
the closet.  A moment's concerted tugging and pulling hauled down a
battered gray case that was thumbprint-locked and impressively labeled
with a spray-painted stencil outline:

                      PROPERTY OF HUNTER'S GUILD
                           COLONY OF RAGOL
                           LIC. NO.  32343

        She pressed her thumb to each of the three latches in turn and
punched a quick code into a small keypad under the case's massive
handle; the locks sprang open with a brief hiss of releasing pressure.
She hadn't had to open this case, aside from her quarterly check on
its integrity, since she'd left her homeworld.  By contrast, the small
gun safe that held the pistol she used in WPI tactical-pistol matches
was protected by -one- fingerprint lock and no keypad.  The Colony of
Ragol took its weapons, and their security, very seriously... and for
good reason.
        The original colonists of Ragol, expatriate Corellians to a
man, had learned one lesson during the settlement.  The native animals
were unusually rambunctious.  This wouldn't have been a problem,
really, except that this rowdy disposition was backed by immense size,
unusual cunning, and prodigious natural weaponry.  Faced with this
opposition from nature, the new Ragolians had responded in the
time-honored tradition of their mother world: they'd gotten to work
building bigger and better tools, both social and mechanical, to
handle the problem.  Within three years of initial landfall, the
colonists had pulled together both a flourishing munitions industry,
spearheaded by Ragol Arms, and an officially-sanctioned Hunter's Guild
to handle the wildlife problem and take on other missions as needed.
        Janice had inherited this particular gun, a Ragol Arms
Varista, from her father, who had been one of the first proponents of
the need for effective, organized action to establish a solid footing
against the native flora and fauna.  The Varista was a chunky pistol,
with a large barrel surmounted by a peculiar cylindrical chamber.  The
chamber was located behind a laser sight of unusual proportions; it
looked like, given the chance, the sight could be just as mean as the
actual weapon.  The rest of the gun followed a smaller, sleeker
version of the blocky barrel styling.  She checked the empty chamber
carefully: the contacts were clean.  She laid it aside carefully and
moved on to the armor.
        Ragolians were practical people by nature.  Mecha just weren't
feasible in the high mountains, deep caves, and dense forests of their
new world.  They'd chosen to focus their engineering skills on powered
armor, exoskeletons that were both powerful and portable.  The
refinement of that esthetic had produced the frame-- a series of
simple body armors that bore some resemblance to the CVR-5 armor of
the Wedge Defense Force. Frames tended to be a bit bulkier, but
afforded considerable protection against claws, teeth, and some forms
of blaster fire.
        Janice's particular frame was no different; it was a complex
affair in her favored black and gray, bearing the understated green
emblem of the settlement she'd lived in back home.  She slapped the
panels into place and secured everything, then picked up the small
shield projector in the bottom of the empty case and secured it in a
small slot on her left wrist.
        Last of all, she picked up the Varista and slapped open a
turnout panel on the leg of her frame with her free hand.  The small
compartment thus revealed held an assortment of power packs.  She
loaded one into the gun with practiced ease; it clicked home and
emitted a brief sputter of light before settling into a steady
blue-green glow.  Janice holstered the gun at her hip in one
movement.
        "Gotta love Photon technology," she mumbled.  "Time to keep
that appointment."
        And to think, she remarked to herself as she trotted down the
hall to the back stairs out of Morgan Hall, I wanted to leave this
stuff at home when I came to Earth.

        Utena Tenjou wondered idly what was going on.  There was a
weird tension in the air on campus this morning; she could feel it,
and she could tell from the look on Kaitlyn's face that her roommate
felt it too.  All four of them in the little group that left the Wedge
at a quarter to nine, bound for Olin Hall and the first of the term's
final exams, felt it.  Devlin Carter was uncharacteristically quiet,
looking thoughtfully around, and Amanda Dessler's nerves seemed on
edge as well.  She kept fidgeting with the grip of her gladius-like
Gamilon dress sword, her good eye darting around as if she expected
something to happen.
        Halfway across the Quad, something did.  Four people, three
men and a woman, dressed in trim black uniforms with gleaming gold
badges came marching across from Harrington Auditorium, their gait
purposeful, all intent on the four students.  Utena's funny feeling
escalated to a full-on alert.  What in the world were -four- Psi Cops
doing on campus?
         "Devlin Edison Carter," the man in the lead said in an
imperious voice as the four Psi Cops came within hailing range.  "You
are under arrest."
        "-What-?!" said Utena, causing the lead Psi Cop to turn his
disinterested brown eyes to her.
        "This is none of your concern, Miss Tenjou.  Continue on to
your examination.  All of you."
        Devlin took a half-step back, every muscle in his body tense.
        "Don't be stupid, blip," said the female Psi Cop.  "You're
caught.  It's all over."
        Kaitlyn and Utena glanced at each other in shock.  Devlin?
-Devlin Carter-, a rogue telepath?
        Kate's eyes held a question.  Utena's eyes held the answer.
Neither of them had to speak.
        Devlin backed up another step, but the four black-clad
officers moved in, surrounding him, apparently ignoring his
companions.  One of the men, a short, dark-haired, rather stocky
fellow, took Devlin by the arm.
        "Take your hand off him," Amanda snarled.  The Psi Cop turned
to her.
        "Stay out of this," he said snidely.  "We told you it's none
of your concern."
        "Devlin is our friend," said Utena obstinately.  "That makes
it our concern."
        "Well, Miss Tenjou," said the woman Cop coolly, "your friend
is a dangerous criminal, and this is a lawful arrest under the
Psionics Regulation and Protection Act.  If you continue interfering,
you will be subject to arrest as well."  She looked Utena up and down
once, smiled superciliously, and added, "The penalties for aiding and
abetting a fugitive from the Psi Corps are quite severe."
        "You don't scare me," Utena replied flatly.  "You and your Psi
Act.  Show me your evidence."
        "You couldn't comprehend our evidence," sneered the
dark-haired one.
        "And we are hardly required to justify ourselves to children,"
the woman put in, still with that same cool, superior tone.  "Back
off, little girl, before you get in too deep."
        Utena stared hard at the Psi Cop for a few seconds; then her
shoulders slumped and she half-turned away.  Amanda's face went blank
with shock, then darkened in disgust.  Devlin sagged a little bit, his
face stricken.
        Only Kaitlyn understood.
        The female Cop dismissed her defeated adversary from her
thoughts and turned to deal with the arrest.
        Even a telepath can be caught unawares if she's making a
-point- of not paying attention.  Utena's elbow rammed into the back
of the Psi Cop's skull with an extremely satisfying sound, and the
black-clad woman pitched to the grass of the Quad without so much as a
whimper.
        "RUN!" the pink-haired Duelist bellowed at Devlin, even as
Kaitlyn swept in to protect her roommate's flank.  The Duelist
leader's still-sheathed zatoichi hissed around in a great arc,
knocking free the startled shorter Cop's grip on Devlin's arm.
        "What the HELL!  Control, this is the Arrest Team, we have a
Code Two emergency in - "
        Amanda knocked him down, seized Devlin's arm, and dragged him
into a run across the Quad.  They vanished into the alley between the
Alumni Gym and Harrington Auditorium.
        What ensued on the Quad would subsequently be taught in Psi
Corps Enforcement Division training courses as an example of the
dangers of underestimating one's opposition.  The sudden, totally
unexpected, violent resistance from Carter's two friends took the
arrest team so completely by surprise that they were unable to marshal
their telepathic powers for attack, and one of the truisms of TP
combat is that it's very difficult to concentrate on an attack if your
opponent keeps hitting you.  It took the arrival of an Enforcer squad
with stun-set phasers to subdue the two Duelist officers.
        Psi Cop Carmela Sunderland wiped a trickle of blood from the
corner of her mouth, felt gingerly at the lump on the back of her
head, and restrained herself from aiming a kick at the pink-haired
Duelist's ribs now that the girl was helpless on the ground.  She was,
after all, a professional.
        "Take them to the temporary holding area," she ordered the
Enforcers.
        "I wonder why they didn't use those swords on us?" wondered
Jerome Rabin, the short, stocky one, nursing the arm Kate had nearly
broken.
        "Who knows?" replied Sunderland.  "Probably afraid of the
consequences.  Not that they're going to have much fun as it is," she
added darkly.  "Come on, let's find that blip.  He can't get too far;
the campus is sealed off."

        Devlin and Amanda had just reached that conclusion, having
nearly run into the arms of a second Enforcer squad setting up a
roadblock on West Street at the opposite end of campus.  Now they
crouched with their backs to the rear wall of Olin Hall, sheltered by
the small grove of trees that grew back there and the fence of the
Higgins House gardens.
        "I always knew - this day - would come," panted Devlin.  He
reached into his pocket and drew out the compact PPG he'd used to
defend Amanda's life during their recent, eventful trip to Gamilon.
        "What are you planning to do with that?" Amanda inquired.  "It
won't even scratch an Enforcer's armor."
        "I didn't buy it to use on the Corps," Devlin replied.
        Amanda gave him an odd look - which melted into horror as she
realized what he meant.
        "Well," he said with a weak grin, "at the time I didn't have
you to live for, what?"
        "Earthman... how badly do you want to get out of this?" asked
Amanda seriously.
        "About as badly as you can imagine," Devlin replied.  "If they
take me, my life is over.  Oh, I'll go on breathing, but I'll never
see this place, or my family, or any of you, ever again.  'The Corps
is Mother, the Corps is Father.'  It'll be for my own good, of
course," he added, disdain twisting his features.
        Amanda drew her k'tayyl blade and examined its iridescent
blade thoughtfully.
        "I may be able to give you a way out," she said, "but it will
hurt, and it may be... complicated... to reverse later."
        "Not as complicated as being taken by the Corps, I'd wager.
Do it.  Whatever it is, just -do- it."
        The sounds of searching officers were drawing closer.  They'd
be found very soon.  Amanda's good eye searched Devlin's face; aside
from that, she was as motionless as a statue.
        "-Please-!" Devlin whispered.
        Slowly, Amanda nodded.
        Then, in one lightning-fast movement, she slashed his face,
laying open his left cheek from just under his eye to the corner of
his jaw.  He reeled back in shock as the pain bloomed scarlet,
dropping his PPG and clapping his hand to his wounded face.  At that
precise moment, a pair of Enforcers rounded Olin Hall and shouted for
them to stop.
        "I am a Princess of the Gamilon Empire," Amanda informed them
imperiously, "and this man is my battle prize."
        "Yeah," replied one of the Enforcers with a sneer, "and I'm
Madame Curie," and his phaser screamed them both down.
        As her k'tayyl fell with a thud to the grassy ground and she
fell after it, Amanda had only time to think, I'm sorry, my love... I
tried.

        Up in Morgan 412, Tiny Robo put down his gin rummy hand and
stood up, his permanently-scowling face gazing off into some unknown
distance, as if he were listening to a silent call.  Opposite him on
the top of Kaitlyn's bookshelf, Lesser Mazinger laid down his cards as
well and got to his feet, closely attending his slightly larger
counterpart's behavior.

        Miki Kaoru was halfway to Institute Road when the shout of his
Galaxy housemate Mia Ausa pulled him to a stop.  Mia, who didn't have
a final today, was standing in the doorway in her Minbari sleeping
robe, her long black hair disarrayed, waving what looked like a
printout.  Miki paused, turned around, and trotted back.
        "What is it?" he asked, confused and a little concerned by
Mia's apparent sense of urgency.
        "Look at this," said Mia breathlessly, and she pressed the
printout into Miki's hand.

Return-Path: <durandal@durandal.wpi.k12>
Date: Mon, 2 May 2405 09:11:29 -0500 (ET)
X-Sender: durandal@localhost.localdomain
To: "Institute Duelists' Society" <duelists@wpi.k12>
Cc: moose@wpi.k12,gkron@wpi.k12,hmckenzie@wpi.k12
Subject: heads up

DURANDAL_1707

*** INCOMING MESSAGE FROM DURANDAL***

You should probably know that your president and vice-president have
been arrested by the Psi Corps for interfering in the arrest of a
rogue telepath - one Devlin Carter of your acquaintance.  Princess
Dessler has also been arrested; I can only assume the officers
involved don't know who she is, or more to the point who her father
is.  They're now placing the entire campus under a security lockdown
and communications blackout.  This is standard operating procedure for
a blip apprehension that turns into a fight, to prevent any other
blips who may be in the area from escaping.

I recommend you regroup someplace off campus (may I humbly suggest
Galaxy House?), then get as far away as possible while there are still
gaps in the Corps security net.  They're already bringing your
non-Duelist friends to interrogate them about your activities.  The
rest of you probably aren't blips, but you are on the Earthgov watch
list as possible subversives and saboteurs, and under the
circumstances, the Enforcers won't need much of an excuse to round you
all up and make you disappear.

I'll do what I can for your friends, but I have my -own- escape to
consider, so don't expect miracles.

Sic semper tyrannis,
Durandal

        Miki stared at the printout, then looked up and met Mia's
troubled eyes.
        "Well, -shit-," he said with feeling.

        Harcourt M. "Mac" McKenzie walked steadily into what had,
hours before, been the office of the Dean of Sciences.  The new
occupants had quite thoughtfully laid blackout across the windows and
cleared away all the Dean's personal effects to prevent distraction.
The new spotlights glaring onto the chair in front of the desk were,
to Mac's ironic thought, a very nice touch of quality workmanship.
        "We like to think so," a voice from the back of the office
chuckled, and Mac frowned.  Already the interrogation had begun, it
seemed.  "But do not be concerned.  As opportune as your presence is,
we do not have time for the proverbial 'third degree' today.  This
will be only a level one probe.  Today."
        The stop before the last word said volumes about how the man
stepping to the desk would -like- to conduct the proceedings, most
likely by disassembling Mac's mind just for the enjoyment of taking it
apart.
        His escort closed the door behind Mac, shutting off all
sources of light except the spotlights and a small desk lamp in the
corner of the room.   Mac's escort seated himself there, activated the
portable terminal present, and waited as the man in shadow seated
himself in the Dean's chair.
        "Let us begin," the latter said quietly.  "Name."
        "McKenzie," Mac replied.  "Harcourt.  Middle initial M."
        As the soft plinking of fingertips on touchpads echoed from
the corner, the Psi Corps man continued, "Date of birth?"
        "December 29, 2388, Galactic Standard Calendar," Mac said. 
        "Planet or nation of origin?"
        "Confederate Freespacer Alliance."
        "Mark that as a 'no allegiance claimed,' Smythe," the Psi Cop
said.
        "The Confederate Freespacer Alliance was first recognized as a
sovereign and independent nation-state in 2002 by the Empire of
Salusia," Mac said in a level, almost monotone voice.  "It was
admitted to the United Galactica in 2003, and was a founding member of
the United Federation of Planets in 2338.  As of the Federation 2400
Census it held a population of three million, one hundred seventy-four
thousand citizens, making it larger than three other worlds with
Federation Council seats and of greater population than seven hundred
ninety-two planets and habitats claimed by the Federation."
        The silence drew the darkness closer, giving it a density,
even a life of its own.  When the Psi Corps man spoke, his voice did
not remove the shadows' weight: "I said mark that as 'no allegiance
claimed,' Smythe."
        Fingertips danced across the terminal again. 
        "To continue," the Psi Corps man said with a wry turn to his
voice, "what is your psi rating?"
        "Unknown."  Mac had no intention of lying or even misleading a
telepath, and for all its craftsmanship the red-card in his wallet was
a forgery.
        The Psi Corps man paused a moment before saying, "Mark that as
'unregistered null,' Smythe.  Why are you not registered?"
        "Two reasons," said Mac.  "First, my government does not
recognize the Psi Corps as having authority over Freespacer citizens;
for that matter, it does not recognize the Psi Act as constitutional
under Federation law.  Second, I quite frankly disliked the idea of
allowing a telepath with a cop mentality to traipse through my brain
doing who-knows-what."
        "Smythe, leave out the first part," the Psi Corps man said.
        "Might I ask," Mac inquired, unable to restrain a smirk, "what
point there is to this interrogation if you record only those answers
that suit your needs?"
        The Psi Corps man leaned over the desk slightly, his face
coming into the reflected light from the spots, and smiled a very
humorless smile.  He was a rather unremarkable-looking man, really,
with short, slightly graying blond hair and not much of a chin; but he
had lifeless eyes, a shark's eyes, and they matched his dry, colorless
voice perfectly.
         "Your so-called government does not recognize our authority.
It should be only fair, to your liberal concept of the term, that we
reciprocate an identical level of... respect... for their authority.
        "Every single human in this school, students, faculty,
employees, is going to be interviewed and scanned, Mr. McKenzie," the
Psi Cop continued.  "You were chosen as our first interviewee for two
reasons; one, you cohabit a dormitory with several known accomplices
of the reported blip; and two, you are the first Freespacer pirate we
have managed to lay hands on within our jurisdiction.
        "And now we have you, and now we have the authority to
actually do something -meaningful- with you if we desire.  If you had
so much as twitched your nose a few minutes ago, when I scanned you
for your deepest secret, you would never see the light of day again - 
at least, not as Harcourt Mudd McKenzie."  Mac ridigly restrained
himself from wincing at his hated middle name, but the Cop caught his
reaction anyway and smiled coldly.
        "As it is," he went on with a soft, petulant sigh, "I will
probably have to let you go, in the end.  Your only value to me is
information, and there are dozens of students on this campus better
acquainted with Devlin Carter than... "  The Psi Cop trailed off as he
sensed Mac's confusion, and a moment later, shock.  "Well," the Psi
Cop said at last, "that's one bit of information.  Nobody told you he
was a telepath, did they?"
        "I don't get out of my room much, except for classes and
cooking," Mac said quietly.
        "Well," the Psi Cop smiled, "when this interview is over, you
can tell those friends of yours who probably do know not to bother
trying to keep any secrets... and tell your friends in the Freespacer
pirate fleet that the questioning you recieved here was only a
warning.  Any Freespacers we run across in the future will be quite
thoroughly... debriefed."
        Mac tried to settle the cold knot in his stomach again, tried
to focus past his emotional upheavals like he had before, but the gaze
of those two cold eyes, glinting from the shadows with his reflection,
held his attention and shattered his self-control.  "Now, Mr. McKenzie, 
you will tell me when and how you first met Devlin Carter.  Be sure to
leave nothing out... and -do- try to keep a strong visualization in
your mind.  It makes the scan less... stressful... for both of us."
        Mac paused for a moment, gathering himself, sternly
instructing himself not to babble, not to prevaricate, to stick
straight to the unadulterated truth.
        Stick to the absolute truth.
        And, he carefully did -not- think, to only the truths -asked-
for.
        With that kept out of his mind (which he focused in perversity
on images of a pink bandersnatch), Mac began to talk.

        "Chang, this is Saunders, check in."
        The lean Asian man in the gray Psi Corps utility uniform - not
a Psi Cop, but a lower-grade telepath assigned to the Enforcement
Division - tabbed the golden-psi commbadge on his uniform and replied,
"Chang here."
        "What's going on over there?"
        "Nothing," Chang replied.
        He was in one of the faculty offices on the second floor of
Alden Memorial, which had been commandeered as a detention area.  The
rear half of the office, usually inhabited by Professor Curran of the
Music Department, had been subdivided with a portable forcefield
generator into a detention cell.  Outside that field, Branford Chang
sat in Professor Curran's chair with his back to the door.
        "Nothing?" replied Saunders's voice from his commbadge.  "As
in the prisoner's quiet?"
        "I've never seen anything like it," Chang replied.  "She's
just... -sitting- there."
        And indeed, ever since Kaitlyn Hutchins had been relieved of
her personal effects and sealed behind the detention field, she had
been doing exactly that.  Normally, prisoners either tried to make
deals, begged for their freedom, railed ineffectual threats, or at
least paced and glared.  Prisoner #4, the one Saunders was guarding in
the office across the hall, was definitely one of the pace-and-glare
variety, and if looks could kill, the pink-haired girl's gaze would
have cut Jerry Saunders in half.
        Prisoner #3, on the other hand, had gathered her dignity after
being shoved into the makeshift cell, turned to face the field and her
captor, and then, very calmly and deliberately, sank into seiza in the
exact center of the cell.  She'd placed her hands on her knees, closed
her eyes... and there she remained, three hours later, in precisely
the same position.
        Chang was familiar with the posture; he had some martial arts
training himself, as part of his Enforcement Division combat training.
Still, the perfect, utter calm of this prisoner, especially for her
age, was just plain unnerving.  Chang was a grown man with training in
mental discipline, and he could only sit that way for an hour or so
before he had to get up and stretch or do -something-.
        Even more unnerving, though, was what was going on in Prisoner
#3's mind.  Your normal prisoner daydreamed of escape, or of what he'd
like to do to the guard, or tried desperately to think of ways out.
According to Saunders, Prisoner #4's thoughts centered primarily
around doing painful-looking things to Carmela Sunderland, a sentiment
behind which both Saunders and Chang could get.  This prisoner's
thoughts, on the other hand...
        ... well... she didn't -have- any.  Her mind was a cool and
silent place, as still and placid as her body.  Nothing moved except
the quiet murmur of the unconscious, too deep for Chang's P5 talent
to probe without physical contact and considerable effort.  Even
Director Tremayne, who'd stopped in briefly and scanned her, had come
away with nothing.  A deep scan hadn't even made her twitch or
whimper.
        Roger had been impressed, and had said so in a conversational
sort of tone before promising to come back later and give the prisoner
the attention such a worthy opponent deserved.  Chang, for his part,
was a little bit scared.  He'd never seen such mental discipline in a
normal.  It was rare even among teeps, and in a teenage girl it was
downright creepy.  If Director Tremayne did come back to give her a
real working-over, she wouldn't last, but still... 
        Chang decided he'd be just as glad to get relieved of this
duty -before- the Director came back.  He had to admit it, he admired
the prisoner's composure.  He'd rather not have to stick around and
see it shattered by a Psi Cop's full strength.

        "Welcome back to consciousness, Mr. Carter," said a cold voice
softly.  "Oh, it's no use pretending you're still asleep.  I knew it
the moment you surfaced.  I trust your face isn't paining you too
badly."
        Devlin's eyes opened slowly, and he took stock of his
situation.  He was in a chair in what looked like one of the Alden
Memorial offices, behind a temporary detention field.  On the other
side of the field stood a man in a Psi Cop's uniform, with another
seated at the professor's desk taking notes on a datapad.
        "Ah," said the standing Cop with a slight smile.  "You
recognize me."
        "Roger Tremayne," said Devlin, his voice calm.  "Director of
Enforcement Operations, Sector Three."
        "Of course," said Roger.  "You would know my name, wouldn't
you?  After all, you were brazenly operating right here in my own
region, not as a transient but as a resident student.  Of course you
would make it your business to learn the name of the man whose
authority you were flouting.  It makes it all more satisfying to know
whom you're beating on a personal level, doesn't it?"
        Devlin looked back at him and said nothing.
        "According to the tests we made when you were unconscious,
your P-rating is 12," said Roger conversationally.  "The same as mine,
although I have a great deal more experience in its use.  Still,
that's quite remarkable.  You may be the highest-rated original blip
in history."
        Devlin understood his meaning without having to ask for
clarification.  An original blip was an unregistered telepath, one who
had eluded the Corps' screenings in the first place - as opposed to a
renegade blip, who had joined the Corps but at some point thrown off
its indoctrination, slipped its bonds, and vanished into the
underground.
        "P12," Roger mused thoughtfully.  "That's much too high for
you to have learned to function in society all on your own.  No.  You
must have been trained, and trained by an expert."
        Roger deactivated the detention field, pulled a chair into the
makeshift cell with him, and sat down right in front of Devlin, boring
into him with those cold gray eyes.
        "At your level, an expert means one of us.  A Psi Cop, gone
bad, turned against the Corps that gave him shelter and protection."
        Devlin narrowed his eyes.  "Spare me the public relations
bumf," he said; then he looked thoughtful, as if something had just
occurred to him.
        Roger smiled.  "Yes," he said.  "You're wondering why you're
not on sleepers.  Well.  If you were, if we'd drowned your talent in
drugs... that would make my job considerably harder.
        "My job, you see, is to find out who trained you."
        "Good luck," Devlin replied.  "I don't remember."
        "Well, then," said Roger pleasantly, "let's see if I can
remember for you."
        Then all trace of humor vanished from his face, and Devlin
Carter screamed.

        Galaxy House's inhabitants and the rest of the Duelists sat
crowded into the living room, the silence of the tomb weighing upon
them.  The afternoon sun failed to illuminate the grey, dour interior
which, only days before, had been a bright and cheerful home even in
the worst rains, snowstorms, and gloomy Worcester mists.  Nobody
wanted to speak; there really wasn't much that could be said.
        The click of the front door latch snapped the silence and
jolted the assembled students out of their reverie.  Through the door
staggered Mac, wrung out and trembling, stumbling and swaying his way
over to a couch.
        Moose and G'Kron caught an arm each as Mac tripped over his
own feet, and they gently lowered him into an empty armchair.  Miki
stepped into the kitchen momentarily, offered Mac a glass of water,
and was waved away weakly.
        "Behind my bed, in the cabinet," Mac whispered, "and bring all
the glasses."
        Miki blinked, walked into 22S/2, and returned about a minute
later carefully toting an unopened bottle of 2393 Jim Beam bourbon and
half a dozen shot glasses.  "I'm pretty sure we're all underage," he
mused.
        "Allergic, myself," Sky said with a t'skrangish shrug.
        "I'd have to put away most of that myself to even move a
blood-alcohol meter," Moose noted.  "Either way I think I'll pass for
the moment."
        When nobody offered to join Mac, he held up two fingers.
Miki, making a rough guess at what was meant, filled one shot glass
about half full.
        "No," Mac grumbled, "two shots.  Full."  Miki blinked, then
did as instructed.  He pulled out his stopwatch and started it as Mac
downed the first jigger at once.  At first, the Freespacer took a deep
breath, apparently unaffected; then, his eyes bulged open, his second
breath ended in a single weak cough, and for several seconds he looked
unable to take a third breath.  As soon as he managed that, however,
he gestured for the second shot and, with similar results, downed that
too.
        Miki stopped the watch and made notes as Mac recovered from
the second shot; gradually, the muscle twitches and shaking subsided,
the sweats faded, and Mac said in a clearer voice, "Dad gave that to
me for medicinal purposes, he said.  If that's the medicine, God save
me from the disease."
        "If it's so awful," asked Moose, "why'd you drink it?"
        Mac took several seconds to compose his thoughts - a difficult
task with two shots of aged bourbon whiskey percolating through one's
bloodstream.  "... I told no lies," he said at last.  "I did not
attempt to hide anything.  I did not use clever technical wording to
hide the truth."  He looked longingly at the bottle again for a
moment, then added, "But I did not tell them -everything-, because
they did not know what questions to ask yet.
        "They know that I know something more, but they haven't had
time to get to the general human population of the school, much less
the aliens.  They did say in my hearing that they plan to impound
Dorothy as soon as the legal boys nullify her Turing application.
They already have her in for questioning, same as me."
        If Mac noticed Miki Kaoru's fist tightening around his
stopwatch at that, he didn't make note of it as he continued, "G'Kron,
Sky, you two may not even be questioned."  He shuddered, gripped the
chair a bit, and added, "I'll have that water now, please, Miki."
        A glass of water later, he continued, "They only put me
through a first-level probe.  Pro forma; they wanted me because I'm
the first Freespacer they've been able to cast their net over.  I can
expect a more serious probe in the next two to three days, and so can
Moose and Miki; you're already on their lists as associates of the
'fugitive blip', and Miki's a Duelist, so they want him anyway."
        Mac pushed himself slowly to his feet, his stance now steady,
his motions fluid as he said, "I don't know about you, but I intend to
get out of here."  With that he stepped into his bedroom, and when he
failed to come back out again, the others began to talk.
        "How dare they abuse my roommate like that," G'Kron muttered,
his heart not quite up to his usual bluster.
        Azalynn dv'Ir Natashkan sat off to the side, arms folded, eyes
shuttered, silent.  Miki glanced at her, concerned - she was normally
so upbeat that it was shocking to see her usually indomitable spirit
so subdued.  She caught his glance and met his eyes briefly, then went
back to what she was doing, which looked a good bit like brooding.
        Sky's tailtip stood still against the back of the couch as he
said, "Well, friends, I do not have the faith even good Harcourt has
in the benevolent negligence of our captors.  At the very least, the
Duelists will never be let free again."  Nodding to G'Kron, he added,
"And even I have heard rumors of certain uncouth experiments
supposedly conducted upon orphaned Narn children by the Psi Corps.  I
do not know their truth, and I would as soon not have the opportunity
of learning it firsthand."
        "We could get out of the campus and into town through the
steam tunnels," Moose muttered.  "They'll miss us fairly soon,
though.  No hope whatsoever of running very far."
        "We can't leave without making sure the others are safe,"
T'skaia insisted.
        "Especially Devlin," Moose pointed out, and the group nodded
agreement on this.
        The door to 22S/2 opened again, and Mac stepped out.  He had
changed his clothes, exchanging his WPI uniform for a uniform with
some vague resemblance to the one Utena usually wore when her WPI one
wasn't required.  Instead of being short, trim and flattering, however,
it was broad and long, the double-breasted wraparound tunic extending
to the knees, below which matching grey slacks ran in perfect press
down to brilliantly shined black brogans.  The cuffs were trimmed with
a broad band of dark blue, nearly the width of Mac's hands.  Mac was
struggling with the belt, which had a short cutlass scabbarded on his
left side and a large BlasTech modified blaster holstered on the
right.
        "What in the names of all the Great Houses is that?" Sky
gasped, looking Mac's new clothing over.  "This is a fine time to
decide you wish to be a Duelist."
        "That's a Confederate Freespacer dress uniform," said Mia
quietly.
        Mac reached to the lapel stretching across his collarbone,
straightened the X-shaped Corellian anchor which marked his
officer-trainee status, and nodded.  "Durandal, bless his knotted
cybernet, is currently routing a low-priority email to my parents with
a special code.  In about an hour or so, I expect that email to bounce
from my parents to Home Fleet Command, then to SupFleet Chief of
Intelligence, and possibly as high as Fleet Admiral Curtiss herself."
That tidbit gave him a slight smirk as he went on, "At which time my
reserve commission as a shipowner's son will be activated, orders will
be cut, and transportation provided.
        "All that remains to be decide is where the rendezvous will
be," Mac said with a weak grin, "and how we get there."
        "And how we're going to get the others the hell out of there,"
said Wakaba Shinohara, her arms folded.  "I'm not leaving without
Utena."
        "Going back into that gauntlet is -crazy-," said Moose.
"They'd bag you for sure."
        "Maybe, maybe not.  I know a few tricks."  Briskly, she
surveyed the group, then said, "Mac, contact your people and find out
when and where they can pick up the bulk of the group.  I'm going to
think about the rescue."
        A number of blinks and incredulous looks met Wakaba's sudden,
decisive statement.  She looked back at them, one by one, and said,
"What?"
        "Taking charge, Shinohara?" asked Juri Arisugawa with a
bemused little smile.
        "Somebody has to," Wakaba replied; then she smiled, making a
joke out of it, and added, "Anyway, I -am- the President of the Ohtori
Academy Student Council in Exile.  Somebody want to get me some tea?"
        Juri shook her head with that same Vulcan smile, then went
into the kitchen to make her president some tea.

        R. Dorothy Wayneright gazed with robotic incomprehension at
the man behind Miss LeClercq's old desk.
        "I do not understand," she said.
        The gray-clad Psi Corps enforcement officer sighed.  "It's
very simple," he said.  "I want you to tell me everything you know
about your master's peer group.  Any special abilities any of them
might have.  Under the Second Law, you have to answer my questions."
        "I am sorry, Officer Trumbull," said Dorothy, "but my first
responsibility is to my master Kaitlyn.  She has instructed me not to
discuss such matters."
        Trumbull, who was a bit too portly, jowly, and bald to cut an
impressive figure in his gray Enforcement Division uniform, tried to
smile and only managed to look gassy.  "R. Dorothy," he said, laying
conscious emphasis on the 'R', "suppose your silence endangered me and
my men here?  Why, then, under the First Law you would be bound to
tell me what I want to know."
        "I see no danger," Dorothy replied.
        Trumbull sighed again and wondered how such a dog of a
positronic brain ever found its way into such an exquisitely
constructed shell.  He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen a
humanoid robot as realistic as this one, and yet it walked and talked
like a freshly wiped Cybot Galactica C-series.  Tragic waste of an
engineering marvel.
        "It's not the kind of danger that's visible," he said
patiently.  These things could always be cracked, it was just a matter
of how you went about it.
        On her side of the table, behind the glassy stare of her dark
eyes, R. Dorothy Wayneright's mind raced.  She could feel the danger
closing in around her.  This man was wasting her time, preventing her
from exercising her right to contact Corwin.  That had to mean Kaitlyn
was already in custody.  She calculated a 98.8% probability that a Psi
Corps legal team was in the process of illegitimately nullifying her
Turing application, after which, if she remained uncooperative, they
could simply dismantle her.  Sticking to the 'dumb droid' routine was
the only way she could see to buy time and still conceal her true
capabilities against later need.
        Just as she thought that, the door behind her opened.  She
didn't look; an unsophisticated robot wouldn't be curious.  Besides,
she knew exactly who it was.  It was the tall black one, Bougiere, who
Trumbull had sent to "look into R. Dorothy's legal status."
        "It's taken care of," said Bougiere darkly.  Dorothy's ears
picked up the faint high harmonic of a positron scrambler; Bougiere
must have one, energized, in his hand.  She pulled an image of him
from earlier in her interrogation, when he'd been taking notes, from
her memory archive.  He was right-handed.  His footsteps approached.
She calculated his rate of approach as Trumbull grimaced and thought
he was smiling again, leaning forward.
        "Now, R. Dorothy," he said.  "I want you to consider this very
carefully.  There are dangerous forces at work here, forces which
could hurt or even kill my people if my people aren't aware of them
ahead of time and prepared to deal with them.  Now, surely you will
agree that, since you possess the power to forewarn them, you can't
allow them to go into danger through your continued inaction?"
        Dorothy regarded him, unmoving, for 2.249 further seconds, at
which point Bougiere and his immobilizing weapon were 3.8 +/- .07 feet
southwest of her position.
        "You're right," she replied, and Trumbull looked faintly
surprised and delighted.
        "The time for inaction," Dorothy continued, "is past."
        She shunted power to the linear motors that drove her limbs
and shot from her seat faster than any human could have moved, much
faster than her clunky, ponderous movements upon responding to their
summons had made the Corps officers think she could move.  She heard
Bougiere's radius and ulna splinter as she brought her elbow down
cleanly and precisely in the center of his forearm.  The positron
scrambler thumped to the floor.  She shifted her stance slightly and
applied her full weight to the device for two seconds, crushing it
into inoperability.  Then, as Trumbull scrambled to his feet behind
Miss LeClercq's desk and drew his PPG, she turned to face him.
        "No!" Trumbull squeaked, his face gray.  He raised the weapon;
Dorothy heard it charge in fine detail, knew exactly how much power
was massing behind the emitter to be flung at her with the next twitch
of the officer's thick forefinger.
        Paying it no mind, she jumped; the blast passed underneath
her, and then she was landing on the counselor's desk.  It crumpled
beneath her weight, but she was already airborne again, arcing
gracefully over Trumbull's bald head before crashing through the
window and plunging 20 feet to the pavement below.
        By the time Trumbull got turned around to look out the window,
there was nothing out there but a small crater in the asphalt.

        Janice Barlow wasn't sure what she'd expected her errand for
Durandal would entail, but crawling through a steam tunnel with a
redheaded gargoyle and a bionic corgi hadn't been it.
        She couldn't remember where she'd seen the term "gargoyle"
applied to somebody who walked around with a wearable computer
interfaced to the 'Net all the time, but it had never struck her as
appropriate until she'd met Ed Tivrusky.  Maybe it was the way the
girl kept crouching on the corners of things, like a freakish
sculpture overlooking the parapet of a building.  Not that there were
any corners to crouch on here, but in the Wedge it was a fairly common
thing.
        "What the hell are we doing down here?" she wondered.
        "Best way into Fuller Labs," said Edward.  "Edward and Ein can
dismantle Durandal and rescue his core elements there.  But first
we'll need Janice to shut down the security grid."  Edward pointed at
the hatch above them.  "Up there, turn left, big red switch.  Flip
flip and move on to the power substation."
        Janice looked up at the hatch, sighed, drew her Varista, and
got busy.  This was definitely -not- how she thought she'd be spending
Finals Week.
        On the other hand, she mused as she levered herself up out of
the floor of the Fuller Labs subbasement, it might just beat that
Galactic Civic Administration final.

        The plan was set, and the scale of it took Wakaba Shinohara
briefly aback.  The Freespacers, it seemed, were pulling out of the
area en masse; they had three freighters inbound, and within the hour
they would be waiting at the old, mainly disused County Airport, a
mile or so from campus.  There they would wait to pull the Duelists
and their friends off the planet.  All Mac had to do was get them
there.
        "OK," said Wakaba after hearing him outline the evacuation
plan.  "Good enough.  We're going to have to travel light, people, so
only bring what you absolutely can't live without."
        Saionji smiled faintly at the sight of her taking charge.  It
was quite a change, as dramatic as the one coming to this world had
wrought in himself, but as with his own case, he thought he liked it.
        "Saionji, you're with me," said Wakaba briskly.  "We're going
to sneak into Riley Hall, cut across to Alden through the basement,
spring the others, and then use the steam tunnels to get off-campus.
We'll meet up with you guys at County Airport and we'll all get out
together."
        "I want to go," said Miki.
        "No way," Wakaba replied, shaking her head.  "I know you want
to help, but Juri would kill me if you got hurt on my raid," she said,
giving the redhead a grin.  "Anyway, the group's already as big as I
think it can be and still have a chance at success.  Once we find the
others' gear, they can help us fight our way out themselves.  You go
with the escape group.  Besides," she grinned, "there need to be a few
people in that group who can defend themselves."
        "Well, now," Moose said in a dangerous tone of voice, smiling
as he said it.
        "What am I, cheesy spoo?" Mac added.  Sighing, he looked
around.  "Anybody else good at fighting?"
        Moose cracked his knuckles meaningfully.  Azalynn said
nothing, but her narrowed eyes glittered unpleasantly.  G'Kron, not
wishing to be left out, held up... a baseball bat.
        Mac shook his head, counted to ten silently, and said,
"G'Kron, -please-... "
        "I can't help it if I was raised by a family of pacifists!"
        "I kind of doubt your .412 batting average will impress any
Earthforce troops," Mac sighed.  "I guess it's better than nothing,
though."
        "Which reminds me."  Wakaba turned to Juri and took a small
silver duffel bag from her.  Miki recognized it as the one Utena had
brought back from her visit to Kate's father's starship on Saturday
afternoon; it bore the logo, name and registry number of the
International Police Organization starship Challenger on its side.
        Wakaba rummaged in the bag, took out two small black items,
and then handed the bag back to Juri.  "The communicator's no good for
long-range - the Corps have this whole area jammed - or I'd have
called Kate's dad and seen what -he- thought of this whole mess.
Still, we can use it for local comm; the Experts frequencies are
scrambled and I doubt the Corps can break the encryption."
        "Do we have another of their units?" Miki wondered.
        Wakaba touched the red-star badge she'd pinned to her uniform
jacket.  "This was on her dress uniform.  It's a smaller version of
the same thing.  I figure she won't mind if I borrow it."
        Miki nodded, took the hand communicator and its companion item
from her, and then studied the other item with a raised eyebrow.
        "They gave her a phaser?" he remarked, surprised.
        "You know how to use it?  There's an instruction book in the
bag if you need it."
        Miki examined the controls, then switched them online, set the
phaser to stun, reactivated the controls' safety lock, and tucked the
weapon into his pocket.  "I can handle it," he said.
        "Good.  I'll be counting on you, Juri, Sky and Mia to keep
this bunch safe - for the honor of the Duelists' Society," she added
with a grin.  "OK, kids, move out.  I'll see you all at County Airport
in an hour.  Let's go, Saionji."

        Elizabeth Broadbank cursed the Psi Corps.  What a mess they
were making of things!  Exams postponed, the campus in an uproar... if
she had known they'd be so... so -indiscreet- about everything, she
would never have shared her information with them.  And now they were
summoning her to Alden, the site of her most humiliating defeat.  What
the hell did they want now?  She'd already told them everything, and
it seemed they'd capitalized on it quite well.
        All this she told Roger Tremayne in no uncertain terms when he
came to greet her in the entrance hall, but he merely smiled his cold
smile.
        "And we appreciate all you've done for us, Miss Broadbank," he
said, putting a hand on her shoulder and squiring her into the great
hall.  "It shows a level of civic-mindedness not usually found in the
young today.  Especially when one considers that you're not even an
Earth Alliance citizen."
        "I like to do my part," said Liza stiffly.
        "I know you do.  I know you do," said Roger, his cold, smooth
voice giving her a chill like a marble floor on a winter day.  "And
with that in mind, I wonder if you might consider joining our team on
a more... permanent basis."
        Liza moved out from under his arm and stared at him as if he
were crazy.
        "What are you, stupid?" she asked.  "I'm not a telepath."
        "No," said Roger, "that's true."
        "Then I don't see that we have anything to discuss," she said,
and turned - 
        - right into the electric-blue snap of a stunrod.
        "You're something much more valuable," Roger told her
insensate form; then he turned his slate eyes to the man who had
stunned her and told him, "Take her someplace out of the way and
persuade her.  It only needs to be credible to her family; odds are
they'll be pleased to be rid of her."
        "Right away, Director," replied the other Psi Cop.  He
retracted and pocketed his stunrod, picked up the unconscious blonde,
and carried her off toward the basement stairs.

        Utena heard it first, a slight tapping, rustling noise.  It
seemed to be coming from inside the far wall.  Puzzled, she got as
close to the detention field as she could and looked toward the
noise.  There was nothing special about that wall; it was an interior
wall, directly opposite the exterior wall.  Roused by her activity,
not by the noise, the Psi Corps officer on guard duty sat up and
looked curious.
        The ventilator grille on the wall exploded outward with a
crash, as though somebody inside the duct had just given it a vicious
kick.  There was no way that could be, though; it was only a six-inch
duct, too small for any person to climb through.  The guard made a
startled noise and drew his PPG.
        "Who's there?" he called.
        Two glowing pinpoints of yellow light appeared in the shadowed
mouth of the duct.  A soft sound like a tiny footfall; another; and
then the lean, blue-and-silver-armored form of Lesser Mazinger jumped
down from the duct to take up a combative stance on the floor, perhaps
six feet from the guard.
        "What the hell?" the guard muttered.  Utena blinked in
surprise; the telepath's eyes slid toward her, suspiciously.  "You
know this thing?" he inquired.
        "It's a toy," she replied, too astonished to bother acting
resentful toward him.  "My roommate's."
        The backup guard stepped in from the hallway.  "Hey, Saunders,
what's the prob - WHAT the... ?"
        Lesser Mazinger advanced on Saunders, looking surprisingly
menacing given that he was all of eight inches tall.
        "What the hell is that?" asked the hallway guard.  "Some kind
of sensor drone?"
        "I dunno for sure, Carl.  Prisoner #4 says it's a toy," said
Saunders.  He leveled his PPG, sneering.  "-I- say it's scrap."
        "No!" Utena cried, almost throwing herself against the
detention field before she remembered to stop herself.
        Saunders fired.
        Lesser Mazinger braced himself, forearms crossed in front of
his face, back hunched.  The PPG burst splashed off the curved surface
of a focused-graviton deflector shield, rendering the shield briefly
visible in the glare of runoff energy.
        "What the HELL?!" Saunders repeated.  He thumbed the PPG's
setting higher.
        A lash of yellow energy burst from Lesser Mazinger's glowing
optics with a subdued shriek of phased energy, striking the guard
square in the chest.  Saunders pitched backward, discharge lightning
crackling over his body, and crashed heavily to the floor, about as
conscious as a stone.
        Utena blinked.
        "Jesus Christ!" blurted the hallway guard.  His hand scrambled
for his own PPG; in his astonishment, he forgot to sound the alarm.
Utena's knuckles itched.  The man was two feet away and not paying her
any attention.  If that field wasn't there... 
        Lesser Mazinger wheeled, raised his arm, and his tiny fist
rocketed out like a bullet.  The thruster-driven projectile crossed
the room in an eyeblink, smacking solidly against the field controls.
The detention field sputtered and died.
        Carl felt Utena Tenjou's spurt of glee and started to turn.
Half a second later he felt her fist smash into the side of his face.
Half a second after -that- he felt the carpet under the other side of
his face... and then nothing.
        "ow," Utena muttered, shaking her hand.  Stupid.  Never hit
bone-against-bone.  She massaged her knuckles briefly, decided they
would survive, then set about consolidating her small victory.  When
Carl and Saunders came to, they would find themselves disarmed,
relieved of their communicators, and tied up with their own
bondi-strip prisoner restraints.
        "Nice work," she said to Lesser Mazinger.  "Where's your
partner?"
        Stupid question, of course; Lesser Mazinger couldn't talk.
        Utena thumbed the activator on her watch, now that she'd
reclaimed it from Saunders; it popped open, and the holographic
viewing screen rezzed up - 
        - Just in time to show her an extreme close-up of a very
surprised-looking guard's face, an instant before Tiny Robo (who,
according to the little status readouts in the display field, was
currently flying at an altitude of six feet and an airspeed of
approximately seventy miles per hour) collided with it.  She then
watched from the little robot's point of view as he deactivated the
field holding Kaitlyn.
        "Now we're in business," she said with a grin, and headed for
the door with Lesser Mazinger at her heels.

        "Hey!  What are you doing in here?"
        Janice turned to face the gray-uniformed Psi Corps officer who
had hailed her.  "Oh, hi.  Sorry, weren't you informed?  Maintenance
shutdown of building power today."
        "In the middle of finals?" the officer replied, giving her a
skeptical look.
        "Yeah, like there're finals happening with -you- guys swarming
all over campus," Janice replied sardonically.  "You want to let me
get on with my job?"
        "You look a little young for a maintenance technician."
        "So sue me."
        The man's hand strayed toward his PPG - only to discover that
it wasn't there.
        "What the - ?!"
        "Aww.  Mitra, did you eat the nice man's blaster?  Good Mag."
Janice drew her Varista and pointed it casually at the officer.
"Maybe you could eat his commbadge while you're at it?  Then I'll lock
him in this nice closet here."

        Group 'B' reached the rusty, dilapidated fence surrounding
County Airport without incident.  Beyond it, three large, rather
ratty-looking starfreighters crouched on the cracked old tarmac, tiny
figures moving in and around them.
        Mac reached into the pouch on his uniform belt and unfolded
two pieces of paper.  The first one, the others noticed, was a Class 5
diplomatic weapons waiver on grounds of religion.
        "What religion?" Mia asked.
        "First United Freespacer Church," Mac said quietly.  "We have a
moral aversion to getting killed."
        The second document was a printout grabbed hastily from Galaxy
House in the final mad grab for precious personal effects.  The
Freespacer letterhead managed to look official and important even in
its current half-crumpled state.
        "What this says, in plain Standard," Mac said to the others,
"is that Midshipsman Reserve Harcourt MacKenzie - me - is hereby
ordered to recruit such supernumeraries - that's the rest of you - as
required to assist in the transfer of delicate cargo from Supply Fleet
ship CFA Argosy - " Mac pointed to one of the freighters, then
traversed his finger to the other two.  " - to Supply Fleet ships CFA
Cordwainer's Forge and CFA Morrigan.  We are going to spend an hour or
so toting barges and lifting bales, and when we get the call from
Wakaba, we all pile into the ships, load Kate's team in as swiftly as
possible, and shake the dust of this myopic mother world off our shoes
for the last time."
        "And you get to 'supervise', eh, Mac?" inquired Moose with a
gently saronic grin.
        "I only wish," Mac sighed.  "A midshipsman only has such
authority as his commander delegates.  As such, once we make contact
with the captains of those rescue ships you see yonder, the difference
between my uniformed person and the rest of our heterogeneous group
will become so small as to be undetectable by a quantum microscope."
He sighed and grumbled, "Not only will I have to take an incomplete
for D term, I'll have to buy a new dress uniform when this is over,
too."
        "Why didn't you have a duty uniform, then?" G'Kron asked.
        "I don't -own- one," Mac replied, shrugging.  "I brought this
with me for weddings and funerals.  This is my -good suit.-"

        Freeing Devlin and Amanda was surprisingly easy; the Corps was
between rounds of their interrogation, and so they were only under
guard, not in the company of Psi Cops.  It was the same setup as the
detention Kate and Utena had been in - two adjacent offices, a guard
in each one, and one out in the hall between them.  Not all that
difficult to neutralize, all things considered.
        Devlin Carter looked like three different kinds of hell, but
he was still game; he staggered when released from the chair he'd been
strapped to, but got to his feet under his own power and managed a
grin through the bruises on his face.
        "Knew you'd come up with something," he said, putting a hand
on Amanda's shoulder for a bit of extra stability.  "Knew you'd come
through for old Devlin, even if he -is- a menace to society."
        "Can we discuss this later, Devlin?" Utena inquired tensely as
Kate led the way into the hallway.  Utena was running the layout of
Alden Memorial through her head.  She thought she knew where they
were, but this was a part of the building she didn't often visit.
Kate seemed to know where she was going, but then, between the music
department and the Duelists' Society, the building was practically her
private sanctum.
        There was a security lock on the door to Professor Vick's
office that hadn't been there the day before.  Tiny Robo wrecked it
easily, and inside they discovered their personal effects that had
been confiscated by the Corps.  Utena felt considerably more
comfortable with the Thorn at her side, though it hadn't done her much
good when she was arrested.  As they made their way toward the
basement, she considered their troubling situation.
        They were escapees, fugitives from custody, and they were
aiding in the escape of the blip they'd been arrested for sheltering.
They'd assaulted the guards, some of them with energy weapons.  There
was every likelihood that the Corps would escalate to deadly force
against them now.  Faced with that, could she -use- the blade at her
side?  She hadn't drawn when the Corps had surrounded them on the
Quad; it hadn't even occurred to her, which was a little troubling now
that she thought about it.  Then again, they hadn't been out for blood
then.
        "You're going to have to learn to defend your life,"
Gryphon-sensei had said.  "Instantly, instinctively, and by any means
necessary."
        A guard came around the corner, saw them, recoiled in
surprise.  The half-second she wasted doing that cost her dearly.  As
one of the guard's hands dropped to her holstered PPG and the other
rose to her commbadge, Kaitlyn moved forward like a shadow through
smoke.  With two swift, sharp blows, the Duelist leader broke the
guard's arm and then her jaw.
        Well, thought Utena as the guard collapsed, I guess Kate's
made up -her- mind.
        Then she thought it over for a moment more and decided it
wasn't necessarily so.  Those were painful injuries, but not
permanently crippling - not even particularly lasting with today's
medical technology.  But then, Utena had noticed that about Kate
before, in her duel with Saionji.  She only drew her blade if the
other side had already committed to lethal force.  It was an admirable
sentiment; Utena wondered if it would cost her roommate sooner or
later.
        Under the circumstances, probably sooner if at all.
        "W-what the hell w-w-was that g-guard d-doing here?" wondered
Kate softly.  "Th-there's n-nothing in this s-section but
st-storer-rooms."  Slowly, carefully, she advanced to the next door.
Here in the basement they were all grey metal, industrial.  The
nearest one was ajar.  Kate held up a hand for the rest to hold up,
then glanced at Utena.  Utena got the idea, nodded, and keyed her
watch.
        "Tiny Robo," she whispered.  "Check it out."
        "(grr,)" said the little robot, and he moved forward.  Through
his eyes, Utena could look and listen through the gap in the partly
open door.
        "... away with this," said a blurry voice.  It seemed oddly
familiar, but Utena couldn't place it, not with the slight distortion
that the watch's microspeaker produced.
        Another, deeper voice gave a tinny chuckle.  "Get away with
what, my dear?  You're being very gracious and civic-minded, remaining
in the crisis zone to assist us with the investigation."
        Shapes were difficult to make out in the gloomy basement room,
through the tiny viewscreen.  It took Utena a few moments to figure
out what she was looking at.
        "And," the voice went on, "by the time we're through, you'll
have decided that your future path lies with the Corps, even though
the Act doesn't require Zeta Cygnans to join... yet."
        "I'd never... " said the unsteady-sounding voice again.
        "Your talent is far too valuable for us to let slip away just
because of a petty point of law," the smoother voice replied.  Then,
with a hint of a smile, it repeated, "By the time we're through,
you'll join... of your own - free - will."  Then that thin chuckle
again.
        The image came together as much in Utena's mind as in her
eyes.  She raised those eyes from the screen to Kate.
        "It's Liza.  One person with her.  I think he's a Psi Cop,"
she murmured, the question obvious.
        Kate looked back at her for one long moment, her face
unreadable.
        Then she nodded, turned, and -disappeared-.
        I don't think I'll ever get used to that, thought Utena.
        A moment later, as Tiny Robo faded back out of the way, the
slightly open door flung itself violently open.
        The Psi Cop - a rather squat-built, dour-faced man none of
them remembered seeing before - looked up in startled puzzlement, a
spray hypo in his right hand.
        A moment later, he didn't -have- a right hand.
        When she struck him the second time, Kaitlyn had reversed her
blade.  He crumpled, but he got to keep the top of his head.
        Liza Broadbank blinked as her old nemesis seemed to appear out
of nowhere with fire in her eyes and a bloody sword in her hands.
        "Oh no," she said, her voice thick with fatigue and
discomfort.  "Have you come to put me out of my misery, Kaitlyn?" she
inquired, and Utena, having reached the door, had to give her points
for effort.  She'd really -tried- to have something like her old
mocking tone as she said it.
        Kate didn't reply; she merely used the Psi Cop's belt to set a
tourniquet on the stump of his right arm, then cut Liza's bonds away
and gestured for her to follow.  In the hallway, Liza noticed Amanda
and shrank back, the fear evident on her face; but Amanda ignored her,
acting as though she wasn't even there, and concentrated on helping
Devlin walk.
        In silence, with Liza keeping a fearful distance from Amanda,
they navigated deeper into the basement, into the furnace room - 
        - and Kaitlyn's resheathed blade crossed with another, making
a sharp -click- that nearly startled them all out of their skins.
        Through the X of their crossed swords, Kaitlyn and Wakaba
Shinohara regarded each other with mirror expressions of shocked
recognition.
        "W-what the hell are y-YOU d-doing d-down here?!" Kate
whispered urgently.
        "We -were- coming to rescue you," Wakaba replied in a dry
murmur, "but it looks like you've already done that."
        Kate was about to ask, "We?" when she noticed the other figure
behind Wakaba in the shadowy room.  Wakaba and Saionji, a regular
Duelist task force.
        "Great," said Utena.  "Not that we don't appreciate the
sentiment, guys, but how the hell are -seven- of us going to sneak out
of here?"
        "Well, if we can't sneak, there are at least enough of us to
make a decent effort at -busting- out."  Wakaba looked at her watch,
then made an annoyed sound.  She reached up and tabbed the red-star
badge, elicting a little electric twirble from it.
        "Wakaba to Group B," she said.
        "Go ahead," Miki Kaoru's voice replied.
        "Hey," said Utena, "that's mine."
        Wakaba gave her a not-now-dammit look and said, "Miki, it took
us longer to get inside than I expected.  We won't be able to get back
to you in time."
        "What will you do?" Miki said, a note of alarm in his voice.
        "My ship," said Amanda.  "Regional Spaceport.  Seven of us
will be a bit of a squeeze, but for a short hop, we can manage."
        "That's two miles away," Saionji noted.
        "We'll t-take my c-car," said Kate.
        "Did you get that, Miki?" asked Wakaba.
        "Received and understood.  Do you have Dorothy?"
        "No.  She already got out.  I figured she'd be there with you
by now."
        "We haven't seen her."  A pause.  "I'm going to try and find
her.  The others will raise ship from here - I'll round up Dorothy and
meet you at Amanda's ship."
        "OK, but don't take too long about it."
        "I won't.  Miki out."

        While Miki had his conversation with Wakaba, the rest of the
escape group took a brief rest from moving boxes around.  T'skaia
looked away from the quiet conversation to focus on the trucks moving
along the highway at the far end of the airfield.  Had Dorothy been
with him, she might have seen what he did; the logo of the Psi Corps
Enforcement Division, prominent on the sides of transport after
transport.
        All headed toward the Institute's neighborhood.
        "Rrrrrgh!"  G'Kron stopped his pacing and slapped the hull of
the Cordwainer's Forge in frustration.  "It's been nearly an hour.
What can be keeping them?"
        "I imagine that's what Miki is discussing with them right
now," said Sky, but before he could elaborate, the captain of the
Cordwainer's Forge, a large Tellarite named Lorg, ran down the cargo
gangplank.
        "Grab your gear and get aboard," he huffed, winded from the
short run.  "Earthforce just ordered a no-fly zone over this
continent.  They're waking up the Earth defense grid.  It's time to
-leave-, kids."
        "SIR!"  Mac stepped forward and stood to attention.  "We still
haven't heard from our friends!  We have to wait!"
        "Listen, middie," Lorg grunted, "we -could- just possibly fly
back to that school of yours, load up your friends, and blast our way
out without any serious problems.  But we'd never get beyond
atmosphere.  These ships were built for covert ops, not blockade
running!  Now get your s'tavv hrusshan moving before I put a boot up
it!!"
        "All right, then," Mac sighed.  "Moose, get aboard."
        Moose looked from Lorg to Mac and back again for a few long,
significant seconds, the massive muscles at the corner of his jaw
bunching and unbunching.
        Miki Kaoru, glancing up from his just-completed conversation
with Wakaba, saw the Hoffmanite beginning to take a step toward Mac,
realized what it must be about, and said, "Take it easy, Moose.  I
just talked to Wakaba.  They're finding their own way out - they're
going to use Amanda's ship."
        Moose regarded his roommate.  "You wouldn't kid a guy just to
get him to back down, would you?" he asked quietly.
        Miki tried to look conciliatory and offended at the same time.
        Moose smiled.  "No, of course not," he said to himself,
shaking his head.  He looked at Mac, then said, "Better take a head
count.  MacEchearn, present."
        Then he took a long look at the horizon, turned, and walked
slowly into the ship.
        Mac watched him go, sagged a bit, and said under his breath,
"Fine.  Mia!"
        "Present!"
        "Don't say present, just get in the ship!" Lorg snarled.
        As Mia ran up the gangplank, Mac continued naming names,
nodding as one figure after the other ran up the plank. "G'Kron!
T'Skaia!  Juri!  Miki! - Miki, what are you doing?"
        Miki had opened the IPO communicator again and started
fiddling with the settings.  He glanced up as Mac called his name.
        "Go on without me," he said.  "I'm going after Dorothy.  I'll
get out with the others."
        "Are you sure?" Mac asked him, alarmed.
        Azalynn, who had held herself aloof and silent throughout the
gloomy afternoon, slipped up beside Mac and whispered something to
him.  Mac's eyebrows rose and his cheeks went slightly pink.
        "I can't leave her behind," Miki replied; he hadn't noticed
the byplay, because he was still intent on the communicator.  "Come
on, Dorothy, answer... "
        A hand on his shoulder startled him out of his focus; he
looked up to meet Azalynn's warm gold eyes.
        "Good luck, Miki," she murmured, and kissed him.  "S'thaai
dvhala, makhanai."
        Miki smiled and patted her hand on his shoulder.  "I'll see
you at the rendezvous," he said.  "Now you'd better go."
        "I won't argue with that," Mac cried over the growing whine of
the Forge's engines.  "Good luck, Kaoru!"
        Miki nodded, gave him a thumbs-up, and then ran to get clear
of the pad and the airport.  There was a hole in the dilapidated fence
not far away that would suit his purpose fine; once down in the
drainage ditch alongside the field, he held his ears against the
scream of the Freespacers' liftoff, then returned to his work with
Utena's communicator.

        Dorothy crouched low beside a crumbling brick wall and
assessed her situation.  There was a team of armored, heavily armed
Enforcers below; above, nothing but the upper floors of this abandoned
office building, too dilapidated to support her weight.  She was
perhaps halfway to the old County Airport, but the message she'd
received from Durandal about the Duelists' escape plans had been
specific as to timing.  It was too late to catch that flight option
now... and they had her cornered.
        The only thing to do was to see if she could elude them until
they got far enough into the building to leave her an escape route,
or, failing that, overpower them - which didn't seem likely.  And
where would she go from there?  The logical route was to the Regional
Spaceport, two miles distant at the edge of the city, where Amanda
Dessler kept her scoutship.  Perhaps she could steal a car, or if the
facility proved to be outside the Psi Corps' jamming radius, call
Corwin for assistance.
        A grubby gray cat mewed plaintively at her.
        "I'm sorry," she told it softly.  "I don't have anything for
you to eat.  I'm afraid I've brought you only trouble."
        Suddenly, she heard something - not an audible sound, but a
transmission, coming in on, of all things, an Experts of Justice
distress-hail frequency.  She almost ignored it as noise, until she
realized that it was a pattern she recognized.  Five musical tones.
The first five notes of a very familiar song.
        She opened a channel, encrypted it using the five-note
sequence as the basis for a key, and acknowledged.
        "Dorothy," came the relieved voice of Miki Kaoru.  "Where are
you?"
        She gave him her location and apprised him of her situation,
then advised him to go with the others and get clear.  He thanked her
for the thought and informed her that he'd be there in ten minutes.
        As she closed the channel and listened to the Enforcers sweep
the lower floors, Dorothy wondered if she had ten minutes.

        As she drew the Thorn of the Rose and blocked the swing of a
Psi Corps stun rod with it, Utena Tenjou reflected that she had
definitely had better days.
        On the other hand, a pitched battle with stun-rod-wielding
enforcement officers in the Alden great hall was certainly a fittingly
dramatic thing to be going on in the headquarters of the Duelists'
Society.  If T'skaia were here, he'd probably be inspired to paint the
scene.
        "We c-can handle these g-guys," Kaitlyn observed, and there
was no bravado about it - the statement was an honest assessment of
their chances.  "You g-guys get to the l-loading dock!"
        Amanda nodded, her k'tayyl in one hand, and hustled Devlin and
Liza toward the rear doors while Saionji guarded their back.
        As another gray-clad officer jumped down from the stage to
occupy Saionji's attention, Amanda's was focused almost entirely on
the doors.  Just get outside, and the others could disentangle
themselves and follow.  They could still get out of this.
        The doors opened and Roger Tremayne stepped in.
        "Oh, no," Liza whimpered.
        "Going somewhere, children?" Roger inquired pleasantly.
        "Get out of my way," Amanda snarled, "or I will kill you."
        "I doubt that," Roger replied, and suddenly Amanda's mind was
on fire.  She staggered, eye squeezed shut, and clutched at her head,
falling to her knees.  Amanda Dessler had been tortured by experts -
part of the Imperial Gamilon Navy's training program for withstanding
torture involved quite effective live demonstrations, using such
unpleasant items as Klingon agonizers and Daktari neural whips.  Even
so, this was the most exquisite discomfort she could ever remember
having experienced.  It was like somebody had drilled a hole in her
head and was now injecting antimatter into it.
        How long it went on, she couldn't tell - an hour, maybe, or a
second, or a year - but suddenly it was lessened.  Still agonizing,
but now not anything she couldn't focus past.  She opened her eye,
levered herself up, and saw Devlin staring intently at the Psi Cop,
his shocking blue eyes open wide and quivering.
        "Amateur," said Roger, his voice slightly strained.  "You
can't hold me, boy.  You may be a P12, but your training is spotty and
your experience pitiful.  I'm already sublimating your ego wall.  You
can feel it."
        Devlin said nothing; he only narrowed his eyes, a thin trickle
of blood starting from his nose.
        Amanda knew a chance when she saw one.  She raised herself
from the floor, set herself, and rushed the Psi Cop.

        "What the HELL - "
        "Easy, man, it's just a cat."
        "Jesus.  What the hell are we doing this for?  We should just
burn this goddamn building down."
        "That'd go over well with the local yokels, I'm sure."
        "FUCK the local yokels.  It's not like we want the thing
intact.  The positron matrix would survive a fire that wrecked the
chassis."
        "How do you know a building fire -would- wreck the chassis?
No, Corporal, our orders are clear.  Trash it if we have to, but they
want the head intact."
        R. Dorothy Wayneright listened to the radio chatter of the
Enforcers hunting her through the abandoned office building and felt
outrage growing within her.  Her emotional responses had been getting
stronger and more complex over the last couple of days.  It was too
soon to be certain just how much that had to do with her experiments
with Miki Kaoru, but she thought it likely that there was a
connection.
        She smiled slightly at the thought, then returned her
attention to the matter at hand.  They were getting nearer, but their
pattern was widening as they swept.  She would have to engage one, two
at the most, and her path would be clear to the back stairwell.  Miki
hadn't called again; he probably had his hands free trying to
infiltrate the area.  She wished he hadn't come.  Not that it wasn't
nice that he was willing to come and rescue her, but the odds were
very good that he would get hurt in the process.  He was a human.
Humans were fragile.
        "God DAMN that cat!"
        The sound of a plasma discharge echoed nearby; had Dorothy
been human, she'd have jumped in surprise.
        "Jackson!  Goddammit, stand DOWN!  This building's not exactly
stable.  You go capping off at stray cats and the next thing you know,
you bring the whole place down around us."
        "And you're such a lousy shot you didn't even -hit- it."
        "Fuck you, Templeton."
        "Secure that shit, gentlemen.  Let's just get the job done."
        Dorothy noted the electromagnetic disturbance of one of their
transmitters nearby, just on the other side of the thin partition
wall - the one she would have to get past in order to escape.  She
edged nearer to the doorway, readying herself for action, and then
rounded the corner.
        The Enforcer pulled up short, his eyes behind his visor going
wide with shock.
        "Holy - !" he blurted.
        Dorothy's eyes narrowed as she saw his nametag: JACKSON.
        "YOU'RE the one," she said, "who tried to shoot the CAT."

        Roger saw Amanda coming, and shifted some of his attention
back to her.  The pain sizzled across her synapses, interfering with
her motor functions, making her stumble and nearly fall, and she saw
the look of satisfaction on his somewhat strained face as she did so.
        That was a satisfaction he had not earned.  Telepathic powers
or not, he was nothing but a cheap thug, and no cheap thug was going
to get the better of Amanda Elektra Dessler.
        She gritted her teeth, gathered all her rage, and threw it
against the intruding thrust of his mind.  His eyes flickered with
surprise as she hit him back - normals aren't supposed to be able to
do that - and then she dug into her reserves of strength, raised
herself again, and hurled herself forward.  The blade of her k'tayyl
bit into his shoulder; the pain shrieked into every corner of her
mind.  She shoved the blade deeper, twisting it, tasting his pain
through the attack that linked them and drawing a perverse strength
from it.
        >Die, you monster,< she snarled at him in Gamilon, through
lips bloodied by the bleeding of her nose.
        Roger staggered, her blade catching in the bone of his
shoulder, and Devlin took the opportunity for one final thrust.  The
pain left Amanda's mind entirely as the Psi Cop focused all his
attention on Devlin.
        Amanda let go of her stuck k'tayyl, drew back her fist, and
drove it into Roger's face with all the strength her rage could give
her.
        He blinked at her as if surprised; then he gathered himself as
if to counterattack.  Suddenly, yellow light washed over him, and he
staggered back and finally fell.  Amanda glanced to her side to see
Lesser Mazinger, discharge bleed still crackling from his tiny optics,
and smiled.  Short help, she remarked to herself, was better than no
help at all.
        Saionji finished relieving his opponent of his stun rod,
knocked him senseless, and then hurried to shore up Devlin as the
latter's legs gave out.  Utena, Kaitlyn and Wakaba rallied round as
well.
        "Let's get the hell out of here," said Amanda, pausing only to
put a foot on Roger's chest and yank her honor blade out of his
collarbone.
        No one gave her any argument.  They charged into the side
hallway toward the loading dock, beelined for the panic-barred exit
door with Wakaba in the lead - 
        - and she crashed rather painfully into it, rebounding
unsteadily into Utena's arms.
        "Ow!  Son of a BITCH!" she snarled.  "Locked?!  It's a FIRE
DOOR!"
        "It's not l-l-locked," said Kate, bending to examine the seam
between the double doors.  "It's b-b-been p-plasma w-w-welded."
        "They knew we'd come this way," said Saionji.
        "Well," said Utena, drawing Devlin's PPG from her pocket,
"maybe I can blast it."
        The PPG made a small, smoky hole in the door, but little more.
        "Or not," Utena sighed.
        Tiny Robo, his armor scratched and soot-streaked, stalked out
from behind Kate, his little arms making a "stand back, please"
gesture to the group.  Lesser Mazinger directed traffic as well, doing
his best to herd everybody back from where Robo stood foursquare in
front of the doors, surveying them with fists on armor-kilted hips.
        Utena consulted her watch and raised an eyebrow.
        "Um, you guys," she said, "I'm not sure what Robo's up to, but
according to his status monitor, it involves something called an
'Atomic Buster Cannon'.  I think maybe we should get back."
        They fell back to the far corner, where they could guard the
entrance into this short corridor and still keep an eye on Robo
without being right behind whatever it was he was doing.  Utena
watched in fascination as Lesser Mazinger fell back as well, leaving
Robo to his work.
        Tiny Robo spread his feet and braced himself, facing the door
about six feet back from it.  On his back, the righthand of his two
aqualung-tank-like rocket thrusters shifted, divided in half.  The
upper half extended further upward on a track, then fell forward,
lying over Robo's shoulder.  A little armature extended from his chest
to catch it; he reached up with his right arm to brace it.
        From the front end, formerly the top, of the cylindrical unit,
a telescopic barrel extended forward a few inches with a servo whine
and a positive-sounding click.  Behind him, something that looked like
a rocket's exhaust nozzle at the rear of the newly-reconfigured cannon
hissed and outgassed a tidy ring of white steam.
        For a moment, nothing happened.
        Then - 
        PFWHAM!
        The doors, the frame around them, and about six inches of
Alden Hall's brickwork on all sides of the doorway vanished in a
brilliant scarlet fireball.  The shockwave curled back, ricocheted up
the hall, popped everyone's ears.  Tiny Robo skidded backward six
inches, the treads of his feet leaving trails of sparks and deep
scratches in the concrete floor.
        Then, retracting the cannon back into its original position on
his back, Tiny Robo straightened himself and strode with magnificent,
measured tread through the jagged hole he'd blown in the building's
side, to freedom.
        Utena and Kaitlyn looked at each other, dumbfounded.
        "I'm going to have to have a talk with Corwin when we see him
again," said Utena.

        Miki Kaoru had never seen a grown man's flying limp body knock
down a steel fire door before, but that all changed this afternoon.
He sidestepped and let the unconscious shape of a Corps Enforcer named
Jackson tumble down the stairs past him, then grinned to see Dorothy
appear at the top of the stairs - carrying in her arms, he noticed
with faint surprise, a -cat-.
        She nodded to acknowledge him, but didn't speak - only ran.
Miki stayed put, let her pass him, and then started backing after
her.  An Enforcer appeared at the top of the stairs.  Miki raised
Utena's phaser and let him have it.
        Enforcer armor is designed to disperse phased energy as well
as withstand physical attack, but upon learning that Dorothy's
assailants were Enforcers, Miki had taken that into account.  The
blast he unleashed would have vaporized an unprotected man; this one,
it flung backward several feet in a boneless heap, insensate for
hours.
        On the other hand, a few more blasts like that and the phaser
would be exhausted.  It was only a Type 1B, after all.
        Retreat would be the most expedient thing to do.
        Miki hurried after Dorothy.

        The three freighters chosen to extract Mac and his classmates
from Worcester had not been modified for blockade running;
nonetheless, they could turn an impressive bit of speed, and by the
time the Earth defense grid was authorized for lethal force the ships
had already cleared the satellite perimeter.  The only obstacle
remaining between them and freedom was the local complement of
Earthforce and Starfleet vessels, several of which roared through
orbital space to intercept the freighters.

        Mac stumbled into the Forge's control room - too big to be a
cockpit, too small to be a bridge - as Lorg's copilot muttered,
"Signal away."  Through the transparisteel ports, Mac could see three
Nova-class warships with Earthforce markings cutting across their
flight path from starboard.  Even without a glance at the tactical
display, he could see the interception point about forty thousand
kilometers away.  In just over a minute, the freighters would be under
the guns of two Hyperion-class destroyers, and changing course to keep
them out of reach would allow half a dozen cruisers, and one of
Starfleet's new Galaxy-class battleships, to intercept.
        "So," he sighed, "we didn't get away after all, did we?"
        "Don't be quite so sure of that," Lorg rumbled, his face
twisted into what was almost a human smile.  "Metapoint forming
three-five-seven mark zero-zero-eight."
        As Mac watched, a vortex of energy sprang into existence just
to starboard of their course, widened, and solidified.  A cluster of
ships slid through the metaspace portal, centered on two vessels
outmassing the Earthforce destroyers two to one -each-.  Even at
twenty thousand klicks, Mac could make out the brilliant white hulls
and severe angles of Freespacer-built warships.
        "Never go in without backup," Lorg grunted.  "Now go back and
strap in; things might get a little ugly before we get there."

        The tiny woman sitting in the center seat on CFMF
Charlemagne's flag bridge had many nicknames among different people.
Starfleet Academy used her as the textbook definition of 'loose
cannon.'  Her tour of duty as a rear admiral had earned her the media
nickname of 'the Pirate Killer,' and her earlier exploits as captain
of USS Constellation, CFMF Defiant, and the Charlemagne had earned her
another nickname, "the Klingon Spooker."  The Klingon codename for her
was 'Big Trouble in a Little Package'; the Kilrathi called her 'She
Who Must be Avoided,' and the Romulans referred to her, poetically, as
'Go Around the Other Side of the Nebula.'
        The person who inspired such respect among her peers (the same
kind of respect a ticking bomb gets) scarcely fit the model of
terror.  She still held wild, drunken parties with karaoke and games at
every opportunity.  She followed the idol-singer circuit of her
homeworld Tomodachi with a passion.  She was a personality prone to
violence not out of anger, hatred or insanity, but rather because she
had never learned the importance of moderation in anything.  She took
incredible risks, used excessive force, and gave every last bit of
effort to anything she did.
        And if doing that meant acquiring a bad reputation, then Vice
Admiral Ayami Nakajima, commander 2Div CFMF Tacfleet and the 6th
Carrier Task Force, would just have to put up with it.
        Captain T'Pall's voice echoed over the Charlemagne's intercom,
"Metaspace jump point is closed.  Secure from metaspace.  Task force
defense grid is armed and fully integrated."
        Commander Claire Lemno, Aya's chief of staff, smiled as she
listened to her earbug.  "Admiral, Earthforce Captain John Sheridan,
EAS Agamemnon, demands to know what we're doing here."
        "Let him eat static," Aya giggled.
        "Ooooh, and now Earthforce -General- Carlisle is hailing our
fleet, Admiral," Claire smiled, her cat-eyes twinkling as the
half-Caitian added, "He sounds -really- mad... "
        Aya smirked, brushing back her dark page-cut hair before
saying, "Put him on screen.  Might as well get it over with..."
        The main viewer blinked from the blue and white of Earth to an
angry human face, tiny wisps of white hair clinging to the sides of
his otherwise bald head.  The thick neck bulged with veins as General
Carlisle said, "Freespacer ships, you have entered a temporary no-fly
zone and crossed the courses of several Earth Alliance warships in hot
pursuit of possible smuggling vessels.  You are ordered to disperse
your fleet and allow our ships to pass unimpeded."
        Aya put on her sweetest, most cavity-inducing cute face and
said, "Oh, I'm so sorry, General!  Vice Admiral Aya Nakajima, CFMF 6th
Carrier Task Force.  We're performing trials on our new metaspace
drives, and wouldn't you know it, we had a systems breakdown and had
to drop into normal space right on top of you.  Don't worry, we'll
move on as soon as we finish repairs!"
        "Admiral Nakajima, you will allow our ships to pass through
your formation.  Stand down your weapons immediately."
        Aya put on her sad-sad face and pouted, "Well, gee, I'd like
to do that, General, but our automated systems are stuck in crisis
mode.  Our defense grid is fully active and we can't shut it down.  So
it's really not safe for your ships to get any closer... "
        The general glared through the viewscreen at Aya.  "Is that the
-truth-, Admiral?"
        Aya smiled, and this smile was no put-on.  You just can't fake
that level of hostility.
        "As far as -you- know," she said just a little less sweetly.
"I -strongly- suggest you not test it."
        The general grumbled, noting that the intercept ships had
already slowed down to avoid collision, and with a curse he keyed open
the intercom on his desk.  "Order the intercept ships to stand away
from the Freespacer fleet.  That's an order."  Looking back to the
screen, he said, "My government will file a formal protest of this
interference in Earth affairs, Admiral."
        "File away, General," Aya said, smiling a bit wider.  "We
don't mind protests.  You might -survive- a protest.  Nakajima out."
The viewer returned to its view of the space ahead, centering on the
three Freespacer freighters slowing to rendezvous point with the task
force.  "T'Pall, have the refugees beamed aboard immediately.  I want
to debrief them personally.  And have Shran fake some problems with
the metapoint generator."
        "Admiral," the Vulcan's voice replied, "once we have the
refugees aboard, is our mission not complete?  Our orders specifically
prohibit any possible escalation of hostilities with Earth."
        "I've got a feeling something else is gonna happen, T'Pall,"
Aya smiled.  "I want us to be around when it happens.  If Earthforce
comes calling again, stall 'em!  This task force stays put until I'm
damn good and ready to go!"  With that Aya jumped from her seat and
strode to the turbolift, the doors hissing shut behind her.
        With the intercom still open, T'Pall sighed with
resignation, "Humans are -still- unfathomable."

        Kaitlyn and company, slowed down now by the semiconscious
burdens of Devlin -and- Liza, reached the Wedge from the Daniels Hall
side only to see Miki and Dorothy entering it from the Morgan Hall
side.
        "What are you guys doing here?!" Wakaba blurted.  "You're
supposed to be with the others, offplanet by now!"
        Miki shook his head, struggling for breath.
        "He came back to help me," Dorothy said.  "If you're trying to
reach Amanda's ship, forget it.  The Corps have almost a company of
Enforcers around it.  They're expecting you."
        "Damn!" Wakaba spat; then, blinking, she added in a puzzled
tone, "Where'd you get the cat?"
        "Freeze!" barked a voice from behind them.  They whirled to
see a pair of Enforcers standing in the Daniels Hall corridor behind
them; they must have entered from the Institute Road side.
        Wakaba looked at Utena and Kate.  They turned for battle.
        Behind the two Enforcers, there was a rafter-rattling roar,
and two huge hands clamped one onto each man's head, then slammed them
together with such force that their helmets were crushed.  They
crumpled to the floor.
        Behind them hulked the Institute's specialist in the Klingon
language, and the faculty advisor of the Institute Duelists' Society -
        "Professor Kraalgh!" Utena exclaimed, delighted.
        "Kai the Society," Kraalgh replied amiably.  "You seem to have
made these creatures very unhappy with you."  The Klingon scowled down
at the unconscious Enforcers, then picked up their weapons.  "Blaster
rifles against swords.  They lack even a semblance of honor."  He
slung one of the rifles, then handed the other to Utena, who passed
Devlin's PPG to Saionji to make room in her hands for it.  "At least
now things are slightly more even."
        "Do you know any other way off the planet?" asked Wakaba.
        "None that are readily accessible," Kraalgh replied.  "But
Tenjou here is of my house," he added.  "The Klingon Consulate in
Boston will give us shelter if we can reach it."
        Dorothy cocked her head.  "Concussion mortar," she said, then
cried, "Get down!" and dragged as many as she could reach to the floor
inside one of the Wedge benches.  Kraalgh leaped - with surprising
agility for his bulk - over the top of the nearest booth, and Utena,
Wakaba and Kate dove into it with him.
        With a tremendous crash, something sheared the roof of the
Wedge right off, covering them in dust and rubble.

        Corwin knew he was dreaming, but he also knew that it wasn't
an ordinary dream.  He had these every now and again, strange echoes
of the cosmic symphony that resonated against his mother's blood.
They showed him things, usually snippets of the future, but so lacking
in context and detail that he never understood what they meant until
after whatever they foretold had already come to pass.  He found them
more annoying than useful.
        This one was different.  This one was absolute in clarity,
razor-sharp and photorealistic, as though he were actually standing
there in the Wedge at WPI on Earth.
        Or the ruins of the Wedge, anyway.  The place had no roof, the
wall facing the Quad was mostly gone - what the hell was going on?
There was a group of people huddled in one corner, by one of the Wedge
benches, keeping their heads down.  Across the Quad, men and women in
black armor were grouping up for a charge, heavy weapons in their
hands.
        One of the huddled people in the Wedge stood up, and Corwin's
heart nearly stopped.  It was Utena Tenjou, the Thorn of the Rose in
her hand and a look of mingled apprehension and rage on her face.  As
the black-armored figures began their charge, she lunged forward, over
the shattered threshold of one of the missing doors and down the
stairs, in a countercharge, her hair flying in a pink streamer behind
her as a defiant scream welled up from her throat.  Behind her, the
others - Kaitlyn among them, and Dorothy too - scrambled to their feet
and followed, into the teeth of a charge they had to know they
couldn't stand against.
        Corwin shouted for them to stop, but his voice made no sound,
and then everything around him went white.

        Corwin sat up with a start, then jumped again as the heavy
book slid off his chest and crashed to the floor.  He looked around
the room with wild eyes, breathing hard, as if he'd just sprinted a
hundred yards or more.  His heart pounded.  He raked his hands back
through his hair, feeling the concentration of sweat at his hairline,
and lurched to his feet.
        Nall looked up from his pile of coins and said, "What's the
matter with -you-?"
        Corwin waved a hand for him to be quiet, his other hand still
pressed over his left eye with the fingers splayed through his thick
black hair.  He squeezed his eyes shut, concentrating as hard as he
could.  The brand on his forehead flickered, then glowed with a
high-pitched keening noise that raised the little dragon's hackles.

        "Do you love her?" a voice behind him asked.  He whirled in
the featureless white limbo to see a man standing there, a
dark-skinned, silver-haired man who looked little older than Kaitlyn,
dressed in an elaborate white uniform with gold buttons and traces of
blue.  In its styling Corwin recognized hints of the old school
uniforms Utena often wore.  The man himself looked slightly familiar
too, but Corwin could not understand why.
        "Who the hell - ?" Corwin wondered.
        "There's no time, Corwin Ravenhair," the man replied.  "I
asked you a question.  Do you love her?"
        "Who?" Corwin asked.
        "The Knight of the Rose."
        Corwin blinked, was on the verge of repeating his question,
then understood.
        "I - yes!" he blurted.
        "Then go to her, quickly," said the man in white, and he
vanished.

        Corwin wrenched his hand away from his face, rose fully
upright, said, "-Shit!-" and ran from the room.  "Come ON, Nall!" he
yelled behind him as he pelted down the hall to the stairs.
        Nall took a shortcut over the railing and down the stairwell,
landing neatly on Corwin's shoulder just as he got to the bottom of
the stairs, and inquired, "What's going on?"
        Corwin ignored him, calling, "Dad?  Kei?  DAD!"  He ran to the
doorway of the den, stuck his head in, then dashed around through the
kitchen and looked into the conservatory.  Nothing.  Nobody home.
"Shit!" Corwin repeated.  Then he ran back to the living room, grabbed
his jacket, and yanked on his shoes, hardly breaking stride as he did
so.  The front door of 105 Morgan Lane slammed behind him as he jumped
down the stairs and ran to the driveway.
        "Where," Nall inquired with a calm he didn't really feel, "are
we going?"
        But Corwin didn't answer.  Instead he pulled on his leather
jacket, causing Nall to slide down from his shoulder, claws grabbing
at his sweater, then adjust himself so that he was looking out through
the partly-down front zipper.  Then Corwin piled into his antique
Griffon limousine, cranked the turbine over, and slammed the gearshift
into reverse.
        "CORWIN!  Where - are - we - GOING?!"
        "Can't take the Wonder," Corwin muttered to himself, ignoring
Nall still.  He revved the Griffon up, let out the clutch, and slung
the big black car into the street, then rammed it into first gear and
tore off down the hill.  "Too slow.  Never make it in time.  Metaspace
is no good.  Have to do it."
        "Do -what-?" Nall inquired, but Corwin wasn't listening.
Craning his neck, the dragon looked up at his companion's face, saw
the set of his jaw and the glassy concentration in his blue eyes, and
left off interrogations altogether.
        Soon it became obvious where they were headed.  Nall was very
familiar with the route from Morgan Lane to Mathews Memorial
Spaceport.  It impressed Nall slightly that Corwin wasn't pulled over
for speeding, given the fact that he was driving hell-bent for
leather, hitting nearly 150 miles per hour on Highway 29.  Never a cop
around when you needed one.  The Griffon screamed through the tollgate
at the Mathews Memorial exit without slackening pace, setting off
speed alarms at the transponder reader, but Corwin ignored them,
snarling as he was forced to slow for the sweeping lefthand turn into
the spaceport access road.
        Corwin had a code that would open the fence to the flightline,
but he would have had to stop at the gate for that.  Instead he put
the pedal to the floor, and the limousine's armored prow smashed down
the fence as if it were chicken wire.  Nall made a distressed little
noise and hid his head inside Corwin's jacket, but emerged again a
second later, filled with a sort of morbid curiosity.
        They were heading for Hangar 17, where Corwin's father kept
his personal starship, Daggerdisc.  Corwin had a code for this place's
doors as well, but the black-haired youth made no move toward the
transmitter panel as they raced across the tarmac toward the squat
silver building.
        Instead, Corwin reached to the column of buttons to the right
of the video display screen in the center of the dash and punched one
of them in, causing text to march unread across the display:

                            WEAPON SELECT
                               MISSILE
                               >>OK<<

        Something in the Griffon's dash computer beeped.  A bit
forward of the windshield, squarish pods about two feet long popped up
on curved tracks from the tops of the car's fenders, and a
targeting reticule appeared on the windshield.  His eyes narrowed,
Corwin manipulated it with his thumb atop the gearshift lever, zeroing
in on the rapidly growing rear door to the hangar.
        With great plumes of grayish-white smoke that whipped away
into the car's slipstream, a pair of general-purpose missiles streaked
from the Griffon's gunnery pods, crossed the fast-shrinking space
between car and hangar, and blew the rolling steel doors to kingdom
come.
        The Griffon slashed through the scattering wreckage, slewed
sideways, and skidded to a stop inside the hangar itself.  Before the
car was even fully stopped, Corwin was out and running across the
concrete floor toward the starship parked in the center.  Nall
clambered out of the jacket and up onto Corwin's shoulder, gripping
the epaulet stitching with his claws, and looked back outside through
the jagged hole they'd just entered through.  Spaceport Police
hovercars were racing toward them, but Corwin had reached the side of
the glittering silver disc that was his father's well-maintained
hotrod Corellian freighter.
        He held his open palm before the keypad of the main ramp's
master lock panel and spoke a single word, this in the language of his
mother:
        >Open!<
        His brand pulsed, and the hatch unlocked and opened - not just
opened, but emergency-released, dropping open unresisted with its own
weight and slamming down so hard it etched a line of spall in the
concrete of the hangar floor.  Corwin dashed up, slapping the controls
to reclose it behind him as he passed, and ran around the circular
inner corridor to the little neck that led to the ship's
portside-slung cockpit pod.
        There he flung himself into the pilot's seat and flicked
switches, running the ship through her preflight checklist with a
speed and precision that would have shocked him had he been an outside
observer watching himself do it.  Behind him, Daggerdisc rumbled, then
hummed, then purred, as the power core came online and the ship's
systems awakened.  The spaceport cops were just entering the hangar
when Corwin threw open the throttles and the freighter smashed
through the roof and hurtled into the sky with a deep-throated BOOM of
suddenly-redlined ion thrusters.
        The comm system clamored for his attention; he shut it down,
his face a mask of concentration.  The sky turned gray, then black, as
they left the Avalon pseudocontinent's atmosphere; he kept the
throttles wide open and vectored around the pylon into the relatively
open space of the Zeta Cygni Dyson sphere's interior.  Once he was
sure he wasn't going to run into anything, he released the control
yoke with his left hand and began plying the navigation panel on the
bulkhead beside him.
        But not, Nall was startled to note, the hyperdrive quadrant of
said panel.  Instead, Corwin's fingers were playing over the keys and
switches of the red panel inset on that control board.  Three scarlet
lights on the main instrument panel turned green one after the next,
then pulsed in sequence.  Corwin's brand glowed brightly enough to
throw shadows off the taller levers and switches as he worked at the
red navipanel, his eyes closed.
        Then he opened them, uttered a short request to his maternal
elders, and threw the red and white striped lever next to the red
panel down.

        Aya returned to the bridge, fuming.  "Claire, secure channel
to all ship commanders and Colonel Ruurlkyr."  A few seconds passed
before a myriad of comm windows popped up on the main viewscreen,
arranged in a very artful geometric pattern.  "All right, folks, we
have a Situation," she said once the fifteenth face popped into view.
"Focus sensors on the North American continent, city of Worcester,
Massachusetts, specifically the campus of the Worcester Preparatory
Institute."
        A new screen popped up on the viewer, a tactical display
showing masses of humanoid life signs and weapons discharges.  A tiny
cluster of life signs were surrounded by three times their number, and
a short distance away large numbers of dots showing the bright green
flux patterns of powered armor suits were unloading from transports to
join the besiegers.
        "Midshipsman McKenzie has informed me that a small group of
students, including the eldest daughter of Admiral Hutchins, late of
the WDF, is currently attempting a rescue of the Crown Princess of
Gamilon and her intended."  Aya frowned a bit deeper as she continued,
"It seems this was all started by the Psi Corps; the future Prince
Dessler is a rogue telepath and an Earth citizen.  The capture of
Princess Dessler, however, makes this a galactic incident, and a
violation of the Constitution of the United Federation of Planets.
        "Under these circumstances, I feel justified in launching a
rescue effort to retrieve Princess Dessler and whoever else is with
her.  I want to know what we can do in ten minutes.  Colonel, are your
Marines ready for an open-air drop?"
        The response was a gutteral roar.  Wookie palates generally
didn't allow them to speak Standard, or that was the excuse they gave
for not trying.  The Wookie's comm window popped up subtitles: READY
ANYTIME.  WE'LL GRIND THOSE PSI CORPS CLOWNS INTO THE BARK.
        "I'm afraid we'll have to dispense with fighter escorts, Aya,"
Fleet Captain Homare Nakajima, commanding officer of CFMF Wilderness,
put in.  "Our scanners are picking up literally -thousands- of defense
satellites.  Our corvettes would take heavy damage going in and out of
that; I doubt our fighters would survive, unless we take the time to
clear out our flightspace."
        "And do not forget we have a dozen Earthforce or Starfleet
ships in very close proximity," T'Pall added.  "I estimate a
successful mission with odds of seventy-two percent, but odds of sixty
percent or higher of losing three or more ships and twenty percent of
our fighter complement."
        "We could probably disable the sat grid by ion bombardment of
their control center," Shwarz shouted from over T'Pall's shoulder.
"That'd be an outright act of war, though."
        "And what do you call capturing the princess of a foreign
nation?" Aya shouted.  "A fucking -gravball challenge-?  Prepare for
fleet orders, we're going in in five - "

/*  Dick Dale & his Del-Tones  "Misirlou"  _King of the Surf Guitar_  */

        Sirens sounded throughout the Charlemagne's interior,
duplicated by the other ships in the task force.  "Reflex fold
signature detected!" Claire shouted, dashing from her comm console to
the sensor panel.
        Aya blinked.  "Reflex fold?" she murmured.  "The WDF?"
        "Fold event in two seconds!" Claire announced.  She blinked,
then shouted, "Great Minmei's Ghost!  They're folding in UNDER the
first satellite grid!"
        "WHO is?" Aya shouted.  "Put it on screen!  I want to -see-
this!"

        "Sweet Jesus!" Earthforce Lieutenant Eldon Marrs blurted as
his alert panel suddenly went berserk.  "Where did -that- come from?
Control, this is Observer Seven!  An unidentified spacecraft has just
defolded at point seven three, vectoring for Earth insertion!"
        "Observer Seven, Control," replied the voice of a command
operator.  "Did you say point seven three?  Confirm?"
        "Roger that, Control, confirm; the intruder defolded -inside
the lunar defense perimeter-, and he's headed your way.  I make his
vector nine nine by zero seven, speed about - holy Christ - 250
megalights!"

        "Did you say TWO HUNDRED FIFTY?" blurted Aya.
        "That's right," Claire replied.  "He's a Corellian, YT-1312
class, heavily modified.  His IFF transponder's hot... Admiral, it's
Daggerdisc!"
        Aya blinked, then grinned fit to sprain her face.  "Track him!
Don't let him out of my sight!  Now I -really- want to see this."

        Already on a hair trigger after the tense confrontation with
the Freespacers, Earth's second line of defense - its first having
been circumvented just by the location of Daggerdisc's arrival
in-system - sprang into action the moment this new alert was given,
but against a target of Daggerdisc's speed, there was little their
automated tracking systems could do.  The ship was moving faster than
most known weapons of the day; even an antistarfighter weapon like a
concussion missile topped out at around 200 megalights.
        Particle beams, plasma bursts, and phased energy discharges
lashed the space all around Daggerdisc, but nothing touched the ship
as she flashed through the geostationary satellite line and headed for
low Earth orbit.  Fighters scrambled from ground stations and several
of the larger geosats, but they were too slow to catch up either.
Before Earthforce Command even had a solid idea of the type of the
intruder, Daggerdisc was carving an incandescent line through the upper
atmosphere that was visible for thousands of miles around.
        Corwin, teeth gritted, held the ship steady as the atmospheric
friction mounted, charring Daggerdisc's entire leading edge.  Down
here in the soup, he couldn't move nearly as fast, even with the
throttles wide open, but he was still going so fast that if he wasn't
careful, he would overshoot his mark, re-escape, and have to come
around again.  Cursing the necessity, he eased back to the atmospheric
redline.  He didn't bother with a deorbital curve plot, just powered
through the wall of ionized resistance with sheer brute force and made
for Worcester, knowing that Earthforce was closing the hole behind him
and that getting out wouldn't be nearly as easy as getting in.

        They heard it before they saw it, the beleaguered little group
of Duelists crouching in the ruins of the Wedge and waiting for the
Corps to send their heavily-armored Enforcers in to finish the job.
At first it sounded like a distant storm, then a freight train, then a
howling gale; then the glittering silver disc exploded over the ridge
of Bancroft Hill, nearly stripping away the trees near the Tower, and
swooped across Park Avenue toward the Quad.  Repulsors wailing,
thrusters roaring, it whirled like a car doing a J-turn as it settled
down, its exhaust blast raking the parking lot and scattering
Enforcers and vehicles in its wake.  The gear was barely down and
locked before the ship slammed down, driving the three thick, stubby
legs almost halfway down into the ground and causing huge gouts of
grayish steam to shoot from the suspension overpressure vents.
        "D-D-Daggerdisc!" Kaitlyn cried.
        "-CORWIN-!" said Utena, although how she knew, she couldn't
have said; the ship's windows were all gold-coated, impossible to see
through from outside.  She rose, pulling Amanda up with her.  Dorothy
tucked her newly-acquired cat under one arm, then lifted Devlin,
slinging him over her shoulder like a sack of oats.  Kraalgh hefted
Liza Broadbank like a doll, and the Duelists and their battered cargo
ran down the steps and across the perimeter road toward the waiting
ship.  The portside boarding ramp slammed down on the emergency
release again, sending brick chips and gouts of turf flying.
        Some of the Enforcers recovered their wits and began firing,
plasma discharges zipping through the air around the Duelists.
Daggerdisc's quad-mount belly turret tracked and opened fire,
exploding several of the overturned personnel carriers and sending
armored men and women flying.  As the Duelists ran, wounded toward the
middle, Kaitlyn, Wakaba and Saionji flanked the vulnerable side as
best they could.  Those with ranged weapons returned fire as best they
could, but it wasn't much use, given the range.  Tiny Robo's miniature
missiles scattering amid the Enforcers' ranks did seem to cause the
black-armored men great consternation, though.
        One of the cooler-headed Enforcers rose up on one knee in
front of an overturned and burning armored car, steadied his rifle,
and drew a bead on Dorothy.  With a faint smirk, he depressed the
trigger.
        Kaitlyn moved before she knew why, surging forward an extra
half-step and bringing Kotetsu no Sasayaki to bear; a moment later the
plasma pulse burst free from the Enforcer's weapon and streaked
through the space between him and the fleeing Duelists.  Kaitlyn saw
it coming as though it were nothing more than a thrown baseball,
steadied herself, and smoothly, swiftly counterstruck, interposing her
simple steel blade between the pulse of superheated gas and its
intended target.
        There was a flash, and the Enforcer tumbled backward, a
smoking hole blown in his armored chestplate.
        A moment later the Duelists were inside Daggerdisc, pelting up
the ramp even as it began to close.  A moment after that, the ship
rose on her screaming repulsors, pulling her already-retracting gear
free of the savaged turf of the Quad.  Psi Cop Roger Tremayne, having
just regained consciousness, stumbled out of the side door of Alden
Memorial just as Corwin slammed open the throttles and exploded every
piece of glass in every building facing the Quad with the hotrod
freighter's departing shockwave.
        Nearly deafened, Roger heard the discharges of the frustrated
Enforcers' weapon as tinny pops and the fading thunder of the
Corellian ship's thrusters as a mere distant murmur.  As if in a
dream, he picked himself painfully up again and limped across the
parking lot toward the Enforcer squad's commander.  A moment later, a
pair of Earthforce MiG-230 Foxbat III atmospheric interceptors
screamed past from the east in a futile attempt at catching the
intruding ship.
        One of those Foxbats took a shot at the fast-disappearing
Daggerdisc with its blaster cannons, carving a couple of scarlet lines
across the sky.  They came nowhere near their intended target, but
they -did- nearly hit a -second- ship which had appeared almost out of
nowhere over the ridgeline past which the fleeing ship had just
disappeared.
        The newly-arrived ship, a Cygnus Lambda-class executive
shuttle thermocoated in a brilliant blue, returned the favor, lashing
the Foxbat with what appeared to be ion-cannon fire.  Its onboard
power systems crippled, the interceptor broke off pursuit and made its
very unhealthy-sounding way, pouring smoke, to Worcester Regional
Spaceport for an emergency landing while its wingmate continued the
chase.
        A moment later, the Lambda set down on the middle of the Quad,
neatly within the perimeter of Daggerdisc's landing-gear pits, and its
own ramp came down with somewhat more decorum.  Roger looked at the
logo emblazoned on the shuttlecraft's tall vertical fin and felt his
heart sinking.
        A moment later, three figures jogged down the shuttle's ramp.
Two of them were mechanoids - tall, spindly, snouty Neimoidian
battledroids, one beige, the other gray, both bearing the corporate
logo of their owner on their plastrons.  The beige one carried a
blaster rifle, the gray a large and heavy-looking satellite-uplink
digicamera, its scarlet "transmission active" light clearly
illuminated.  The battledroids flanked a human, a man about the same
height as Roger and somewhat younger-looking, who wore gray fatigue
pants, a black t-shirt with his company logo on it, and an orange
utility vest.  He had a Bajoran phaser pistol holstered at his side,
dataglasses, an intent expression, and bright blue hair in a ponytail
that nearly reached his belt.
        "Psi Corps Regional Director Roger Tremayne!" this man
declared in a sharp voice that penetrated the thrumming shell of
hollowness dominating Roger's hearing.  "John Trussell, Network 23.
We are live and direct in Worcester, Massachusetts, on the
battle-ravaged campus of the Worcester Preparatory Institute; an
Earthforce interceptor has just fired upon our ship as we pursued our
lawful course of reporting the news.  Director Tremayne, ten billion
sentients want to know: What the hell is going on around here?"
        Roger's temper, very well-frayed after the day he'd had,
finally snapped.  Snarling, even with the throbbing pain in his deeply
wounded shoulder, the Psi Cop took a swing, an actual, old-fashioned,
crude, physical -swing-, at the reporter.  Truss stepped smoothly back
out of range with a look of faintly mocking amusement.  The beige
battledroid took a step forward and bashed the Psi Cop in the chest
with the butt of its blaster rifle, knocking him winded but not
further injured to the ground.
        "Assault against a lawfully bonded journalist is in violation
of the Earthforce Penal Code section 114.59.3 subsection 3 paragraph
A-14," the robot informed the Psi Cop in its monotonal voice.  "This
unit is authorized to meet force with force."
        "Now that you've gotten that out of your system, Director,"
said Trussell in an affable tone, as though nothing untoward had
happened, "would you care to answer my question?"
        Roger raised himself up on his elbows, glared up at the
reporter from the ground, and told him to take his pathetic mundane
carcass off Roger's crime scene and go do something anatomically
impossible with himself.
        Network 23's ratings spiked another 19%.

        "Well, great," Janice Barlow grumbled as she stood against the
side wall of Higgins Labs and surveyed the scene.  "I wonder what the
hell that was all about?"
        "Dunno," Edward replied, unconcerned.  "It's a good sign for
our team, though."
        "Why would you say that?"
        Edward strolled unconcernedly out from cover, straight to the
side of an Utopia Planitia Danube-class runabout that was parked smack
in the middle of the parking lot.  Janice stifled a cry of frustrated
concern, then noticed that it wasn't really necessary - with all the
chaos the one ship's departure and the other's arrival had caused,
nobody was looking that way.  They were all looking at the Quad.
        Janice hefted the duffel bag full of Durandal's logic core and
jogged across to the side of the runabout.
        "In chaos," Edward observed sagely as she rascaled the hatch
lock, "there is opportunity."
        Janice nodded, then zoomed in her cybereye on the scene by the
blue Lambda's ramp.  A smile spread across her face.  Give him hell,
Truss, she thought.  I hope somebody tapes today's show - I want to
see what this mess looked like from the outside.
        "Voila!" said Edward as the hatch opened, and she sauntered
inside, followed by an unconcerned Ein and a wary Janice.  "Ooooh,"
said Edward as she noted the interior appointments of the runabout.
"SWANK-ee.  Must be an executive transport.  Probably belongs to a
bigwig.  Regional Director at least."
        "Well," said Janice as she settled herself in the pilot's
seat, "if you're gonna steal, you might as well steal nice."

        "Why, Director Tremayne," Truss mused as Roger continued to
glare at him and refuse to answer his questions.  "Someone seems to be
stealing your personal shuttle."
        Roger whirled, then nearly passed out as his ravaged shoulder
protested the sudden movement.
        Indeed, somebody did appear to be stealing his runabout.
        The Psi Cop reached for his commbadge, noticed it wasn't
there, and snarled at Truss, "Well?  You have a communications uplink,
notify Air Defense."
        Truss looked as if weighing it for a moment, then replied
pleasantly, "Well, since you've been so very pleasant and cooperative
this afternoon, no."
        Then he turned away, ignoring Roger utterly, and said into the
camera his faithful battledroid held steady, "A fitting twist to cap a
bizarre afternoon.  Let's examine how this mess got started... "
        Roger Tremayne nearly screamed, but given how his head was
throbbing, that might have made it explode, so instead he turned,
fuming, and limped toward the nearest trooper who looked like he had
an intact communicator.

     /*  Seat Belts  "What Planet Is This?!"  _Future Blues_  */

        Daggerdisc screamed out of Earth's atmosphere in much the same
sort of hurry as she had arrived in, but the getting out was not as
easy as the getting in had been.  This time the LEO defense grid was
ready, and the ship was flying toward it, not away.  Blasterfire and
plasma shots streaked across the speeding freighter's path and
splashed against her overbuilt deflector shields as she maneuvered
furiously, causing some of the satellites to shoot each other as they
tried to track her.
        A stock YT-1312 freighter wouldn't have survived for a minute
against this defense grid; it would have been ranged, bracketed and
exterminated inside the first sixty seconds of engagement.  Luckily
for Corwin and his friends, Daggerdisc was far from stock.  The ship
had seen many modifications and performance upgrades over her
lifetime.  Long before she fell into Corwin's father's hands, she had
ceased to be anything resembling stock.  In the hands of her current
owner, though, Daggerdisc had not so much been transformed as
apotheosized.
        It so happened that Gryphon had helped to invent the extremely
exciting, extremely dangerous sport of asteroid racing, back in the
WDF's Golden Age.  He'd long had the notion that a man with a
Corellian 1300-series freighter spaceframe and a lot of time and money
could make the ultimate asteroid racer out of it.  Back in the day,
though, he'd lacked the spaceframe and the time.
        In 2389, a hotrod YT-1312 had practically fallen into his lap
and he'd finally had his chance.  The new, improved Daggerdisc that
emerged from the shipyard complex in 2393 was, ton for ton, the most
capable starship in the galaxy, with secrets that even some of the
people who had helped her master remake her didn't know.
        But Corwin knew them, knew every inch of every system in her,
and now he was counting on Daggerdisc's every advantage to get him and
his precious passengers home again.  This situation was a lot like an
asteroid race, except more of the asteroids shot back, and Daggerdisc
responded with an almost living enthusiasm, twisting and rolling
between the defense satellites' arcs of fire.  The twin quad turrets,
one dorsal, one ventral, were autotargeting, as were the strip-collimated 
omnidirectional phaser arrays built into the upper and lower hulls.
The targeting computers weren't the most accurate things in the
galaxy, but Corwin hadn't had time to recruit a crew of gunners, and
he had his hands too full to take the pilot-station controls of the
main weapons just now.
        Instead he flew the ship like a man possessed, his eyes almost
closed, his big, knuckly hands steady on the control yoke as he made
the freighter-that-was-not-a-freighter dance her deadly dance with the
Earth Defense Grid.  The throttles were pinned to the firewall -
military emergency power - and locked, the deflector recharge rate at
minimum.  This was a bit of a gamble, but Corwin felt the extra speed
would be worth more than any amount of shielding power in an
engagement like this, where the only object was to run the gauntlet
and get away intact.
        Kaitlyn, Utena and Dorothy entered as Corwin was ducking
around a blastersat.  Daggerdisc shuddered with what felt like a
missile hit, almost throwing Kate against the flight engineer's panel;
only Dorothy's quick arm stopped her from a painful encounter with the
Reflex status display.  Corwin dodged another missilesat, blasted it
with the twin cannons mounted in the cockpit module's chin, and then
flicked an intercom key with his thumb.
        "Amanda, can you move?" he inquired.
        "Yes," came Amanda Dessler's voice in his earpiece.  She
sounded weak and rattled, but firm.
        "Good," he said.  "Get into one of the turrets and see if you
can clear out some of these damned beamsats before they punch our
ticket."
        "I'm on it," she replied.
        Corwin didn't turn around; raising his voice slightly, he
said, "Dorothy, take whichever one she doesn't."
        Without a word, Dorothy turned and left the cockpit again.  A
moment later, the green status light for the dorsal turret flicked
from AUTO to MANUAL on the master panel; a moment after that, the
ventral turret followed suit.  The blazing fire of the two quad
turrets became a good bit more focused, scarlet light lashing out more
precisely out at the web of satellites.
        "How we doin'?" Utena asked as she slid into the copilot's
seat.
        "Decent," Corwin replied tersely, "as long as the shields hold
up.  We're not going to be able to fold out again, though.  I don't
have the codes for the fold computer and I'm too busy to do the
calculations in my head."
        "Can we help?" Utena inquired.
        "Not really," Corwin replied, dodging around a third-line
beamsat.  "Damn, it's crowded up here all of a sudden."  An alarm
wailed; Corwin glanced at the readout near it, then slapped the
silencer.  "About to get more crowded, too."
        "Fighters at five and seven o'clock low," Amanda Dessler's
voice reported in his ear.
        "Yeah, I just noticed that," he replied.  "Keep 'em busy."
        "Aye aye, Captain."
        Corwin grinned just a tiny bit, pulled the ship's nose up, and
aimed it at the open stars.  "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon... " he muttered,
watching the gravitic-influence indicators flicker as they sped away
from Earth amid a hail of blasterfire.
        Then, just as they were about to drop below the red safety
line, they shot all the way to the top again.
        Corwin cursed.  "Slag it!  The rumors were true.  They -do-
have interdiction satellites."  He leaned across in front of Utena,
nudging her out of the way with his shoulder, in too much of a hurry
to apologize, and did a few quick things to the sensor panel.  The
holodisplay above it fed out a picture of a geodesic sphere pattern
around a shadowy representation of Earth, with their own position
marked by a flashing yellow triangle.  Corwin noted the location of
the nearest vertex of the sphere, locked the short-range navigation
sensors on it, and then slung himself back into his own position.
        "Hang on," he said to all and sundry, "we're going back."
        "WHAT?!" Kaitlyn blurted.
        They streaked back into the thick of things, shuddering and
bucking as the defense grid lashed at them.  A squadron of very
surprised Starfuries scattered as the silver Corellian ship flipped
like a coin and drove through the middle of their attack formation.
Corwin zeroed the chin guns in on the satellite indicated by the nav
sensors, a large, oddly shaped one without any visible weapons
emplacements, and fired.
        The blasts splashed away from deflectors much more powerful
than those sported by the weapon satellites.  Corwin cursed and peeled
off, arching up and around the still-regrouping Starfuries.
        "I should've figured," he snarled as he sent Daggerdisc
corkscrewing Earthward in an effort to shed some of the defense grid's
cannonfire.  "They've got capship-grade shields on those things."  He
considered for a moment, jaw set, eyes narrowed, and then said, "Well,
what the hell, I'm already in trouble... "
        He kicked down one of the sideslip thrusters, making the ship
twist and dip dizzyingly.  A Starfury zoomed past, having completely
failed to guess his vector, and a moment later it began spinning
wildly as one of Daggerdisc's turret gunners relieved it of its
portside thrusters.  Smiling grimly, Corwin put the ship back on her
outward vector; only that one oddly-shaped, unarmed, heavily shielded
satellite stood between them and open space.
        "What are you going to do?" Utena wondered.
        "Ever had a thing you were never, ever, ever supposed to do,
and suddenly found yourself in a situation where the only thing you
could possibly do was that thing?"
        "Um... yes," she said.
        "I'm there right now.  Take over!"
        "What?!" she exclaimed, but he was already up out of his
seat.  Utena shook her head and slid awkwardly across; he passed over
her, or she under him, and they managed to trade stations without
crashing the ship.
        "Just keep that yellow thing right in the middle," said
Corwin, pointing to the nav indicator on the interdictor satellite as
he squared himself behind the copilot's panel.  "And when I tell you
to cover your eyes, for God's sake cover your eyes."
        Utena nodded, gripping the yoke and feeling the ship respond
to her hands.  It was kind of like driving, except with a greater
feeling of speed.  She oscillated back and forth across the mark for a
moment, getting the feel and overcorrecting, but settled it quickly
and kept the pipper right in the center.
        Corwin, for his part, was punching a long, complicated code
into a numeric keypad surrounded by a flashing scarlet and white
striped border, located on the left wing of his control console.  The
flashing got faster and faster, and then, with a loud beep, it popped
up on a hinge and a joystick deployed from beneath it.  Corwin took
hold of this; a targeting reticule appeared in the center of the
forward windows, surrounding the rapidly growing satellite.
        Utena felt the yoke go dead in her hands as Corwin said,
"Reflex interlock engaged.  Weapons officer's spacecraft."
        As they rode the nav-sensor beam in, Corwin made minute
adjustments to the joystick he gripped, watching the reticule
carefully until, with a final beep, it turned red and collapsed,
strobing, around the satellite.
        "Cover your eyes!" he declared, and squeezed the trigger built
into the joystick.
        Outside, the three functional Starfuries vectored in, guns
blazing, on the suddenly-straight-and-level enemy.  Daggerdisc's aft
dorsal shields pulsed and flared; one of them died with a brilliant
explosion from the projector module, and the next spurt of fire burned
a black scar on the silvery armor just aft of the cockpit neck.  Still
the ship didn't respond, and the Earthforce pilots wondered if there
were something wrong with the aggressor's helm.  They were on a
collision course with Barriersat 14...
        Suddenly, in the gap between the Corellian freighter's forward
loading mandibles, yellow-orange lightning began flicking from one
side to the other, growing in intensity and volume as the milliseconds
passed until it filled the whole gap with an almost intolerable
brightness.  Had they had some kind of systems failure?  Were they
breaking up?
        An instant later, the whole forward quarter of the ship was
obscured by a blinding torrent of energy that poured forth as if from
an opened floodgate, streaking out to brush aside Barriersat 14's
shields as though they weren't there, then spear the satellite like a
bug on a plate.  For a moment, holed completely through and still held
on the beam, it remained steady; then the beam flicked out as if a
switch had been thrown, and Barriersat 14 drifted out of alignment,
listed a bit to port, and exploded.
        Without time to dodge, Daggerdisc plunged into the fireball at
top speed, debris and plasma sleeting off the forward shields, which
fortunately weren't as battered as the aft ones.  A bump, a heavy bang
as some large piece of debris sheared off the dorsal comm dish, and
they were clear.  With the satellite's destruction and their rapidly
growing distance from Earth, the gravitic influence gauges dropped
immediately below the redline.
        "So long, suckers," Corwin snarled at the image of the
pursuing Starfuries and their reinforcements in his rear-view scanner.
His brand glowed, his right hand danced over the auxiliary
navicomputer controls without the help of his eyes, and then he seized
the throttle quadrant, pulled it over to the right, and slammed it
forward to the final stop.
        The stars outside the windows smeared into lines and exploded
aft like seaspray, replaced by blazing blue-white chaos.
        Corwin released the controls, raised his fists above his head,
and yelled, "YES!"
        Exultant, not really thinking about it, Utena lunged across
the cockpit, grabbed him up in her arms, and planted a good hard kiss
on him.  His eyes went momentarily wide with shock, then closed, and
he'd about got his arms around her when she realized what she was
doing and broke it off rather awkwardly.
        "Um... sorry," she said with a sheepish, blushing kind of
half-grin, rubbing the back of her neck with one hand.  "Got a little,
um, carried away there.  I, uh... "  She looked down, at a loss, then
said, "Hey, Kate, we should, uh, go and see if everybody's OK back
there, huh?"  Rising to her feet, Utena added a bit clumsily, "Thanks
for, um, everything, Corwin... "
        "No problem," said Corwin in a quiet, absent tone.  He waved
abstractly as Utena left the cockpit, then sat looking a bit blankly
at the closed door.
        Kaitlyn rose, and for a moment seemed as though she might say
something; then she sighed, patted Corwin on the shoulder, gave him a
sympathetic look, and went aft as well.
        Corwin watched her go, then turned back to face the whirling
jumble of hyperspace.
        "Sweet," said Nall, who had spent the entire incident
immobile, silent and watchful on his shoulder.  "Your first kiss, huh,
rocket boy?"
        "Shut up, Nall," said Corwin softly.
        Nall opened his mouth to retort, saw the look in Corwin's eyes
as he gazed out at hyperspace, and then jumped down, looking a bit
ashamed of himself.
        "Yeah," he murmured.  "I'll, uh... I'll be in the back."

        "Hyper footprint dissipated," Claire verified from the sensor
panel.  "Daggerdisc is away.  Hyperspace vector analysis gives no
greater than 40% confidence for any destination."
        "Of course not," Aya muttered.  "Ben's smarter than that."
        "I was not aware you knew Captain Hutchins that familiarly,"
T'Pall said from the turbolift doors.
        "We went out for ice cream once in 2394."  Aya smiled
nostalgically.  "It was so sweet.  We were attacked by ninjas."
        "... -ninja-, Admiral?"  Even T'Pall couldn't hide a bit of
disbelief at that.
        "Yeah, but it's OK," Aya smiled.  "We outnumbered 'em, two to
fifty.  I still get invites now and again to their really big parties,
and we bump elbows at Redneck's annual barbecue."
        T'Pall shook her head and decided to chalk up Aya's
familiarity with Benjamin Hutchins as another unfathomable aspect of
her commander.  "In any case, why does Captain Hutchins - "
        "Admiral Hutchins," Aya chided T'Pall.  "He commands the IPO
fleet."
        T'Pall declined to play Vulcan Pedant for Aya and point out
that the "IPO fleet" consisted of one experimental starship and a
Klingon battlecruiser that was perfectly capable of commanding itself.
 Instead she continued, "Why does Admiral Hutchins's action hold any
interest for you, aside from the academic?  Our orders are complete,
and our presence here is increasing tensions.  Lieutenant Charos is
flooded with demands for this ship to stand down... and I notice
Commander Lemno has turned off her comm board entirely.  We are not
welcome here."
        "I know, I know!"  Aya waved off the points irritably.  "But
Admiral Hutchins has the rest of that kid McKenzie's friends with him.
I gotta get this group together again.  And I'm trying to figure out
where Ben would have taken them."
        "Logic dictates either the Admiral's residence on Zeta Cygni
or his duty station on IPS Challenger, at the Babylon Project work
site," T'Pall said.
        "Quiet, quiet, I'm thinking!" Aya grumbled, and T'Pall did not
finish her statement: as the soon-to-be-commissioned Babylon 5 space
station was less than fifty light-years from Earth, it seemed the
most likely choice.
        "Now, lessee," Aya muttered to herself.  "He folded in, but he
didn't fold out.  Why wouldn't he fold out?"
        "Logic would suggest that a Reflex furnace, immediately
following a Reflex cannon discharge, cannot power a fold event,"
T'Pall replied.
        "I don't think you can count on that," Aya replied.  "This is
Ben Hutchins's personal yacht we're talking about.  A metal flying
Guinea pig for a man who designs starships as a hobby."
        "But prior knowledge of Reflex overtechnology - "
        "T'Pall," Aya sighed in exasperation, "tell me again what the
maximum speed Daggerdisc displayed was?"
        "Approximately two hundred sixty-four megalights," T'Pall
replied.
        "What did CFMF Intel say its maximum sublight speed was
-supposed- to be?"
        "According to latest reports, one hundred megalights, roughly
equivalent to a T-65C starfighter in normal trim."
        "And how fast can a Broadway-class corvette go?"
        "With warp power diverted to the ion thrusters," T'Pall said,
"ninety megalights."
        "And you're going to tell me, after seeing Daggerdisc outrun
CONCUSSION MISSILES, that Ben Hutchins couldn't have built in an
improved Reflex furnace we didn't know about either?!" Aya shouted.
"When in doubt, presume you -don't- know, Captain.  And in this case,
presume he -could- have folded when he wanted to.
        "Now, Daggerdisc -started- on New Avalon.  This we know, and
this Earthforce also knows, and Ben has to realize that.  So if he
didn't fold out, it follows that he didn't want Earthforce tracking
him back to New Avalon, because they'd presume he'd go back where he
came from.
        "No," Aya nodded decisively, "he didn't go to New Avalon, and
with Earthforce liable to chase him down, he's going to go somewhere
with plenty of backup.  Bajor is close, and in addition to Challenger
it has Krontep's ship, the WDF starships Renown and Indefatigable, and
two CFMF task forces guarding the construction site - more than a
match for any Earthforce or Starfleet pickup force.
        "Claire, open signal to fleet: stand by for fleet orders.
Then hail General Carlisle - I want to speak with him."
        "Already have him," Claire smirked, clicking a few switches on
the comm board.  "On screen."
        The bald head and florid face of General Carlisle filled the
Charlemagne's flag bridge viewscreen.  In one long, unbroken stream of
words, he snapped, "Admiral Ayami Nakajima you will stand down your
fleet immediately and prepare for boarding under Article Nineteen of
the Constitution of the United Federation of Planets regarding the
harboring of pira - "
        "Oooooh, General Carlisle," Aya bubbled, going into her cute
act again.  "I was -just- about to call you!  Guess what?  We finally
got our systems fixed again!  Everything's A-OK here!  We'll be going
now.  Bye-bye!"
        "Admiral you WILL stand your fleet down NOW or - "
        In mid-threat, Carlisle vanished from the screen, to the
giggles of both Claire and Aya and the nervous twitching of T'Pall.
        "All right," Aya declared, smiling.  "Flag to all ships:
prepare for metaspace, destination Point Swampy!  Repeat Point Swampy!
Radio silence next fifteen minutes, effective immediately!"  Swiveling
her chair to face T'Pall, she continued, "Daggerdisc's hyperdrive is
officially rated at factor point two five, right?"
        "That is correct," T'Pall nodded.  "Assuming that is where
they are headed, they should reach Bajor in about eighty-four minutes.
Approximately.  Assuming, of course, that our intelligence regarding
the ship's hyperdrive factor is accurate, which cannot be assumed,"
she added dryly.
        Aya chose to ignore her own logic, replying, "Whereas we can
reach it by metaspace in about -fifty- minutes.  Let's get rolling,
Captain - I want to shake Ben's hand for that rescue!  The ship is
yours, Captain."
        "Admiral," T'Pall nodded, returning to the command deck.
        A minute later, moments before an Earthforce CC-6700
Coral-class interdiction cruiser could bring its gravity well
projectors online, the Sixth Carrier Task Force, CFMF Tactical Fleet,
vanished into metaspace.
        And while recriminations began to circle among the various
Earthforce and Starfleet generals and admirals, the captain of EAS
Agamemnon smirked to himself and ordered his ship down from general
quarters.
        Sometimes, John Sheridan thought to himself, Earth -needed-
her nose tweaked.

        In the wardroom of Daggerdisc, the escapees made themselves as
comfortable as they could and tried to catch their breath after the
most eventful afternoon in recent memory.  Devlin was stretched out on
the couch, wrapped up in a blanket with the ship's registry number,
name and silhouette printed on it; Amanda knelt by his side, wiping
the blood from his face with a cleaning paper from the medkit.  Utena,
Kate, Wakaba and Saionji were sitting in the little booth, two on one
side of the table, two on the other, giving each other worried looks.
Professor Kraalgh had selected the center of the room in which to
meditate.  Tiny Robo and Lesser Mazinger were up on the booth table
in sleep mode, allowing their depleted power systems to regenerate.
Dorothy leaned against the bulkhead, examining her cat for injuries;
Miki stood next to her, and Nall, up on his shoulder, was trying and
failing to make conversation with the cat.
        It took all of them a few moments to remember that there was
someone else in the wardroom with them, all the way on the other side,
sitting curled on a packing case.  They only noticed Liza Broadbank
when they realized, one by one, that she was crying.
        Kaitlyn remained silent, but Wakaba at least tried to be
sporting about it.  She looked over and said, "'sOK now, Liza.  You're
safe."
        "Safe?" Liza replied bitterly, and Wakaba sighed at herself.
Should have just let her snivel, at least then she wasn't being
bitchy.  "-Safe-?" the blonde repeated.  "The school is in ruins.  Our
grades for last term will never be posted.  Our educations are all in
chaos, and for -what-?  One lousy blip.  Why couldn't you just let
them -have- him?"
        Amanda looked up sharply, her good eye narrowing.  "Tread
carefully, human," she said in a low, dangerous voice.  "My patience
is at a very low ebb as it is."
        "Don't threaten me," Liza flared.  "This is -your- fault."
        Amanda seemed genuinely taken aback.  "How," she inquired
coolly, "do you arrive at -that- remarkable conclusion?"
        "If you and your idiot brother hadn't double-crossed your
sister, she would never have told me about your teep boyfriend and
NONE of this would have HAPPENED!" Liza snarled.
        Amanda - and, indeed, everyone else - stared at her in total
incomprehension for a few seconds.
        Luckily, it clicked for Dorothy a second or so before it did
for Amanda, and by the time the Gamilon had drawn her honor blade and
lunged, the robot had handed her cat to Miki and interposed herself.
        Liza shrank back against the bulkhead, her voice strident with
fear and desperation as she cried, "Oh, sure!  Kill me, that would
make everything better.  He was only in danger because you broke him
out!  If you had just left well enough alone - the Corps would have
given him a home, a future!"
        Wakaba could tell the blonde didn't actually believe what she
was saying - she was just saying it because she needed to say
something... to convince -herself- as much as anyone else that what
she had done was right.
        "Release me, android!" Amanda snarled, straining in vain
against Dorothy's ironclad embrace.  "I will kill her!"
        "Not today," Dorothy replied calmly.
        "So, Liza," Wakaba asked casually.  "Was the Corps going to
give you a home and a future too?  I didn't know you were a telepath."
        "I'm NOT!" Liza insisted.  "I don't know what they wanted from
me.  I don't have any, any genetic aberrations, any special powers."
        "If you want my advice," said Dorothy, "you'll find somewhere
else to be."  She permitted Amanda to make about an eighth of an inch
of headway and then deadpanned, "I won't hold her forever."
        Amanda tore herself back, composed herself, and sheathed her
blade, all the time aiming a look of intense loathing at Liza.
        "You win, Dorothy.  I'll spare her.  She isn't my true enemy
anyway."  Her look of disdain deepened as she added caustically, "She
was just another -tool-."
        Liza glared at her, then turned away with a sob and curled up
on the packing case, facing away from all of them.  With great,
exaggerated dignity, Amanda turned and resumed tending to Devlin.
        Nall let out a breath he'd been holding.
        "Thank the First Egg," he murmured.  "Dad would -kill- us if
we got blood all over in here."

        The first sight in realspace the refugees from Worcester
Preparatory got of the Epsilon Eridani system, aside from the gleaming
yellow-white disk of Bajor-B'hava'el off to one side, was the
glimmering band of thousands of lights.  As Charlemagne reduced speed
and altered course slightly, a few of the lights resolved themselves
into solid objects, visible as pinheads against a speckled velvet sky.
That any starship should be visible as a solid object at nearly a
hundred thousand kilometers' distance only showed how immense the
central ship of the vast armada actually was.
        The Freespacers were here, of course, because many of their
number were contractors on the Babylon Project.  After all, if you
needed a large and willing labor pool, skilled at space construction
and willing to do a long, complicated job in the middle of nowhere,
who else was there?  As one of the chief signatory nations to the Pact
Babylonica in the first place, the Confederate Freespacers Alliance
was happy to lend its vast capability for space construction to the
effort - for the going rate, of course.  Business, after all, is
business, and a nomad nation's got to make a living.
        It is impossible to see the incredible motley array of the
two-thousand-plus ship Freespacer Home Fleet for the first time and
not be amazed.  There, juxtaposed against the finest in military ships
and the most graceful of large private ships cruised bastard
monstrosities and flying junk piles, elegant cruise ships parked in
orbit alongside old orbital stations with a hyperdrive tacked onto the
hull.  The fleet spanned hundreds of kilometers in all three
dimensions, a perambulating constellation of light and duralloy.
        It really was a shame that, as several of the group gawked and
gaped at the fleet, the one person in the group best qualified to act
as tour guide was in no condition to do so.  Mac slowly pried his
hands off the armrests of the chair he'd sat in forty-eight minutes
previously, having managed not a particle of relaxation in all that
time.  Cold sweat continued to run down his pale skin as he slowly
pushed himself up, forced himself to take deep breaths, and slowly ran
through the mental inventory that assured him that yes, he had managed
another supralight journey intact.
        Moose, noting Mac's shocky appearance, called out, "Hey,
Mac.  Are you -sure- you're all right?"
        "F-fine."  Mac nodded shakily.  "It's j-just good to be
h-home."
        "What I can't understand," Mia mused, "is why the Freespacers
went to so much trouble for one boy."  She smiled at Mac, who was
beginning to regain a bit of color as he looked over the Home Fleet.
"I never knew you were so important, Mac."
        "I'm not important at all," Mac shrugged.  "One of fifty
thousand potential midshipsmen in ship-owning families in the
Alliance.  No political friends or enemies to speak of.  But," he
added, looking dead at Mia as he continued, "to us, the -Psi Corps- is
important.  You don't realize just how important.
        "While I was being extracted, across Earth about two hundred
other Freespacer nationals left the planet in less flashy exits.  All
of them were on secure Supply Fleet contract vessels, except for those
leaving under their own power.  At this point, the only Freespacers
remaining on the Earth are our ambassadors to Earthdome, the Republic
of Texas, the Argentine Empire, and the Principality of Zanzibar...
and I predict that by the end of the week, Ambassador Fenwick will be
posted somewhere other than Geneva."  He smirked as he added, "I hear
there's an opening for the B5 delegation."
        "That's not a full explanation," Juri objected.  "I'll grant
that the CFMF doesn't want the Psi Corps to take its citizens... but
why is it willing to defy Earthforce and the Corps for the sake of
NON-citizens like the -rest- of us?"
        Mac sighed, gathered his thoughts, and said, "The Freespacers
have always been the last chance for those seeking a new life, who
wanted to put behind them past mistakes.  We offer asylum to those who
are sincerely dedicated to change, no matter what their past crimes
are - well, within reason, but that -is- the theory.  Because of that,
we've had a very rocky relationship with law enforcement of all types,
including the WWWA and the Zardon Justice Department.  Even the
current 'honeymoon' with the Experts of Justice can't last forever.
        "But the Psi Corps is a law enforcement agency that doesn't
hunt you for what you've done, it wants you for -who you are-.  For a
fluke of genetics that we have no control over.  Why not a Lemurian
Legion to hunt down members of the Ancients of Mu?  Why not a Kilrathi
Cadre to seek out naturalized Kilrathi refugees and detain them?  Why
not a Plump Platoon to jail anyone who happens to be fat?"  No one
laughed; considering Mac's serious expression, this was probably a
good thing for them.
        "Not only is Earth violating the rights protected by the
Federation," he continued, "it is forgetting its own history.  And the
Federation is letting them get -away- with it, largely because Earth
damn near -controls- the Federation as it is.  But the Freespacers
haven't forgotten, because too many of us are refugees of one kind or
another, sometimes because of things we've done, sometimes because we
happen to be a kind of person someone else doesn't like.
        "And -we protect our own-." He leaned back in his chair again
and went from looking intense to looking very, very tired.  "Even
people like Devlin, who don't realize they're our kind of people yet."

        Daggerdisc came out of hyperspace a little more than half an
hour later, skirted the Freespacer Home Fleet, and made for the
largest non-natural object in the system, the five-mile-long
cylindrical space station orbiting the second planet, not far from the
local metaspace jumpgate.
        International Police Station Babylon Five was not yet
officially open for business, but it was functionally complete and
fully operational.  A skeletal remnant of the construction crews were
finishing up the last of the fittings and details, and the Freespacers
who had built it were getting set to move on, as soon as they were
satisfied that this one, unlike its four predecessors, wasn't going to
blow up under suspicious circumstances or vanish mysteriously or
anything annoying like that.
        Corwin was about to make contact with the station's control
center when another ship arrived on the scene, dashing in at warp
speed and then dropping to impulse power and forming up on
Daggerdisc's flank.
        Compared to Daggerdisc (which could have landed in her
shuttlebay), the ship was vast, though she paled in comparison to the
five-mile bulk of Babylon 5.  Her sweeping lines - ovoid main hull
blending smoothly back into engineering hull, elegant warp nacelles,
pearlescent tritanium-alloy hull plating - made her look fast even
standing still, despite her immensity.  At this range, the
eight-pointed star of the International Police Organization's Space
Force was clearly visible on the side of her secondary hull, four
cardinal points enlarged and southern point elongated, with text
trailing it in bold microgramma capitals:

    STARSHIP I.P.S. CHALLENGER - INTERNATIONAL POLICE ORGANIZATION

        The communications panel chirped, and for the first time since
leaving New Avalon, Corwin cared what it had to say.  He tabbed a
couple of controls to acknowledge and open a voice channel on the
backup transciever, and a fairly familiar voice spoke to him:
        "Daggerdisc, this is the International Police Starship
Challenger."
        Oh boy, though Corwin, here it comes.  Challenger was his
father's command, the Experts of Justice's nascent space fleet's first
battleship, and that meant he was definitely going to get it.
        But the voice surprised him by not taking him to task.
Instead, calmly, briskly and professionally, it went on, "Our sensors
indicate battle damage to your vessel.  Do you have wounded aboard?
What is your status?  Please respond."
        Corwin blinked, suppressed his surprise, and keyed his
push-to-talk.  "Ah, that's unknown at this time.  Some of my
passengers may be injured; I've been too busy to take a survey.  My
intentions were to dock at Babylon 5 and seek assistance.  The ship is
spaceworthy, no major systems damage."
        "Roger that, Daggerdisc.  Glad you're OK.  Transferring you to
Babylon 5 approach control now.  Challenger out."
        Wow, thought Corwin.  Dad didn't even get on the line himself,
and he didn't have Hoshi bawl me out for him.
        Then he added glumly, Must want to save it until he can bawl
me out in person.
        His attention was then commanded by the calm, brisk voice of
B5's deck officer, who guided him into the approach pattern and cued
him to slave Daggerdisc's helm to the station's automatic docking
system.  Once they were aboard and secured in a docking bay, Corwin
locked down all systems, shut the ship down, and finally went aft to
see how his passengers were doing.
        They were a rather shell-shocked-looking lot: Utena and Kate
were in one side of the wardroom booth, Wakaba and Saionji in the
other, all clearly worried.  Devlin Carter was stretched out on the
couch, looking as if someone had beaten the hell out of him with a
purpose, then gone back and done it again just for fun.  Amanda
Dessler knelt by his head, looking not too much better off herself.
Dorothy and Miki stood leaning against the bulkhead; there was a burn
scar across her right cheek and both looked generally dirty and
battered (and where'd she get that cat?).  Professor Kraalgh sat
cross-legged in the center of the room with a bat'leth laid across his
knees, meditating.  Liza Broadbank was all the way on the other side
of the room, as far away from the others as she could get, sitting in
a miserable huddle on a packing case.
        Before he could say anything, Nall came to his shoulder from
Miki's, nudging up in a silent gesture of apology for his earlier
thoughtlessness.  Corwin reached up and scratched absently at his ears
to let him know there were no hard feelings.
        Amanda rose to her feet, wincing slightly as the motion gave
her pain.  Then she came and squared herself to attention in front of
him and -bowed-, though this too was clearly a very uncomfortable act.
        "Lord Corwin," she said, "I owe you my life - "  She glanced
at Devlin.  " - and that of my beloved as well."
        Corwin held up his hand, a faintly pleading look on his face,
and told her somewhat fumblingly, "Please.  Don't.  I can't... right
now."  She seemed to understand, nodding; he went to the ramp release
and let it down gently this time.  "Better just leave him there and
let the medtechs move him," he said, to which Amanda nodded again.
        Dorothy and Kaitlyn (the former with the gray cat in her arms,
the latter carrying Lesser Mazinger in a side pocket) flanked him as
he moved down the ramp to face the music; Utena, with Tiny Robo under
her arm, was right behind him, Saionji, Wakaba and Miki right behind
her, Kraalgh following silently behind.  The med team rushed across
the docking bay and up to them; they declined treatment and indicated
that the injured were within, then continued out of the ship and into
the bay itself.
        This was a room about the size of a football stadium.
Daggerdisc was magnetically moored to a mobile platform which took up
about three-fourths of the floor space and could move on magtracks to
deliver the ship back to the station's central column and thus outside
through the master lock; the rest of it was a metal-decked floor that
led to the large freight door on the far side.
        This door opened for a second time as they approached it, and
in came a small group of uniformed personnel.  Corwin didn't recognize
all of them, but the two in the spearhead he most certainly did.
        One was the short, slim, blue-silver-haired form of Lieutenant
Ruri Hoshino, his father's yeoman and probably the smallest humanoid
Lensman in the galaxy.  Crisply dressed in black miniskirt, white
dress shirt and black tie, orange-vested and perpetually
bored-looking, Ruri looked to be about twelve years old, but she had
for as long as Corwin had known her, which was most of his life.  No
one seemed to know how old she was, where she came from, or even
precisely what species she was, but she had passed the Test of Light
and wore the Lens, so none of that seemed all that important.
        She trotted alongside her boss - Kaichou, the Big Kahuna,
He-Who-Could-Not-Run-Things-Without-Ruri - Fleet Captain Ben "Gryphon"
Hutchins, late of the WDF and currently the Chief of the Experts of
Justice, Director of IPO Operations and commander of the IPO's
fledgling Space Force.  This figure, stocky and broad but a
surprisingly fast walker, strode across the bay with a hard-to-read
scowl of concentrated something on his round, bearded face.  Under his
outback duster (into the pockets of which his hands were thrust), he
wore the grayish-blue-shouldered black jacket and pants of the IPO
Space Force, and there was a red-lettered black NX-04462 ballcap on
his head.
        The rest of them stopped a dozen paces or so away; Ruri, hands
behind her back, looked over Daggerdisc, then made eye contact with
Corwin and shook her head with an expression of disappointment laced
with ennui.  Corwin gave her a faint "what could I do?" kind of shrug,
then looked at his still-approaching father and braced himself for the
explosion.
        Instead of exploding, though, Gryphon strode up to his son and
grabbed him up in a powerful, almost crushing hug, slapping him on the
back, scruffling up Nall at the same time and generally making a
somewhat embarrassing spectacle of himself.  Releasing him, he
proceeded to apply the same treatment to Kaitlyn, then Dorothy, then
Utena, then Wakaba (somewhat to her surprise), then Miki (considerably
to his).  Saionji and Kraalgh only got handshakes, since he'd never
met them before.
        Then, and only then, did Gryphon round on Corwin and speak.
        "Your friends are with the Freespacers," he said.  "They're
all safe.  Everyone got out.  Admiral Curtiss's people are putting
them up on the New Orleans for now; we'll move them over here
tomorrow, but Terri and I figured they'd had enough excitement for one
day.  Are you OK?"
        "Fine," said Corwin, his surprise plain on his face.  "Devlin
and Amanda looked to be in pretty rough shape, but the rest of us are
OK, I think."
        Gryphon looked the others over and decided he could concur
with that assessment, aside from Dorothy's burned face, which he
brushed with a finger as he gave her a concerned look.
        "It's nothing," she told him.  "I've blocked the pain
receptors in that area."
        "I can fix that in a few seconds," Corwin added, nodding.
        Gryphon nodded, satisfied, put a hand on her shoulder and
smiled at her, and then turned as the medtechs brought their stretcher
down out of Daggerdisc with its battered burden.
        "His name," Amanda informed them as she irritatedly brushed
off another tech who kept trying to attach an IV to her arm, "is
Devlin Carter.  He's an Earthman, blood type B negative.  He's a
telepath, rating P12.  He's suffered a severe psychic shock in mental
combat with a Psi Cop."
        "So have you," one of the techs informed her, pointing to his
own red-cross medtech's badge; the center of the cross bore an inlaid
black letter psi.  "Don't get excited," he said, holding up a hand.
"I'm with the Experts of Justice.  I'm an anodyne, and I've sworn the
Hippocratic just like everybody else here," he added, indicating the
rest of the trauma team with a sweeping gesture.  "Just relax, let
Elaine set your IV, and come with us to Medlab.  Nobody's going to
hurt you or your friend here on this station."
        Amanda gave the Bajoran medtech a long, hard look, her
cyberoptic glowing dully through the one-way lens of the metal cowl
sealing off her right eye socket; then she nodded, slowly, and
followed them out, pausing only to clasp the hands of her friends in
turn and tell them that she would see them as soon as she was assured
that Devlin was out of danger.
        Hesitantly, slowly, Liza came down the ramp as well, careful
not to look at anyone.  Gryphon cocked an eyebrow, surprised to see
her, of all people, there; but Kaitlyn caught his eye and shook her
head slightly, so he didn't approach, letting one of the B5 security
officers take her in hand instead and lead her off to temporary
quarters and rest.
        Instead of getting involved in that, Gryphon went off a little
way, put his hands in his trouser pockets, and surveyed his ship.
        "Boy," he observed at length.  "You gave her a hell of a run."
        Corwin came up beside him and nodded uncertainly.  "Yeah.
Listen, Dad, I'm sorry.  I stole your ship and got it shot up, I even
used the systems I'm not supposed to use.  I broke a whole fistful of
rules.  But I didn't have any choice!  The Corps would have them by
now if I hadn't gone when I did, as fast as I did.  They were getting
ready for a major assault just as I arrived.  They could have died,
all of them, I - "
        Gryphon held up a hand without turning to look at his son, and
Corwin trailed off.
        "My hope," the elder said in a calm, even voice, "is that
you've learned something very important today.  Would you like to
guess what that something is?"
        "Um... no," said Corwin.
        Slowly, Gryphon turned to face his son, put a hand on the
shoulder that wasn't occupied by Nall, and looked him in the eye.
        "Two things, actually.  Thing one: Rules are all well and
good, but there are times when following them is the Wrong Thing."
        A smile stole onto Corwin's face as his heart swelled with
hope.  Did that mean what he thought it meant?  That his father not
only wasn't going to punish him for his actions, but he -approved- of
them?
        Gryphon nodded as if he'd read the thought.  "You did just
what you had to do today, son.  You heard the cry for help - God knows
how, but it's obvious you did - and you didn't waste any time
dithering.  You knew what you had to do and you did it without
hesitation, you used every tool at your disposal to get the job done."
He shook his head, blue eyes tearing a little, and then yanked Corwin
into another crushing, back-slapping hug as he added, "Your mother's
-Name-, I'm proud of you!"
        Dumbstruck, Corwin returned the embrace, a bit lamely at
first, and then with more feeling as all that had just been said to
him sunk in.
        "I... " he said, then stopped, fumbled with words for a
moment, and settled for, "Thanks.  That... that means a lot."
        "Speaking of your mother, she's proud of you too," added
Gryphon as he released his son, then put an arm over the boy's
shoulders and led him away from the ship and back toward his friends.
"She'll be along to tell you so herself, once she's done with her
business in Asgard.  Some things even the Norn of Tomorrow can't get
out of until tomorrow... "
        Corwin smiled.  "Figures."  Then he looked thoughtful for a
moment and asked, "What was the second thing?"
        "The second thing?" asked Gryphon.
        "Yeah.  You said you hoped I'd learned two important things
today.  What was the second one?"
        "Oh, right."  Gryphon grinned and angled a thumb back toward
the ship, taking in with that one gesture all her various wounds - the
blaster scars, the blown shield projectors, the atmospheric charring,
the smashed comm dish.  "Thing two: You broke it, you bought it."

        After Gryphon had a chance to consult a bit more with his
children in a private conference off to the side of the docking bay,
they all went to the conference room in the station's command center,
in between the commander's office and the command deck, where there
would be room for them all to talk.  Gryphon introduced those who
didn't know her to Ruri, and then introduced them all to the station's
command staff.
        Commander Jer Johnson was one of the Wedge Defense Force
oldtimers, a Detianized human of Earth origins, a year or two older
than Gryphon was.  He was of medium height and very slim, with a
sharply defined face that looked, even under the present somber
circumstances, somewhat mischievous, and a disorderly shock of
blond-and-blue hair under a floppy gray cap that looked a little out
of place with his gray and black IPO Space Force uniform.  His jacket
was unzipped, revealing a slash of his mustard-yellow command-branch
undershirt, and his shoes could have used shining.  Oddest of all, he
appeared to have a white rabbit sitting on his shoulder.
        In sharp contrast to Commander Johnson's eclectic informality
was his deputy, Lieutenant Commander Susan Ivanova.  Ivanova was a
rather severe-looking beauty with her brown hair pulled back into a
vicious French braid and a scowl on her face that was most easily
interpreted as universal disapproval.  She was an officer of the
United Federation of Planets Starfleet, given deputy command of the
station as part of the Federation's cooperative involvement in the
Babylon Project, so her uniform was the trim black and burgundy of a
Starfleet command officer rather than IPO-SF gray-blue and black.
Clearly she found the present situation somewhat distressing, but she
didn't comment on it, merely nodding cordially if curtly to each of
the youngsters as they were introduced in turn.
        The third was another woman, as lovely as Ivanova but somewhat
less severe, though she did seem annoyed about something.  As the
station's chief of security, Major Kira Nerys usually seemed annoyed
about something.  Aside from the headaches of getting a place this
large staffed and operational, there was the perpetual joy of working
in a command environment where nobody wore the same uniform.  Hers,
for example, was a sort of pale orange, with commando-style shoulder
patches and soft boots, the uniform of the Bajoran Armed Forces.  The
joint administration of the station was either going to be a
revolutionary exercise in interagency cooperation or an absolute
nightmare.  Kira wasn't sure which yet.
        The refugees settled themselves at the large conference table
in the middle of the room with murmured small talk and worried looks.
Ruri went to the table at the back and brought over a tray of
refreshments.  As she arranged them, she gave Corwin a subtle poke in
the ribs and the faintest suggestion of a conspiratorial smile, then
slipped quietly from the room.
        Gryphon took a sip of what smelled like mint tea, then
switched on the television at the end of the table, which was tuned to
Network 23 - just in time to see one of Truss's battledroids knock
Roger Tremayne on his keister through the magic of "previously
recorded".
        "That was the scene a bit less than three hours ago, here on
the campus of what was one of the galaxy's finest private high
schools," said the voice of John Trussell.  The image flicked back to
the present, showing Truss standing at what appeared to be the bottom
of his Lambda shuttle's ramp.  Behind him, they could see the Quad,
the parking lot, and a lot of broken glass littering the sidewalks in
front of all the buildings, plus the still-smoking wreckage of several
Psi Corps vehicles.
        "It's all over here now but the administrative screaming,"
Truss reported, "and still the simplest questions surrounding this
bizarre, violent incident have yet to be answered.  Why were the Psi
Corps here?  What did they want?  Why did they employ such extreme
measures to get it?  And who thwarted them?
        "The Corps' Regional Director for the Northeastern United
States, Psi Cop Roger Tremayne, doesn't want these questions
answered," said Truss as the camera zoomed in a little tighter on his
serious, sincere face.  It was one of the five most trusted faces in
the known galaxy, according to the perennial Galactic News Service
poll, and all over the Earth Alliance and beyond, billions of eyes
were watching it intently as it went on firmly, "But in the next hour,
I intend to answer every one of them.  Live and direct from Worcester,
Massachusetts, I'm John Trussell and this is Network 23."
        Gryphon grinned.  "Go get 'em, Truss."  He switched the TV off
again and said conversationally, "Y'know, Network 23 is our best asset
inside the Alliance, and they don't even take orders from us."
        "They wouldn't be much of a news agency if they took orders
from a political entity," Ivanova said pointedly.
        "That's very true," Gryphon replied agreeably.  "Look at ISN."
        Ivanova glared at him, but said nothing.
        Kira, who Kaitlyn could have sworn was hiding a snicker, got
up and went to the corner of the room to have a hushed conversation
with her chirping comlink.  When she returned, she smiled at the WPI
students and said,
        "Well, you'll be happy to know that four more from your school
have turned up safe and sound.  It seems one Edward Tivrusky trashed
the Earth metagate's authorization codes, and your RA just flew
herself, Tivrusky, a dog and a duffel bag full of antique AI parts in
with a stolen Psi Corps runabout.  They've just landed in bay 4."
        The refugees smiled with relief, even Dorothy.
        Gryphon got up from the table and said, "You guys relax here
for a bit; I have to go and see about a few things."  He said it with
lightness in his voice, but there was something in his eyes that
counteracted it.  He nodded around the table, then left the room.
        Utena remembered Kate telling her that those who wore the Lens
could communicate silently with each other - had he just received such
a message?  If he had, it hadn't been good news.
        She glanced at Kate and saw that the fact hadn't eluded her
notice either, nor Corwin's.  Before she could comment, however, her
train of thought was interrupted by Commander Johnson, who came over
next to her chair and plopped his white rabbit into her lap with the
smiling comment,
        "Here - have a bunny."
        "Huh?  Oh... uh, thank you," said Utena, petting the rabbit.
"What's his name?"
        "JR - she's a her," said Jer.  "Bailey's around here
somewhere, but he's gray, so he's hard to spot in this room... "
        Looking around at the gray wall coverings, gray carpet, and
gray furniture, Utena had to admit he had something there.
        "What's your cat's name?" Jer asked Dorothy.
        "Peril," Dorothy replied.
        Jer looked thoughtful, then smiled.  "Good name for a cat."
        "Especially this one," Dorothy said, nodding.

        "What've we got, Ruri?" Gryphon asked as he entered the
station control room.
        "The Gamilon Grand Fleet has just defolded in the Solar
system," Ruri informed him.  "Emperor Desslok himself is commanding.
It appears he intends to destroy the Earth in retaliation for the Psi
Corps' treatment of his heir."
        Gryphon dropped his face into his palm.  "Wonderful," he
said.  "Can you get me in touch with Earthdome?"
        "I can try," Ruri replied blandly.  She went to the comm
station, nonchalantly moved the young Starfleet officer on duty there
out of the way, and started plying the controls.
        Gryphon sighed and pulled an antique Cybergenix communicator
out of one of the pockets of his drover coat, then flicked it open.
"Zoner," he said.
        A moment later MegaZone strode through the control-room
doors.  "Yo," he said.
        Gryphon closed the communicator and put it away.  "Princess
Amanda Dessler of Gamilon is in Medlab," he said.  "Her father, on the
other hand, is headed for Earth orbit, with an afternoon program of
light music and comet bombardment planned.  I need you to take her to
him and see if the two of you can maybe convince him not to do that."
        Zoner nodded.  "I'm on it," he said, and went back out.

        Amanda would never be able to describe precisely how it had
happened.  One moment, after receiving Devlin Carter's flat insistence
that he would be all right and she must go at once, she had
accompanied Zoner out the door of Medlab, expecting to be hustled to
the docking bays or transporter rooms and thence to a ship and off to
the metagate.  Instead, they emerged from the Medlab door and into - 
        - the bridge of the Destiny's Fist, flagship of the Imperial
Gamilon Navy.
        The two guards flanking the doorway started violently and spun
as if to shoot, but Amanda, recovering her wits quickly, waved them
back with her best flinty glare.  Up on the command podium, Captain
Dorlak and Grenlo Dragonaar spun, their faces wearing looks of shock
and faintly pleased surprise, respectively.  A moment later the
white-coated, blue-caped figure they flanked turned more slowly to
survey the two people coming up the stairs toward him.
        Zoner hung back and let Amanda precede him, following her with
his hands in the pockets of his black leather coat and an unconcerned
expression on his face.  The princess strode quickly to the top of the
stairs, ignoring the pain of her injuries, which she hadn't allowed to
be treated while Devlin was still in need, and confronted her father
without fear or hesitation.
        "Is it true, Father?" she asked without preamble.  "You intend
to destroy the Earth?"
        "They abducted my heir.  Beat her.  Tortured her.  Do you
think I would let that go unanswered?" Desslok replied, his voice
cold.
        "How did you get here?" Dorlak demanded.
        "Be silent, Dorlak, you valueless toady," Amanda snapped.  "I
did not come here to be pestered by you.  I came to prevent my father
from committing an atrocity that will blacken the name of Gamilon
forever."
        Desslok's eyes narrowed.  "You would have me spare them?" he
demanded, his voice rising just a touch, into that very dangerous zone
of quietness.
        "Yes, Father, I would," Amanda replied flatly.  She gestured
to the blue-green disk of the Earth, filling the Fist's forward
viewport, and said, "Look at it, Father.  Six billion people make that
world their home.  That world is -Devlin's- home.  Yes, their
goverment is corrupt.  Yes, agents of that government tortured me, and
my friends, and one day I will make them pay for that.  But -six
billion people-, Father!"
        She turned away, her imperious facade falling away; when she
turned back, there was a tear in her good eye.  "Earth is in the grip
of a tyrannical madman and his cadre of liars and fools.  Perhaps
-they- deserve what you have planned for this world, but the -world-
does not.  It may be a planet ruled by corruption and fear, but it is
a beautiful planet, and it is Devlin's homeworld.  Six billion of his
countrymen don't deserve to die for what their leaders have done."
        She paced away from him a little on the command platform, then
turned back, dashed away her tears, and said evenly, "Do not do this,
Father.  I never ask anything of you, do I?  Well, I ask you for this
now.  You have raised me to believe in justice, but this is not
justice, it is merely revenge.  Do not do this."
        Desslok stared hard at his daughter for several very tense
seconds; then he turned his back on her and said in a hard voice,
"Captain Dorlak, ready the comet driver."
        "Father!" Amanda snapped.  There was no pleading in her voice,
only a hard, imperious anger, and Desslok actually stiffened slightly
as it lashed his back before he turned to face her, his face cold.
        "You have something else you wish to say to me, Flight
Leader Dessler?" he inquired.
        "Understand this, Father.  I will not permit you to destroy
the Earth," Amanda told him flatly.  Instinctively she held up her
right hand, flat, palm up.  Without missing a beat, MegaZone slapped a
phaser pistol into it.  The guards hissed in consternation, recoiling
and raising their weapons, as she leveled it unwaveringly at her
father's broad chest.  Even as they did so, they knew it would be
useless for them to fire at her; she was on the Emperor's command
podium.  Its rayshields would prevent their own fire from reaching its
target, while she, safely within them, could vaporize her father with
impunity.
        Only Captain Dorlak and Grenlo Dragonaar had any hope of
stopping her.  Dorlak appeared frozen in shock and/or fear, his jaw
hanging open, hands slack at his sides.  Dragonaar tensed and made as
if to move forward, but suddenly Zoner was right behind Amanda,
looming over her in height and width like a great black shadow, his
right arm extended forward past her head.  A fistful of large black
gun winked at Grenlo, and the look in MegaZone's eyes made it clear
that, if the patriarch of the Dragonaar insisted on dying in a vain
attempt to save his emperor, that was fine with Zoner.
        "I am already sworn to kill one member of our family," said
Amanda calmly, her good eye fixed on her father's face.  "Do not force
me to make it two."
        Desslok arched an eyebrow.
        "You feel that strongly about it?" he asked her calmly.
        "I do," she replied.
        A beat.
        The corner of Desslok's mouth quirked very, very slightly.
        "Captain Dorlak," he said.
        "S-sir?" Dorlak stammered, his hands shaking.
        "Stand down the comet driver.  Secure from battle stations.
Come about and begin plotting our fold home."
        Amanda relaxed, but only just perceptibly.  Desslok looked at
her with calm curiosity for a moment, then inquired,
        "Well?  Something else?  Or are you planning to kill me anyway
and assume the throne that would one day have been yours regardless?"
        Amanda looked back at him for a moment, then thumbed the
phaser offline and placed it without looking in Zoner's open left
hand, which was suddenly ready for it.  Slowly, the black-coated
Expert eased back from right behind her, his weapon tracking Grenlo
Dragonaar until the two pairs of them were back at opposite ends of
the platform; then he made it disappear inside his coat.  Dragonaar
made a noise that was a strange combination of satisfaction and
frustration.
        "No, Father," said Amanda, smiling thinly.  "I would not kill
you for my own gain.  If you honestly believe I would, then you have
never truly known me."
        Abruptly, so unexpectedly that it broke the tension on the
command platform like a brick through a window, Desslok smiled
outright.
        "I trust," he said dryly, "this means I shall still be invited
to the wedding."
        Amanda blushed, the scarlet overpowering the pale blue of her
cheeks.
        "I must seek Garon's approval before any definite plans can be
made," she told him, but Desslok flipped a hand dismissively.
        "Garon would approve a proposal to set him afire if it came
from you," he said.  "Keep me informed, so that I may plan
accordingly."
        Amanda smiled, very slightly, put her heels together, and
inclined her head.  "I shall, Father," she said.
        "You may return to your schoolmates," said Desslok; with a dry
smile for Zoner he added, "I presume whatever special means you
employed works both ways."
        Zoner nodded, then stood aside to let Amanda precede him down
the stairs.  At the top she paused, then turned back to face the
Emperor.
        "Father... I meant what I said.  Many things I have let pass,
out of deference to your desire for peace in your house, but this I
cannot leave unanswered.  I -will- kill Xenia."
        Desslok regarded her for a moment with a hard-to-read
expression, then nodded once, his face grave.
        Without another word, Amanda turned and descended.  Zoner was
about to follow her when Desslok said, "MegaZone.  A moment."
        The former Wedge Defender paused, half-turned, and regarded
the Emperor of the Gamilons.
        "Would you really have let her kill me?" inquired Desslok
curiously.
        "Would you?" Zoner replied with a shrouded smile; then he
turned and followed Amanda to the exit.

        They returned to Babylon 5 just as they had left it, by the
Destiny's Fist's bridge door through an impossibility, but this time
they emerged into the station's control room rather than Medlab.
        As it happened, they emerged just in time to see Gryphon, who
was standing on the raised platform at the back of the room facing a
large communications screen, say in a tone of exaggerated patience to
the Earthforce general depicted on that screen,
        "Let me say this in short words so you can grasp it, General
Carroll.  It was not me.  If it had been me, you would all be dead.
Got it?  The person piloting my ship showed a great deal more
restraint than I would have.  You say -no one- in Earthforce or the
Psi Corps was killed in the extraction?"
        "That's correct," Carroll, red-faced and walrus-mustached,
replied.  "But Regional Director Tremayne was seriously wounded and
one of his men lost a -hand-.  And your man in the starship, whoever
he was, caused -billions- of credits' worth of damage to the Earth
defense grid and - "
        "-Your- men illegally detained one of my officers -and- my
daughter.  Your men -shot at- my daughter.  One of your men attempted
to -forcibly psi-scan- my daughter, and you will do me the favor of
informing that man that, should I ever cross his path, I will make him
very.  Very.  Dead.  Now listen to me carefully," he went on,
bulldozing over the man's obvious attempt at interjection.  Gryphon
glanced at Zoner, who nodded; then he continued,
        "You're a very lucky man, General.  Everyone on Earth is very
lucky right now.  You're no doubt aware that one of your friend
Director Tremayne's 'guests' was, in fact, the Crown Princess of the
Gamilon Empire."
        "Er, yes," said Carroll.  "Most regrettable mixup with the - "
        "Shut up," Gryphon snapped, "and -listen-.  You'll notice the
Gamilon fleet is leaving?  That's because Princess Dessler was kind
enough to persuade her father -not- to eradicate all life on Earth.  I
suggest you show some measure of the same kindness - or at least good
common sense - and stand down your pursuit force before you find
yourself in a hole you can't climb out of.  The Experts of Justice are
not about to let you haul those kids back to a detention that was
unlawful in the first place, and if it's a fight you want, Commander
Krontep and I will be more than happy to give it to you.  I've been
-wondering- just how many seconds it would take Challenger to disable
a Galaxy-class."
        "It's not that simple, Expert," Carroll blustered.  "Fine, the
detention of your daughter and her friends was a mistake.  I admit
that.  Director Tremayne was a little overzealous.  But we cannot
allow a rogue telepath to defy the jurisdiction of the Corps in such a
high-profile fashion!  It sets a precedent that the current policy
cannot afford to - "
        Amanda suddenly mounted to the platform, pushed Gryphon aside,
and addressed the general with her imperial hauteur cranked up to '9'.
        "General, this is Princess Amanda Elektra Dessler of the
Gamilon Empire speaking," she said coldly.  "As I tried to explain to
your 'overzealous' Psi Corps officer before, the Earthman Devlin
Carter bears the scar of my blade upon his face.  He forfeited his
life in single combat; it now belongs to me.  Under the law and custom
of the Gamilon Empire, he is no longer a citizen of the Earth
Alliance; he is my property, to be disposed of as I see fit, and I do
not see fit to give him away to the Psi Corps."
        She folded her arms, fixed the flummoxed flag officer for a
moment with a level gaze, and then added, "If your forces are so eager
for annihilation, then they may come ahead and try to take him anyway.
My father's fleet can be recalled at a moment's notice.  I persuaded
him not to destroy -Earth-; I hold no such compunctions about
-Earthforce-."
        Carroll stared at her for a moment in utter astonishment; then
he cleared his throat and said,
        "Ah, well, the, er, galactic courts' precedents on the, er,
Gamilon laws of combat are, er, somewhat ambiguous... perhaps it would
be best if we, er, suspended the operation... for the time being, you
understand, to allow our legal division time to, er, research the, ah,
situation further."
        Amanda suppressed even the faintest hint of a smile as she
replied coolly, "Perhaps it would."
        "You understand, of course, that the man, ah, Carter, is still
considered our citizen.  We will pursue all, er, usual channels to,
ah, win his freedom from Gamilon slavery, which I'm fairly certain is,
er, illegal under the Constitution of the, ah, United Federation of
Planets."
        Amanda's good eye narrowed.
        "Don't press your luck, Earthman," she growled.  "My sense of
irony has been stressed near its breaking point today as it is."
        "Ah... quite," said General Carroll, whose forehead was in
serious need of a mopping.  "Military operations in this matter will
be, ah, suspended.  We'll call a hearing before the, ah, Federation
court to, er, decide this, ah, matter."
        "Well, that's mighty white of you, General," said Gryphon, the
sardonic edge still in his voice.  "Before you go, there's one other
thing we need to discuss.  Princess Dessler and her friends were
forced to leave behind their personal effects while eluding your
overzealous Psi Cop and his thugs.  I'll transmit a list of all
missing items to you within the hour.  I expect everything on that
list to be delivered here, to Babylon 5, within twenty-four hours,
-undamaged-.  Understood?"
        "Ah, of course," said Carroll, whose gleaming forehead now
-really- needed a mopping.  "The, ah, the fugitive's property will of
course be, er, impounded, but, ah, the Princess, your daughter, and,
ah, the others, they should... ah... I'll see to it.  Earthforce out."
        "Well," said Gryphon to the BabCom logo, "that was, ah, most,
er, satisfactory."
        Amanda turned to him, and for just a moment, looked as if she
might laugh; then she simply touched his shoulder, crossed to Zoner,
nodded to him, and left the control room.
        "Interesting girl," Gryphon remarked.
        "Uh-huh," said Ruri uninterestedly.

        The small gathering in the conference room had just about
broken up after Gryphon's abrupt departure.  Ivanova had returned to
the control room to coordinate something or other; Major Kira had
shown the Duelists in Corwin's party to their quarters.
        Janice Barlow had just arrived from the docking bay with
Edward and Ein a few minutes prior; they'd all been warmly greeted and
shown to the food.  Janice had taken a cup of coffee and a Danish that
appeared to be bluapple and cheese; they'd vanished quicker than
expected.  She took a quick mental inventory and realized that she was
starving and exhausted, the adrenaline of the day's events having
finally worn off.  Mitra had come to a stop in her lap, similarly
depleted of energy.  She idly scratched the little Mag's chitin and
sighed.
        "Have a bunny."
        Janice looked up in surprise; Commander Johnson was holding a
small ball of gray fur in his hands.  She eyed it suspiciously.
"Bunny?"
        "Don't mind if you do," Jer replied, placing it in her lap
next to Mitra and letting it have an exploratory sniff.  Mitra
twitched, but didn't move; she made a mental note to offer it a
blaster power pack later.  "Never seen one before?"
        "Most people on my homeworld don't like animals," she replied.
"Maybe because all the animals are large and unfriendly."
        Jer nodded.  "Bailey's pretty friendly, but he does like to
hide," he replied.  "He seems to like your... gizmo... there, though.
And since Major Kira seems to have taken off without you, I thought
you might like to know that your quarters are in Red 1203."
        "Thanks," Janice replied gratefully, giving Bailey a tentative
scratch behind the ears.  The rabbit investigated Mitra one final time
before departing, Commander Johnson following it.
        Janice shrugged and got up, Mitra tucked in the crook of her
arm like the football it resembled.  She stepped out of the conference
room and began to search for the Red level.  Five minutes or so down
the hall, a touch on her arm stopped her.  She turned to face a very
familiar-looking young man.
        "Miss Barlow?" the young man said.
        "'Sme," Janice replied.
        "Captain Benjamin D. Hutchins, International Police
Organization - Kaitlyn's father.  Do you have a minute?"
        Janice stopped and boggled for a moment before recovering her
composure.  Of course she'd seen the man before - on ISN, Network 23,
and in her Galactic History reader, that is.  She had never expected
to meet him face to face.  "Shouldn't I be asking -you- that, sir?"
        Gryphon chuckled.  "Well, I don't know what you'd need from me,
but I have a few things I'd like you to consider," he replied.  "And
I think you can call me Gryphon.  Did Jer give you a room assignment?"
        "Red 1203," she said automatically.
        "Great," Gryphon replied.  "I'll walk you down there.  On the
way, you can tell me how you got mixed up in all of this - if you
don't mind me saying, nothing Kaitlyn had told me about you indicated
this sort of paramilitary resourcefulness."  He smiled reassuringly.
        She smiled back; despite her usual reserve, she found herself
liking Gryphon quite a bit.  Anyway, it wasn't like she'd had that big
of a role in the Psi Corps' raid, she explained; she had been pulled
in by Durandal, asked to provide cover for Edward and Ein, and she'd
done so.  She told the IPO chief as much as they approached her
quarters.
        "Mmm," Gryphon said, rubbing his goateed, chin reflectively as
they came to a stop outside Red 1203.  "Be that as it may, not
everyone would have endangered herself to protect near-total
strangers.  And not many people would have had the guts to steal a Psi
Cop's personal transport," he continued.  "Wish I'd been there to see
that."
        Janice grinned; Gryphon looked momentarily delighted.  "I
didn't think I'd get you to smile," he said.  "You seem pretty
serious."
        "Have to be, where I'm from," she replied.  "Now, there was
something you wanted to discuss?"
        For some reason, this topic shift seemed to please Gryphon
even more; he grinned, and then became serious once more.  "I notice
that you're not injured," he replied, "but it's obvious that you saw
some action on your way here.  That's an impressively mobile and
functional set of armor."
        "It's called a Frame," Janice replied.  "Ragol Arms makes them
for the Hunter's Guild and other colonists.  To be honest, I've never
thought much about it; every Hunter is trained to use a Frame, and
sometimes a Barrier - it's a shield projector, roughly - from the time
they can hold a weapon."
        "Fascinating choice of world to colonize," Gryphon commented
dryly, "if the colonists have to train like Spartans just to survive.
But that's neither here nor there.  I run a small police organization,
as you've noticed, and my recruit-level personnel are going to need
all the protection they can get.  This Frame concept interests me,
because it seems practical and sturdy, and yet not as bulky as CVR."
        "CVR's always seemed unwieldy to me, sir," Janice replied;
Gryphon winced at the title, but nodded.
        "Exactly.  It's great for what it was designed for - pilot
protection in combat flight operations and emergency armor in
downed-craft situations - but it's not practical to store, it's
difficult to maintain, and it's impractical for the field in a lot of
conditions.  It's the best we have, but sending jumpsuit-level
officers out in it isn't perfect," he said.  "And that's where you
come in.  I think your gear is just what we need for our field agents,
but if I'm going to make that happen I need an aide to negotiate
contracts between Ragol Arms and my own engineering concerns.  I need
someone who's sharp, fair, honest, and trustworthy, who's familiar
with what Ragol has to offer and what it needs from the Republic of
Zeta Cygni."
        "Mining droids," Janice shot back.  "We've got these hideous
old Corellian pit droids.  They're worse than rogue Buma."
        "That could be arranged," Gryphon said.  "I think you'd do
quite well working for the IPO as a summer job until you graduate -
and we're more than prepared to offer you an internship in college, if
that's what you'd like to do.  After all, my recruits will need
someone to teach them which end is up in Ragolian body armor."
        Janice smiled.  "It gets easier after the first three times
you try to put your shin guard on your forearm," she replied.  "But,
Gryphon - you don't know anything about me.  I'm seventeen years old.
What makes you want to trust me with a longterm career in your
organization?"
        "Well, if you really wanted that proven to you, I could march
you off and have Skuld administer the Test of Light," Gryphon replied
frankly.  "My gut tells me you're not ready for that responsibility
just yet, though.  What you do seem eminently suited for is a job that
will show you what you're truly made of, what you can accomplish in
the real world.  You're obviously combat-tested; pardon me if I
overstep my bounds here, but I think you'd really like a chance to
prove your worth in other areas."
        "That's part of why I left Ragol," Janice admitted, nodding.
"I already know I can shoot wild animals.  That doesn't require much
of anything except good reflexes and a bit of luck."
        Gryphon nodded.  "So... do you think my offer might help you
along with that self-discovery?" he said.
        "It's not like I was going back to Ragol this summer," Janice
replied with a tentative smile.  "I'll be ready to start as soon as I
get my things back from the W, sir."
        Gryphon beamed and shook her hand.  "Welcome to the IPO, then,
Janice," he said.  "I'll have Ruri draw up the appropriate paperwork,
and we'll find you an office somewhere.  We might even have a spare
shuttle you can borrow... or perhaps we'll lose Director Tremayne's
runabout."
        He grinned wickedly; after a moment, Janice shared in the grin
and the laughter that followed it.

        The rescued Duelists, except for the two spending the night in
Medlab, were put up in the still-vacant diplomatic quarters in Green
Sector, plush accommodations with all the modern conveniences a
full-service space station has to offer.  The suite Utena and Kaitlyn
were assigned was slated to be home to the Minbari ambassador once the
station was operational; it had already been decorated in the Minbari
style, but fortunately the standard human-type furniture hadn't been
replaced yet.
        "Pretty swanky," Utena remarked as she sprawled on the couch
in the sitting room.  "Man!  What a -day-!  I'm tired but I don't want
to sleep."
        "Mm," said Kate.  She sat cross-legged the armchair at right
angles to the sofa, her zatoichi unsheathed across her knees, with the
sword-care kit Saionji had given her for her birthday balanced open on
one of the chair's broad arms.
        Utena raised herself up on one elbow and said, "Corwin really
saved our bacon.  I hope your father meant it about not being mad at
him."
        Kate nodded.  "He d-did.  He always d-d-does, about that
k-kind of th-thing."
        "Good," said Utena with relief.  "I'd hate to think he'd be in
trouble for being so... so -cool-."  She looked thoughtful for a
moment, then went on, "I'm no good at making things, so I'll have to
find something really nice to give him."
        Kate smiled, a little mischievously, and observed, "I th-think
you a-a-already d-did."
        Utena went a little red.  "Yeah... I shouldn't have done
that.  It wasn't fair to him.  I mean I don't want to give him the
wrong idea.  We've already talked about... that.  You know?"
        Kaitlyn declined to involve herself further in the matter, and
so merely nodded in reply.  She was saved from having to make further
comment by the doorchime, which played a merry little electronic song.
        "Um... come in!" said Utena, and the bulkhead door swung up to
admit Gryphon.  "Oh, hi."
        "Hi," he replied, smiling.  "I just stopped by to see if
there's anything you guys need before I go back to Challenger and head
out for the evening sector sweep."
        "Mm... no, I think we're fine," said Kaitlyn.  Her brow was
furrowed with concentration as she rubbed at the blade of her sword
with a small piece of fine steel wool.
        "What's the matter?" Gryphon said, crossing the room and
leaning down over her shoulder.  "Got a nick or - oh my... "
        Utena looked over, curious, as his voice trailed off into a
sound of amazement.  Gently, he took the sword from his daughter's
hands and held it up, inspecting a point on the flat of the blade
midway along its length.  "Kaitlyn," he murmured, "is this what I
think it is?"
        Kate nodded.
        "What?" Utena said.
        Gryphon turned the blade over in his hands so Utena could see
the small, circular, black scorch mark on the flat.
        "A burn mark?" she wondered.
        "A blaster scorch," Gryphon said, nodding.  "When, Kaitlyn?"
        "This afternoon," Kate replied.  "One of the Corps Enforcers
took an aimed shot at Dorothy with a plasma rifle as we were crossing
the Quad to Daggerdisc."
        "And you... "
        "I sent it back to him," Kate confirmed.  "I didn't think
about it - I just -did- it, put myself in the pulse's way and
counterstruck it.  It was just like an arrow counter... except a bit
faster."
        Gryphon ran his thumb over the mark and looked at the soot it
left behind on his skin; then he handed the zatoichi back and sat down
in the second armchair, opposite Utena.
        "The Blade of the Inviolate Soul," he explained to her
quizzical expression.  "Asagiri Katsujinkenryuu's ultimate defensive
technique.  The warrior's blade becomes an extension of his soul,
sheathed in an invincible armor of will.  With the Inviolate Soul in
force, a plain steel blade can parry a blaster shot, a beam saber
blade, carve a forcefield... cut or block damned near anything.  The
day the Inviolate Soul is manifest is the day all Katsujinkenryuu
journeymen strive for and dream of.  It's the mark of mastery.  One
who possesses the Inviolate Soul is ready to take her own students if
she chooses."
        "It's imperfect," Kate said, as if objecting.  "The blade was
damaged."
        "Only superficially," Gryphon replied.  "That scorch will buff
right off.  I almost wiped it off with just my thumb."  He smiled.
"Kate, you sound like you're trying to talk me out of recognizing it.
What's wrong?"
        "I told you," she said, "I sent the pulse back to the man who
fired it.  It took him in the chest.  He fell, and before we left, I
didn't see him get up."  She lowered her eyes.  "I don't regret
killing him - he would have done the same to me, and was trying to do
it to Dorothy - but I can't take joy in my achievement if it cost a
man his life, even if he was my enemy."
        Gryphon's smile widened.  "Well, put your mind at rest and
take that joy, then.  No one died in today's incident.  Trust me - if
you'd killed one of the Corps, General Carroll would have made certain
I heard all about it.  In fact, I made a point of confirming that
there were no deaths.  Nor any serious injuries.  Enforcer armor is
tougher than it looks."
        Kate's face cleared; she smiled gratefully at her father,
saying nothing.
        "So," he said briskly, getting up and brushing down his
pants legs.  "Get some rest and pleasant dreams, you two.  Tomorrow,
we'll have to have a little party, celebrating your escape - and the
fact that I'm not the last Katsujinkenryuu master any more," he added
with a grinning wink.  "G'night, Kate, Utena."
        "G'night, Dad," they said in unison, and, smiling, Gryphon
left the room with a wave.
        "... d-did you j-j-just c-call my f-father 'Dad'?" Kate asked
after a few moments of quiet.
        "Um... yeah.  I guess I did.  Oops.  Wonder what the heck I
was thinking of... "
        A moment after that, the door chimed again.  Utena blinked and
said once more, "Come in," and the bulkhead levered up again.
        Juri Arisugawa stepped into the room, looking somewhat rumpled
and carrying Utena's Challenger duffel bag over her shoulder.  Both
girls blinked and got to their feet in surprise.
        "J-Juri!" said Kate.  "W-what are you d-doing here?  I
th-thought your g-g-group was sp-spending the n-night on the N-New
Orl-leans."
        "They are," Juri replied, "but I had an errand to run, so I
persuaded the Freespacers to beam me over here - a remarkable
experience, by the way, but I'm sure you've done it before."
        Kate nodded.  "Mm-hmm.  But w-what errand... ?"
        "Well," said Juri, "before I left Morgan Hall to meet up with
the others at Galaxy house, I stopped by Morgan 412... "
        She reached down, unzipped Utena's duffel bag, and removed an
item from within it, proffering it to Kaitlyn.
        Kate blinked; then her face lit up as she took the object from
Juri's hand and hugged it to her chest.
        "S-Seven!" she cried, delighted.  "Oh, J-Juri, that's... "
She stopped, unable to go on, as tears trickled down her face; then
she stepped forward and seized the redhead in a hug as joyful as the
one she'd given the stuffed tiger, before retreating red-faced to her
chair and curling up with Seven held to her chest again.
        Juri smiled.  "You're welcome," she said.  "I left a note on
your bed telling you not to worry, if you -had- made it back and found
him gone.  I didn't have room for any of the others, but... "
        "Th-that's all r-r-right.  D-Dad's g-getting all our s-stuff
back, b-but I was w-w-worried about S-Seven anyway... "
        "I thought you might, if it came to something like this."
Juri stifled a most unsophisticated yawn.  "Well.  I must be getting
back to the New Orleans... I'm exhausted."
        "Why don't you just stay here?" Utena asked her.  "We've got
plenty of space, look at this place.  There are two bedrooms in this
suite.  I guess the other one's for an ambassador's assistant or an
attache or something.  Crash here and send for your stuff tomorrow -
they're going to be bringing everybody else over here in the morning
anyway."
        Juri looked as if she found the thought of not trudging back
to the B5 transporter room and through the New Orleans's labyrinthine
corridors very appealing, but politeness forced her to ask,
        "Are you certain you don't need the second room?"
        "After a day like this?" Utena replied.  "-I'm- not sleeping
alone if I don't have to.  Now don't get up on your high horse again,"
she added, holding up a hand.  "It's not like that."
        "I wasn't going to say anything," Juri insisted.  "I
appreciate the offer, and if you're sure I won't be putting you out,
then I believe I'll take you up on it."  She handed Utena her bag,
followed her gesture to the second bedroom's door, then paused.  "Good
night, Utena, Kaitlyn."
        "G'night, Juri.  Sleep tight."
        "G-goodn-night, Juri... and... th-thank you ag-gain."
        Juri's smile was unusually gentle, for her.
        "You're welcome, Kaitlyn.  Sleep well."
        "Y'know," Utena mused quietly after the door was closed behind
Juri, "I think she likes you, Kate."
        Kate went a bit red again, hugged Seven, and did not reply,
except to smile a rather silly smile.

        "The court will probably find for Earth," Devlin mused from
his Medlab bed.  "Federation's ban on slavery and enforced servitude,
and all that."  He chuckled bitterly.  "We wouldn't want my rights
being infringed, what?"
        "There are ways to avoid that," replied Amanda.  "Before they
have a chance to bring it to a proceeding, you could vanish from their
sphere of influence entirely.  Adopt a new identity and disappear into
the off-Earth human population, go to the Outer Rim, make a new life
for yourself... "
        She picked up his right hand from where it lay on the white
Medlab blanket, held it in both of hers, and examined it silently for
a moment; then she looked up at his face and said,
        "Or... if you wish it... you can renounce your Earth
citizenship in a way that the Federation court -will- accept... by
becoming my husband."
        Devlin blinked.
        "Amanda," he said, but his voice only rasped.  He coughed and
tried again, managing a whisper: "Amanda, are you sure?  I mean... 
messin' about with me in a high school romance is one thing, but
-marriage-... "
        Her expression hardened a little.  "If you do not wish to,"
she said calmly, "then, as I said, there are other alternatives.  I
will help you in any way that I - "
        "Amanda, no, don't misunderstand me," Devlin said.  "I didn't
mean -I-... but... your father, your brother... they could overlook,
or even smile at, an offworld... er... dalliance, call it wild oats or
what have you, but... and -Rina-... "
        "Kitarina Telaia Dragonaar," Amanda informed him with some
amusement, "may well be as much in love with you as I am, Earthman.
Could you not gather that from our last trip to Toronto?"  She smiled
and went on tangentially, "You will have to explain this to me,
because it baffles me.  Kit has never shown interest in any man
before.  She rebuffs suitors - and with her looks she has had many -
with the same lack of desire you would show for Klingon food.  And
along you come, not bold, not strong, not even particularly handsome,
and both of us fall in train.  How is this -possible-?  What invisible
quality do you possess that makes you so... so damnably -desirable-?"
        Devlin mustered a weak grin.
        "I guess," he said, "some chaps just have it.  I'm not very
decorative, but I am reliable."
        Amanda chuckled, leaned closer, and carefully kissed his
bruised lips.
        "I guess that will have to do," she conceded wryly.  "As for
Father and Garon, Father will adjust, and Garon has known from the
start that this day would come.  I cannot marry -him-, after all."
She smiled again, a gentle smile that didn't grace her countenance
often, and brushed at some of his bristly blond hair.  "No doubt he
and Corimel, and Sniper too, are rushing here in tremendous haste and
anxiety at this very moment.  They will be very relieved to see -both-
of us whole.  You may not realize this, Earthman, but Garon is very
fond of you.  He -already- regards you as his little brother.  I will
have to seek his formal approval - he is my elder brother - but I have
no doubt that he will give it gladly."
        "I don't know, Amanda," said Devlin in a tone of dubious
weariness.  "Are you really sure you want to do that?  Your people,
your father's peers, your superiors... "
        "Yes, Devlin," said Amanda patiently, knowing it was at least
half the drugs that were causing him to hedge this way, his mind tired
and disorganized from the shocks it had endured.  "I am really sure.
I do not say it will be -easy-, but look at what we have weathered
already!  If you are willing to accept that, if you can take that one
more chance, then I believe we can make it work."
        He smiled, a bit dreamily, and closed his eyes.
        "Well then," he murmured, squeezing her hand in his.  "I guess
we might as well give it a shot, then... "
        He drifted off to sleep, and Amanda stood looking at him for
several minutes before gently disengaging her hand from his and
climbing into the adjacent bed to get some rest herself.
        It wasn't the most sweeping and poetic of betrothals, she
supposed, but had anything about their courtship been conventional
either?  It would certainly be -memorable- this way... 

        Roger Tremayne left the Commandant's office with his face set
like stone.  This was not just because of the lingering pain in his
head or the stiffness of his newly-bonded shoulder injury, but they
were on his mind as well as the dressing-down he'd just received as he
made his way to his own office in the Psi Corps' New York
administration center.
        He was lucky, he knew, that he still -had- an office, not that
it would be his for much longer.  The Commandant for the Western
Hemisphere had used phrases like "unmitigated debacle" and
"unbelievable folly" in the course of stripping Roger of his
directorship and reassigning him to the Lunar colonies.  The rebuke
stung, as did the punishment, as much as the wounds and the psionic
shock themselves.
        And the hell of it was, he never -had- dragged the truth out
of Carter.  The damned blip -had- forgotten, or rather, the man who
had trained him had -made- him forget, no doubt with his consent.  It
was a standard technique used among the resistance; as a (former)
director of enforcement operations, Roger knew that all too well.
Many resistance cells had high-enough-level telepaths to erase the
knowledge of where, when and from whom their newest recruits had
learned the things they knew about using their powers and eluding the
Corps.  A really deep probe, by several Psi Cops in concert, could
usually dig the erased information back up... but there hadn't been
time.
        And yet, as he sat down at his desk and began to compose his
things for his transfer, none of that mattered much to Roger Tremayne.
        The Gamilon's exceptional resilience.
        The robot's sudden, violent way of relieving Turnbull and
Bougiere of their impression that she was Asimovian.
        That extremely remarkable ship, and the accompanying extremely
remarkable acts of spacemanship, that led to the group's escape.
        The coordinated efforts of the Freespacer "nation".
        All those things were interesting, but not nearly as
interesting as three things he'd noticed in his own experiences, the
after-action reports from his men, and the data gathered by Martine
LeClercq, who had been far more useful to Roger than she had ever
realized.
        The half-Minbari girl's unique response to a surface scan,
defying everything the incompetent counselor thought to be possible
and therefore disregarded as an error in perception.
        The pink-haired girl's sword, which couldn't be drawn from its
scabbard by the arresting officers, and her ring, which refused to
come off her hand.
        The brown-haired girl's incredible mental discipline, and the
report from Psi Cop Smythe that, when she'd cut off his hand, he
hadn't seen her until after the blow.
        These things were very interesting indeed, and in the final
analysis, Roger Tremayne didn't care that he was losing his
prestigious job and being posted to the hind end of the Alliance.
        On the Moon, he would have time and quiet to consider these
things further.
        Yes.

        The next morning, Corwin Ravenhair was atop the gently curving
upper hull of Daggerdisc, removing the jagged, broken remains of the
comm dish in order to clear the housing for a replacement, when he was
hailed from below.  He went to the edge of the hull and looked down to
see Utena Tenjou standing on the deck, waving up at him.
        "Access lift's inside," he called down, "just like the one on
the Wonder."  She nodded, then disappeared under the ship, emerging a
few minutes later from the access port back by the solar collectors.
        "Hey," she said as she crossed the ship.  "How are you?"
        "OK," he replied.  "Sleep well?"
        "Terrific.  You?"
        "Fine."
        "Good.  Listen, um... I'm... I'm sorry about... "  She trailed
off, looking sheepish and awkward, her hand behind her head.
        Reminded of himself, Corwin smiled and let her off the hook.
        "Yeah," he said.  "'sOK."
        Utena grinned.  "Uh... well... can I give you a hand?"
        "Sure," he replied, tossing her a glareshield.  "You know how
to work a laser torch?"
        "No," said Utena honestly, "but I'm a quick learner."

      /*  Joe Satriani  "Ceremony"  _Live in San Francisco_  */

                     Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
                              presented
                        UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES
                           FUTURE IMPERFECT
                      - Symphony of the Sword -
                           Sixth Movement:
                             Hunted Rose

                               The Cast
                       (in order of appearance)
                             Utena Tenjou
                           Kaitlyn Hutchins
                            Juri Arisugawa
                        R. Dorothy Wayneright
                           Wakaba Shinohara
                           Kyouichi Saionji
            Thomas Arsenault, Institute 3 Resident Advisor
                              Miki Kaoru
                        Amanda Elektra Dessler
                            Janice Barlow
                                Mitra
                               Durandal
                            Devlin Carter
                         Psi Cop Eyrton Saro
                      Psi Cop Carmela Sunderland
                         Psi Cop Jerome Rabin
                    Sergeant Stanley Gamble, PCED
                              Tiny Robo
                           Lesser Mazinger
                               Mia Ausa
                Midshipsman Harcourt M. McKenzie, CFMF
           Regional Director Roger Tremayne, PCED Sector 3
                        Psi Cop Gerald Smythe
                     Officer Branford Chang, PCED
                     Officer Jerry Saunders, PCED
                  The Hon. J. Maurice MacEchearn IV
                                G'Kron
     T'skaia Vorokoshiga'ar Ixtixtaaqitl't'chl'Vraihelt Ishkarat
                       Azalynn dv'Ir Natashkan
                     Officer John Trumbull, PCED
                    Officer Martin Bougiere, PCED
                  Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV
                                 Ein
                         Elizabeth Broadbank
                      Officer Carl Ellett, PCED
                      Officer Alice McBain, PCED
                 Captain Lorg, CFA Cordwainer's Forge
                                Peril
                     Corporal Joren Jackson, PCED
                     Officer Jack Templeton, PCED
                    Sergeant Ashley Endicott, PCED
           Lieutenant Vreem of Kleg, CFA Cordwainer's Forge
                  Vice Admiral Ayami Nakajima, CFMF
                         Captain T'Pall, CFMF
                     Commander Claire Lemno, CFMF
                 General Francis Carlisle, Earthforce
                       Officer Dirk Klemp, PCED
                       Officer Jose Diaz, PCED
                        Kraalgh vestai-Kalaan
                           Corwin Ravenhair
                                 Dios
                           Nall Silverclaw
                        Colonel Ruurlkyr, FMC
                 Fleet Captain Homare Nakajima, CFMF
                    Commander Irving Shwarz, CFMF
                  Lieutenant Eldon Marrs, Earthforce
                   Major Carlotta Ellis, Earthforce
                            John Trussell
               Network 23 Field Assistance Droid R-06R
               Network 23 Field Assistance Droid G-3N3
                  Captain John Sheridan, Earthforce
                  Ensign Hoshi Sato, IPO Space Force
                   Lieutenant Ruri Hoshino, IPO-SF
                 Captain Benjamin D. Hutchins, IPO-SF
		 Lieutenant Brolin Keelen, M.D., IPO
                    Commander Jer Johnson, IPO-SF
            Lieutenant Commander Susan Ivanova, Starfleet
		Major Kira Nerys, Bajoran Armed Forces
                                  JR
                               MegaZone
             Captain Goran Dorlak, Imperial Gamilon Navy
                           Grenlo Dragonaar
                     Emperor Desslok I of Gamilon
                  General Roland Carroll, Earthforce
                                Bailey

                              Cat-herder
                         Benjamin D. Hutchins

                  Confederate Freespacer Consultant
                           Kris Overstreet

                           Ragolian Attache
                            Janice Barlow

                         Blocking Assistance
                            John Trussell
                              Anne Cross

                      Great Escape devised with
                               MegaZone

                       With the Usual Suspects

             Babylon 5 created by J. Michael Straczynski

                      Apologies to Frank Miller

                       The Symphony will return