DP/UF - The Universe According to Chris, Part 2 [FanFic]

[tabloid footprints in your hair]

THE UNIVERSE ACCORDING TO CHRIS, PART II

Starring:
Chris/Mako Chris Meadows
Temper Katie Tanner
Eve Tokimatsuri Eve/
Enhanced Video Emulation
Gryphon Ben Hutchins
MegaZone Brian Bikowicz
Kei Kei Morgan
Yuri Yuri Daniels
Mughi Mughi
Reality Vaughn Gross
pfloyd Adam Johnson
Doppleganger Buma J. Random Highly-Advanced
GENOM Buma; Katie Tanner
Buma attack force J. Random GENOM Corporation
Bumas

*Special Guest Appearance By Edison Bell, Esq.*

With Brief Appearances By:
ReRob Robert Mandeville
Deedlit Deedlit Satori
PCHammer Martin F. Rose
Danilia Danilia
Doychan and Gaulan J. Random Grunts
Soldiers
Doychan and Gaulan J. Random Ambassadors
Diplomats
Captain Farrago James Farrago
Hrethrraao Hrethrraao the Wookiee
Lord Fahrvergnugen Baron Lord Wolfgang
Amadeus Fahrvergnugen
Decker GENOM Corporation Type 33/S
Replicant DKR-1
Mal Sarrin J. Random Utopia Planitia
worker
Salusian Scientist Brian Keith
Womanizing Pilot Cannon Fodder
Jenna Jennifer Steen
Planetfall Carl Ellin

Based on characters and situations
created by MegaZone, Gryphon, ReRob,
Reality, PCHammer, et al

An Overworked, Underslept Student
Production

Special Effects by Academic Gloom and
Mundanity, Inc.

Music by Box of Tapes, Inc.

Catering by Sack Lunches R Us

Anything Else by Whoever Thought of it
at the Time

Original Mecha Designs by Chris Meadows,
Dave Deitrich, and Friends

Carry On Wayward Son sequence
choreographed by Chris Meadows

DEDICATIONS:
For my parents, who love me anyway
For Steve and Penny Hutchison (won't they be THRILLED?)
For all my other coauthors out there, be they Undocumented
Features, Misfold, Superguy, alt.pub.dragons-inn, or
alt.pub.havens-rest
For all the characters I have an obligation to write:
Andrea, Katie Tanner's soulsister, and her sister Sheryl
Mako (the OTHER Mako), and the crew of the starship
CONSTELLATION
Mike, Summer, and the rest of Team M.E.C.H.A.
Joe Walker, Ivory Tanaka, and the crew of the ROOSEVELT
Ikazuchi carrier
For the Ventures, the most excellent instrumental band in the
whole of known space
And also...
For Katie Tanner

CHAPTER 11

"Home, home again. I like to be here, when I can."
--Pink Floyd, "The Great Gig in the Sky"

Almost as soon as the LOVELY ANGEL had touched down in the
WAYWARD SON's docking bay, Chris was running down the boarding
ramp. As soon as his feet touched the metal decking, he let out
a whoop that made the tech crew wince. "It is GREAT to be
back!!!" he yelled, jumping up in the air as if he'd just bought
a Toyota.
"Tell us about it, why don't you?" Katie remarked drily,
walking down the ramp behind him. Did the man have no restraint?
"Hey, I haven't been here in over four years! I have a
right to be a little excited." Chris walked down the safe path
delineated by bright yellow paint and arrows, toward the bulkhead
door on the far side of the bay. "This place is like my second
home. My ONLY home, now that..." He didn't finish the sentence.
Chris was again wearing the WDF flight uniform he'd worn
before going off to Engineering school on Utopia Planitia, but
with a new patch on it that indicated he was a qualified design
engineer as well as a pilot. Under his arm, he carried a CVR
helmet that also served as a flight helmet.
As soon as Chris was in the corridor, Katie just behind him
(Kei and Yuri were still back with the ANGEL, seeing to its
maintenance and refueling, or something like that), he turned to
the nearest wall-screen (currently displaying a cheerful view of
outer space, as seen from a camera on the hull) and keyed the
touch-sensitive corner of the screen that would bring up the comm
menu. There were several options, but Chris chose the top one:
initiate contact with Tokimatsuri Eve, the artificial
intelligence that ran the WAYWARD SON's systems.
Eve blinked onto the screen, a beautiful woman with long,
silver hair and golden eyes. She gasped in surprise. "Chris!"
she said. "When did you get back!"
"Just now," Chris remarked. "Surprised?"
"Of course! I had thought that you were away at Engineering
school."
"They graduated me," Chris said. "Or, rather, HE graduated
me." There was no need to elaborate about who "HE" was.
"Excellent! Wait 'til I tell Zoner!"
"Uh, no, Eve, that won't be necessary." She looked puzzled.
"I want to surprise him, you see," Chris elaborated.
Eve's eyes widened with understanding. "Oh! I see."
"Say, Eve, could you have my stuff moved out of storage,
into my old room? No, wait, scratch that. I'd like you to find
me some space that could be used as a workshop, preferably
isolated from the rest of the ship. And have part of that set up
as my living quarters."
Eve nodded. "I'll do that immediately, Chris."
"Thanks, Eve."
"You're welcome, Chris. It never hurts to help."

Chris walked into the Wedge, looking around him as if he'd
expected everything to be entirely different and was amazed at
how much it had stayed the same. "You've only been gone four
years, Chris," Katie reminded him drily. "It's all the same."
"Yes, but I'm not," Chris said. Katie had to admit he had a
point there.
Chris spent some time in the Wedge ("Hey, they have capuccino
now! They must have finally figured out how to replicate it!"),
then proceeded on to the bridge (His Major's clearance allowed
him up there).
When Chris stepped out of the elevator, MegaZone and ReRob
were having a lively discussion on the relative merits of warp
vs. transwarp drives as ReRob was sitting at Engineering and
Zoner had the comm chair turned to face that station. Yuri and
Deedlit were there, too. All four of them looked up as he
stepped onto the bridge. "Mako?" Zoner said. "I didn't know
you'd graduated."
Chris grinned. "Well, I have. I'm now a fully-qualified
design engineer, with a degree from Fahrvergnugen Tech to prove
it."
"What exactly does that qualify you to do?" ReRob asked,
wondering whether Chris could take a position in the Engineering
department.
"Basically, design things. I did learn some about starship
engineering, but it's really not my field. I prefer to work with
the small stuff--Cyc-bikes, destroids, Veritechs, etc."
"So, what are you going to do now that you're back?" Zoner
asked. "Now that you're an engineer, that is."
Chris shook his head. "You know, I don't know?" he said.
"I thought that I would be happy as an engineer. But during
those four years I was at school, all I could really think about
was flying. I don't think I want to be in Engineering...I
basically just want to fly and mess around."
MegaZone grinned maliciously. "You want to fly, eh? I
think I could find you a spot somewhere...maybe in Kilroy..."
"I don't think so," Yuri, Deedlit, Chris, and ReRob said in
unison.
Zoner grinned. "Just kidding." They all had a good laugh
about it, and a short conversation, then Chris left the bridge
once more, deciding that he wanted to go and check on his new
home, in the aft section of the WAYWARD SON.
The turbolift was just as fast as he remembered. Without
much delay at all, he was whisked down the length of the
starship, and deposited in a maze of empty metallic corridors.
"Whoa...this place is BIG..." Chris muttered. "I never realized
how big and empty this place was...wonder why we don't have crew
back here?"
One of the wall screens lit up. It was Eve. "Your quarters
are this way, Mako." She blinked out, appeared on another screen
farther down the hall. "What are you waiting for? Come on..."
Chris grinned. "All right, I'm coming..." He walked down
the hall, footsteps echoing metallically, and Eve accompanied
him, "walking" past each screen at the same time he did, so it
appeared that they were on opposite sides of a wall and the
screens were actually windows (NO, not Microsoft Windows...).
At last, they came to a bulkhead door. Eve gestured to it.
"You may enter when ready," she said with a slight giggle.
Chris keyed the same code-sequence on the door that he'd used
for his old quarters, and it hissed open hydraulically. Beyond
was a wide-open area, with workbenches and tables along the
sides, heavy equipment for handling mecha construction, and
various gadgets like that. One of the walls apparently had an
access to outer space.
Eve appeared on a large screen mounted on one wall. "It's
mostly antiquated, actually. We were going to scrap it, but I
thought that you might be able to make use of it." By the look
on Chris's face, Eve could see that she had guessed correctly.
"I think he'll probably be able to do that," Katie Tanner
said, stepping around a corner.
"Hey, Katie!" Chris said. "Is this great, or what?!"
"I think I have something you're going to like even more,"
Katie said. "Come with me..." He's gonna LOVE this...
Katie led Chris to the turbolift, down to another docking bay
in the aft section of the ship. This was one of the auxiliary
bays, Chris noticed--it wasn't often used during normal
operations.

However, this docking bay had a plane in it. A Veritech,
sitting in a pool of light in the middle of the darkened bay.
Katie stood back, let Chris approach it by himself. As he got
closer and closer, he recognized it...
"Hey, that's Zebra 1!" Chris yelled. "The CONSTELLATION!"
"Yep," Katie said. "Zoner thought you might want it. All
the other Zebra Valks were replaced, but he didn't want the time
you spent personalizing it to go to waste."
"Oh, wow. I didn't think I'd ever see her again." As soon
as he'd said it, Chris realized how much he sounded like Rick
Hunter, but he let it slide.
"You should know Zoner better than that," Katie said. "It's
completely fueled and loaded--your Cyclone and CVR are in there
too." She grinned.
Chris matched her, grin for grin. "Let me at her!"
Katie nodded, still grinning. "She's all yours."
Chris quickly got into the CVR and climbed into the cockpit.
During his preflight, he reached under the dash to make sure the
floptical drive he'd hardwired into the audio system was still
there. Good, it was. He hadn't had time to remove it before
leaving, and he figured he could always get another if he needed
to. The special disk-reading program PCHammer had written for
him was still on the computer, good...Chris reached down to a
shirt pocket and pulled out the 3.5" floptical disk he kept his
music and text library on. He slotted the disk into the drive
under the dash and punched up the program on his port comm
screen.
"CONSTELLATION to WAYWARD SON Control. Request permission
to take off from Aux Bay 19D for a short, uh, refamiliarization
flight."
"Roger, CONSTELLATION." It was Kei, who was apparently now
on-station on the WAYWARD SON's bridge. "Please stand by."
"Thank you, WAYWARD SON. Engines are idling. You may fire
when ready."
Laughter. "Opening bay doors. You are go for launch.
Repeat, you are go for launch." Chris cued the player as he
kicked in the throttle. The music blasted through the cockpit in
full quadrophonic stereo as the Valkyrie blasted free of the
LOVELY ANGEL.

<<<They Might Be Giants, "See the Constellation>>>

It had been four years since he had last sat behind the
controls of this Valkyrie (or any Valkyrie at all, for that
matter). He goosed the throttles and shoved 'er into full burn.
He was glad to see that he hadn't lost his touch. He did
Immelmans, split-Ses, barrel rolls, inward AND outward (yipe!)
loops, Fokker feints, and every other maneuver he could think of.
An hour or so later, he turned the ship toward the WAYWARD SON
and headed in. He sighed. Even though he was lightyears away
from Earth, he felt like he was home at last.

CHAPTER 12

"And if they ask, tell 'em that we're just good friends."
--Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder, "Just Good
Friends"

Not long after, Chris found himself exchanging glances with
Katie Tanner over two steaming mugs of capuccino at a booth in
the Wedge. She wore her uniform slacks, but had exchanged her
jacket for a black sweatshirt with a grey WDF symbol sihouette
covering the entire front. In the middle of the logo was a
three-quarter head-on view of the WAYWARD SON firing its reflex
cannon diagonally down and to the right. Below the ship,
partially obscured by the orange beam of energy, were the words,
"SDF-17 WAYWARD SON." Chris, being off-duty (well, actually he
was perpetually off-duty now), wore a pair of jeans and the
black-and-day-glo-yellow "Class of '91" sweatshirt he'd made
himself, with some help, back in High School Home Ec.
Longtime friends aboard the WAYWARD SON, Chris and Katie had
been seeing more and more of each other lately, both socially and
professionally. And despite Chris's earlier happiness and
excitement at seeing her again after four years, he was beginning
to get just a little scared.
When they'd parted four years before, Katie, amid a few
tears, had mentioned wanting to be "more than just friends."
Chris wasn't sure exactly what that meant, but if it meant what
he thought it meant, he might have trouble on his hands. Just
looking at her...
Katie was tall, slim, and incredibly attractive. Her
blonde, slightly curly hair fell a little past her shoulders,
waving freely in the breeze whenever there was one. Her
build...well, let's just say that when she wore the form-hugging
full-body flightsuit that was sometimes used in lieu of CVR-3,
nearby personnel had been known to experience spontaneous nasal
blood loss. She was the kind of girl that Chris would turn and
gaze after if she passed on the street, just for the view. And
she was interested in HIM!
Him, the slob, the perpetual bachelor. He'd thought he had
absolutely no redeeming qualities where the fairer sex was
concerned. Why HIM? Chris had never before experienced that
kind of a relationship, and he found the idea somewhat scary.
Katie could tell Chris was nervous about something. "What's
wrong?" she asked across the table. "You've seemed kind of
distracted all night."
Chris shook his head. "I just don't know if I'm ready for
this."
Katie looked at him, concern evident in her face. "I don't
understand..." Didn't he want her?
Better to come out and say it. "Katie--you're talking to The
Guy Who's Never Even Had A Date In His Entire Life." He stared
down at his cappucino. "I'm an extreme introvert. I just don't
make friends very easily, and I think that I basically annoyed
away most of the ones who I DID make, back on Earth. I never got
the nerve up to ask a girl out." He shook his head. "Until the
McDonald's brought me here, all I could see ahead of me was the
life of a bachelor. I had resigned myself to that." He sighed.
"Now here I am, the most beautiful girl I've ever seen is
interested in me, and I have no idea just what the hell I'm
supposed to do."
Katie was shocked for just a moment, then understood
completely. He was lonely. I should have expected this from the
way he was carrying on about his parents, she thought. Her own
life hadn't been all that easy--growing up an orphan, only
finding friends when she'd found her way to Utopia Planitia a
short time before meeting Chris...in fact, it all seemed now like
a bad dream that had faded away in the bright starlight from the
SDF-17's observation ports. But she still knew what loneliness
was like, and she imagined that Chris had probably had more than
his share of it in his lifetime. "I can understand," she said.
"We can go on as friends for now...you must have had SOME good
friends on earth who were female, though."
Chris nodded. "Yeah, I did. Once or twice I wanted it to
be something more, but I never got up the courage to ask." He
blushed, feeling a little uncomfortable about being so open, and
tried to hide his discomfort behind sarcasm. "Something you
don't seem to have a problem with."
Katie laughed nervously. "Hey, once you dogfight a Kilrathi
face to face, the rest is easy." This provided something for
them both to laugh at, and the conversation moved on to more
neutral topics. "So, how 'bout them Raiders?"

Chris landed the CONSTELLATION in his workshop after another
test flight and climbed out to notice someone standing in the
doorway. "Hey, PCHammer! What are you doing here?"
"Oh, I heard someone was moving in, so I just came up to
check it out." He pointed over his shoulder. "I live down that
way a couple of blocks."
"Oh, yeah, you do, don't you?" Chris realized. "What do you
think?" He waved his arm at all the stuff.
"Wow. Nice." Martin peered at the screen. "Big TV set."
"Yeah, isn't it? Can't wait to watch Macross Do You Remember
Love on that thing." He grinned, stepping over to a
comfortable-looking chair nearby and sitting down. PCHammer
pulled up another chair and did the same.
"So what are you going to do now?" Martin asked. "Now that
you're officially a design engineer?"
"Oh, I don't know...build stuff, I guess. And fly." He
pointed to the CONSTELLATION. "Definitely fly." He looked back
at PCHammer. "Oh, by the way...some of the stuff I'm gonna
build, I could probably use your help to program. What do you
say?"
PCHammer shrugged. "Sure, if I can find the time...What did
you have in mind?"
"Well, I've got these advanced Cyclone prototypes. Sort of
a VR-hundred series. I don't think I'll build very many of
them...just a few for personal use, or for friends, at first.
And I have some ideas for some personal mecha, too, and
improvements on the CONSTELLATION. Between that and flying, I
think I'll be keeping pretty busy."

True to his predictions, Chris DID keep pretty busy. Since
he didn't technically have a squadron (and he SURE didn't want to
be assigned one), he pretty much flew with whoever he liked. He
flew for a while with the Clay Pigeons, and sometimes Katie, when
she was off Eight-Ball duty, flew with them.
What took up the most time in Chris's schedule was modifying
and reworking the CONSTELLATION into a better--no, make that a
BETTER, all caps--fighter. Just about any time you liked (and
some times you didn't like), you could find Chris in that shop,
tinkering with that mecha (not having any other assigned duties
sort of helped out in the time area).
Whenever she was off-duty, Katie Tanner came in to help.
She wasn't much of an engineer, but at least she could hand Chris
the right tools. PCHammer and the Clay Pigeons dropped in from
time to time, as well, and the squadron's Santovaskan, Danilia,
helped along with Katie. Danilia, though not actually trained,
did seem to have a knack for mecha mechanics, and Chris was able
to teach her some of his skills, so that she became a competent
assistant. Who knows, maybe in a few more decades, she might
actually become a full-fledged engineer. If, that is, she ever
became serious enough about it. Given her bubbly,
overexuberantly cheerful personality, however, it was hard to
imagine her becoming serious about anything.
On the fighter, the first thing to be refit or replaced was
the avionics, which wasn't hard. Along with the upgrade, they
installed just about every external connect hardpoint that the
Valk could fit, including some that were more common to small
starships like the Predator-class Kei and Yuri flew. Chris also
improved the floptical drive patch-in, so it was part of the dash
instead of hooked under it.
After this, Chris ripped out and rearranged the innards of
the Valkyrie's flight computer, to improve the efficiency, and
also...something else. He left room to install a Machine
Intelligence CPU, like Eve, just in case he ever got one. Maybe
PCHammer could write it? But somehow, he never got around to
asking. Which was just as well, actually--Chris didn't know if
he cared to have his piloting second-guessed by a machine, and he
wasn't sure that an AI was called for in a ship the size of a
Valkyrie anyway.
The next stage of the operation was a little tricky, but
Chris managed to hack it with help from Katie, Danilia, and Eve
(who personally ran the remote waldoes; she'd had ample enough
experience with trusting PAIs to perform delicate tasks). They
yanked the standard reactors out of the CONSTELLATION, replacing
them with an advanced version of the powerful reactors that ran
Gryphon's Hyper Valkyrie.
After this came the most boring part. The myomers of a
standard Valkyrie were not capable of handling the strain placed
on them by having that much power on line. So, they had to be
replaced completely with a stronger variant (that would actually
provide a strength boost on the order of 65%). The reweaving
process took about three months, during which time Chris put
together a DVR-152 Battler II Cyclone for the heck of it. (It
should have been VR-152, but Chris felt that he should add the
"D" designation to the front to honor the original designer, Dave
Deitrich, and also to differentiate this model from any future
VR-152 Cyclone that the WDF powers-that-be might design.)
The DVR-152 Battler II was perhaps 15% larger than the
original VR-052 Battler, and suitably rugged to match. It was
similar to its predecessor in general shape and design, but its
electronic systems were much more advanced, with extended radar,
radio, and targeting capabilities. The targeting sensor was now
built into the helmet visor.
Firepower was also increased. In addition to twelve chest
mini-missiles, the DVR-152 mounted eight forward-facing
mini-missiles in the hip armor of the Cyclone, four on each leg.
And the arm units still had two plasma launch tubes each, but now
mounted energy cannons as well. Plus the overall armor
protection was substantially higher, and the auxiliary power
system ran off of a tank of water (or other hydrogen-rich fluid)
instead of gasoline.
As for armor compatibility, the Battler II was designed to
lock in with any CVR-type armor in the WDF's arsenal, but Chris
went ahead and made a suit of the CVR-4 that Dave had designed to
work with the Cyclones anyway. CVR-4 armor's design included
space in the legs for a first-aid pack, survival kit, and tool
kit, and also some advanced comm systems that CVR-3 didn't have.
All in all, it was an excellent little creation. "Have to thank
Dave for making it for me," Chris remarked. "Though he's
probably old and grey by now, probably doesn't even remember the
Robotech supplement we were writing..."
Katie thought it was a neat design. Danilia, being shorter,
was more impressed with its size. "Any bigger and you'd be a
Destroid!" she giggled. Chris promised to put together advanced
Cyclones for each of them as soon as he'd finished testing on
that one.
Chris had just been planning the next and final stage thus
far, refitting and upgrading the booster pack for warp
propulsion, when the emergency came up.

CHAPTER 13

"Sometimes, you just have to--Hey, stop quoting me!"
--Anonymous

Chris had been re-reading Valkyrie technical manuals,
wanting to be sure of what he was doing. He was sitting in his
workshop, feet propped up on the metal desk that he did much of
his non-mechanical work at, leafing through the manual. He was
trying to figure out what the best way to go about hooking up the
warp engines would be (after all, he'd never actually DONE this
before), when the intercom beeped. Chris looked up at the big
screen on the opposite wall (which he'd decided he liked to use
for intercom communication when he didn't need it for anything
else), and said, "Yo!"
It was Zoner, on the bridge. He looked serious. "Mako, can
you have your plane prepped and launched within ten minutes?"
Chris checked his watch, did a little figuring in his head.
"Yeah, sure, what's the problem?"
"Terrorist spacejacking of a luxury liner from Atlantia,"
Zoner said. "About fifteen minutes ago it diverted from its
course, and a list of demands has just come through by computer.
The Atlantian government has asked us to intervene."
"Whoa, whoa, waitaminnit. Isn't this a job for the
Hammers?"
Zoner nodded. "It is. They're going in. But you and the
Eight-Balls are going to be on the scene making sure the bad guys
don't get away. Your plane will be designated Eight-Ball Six
for this mission."
"But why me? I'm not any great shakes behind the
joystick..."
"We might need a combat engineer. You never know."
It was a good enough explanation for Chris. He tossed the
manual aside and got up. "Give me ten minutes and I'll be ready
to launch. Out."

The CONSTELLATION rode across the sky, vectoring onto the
course provided by the nav computer. As Chris approached, he
kept a sharp eye out for any bogeys. It was possible that the
hijackers had accomplices, and those accomplices might be lying
in wait even now... "Eight-Ball Four to Eight-Ball Six,
Eight-Ball Four to Eight-Ball Six, this is Temper." Chris
thumbed the touch-sensitive square on his starboard nav/comm
screen, and it blipped up her image.
"Well, hello there, gorgeous!" Chris called over the tacnet.
Katie responded, "Hello yourself. Correct your course seven
degrees starboard and join up with us. ETA to the LUSITANIA is
approximately two hundred seconds." Katie wished he'd be more
SERIOUS, GRYPHON was here for Eris's sake!
"That's a roger." Inwardly, Chris sighed. There was just
no dealing with Katie when she was in "professional" mode, as she
invariably was whenever Gryphon was around...or she tried, at
least.
Chris's radar was painting the LUSITANIA as she hung there
in space, not moving. She was the standard Utopia Planitia
Carnival-class passenger liner, with standard atomic drive and
limited warp capabilities. No weapons of any kind, just a whole
lot of luxury accomodations.
A few touches on the CONSTELLATION's nav/comm screen brought
up the statistics on the Carnival-class. Speeds, turning ratios,
dimensions (about 250 meters long, 50 wide), crew of 60, about
200 passengers, escape pods at various locations, air locks, etc.
As Chris glanced over the plans, something didn't ring true
to him about this situation, but he couldn't quite put his finger
on what it was. He opened a commline back to Eve. "Hey, Eve,
this is Mako. Listen, something doesn't feel right, here. Talk
to me about the passengers and crew on this run of the LUSITANIA,
and also tell me about where this run is going, what it's doing,
et cetera."
"As you wish, Mako. What would you like to know?"
"Oh, uh, give me a general overview."
"Very well. The LUSITANIA, or the LUCY as she's known to
her crew, has been travelling the same route for about seven
terrestrial years--that is, from Atlantia to Gaula and back
again. The passengers are about 60% idle rich, 30% upper-middle
class, and 10% other."
"Sounds like a rich prize for hijackers..." Chris thought
out loud. Then it clicked. "Wait a minute! Why the demands?!"
"What?" Eve asked, looking prettily confused.
"Zoner said that the hijackers had issued a list of
demands. But why bother? If they want money, all they have to
do is smash the commsystems, shake down the passengers and crew,
and then take an escape capsule or something to rendezvous with a
waiting ship. With all the passengers on board, they could make
millions from the jewelry alone..."
"I see," Eve said. "But their list of demands seems
political in nature. What would you make of that?"
"Hogwash. They would have chosen a less wealthy target
group--a middle-class spaceliner. They want people to meet their
demands, and the public tends to care more about common people.
Except for other rich men, most of them don't give a rip whether
some rich duffer buys it. It's the sympathy value that political
hijackers go for."
They were now coming into position alongside the LUCY. It
just sort of hung there, still, in space, lights on in some
cabins, off in others--nothing to suggest that there was any form
of trouble aboard, except for the fact that it was not moving.
The advanced sensor suite on board the CONSTELLATION picked up
the emanations that indicated a shadow-cloaked shuttle was on its
way in--that would be the Hammers. "Hold on a minute, Eve...let
me tell Gryphon what I'm thinking here..."
"All right, Mako."
"Eight-Ball Six to Eight-Ball One. Gryph, Mako here.
Listen, something smells about this situation." Chris explained
his suspicions to Gryphon. Meanwhile, the stealth-cloaked
shuttle containing pfloyd's men passed close to the LUSITANIA,
and several shadowy forms detached from it and drifted toward the
liner on microspurts of thruster flame.
"Hmm...I THOUGHT something felt funny about this. All right,
Mako, if what you say is true, then why ARE they hijacking the
ship?" Gryphon asked.
Chris considered this. "I'll get back to you on that." He
closed the commline and resumed his conversation with Eve. "Eve,
what are their demands?" Outside the Veritech, one of the
auxiliary airlock hatches on the side of the LUCY briefly opened,
and the shadowy forms slipped inside.
Eve blinked. "The demands are the standard spacejacking
list...release of political prisoners, twenty million credits in
unmarked bills, a hyperspace starship..." The list scrolled up
on the port comm screen. Chris glanced at it.
"Have the hijackers claimed any affiliation with known
terrorist groups?" Chris prodded. "And what about the 'political
prisoners,' what groups are they from?"
"The hijackers do not appear to have made any such claims,"
Eve said, "even though three different groups are claiming
responsibility. The prisoners appear to belong to several
different groups, some of which are in direct opposition to each
other."
"That's damn weird," Chris said. "It just doesn't make
sense...something HAS to be going on here...Eve, what's the
political situation around this star system?"
"There are three habitable planets within the system, and
some asteroid belts," Eve began. "Atlantia is the farthest out.
Closer in is Gaula, and then an asteroid belt with a number of
inhabited planetoids in it, and closest in is Doycha. Doycha and
Gaula are at war, apparently due to diplomatic entanglements
within the asteroid belt. Atlantia is supposedly neutral, but
has been accused of secretly supplying weapons to Gaula."
Chris was thinking intently, wondering why all this sounded
familiar. And then he had it. His jaw dropped as he realized
what it might mean, and activated the advanced sensors built into
the CONSTELLATION. He only hoped he was wrong.
But he wasn't. The sensors hadn't been active for ten
seconds before they painted a large area in what the schematics
indicated was the cargo section as containing some very
high-energy compounds. "Eve, what do you think those are?"
Eve, in the starboard screen, glanced over toward the scan
results in Chris's port screen. "There is a very real
possibility that they could be reflex weapons, or other powerful
devices such as nuclear explosives or photon torpedoes."
"It's just like I was afraid of...this LUSITANIA is carrying
arms to France, just like the original one..."
"France?" Eve asked, confused.
"Eve, do you believe that history repeats itself?"
Eve still looked confused. "I have heard that those who do
not heed the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it."
"No, Eve, that's not the same. Check your World War I
history...I'm going to check the skies." He thumbed the sensors
over to outward sweep, looking for something. "I think Gryphon
had better know about this. Eight-Ball Six to Eight-Ball One!
Emergency!"
Gryphon popped up on the starboard comm screen, displacing
Eve temporarily. "Gryphon. Clear channel for emergency traffic.
Ok, Mako...what's the emergency?"
"Check this, Gryphon." He sent the picture of the
high-energy compounds that showed up in scanning.
"Frack!" Gryphon spat. "There's enough firepower there to
atomize a small city..."
"How are you at World War I history, Gryph?" Chris asked. "Do
you remember what happened to the original LUSITANIA in that
war?"
"It was torpedoed by a German U-boat." Gryphon said. "But
what does that--D'OH!" Gryphon slapped a gloved hand to the
facebowl of his CVR-3.
"History is repeating itself," Chris said. "Somehow, the
three planets in this system are analogues of Britain, France,
and Germany during World War I. The LUSITANIA was sunk because
it was supposedly carrying American weapons to help against the
Germans. And it really WAS, dives on the ship revealed that."
"And you think...oh, garh."
Chris's sensors pinged. "There! I'm painting a cloaked
ship...it's decloaking..." And, it turned out, it was firing!
The photon torpedo ripped through space, right toward the
LUSITANIA. By some cosmic coincidence, Chris's CONSTELLATION was
right in the way. "Oh, SHIT!" Chris yelled, pulling levers and
punching buttons like crazy. There was a huge explosion where
his fighter had been.

CHAPTER 14

"The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated."
--Samuel Clemens

Katie Tanner's fighter was there first. "Chris? Chris!!
Oh my GOD!!!" Tears filled her eyes as she replayed the
explosion over and over again in her mind, trying to convince
herself that there was some way he could have lived through it.
Gryphon's response was about as articulate as usual under the
circumstances. "Bite!" He thumbed his own sensors, trying to
find that ship. No one was just going to trash one of his pilots
(albeit, only temporarily one of his) and get away with it.
Then Katie's commscreen fuzzed, blanked, and Chris's face
appeared, behind a lot of static which gradually cleared up.
"It's okay, Temper, they didn't get me." Chris's fighter, sans
booster pack, emerged from behind the LUSITANIA.
"What the hell?!" Katie asked, wiping her eyes. Her
exterior was controlled, but that was just a facade. Inside, she
wanted to yell, "He's alive!!!" at the top of her lungs. She
contented herself with, "Damn you, Mako, don't you EVER do that
to me again! How did you--"
"Sorry, Temper...wasn't exactly by choice. I jettisoned my
booster pack into the path of the torp and bugged. The torp hit
the pack and blew up, but neither I nor the LUCY was harmed."
"The LUCY?"
"The LUSITANIA. But that cloakship is still out
there...damn, it recloaked."
"We'll find it!" Gryphon grated. "Everyone, sensor linkup.
We'll find that ship..." The Veritech fighters interlinked their
scanning systems, so that their computers could work together to
coordinate the search. However, it was Chris's advanced sensor
suite that ended up pinpointing the particle emission traces of
the cloaked ship.
"Geez, would you look at that?" Chris remarked. "They must
be losing several megawatts of power in particle leaks alone. We
could lock onto that with our MISSILES. Sorta defeats the
purpose of cloaking itself, doesn't it? Primitive, primitive..."
"All the easier to take out. Eight-Ball Four, Eight-Ball
Six, you're with me. We'll head out to its twelve, three, and
seven o'clock, then come around and catch it in a pincer. The
rest of you will maintain your perimeter around the ship."
"Ah, you mean we're going to Robotech right into it!" Chris
said. "I can live with that, let's do it!"
"That's a roger," Katie affirmed, still wishing Chris would
be more serious, but relieved to have him alive.
"On my mark...HIT IT!" The three fighters blasted away in
seemingly random directions. Whoever crewed that cloaked ship
must have been somewhat puzzled to see three of the fighters
going off in opposite directions. But then the surprise would
have faded as all three fighters came around, as one, and
launched short-range missiles at it. Explosions blossomed all
over the nothingness, and the ship became visible as several
areas on it exploded outward.
The ship was small, dark, with some weapons turrets jutting
out of it. Apparently a corvette of some type.
"Got it!" Chris yelled trumphantly. "Ya-HOO!!!"
But the cloakship wasn't out of the running yet. Green beams
of light lanced forth, probing for the attacking fighters.
"Shit--disruptors!" Gryphon banked, narrowly avoiding a
disruptor beam that would have sliced off his Valk's left wing,
and fired medium-range missiles back. The missiles hit,
detonating near the engine section.
"He's lost all power," Chris remarked. "He's down."
"Great. I'll call back to the WAYWARD SON and have them
send out a boarding--"
Then the whole thing went up in a huge fireball. Debris
flew everywhere, one piece cracking the CONSTELLATION's canopy.
"Yah!" Chris gasped as the cockpit depressurized. Fortunately,
his CVR-4 had engaged its environmental seal instantly upon the
loss of air pressure. "Shit! Vacuum sucks!" (Well, duh, of
course it does...) He turned off the CONSTELLATION's
environmental control, as it was currently pumping oxygen into
the cockpit trying to equalize the pressure. "I don't read any
survivors...they killed themselves rather than talk to us."
"Wonderful," Gryphon muttered drily. "We'll just have to
hope that pfloyd gets a prisoner." They were all well aware of
the Hammers' methods, and knew this to be unlikely in the
extreme.

And, true to form, pfloyd took no prisoners. Those
terrorists who were not casualties managed to make their escape.
Which left the WDF with a mystery on its hands.
They met in one of the conference rooms on the bridge
deck--Zoner, Gryphon, pfloyd, Chris, and Vaughn (who just
happened to be around). Eve was also "in attendance," via the
conference screen.
"Just what the hell is going on here?" Gryphon wondered.
"The original LUSITANIA didn't have terrorists on it!"
Chris nodded. "That's why I think something smells. Gryph,
what do you think?"
"All right. As I see it, the big issue is who those
terrorists were, and whose that ship was," Gryphon announced.
"Eve, did you recognize the ship design?"
Eve nodded. "Definitely Doychan designs--the ship, and the
cloaking field it used."
"What about the terrorists?" Chris asked. "Other than the
demands, did they ever say anything?"
"They did broadcast some transmissions toward Doycha. But
there were no answers."
"pfloyd, what do you think?" Gryphon asked.
Adam shrugged. "I really couldn't tell. They carried no
identification of any kind, not even jewelry."
Gryphon thought for a moment, then asked, "Eve, what about a
genetic analysis? Could that pinpoint their home planet?"
"It is a possibility," Eve conceded. "However, the three
planets in this system all share similar gene pools."
"Still, it's a chance. Do it," MegaZone said.
Eve nodded. "Processing now."
"I wonder who REALLY is behind this. I mean, it seems
obvious that we're meant to think it's Doycha," Chris remarked.
"It was Germany originally, too. But it's just TOO similar. I
believe in coincidence, but this is just TOO plain."
Vaughn spoke up. "You mean, it's like someone wants us to
join the fight."
"Not necessarily us, Vaughn," Eve said. "Remember, this
attack was aimed at the LUSITANIA. It is only coincidence that
we were here to observe it."
"There's that word again..." Chris muttered.
"So they want Atlantia to attack Doycha," Zoner mused.
"That is, assuming that Doycha really ISN'T behind it..."
Vaughn shook his head. "I can't figure it. Why aren't they
happy with what they've got? Humans are so stupid sometimes."
"The local political situation is quite complex," Eve
stated. "The war was started by the assassination of a duke in
one of the small asteroidal countries named--"
"That's enough, Eve," Chris said. "The politics aren't the
issue here. What matters is who attacked the LUCY. And whose
those terrorists were, since I suspect they may be one and the
same." Eve blinked out to do the analysis, replaced by a view of
outer space with the EVE logo blinking in one corner.
"What about the Gaulans?" Gryphon asked. "Wouldn't they be
the most likely to want someone to jump in against the Doychans?"
"Probably so, but I've been looking over the Intelligence
Office's most recent reports on this system." MegaZone held up a
large sheaf of paper.
"Like, have a printout," Vaughn muttered.
"I haven't read all of it, I've just glanced over some
stuff, but I don't think that Gaula would have the resources to
pull this thing off. They're fighting really hard, they're
against the wall. It's an all-out effort."
"All the more reason why they should want Atlantia in, on
their side," pfloyd suggested.
"But all reports indicate that they've never captured a
Doychan cloakship," Zoner responded. "At least, not intact."
"Couldn't they have salvaged one? Or built one to the
approximate specifications?" Chris asked, though he didn't really
think the Gaulans had done it either. He was just playing
Devil's Advocate.
"They can't even figure the cloaking device out, much less
reconstruct one, especially during wartime," Zoner pointed out.
The conference screen blipped the EVE logo briefly, and then
Eve was back. "The analysis is complete."
"Great!" Chris said. "What can you tell us?"
"I cannot say this with 100% certainty," Eve said, "but I
believe these men are from outsystem."
There was a collective silence as everyone took this
information in. "Outsystem? But why?" Chris wondered.
"Simple," pfloyd said before anyone else could speak up.
"Get everyone fighting, and then move in and take over while
everyone's still weak. Basic strategy."
"But who?" Gryphon wondered. "No, scratch that. We have
any number of ready suspects. Space pirates, nearby systems,
megaconglomerate corporations, and so on."
"We can't let this go on," Vaughn said. "It's all so
pointless." The others present nodded, and Vaughn continued.
"So we stop it..." he announced. "Ever read 'All Quiet on the
Western Front?' Nab the leaders...give em clubs, let them fight
it out...makes more sense than the random drafting and
killing..."
"Never read it, but saw the movie starring Ernest Borgnine."
"You should read it," Vaughn said.
Chris nodded. "I will someday. But not only that...you
know your early-20th-century history. If this war plays itself
out the way WWI did, Doycha will be bankrupted, and then a Hitler
will appear in thirty years or so."
"I'd prefer not letting that happen," Gryphon remarked.
"Especially when you consider what's in store for the common
Doychan people, as well as everyone else."
MegaZone nodded. "Maintaining peace is what we're here for.
The Prime Directive needs to die, hard." He stood up. "All
right, everybody, instead of FIGHTING wars, let's go END one."

CHAPTER 15

"Speak softly, but carry a big stick."
--President Theodore Roosevelt

When MegaZone went on the air with the announcement that the
WDF would be intervening to stop the war, the first responses to
be received were the predictable solicitous messages from both
Gaula and Doycha, each asking the WDF to intercede on its behalf.
And one from Atlantia, asking it to remain neutral. Zoner
exchanged glances with Gryphon. "They just don't get it, do
they?"
Gryphon just shook his head. Zoner sighed. "Damn, this
diplomacy shit gets tiring. Where's Picard when you really need
him?"
Vaughn Gross spoke up. "I'm not Picard--"
"That's not what Haywire says," Gryphon interjected. Vaughn
glared at him.
"--but I'd be willing to give it a shot," he finished.
"Great. I may regret this later, but as of now, you're
officially chief diplomat in charge of making peace between Gaula
and Doycha."
"Nifty! Where do I sign?"

The first step was moving the SDF-17 into position in the
middle of the battlefield, directly between Gaula and Doycha. At
first this might seem a little crazy, but even without the
omnidirectional barrier activated, the WAYWARD SON was pretty
much invunerable to anything the Gaulans or Doychans could throw
at it. And the SON would at least interfere with the aim of both
sides. (Vaughn approved of the idea, and decided he'd have to
try that sometime.)
Next, fighters were launched. Their task: patrol the
battlefield and stop any fighting they found. By their presence
alone, it was hoped, they would effectively halt the outbreak of
any further activities.
At the end of the first day, Gryphon was gratified to find
that both sides had ceased firing. "This is working out better
than I'd expected," he ventured.
Zoner shook his head gloomily. "They're probably both going
to attack at once, try to beat the shit out of us from both
sides."
"You know, I'm really glad I'm not quite as cynical as you
are. You're probably right, though. Hey, where did Vaughn go?"
macquivr spoke up. "Uh, like I think he took a like walk.
Said something about like looking at some rocks or something."
Zoner sighed. "All right, the middle of a confrontation and
our chief diplomat goes for a walk. Okay, I can deal..."
"He like said he'd be back before we needed him," q ventured.
"Yeah, right, like he KNOWS that," MegaZone muttered.
"Like I don't think he's like been wrong before," q replied.

Vaughn strolled unconcernedly toward the asteroid belt to
one side of the battlefield. He looked around, bemused, and
waved to a Valkyrie that passed nearby. The Valk pilot waved
back (after 15 years, most of the crew had almost gotten used to
Vaughn's strangeness) and banked away.
As Vaughn entered the belt, he noticed some beams of light
going back and forth between two of them. It looked pretty, so
Vaughn decided to make a closer investigation.
As he got closer, he could see that the beams were shots
being fired from two small groups of spacesuited soldiers
occupying trenches on nearby asteroids. Vaughn shook his head in
disgust. "Trench warfare. Can't people find better things to do
with their time?"
Vaughn stepped out between the two sides. "Good morning!"
he called out. For just a moment, both sides ceased firing, but
then they started up again. Strangely (or well, around Vaughn,
maybe not so strangely), none of the shots that passed near
Vaughn hit him.
Vaughn shrugged. He guessed he'd just have to take the guns
away from them. But then he hit upon a problem. If he took all
the guns away from one side, the other side would come charging
over and kill them before he could take their guns too. And that
would be Not a Good Thing.
But then, as Vaughn stood there in outer space thinking,
something strange happened. Another Vaughn appeared.
"'Morning!" he waved to the first Vaughn. "Let's disarm these
guys."
It took a great deal to astonish Vaughn. Even this only
ALMOST astonished him. He blinked, once, then said, "All right."
He took one side, and the second Vaughn (whom we shall henceforth
refer to as Reality) took the other, leaving quite a few
bewildered soldiers in their wake. They met between the two
lines, and Reality handed all the rifles he'd gathered to Vaughn
(it made quite an armful for him, but he managed it).
"First time I ever met a doppleganger", Vaughn mused,
"Usually they are at least a quarter mile away. You are me,
aren't you?"
"No, I'm me. You won't be me for about 400 years, or I was
you the same amount of time in reverse." Reality grinned,
checking a complicated-looking watch on his wrist.
Vaughn looked over at it "Neat toy. Where did we get it?"
"Zoner gave it...um will give it...arg...we got it from
Zoner." He looked around, still grinning. "Can't stay. She's
waiting for me on the other side of the wormhole, and it won't
stay open for much longer."
"Shall I tell everyone you said hi?" Vaughn asked.
Reality shook his head. "No, better not."
"Right. Mess up the timestream and all that. Guess I'll
see you. Or be you."
Reality nodded. "Laters." He turned and started walking,
then accelerated to warp speed, leaving a blue after-image behind
him.
"Huh. Wish I could do that," Vaughn said, looking after
him. "Guess I will." He told the soldiers politely but firmly
that the war was over, go home, and then headed back to the
WAYWARD SON himself. It didn't occur to him to wonder who "she"
was until much, much later.

"'Morning."
"Hi, Vaughn. Where you been?" Chris asked, as that worthy
came walking out of space into the docking bay where he and Katie
were tinkering with the CONSTELLATION, carrying an armload of
nasty-looking laser weapons.
"Out for a walk. Found some guys with these and had to take
them away so they didn't hurt anybody." He let all the guns
clatter to the deck. "Could you take care of these for me?
Wouldn't want them to hurt anyone by accident. Or on purpose,
for that matter."
"Sure, Vaughn. No problem," Katie said.
"Thanks. Laters." Vaughn waved, and walked on out of the
docking bay.
Chris shook his head, grinning. "That Vaughn. Hope he
never changes."
"He probably never will," Katie said, returning his grin.
"Now, let's get back to work on this engine."
"It's a maneuvering vernier, but you're learning." Chris
jumped down from the cockpit and called for the number four
hydrospanner.

CHAPTER 16

"Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to
negotiate."
--John F. Kennedy

As it turned out, it wasn't long before Gaula and Doycha
contacted the SON again, demanding that they move out of the way
immediately. Zoner, of course, refused. Well, actually it was
Vaughn who had done the refusing, but it was Zoner who'd told him
to. "I'm really sorry," Vaughn had said both times. "But if we
do that, you might hurt each other, and we just can't let that
happen." The Doychan leader got mad and screamed some things at
Vaughn that made everyone else's ears turn pink, but Vaughn just
shrugged. "I just hope we can come to some sort of an agreement
to stop the fighting. Oh, almost forgot. You need to choose an
ambassador. We'll send someone down to pick him up for the peace
conference. Laters." He signalled to q to end the transmission.
"You certainly showed great restraint," Chris remarked.
"Especially when he yelled THAT at you."
"Yelled what?" Vaughn asked.
"That remark about your ancestry, and what you like to do in
your spare time," Katie said. "You didn't even react at all."
"Oh, is that what it was?" Vaughn looked vaguely
embarrassed. "I forgot to turn my universal translator on, you
see, and..." Zoner rolled his eyes, stared at the ceiling and
mouthed, "Why me?"

Soon afterward came the attack. Space fighters from both
sides swooped in on the WAYWARD SON, and sometimes on each other.
Gryphon flatly refused to launch any fighters to combat the
massed attacks. "We don't need to, and I'm not going to put any
pilot on this ship at risk unnecessarily. They can't hurt us
anyway, especially with the omnidirectional barrier up."
True to Gryphon's predictions, neither side was able to
inflict any harm on the SDF-17, other than reducing shield power
by about 8% (which was only a temporary reduction; the shield
built back up almost immediately).
After that, the shuttles departed for the three planets in
the system--Gaula, Doycha, and Atlantia--to pick up the delegates
for the conference. Even though they came under protest, and
with detachments of soldiers as "honor guards," they still came.
Vaughn met them in the docking bay. "Good morning, ladies
and gentlemen. I'm Vaughn Gross, your mediator for this flight
on WDF airlines...nonono. I'm here to help you work out your
problems. So, if you'll all come along to the conference room,
we can start talking about it."
So everyone walked to the ornately-furnished WDF conference
room, where the peace conference was to be held. Chris and Katie
followed, curious to see what happened.
The first problems came when they tried to seat the
delegates. It seemed that none of them was satisfied with his
seating. However, they soon got that out of the way, and got
into the discussion. More disagreement.
The next crisis came when the chief Gaulan diplomat demanded
to speak with the WDF representative. "Would that be you, sir?"
he asked of Vaughn in caustic tones.
"Huh? Oh, no, I'm just the mediator."
"Then who IS the WDF ambassador to this conference?" the
Doychan diplomat demanded drily.
Vaughn looked around. "Um..." His eyes settled on Chris
and Katie, and he hit upon an inspiration. "They are."
Chris looked at Katie. Katie looked at Chris. "He's
kidding, right?" Katie asked.
Chris got up. "Afraid not, Temper. Come on...let's go take
our seats..." It sort of went downhill from there.

CHAPTER 17

"There are few ironclad rules of diplomacy but to one there is no
exception. When an official reports that talks were useful, it
can safely be concluded that nothing was accomplished."
--John Kenneth Galbraith

The diplomatic meeting was anything but diplomatic. First
the diplomats argued over who started the war. After Vaughn told
them that who STARTED it wasn't important, since no one would be
blamed for it. "Wars aren't anybody's fault anyway," Vaughn
said. "They just happen."
This suited the diplomats just fine. They next went on to
argue about who would get what territory gained or lost in the
war. To Katie Tanner, all this arguing was grating in the worst
possible way. Her temper, which hadn't been helped any by being
dragged into this thing, was flaring up and about to explode.
Chris recognized the danger signs.
"Um, Vaughn, WDF requests a ten-minute recess," Chris said.
"All right," Vaughn said, wincing. "I think I need one too.
All my synapses are firing. At me. Owie." He blinked, in that
manner common to all those individuals suddenly subjected to
intense cerebral agony.
Chris and Katie walked out of the room, ahead of all the
muttering diplomats. Chris took Katie by the arm and led her
around a corner, down two levels to a turbolift, and into a
nearby empty docking bay before he took his hand off her mouth.
"Those blasted so-called DIPLOMATS!!! Of all the idiotic,
malfeasant, moronic, imbecilic..." Chris let Katie run through
her list of adjectives, correcting her when she mentioned the
same one twice a couple of times.
"You finished?" Chris asked after she'd finally gotten out
some of her anger.
"Uh, I think so."
"Good." Chris checked his watch. "Okay, the ten minutes
are almost up. We'd better get going."
Katie shook her head. "I am NOT going back to that
meeting!"
"Since when did you become Worf?" Chris muttered, then
"Nevermind. No, I was by no means suggesting we go back to that
meeting...I was suggesting we make ourselves as unfindable as
possible, like now. That way Vaughn will have to find some other
delegates."
"Now you're speaking my language!" Katie said, grinning
wickedly. "Let's go find something to do!"

In one of the launch bays, Gryphon and Zoner were looking at
the weapons cache that had been confiscated from the LUCY. It
was spread out all across the hangar, and various nondescript
uniformed people were going over the crates and things with
handcomps and styluses, tallying the serial numbers and
identifiers on the crates. It was something that Gryph found
highly disturbing that of the contents of those crates counted
thus far, over 90% of them had been manufactured at Utopia
Planitia.
"I don't get it," Zoner was saying. "Eve, what about UP's
computer records? Get a sub-ethernet uplink to Bombsight and see
what you can find out."
Eve nodded from a nearby wall screen. "I will do that,
Zoner, but in order to obtain quantifiable data, it may be
necessary to send someone to Utopia Planitia to investigate the
matter personally."
Gryphon nodded, staring at the ceiling. "I see. I wonder
who I could send...?"
"Look at this." Zoner kicked at one of the rough wooden
crates sitting on the deck. It splintered, and several spherical
objects clattered across the floor. Plasma grenades. Zoner
jumped back out of reflex, noticing the ExoSalusia Arms logo on
some of them. "Where in the hell did they get shit like THIS?
>From Utopia Planitia, from US? No fuckin' way."
"Yeah, I hear you." Gryphon opened a metal crate, lifted
out an RL-2 man-portable disposable plasma minimissile launcher.
"Hey, I ought to get one of these for Kei, for Christmas. Think
they come gift-wrapped?"
"What do you get for the girl who has everything," Zoner
muttered drily. Then, "Plasma missiles...photon
torpedoes...antimatter demo ordnance...smart bombs..." Zoner
called up the list on the handcomp he was carrying. "Even--get
this, Gryph--an ExoSalusia Arms Model 44 Wave Motion Rifle. I
didn't even think they MADE these anymore. And it SURE doesn't
belong in the hands of anyone in this system except MAYBE us."
Gryphon nodded. "Eve, how's that record search coming?"
Eve, a slightly distracted look on her face, replied, "As
well as can be expected. I have so far queried Bombsight on 29%
of the lot numbers."
"And?" Zoner asked.
"So far, it seems that these lot numbers do not officially
exist."
"I think you're right, Eve," Zoner said. "We're not going
to get anywhere like this."
Eve glanced to her right, then back at the screen. "Lord
Fahrvergnugen requests to speak with you. He would like to know
the reason for these database searches."
"Uh, just tell him that we're running some routine inventory
checks," Zoner said. "I'll contact him later...um...I'm in a
conference. Gryphon is too."
Gryphon raised an eyebrow. "We can't tell ANYONE at UP
what's going on. Not even Lord Fahrvergnugen," MegaZone
explained. "Whoever's in charge of this could be someone very
close to him. He'd have to be, to make entire weapons shipments
just fuckin' vanish."
Gryphon nodded. "Great. We'll apologize later. But now,
we'd better dispatch someone back to UP as soon as possible.
Eve, any recommendations?"
At that moment, Chris and Katie entered the bay, looking as
if they were running from something. Before Eve could even
speak, Zoner and Gryphon exchanged glances and nodded. It was
fate, it had to be. Eve confirmed this by saying, "What about
them?"
Gryphon waved Chris and Katie over. "Mako, Temper!"
Secretly, he was glad it had been those two. Mako was one of the
more intelligent, dependable men on the ship (fnord!), even
though he currently wasn't actually assigned any tasks to perform
other than modifying his plane, the CONSTELLATION.
Temper...well, she was kind of cute (Lucky Kei wasn't around...).
And the way she tried to act completely "professional" when he
was leading the wing often put a grin on his face--even if the
way she was prone to fly off the handle/against orders often did
quite the opposite.
"Yeah, Gryph?" Chris asked. "Hey, what's all this stuff?"
"These are the weapons you noticed on board the LUSITANIA."
"Wow." Chris looked around, at the dozens of crates all
over the floor, at the twenty or so workers with their handcomps
taking count. "I didn't think there'd be THIS many..."
Zoner handed Chris his handcomp. "There's the complete
list, if you want it. We have a job for you."
"I'm game, what is it?" Chris asked.
"We want you to go to Utopia Planitia and check around for
us," Gryphon said. "As you can see, most of these weapons can be
traced back to UP, directly or indirectly. We need to find out
who it was there who was authorizing these shipments."
"Wow, you mean you think someone at UP is behind this?"
Chris asked.
Gryphon nodded. "It's possible..."
Chris nodded. "How do we get there? Are you arranging
transport for us with the 3WA?"
Zoner shook his head. "Nothing official...We can't let
anyone know that you're coming--not even Wolfgang himself. We
don't want to tell whoever's behind this that you're coming."
"Then what WILL we be doing?" Katie asked from a crate
several rows down.
"Take your Valkyries to Atlantia," Zoner instructed. "I
understand there is a starport there. Try some seedy spacer
bars. Or used spaceship lots."
Mako nodded. "All right, and thanks! We'll get right on
it. C'mon, Katie...let's get to our fighters."
About half a minute after they left the room, Vaughn called,
asking MegaZone to send down some new WDF representatives.

CHAPTER 18

"I think it's getting better, but I can't wait another day. I'm
on my way. I'm on my way."
--INXS, "On My Way"

"Atlantia approach, this is CONSTELLATION. Request landing
approach for me and my wingmate."
"Roger, CONSTELLATION. You are cleared on pad B-97-A3, and
your wingmate on B-97-A4. See ya planetside."
"I read you, Atlantia approach. CONSTELLATION out."

"What now?" Katie asked, putting the last piece of her CVR
armor in the cockpit locker. Underneath it she was wearing the
pressure-tight flight suit that was standard-issue to WDF pilots,
with a holster on it that contained her sidearm, a Gallant H-90
pistol. Under Chris's armor, he was wearing blue jeans and a
grey-and-white sweatshirt that said "SMSU" on the front of it.
His sidearm was one-of-a-kind, so far--a bigger, uprated version
of the Gallant H-90, the Gallant 1000.
"Shoulda worn civvies, Katie," Chris remarked. "You'll
really stick out around here..."
Katie shrugged. "Big deal. Let's go. Do the pubs and
bars?"
"I dunno...it is rather cliched..."

To make a long story short, they were able to find suitable
transportation almost immediately. A Wookiee at a bar led them
to a hangar with an old Corellian freighter, the MAGNUM CARTEL,
in it. Her human captain was a bit reluctant at first.
"Oh, no. Not this ship, no way. Their defenses are
infallible. No way we could get through without clearance."
"We HAVE clearance," Chris said. "We're WDF, don't you see
the lady's flight suit?"
"Oh, no. I'm not buying into this one, no way."
Of course, he was properly mollified when he saw the two
Hyper Valkyries sitting on the landing pads. He and the Wookiee
helped load them aboard into the cargo bay (they barely fit)
before taking off. However, all the time he was muttering
something about KNOWING that this was gonna be trouble.
For the liftoff, Chris and Katie strapped into the
communications and navigation stations behind the pilot and
copilot seats. Chris glanced at the thrust gauges as the captain
pushed the throttle levers forward and flipped switches. The
gauges looked like they had been rather hastily spot-welded to
the rest of the control panel, and one of them was upside down.
Chris did not find this reassuring.
After they were in space, the pilot leaned back, sighed.
"Okay, I'll just let Hrethrraao plot the hyperspace jump, and
we'll be outta here before you know it."
"That reminds me, we haven't been properly introduced,"
Chris said. "I'm Major Chris Meadows, this is Major Katie
Tanner. Wedge Defense Force, Valkyrie section."
The spacer nodded. "I'm Captain James Farrago, my Wookiee
friend here is Hrethrraao." Hreth waved a hairy paw and growled
a greeting. "Nice to meet you...even nicer to meet your cred
chit." He glanced back at Chris again. "You'd BETTER be who you
say you are..." He left the sentence unfinished.
"Oh, don't worry, Captain," Katie said coolly. "We are."

Shortly thereafter, the MAGNUM CARTEL jumped to hyperspace.
It was Chris's first time in hyperspace, and he had to admit that
it was somewhat more impressive than warpdrive--from the inside,
anyway.
"Well, that's it, folks," Farrago said. "Nothing can touch
us now...we're home free."

Decker put down the phone handset and stared pensively off
into nothing. So, his agent's arms smuggling had finally been
figured out, eh? And the WedgeRats were sending someone back to
investigate. Their ship had just jumped to hyperspace, and would
be here within the week. How annoying.
Fortunately, the situation could be salvaged. Not by
killing the investigators...no, that wouldn't work, they'd only
send more, and be suspicious this time. What was vitally
important was that the whole thing not be traceable to him,
personally. If that were to happen, it would ruin everything.
Decker picked up the vidiphone handset once more, dialed a
number. "Decker here. I need to speak to Sarrin."

CHAPTER 19

"When action grows unprofitable, gather information; when
information grows unprofitable, sleep."
--Ursula K. LeGuin, THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS

Chris spent the time in transit tinkering, and planning. On
the CONSTELLATION, there was still one more thing that had to be
modified, and that was the warp engines. True, he didn't have
the parts to do the job he wanted to on them, but he was still
free to tinker around. For the mission, he had borrowed a set of
standard Hyper Valkyrie warp boosters, but he certainly didn't
plan on keeping them.
It is a little-known fact that heat shields aren't really
necessary for an atmospheric reentry as long as you have enough
fuel to slow down to atmospheric speeds. And for the Valkyries
flown by the WDF, that was not a problem. Forget the Palladium
Robotech RPG's warning that the boosters must be jettisoned
before an atmospheric reentry--WDF jocks didn't fly that way.
They just decelerated rather than barging blindly in...the
difference between the finesse of a needle and the brute force of
a bullet.
But still, the boosters were large, bulky, and just a little
clumsy. If they could be shrunk just a bit, and streamlined, the
aerodynamic profile of the Valk would improve immensely. He'd
tested this in a holodeck wind tunnel simulation. Chris had
already been drawing up plans on the CAD system PCHammer had
hacked up for him, and was looking forward to using Bombsight's
more advanced CAD/CAM systems to make his plans a reality.
Katie Tanner, on the other hand, spent the time playing
holographic games against Captain Farrago. She tended to win at
the fast-action games, due to the talent for quick thinking that
all Valkyrie pilots had to have, especially those who flew for
Eight-Ball. And her strategic knowledge stood her in good stead
as well, though Farrago did manage to win more against her at 3D
Chess than at Superdimensional Archon.
By the end of the week, Katie was sitting around bored.
Chris, however, had made some adjustments to the Valkyrie's new
subspace transciever system, and was now tapped into a MUCK via
Sub-ethernet.
Then a new window opened on his Valkyrie's comm screen. It
was Farrago. "We're entering the Planitia system," he said
sarcastically. "They'll be hailing us any minute now. Think
you'd better get up here?"
"All right, I'm on my way." Chris took the time to kill the
last Buma on WedgeMUD, then saved his character and logged out.

Chris slid into the comm-tech's station behind Hreth and
punched it up. "--ia control calling unidentified starship.
Please respond, over."
"Roger, Planitia control, this is the MAGNUM CARTEL, on
approach Sigma Niner Niner," Chris said, pulling his WDF ID card
out of his wallet and slotting it into a reader on the
communication control board. "Transmitting clearance code now."
Each WDF ID card had an optical data storage strip--like a
magstrip, only better--which included a standard recognition code
that allowed Bombsight (or any of a few other computers with the
data in storage) to recognize its owner.
"Uh, roger, CARTEL...receiving now..." The sound of
keyboard clicks came over the subspace linkup. "CARTEL, you are
cleared for landing in bay G7432D. Just follow the beacon in."
Farrago clicked on his microphone. "Roger, Planitia
control. On approach. Out."

Lord Fahrvergnugen met Chris and Katie as they stepped down
the ramp. "This is quite a surprise!" he boomed. "I did not
expect to see you until the WAYWARD SON returned for another
refitting."
"We have some serious business to discuss with you, Lord F,"
Chris said. "And we need to talk to you alone."
Lord Fahrvergnugen raised an eyebrow, but saw from Chris's
expression that he was deadly serious. "Very well..."
"Hey, what about us?" Farrago said from the ramp.
"Have you ever seen our shipbuilding facility?" Lord
Fahrvergnugen called back. "No? One of my men will show you
around."

"Now...what is the problem, my children?" Lord F asked. He
called just about everyone from the original WDF "his children,"
even those who, like Chris, had arrived independantly of the
Wedge.
"Here, Lord Fahrvergnugen." Mako pulled out a WDF handcomp
and handed it to him. "This is a list of weapons retrieved from
an Atlantian freighter."
Lord Fahrvergnugen took it, glanced at it. "Ah, the war you
are in the process of stopping. Admirable job, I must say. It
looks like--" Then he stopped in mid-sentence. "What is this?"
He looked up. "These are Planitian weapons."
Chris nodded. "Exactly. Somehow they got from here to
Atlantia, to aid in the war effort against Doycha."
"But--but this cannot be. We do not provide arms to those
nations, or indeed to anyone outside of the WDF, Salusia, and a
very few allies."
"Yeah," Katie Tanner remarked. "But it looks like someone
got them anyway."
"I will have Bombsight trace these numbers forthwith," Lord
Fahrvergnugen announced.
"We already tried that, with Eve," Chris said. "Bombsight
doesn't even have these numbers on record. It sounds like an
inside job to me."
"But who could DO such a thing?" Lord Fahrvergnugen
wondered. "I have complete trust in all my employees."
"Even the most loyal can turn...or be turned," Chris
remarked.
Fahrvergnugen nodded. "True. But who can it be? If I
cannot trust one of my crew, I cannot trust any of them until
that one is found."
"That's why we were sent here: to find him for you," Chris
said.
"Or her," Katie added.
"Or her, yes."
Lord F nodded, fingering his beard. "And where do you
propose to start looking?"
"I think that we will first look for the people who could
have handled the transportation and smuggling of the weapons,"
Chris decided. "Once we have him, he can tell us who covered for
him."
"An admirable objective," Wolfgang decided. "Here." He
produced from somewhere within his voluminous cloak two gleaming
silver badges with his personal seal on them. "These will give
you authority as investigators anywhere within Utopia Planitia.
Good luck."

CHAPTER 20

"Greed is finally being recognized as a virtue...the best engine
of betterment known to man."
--William Safire

Decker fidgeted at his desk. He hadn't WANTED to do it, to
help send those weapons to Atlantia. Didn't Largo CARE if he
blew his cover or not? But no, Largo had this plan to take over
the star system if all went well, and in order for it to do that,
they had to fuel the fighting between the planets within the
system. So Sarrin handled making the shipments go "astray," and
Decker erased all records of their existance from the computer.
Decker couldn't get caught, he just COULDN'T. If that
happened all of GENOM's plans would go down the tubes...and so
would Decker, come to think of it. But how could he...? Then he
had it. Surreptitiously, so that not even Bombsight would be
aware of it, he rotated shift schedules at the munitions
manufacturing sections of Utopia Planitia, to put at least one of
his operatives on each watch. That man would be certain to steer
the WDF investigators just the way he wanted them...

The coverall-clad technician shook his head. "No...the only
one I can think of off-hand is Sarrin!" He yelled this over the
constant loud noise the assembly lines behind him made.
"Sarrin?" Katie asked, punching the name into the handcomp.
"Yeah, he's the 3rd-shift line overseer! He's the only one
with the proper authority to move that kind of shipment, and the
late hours would make it easier for him to do it unnoticed!"
"Uh, thanks!" Katie said, making a note on the handcomp.
"This IS all just theoretical, of course!"
"Oh, of COURSE!" Katie nodded.

Chris and Katie met over dinner at the Planitia McDonald's.
"So. What'dya find out?" Chris asked, peering at Katie from
behind a Big Mac.
"This is the only name I came up with." Katie held up the
handcomp, using a napkin to hold it since she didn't want to
smear it with ketchup and mustard. "Some guy named Mal Sarrin.
3rd shift supervisor."
Chris nodded, dipping a fry. "All right. We'll have to
visit this guy as soon as we finish eating."

There was a knock on the door. The middle-aged, balding man
got off of his bunk bed in the small room. "Justaminnit,
justaminnit, I'm coming..." He opened the door.
"Oh, hi, Decker, what can I do for you?"
"I have something I need to discuss with you, Sarrin. May I
come in?"
"Uh, sure, boss."
"Good." The man strode into the room.
Sarrin scratched his head. "What did you need to tell me
sir?"
"Goodbye, Hanover."
"What?"
"Reference from an old Terran movie. Never mind."
"Huh, I--aaaaaah!" ZARK!
Decker placed the smoking gun neatly in Sarrin's right hand,
and then placed a piece of paper in his left. He then
straightened his jacket and stepped back out of the room.

When Chris and Katie got to Sarrin's room, they found that
they were too late. Sarrin was dead, shot in the head by a laser
pistol in his own hand. By his side was a suicide note,
hand-written, that explained how he had arranged the shipment of
the weapons to Atlantia, and the access codes which he had used
to hack into Bombsight and erase all the records. He said that
he "couldn't live with the shame of it," and so had decided to
end it.
Chris didn't really think this WAS the end of it, and
neither did Katie, but what could they do? It was wrapped up
nice and neat for them--the only thing it lacked was a bow.
"What can we do?" Katie asked.
"Probably the only thing we can do is go back to the SDF-17.
We don't have any proof; we'll have to wait for the next time
something odd happens. Maybe THEN we can find out who's really
behind it."

But they weren't going back just yet. Wolfgang insisted
that they stay a few days before departing, and that went for
their pilot, too. In fact, Captain Farrago was rather impressed
with the shipyards, especially when Lord Fahrvergnugen, in a
typical gesture of largesse, declared that he would allow Captain
Farrago free access to tools, equipment, and personnel during
their stay. Farrago and Hrethrraao immediately commenced tearing
down and rebuilding one of the hyperspace drives, happy as could
be.
Chris also put some work in, building a set of improved
booster pods for the CONSTELLATION. He reduced their aerodynamic
profile, and even their overall size. The boosters would
function as before, but they were slimmer, more rounded--a kind
of "Invid Shock Trooper Meets WDF Valkyrie" look. Fortunately,
he had been able to cut the size of the warpdrives and the
booster engines somewhat.
And to his delight, there was enough room left over to tack
on four phaser emitters: two at the tips of the boosters, and two
at the rear, just above the booster exhausts. They could draw
their power from the warp engines. While not quite as powerful
as a starship's phaser banks, they were still a good step up from
the kind of weapon you would expect to find on a small fighter.
Something else Chris did was put together a Cyclone for
Danilia, like he'd said he would. Something in her size, of
course...she was smaller than most of the other pilots. Scaling
it down was a bit of a challenge, though.

Meanwhile, Decker made a few calls, a few unrecorded
hyperspace transmissions to some...friends. He'd changed his
mind about destroying the investigators. All it would take was a
little "accident" in hyperspace, and then...

A few days later, Chris and Katie took their seats in the
cockpit of the MAGNUM CARTEL once more, and Captain Farrago was
hitting the switches, in a much more jovial mood now. 50,000
credits plus a chance to do an engine overhaul had certainly been
worth a little trip to Utopia Planitia. He'd have to come back
here again sometime. Fahrvergnugen had hinted that they might be
able to use a pilot like himself in the WDF. And while he didn't
exactly relish taking orders, well, having access to that kind of
equipment just might be worth it.
As they hit hyperspace, Farrago said, "Okay, that wasn't
bad. If you guys ever need more transport, just look for me."
And then, about eight hours into the trip, the CARTEL fell
out of lightspeed drive with an audible KA-CHUNK! Katie fell to
the deck, Chris bumped his head on the Valk's dashboard, and
loud swearing and Wookiee growls emanated from the CARTEL's
cockpit.
Chris vaulted from the CONSTELLATION and ran over to the aft
engineering console. He pressed the comm switch. "What is it?"
"The damn Kilrathi! We dropped out of hyperspace right in
front of a Kilrathi attack fleet! Of all the damn..."
Chris switched off. "Right." He hit his communicator.
"Katie, get down here on the double. Captain Farrago, stand by
to depressurize the cargo bay and open the bay hatches."
"What?!" Farrago sounded less than pleased.
"It's the only way to get our fighters into play. Katie,
come on!"
The CARTEL began to shake with laser hits as Chris sealed
his helmet and the cockpit. Katie jumped into her own Valkyrie,
and they were ready. "Okay, Farrago, do it!"
Pressure doors sealed over the cargo bay entry hatches. Air
whooshed out with a hiss. Then the aft hatches opened, and Chris
fired his thrusters. The CONSTELLATION scraped out of the CARTEL,
followed by Katie's Valk.
"Kilrathi, eh? We'll show 'em what's what!
"Roger, Mako. Let's go get 'em."
Chris spun his bird, dived, and came around the side of the
CARTEL, targeting systems searching for a phaser lock. And he
found one. There, that Salthi...Locked! Orange beams of light
lanced out from the tops of the booster nacelles, centering on a
hapless Kilrathi fighter and making it explode. From there, the
phasers tracked over onto another fighter. Then the others
scattered.
Katie Tanner brought her own weapons into play, firing
short-range missiles from under her Valkyrie's wings. They
fragged a Dralthi. Then multiple cannon shots from a Jalthi
nearly punctured her wing, and she rolled away. Kicking in the
boosters, she muttered, "No way." She looped, and ended up on
the Jalthi's tail. "Eat THIS!!!" A short burst from the GU-11
later, the Jalthi was a cloud of fragments and O-rings.
"YEAH!!!"
"Don't get too carried away, Temper," Chris advised, letting
a Friend-or-Foe missile swerve by and then disposing of it with
the nose lasers.
"Carried away? I'm just getting STARTED!" Katie switched
to Gerwalk and fired again. Another Kilrathi became One With The
Cosmos. "Oh, yeah! Oh, YEAH!"
"Just be careful...the CARTEL's started up with its
turbolasers and I don't want you to get in the way."
"That's a roger, Mako. Don't worry 'bout it." Obviously
Katie wasn't...she pulled an amazingly sophisticated Immelman and
blew both wings off a Dralthi. "This is GREAT!"
"You should be where I'm sitting." Chris's Valkyrie now had
a lower mass, but the same amount of thrust, for an improved
maneuverability value. Uh-oh...Jalthi on his tail...Chris
dodged, while lining up the crosshairs. LOCKED TARGET -- JALTHI.
Firing rear phasers. KER-BLAM!!!
There were some more explosions as the MAGNUM CARTEL's guns
picked off a few more, and some whoops over the comm-net. "Hey,
Hreth! That's two hundred more you owe me!"
The Wookiee's growl contested this, but Farrago went on,
"The hell they were! Those two were right in the center of the
Money Lane, you saw 'em same as me!"
"Mako! Look--it's two Dorkir cargo carriers, and a Ralari
destroyer!"
"So THAT'S what these guys are protecting...let's knock 'em
out."
"Chris...I'm getting something strange off of one of those
Dorkirs...some kind of electromagnetic emanations, similar to the
ones from a hyperspace engine."
"Oh? Let me confirm..." Chris keyed his own advanced
sensors. "Yeah, you're right! I bet that's what kicked us back
into normspace!"
"Let's kick it OUT of normspace!" Katie fired her boosters
and moved in.
"Whatever...hey, watch your back!" Chris took out a Dralthi
that was getting too nosy.
"Thanks, Mako...That destroyer is MINE!" Katie switched to
Battroid and opened up on it. Chris, still in fighter mode,
locked his phasers onto the transport and began firing. Its
shields went down, and one of Chris's missiles finished it. Then
Chris went in on the other transport and blew it away as well.
The fighters turned and ran. Chris let them, they wouldn't be
bothering anyone for a while.

Chris and Katie decided to fly back to the WAYWARD SON under
their own power, rather than bother with reloading the Valks into
the MAGNUM CARTEL. After saying their friendly goodbyes, they
engaged warpdrive, and soon made it back to the SDF-17 with no
further incident.
Upon reaching the ship, they found that (wonder of wonders)
Vaughn had managed to work out a peace treaty that all sides
could agree on. They had signed it, retired their warships, and
got back to peacefully coexisting.
"Hey, congratulations, Vaughn!" Chris said, meeting him in
a corridor a couple of days afterward.
"Um, thanks. It was pretty hard at first, but I managed to
get them to see that all their fighting wasn't solving anything.
I just hope they remember that for a couple hundred years."
Chris shook his head. Vaughn was the type of person who did
seven impossible things before breakfast. "Only you, Vaughn,
only you."
Not much later, Chris was showing off his new warp engines
to PCHammer and the other members of the Clay Pigeons. "Hmm,"
PCHammer said. "Very...sleek."
Danilia looked them over. "I like it!" she decided. "I
wanna fly it sometime!"
"I think you'll like this even more." Chris pulled himself
up onto the Valk's fuselage and reached back to pop open the
Cyclone compartment. Instead of his DVR-152 Battler II, which
he'd left behind, here was a different Cyclone, smaller than the
average model.
"What is it?"
Chris brought it down to the ground. "A DVR-120 Ferret
light-model Cyclone. I built it especially for you. Scaled it
down to your size and everything."
"Wow!" Danilia looked like a kid who'd gotten a really neat
Christmas present. "I always had trouble using the Battlers, but
this looks just right!"
"Oh, it is." Chris grinned. "It's even better-armed than
most Battlers. 14 mini-missiles, two pulse guns, two light
lasers. Better standardized targeting, more powerful engine.
But don't tell 'em that or they'll all want one."
PCHammer rolled his eyes. "Oh, yeah, we ALL know how
Gryphon feels about everyone having his own specialized
equipment."
Chris nodded. "I think I'll wait a while before I begin
full-scale production of these things. I don't think the WDF
really needs 'em anyway. Maybe in a couple of centuries..."

CHAPTER 21

"Oh yeah, life goes on...long after the thrill of living is
gone."
--John Cougar Mellencamp, "Jack and Dianne"

And then the years passed. The relationship between Chris
and Katie stayed about the same, just friends, but the very best
of friends. They had arguments, fights from time to time, but
they always made up and went on.
Though many things stayed the same, the passing years
brought technological advancements. Chris, Katie, and quite a
few other pilots were soon fitted for cyberjacks, as the
technology became readily available, and took to rigging their
Valkyries, as well as a little decking. The increased response
time over the 'trodes in the CVR helmets was phenomenal. Chris
also built cyberdeck facilities into his Valkyrie, and a smaller
one in his CVR armor.
Of course, Chris didn't want to become dependant on the
jacks--he made sure to stay in practice without them, and
programmed his computer to disengage the jack at random intervals
while in non-combat flight. Katie was of the opinion that he was
slightly crazy, but she didn't say anything.
PCHammer aged at the normal human rate, having refused to
take Omega-2, and people started calling him "Grey." Chris was
of the opinion that HE was slightly crazy for this, and once
accused him of having refused the vaccine just so that he could
earn another nickname. Hammer just grinned foolishly and said,
"That's it! You've found me out!"
Chris made additional improvements and upgrades to the
CONSTELLATION. He replaced the snap-on forearm missile pods with
short-range pulse lasers (a darnsight more useful in close combat
than missiles), and installed an uprated subspace transciever and
power boosters, giving the CONSTELLATION the equivalent power and
range of a small starship. Some more work went into the cockpit
minireplicator, and the liquid/solid waste recycling systems
built into the acceleration couch. After that, he continued to
tinker.
But even so, things began to get boring for Chris. Building
things was fine, and flying combat was okay, too, but it just
wasn't all that fun after a few decades. The Clay Pigeons had
been great fun, but Grey was getting too old for aerobatics.
But then things changed. When PCHammer became a
Transformer, Chris was utterly fascinated. Hammer explained it
to him as best he could, but Chris wasn't satisfied. Even the
tricorder scans he took didn't satisfy him, as even with all the
technical training he'd taken, he still couldn't understand half
of what the displays told him.
(Actually, the device wasn't really called a tricorder; it
was listed in inventories as a British-AnimeTech Personal Sensory
Computer, model TR-580. But many of the crew called it a
tricorder because it so resembled the compact scanner from Star
Trek: The Next Generation. And also because it annoyed the hell
out of Gryphon.)
For a time, Chris considered taking a transfer to Cybertron,
studying this mysterious overtechnology under Autobot
med/mechanics. But every time he considered it, he thought of
Katie Tanner. She was having a hell of a time flying with the
Eight-Balls, and naturally if he went to Cybertron, she would
want to come with him. Besides, with PCHammer young and vital
again (as opposed to old and vital), the fun level aboard the
SDF-17 had increased exponentially. So Chris put his Cybertron
dreams aside for the time being, and got back into the swing of
things.
Chris started flying his Valkyrie more often, usually with
the Clay Pigeons, who were more than happy to have him. Though
he never officially joined the squadron, he flew so much with
them that he earned the nickname of "the Pigeon Who Wasn't
There." Which was fine with him.
In the years to come, Chris didn't fly too many combat
missions, but he didn't mind. Like PCHammer, he wasn't all that
sanguine about the life of a fighter pilot. He'd been there for
a few years, after all, and the memory of X-man's death was still
with him.

2288. A lot of things had happened over the last couple of
centuries. Katie had quit the Eight-Balls, for one, saying that
she should probably let someone else have a chance at the top
spot. Now, Chris and Katie Tanner flew off and on with the Clay
Pigeons, or whenever a special mission was called for.
They were now Lieutenant Colonels, which was just about the
limit of Chris's ambition. He kept getting offered squadron
commands, and kept turning them down, until Zoner hinted that
he'd better take SOMETHING pretty soon or "something bad might
happen." So he took a position in Engineering, overseeing part
of the R&D department under ReRob. Since ReRob actually took a
rather active role in R&D, there wasn't all that much Chris had
to do, so he was free to do his own research, or fly missions, or
do whatever he wanted.
Then, only days before the ill-fated engagement on Musashi,
Chris and Katie were called to the main conference room. "We
have a problem," MegaZone said as Chris and Katie walked in.
Chris noticed Kei and Yuri were also present, as was Gryphon. "A
Salusian research facility has come under attack by armed
terrorists. They currently occupy the outer grounds, and are
advancing toward the main research center."
"Have the scientists been evacuated?" Chris asked.
"For the most part," Eve announced from the screen behind
Zoner. "But some of the research being conducted is rather
sensitive, and the Salusians would rather it not fall into
terrorist hands."
"They've asked that the WWWA send in a small team. So we're
going in personally," Kei said. "But we need some air cover. We
figured the CONSTELLATION would do, especially since her pilot is
an engineer, whose technical expertise might come in handy."
"And we thought that Katie could come along, too," Yuri said
brightly. "After all, we've worked together before, and the more
the merrier."
"Sounds like fun," Katie said. "What's the plan?"
"This is how it will go..."

CHAPTER 22

" "
--The Ventures, "Walk--Don't Run"
--
NOTE: You may be wondering why the above quote has no words in
it. This is because the Ventures are an instrumental group.
--

<Xeno:#Warbirds> I still say the Z-95 Headhunter is a worthless
piece of crap.
> Oh, yeah? You're talking to a guy who used to fly one for a
living.
<Xeno:#Warbirds> Mako: You have my sympathy.
> There is NOTHING wrong with the Z-95. I once downed six
Kilrathi six-guns with a squadron of eight Zs, with only one
personnel and three aircraft losses. I say it's not the PLANE
that's deficient. May be the PILOT, though...
<Xeno:#Warbirds> Mako: And I say you're full of it.
> Xeno: I would love to continue this discussion, but the buzzer
just sounded. I'm outta here. See ya on the other end of the
wire.
> /signoff Back to the war...

"Gah, what a LOSER." Chris slid the keyboard back under the
dash and locked it in place, then logged off. The drop alarm had
just sounded...three minutes to go until release.
He was sitting in the cockpit of the CONSTELLATION, which
was itself inside a small Valkyrie fighter bay on board the WWWA
ship LOVELY ANGEL. Normally the Angels' own Hyper Valkyrie
occupied this spot, but for this mission, they would be deploying
his fighter to fly advanced recon while they moved in to secure
the base.
Chris punched up the intercom. "Mako to Temper. Hey up
there! I'm reading two minutes to launch. You all ready?"
"Roger, CONSTELLATION. We've got green all across the
board." Katie was sitting at the Tactical station on the bridge.
It wasn't used much, as the ANGEL generally supported a crew of
two (three, counting Mughi) and the control boards at Helm and
Navigation had been configured to control everything.
"Great. I'm warming up the engines down here...ready when
you are. Anything showing up on the ANGEL's sensors?"
Yuri answered this time. "Negative, Mako. Just the base.
If those terrorists are there, they must be using some heavy
sensor reduction."
"And that's what I'm here for," Chris said. "The sensor
suite on CONSTELLATION should break through their jamming,
especially when I'm close in. And with the firepower I can
provide..."
"Thirty seconds to launch..." Katie announced.
"Twenty-nine...twenty-eight..."
Chris flipped some switches, and the power systems of his
Valkyrie engaged. The engines ignited, and the Multi-Function
Displays on the instrument board came to life. He flipped down
the visor on his CVR, and reached under his right arm to pull a
small fiber-optic cable out of a slot on the armor. He plugged
it into a jack on the instrument panel, hit the "go" button on
the cybermodem control panel on his right arm, and felt the
tickling sensation in his head of the Valk's flight control
computer awaiting instructions.
"Three...two...one...bay doors open; releasing launch bay
interlocks, NOW. CONSTELLATION, you are go for separation."
An onlooker from a chase plane, had there been one, might
have observed the bright red Predator-class starship, resembling
a Klingon Bird of Prey, swooping in over a yellow-tan desert
planet. On the underside of this ship, a hatch opened, and
a sleek white form fell through it, extending its wings.
"Roger, Temper...dropping through now." The Valkyrie
Veritech fighter dropped free of the Predator-class cloakscout,
and ten seconds later its engines flared bright blue. "And I'm
away! Will engage telemetry when I have something to report.
Mako out."

<<<"Rick Hunter Theme" (Robotech Soundtrack)>>>

As the CONSTELLATION blasted away from the LOVELY ANGEL,
Chris looked around his cockpit with satisfaction. It was pretty
cluttered now, for many of the "improvements" Chris had made over
the years had not been very neat.
To Chris's left, attached to the cockpit wall, was a small
touch-sensitive WDF handcomp, standard-issue, a multi-configurable
terminal that Chris could detach for remote operations. To his
right were three tricorders, arranged in a kind of a rack.
The tricorders were hooked up to serve as subprocessors for
the Valk's flight computer, specifically in regard to sensory
functions. They maintained a subspace link to that computer, and
were not actually essential to its operation, so one, two, or all
three could be detached and used as remote sensors if the need
arose. There was also storage space underneath for various
sensory peripherals, including medical, subspace booster, and
engineering devices. Gathering information was something that
Chris considered very important.
The computer they were connected to was located behind the
fuselage, within the body of the CONSTELLATION. It was something
of a patchwork, too. Its primary component was an optical
computer that had once been one of the targeting system
subprocessors for the LOVELY ANGEL (Kei and Yuri had presented it
to him upon upgrading to a more powerful model). However, it
shared out tasks among several lesser computers, connected
together in a kind of strange-looking network that actually
worked very well. The optical processor tied it all together,
but was designed to support and be subordinate to a neural-net
processor, like Eve, if Chris ever got around to installing one.
The primary purpose of the small touch-sensitive display was
to control the cockpit aud/vid playback system, so as to leave
the forward MFDs free for flight operations. Chris reached over
to it and thumbed up a song selection. As the music started
playing, he flipped on his sensors, looking for whatever he could
see.

<<<The Ventures, "Walk--Don't Run">>>

"Yeah...that sounds REAL good..."

CHAPTER 23

"She's actual size, but she seems much bigger to me..."
--They Might Be Giants, "She's Actual Size"

The LOVELY ANGEL settled onto the desert, clouds of dust and
sand kicked up by the thrusters billowing all around it. In the
background was the tall mesa on which the research base was
located, set against a pinkish-green sky with two moons in it.
Looked something like a matte painting from STAR TREK or
BATTLESTAR GALACTICA.
As the engines on the Predator-class starship died, a ramp
lowered and three motorcycles, with armored figures astride them,
rolled down it. Then the lead figure detached a small control
box from her belt and pointed it at the ship. The ramp swung
slowly upward and sealed with the hull. The rider returned the
box to her belt, gestured, and then raced her bike toward a
narrow trail winding around the mesa, leading toward the top.
In the lead was Kei, on her WOW-that's-black VR-052 Battler
Cyclone. Her eyes swept the terrain in front of her as the bike
roared along the narrow dirt path. Just behind her was Yuri, on
a similar bike, and then behind them came Katie Tanner.
Katie was riding the VR-152 Battler Chris had made for her,
painted in the black, grey, and blue color scheme of the
Eight-Balls (as was her CVR-4 body armor). On her right hip was
a Gallant 1000, and under her left shoulder was an ElectroMag
similar to Kei's, only with a customized handgrip.
About halfway up the mesa, Kei transformed her Cyc-bike to
Power Armor mode and rocketed straight up the side. Yuri
followed, and then Katie as well. She'd been on a mission or ten
in the past with the Lovely Angels, so she knew that the best
thing to do in these matters was to follow their lead.
They touched down on the clifftop, and there were the
buildings, spread out before them. They knelt, facing each
other, and Kei projected a holographic map onto the ground from
an aperture in the Cyclone's arm. "The first step is to secure
the perimeter. I'll take sectors one through twelve, Yuri, yours
are twenty-five through zero, and Katie, you take sectors
thirteen to twenty-three."
"Thirteen...unlucky number," Katie remarked, checking the
action on her Gallant. "Ready."
Kei and Yuri drew their own guns. "Let's go," Kei said, and
they split up, running across the mesa to cover their individual
areas.

Inside the LOVELY ANGEL, Mughi padded onto the bridge and
bounded up onto the captain's command seat, which had been
specially padded and the seatpost carpeted just for him (or so
Mughi liked to believe) so that it served as a combination
scratching post/kitty bed. Mughi snuggled up, made himself
comfortable, and reached out a claw to flip the armrest switch
that dimmed the bridge lights so he could sleep. He then dozed
off, a small snot bubble on the tip of his nose expanding and
shrinking in time with his slow, regular breathing.

Chris made several sweeps of the terrain surrounding the
mesa. Nothing unusual showing up...wait! What was that?
Something large and metallic reading on his scanners...coming up
from behind him. Fast. Chris brought the plane around, and
noticed several Kilrathi fighters approaching. Dralthi, whee,
easy.
But these Dralthi were not flying in a Kilrathi formation.
This was something that Chris probably wouldn't have noticed a
couple of hundred years before. But over the decades he'd
developed a keen sense of when something was Not Right.
Time to see if they would die like Kilrathi even if they
didn't fly like Kilrathi. Chris targeted the forward phaser
banks in the booster pods on the lead ship and fired. The
Dralthi was hit head-on, glowed, and exploded as the phasers
blew it into flinders. "That's a good start..."
But now the others were onto him, and they broke, scattering
across the sky. "Great. Gotta take 'em one by one." Chris
pulled the transformation switch and imaged the change; he
actually FELT the changes taking place through his cyberlink, and
he could even HEAR them--the fighter was making the peculiar
buzzing humming sound common to Cybertronian Transformers.
Even though the CONSTELLATION was not itself a Transformer,
it did utilize some Cybertronian technology. For example, the
gravitic-induction servomotors that increased the speed of the
change by over 60% while at the same time producing that
trademark transformational harmonic common to all Autobots and
Decepticons. Those were Cybertronian, and a few of the
microprocessors that helped hold its computer network together
were as well. Chris had spent a few years on Cybertron
recovering from a personal tragedy, and had picked up some of the
basic technology while he was there. Needless to say, he had
applied it.
As the CONSTELLATION hit Gerwalk mode, the rifle slid down
into its hand and it was ready. No GU-11 was this, but an EU-97
particle beam rifle. It was more compact, more powerful, and
didn't run out of ammunition like the GU-11 did.
The first Kilrathi broke left, trying to come around behind
the CONSTELLATION. Bad move. Chris simply spun the
Gerwalk-configured Valk around and opened up with the energy
rifle/cannon. The Kilrathi ship jinked and dodged with
extraordinary grace for a Dralthi.
"What the--?" The Dralthi gave him a momentary view of its
pipes, then spun on its axis. "But Dralthi can't do that!" Chris
protested, even as he evaded the Dral's laser fire. "Sensors,
full active sweep. Get me a scan of that ship!"
As the sensor suites on the CONSTELLATION came to full
on-line status, the faceplate on the ventral-mounted sensor head
began to glow softly. A series of beeps and clicks issued from
the three tricorders in the cockpit as they began to process the
data.
"They must have some kind of gravitic propulsion system,"
Chris muttered. He'd been working on such a system for the
CONSTELLATION, but it wasn't off the drawing board yet. "What I
wouldn't give for a good look at those engines..."
Right now, though, he would settle for a good look UP those
engines. Even the maneuverability of the Gerwalk wasn't proof
against the mechanical precision of the enemy pilot. Chris
growled as several laser shots slammed into the Valkyrie's side,
shaking him around. "Damn, damn, damn..." Chris muttered,
bringing the forearm-mounted pulse lasers into play. Rapid-fire
beams of ruby-red light strobed across the Dralthi, and his
sensors began registering hits.
Then the Dralthi did something that startled Chris. Even
though he was hitting it hard, and continuing to hit it, the
Dralthi swerved and broke left, in the exact same maneuver it had
tried earlier. This time, Chris followed it precisely with the
pulse laser cannons, and nailed it as it went by. Ker-BOOM!!!
"Odd...why did it do that? Repeat the exact same maneuver?"
Chris wondered. "A drone pilot?"
Then the other two remaining Dralthi came in, attacking from
both sides, trying to catch him in a pincer. "Not gonna work.
Just ain't a-gonna do it. Wouldn't be prudent," Chris muttered
in his best "George Bush" impersonation (which wasn't really very
good. In fact, it was downright lousy). He cut the Gerwalk's
foot thrusters, and it dropped right out from between them.
"Slag off, furball!" Chris yelled over the commline as he fired
the Gerwalk's rifle at one, and the phasers at the other. The
one that took the phaser hit spun out and crashed, and the other
one's port engine blew out. It tried to limp away, but ended up
making a forced landing.
"Yes, WHOO!" Chris whooped. "Let's see what those sensor
scans indicate..."
He brought the Gerwalk in for a landing beside the Dralthi
whose engine had blown out and checked his Gallant as the
computer finished processing the results of its in-depth scans of
the Kilrathi ships. "Let's see what we've got." Chris opened
the canopy and grabbed the touch-sensitive handcomp from the
left side of the cockpit. It came free with a rrrrip of Velcro
unsealing. As Chris climbed out, he configured it to display
the sensor scan results, and glanced over it as he approached the
wrecked starfighter.
"Hmm, standard drive with gravitic propulsion
assist...reinforced titanium-molybdenum frame...Hmm, this is
interesting, an enhanced nuclear generator and sublight drive.
Geez, there's hardly any Kilrathi systems at all in here. The
thing only LOOKS like a Dralthi, but its actual components...Hey,
what's this?" Chris tapped some touchpads on the display to zoom
in. "The logo on these parts...GENOM!"
At that moment, as Chris was coming around to the front of
the pseudo-Dralthi, a gleaming metallic fist punched through the
shattered canopy. "Oh, SHIT!" Chris slapped the display board
onto his belt and grasped his Gallant with both hands. Thumbing
the power selector to the highest setting, he took aim and fired
off the entire clip into the cockpit, aiming for the Buma that
was slowly levering itself out.
The gunfire ate away at the Buma's arms, legs, chest,
head--chunks of metal went flying, but still the Buma rose.
"C'mon, dammit, DIE!!!" Chris kept firing. The shots counter on
the Gallant was counting down. 5...4...3...2... Then, the last
shot hit the biomechanical monstrosity square in the face, and
its head exploded. Ker-THWAM!!! Click...click...click... It
took Chris a couple of moments to realize he was firing on an
empty chamber.
"Shit! Bumas! From GENOM! Shit!" Chris dropped the spent
clip from the Gallant 1000, jacked another in, and holstered the
gun. He reached down to the handcomp at his belt and tapped out the
command sequence to power up the CONSTELLATION'S engines even as
he ran for and vaulted into the cockpit. The canopy closed over
him and he lifted off!

In Cyclone armor mode, Kei crept around some odd, twisted
rock formations, of varying sizes, from four to about twelve feet
or so. The wind had eroded strange shapes into the cliff over
the countless millenia it had been there, and it was still
blowing even now. Like Monument Valley on those old westerns
Gryph had shown her, she thought. That same orangeish color.
Not too far away was the edge of the cliff. Kei paused for
just a moment to stand, leaning with a hand braced against a rock
formation to her right, and look out toward the horizon.
(Imagine one of those Ninja Gaiden-style pans across the horizon
from behind, right to left, with Kei remaining centered.) The
desert was smooth, the air was clear, she could see for miles.
Nothing broke the plain face of the sand thousands of feet below,
at least, nothing that she could see. Off in the distance were a
couple of the thin white clouds, cirrostratus or something, that
were the only moisture condensation that this world would ever
see.
"Now, where are those terrorists...?" Kei wondered. Her
Cyclone's sensors weren't showing anything yet... She continued
picking her way between rock spires, through gullies and
trenches...
There! Something on the infra-red! Kei drew her E-Mag (no
sense in making a lot of noise with minimissiles) and
started working her way closer. "Scope up." The targeting scope
in the Battler's shoulder rose up, slid in front of Kei's right
eye. There was a soft "ping" as the smart targeting system
integral to the gun interfaced with the shoulder sensor.
Just around this one last rock spire...she would have a
perfect shot...slowly...slowly...IR was reading it clearly now;
four humanoid forms...almost everyone had been evacuated so it
couldn't be friendlies...almost there...almost...NOW!
ZARK! The head on one of the four olive-drab clothed,
rifle-carrying soldiers jerked. Kei moved her gun along to the
second soldier, when a rather curious thing happened...The
soldier she'd shot raised his rifle and fired. The blast took
Kei by surprise, blasting one of the chest sensor panels off
and knocking her back against the rock formation behind her.
"What the fuck--?"
And then all four of the troopers stood, their skin sloughing
off of them in a rather disgusting manner to reveal the metal
underneath. Kei's blood ran cold. Bumas! They rushed her...

Yuri, in her CVR, heaved herself up on top of one of the
spires of rock. Now she had a great vantage point from which to
make her recon sweep.
She looked around. The edge of the cliff was maybe two
hundred yards away, and unobstructed from her view for about a
hundred and twenty degrees--precisely her assigned area.
As Yuri scanned the area with her macrobinocs from left to
right, something flickered. Movement! Yes--an arm had just come
over the cliff, and the rest of a body was following.
Yuri put down the binocs and unsling a laser rifle from her
back. This was a specially-designed sniper's rifle, and it had
been made especially for her. While Kei was the better shot with
a sidearm, Yuri was unparallelled with a rifle.
She raised the rifle to her eye, looking through it but
keeping the other eye open as well, and lined up the crosshairs.
Just as the man's head rose up over the edge, she put a laser
blast into it. The man lost his grip, and dropped silently off
the edge.
Then two more heads started coming over the cliff. ZARK!
ZARK! And more. "Shit, this is like the pan-and-zoom from the
NES Platoon game." ZARK! Some of them actually got all the way
up, and they spun and dropped most picturesquely.
But after several minutes of sniping, they quit coming. Yuri
waited for about ten minutes, but they didn't show up. "What
now?" She looked around. She know that Katie and Kei probably
wouldn't appreciate any help..."I know! I'll secure the base!"
She put her legs over the edge and slid to the ground, slinging
the rifle and hopping on her Cyclone. She pressed the starter
switch, and drove off toward the nearest airlock entrance...

Katie walked across the terrain, making her patrol sweep.
By some chance, she'd been assigned the flattest section of the
mesa--almost no rock spirals of any kind, just a gradual dropoff
toward the edge of the mesa and the thousands of feet to the
ground below.
As she walked, in full Cyclone armor, she fingered the
handle of her ElectroMag nervously. Something had been bothering
her all day...she wasn't sure what it was. A premonition
perhaps? Ever since her wakeup call that day, she'd been jumpy,
on-edge. "Bad Moon Rising," by CCR. "Don't go 'round tonight,
or it's bound to take your life...there's a bad moon on the
rise." The refrain played itself out in her head, over and over,
and there was nothing she could do to make it quit.
She knew that Kei and Yuri were supposedly psychic...could
it be "rubbing off" on her? Could just being around them be
causing her to get a psychic flash? She shivered. Maybe she
shouldn't have taken this mission...No, don't be ridiculous. You
hardly get any chances to work with Chris as it is, and work has
been spotty since quitting the Eight-Balls...you couldn't have
stayed behind.
She tried to stop thinking like that. In covert missions,
you often made your own luck, and dwelling on the chance that
something could happen to you was not the way to survive.
What was that over there? The sensors were reading
something...

Deep inside the base, one of the few remaining scientists
sat at a monitoring station watching the cameras. So the 3WA
team had come, and were fighting the enemy even now. But there
was no way they could win, this man knew that.
The 3WA had not been fully informed. They'd just been told
that this was a research base, and that it was under attack by
terrorists. They had not been told that it was a bio-weapons
lab, and GENOM wanted what it was making. The risk was deemed
too great--bio-weapons were not exactly in favor with most
governments at the time.
The old Salusian shook his head. Why had he done it? Why
had he gone to work for the megacorp that, though supposedly
Salusian, was actually not government-sanctioned at all? For the
money, he guessed. Damn sure couldn't be for anything else.
It was all over now. He had to act fast, before GENOM broke
through. They damn sure wouldn't get anything they could use,
and it was going to cost them dearly to get in at all.
He moved to another console, one with red lights, switches,
and levers, and started pulling them down. The reflex furnaces
began to go from neutral to active status.

CHAPTER 24

"I am descending
From heaven above
So catch me, I'm falling
Hold on to my love..."
--Pretty Poison, "Catch Me I'm Falling"

Chris streaked for the plateau at full burn. Katie and the
Angels could be in danger! Chris cursed himself for a fool for
not going in with them, though he knew that there was no way he
could have done that. "Mako to team! Mako to team! Urgent! Be
n your guard! These aren't terrorists, they're--"

Katie nearly jumped when his voice came over the headset.
But then it faded out as a lot of interference came over the air.
She tapped the comm switch on her armrest. "Mako! Mako, say
again! I lost your signal. Mako, come in!"

Yuri also winced as the signal broke up. She fingered her
earring, the CVR helmet being off now. "Mako? I'm not receiving
you...what did you say?"

Kei heard but was too busy to reply. Besides, she was
pretty sure she could guess what Chris had been about to tell
her. "Gyah!" ZARK! ZARK!

"Kei! Yuri! Temper! Do you read me!" A whole lot of
static interference had come over the commline. On the port
MFD, data appeared indicating that energy was beginning to build
at several points beneath the mesa. Chris barely glanced at it.
He was now directly over the plateau, and descending toward
it. He barely bothered with retrothrust, and was jerked forward
when the Gerwalk touched down. "Oof!" Grabbing the handcomp and
a tricorder, he jumped out and hit the ground running.

<<<INXS, "Suicide Blonde">>>

Katie was still trying to contact Chris, when suddenly she
realized she wasn't alone. A dozen...no, two dozen...no, MORE
gleaming metal forms had just shot up from the edge of the cliff,
trailing thruster fire. Katie recognized them instantly from
file photos, though she'd never personally fought any. Bumas!
She fired her plasma minimissiles and took about six of them out,
then they closed to hand-to-hand combat range and things got
hazy.

One of the Bumas fired its thrusters and leapt right toward
Kei. She fired a plasma mini right into it, but then the other
followed and bodyslammed her into the rock. She brought her knee
up in what would have been an excruciating blow for humans, but
it just sent this Buma flying back a few feet. It extended
cyberblades, slashed downward at her. She crossed her arms for a
parry and bind, then brought up her foot and kicked the boomer in
the chest, throwing it back into two of the others. Before they
could do anything else, she fired her remaining plasma minis into
them, wasting them.

The Bumas were too close for weapons, pressing in all around
her. She couldn't move without hitting a Buma, so she took full
advantage of this, firing the VR-152 Battler II's arm cannons and
kicking and punching. The missiles on arms, hips, and chest took
care of more Bumas, but they JUST KEPT COMING!
And Katie's armor was taking hits, too, with blades and
weapons. A vibroblade penetrated her left thigh, and she
screamed, slamming the Buma's head with a backhand that nearly
decapitated it. Then a hot poker lanced through her right side,
from behind, and she turned to fire her cannons at a Buma with a
laser rifle. She coughed up blood. "Shit!"
She didn't notice that the Bumas had been herding her toward
the edge of the cliff until she was almost on it. She tried to
regather her strength, push her way forward...but suddenly she
found herself falling.
Katie's thrusters cushioned her fall somewhat, but only one
of them worked. So she fell somewhat erratically, banging
against the side of the cliff and turning over and over...her
hands scraped furrows in the rock wall as she tried desperately
to slow down.
Finally, she hit the bottom with a loud WHUMP! and an
agonizing pain in her left leg. Broken, she was sure. And she
hurt all over, and her ribs were on fire...She coughed, and blood
covered what was left of her faceplate, which was cracked and
shattered in several places.
"Fuck..." Katie said, looking up as a shadow fell over her.
It was a big ol' Buma, standing over her, with what she could
swear was a sadistic look on its plate-metal face. Then its
chest exploded, and dozens of living-metal tentacles reached out
hungrily for her. Katie's last thought was this is going to
hurt. A lot.
And it did.

Chris ran over to meet Kei. Her Cyclone was nicked in
several spots, and it had taken a couple of serious hits, but she
appeared unhurt. "Kei! They aren't terrorists, they're Bumas!"
"I noticed," Kei remarked drily.
"Quickly. Where are Katie and Yuri, they could be in
terrible danger!" Chris realized how melodramatic that sounded,
but there was nothing to be done about it now.
"Yuri went that way, Katie that way." Kei pointed. "On
perimeter patrol--"
"Okay. I'll go find Katie, you get Yuri. We've got to get
off this rock!"
"Right. We'll meet at the LOVELY ANGEL in ten minutes."
"Gotcha."

CHAPTER 25

"Can't get no satisfaction, runnin' around with a chain
reaction..."
--Drivin'N'Cryin, "Chain Reaction"

The Salusian scientist pressed the switches down, one by
one, each switch another nail in the coffin of this laboratory
facility's doom. All the failsafes were being overridden, one by
one. Now all that remained was to set the reflex furnaces to
maximum overload. The reactors would chain-react, and the base
would destroy itself in a glorious ball of fire.
He reached over to the lever, rested both hands on it as if
trying to build up the strength to pull it down. Then his
muscles tensed, he exerted force, and the lever slid into place
with a loud ker-CHUNK. All around him, the scientist heard the
low-pitched tone that was rising, increasing, would soon be a
high-pitched thunderous roar. He relaxed in the chair. Nothing
could stop it now. Soon both he and the base would be destroyed.
With a glance toward the large NO SMOKING sign over the
door, the scientist pulled out a large, antiquated-looking pipe
and a bag of tobacco. He filled the pipe slowly and with relish,
then lit up and puffed away, the trace of a smile on his
otherwise impassive face.

Chris vaulted back into the cockpit of the CONSTELLATION and
took off again, heading in the direction that Katie had gone. As
he approached the edge of the cliff, he knew that something was
definitely wrong. There were Buma parts scattered everywhere,
and his sensors were revealing metal components from a Cyclone,
and human blood as well.
"Shit. Katie!" Chris called over the external speakers.
"Katie?!" Sensors revealed no functioning biomechanicals within
range. No Katie either. Chris began to shake despite the warmth
of the cockpit. There was only one direction she could have gone
and not shown up on his sensors. Straight down.
He tapped the comm again, using subspace frequencies this
time. "Mako to Temper. Katie? Are you out there?" He held his
breath, waiting for an answer.
Static. And then... "--is Temper, calling Mako. Chris, I
read you and I'm all right! It'll take more than a few Bumas to
keep me down."
Chris let his held breath whoosh out in a sigh of relief.
"Thank goodness. Katie, where are you?"
"The bottom of the cliff. I'll meet you at the ANGEL,
okay?"
"That's affirmative, Katie...I'm going to--What in the
hell?"
"What is it, Chris? Say again?"
"Sensor readings have gone off the scale. There's some sort
of massive power buildup in the heart of the mesa...I think it's
a reflex furnace, or several of them. Shit, it's gonna blow any
minute!" Chris punched some more keys. "Mako to Kei and Yuri!
Do you read me? Emergency! Emergency!"

Kei pulled out the old Starfleet-style communicator that Ben
insisted she carry and flipped it open. "Kei here. What is it?"
"Kei, this is Mako. Listen. My Valk's sensors are picking
up a BIG disturbance under the base. I think it's reflex
furnaces, and they are very shortly going to blow in a very big
way. I estimate like eight minutes or so. I'm en route to the
ANGEL now, and will be bringing it up to pick you up before it
blows. Get to Yuri and tell her this also."
"This is Yuri, and I hear you." In the background,
footsteps could be heard. "But I'm almost to the master control,
and I may be able to shut it down..."
"Don't take chances. Just get out of there. Kei, will I be
able to lift the ANGEL without you there?"
"Mughi will know the codes," Kei responded. "See ya." She
flipped the antenna grid shut and returned the communicator to
her utility belt.

Chris jumped out of the CONSTELLATION even as it touched
down, and ran for the LOVELY ANGEL while at the same time tapping
a series of commands on the WDF handcomp at his waist. Behind
him, the canopy of the Valkyrie closed, the Gerwalk-mode fighter
launched itself into the air, then converted to full jet mode and
boosted off into space.
"Chris!" It was Katie Tanner. She was running hard, and
her Cyclone was falling apart around her. There went the left
missile cover...and the right wheel...and the entire right arm of
the CVR...She reached up, took off the helmet. There was blood
on the faceplate, Chris noticed.
"Katie! Are you all right?"
Katie nodded. "Just fine. Nothing that Omega-2 couldn't
handle. Right now we have to get Kei and Yuri and get out
of...ooh." She collapsed against Chris. "Guess I'm a little
tireder than I thought I was."
"You get to sickbay and get some rest. I'll go get Kei and
Yuri."
The tricorder in Chris's right hand was counting down from
six minutes as Chris entered the LOVELY ANGEL through one of the
boarding hatches and made his way toward the bridge. Five
minutes, as the door slid open onto a darkened bridge.
Chris stepped in, fumbled for the lighting keys beside the
door, brought the bridge into full illumination. There was a
screeching yowl as Mughi leaped about three feet off the command
seat, flailed around in the air, and landed on his face in front
of the seat. CLONK!
"Mughi! We have to raise ship in a hurry, and rescue Kei
and Yuri!"
Mughi got up, shaking his head to clear it. What did this
human want?
Chris shoved the tricorder in front of Mughi's face.
"That's how long Kei and Yuri have left to live if we don't go
get them forthwith. Now get off your butt and help me!"
Mughi stiffened. No human talked to him like that, except
Kei and Yuri! But noticing that the Lovely Angels had only about
four minutes left by the clock on Chris's tricorder, he decided
to forgive it just this once.
Mughi ran forward to Navigation as Chris sat down at Helm.
Mughi entered the access codes, and Chris powered up the ship.
He'd flown Predator-class vessels before, so the control layout
was nothing new to him. However, the added power in this vessel
WAS, and the ship listed to one side as he overcorrected. Mughi
rolled out of his seat, and once again landed on the floor, on
his head. THUMP!
"Uh, sorry about that. Maybe you should have fastened your
seatbelt." Mughi glared at him, promising to get even later.
But Chris had it under control now. Punching buttons and
flipping switches, he maneuvered the ship toward the crest of the
mesa. There wasn't quite room to land it, but he could hover
next to the base.
"Three minutes. Where's Kei?" Chris punched the comm
switch. "LOVELY ANGEL to Kei. Three minutes left, where are
you?"
Kei emerged from a hatch on the base exterior. "Here! Pop
the bridge hatch!" she called into her communicator. A small
hatch on the underside of the nose of the Bird of Prey-like craft
fell open, a rope ladder dropping out of it. Approximately ten
seconds later Kei was up it and on the bridge.
"Two and a half minutes..." Chris announced.
Kei shoved Mughi out of Navigation and sat down. Mughi walked
stiffly back toward the command chair, a pained look on his face.
Kei ignored him in the urgency of the moment. "Where the hell is
Yuri?!"

Yuri was currently standing with a smoking gun in the open
bulkhead door to the master control room (having shot out the
lock). She was looking at an old man in a lab coat smoking a
pipe in blatant defiance of the "no smoking" signs.
"Hello, young lady," he said. "In just under..." He
glanced over at the panel. "...three minutes this place will be
a smoking hole in the ground. And there's nothing you can do to
stop it." He blew a smoke ring her way.
Yuri pinched her earring. "Mako, this is Yuri. I've found
one of the scientists down here."
"Bring him with you and get to a higher level of the base,"
Kei responded. "We'll blast a hole open and get you out!"
"Come on," Yuri said.
"I'm not leaving. I--"
"There's no time to argue. Either you come now, or I'll
shoot you and carry you. Which would you prefer?"
Shaking his head in resignation, the man got up. "Very
well. But I'm only doing this for your sake."
"That's very reassuring. C'mon, MOVE!"

Kei jacked into the controls and targeted phasers. "They're
in the elevator..." she muttered. "Moving upward." She keyed
the commline again. "Okay, stop there and get down. I'm going
to burn through."
"A minute and a half remaining..." Chris remarked. "I'm
going to move in closer so we can get them out."
"Do it." Kei looked at the monitor ahead, as crosshairs
only she could see zeroed in and locked on. "Firing." The
orange beams lanced out, making a smoking hole in the metal.
"There! There they are!"
"I'm putting the port wing next to the hole..." Chris
pressed some keys and then held down on the maneuver buttons
very, very carefully. "There."
Kei switched the main screen to a view to port. It showed
Yuri and the scientist clambering across the wing into one of the
hatches.
"45 seconds..." Chris announced.
"Get us out of here!" Kei said.
"You got it." Chris punched the proper controls to seal all
hatches and fire thrusters. The LOVELY ANGEL blasted skyward at
top speed. Even the inertial dampers were slow to compensate for
the degree of thrust Chris poured on. Chris and Kei were pushed
back in their seats. Mughi, unprepared, fell out of the comm
seat and went bouncing across the bridge floor, ending up upside
down under a console at the back of the bridge. He grumbled,
muttered, and otherwise did a passable impersonation of an
irritated Gryphon.
Chris put the rear view up on the screen, the mesa behind
them with the base atop it, looking calm and clear. A few
seconds later, the mesa shattered with a rumbling roar. A
fireball blossomed up into the sky, and the LOVELY ANGEL, in the
upper atmosphere though it was, was still buffetted by shock
waves (this pleased the already irritated Mughi to no end).
"Gah! The EM pulse knocked out half our sensors!" Chris
yelled.
"Compensating." Kei twigged some switches, punched some
keys. "Okay, we're all right."
"Whew." Chris wiped his brow as the shocks finally settled
down. The bridge door slid open behind them, and Yuri walked in.
"Oh, hi Yuri." Chris stood from the Helm, and Kei took his
position. Yuri sat at Navigation, her customary demesne. "How's
the scientist?"
"Oh, he's okay. He keeps muttering something about
retiring."
Chris stepped back to Tactical. "And did you see Katie?"
"Yeah, she's in sickbay, resting. Looks a little pale, but
insisted she's all right."
"You think she is?" Chris slid his WDF handcomp into an
interface bracket on the panel, tapped some commands on it and on
the control board. "I'm going to bring the CONSTELLATION into
the docking bay, if that's okay with you?"
Kei said, "Go ahead."
"Yeah, I think so. She's like us, it'll take a LOT to keep
her down." Yuri punched some keys at Navigation. "Okay,
CONSTELLATION, you are clear to land."
"Thanks...opening bay doors...matching speeds..." Chris
entered commands on the handcomp at the same time he flipped
switches and pressed buttons on the Tactical control panel. He
glanced at a small monitor which was currently showing a view
from above the open bay doors as the CONSTELLATION matched speeds
with the LOVELY ANGEL, then rose, slowly...slowly...The docking
attachments clicked, the Valk was secured, and the bay doors
closed. As Chris powered the Valk down, he said, "Okay, we're
clear."
And another mission ends as usual for the Lovely Angels,
Chris thought. Yuri glared at him briefly, then turned back to
the controls. Had she read his mind? Well, they WERE psychic...
"Setting course for SDF-17 rendezvous..." Kei announced.
"Course set, and here we go!" The LOVELY ANGEL leaped into warp.
Destination: the WAYWARD SON.

Katie Tanner stepped out of sickbay, in a fresh uniform.
She looked in perfect condition, except for her paleness and the
trail of dried blood leading out the corner of her mouth that
she'd forgotten to wipe away. She reached down, checked the load
on her ElectroMag pistol, then reholstered it and began to walk
forward. As she passed under a shadow, her eyes gleamed bright
red.

CHAPTER 26

"I see your red eyes shining down on me..."
--Danielle Dax, "Dead Man Chill"

Chris was replacing the shorted shield transducer when Katie
Tanner stepped into his workshop/launch bay. Chris tossed his
wrench aside, wiped his hands on a rag, and walked over to greet
her. "Are you sure you're all right?" It was the day after the
mission, but Katie still seemed a bit pale.
"I'm FINE, Chris," Katie said. "I just haven't been getting
enough UV, that's all."
"I think you should have Jenna scan you just to be sure,"
Chris said.
"No, I don't need it." Katie grinned. "Listen, we can talk
about this later. Right now I need to go do something. I'll see
you in a little bit. Bye!" She turned to go.
Chris reached behind him and whipped out a medical
tricorder. With a few quick keystrokes, he got what data he
could before she was out the door. If something was seriously
wrong with her, he could have Jenna confine her to quarters or
something...
"Now to collate it..." Even though Chris was no doctor, he
was a qualified paramedic thanks to a few training courses he'd
taken over the years. He more than knew his way around a medical
tricorder.
"What is WITH her?" Chris wondered. "She's been so distant
lately. Ever since..." The data started coming up. "Shit!" He
looked closer, punched for a detailed analysis. "Double-shit!"
He closed the tricorder, grabbed his Gallant. "Eve, where's
Katie Tanner?"
The large wall screen lit up with Eve's face. "Lieutenant
Colonel Tanner is in Elevator 17, heading for deck--"
"Stop her! Keep her where she is!" Chris hastily slapped
on his CVR-3 armor. "Call security!"
"Why?"
"Just do it!" Chris checked his gun and ran out of the
room. What he'd seen in the scan had him panicking.

<<<Talking Heads, "Psycho Killer (Live)">>>

Katie Tanner stepped into the elevator, a characteristic
devil-may-care grin on her face. What was not characteristic was
the red glow in her eyes, and the way she was stroking the handle
of her custom E-mag.
The elevator doors opened, and one of the pilots from Zebra
flight got on. This pilot considered himself something of a
ladies' man, and was currently after Katie Tanner, despite (or
perhaps because of) her friendship with Chris.
"Hi, how's it going?" the pilot asked, trying to start a
conversation. Katie didn't say anything; she just stood there
looking at the doors.
He tried again. "I hear you just got back from a mission.
Guess that must be some pretty important stuff you're doing, eh?"
Still no response. Not even a chewing out for talking to one's
superior officer that way.
Maybe the direct approach would work better. "So, you free
Friday night?"
Katie Tanner absently drew her gun and shot him through the
heart. ZARK!
The pilot looked down at the hole in his chest, shock and
horror plainly writ across his face. As he fell back against the
wall, he gasped, "I guess that means...no..." He slid down to a
sitting position on the floor, leaving a bloody streak against
the metal wall behind him. His eyes closed, and he slumped
forward.
Katie spun the gun on her finger and reholstered it. She
stepped out the elevator and ran down the corridor.
About ten seconds later, Chris ran up from another corridor,
put his arm in the door to stop it from closing. "Katie,
you--Oh, SHIT!" He propped the door open with his Gallant, then
knelt beside the slumped body, pulled his glove off and checked
for a pulse. The man's eyes fluttered open. "'sallright.
Detian," he rasped. "'llbe...okay."
"Shit," Chris said. "I've got to stop her before she kills
someone!" He punched the "EMERGENCY" button on the elevator
panel, retrieved his gun, and ran down the corridor after Katie.
The wounded pilot leaned back against the corner as his body
slowly began to heal itself, and reflected that this was the LAST
time he went after another pilot's girlfriend. It just wasn't
WORTH it.

"Katie, hold it!"
Katie Tanner turned around. Target: One, humanoid. <Zoom>
Identity: Meadows, Christopher Edward. Handle: Mako. SSN:
429--...<Abort> Holding weapon Gallant 1000. Threat assessment:
Level 4 (moderate). Recommended course of action: Query. "Mako,
what is it?"
"I know what you are, Katie. Just put your weapon down, and
I can help you."
Assessment: Target has acquired unit's operational status.
Cover blown. Recommended course of action: Attack.
Katie lunged at Chris, faster than he would have thought she
could. "Damn!" Chris yelled. Even as he brought the gun up,
three shots from Katie's electromag penetrated his right leg and
arm. His gun went flying. "Damn!" With his left hand, Chris
pulled his backup gun, a Glock 2000, from its position at the
back of his belt and started snapping off shots at Katie. Though
he was left-handed, he fired his gun right-handed and wasn't as
good at left-handed shooting, especially with only one hand.
Assessment: Firing. Threat assessment: Level 6 (moderate).
Recommended course of action: Continued attack.
As Chris continued snapping off shots, shells tinkling on
the metallic floor, he was treated to a sight that he would
remember for a long, long time, and that would haunt his
nightmares for years to come. Katie's eyes glowed bright red,
and then her skin exploded outward from her body in a tan and red
haze. Underneath was gleaming, silvery metal. She sprang
forward...
"Shit!" Chris yelled, still firing. Then he ran out of
ammo. "Dammit, Katie, don't DO this!"
Assessment: Target wounded, out of ammunition. Threat
assessment: Level 2 (minimal). Recommended course of action:
Break off attack.
Katie stopped. Chris didn't know why. Her eyes flashed at
him again, then she turned, fired thrusters at shoulders and
hips, and raced off down the hall. "Shit! I've got to stop her
before she hurts anyone else!" He reholstered the Glock, grabbed
his handcomp (with his left hand, the right was still hanging
limp). "Lucky I'm left-handed," he muttered, magna-locking the
handcomp to the front of his left leg and tapping out a key
sequence on it.

In Chris's launch bay/workshop at the rear of the ship, the
CONSTELLATION sat in the middle of a landing pad, lit harshly by
the spotlights hanging from the ceiling. It was a perfect
still-life, or would have been had anyone been there to see it.
Then the still-life took on motion, as a panel on the old
Valk flipped open, just behind the cockpit, and something stood
up, a humanoid silhouette against a lit section of the wall
behind it. Thrusters fired from two protruberances at the
shoulders, and the thing leaped to the deck.
As it ran out, metal-shod feet striking sparks and ringing
echos off the metallic deckplates, it was visible in the light.
Its shape was instantly recognizeable. It was a motoroid,
BGC-type, sort of, colored red. Only it was a little bigger and
chunkier than the average.
As soon as it was out the door, it kicked in full thrust and
rocketed down the corridor.

Major Adam Johnson, aka pfloyd, CO of the 22nd Special
Operations Service (The Hammers), was walking through the
corridors of the ship, on his way to see ReRob about some ideas
for new weapons for his unit. He walked along, singing an old
Damn Yankees song to himself.
"Hey brother, ready for another dose of my Yankee pride?"
He crossed a junction when something glinted in the corner of
his right eye. He turned to look down that corridor, and was
astonished at what he saw.
"Aw shit..." he cried as his jaw dropped and his eyes bulged.
The Buma that was Katie Tanner stood over a terrified
crewman, about to plunge its cyberblades into his neck. The
mech's head turned and saw pfloyd standing there. She bellowed
in a way that only Bumas could and turned to face pfloyd.
As soon as his wits returned, he reached into the black
satchel that hung by his left hip and drew a heavy pistol...

Chris heard the whining sound of the engines down the hall
before he saw it coming. He staggered out into the hall,
favoring his right arm and leg. Even though the Omega-2 had
kicked in, it would be a little while before arm and leg had
healed completely.
The red motoroid came to a halt in front of Chris, and the
front opened up. Grunting with the pain, Chris pulled himself up
into it, lifting his right arm into place with his left and
latching it, pulling his right leg up and locking it in, and then
attaching left arm and leg normally. The motoroid locked shut
around him, and blasted off down the hall.

The corridors around pfloyd echoed the sound of a Smith and
Wesson model 29 revolver. He snap-fired all six .44 Magnum shells
at the Buma's body, only to watch them bounce off. He turned and
ran down the corridor, back the way he came, letting the cylinder
of the gun drop open to release the empty cases. He reloaded on
the run with a speedloader and flicked the gun closed. He then
turned and aimed.
The Buma was just turning the corner as he lined up the white
outline of the rear sight with the red ramp of the front, locking
in on the head. Two shots were quickly fired. He saw the sparks
from impact, but he could not tell if there was any damage. He
turned to run again, and ducked down a narrow hallway just as the
Buma fired its jets.
The Buma couldn't make the turn to follow him. pfloyd sighed
in relief as he took a few more items from his satchel, securing
them in various places around his body. He then left his satchel
and ran back into the corridor, running in the original direction
he wanted to go in the first place.

He heard the whine of the Buma's jets not too far behind him.
He knew she was coming in for another attack. He turned around
just in time to see her barreling down the corridor, her arms
outstretched. He hastily fired the last four shots in the
Magnum, then dropped it as she was nearly within arm's reach.
When the time was right, he slipped to the side and grabbed her
wrist. Keeping his hands tightly gripped around hers and
maintaining the entire hold in front of his center, he pivoted,
taking the Buma for a ride. She switched off her jets just
before he let her go. She sailed into the massive doors of a
cargo bay, crushing them.
His right hand was a blur as he drew a heavier handgun from
his left hip. He brought it to aim as his left hand steadied the
gun in a proper two-handed Weaver grip. He looked through the
scope on the frame, centering the dot on the Buma's chest. He
calmly squeezed the trigger.
The report was louder than the revolver...the impact was
greater...
He had acquired this treasure on his first visit back to
Earth, through not-so-legal channels.
He loved his Desert Eagle in .50 Action Express, not only
because it could deliver over 1400 foot-pounds of energy to its
target, but because it was actually one of the most powerful
handguns in the world back in the late 20th century. He had kept
this particular piece under lock and key, bringing it out only
for demonstrations. However, he was going to use it as a source
for a new heavy tactical pistol for the Hammers. He was glad he
had it.
There was a very loud *BOOM* as the pistol fired. A ball of
muzzle flash larger than a canteloupe hung in the air. Twin
"rabbit ears" stood straight up from the muzzle's gas
compensator, helping to force the muzzle back on target quickly.
pfloyd had always enjoyed using the 325-grain hollowpoints in
this gun...in fact, he had cast and relaoded his own round.
He had also designed a new one.
A round he was now using.
The round was still a hollowpoint, but it now contained a
white phosphorous charge inside it.
He saw the impact sparks, and fired a second shot. He ceased
his fire to watch the results.
He could smell the Willie Pete doing its job, trying to burn
its way through the Buma's armored shell. He kept his gun trained
on the mech as he inched his way closer. It lay very still.
He was within eight feet of it when it lashed out at his
legs. He jumped back, but the hand still nicked his foot, causing
him to go off-balance. He lost the gun as he hit the floor. He
pushed off a wall to put some distance between him and the Buma,
who was now getting up.
Pf performed a backwards roll and landed on his feet, waiting
for the Buma.
She charged him without using the jets. Just as she reached
him, he dropped low and spun, swinging his right leg out as he
did so. The mech tripped over the leg and slammed into the deck.
Pf righted himself and began running down the hall, away from the
mech, pulling something from his belt. The Buma started to rise
and turn. Just as it roared again, pf turned and tossed
something in the hall, then continued running away.
Target: One, humanoid; Identity: Johnson, Adam. Handle:
pfloyd. Variety of weapons detected. Threat assessment: Level 8
(extremely dangerous). Recommended course of action: Terminate
with extreme prejudice.
Sensor contact: canister, 10cm x 4cm radius. Identification:
unknow---
The canister exploded in midair, three feet from the Buma's
head. Eight very bright flashes, equal to 500,000 candela, and
eight thunder-like explosions (around 150db each) caught the mech
by surprise. Its hands went to its temporarily overloaded
optics. The auditory sensors couldn't register anything. The
mech roared once again.
pf turned the corner, heading back to the Buma. He ran at
full tilt, and leaped into the air, right leg extended. His foot
slammed into the Buma's head at precisely the point where he
wanted to hit: just around the ear. The Buma's head recoiled
from the blow, and pf bounced off and away, landing in a crouch.
His foot hurt like the blazes now, but he wouldn't stop. He
surged forward again, landing a perfect hook kick to the Buma's
head again.
The mech fell backwards, trying to protect herself; however,
she was still blind and deaf, and couldn't tell where the blows
were coming from.
pf kept kicking and throwing the stunned Buma until it was
severely dazed and disoriented. He then stepped back a few paces
and found his Eagle. He snatched it up and thrust it into his
waistband as he kept backing up. He then reached into his pocket
and pulled out a small strip...the strip held a half-dozen
mini-grenades, similar to the old Italian MU50Gs. He quickly held
down the spoons with one hand and pulled each pin with the other,
pressing the backs to the floor. He carefully removed the first
egg as the Buma started to get up. He tossed it down the hall,
watching the spoon fly off. The then gave a forceful shove to
the rest, sending the strip down the hall. He threw himself down
an adjacent corridor and lay prone, covering his ears, closing
his eyes and opening his mouth.
Half a dozen explosions resounded in the hall, followed by a
nightmarish mechanical scream. pf scrambled to his feet, drawing
the Eagle. He turned the corner and sighted in on the Buma.
A massive shock went through his arm, instantly numbing it.
He screamed as the Pachmayr grips of his Eagle slipped from his
hand. The gun clattered to the floor.
He turned to see Chris with a heavy security team charging
down the hall toward the Buma.
Chris stopped at pfloyd, who was now holding his arm.
"What the fuck did you do that for?" pf screamed. "I almost
had it!"
"I didn't want you to kill her!"
"Her?"
"That's Katie!"
pf looked at the mech, who was now being trussed up with
numerous sets of heavy security bonds. The shell was badly scored
and burnt, and the mech didn't move.
"Can't be."
"It was," Chris said.
"Whatever you may think, that's not Katie anymore."
"Katie's still in there."
"If she is, I don't want her around me."
Chris looked at the damaged mech as it was being secured.
"How the hell did you defeat it?"
"Oh...the usual," pf replied. "I started off using my .44.
Then it charged me. I used something that obviously can beat a
Buma...Aikido. I threw it into the cargo doors." He continued
to recount how he used the WP rounds from his Eagle and the
mini-grenades. pfloyd still rubbed his arm, trying to get the
feeling back. "I wish you didn't paralyze my arm...and if my
scope is damaged..."
"I told you, it's Katie in there..."
"I don't care..."
Chris looked back at pfloyd. pf returned the look with one
of disgust and anger.
pfloyd pushed Chris out of the way, gathered his things, and
called Holly for a BodySlide. He disappeared in a muted
derezzing flash.
Chris just stood there, looking down at the heavily-damaged
Buma. "Sickbay, get a maglev stretcher and a team of medics who
can keep a Buma alive down to my location stat."
"A Buma?" Jenna's voice came back. "Mako, am I receiving
you properly?"
"Yes, dammit, now MOVE!" Chris cut the connection, but kept
the channel open so Jenna could pinpoint his location. The Buma
struggled to get up, but it was leaking fluids fast, and the
bindings held it tight.
Then the stretcher arrived, and they lifted the Buma onto
it. "Careful...we've got to keep her alive!"
"We'll do our best, sir," the medtech replied, jacking the
Buma's body into a special life-support system.
"You'd damn well better. This is no ordinary Buma. Katie
Tanner's brain is in there."

CHAPTER 27

"So forget those rumors, we're gonna stay together until we
fuckin' well die, I'm sure of it."
--Freddie Mercury, "Queen: Live at Wembley, '86"

Ten minutes later, in sickbay, Chris stood over the mostly
paralyzed Buma that had once been Katie Tanner, holding a
datajack in his left hand. The cord on it led to the cybermodem
in Chris's CVR armor's right arm.
As the Buma's red eyes glared malevolently up at him, Chris
said, "Don't worry, Katie. This will only hurt a little bit."
The Buma snarled as he slid the plug into a jack behind its ear.
He hit the "go" switch and dropped into unreality.
There they were. There was Chris, there was Katie Tanner,
there was a gleaming electric-blue Buma icon. Chris's
subconscious mind automatically translated the scene into images
his conscious mind could comprehend, so what he saw was Katie
Tanner, nearly naked, strapped to what looked like an electronic
version of some sort of medieval torture rack. The Buma hovered
nearby, between her and him, at one moment a gleaming cybernetic
monstrosity, at the next a jumble of electronic circuitry and
geometric planes, with two red eyes staring out at Chris from
within.
"Ah, so THAT'S how it's gonna be, eh?" Chris remarked.
"Well, come on. Come and take me." He rezzed up a Demon utility
he'd written himself--a combination of Armor, Shield, and several
types of attack programs. It rezzed into the shape of a DVR-152
Battler II Cyclone all around him.
The Buma leaped, swinging a neon blue energy blade at him.
Chris parried, and fired a virtual plasma minimissile in
response. It knocked bhe Buma several feet back, orange drops of
virtual circulatory fluid/data spraying out of the wounds and
flashing briefly into 0s and 1s before rezzing out. "Eat errors,
program!"
The Buma electronically snarled, and tried again. It fired
a bombardment of minimissiles from its chest that Chris managed
to avoid. In response, he fired his arm cannons to pierce the
Buma's arms and legs. Enraged, the Buma tried a different
tactic.
It moved over to where Katie hung unconscious from the
manacles, and superimposed itself over her, vanishing except for
a series of blue lines and plates that surrounded her body, and a
red haze over Katie's still-closed eyes.
The the shackles vanished, and Katie, eyes still closed,
moved in to attack him. Even as Chris dodged, he knew he
couldn't fight back. The Buma was using Katie's own mind to
attack him, and if he counterattacked, he could very well kill
her, too.
"Aaaah!" Chris screamed as one of Katie/Buma's attacks hit
home. "Katie, NO!!!"
Was it his imagination, or had Katie's eyelids twitched
slightly? "Katie, stop it!" He jumped aside as an energy blast
from her palm barely missed him. "Katie, wake up! Stop
attacking me, attack the Buma! Fight, dammit, FIGHT!"
Katie's eyes snapped open, then widened. She started to
throw a punch, missed, stopped. "What the hell...?" Katie drew
back, struggled, then fell backward, out of the electric-blue
lines and plates.
"Die, damn you!" Chris's virtual Cyclone fired all 12 chest
minimissiles at the same time that Katie Tanner fired energy
blasts from her palms. Caught in the middle, the Buma
disentigrated in a dazzling shower of VR special effects.
Chris jacked out, retracted the cable back into its sheath
in the CVR's right arm. "Katie? Can you hear me?"
"Unhhhhhh..." The moan sounded eerie, an electronically-
filtered version of Katie's voice. "What happened? Where am I?
I--I can't feel anything!" The red eyes glanced anxiously back
and forth, taking in the worried faces of Chris and the medtechs.
Then down, at her prone metal body.
"Katie, I--I'm not sure how to tell you this, but...you're
apparently in the body of a Buma. I don't know how it
happened--must have been during the mission. You were attacked,
do you remember?"
"I--I think I do." The memories came--falling off the
cliff--the Buma--the metal tentacles--***PAIN***--the curious
cold feeling of metal all inside her, cold, icy, pressing against
her skin from the inside--a red haze--shooting the
pilot--shooting Chris--fighting pfloyd. "My god, that pilot! I
killed him!"
"No you didn't," Chris reassured her.
"That's right." Jenna appeared at the other side of the
bed. "He's a Detian, he'll be fine."
"That's one thing to be thankful for," Chris sighed.
"Dammit, Largo's gonna pay for this, and pay HARD."
"Right now, we have to worry about Katie," Jenna said.
"What can we do?" Chris asked. "I know Omega-2 can work
miracles, but even it has its limits."
"Precisely," Edison Bell said, striding into sickbay.
"Which is why we have the BioSculpt tanks. It will take a few
months, but we will be able to regrow Katie Tanner's body,
without a doubt."
"Great! Let's get started!" Chris said.
"First I'll have to run a few preliminary tests," Jenna
said, detaching the cylindrical probe from a medical tricorder
and running it along Katie's cranium. She punched some keypads,
took another reading.
"Hurry," Chris said. "I want her back in her body and back
on her feet ASAP."
"For that matter, so do I," Katie remarked in a feeble
attempt at humor.

<<<Kansas, "Hold On">>>

And so Jenna ran her tests while Katie lay paralyzed on the
table. Edison Bell was in and out, making sure that Katie was
all right, checking other patients, and just generally being
inscrutable. Chris talked to Katie, trying to keep her spirits
up.
Katie hovered on the edge of hysteria in her paralysis.
Suddenly her own body--everything she felt, everything she sensed
from it--was GONE. Taken away and replaced with this cold,
metal--thing. She couldn't even move it, it was so damaged. Her
vision was strange, grainy, red-tinted--she was seeing through
Buma optics. Her hearing was similarly odd, and she couldn't
FEEL anything.
Chris sensed this and kept up a constant stream of words,
giving Katie something to focus on, to hold onto to keep from
falling into the abyss. It was his fault this had happened, and
he wasn't going to let her slip completely away, for if he did,
he was afraid that she wouldn't come back again.
They talked about whatever came into Chris's head; the
conversation rambled all over. Chris kept casting furtive
glances at Jenna, who was working as fast as she could,
medicorder in one hand, entering data into the medicomp with her
other. Though the conversation rambled, not once did Chris say
what was on his mind: the three simple words, "I love you." He
felt he SHOULD, but he just couldn't bring himself to say them.
And somewhere in the depths of her hysteria-clouded mind, Katie
sensed this, and felt that it was all right. She knew the way
he felt about her, and she felt the same way.
Chris didn't know how long he stayed by her side. He did
know that he had more than five cups of coffee throughout the
ordeal, and had to use his CVR's waste-disposal facilities twice.
Meanwhile, Jenna and her med-techs scurried here and there,
setting up equipment, tending to the wounded, and carrying out
their other duties.
As Chris and Katie talked, wall monitors blinked on and
there was some sort of shipwide announcement by MegaZone. Chris
was too worried about Katie to pay any attention at all to it,
though.
But what DID get his attention was when explosions rocked
the ship, several minutes later. "What the HELL?!" Chris gasped,
holding onto Katie's Buma body to keep it from sliding off the
stretcher onto the floor.
"We're under attack!" Jenna announced. "Evacuate everyone
to the lifepods!" Interns and nurses scrambled, detaching
life-support leads, replacing them with portable units, then
shoving the stretchers out the doors.
A few minutes later, most of the stretchers had been moved
out. The explosions were stil going on. Edison Bell, on his way
to the elevator, stepped in. "Why are you still here?" Edison
asked.
"It's Katie--her body," Chris said. "We can't--"
"No, you can't, can you? Jenna, you get to the lifepods.
Your patients need you; I'll handle this."
"Uh, right." There was no need for argument; Jenna knew from
past experience that when Edison said he was going to handle
something, he WOULD handle it, come hell, high water, or Eris
herself. She gave Katie Tanner one last doubtful look, then
turned and ran.
"What are you going to do?" Chris asked.
Edison adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose. "I'm
going to see if I can't solve your problem." He started pulling
equipment out of his coat pockets and, working rapidly, put it
together and activated some of it. First, he set up a small box
next to Katie's head and turned it on. A glowing blue field
shimmered into being around her head.
"What's that?" Chris asked, reaching toward it.
"Sterilization field," Edison remarked. "Don't touch."
Chris jerked his hand back as if stung. Edison continued
working, pulling on special gloves and reaching through to start
undoing catches on the Buma's skull.
"What are you doing?!" Katie asked, a touch of panic in her
electronically-filtered voice.
"Don't worry, m'dear. I'm saving your life." The ship
lurched again. "Damn!" Edison pulled out another device,
pressed the side. The ship stopped shaking, at least in their
viscinity.
"Temporal stasis field," Edison said, forestalling Chris's
next unasked question. "It will only hold for...mmm, three and a
half minutes, so I had better get to work."
"You'll get no argument from me," Chris said.
"Good." Edison worked so fast his hands were almost blurs.
explaining what he was doing as he did it. "It is obvious that
this body cannot be salvaged without a great deal of work, work
for which we definitely do not have the time. Therefore, I am
putting together a transport unit, within which Katie's brain
will be able to survive." Chris noted the absense of such
adverbs as "probably" or "hopefully." Edison spoke with absolute
certainty.
"I--I'm scared," Katie said.
"That's only natural," Edison said, connecting some piping.
"It is a frightening idea. But rest assured that this procedure
does work. The mere fact that I am here now is itself evidence
of that. And I have performed this same procedure countless
times. There is absolutely nothing for you to be worried about."
Bell continued to work, putting together a container about
the size of a large gasoline canister. About half of it was
taken up by a system of miniature pipes and electromechanical
parts. "Nutrient fluid recirculator," Edison said, pointing.
"For life support. Oxygenator here, replicator interface
port--connect this to a replicator feed for automatic nutrient
replenishment..." Edison checked his watch. "Egad, there's no
time left. Katie, I'm going to anesthetize you for the transfer.
If either of you have anything you'd like to say, best make it
quick."
Chris gulped. He knew there was only one thing he COULD
say. "Katie, I--I love you. And I always will."
"I love you too, Chris," Katie replied, putting all the
emotion into her voice that her metallic face could not convey.
She looked at Edison Bell, gritted her metallic teeth. "Okay, do
it."
Edison did. "Say g'night, Katie..." Chris whispered to
himself. Then Edison performed the transfer, using a special
levitation system that moved the brain without damaging it. He
finished, and sealed the brainbox (as Chris mentally referred to
it). He picked it up by a handle in the top and handed it to
Chris.
"Now get out of here. The stasis field is almost spent.
Get to your fighter and get out as fast as you can."
Chris nodded. "Thanks, Edison." Then he was gone.
Edison checked his watch again, just as the small stasis
generator shorted out and exploded in a shower of sparks. He
then ran for the turbolift, hoping that this hadn't made him too
late.
It had.

<<<Eve, "Tell Me the Secret">>>

Chris dashed down the corridor as explosions shook the ship.
Eve was on every wall screen he passed, singing "Tell Me the
Secret." It was about then that it finally sank in. This was
it. No, not just it. This was IT. The ship was dying. The WDF
had lost. Everyone was fleeing. The woman he loved now resided
in the small canister under his left arm. It was all so UNREAL.
Life had gone from Normality (whatever that meant) to Very
Seriously Fucked Up in a very short time.
Chris turned the corridor into his workshop/hangar. Pausing
only at his desk to snatch the case of flopticals and isolinear
chips that contained his entire technical library, he dashed for
where the CONSTELLATION sat, unmoved, on the launchpad, its
ventral access hatch still hanging open from when he'd replaced
some burnt-out components earlier in the day. Everything else
was scattered all about, but the Valk was still there and in one
piece.
Chris ran up to the Valk, set the brainbox carefully down,
reached up to close the panel, when a thought struck him. Though
he'd never actually installed a computer intelligence in his
Valkyrie, he had provided that section of the fighter which it
would occupy (and which currently contained all the
CONSTELLATION's other flight computer equipment) with superior
protection to even the cockpit. Micronized inertial dampers,
microgravity generators, additional armor, and the like. He did
NOT want his computers taking any hits in the middle of combat.
The neural-net machine intelligence had never been
installed...the empty space was big enough to hold the box, there
was a conduit that connected right to the minireplicator...it was
the safest place in the entire fighter...
Chris reached up and mag-clamped the brainbox into place,
connecting the replicator feed into the conduit, noticing as he
did so a neural output jack in the bottom of it. And this jack
was the same configuration as the input jack leading to the
optical primary processor.
Chris never knew what made him do it, but some insane impulse
caused him to reach out and jack the lead from the computer
directly into the plug on the braincase. Then he closed the
panel.
As he climbed into the cockpit, Chris wondered, as he was to
wonder many times in years to come, just what the hell he'd done
that for. "Hey, it's designed for neural-net intelligence,"
Chris told himself. "And that's what the human brain IS, right?
A neural net. It'll be just like jacking in."
Or would it? Chris wondered. All the Cybertronian tech in
this bird...sometimes it was hard to be sure.
Chris pulled on his helmet, powered up the Valk, pulled the
jack plug out of his arm compartment automatically...then
stopped. What might happen if he jacked into a computer with a
human brain wired directly into it? It could have all sorts of
undesirable consequences, both for himself and for Katie Tanner.
He decided not to chance it; after all, he could fly it
unaugmented.
Pulling up the flight computer display, all Chris could see
was a lot of 0s and 1s. "Katie?" No response. "Looks like I'll
be flying on manual for a while," Chris reflected. "No prob, I
can deal." He flipped the switch to open the outward egress.
Nothing happened.
"Okay..." Chris reached under the seat, pulled out a small
box with a button in the middle, rather like a garage door
opener, and pressed it. KA-THWAM! The panel was blown outward,
and a lot of stuff from Chris's workshop was sucked into space.
Chris fired the thrusters, and the CONSTELLATION went with it.
Chris looked back one last time at the ship that had been
his off and on home for around 265 years all told, and held back
tears. Then he turned back ahead. It was time to look toward
the future.

<<<Eve, "Tell Me the Secret">>>
<<<fades into>>>
<<<Kansas, "Carry On Wayward Son">>>

But despite himself, Chris Carry on my wayward son
found himself looking back at the
ship as it floated above the planet There'll be peace when
Musashi, wreathed in silent you are done
explosions. There was a huge gap
in its hull where the Wedge had Lay your weary head to rest
once rested; it had now detached
itself to serve as an escape craft. Don't you cry no more
Floating nearby was the source of
the gunfire, a HUGE Imperial super
star destroyer.
And then the WAYWARD SON's <<first instrumental bridge>>
engines came on! It blasted
straight toward the star destroyer,
pinpoint barriers directed to the
front. Chris held his breath as it
crashed through the globular shield
surrounding the destroyer, then
INTO the destroyer itself! Chris
realized what was going to happen
and kicked in full boosters to get
away as rapidly as possible.
There was a series of
explosions, ending in one huge
immolation, and Chris closed his
eyes against the brilliance.
And then...all was silent. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Chris looked around. It was Once I rose above the noise
over. SON and destroyer had and confusion
separated, and both fell, charred,
smoking, and partly melted, toward Just to get a glimpse beyond
the planet Musashi. It was the end this illusion
of an era, and all Chris could
think was to wonder why his eyes I was soaring ever higher
were dry.
He checked the instruments, But I flew too high
determined his position. 47,100
miles from Musashi's surface. He
wondered if he should try to land.
"At least I can still see." Though my eyes could see I
That reminded him. He checked still was a blind man
sensors. They seemed to be
working, but he still wasn't
picking anything up. Must have
been fritzed by the explosions. He
hoped they'd come back on.
Chris felt a cold anger come Though my mind could think
into his mind. "Damn you Largo, I I still was a madman
don't know how, or even if I'll be
the one to do it, but somehow,
someday...you'll pay for all this."
He checked the flight I hear the voices when I'm
computer. No luck. Still 0s and dreaming
1s. "I hope you're okay in there,
Katie," he muttered. I can hear them say...
Chris closed his eyes for a
moment, but the sight of the
WAYWARD SON plunging into the star
destroyer replayed itself the
instant he did. Carry on my wayward son
"All right, dammit..." Chris
muttered. "What now...what?!" There'll be peace when
Green laser blasts streaked over you are done
the canopy. Chris checked six.
Imperial-type TIE fighters. Oh, Lay your weary head to rest
for yay. Life just didn't get any
better than this. Don't you cry no more
They must have been launched
before the destruction of the big
ship, Chris thought. They must be
looking for survivors. Dammit,
flight computer or no flight
computer, I'm not going to let them
have any of ours.
Chris considered. Even though
the main flight computer was not
functional right now, the
subprocessors were. And one of
them was the ECM system. "Let's
see if I can mask us as one of
them." He called up the program on
the port commscreen, made some
adjustments...there. Special radar Masquerading as a man with a
emitters throughout the body of the reason
CONSTELLATION started pulsing
signals of varying intensities and My charade is the event of the
frequencies. The purpose was to season
distort the radar image of the
CONSTELLATION into resembling the
radar image of a TIE fighter. In
this way, Chris hoped, he could
sneak up on them.
Chris brought his fighter
around, down, and in. He was
coming up on two of the TIEs'
sixes. He was just congratulating And if I claim to be a wise man
himself upon the tactical
effectiveness of his plan...and It surely means that I don't
then they broke and turned on him. know
"Guess I'm not so smart as I
thought," Chris muttered.
The CONSTELLATION was On a stormy sea of gloom and
buffeted by shots from TIE lasers. emotion
Chris ducked and dodged as best he
could, but was getting severely Tossed about I'm like a ship
shaken up. "I hope those inertial on the ocean
dampers are working right..."
Status checks showed they were.
"Good. Katie's not feeling any of
this."
Chris looked around, dodged I set a course for winds of
more lasers. "They're trying to fortune
box me in." He looked around,
spied a way out, and went for it. But I hear the voices say
The lasers followed him.
Then the CONSTELLATION flipped
over, went to Gerwalk, and started Carry on my wayward son
hosing TIEs with its pulse lasers.
"Hah! This is a LOT easier than There'll be peace when
the game!" you are done
But more TIEs came in from
behind Chris, and despite that fact Lay your weary head to rest
that they basically sucked, they
did have the advantage of numbers. Don't you cry no more
Chris went to Battroid and took
them down with his rifle, dodging
their cannons and even punching <<second instrumental bridge>>
through the canopies of a few of
them for variety.
But still they came. Chris
dogfought them all over the sky, in
all Valkyrie modes. "This'd be a
hell of a lot easier if I had a
wingman or three..."
Then there they were, eight
Super Valkyries coming in out of
nowhere. "This is Zebra One
calling CONSTELLATION. Planetfall
to Mako, do you copy?"
Chris let out a whoop. "Zebra
flight! All RIGHT!!! Join up, and
let's do it!"
As they flew together, taking Carry on!
on all remaining fighters with all
their weapons, Chris let himself You will always remember
remember for just a moment all the
good times they'd had flying Carry on!
together, when he had been the
leader of Zebra Flight and What can equal the splendor?
afterward.
But only for a moment. That Now your life's no longer empty
time was gone forever, and he had
too much to worry about to let Surely heaven waits for you!
himself live in the past.

At last there were no more
bogies on the scopes. Chris con-
tacted Planetfall on his commline.
"Survivors are rendezvousing with
the DAEDALUS and PROMETHEUS on the
dark side of Musashi's main moon,"
Planetfall said over the tightbeam.
"You coming?"
Chris shook his head. "I've
got warpdrive, remember? I'm go-
ing to make for somewhere outsys- Carry on my wayward son
tem, maybe Meizuri or Utopia Plan-
itia. I don't know. Maybe that's There'll be peace when
where Gryphon and Zoner are. I you are done
have no idea what's going on, or
how the WDF is going to recover Lay your weary head to rest
from it, but I don't think it's
going to be the same for a long, Don't you cry
long time."
"Roger, Mako." Planetfall Don't you cry no more!
saluted. "We'll be seeing you."
Chris nodded, a lump coming
to his throat. "Goodbye, and may <<Third instrumental bridge
the Force be with you." He and fadeout>>
switched off and vectored away,
engaging the warpdrive. The blue
glow flared all around the CON- No more!
STELLATION, and then it was gone.

EPILOGUE

"Don't give me wings and take away my sky."
--Nona Hendryx, "Women Who Fly"

The CONSTELLATION dropped out of warp a safe distance away
from the planet, and Chris removed his CVR helmet and wiped his
brow. He then set about checking over the damage to his ship.
The CONSTELLATION had taken several direct hits by TIE
lasers during the battle. The Salusian shield was out again
(pretty damn useful, that shield...stopped an average of 1.3
shots from anything heavy before exploding. Gotta fix that
someday...), and there were several chunks of armor missing all
over the ship. Nothing crucial, though, and the area where
Katie's brain was snugly nestled hadn't even been touched.
Chris checked the flight computer again. Still just 0s and
1s, scrolling ever upward in no discernable pattern. "Oh, hell,"
Chris muttered. "She's probably still unconscious or something.
I guess I'll have to go in and wake her up." He jacked in, hit
the "go" button, and reality fell away.
The nonplace where Chris found himself was inky black, warm,
and soundless. He could somehow feel the familiar
response-overlays of the Valkyrie, but they were distant.
Between him and them was something else, which Chris somehow knew
had to be Katie Tanner.
Chris assayed a brief mental probe. *Katie?* he sent. *Are
you there?*
*Unnnngh...* He felt the moan, even sensed the feelings of
disorientation at some level. He pulled his perceptions back,
not wanting to interfere with her while she was still coming to.
Katie slowly woke up. The first thing she noticed was that
she was feeling things again. Was she in a new body? Yes...and
no, she decided. It felt...different. She opened her eyes, and
found herself looking out the gun camera on the bottom of a
Valkyrie.
THAT was it, THAT was what it felt like...like rigging a
Valk. Almost. There wasn't the smooth, artificial feeling of
being in control via cyberjack. This felt different...ALIVE,
almost.
Katie tried to pull her senses out of the Valkyrie, back
into her meat body--but she couldn't. *Where...where AM I?*
*Katie?*
Startled, Katie fired a brief spurt from the boosters. (If
she'd been in a human body, she would have jumped.) *Chris?* she
managed.
*I'm here,* his mental "voice" said, with an emotional
undertone of calmness that Katie could somehow sense. *Don't
worry.*
*Chris?* Katie transmitted. *Where AM I?*
Chris floated there in the virtual void, seeing what Katie
was seeing from the CONSTELLATION's camera. *Katie...you're
inside the CONSTELLATION. Or, more precisely, you ARE the
CONSTELLATION. I connected your brain up to the main processor.
It was the only way.*
*The only way?! The only way for WHAT?!* Her thoughts
sounded slightly hysterical.
*It was the safest choice. The internal compartment of the
CONSTELLATION has the best shielding, inertial damping, and
gravitics of the entire ship. You can't be hurt in there. If
you'd been in the cockpit, who knows what might have happened to
you?*
*And it was just COINCIDENCE that the neural jacks matched,*
Katie shot back caustically. *You always wanted an AI for your
precious CONSTELLATION. Now it seems like I'm it!*
*Would you rather I left you unplugged, deaf, dumb, blind?*
Chris asked. *You'd slowly be going insane right now, trust me.*
Katie had no reply to that. *Anyway, it's only temporary. If we
can get somewhere with an advanced medical facility, we can get
you a new body.*
Chris was glad that he hadn't let the guilt he was actually
feeling slip through over the link. He really didn't know
whether his decision had been right or wrong. HAD he plugged her
in simply because he wanted an AI and she was "available"? Chris
didn't like to THINK he was that callous, but it was possible,
wasn't it?
Katie Tanner mentally sighed. Regardless, there was nothing
she could do about it now. And it could be worse, couldn't it?
She had sensation again. In fact, she could even feel pain from
several areas. The Valk had taken some damage, apparently. And
that reminded her.
*Where's the WAYWARD SON?* Katie asked. *What happened to
it?*
*Destroyed,* Chris said bitterly. *It and an Imperial-class
super star destroyer destroyed each other, and a large part of
the planet Musashi, too.*
Katie would have gasped, had she facilities with which to
gasp. Destroyed?! How could it be? Who had done it? What
would become of the WDF?
Chris sensed her worries. *Don't worry about it. The WDF
is regrouping behind Musashi's moon. What they're going to do
next, I don't know. We're not joining them, because we have warp
power. We're going to go find out--*
He didn't finish the statement, as the Valk took several
direct laser hits, including a couple through Chris's
recently-healed right side. "Gaaaah!" he screamed, coughing up
some blood. "TIEs!"
Katie felt similar pain. *I'm on them,* she sent over the
link, turning to face the enemy. She'd rigged her own Valkyrie
countless times; actually BEING it was actually quite similar.
Even better, in fact. She snap-rolled to avoid more enemy fire,
then ran a quick scan on the targets. The tricorders in Chris's
cockpit began beeping.
The two Twin Ion Engine interceptors had probably been
dispatched as an advance recon patrol for the attack. Now they
were making a dive at this lone Valkyrie, undoubtedly thinking it
an easy kill. Two phaser beams lanced out from the Valk's
booster/warp nacelles to tell them they were wrong.
The battle over, Katie ran a quick diagnostic. Some more
laser damage, that's nice...uh-oh. The cockpit had been
penetrated, though the self-sealant had closed the hole already.
*Chris? Are you all right?*
"No, I'm NOT all right," Chris said, unable to concentrate
over the link because of the pain. "I'm pretty seriously--KOFF,
KOFF--injured. I think I'm--KOFF--looking at a week or so of
downtime while the Omega-2 works on this." Chris's left hand
reached up and engaged the emergency medical life-support systems
built into the CVR armor. It started pumping painkillers into
him, somewhat dulling the agony. "Activating emergency medical
systems--KOFF, KOFF--and IVs. I'll stay jacked in so you can
monitor my vitals." Chris collapsed back against the accel
couch.
*Wait--what am I supposed to do?!* Katie asked, worried and
confused.
"You have--KOFF--control, Katie...take us somewhere...I
trust you. Good night...and I love you..." As Chris drifted
off, she caught a brief flash of guilt as his mental shields went
down. It made her feel just a little bit better, she supposed.
Then why did she have this sudden desire to comfort him?

So, Chris lay unconscious in the cockpit of the
CONSTELLATION. Katie looked at him through the video pickups in
the Valkyrie's multi-function panel displays. He was all bloody,
and his armor was shattered in places and had holes through it in
others. His face was pale, with a trail of bloody spittle
hanging from his lips. He looked pretty bad.
But from the biomonitors in Chris's armor, Katie could tell
that he was getting better. The Omega-2 would need time to work,
but it would do the job. Now Katie had to see about what she
could do for herself.
After running through her options, which were few, Katie
convinced herself that she should go to Utopia Planitia.
Something told her that anyone who still had warp drive would
return there. And there were the best medical facilities and
medical minds in the cosmos--she could find help for both Chris
and herself!
It was only a week away at maximum warp. Katie figured the
course, locked it in, and engaged warpdrive. The CONSTELLATION
hovered there in space for a moment, then the drive nacelles
glowed blue and it slingshotted forward, off toward a distant
star. Everything would be all right, in time. Katie knew that.

<<<Kenny Rogers, "Evening Star>>>

If you never rode west of Produced and Directed
The Arizona border by Chris Meadows
You can turn the other way, boy
But you never get far Technical Advisors: Gryphon,
You'll be livin' a lie MegaZone, PCHammer, pfloyd
If you wanna see the wonders of
the age Continuity Checking:
You must follow MegaZone, Gryphon
The evening star
Stress Relief:
Evening star Animaniacs
Shine a little heaven on a Cadillacs and Dinosaurs
stranger with no dream Eek the Cat/Thunder Lizards
Where you are Outlanders
You can see the loneliness I mean Tiny Toon Adventures
And if I gotta fight, I can never Transformers Generation 2
play somebody else's game Comic Book
I can follow the evening star
(Starlight, you never need some- Animation Studios:
body else's name) Tokyo Movie Shinsha
If you follow the evening star Toei
Spectrum
Have you ever known a sunset
When the sky is on fire Special Effects:
How you end another day, boy Academic Gloom and Mundanity,
You'll be searching too far Inc.
Like the desert I rode on
Any memory is lost in the Editor: Qedit v2.15 (available
restless wind at better shareware BBSes
I just lie beneath everywhere)
The evening star
Future Editor: Qedit v3.0,
Evening star available for shareware by early
Shine a little heaven on a next year. Don't miss it--I sure
stranger with no dream won't!
Where you are
You can see the loneliness I mean Special Thanks To:
And if I gotta fight, I can never alt.toys.transformers
play somebody else's game The Bettman Archive
I can follow the evening star British-AnimeTech, Inc.
(Starlight, you never need some- Casio Watches
body else's name) Cybertron Film Commission
If you follow the evening star Dave Deitrich
Dave Van Domeln/RoboMACs
Have you ever held a woman ExoSalusia Firearms
In the California moonlight Musashi Historical
Put your money on a good night Preservation Society
If you've never been there Palladium Books
It's a sight for sore eyes The Robotech ListServer
If you wanna see the wonders of Semware
the age The Smithsonian Institute
Making love beneath The Superguy ListServer
The evening star Utopia Planitia Film
Commission
Evening star Wedge Defense Force
Shine a little heaven on a Historical Archive
stranger with no dream
Where you are And an Extra-Special Hack of the
You can see the loneliness I mean Year Award to:
And if I gotta fight, I can never Transformers Generation 2, the
play somebody else's game cartoon that never should
I can follow the evening star have been (or at the very
(Starlight, you never need some- least, should have been a
body else's name) whole lot better).
If you follow the evening star Manny Galan, the Transformers
(Starlight, you never need some- Generation 2 artist who never
body else's name) should have been.
If you follow the evening star Mighty Morphing Power Rangers,
the only live-action TV show
that uses the tie-in toys as
Don't miss the further adventures the actual special-effect
of Chris "Mako" Meadows and models.
friends, as they are continued in
Hammer Time III by Martin Rose Written On-Location on the SDF-17,
and Chris Meadows! Stay tuned, the MAGNUM CARTEL, and at various
UF fans! locations in deep space.

SOUNDTRACK (in order of appearance)
They Might Be Giants, "See the Constellation" (Apollo 18)
"Rick Hunter Theme" (Robotech Perfect Collection Soundtrack)
The Ventures, "Walk--Don't Run" (Play the Hits)
INXS, "Suicide Blonde" (X)
Talking Heads, "Psycho Killer (Live)" (Stop Making Sense)
Kansas, "Hold On" (The Best of Kansas)
Eve, "Tell Me the Secret" (Megazone 23 Vocal Collection)
Kansas, "Carry On Wayward Son" (The Best of Kansas)
Kenny Rogers, "Evening Star" (Eyes That See in the Dark)

APPENDIX: EXPLANATION OF OBSCURE REFERENCES

Okay. I guess you're confused. Well, I'll try to explain
some of the obscure references in here that are mine originally.
(I won't explain all of them, 'cuz the humor kind of goes out of
a joke when it's explained away...) However, I won't mention
those that come from other Undocumented Features stories, nor
will I mention the ones from Universe Part 1. I would advise you
read Undocumented Features 1, 2, and the first part of 3, as well
as One Vision, Hammer Time 1 and 2, and The Universe According to
Chris Part 1. They should explain a lot. (Heck, I'd recommend
you read ALL of UF, but the above are the only ones with a direct
bearing on this part of the story.)
So here, in order of their appearance in the story, are most
of the obscure references, anime and otherwise, that I've used.

Fokker Feint: An aerobatic maneuver for Valkyries described in
the Robotech TV series and novels.

LUSITANIA: A passenger liner from World War I, sunk by the
Germans because it was allegedly carrying contraband weapons.
[As dives on the wreck were later to reveal, it actually was.]

DOYCHA, GAULA: Germany and France, with somewhat altered names
and locations. I was just playing around with World War I,
basically.

ATLANTIA: Great Britain, the United States, or a mixture of both.
Secretly supporting Gaula.

Captain Farrago, Hrethrraao, the MAGNUM CARTEL: Standard
Smuggler, Wookiee, and Corellian Stock Light Freighter from the
Star Wars Role-Playing Game (West End Games).

"the Money Lane": From the Han Solo novels by Brian Daley, the
Money Lane is the area around the rim of the MILLENIUM FALCON (or
any other Corellian Stock Light Freighter) that both guns can be
brought to bear on. Han Solo and Chewbacca had a constant
contest going, wherein whoever shot fewer targets in that area
would pay the difference in hundreds of credits to whoever shot
more targets.

Salusian Scientist played by Brian Keith: In one of the better
episodes of the first season of DEEP SPACE NINE, Brian Keith
played a Bajoran settler who was the bane of Major Kira's
existance. I enjoyed this portrayal so much that I gave him a
guest appearance in the story (though this time he got to annoy
Yuri).

-----END OF FILE-----

--
Chris Meadows | If you are a Transformer, the worst possible
CHM173S@SMSVMA | fate you could ever hope for would be to be
CHM...@VMA.SMSU.EDU | drawn by Manny Galan. Or to be eaten
CMEA...@NYX.CS.DU.EDU | by Unicron. Either way, you're mangled
CMEA...@NOX.CS.DU.EDU | beyond all recognition.