[Fanfic] [UF/FI] TWILIGHT Second Seal: Overture

[Benjamin D. Hutchins]

Rear Admiral Kristan Overstreet, commander of the armed forces
of the Confederate Freespacers Alliance, smiled as he walked through
the door into Washuu's lab. Tonight, through some miracle, he'd
actually caught up on the immense mound of paperwork his job
entailed. He'd even managed to send off a new "Love Note" to his
personal abuse magnet, the Enigma Sector chief for GENOM, Dr. Lawrence
Mann.
Both Washuu and Rianna asked him to lay off Dr. Mann, but Kris
persisted; it suited his very ill humor most of the time, and the rest
of the time there was truth to the vitriol he dealt out. In any case,
he still held a grudge against GENOM -- two years before, in the war
against the megacorp, the GENOM main combat fleet had annihilated the
Freespacer forces, leaving only a tiny fragment to gain a measure of
revenge at Zeta Cygni.
But that was in the past now, and despite the hell he'd gone
through in those two weeks, Kris could not regret all their
consequences. The price was high, far too high - over twenty thousand
dead in an insignificant skirmish - but in the aftermath he'd
discovered that he deeply, truly loved Washuu Hakubi, the mad
scientist who had shared most of his life since he'd left Earth way,
way back in 1996.
And tonight, Kris vowed, they would finally have a _date._
In his pocket Kris carried two hard-earned tickets to the play
_The Taming of the Shrew_ - one of Washuu's favorite Shakespearean
comedies - being performed in New Avalon's open-air amphitheatre.
After the play, he had reservations to a private table in his favorite
Chinese restaurant, and last and most importantly, he had in his hands
a bouquet of flowers and chocolates, true to cliche, just to suit
Washuu's peculiar sense of humor. Tonight, Kris thought, tonight
we'll make our engagement mean something.
The workstation near the main lab door in the lab's cavernous
'foyer' sat unoccupied for once, totally unoccupied by any child-sized
redheaded mad scientist. Kris walked past Washuu's favorite cushion to
the main examination area. There, sitting by a table with a poker deck
and chips, dealer's visor perched in her bright red spiky hair, Washuu
watched a steaming tub of water with apparent expectation. Beside her
sat a half-gallon tub of butter nut pecan ice cream, a thin skin of
condensation forming on the Ever-Cool container.
"Um, Washuu, what's going on?" Kris asked. "Are you doing
something tonight?" Please, he thought, please say no.
"She's late," Washuu mumbled, not turning to face him.
"Who's late?" Kris asked.
"Skuld."
"Who?"
"Skuld Ravenhair, Goddess of the Future," Washuu said flatly.
"Um.... I didn't hear that properly," Kris replied. One of his
favorite hobbies in school had been Norse mythology, and if he
remembered correctly, Washuu referred to the goddess of the future - a
Norse goddess who, according to legend, tended the WorldTree Yggdrasil
with her sisters Verthandi and Urdur...
...or Washuu was pulling his chain, which happened more often
than not.
"Skuld. Patron Goddess of Techno-Geeks and Hacker Supreme.
Debugger of the Universe, Beloved of Engineers, and Hell on Ice Cream.
Once a month we get together for a card game and bull session. She's a
full hour late." When Washuu turned to face Kris, her expression bore
no trace of the usual suppressed mischief; she was deadly serious..
"Um... Skuld. The _goddess_ Skuld." Kris took a couple of deep
breaths, then managed to say, "Washuu, you just told me a _goddess_
comes over once a month to eat ice cream, play poker, and discuss the
Secrets of the Universe."
"Nope, she refuses to tell me the Secrets," Washuu said,
smiling wryly. "I tried begging her once for just a scrap of the
Universal Source Code, what they call block-transfer maths, and she
laughed. Said I was close enough that I'd figure it out for myself
soon. No, we gossip about men, usually." The smile vanished, and
Washuu sighed, "I suppose there's no choice. I'll have to call the
Hotline."
"The what?"
"The Goddess Relief Office Hotline. I have it on speed-dial,"
Washuu said. Pulling out an old-style manual touch-tone telephone, she
punched in *777. She waited patiently as the call connected; then,
with a growl of frustration, she slammed the phone back on its cradle.
"Dammit, no answer," she growled. "I should have gotten an
answer. I should at _least_ have gotten their voice-mail. But a notice
from Federated Bell that the number is no longer in service?" With an
angry wave of her hand, she called up a holographic terminal and began
typing furiously. "Something is very wrong," she said to Kris, "and if
Skuld is in the normal universe, I will find her. I just hope
something bad isn't happening to her."
Kris' mind reeled. "Um... just how did you meet a goddess? I
mean, you didn't hack into Asgard or something by mistake, did you?"
"Don't blaspheme," Washuu muttered. "Do you remember, back in,
oh, 2149 or so? When I vanished for a while while you were serving in
the Galactica Assembly?"
"Yeah, that was one of your longest disappearances ever.
About two years," Kris said. "Where did you go?"
"Tomodachi colony," Washuu said. "I'd detected some odd things
there, and I decided to investigate in person. If you'll check my
resume, you'll note I taught freshman and sophomore level general
sciences at the Nekomi Institute of Technology. I met Belldandy
there, during one of my classes - Verthandi is the name in legend, but
Belldandy is what she goes by in Standard-speaking communities now -
and I tracked them down to their home... and I never made it in the
gate.
"For some reason, I couldn't open a lab door inside their
home. When I tried to call, my calls were mysteriously blocked. I
tried _everything_ in my power to get in. Something was protecting
that place, and I was determined to find out what.
"Then, one day while I was grading exam papers, this
thirteen-year-old girl walks into my classroom- or so she appeared. I
wasn't fooled for a moment - she wasn't thirteen any more than I
was. As a simple test, I tried 'porting in a bucketful of water by
pocketspace above her head.
"I got drenched."
Kris stared as Washuu stared intently at the terminal's
monitor, fingers still typing furiously. "You mean she put one over on
you?"
"One? Ha!" Washuu grinned, typing even faster. "I went right
down my entire bag of tricks. They all backfired. Everything. Finally,
she said, 'That was fun! My turn now!' and she proceeded to
smoke-bomb, cream-pie, and wedgie me into complete surrender - without
laying a finger on me herself. She did it all with these strange mecha
- stuff which, according to normal physics, simply couldn't work.
"Then she told me who she was. I tell you, I caught religion
that day. I took every little scrap she would throw my way for those
two years, studied every last clue she would give me. Finally, I had
to admit the truth; it worked for her because it was magic. Simple,
plain, unavoidable, magic.
"In the end, I begged, on my knees, with a truckful of ice
cream behind me, to be taken as her apprentice. Me, the Greatest
Genius Scientist in the Universe, begging to be an apprentice!" Washuu
smiled at the memory. "She said I didn't need it, I was on the verge
myself. 'When you learn to look beyond logic, beyond the
cause-and-effect you know, beyond mathematics... then you will find
the True Code.' After that semester, I returned to you. Ever since,
I've been meeting her now and again, trying to get some sort of clue
as to her power. So far, no luck," she sighed, and she pushed her way
away from the computer.
"Well," she said, "the main lab door is homing on her
location. Thank the Allfather her signature is so distinct, and that
she's so close by." She stood from the poker table, and with a casual
flip of her hand the ice cream, cards and chips, and hot tub vanished
to some pocketspace storage unit. "Now, let's go see what trouble my
goddess is in, to miss an appointment."

Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
presents

UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES FUTURE IMPERFECT
-=TWILIGHT=-

SECOND SEAL: OVERTURE

Benjamin D. Hutchins
Lawrence R. Mann
MegaZone
Kris Overstreet

This particular version of the Norns created by Kosuke Fujishima

The Shadow created by Walter Gibson

(c) 1997 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited

/* Shirley Walker "Main Title" _Batman: Mask of the Phantasm_ */

Gryphon saw Skuld on the rock; saw her strike Fenris with her
hammer and bloody his nose before he struck at her with his massive
foreclaws and knocked it, bloodied, away. It wasn't until he saw it
arch toward him that he realized he was actually in the dream, not an
observer -- not until it fell into the sea and into his hand did he
realize he was under water. With that awareness came others; the cold
and salt; the rushing currents around him. He wore his Griffin armor,
but there was something wrong with it, it was leaking, cold water
pouring in and soaking up his legs, over his body. Skuld's mallet in
his hand sent a shock of power up his arm -- he felt the suit shatter
with a sudden shock of hard coldness -- and he screamed, bubbles
roaring out of his mouth. Blackness came looking for him, creeping
around the edges of his consciousness.
She shrieked his name and he heard through the roaring waters,
and focus returned, banishing the darkness. Suddenly he was flying,
up out of the icy ocean. The mallet in his hand had become his
katana, and his other hand was filled with one of his .45s; their
weight was familiar and reassuring. As he landed firmly on the rocks,
standing over Skuld with his feet planted wide, the darkness of the
night seemed to coalesce around him, cloaking him in heavy cloth of
pure night-black, coat and overcloak that soared like the wings of a
predatory bird in the vicious wind, snapping like a flag. Hat and
scarf materialized from the mists, and he felt himself shift and
become The Shadow. He could feel the biting cold of the Nordic night
lashing at his soaked clothes -- the water in his trousers and in his
hair was beginning to crystallize already.
Not that he particularly had to worry about catching cold
right now, since he was interposing his body between Skuld and the
torrent of venom cascading from Jormungand's open jaws. He closed his
eyes and waited for the indescribable agony to begin... but except for
a rush of wind nothing happened. Opening his eyes, he realized that
something invisible was forming a shield around him, deflecting the
stream away from him and from Skuld below him.
Frustrated and snarling, Jormungand reared back from the
sight; without thinking about it, Gryphon turned, his feet moving with
sure precision on the slick stones, and struck down Fenris as the
latter leaped to attack him. -At the same moment,- The Shadow took
out his second .45 and started blazing away at Jormungand; Gryphon,
caught up in what he was doing, did not notice for a moment that he
seemed to have become two people. The great wolf's head fell from his
body like a split chunk of cordwood as Gryphon, black-clad but not The
Shadow, brought the gleaming blade of his katana down, and then,
turning and leaving a trail of brackish blood from the blade, he
looked back to Jormungand and realized that The Shadow was a separate
person.
The ice congealed in Gryphon's clothing and sealed around him
into a hard, armored shell, and the division was complete. He didn't
really have time to grasp its implications, though.
Standing astride the great serpent's head was a man, tall and
dark-clothed, his face a grinning green mask. He cackled madly, and
thunder roared to counterpoint it. Then, as the serpent reared back
to strike again, he gathered the lightning into his hand. His throw
coincided with Jormungand's strike, and Gryphon and The Shadow both
set themselves defiantly to meet the charge --
The world exploded in a bright light like an arc lamp, and
Gryphon awoke with a start. Turning, he saw that Skuld was awake
beside him, and as he looked into her eyes he knew that she had seen
his dream just as he had seen hers.
"What -- " he began, but she shook her head, a tear running
down her cheek.
"Don't question your destiny," she replied, putting a
fingertip to his lips. "It's not wise."
Slowly, he nodded, then rose to his feet and walked
soundlessly across the thick grey carpet, thinking. Then he went to
the window, still pensive, and looked out through the gap in the
curtains at the gathering night.
"Where are your sisters?" he asked suddenly, without turning
around. "Surely they know what's happening as well."
Skuld paused for a moment, as if gathering herself, before
answering. "Bel... Belldandy is on Tomodachi, with Keiichi. She
refuses to accept the knowledge of what will happen to us... thinks
that by... by denying her background, pretending she's only a mortal
woman, she can... I don't know, forget, maybe even escape it. She's
withdrawn completely. And Urd... " She stopped, causing Gryphon to
turn.
"What about Urd?" he inquired.
"Urd became convinced that the end was coming at about the
same time I did," Skuld replied. "She... left Asgard as soon as she
was completely convinced, right after talking to me about it. I don't
know where she is now... she said... "

As Skuld watched, trying frantically to think of something,
anything, to say, Urd smiled a reckless grin that didn't mask the
terror in her eyes, and said, "Well, fuck it. The world's coming to
an end, I'm going on the bender to end all benders... " She laughed,
a short, ironic bark. "... literally. Catch you on the other side,
sis."
And, before Skuld could say a word, she stepped into the
Master Monitor, and vanished.

Gryphon sat down on the edge of the bed, then tilted back,
hands behind his head, and looked up at the ceiling. "Well, then.
First order of business, I'd say, is to track those two down. I don't
know about you, but I'd feel a lot more comfortable facing down the
armies of evil with all three of the Norns on my side. Can you find
Urd, do you think?"
"I think... yes," Skuld said, nodding, her face setting into a
look of determination. "Give me a computer with some reasonable
power, and I can find her."
"That's our first step, then." Gryphon got up and went to the
big walk-in closet, opening it and turning on the light. "Let me just
get some decent traveling clothes on." The door closed, and Skuld sat
and listened to him rummage around for a moment, gathering the covers
around her shoulders. How long had it been since she hadn't felt
cold... and why did she feel so much calmer now?
[Well,] she reasoned to herself, [seeing Fenris get his head
lopped off certainly felt good.]
The house's front door slammed, and moments later, a voice
from downstairs bellowed, "YO! ANYBODY HOME?"
"UPSTAIRS!" Gryphon's voice responded from the closet.
Skuld turned toward the door to the room, uncertain how to
react, as Kei Morgan trotted up the stairs and around the corner,
pulling up in the doorway with a slightly surprised expression. Larry
Mann and Yuri Daniels, looking like worried, tired mirrors, followed
her, and paused behind her in the doorway, forming a rather comical
tableau of taken-abackness.
"You didn't mention you had company," she remarked wryly to
the closet door. "Hi, I'm Kei. Do I know you? You look familiar."
"Uh... er... this isn't what you think," Skuld replied.
Kei snorted, a look of amusement on her face. "How do you
know what I think it is?" she inquired conspiratorially. "I could
-swear- we've met."
Gryphon came out of the closet dressed in black semi-dress
trousers and bracers, buttoning a white dress shirt in preparation to
knotting the black necktie that hung over his shoulders. The black
shoes on his feet were really the bottoms of a pair of WDF G-11A
combat boots, their uppers hidden by his trousers.
"You haven't seen her in a while," he told Kei, "and she's
changed a bit in the interim. This is Skuld Ravenhair. Remember? My
wife Kei, her partner Yuri Daniels, and that's Larry Mann, VP of
Operations for the Evil Empire."
R-Type glared.
Kei looked momentarily quizzical, then grinned. "No way!
From Tomodachi? Wow, you're all grown up. Well, I guess you ought
to be," she said parenthetically, reminding herself how much time had
passed. "What brings you by?"
Skuld blinked, looking from one of them to the other, unsure
of what was going on.
"Tell her," Gryphon said, his tone not one of command, but
suggestion. Skuld hesitated. "Go on," he encouraged. "She's on our
side. She can help us. So can Yuri, and Larry."
Kei decided it must be her turn to look confused, and did not
delay. Skuld pondered, then took a deep breath, and explained as best
she could.
The nightmares had begun three weeks ago, becoming steadily
more detailed and foreboding over the first couple of weeks until, by
the end, she was certain she knew what was happening. Her sisters had
felt it as well, and the fifteenth day of the dreams had been the day
when it all fell apart, for on that day, Balder died, killed by an
arrow of mistletoe fired by a tricked, and now inconsolable, Hoder.
Faced with this incontrovertible sign that the end was coming,
Belldandy had fled to Tomodachi, refusing to accept the truth and
trying to hide in her mortal's lifestyle. Urd had accepted it too
well, and gone off on her last great bender. The other gods were
holding council, trying to decide what could be done, and the
Allfather, Odin, God himself, was missing, which was most assuredly
-not- in the original prophecy.
Despondent and worn out from two weeks of interrupted sleep,
Skuld had tried to figure out some way to get her sisters back. After
six days of deliberately avoiding sleep and working feverishly on one
dead end idea after another, she had passed out from the sheer
exhaustion of it all, and had the longest version of her dream yet:
the one which pointed her toward this immortal mortal, a long-lost
friend from childhood, as the man who would help her save Asgard. She
knew it sounded ridiculous -- unbelievable -- but it was the truth
because it had to be. There was no other solution.
Yuri looked at R-Type, and neither had to voice their
suspicion. Somehow, Zoner was mixed up in the wrong side of this
mess; they could feel it, literally, in their guts. And, in a small
corner of his mind not occupied by trying to digest the enormity of
what he had just been told, Larry wondered why Skuld looked so very
familiar to him, when there were no odds they could have met before.
Kei looked from the serious face of her husband to the
frightened, huddled goddess in their bed, then back to her husband,
and smiled a quiet, almost private, smile. Then she sat down on the
corner of the bed, put her arm over Skuld's quivering shoulders, and
gave her an affectionate squeeze, ruffling up her hair at the same
time.
"Don't worry about it, kid. We'll figure something out... we
always do."
Skuld had no particular reason to feel reassured by these
words, knowing as she did the enormity of the task that awaited them,
but she did anyway. Relief almost immeasurable filled her at this
offhanded vow, and she nearly burst into tears again.
"Thank you," she whispered.
"C'mon, let's go," said Gryphon. "There's no time to lose."
"Where are we going first?" asked Kei as she stood. Skuld,
rather reluctantly it seemed, pushed back the covers and followed,
smoothing her rumpled clothing as best she could.
"Daggerdisc," Gryphon replied. "The computers on board are
powerful enough for what Skuld needs to do, and we'll be able to get
underway as soon as possible."
They clattered downstairs just in time to notice the door
which shouldn't have been standing behind the coffee table, and the
medium-sized man coming out. Gryphon had pushed Skuld behind himself
and hauled out his strong-side .45 before he realized who it was.
Indifferent to the nearly-half-inch hole he was looking down,
Kris Overstreet drawled, "Um... knock knock. Oh, hi, Gryph. This
your place? Nice!"
Gryphon let out the breath he'd been holding, snicked the
safety back on, and tucked the .45 back under his right arm.
"Overstreet, are you trying to get yourself shot?"
"Kris," came Washuu's voice from behind Overstreet, "move,
please." As Redneck stepped aside, Washuu walked around the coffee
table, her expression grave. "Hello, Ben. Is Skuld here?"
"Right here, Professor," said Skuld, stepping out from behind
Gryphon.
"Oh, there you are! I thought something horrible had happened
to you... um, strike that, looks like it is happening to you. What's
up?"
Skuld took a breath, held it, let it out, and said without
preamble, "Professor, the Ragnarok has come."
Washuu blanched, if such a thing were possible with her
parchment complexion. "Holy shit. Balder?"
Skuld nodded. "Six days dead."
"Oh, zgwortz," Washuu breathed, and the tone of her voice left
no doubt that 'zgwortz', whatever language it hailed from, was a
filthy word indeed. "Where are the others?"
"I'm not sure where Urd is -- we were just going to try and
find out," Skuld replied. "Belldandy is on Tomodachi with Keiichi,
hiding."
Redneck scanned the group of people arrayed behind Gryphon at
the base of the stairs and said, "Good to see you, Kei, Yuri... um,
I'm sorry, sir, I don't believe we've been properly introduced."
R-Type looked taken aback by the concept of exchanging
pleasantries under such circumstances, but recovered his aplomb
quickly and replied, "Larry Mann, GENOM New Avalon. And you are?"
Swallowing audibly, Overstreet replied in his
Frank-Welker-as-Slimer voice, "......... in deeeeeeeep doggy-doo."
"Dr. Mann, this is Rear Admiral Kris Overstreet. His
friends call him Redneck, or Red for short." Washuu grinned. "I
think you call him a Class A pain in the ass, in which sentiment
you're hardly alone."
"Heh... thanks heaps, Washuu."
"It's a job."
"Overstreet..." Dr. Mann's expression became very even and he
straightened up a bit, his eyes narrowing. "I see."
"Actually, I'm surprised Rianna hasn't told you about him,"
Washuu said offhandedly, "you being her father and all."
"*WHAT*?!" both men barked.
"Oh, yeah," Washuu said. "Ask her sometime about 'Redneck,'
she'll tell you some fascinating stories. They're real close friends."
At this, Kris went pale in the face and looked near passing out.
R-Type blinked. "What's with him?" And then his eyes locked
on Washuu with a glare that was somewhere between angry and uneasy.
"And how did you know about Rianna?"
"Yeah," said Kei casually, "'cause, y'know, with the entire
universe about to collapse, we've got time to stand around in my
living room and discuss -this- stuff."
R-Type shook his head as if angry with himself. "Kei's right;
that's not what we're here for. But don't consider this discussion
over," he added in his most barbed Authority Figure voice. Redneck
fought an instinct to salute, or perhaps check to see if he were
standing on plastic sheeting.
Washuu scanned the assembly briefly before asking, "Aren't we
missing someone?"
R-Type blinked. "Who?"
Washuu gave him a you're-so-cute-when-you're-baffled glance.
"MegaZone. It seems like he would be here. You know, the end of the
universe and all - not something he'd be likely to miss."
Larry and Yuri exchanged worried looks, which didn't go
unnoticed by the rest of the group. Yuir was the first to speak.
"Zoner's missing. We're not sure... Hell, we think he's involved in
this somehow. I - " Yuri glanced at Larry. "I mean, we, had a dream
about it. Did he ever tell you about the Mask?"
Gryphon was the only one to speak up. "He mentioned something
about that. It was during the Exile. I understand it was a
particularly rough time for him, and Eris gave him this mask to do
some things for her. But he never really told me the whole story."
"Well, that's enough. It was a Mask of Chaos. Basically,
when he wore it he became a true Avatar of Eris. He told me the power
was exhilarating, but in the end he feared having so much power and he
gave it back. He thinks that was her plan all along."
Skuld looked pale. "How does this connect with recent
events?"
"Well, in my, um, our dream, he had the Mask again. Well, a
mask. But something was wrong. He was trying to fight it. He looked
terrified, and at the end he was screaming. I'm worried that he's
involved in this somehow."
Skuld looked sad and unnerved. "I fear 'involved' is much too
generous a word... Peorth, who you call Eris, is missing as well. I
fear there is a connection. Pray that I am wrong."

Daggerdisc's Starframe-6 computer system was, indeed, powerful
enough to do what Skuld needed it to do, and the vessel's overpowered
sensor suite helped matters, because what she did was nothing short of
wildly impressive. In less than an hour of intense hacking, during
which she consumed three liters of Mountain Dew and an entire
twenty-four-ounce bag of nacho cheese Doritos, Skuld wrote a short
program which took over all the system resources of the freighter's
computer, routed the power of the massive main drive through the
subspace trace sensors, and locked onto a unique power signature
several thousand light-years distant, with precision-of-location
within plus or minus ten meters -- without damaging any of the
equipment, or even making anything shake or rumble ominously.
That signature, unless something had changed radically in the
last six days, belonged to Skuld's elder sister Urd.
While she hacked, the group of concerned individuals loitered
in the "inflight lounge". Redneck commandeered the terminal in the
corner and used it to dash off a single piece of email, then buried
himself in what the New Avalon remote-retrieval library system had on
the Norse Ragnarok myths. Washuu spent her time studying something on
her holographic terminal.
Gryphon sat on the couch and pondered for several minutes,
eyes closed, looking as if he were asleep; then he seemed to reach a
conclusion, for he pulled out his pocket communicator and raised his
sometime WDF command, the supercarrier Concordia.
"Concordia, this is Gryphon, come in."
"Concordia, Lt. Leeds here. What's up, Captain?"
"Let me have the Officer of the Deck, please, Vanessa, and if
it's not Saavik, can you find her for me?"
"It is, and hang on." A pause, then Saavik's lower, cooler
voice: "Yes, Captain?"
"This is a priority alert," said Gryphon calmly. "Incoming
FLASH vox traffic. Authenticate me."
"Red 45; territory," Saavik replied without hesitation or
surprise.
"Blue 17; viper," replied Gryphon after a glance at his
wristwatch.
"Go ahead, sir."
"Go to red alert and sound battle stations," Gryphon ordered.
"Make all possible speed for Black Hole X-21, Enigma Sector, and await
instructions there. You may encounter Confederate Freespacer and
GENOM forces there; coordinate with them and wait until you hear from
me, Dr. Lawrence Mann, and/or Rear Admiral Overstreet of the CFMF.
Understood?"
"All speed for X-21 Enigma and await instructions.
Understood," Saavik replied.
"Gryphon out." Gryphon closed his communicator and let out
the sigh he'd been restraining during the clipped conference with his
exec, and looked across the inert game table at R-Type. "Need to
borrow this, Larry?"
"Soon as I can word my request right," Mann replied, and
paused to think for a minute. "OK."
Gryphon slid the communicator across the table, and Mann
picked it up, opened it, and tuned it to the GENOM command band.
"This is Dr. Mann," he told the dispatcher who answered the hail.
"Give me a black channel to the Master. No, I am not joking, and
neither will you be when you're asking people for spare change on a
street corner next week if I don't have that connection within 15
seconds. Thank you." A pause. "Master, it's Dr. Mann. I have a
very irregular request to make and no time to explain why I'm making
it."
"Go on," Caine replied, his voice as placid as always.
"I need a Star Destroyer or two -- whatever can be spared --
detached from the MILARM structure temporarily and placed under my
direct authority for the duration of the crisis. I can't explain
right now, sir, but I give you my word it's of the utmost importance."
"To our... corporate interests?"
"To our continued existence as living beings, sir. I am
entirely serious."
"I can hear that." A pause. "Very well. I will order Grand
Admiral Thrawn to place himself and his flagship at your disposal
until you send word that this crisis is past. General Tangril and her
squadron will be aboard; they can leave immediately. Do you think
that will suffice?"
If R-Type's expression could have made a sound, that sound
would have been, "Bong!"
"Uh... y-yes! yes, I'm sure that will be fine, Master..."
"Please include the reasons for this activity in your
after-action report, Doctor. I am sure I will find it... most
interesting. Good luck, if you feel you need it. Caine out." The
channel went dead.
"I don't believe it," R-Type said in a voice which was calmer
than he felt as he handed back Gryphon's communicator. "He gave
me... the Big Ship. Unreal."
Redneck looked up sharply from his terminal. "The Big --
Thrawn? Hoooo, boy. Maybe Aya -won't- get frisky before we get
there."
R-Type arched an eyebrow. "What's -that- supposed to mean?"
"Captain Aya Nakajima is a grand master of 'unauthorized
engagements,'" Redneck drawled sardonically. "I think I phrased my
orders to her strongly enough to get her to behave... Under normal
circumstances, I wouldn't worry, but to a mind like hers Grand Admiral
Thrawn isn't just a name, it's a _challenge._"
"I see." For R-Type, the statement was fast becoming a
mantra.
Just then, Skuld entered the lounge from the tunnel leading to
the cockpit. "I've found Urd. She's on Tatooine, probably in Mos
Eisley."
"Oh, great," groaned Redneck. "That's only gonna take all
week to search."
"No searching required, Kris," said Gryphon, getting to his
feet. "I know exactly where she is."
Redneck looked up, curiosity piqued. "Oh? How's that?"
Gryphon smiled. "I know Mos Eisley, and I know Urd."
"Drunk?" asked Washuu.
"Drunk," replied Gryphon.
"OK, then. Why don't we split up and take care of all this at
once? Gryph, you know Urd, you think you can get her out of that
cantina?"
"Sure," Gryphon replied. "One way or another."
"OK. Skuld, you come with Kris and me to Tomodachi and we'll
see if we can't talk Belldandy around."

It had been a long but productive day on the newly
commissioned CFMF Charlemagne, and Aya Nakajima was about to treat her
crew to yet another of her famous "intensive relaxation periods."
(Translated, wild parties.) After all, they'd squeezed an extra ten
percent maneuverability above spec on the test run through the local
asteroid belt, they'd fixed the glitch in the sensor array, and they'd
finally replaced those incompatible GENOM tactical networks, so now
the 120 starfighters on the heavy carrier had working tactical
displays, augmented with the sensor readings of all the fighters and
the ship itself, as opposed to simple line-of-sight identification.
Aya relaxed in the center seat of Charlemagne's immense
bridge- a complex two decks tall, equipped to be the operational nerve
center for a full carrier task force, with air traffic control and
tactical on the upper deck and ship's systems, nav and weapons on the
lower level. Behind her, the bridge doors hissed open to admit a third
handcart full of assorted liquours, the highly illegal Romulan ale
featured prominently on all three loads. Here and there, the bridge
crew were setting up the party games, karaoke machine, and other
paraphernalia with the familiarity of practice; during the time
the former officers of the late CFMF Defiant had spent as Academy
instructors on the CFMF Chimera, Aya hadn't changed her command style
one bit.
A large light flashed on the console beside Lt. Commander
Claire Lemno, the ship's communications chief. The half-Caitian
officer scanned the header on the text-only message and said,
"Captain, I've got a Red Flag here, confirmed by central command. It's
Redneck himself."
Red Flag. Freespacer code for any orders which set the
recieving ship at immediate Red Alert status. "Patch it through to my
station," Aya said, and she flipped up a small viewer on the arm of
her chair and read the message.

TO: CPT. AYAMI NAKAJIMA (PG O-6), CMDG CFF-114 CFMF CHARLEMAGNE
FROM:R. ADML. KRISTAN OVERSTREET (PG O-10), CINC CFMF TACFLEET STRATFLEET
SUPFLEET

EMERGENCY ORDERS- RED ALERT STATUS UPON RECEIPT OF ORDERS -EMERGENCY
ORDERS

YOU ARE TO PROCEED WITH YOUR COMMAND AND ANY CFMF TACFLEET PERSONNEL
IN THE IMMEDIATE VICINITY AT MAXIMUM WARP TO BLACK HOLE X-21, ENIGMA
SECTOR, THERE TO AWAIT ORDERS. YOU MAY ENCOUNTER WDF OR GENOM FORCES
AT X-21: YOU ARE NOT I REPEAT NOT LET ME MAKE THIS VERY VERY CLEAR
-->NOT!!!<-- TO ENGAGE IN ANY HOSTILE ACTION WHATEVER. PERIOD. IF I
HEAR YOU HAVE SO MUCH AS INSULTED THEIR MOTHER, YOU CAN KISS THAT CASE
OF 50-YEAR-OLD SCOTCH YOU REQUISITIONED FROM QUARTERMASTER GOOD-BYE.

"Oh, poo." Aya grumbled. She'd thought she'd snuck that one
past Redneck, thanks to the incompetent he'd had to accept as
Quartermaster General for political reasons. [Admiral Overstreet can
be such a party-pooper,] she thought.

FURTHER ORDERS WILL BE GIVEN IN PERSON. EXPECT COMBAT AS SOON AS EIGHT
HOURS FROM NOW. FULL REPORT OF COMBAT STATUS EXPECTED UPON MY ARRIVAL.

TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE. REPEAT, MAXIMUM POSSIBLE SPEED TO X-21.

-RN

Aya stood up and shouted, "All hands, general quarters! Red
alert! The party's been canceled, people." To her brother, sitting at
the navigation station, she said, "Homare, set course for Black Hole
X-21." To the Andorian in the Engineering radsuit, she said, "Shran,
I'll need every last ounce of speed you can give us. And Claire..."
The Caitian had a game box in her lap, looking half-pitifully at the
Captain. "Claire, put the Pin-the-tail-on-the-Sirian game away, we
won't have time for it."
"Aw..." Claire whined.

"Think this will work?" Kei asked, strapping herself into the
copilot's chair.
"I hope so," Gryphon replied. "Since you're here, care to
call for launch clearance for me?"
"Sure," she said, and settled easily into the copilot routine
that went along with the chair. Gryphon strapped down, then turned to
make sure R-Type did likewise in the seat behind him; he warmed up the
ion thrusters while Kei called Avalon Control and secured a launch and
sphere-departure clearance. Then Gryphon pulled up the ramp and
checked all the environmental systems before cutting in the grav drive
and raising ship.
Once outside the sphere, Gryphon turned the ship on a general
outbound heading and was just about to ask for a coordinate fix on
their destination when he heard Yuri behind him: "Destinations fixed
in the navicomputer; ready for lightspeed."
"That was fast," Gryphon remarked with a smile, and pulled
back the hyperdrive throttles. The stars smeared into lines, and then
there was that familiar brief instant of vertigo before they were
catapulted into hyperspace. "Time to destination?"
"Estimate three hours, fifteen minutes."
Eyeing the destination coordinates readout on her panel, Kei
turned to Yuri and remarked, "Three hours to Tatooine? That's a
pretty tight course you've got plotted there, partner."
"We'll make it," Yuri replied, a trifle defensive.
"I never said we wouldn't," Kei replied.

The trail for people who could save the universe led to the
most unusual places; so went Gryphon's thinking as he settled
Daggerdisc on her landing gear in the spaceport of Mos Eisley, on a
backwater desert planet by the name of Tatooine. Gryphon secured the
ship, stood, and checked his .45s before shrugging into his cloak and
fastening it. He put his hat on his head, then fastened his swords to
his back and adjusted his gloves.
"All out who's gettin' out," he said. "Larry, do me a favor
and lean on the portmaster to keep us a departure window open, will
you? We don't want to waste time in a holding pattern on a day like
this."
"No problem," R-Type replied, turning to the comm set.
Yuri followed Gryphon, back, down the ramp, and out into the
heat and smells and noise of Mos Eisley. Behind her was Kei, her
blaster clearly displayed on her hip, for Mos Eisley was that kind of
spaceport, and the message in Kei's stance and look was clear to all
the unsavory types around: I'm watching you, Tex, so don't try
anything stupid.
They left the landing bay and went out into the streets of Mos
Eisley proper; landspeeders and ground cars came and went. A GENOM
White Legion scout trooper on a grav bike darted past; GENOM was
amassing a significant corporate presence on Tatooine, in preparation,
or so Larry had told told Ben the week before, for a strike operation
against the local Hutt crimeboss, one Jabba Tiure. He ignored the
biker scout as he ignored the criminals and the hustlers and the Jawas
that surrounded them, concentrating instead on one thing: remembering
the way to the spot in this hellhole where he knew they would find
Urd.
The issue solved itself almost instantly, as his eyes lighted
on the doorway to a cantina -- a familiar enough place. The last time
Gryphon had been here -- the last time he had been on Tatooine -- he
had gotten into a firefight in that cantina. The other party involved
in the firefight was here, too; it had been Kei, and a glance back at
her informed Gryphon that she remembered it just as well as he did.
If they were going to find Urd in Mos Eisley, she would be there; he
would have bet his entire, considerable personal fortune on it.
Without a word, he keyed the door and walked in.
It was just as he remembered; hot and dark, crammed full of
all manner of weird beings. Even the surly barman looked the same. A
local synth-thrash band led by a bright blue, aardvark-looking fellow
with a monstrous keyboard setup was rocking the place today, an
interesting change from the Streib swing band which had been
performing the last time he'd been there; they sounded pretty good,
and the comical-looking bandleader had some pretty hot riffs. That
wasn't what he was here for, though; what he was here for was sitting
in the corner booth in the back, surrounded by empty, in some cases
overturned, tankards.
He turned to Kei and said, "Stay here; make sure these bad
boys don't block our way out." She nodded, and so did Yuri when he
put his hand briefly on her shoulder; then he began to shoulder his
way through the crowd toward that back booth.
Halfway there, as he passed the circular bar in the middle of
the room, he felt a tug at his sleeve; turning to look, he looked
about a foot upward into the beady, three-eyed gaze of a Gran who
stank of ulger.
>Nice-looking meat you came in with, there,< the Gran guttered
in his native language, probably not expecting the human to understand
his series of gurgles and yelps.
>Keep your eyes to yourself, scum,< Gryphon replied without
missing a beat, in flawlessly-yelped Gra'an.
Overcoming his surprise with relative ease, the Gran replied,
>No offense. Interested in selling them? I know people who'd pay top
cred for either or both -- especially the redhead. Looks like she's
got some sass. She know how to use that blaster?<
>Take your middle eye out from five times that distance,<
Gryphon replied. >Push off, flesh merchant. My companions aren't
meat for you to buy and sell.<
>I don't think I like your tone, punk.<
>Who're you calling punk, bent-stem? You can't be more than
two hundred Standard. Get out of my way before I rotate your grav
elements.<
>That's it. You lose, kid. I was going to cut you in on a
share of the profits, but now I get them all.< The Gran reached for
his belt holster.
"No blasters!" cried the barman ineffectually. "No blasters!"
Steel flashed, and with a gurgling cry, the Gran crumpled to
the floor, searching half-wittedly for his various and sundry major
organs.
Gryphon wiped down his katana and put it away, and the crowd
suddenly opened him up a nice wide path to his destination.
The woman in the booth hadn't noticed the confusion. Indeed,
as she nursed what, at a quick glance-count, appeared to be her
sixteenth tankard of Spitzbergen mead, she didn't appear aware of much
of anything, and didn't notice someone else had seated himself at her
booth for a few seconds. Ornately dressed, she had the dishevelled,
dirty look of someone who has been too busy or too wasted to change
clothes in several days. Her dusky skin was becoming sallow with
drink, and her white hair was greying with the dust of travel and
unwashed grime. When she finally registered that she had company, she
didn't look up from her drink; merely spoke as if to the air.
"Hi," she said, and her voice was husky, attractive, and quite
steady, especially considering how drunk she must be. "Don't bother
giving me the old line about how the world might end tomorrow, honey.
I know all about it." She finally looked up. "I suppose you want to
play a -- " She stopped as her tired, watery green eyes met her
visitor's ice-blue, steady, sad gaze, and a shock of recognition
bubbled up through the mead, reduced to a ripple by the time it
surfaced, but still effective enough.
"-- game?" she finished, her voice becoming small. "my
god... of all the... "
"Urd," Gryphon said softly, his voice sad. "Why?"
"Why... why what?" she replied, confused.
"Why this? Why, when your sisters need you so much? When you
have so much more important things to do?"
"Important? Hah! We're all gonna die, Ben... all gonna die.
Every last fucking one of us is going to go right up the fucking
chimney. Allfather's gone and Balder's dead and my stupid kid
sister's crawled under a rock with that spineless human who calls
himself her husband and what the -fuck- am I supposed to do about that
all by my -fuck-ing self, huh? Huh? Tell me what I'm supposed to
fucking do about that."
"Well," he said, his voice, not raised, scything through the
background chatter of the bar and the raucous synth-horns of the band
to get directly to her, "you could start by picking yourself up out of
this cesspool, cleaning yourself up and meeting the Twilight with a
little pride. You could try standing shoulder to shoulder with your
sisters and defying the evil you've always known would come some day.
You could -try- standing up for what you really care about, what's
really important. What can stop the three Norns if they bend their
wills to a single goal? What? Urd, you and your sisters defied God
Himself once, if you'll cast your mind back."
"This's different," Urd insisted. "Odin... he's nothing,
nothing compared to Jormungand and Fenris... and Loki." She said the
last word with a deep shiver of dread, the loathing rolling off her
tongue like spat-out poison. "I won't do it, you hear me? I won't
fucking do it."
"Do what?" Gryphon inquired, and she looked away. <<Urthr!>>
he said, his voice seeming to ripple through the space between them;
she looked back to his face again, almost involuntarily. "Do what?"
he repeated, softly.
"Face... him."
"Who? Loki?"
"Don't say that name," she snarled, and took a strong pull
from her current tankard. "Don't ever speak that name to me."
"Why are you so afraid of him? You were never afraid of
anything."
"I... I don't want to talk about it."
He reached out and took hold of her wrist, stopping the
tankard before it reached her lips again. With a sudden intensity,
his eyes narrow chips of blue flint, he hissed, <<You don't have that
option. If you're going to abandon the universe whose history you've
helped to write, you're going to at least explain why.>> Again his
voice curled through the space between them like a living thing, and
the charge it bore did not go unnoticed by Urd, even in her drunken
state.
For a long moment, Urd glared at him, her eyes locked with
his. Then, putting down the tankard and casting down her eyes, she
said in a voice full of shame, "I... I used to love him... a long time
ago. Back when he was the Trickster... he was a fun guy, once. Full
of joy, and mischief. He and I used to play pranks on Thor
together... it was kind of our courtship. And then... then... well,
you know. He turned mean. The stories tell about that, I know you've
read them. What they don't tell is why... " She looked up at him,
tears rolling down her cheeks, and the look of pain in her eyes
shocked him. Urd had always been the carefree one, after all.
"I introduced him to a friend of mine. Remember Marller?
God, God, we were just kids... I thought she was just wild, like me,
like... like Loki... but she was different. Mean. First she stole
him from me, and then she twisted him... like she twists
everything... they pulled a gag on Thor like we always used to do, but
this time they tried to kill him. They got caught... as punishment,
Odin banished Marller to Niflheim, made her a demon, and he didn't
really know what to do with Loki. You know the rest... of the
story... I'm sure. They... they've both hated me ever since. I'm the
one... who stopped them from killing Thor. I'm the reason they got
caught... and every time I think of him I think of how he used to be,
and it just about kills me. I can't... I can't face him. If I have
to die I'll die here, in Midgard, preferably drunk." And so saying,
she went to take another drink.
He stopped her again, catching her wrist, but this time he
stood up and made her stand with him, walking around the table and
shutting the rest of the bar out of his consciousness, so there was
nothing there but her and her pain. The Zanji voice of command was
fine for getting her attention, but he couldn't get her out of here
through coercion. He took one of her shoulders in his right hand,
looked into her eyes, and spoke to her in her ancient native language,
which she and her sisters had taught him long before.
>Urthr,< he said. >You must be brave. Your sisters need you.
-I- need you.<
>I can't, don't you understand? I can't!< she replied.
Without a word, he pulled her closer, gathering his
concentration and placing her at its focus point, and kissed her as
gently, and as firmly, as he could. She shivered as he did so, almost
as if an electric current had run through her, and when he drew back,
she blinked at him, stone-cold sober.
>You must,< he said. >If you're that convinced you'll die,
wouldn't you at least rather die with the people who love you than
alone, in a place like this?<
She had no immediate answer for that. For a long moment, she
regarded him through her cleared but tired emerald eyes, her face
expressionless.
Then she leaned forward, placed her lips against his again,
and returned his kiss. Drawing back, she smiled a bit, and said, "You
have a point there." She looked around the cluttered booth and
sighed. "I never did handle pressure well. C'mon... let's get out of
this dump."

"No."
It was a single word, spoken in a soft, even, almost
conversational tone of voice. It spoke of deeper-seated, more solidly
rooted defiance than any scream could ever convey. Belldandy had
always been accomplished at that sort of quiet rebellion. She had
once defied the will of Almighty Odin with that same word, spoken in
that same tone, and succeeded.
Still, the utter calm with which Belldandy had refused shocked
the three people standing around her. Skuld, despite her earlier
attempt, had been surprised by how calmly her sister had refused;
Washuu looked ready to throttle the goddess into reality; and Kris
stared in frank astonishment at the woman who, to his mind callously,
refused to help fight the Last Battle, content to hide in her happy
little home, knit a sweater, and wait it out.
"Excuse me?" Kris asked equally quietly. His initial instincts
of combined terror and utter devotion, the strongest psychic reaction
he'd ever experienced, had faded, replaced now by mild
irritation. "This isn't a quilting bee you're blowing off, ma'am. This
is the end of all that is!"
"We don't know that," Belldandy replied placidly. "Really, Mr.
Overstreet, you should know better than to jump to such wild
conclusions."
"We don't KNOW that?!" Washuu exploded. "Verthandi, Balder is
-dead-! Do you know of any -other- events his passing heralds? If
so, please let me know, the suspense is killing me."
"Please don't shout," said Bel calmly, continuing to knit.
"Besides, even if it is the Ragnarok, I'm sure its effects will hardly
be felt as far away as here."
"'Its effects will hardly be felt,'" Washuu mimicked. "Of
course. How silly of me. I'm sure the destruction of all Creation in
a limitless ocean of fire will pass -completely unnoticed- here on
Tomodachi."
"Certainly," Bel smiled, glad that her sister and guests
agreed with her. "Why don't you all stay here?" she asked. "You'd all
be quite safe here, I'm sure."
Washuu covered her eyes with a hand and groaned. "I can't
believe I'm having this conversation. Skuld, can you say something?"
Skuld knelt in front of her sister's chair, reached up, and
took her hands, stilling their endless knitting. Looking up at
Belldandy, she said, using the honorific she'd picked up from her
years of exposure to Keiichi's language, "Belldandy-oneesama, Washuu
is right. This isn't something we can run and hide from. This is our
destiny, and destiny will find you no matter where you run to."
"Listen to me, please, Bel," Washuu said, trying to remain
calm, "I know about running and hiding, I lived most of my life
running and hiding from myself. There are a few things I'm still
hiding from." She paused for a moment, shivering at some secret
memory, before continuing, "But there are some things you just plain
cannot run and hide from. Where can you hide from the total
annhilation of the universe??" Catching her breath, she rushed onward,
"If I thought for one moment that my lab would survive, I would take
Kris here in and seal the door behind us. But it won't, and I can't.
There's noplace to hide, Belldandy. Stand or fall, we have to fight."
"Nonsense," Bel smiled calmly, and Kris felt an urge to slap
the smile off. "I'm quite sure that everything will work out quite
well by itself." The smile faded slightly, and she whispered, "And
even if what you say is true... it's hopeless, anyway."
"Hopeless?" Kris barked, as something deep inside him, touched
perhaps by the presence of goddesses, snapped. "Hopeless? Fine! So
maybe we go out there and get our asses kicked! Fine! But I'll be
damned if we don't give 'em a fight to remember before the end! Win or
lose, I guarantee you, whoever survives the battle is gonna say,
'Bloody hell, that was one hard fight!'
"Here we stand, about to face the end of everything we know
and love," he continued, warming to the subject. "We can either cower
in our holes, waiting for the firestorm to take us, or we can march
tall into the whirlwind, shouting our defiance to the night! I don't
know, or even particularly care anymore, what you intend to do, but I
am going to march out singing onto the field of battle, shouting,
'HERE I AM, YOU BASTARDS! TRY ME! FOR I WILL NOT GO QUIETLY TO MY
DEATH!'" He jumped to his feet, words leaped unsummoned to his lips as
he shouted, >GLORY AND VICTORY TO THE LIGHT! DEATH AND CONFUSION TO
OUR ENEMIES! FORTH ASGARD!<
In a more quiet, but no less determined, voice, he added in
English, "And woe betide anyone who stands in my way."
Bel watched Kris with concern as the fey light danced in his
eyes from the speech. Next to him, Washuu found herself silently
mouthing, "'Woe betide'??"
"You really ought to stay here, and be safe, Mr. Overstreet,"
Bel said at last. "You aren't feeling well. Keiichi and I would be
more than happy to put you and Washuu up for as long as you like."
"I'm afraid we can't do that, Belldandy," a soft voice called
from the doorway. Keiichi Morisato, a small, young-looking man with a
bad haircut, walked into the room and said, "Why didn't you tell me
what was happening?"
"I didn't want you to go off worrying about nothing," Bel
said. "I mean, I could never allow you to be hurt, Keiichi."
"Bel..." Keiichi knelt down, taking Belldandy's still-idle
hands and grasping them tightly, and said, "Belldandy, you know I have
to go with them."
"No," Bel gasped, tears welling up in her eyes, "no, you
mustn't go, not by yourself..."
"Sometimes a body's got to fight," Kris drawled, "even when
they know they can't win."
"How can I sit here, even with you, Belldandy my love, when
other people are fighting and dying for our happiness?" Keiichi added.
"How could I think myself worthy of you if I allowed others to give
their lives to protect you while I stayed safe at home?"
"Oh, Keiichi, you don't have to prove anything to me," Bel
said, tears running down her face. "We can just stay here and be
together, forever, as we were meant to be..."
"It's not you he has to do this for," Washuu said gently,
"it's himself."
The two stared into each other's eyes for a moment, and then
Belldandy broke away, dropping her head into her hands and sobbing
loudly. "Keiichi..." she wept, "please, please don't leave me... don't
ever leave me..."
Keiichi hugged his wife, trying to comfort her. To Skuld, he
said, "How much time do we have left?"
Skuld shrugged. "It could happen at any time," she said.
Keiichi turned to the other two, the professor and the
stranger, and said, "Would one of you please take care of Belldandy
while we're gone?"
Washuu nodded, saying, "I would be honored, Keiichi."
"That... won't be necessary," Belldandy said. She stood up,
knitting dropping from her lap, an expression of quiet determination
even stronger than before resting serenely on her face. "Where my
husband goes, I will go as well. I will never allow us to be separated
again." Hugging her husband tightly, she whispered, "I love you,
Keiichi."
As they watched Keiichi and Belldandy express their love for
each other, Kris and Washuu each reached out a hand to the other,
clasping tightly. "You know there isn't a chance of you getting me to
stay home either," Washuu said very quietly.
"I know," Kris whispered. "Just please promise me you'll keep
out of harm's way. We'll need a good field surgeon, probably more than
another fighter..." Kris squeezed Washuu's hand tighter and said, "And
if I thought you were in danger, I wouldn't be able to fight. I lost
you once, Washuu, and it nearly killed me. I don't think I can stand
to lose you again."
Washuu looked up into her fiancee's eyes; in them, she saw his
own fear and worry, and above all his undying love. "I promise," she
said at last. "I'll stay out of the front lines when the fighting
begins."
Kris picked Washuu up off her feet and hugged her tightly.
"Thank you," he whispered. After a moment, he asked, "So, what now?"
"Now we get back to Daggerdisc with Bel and Keiichi," Washuu
said. "And then, we take the Rainbow Bridge to Asgard."
"The Rainbow Bridge," Kris mumbled, shuddering. "I _hate_
bridges."

The mirror hanging on the closet door in the captain's cabin
on Daggerdisc glowed, and then Belldandy stepped out. Behind her came
Keiichi, Skuld, Redneck and Washuu, crowding into the small cabin in a
hand-linked chain so as to ride Bel's transit magic.
Gryphon noticed the mass indicator on the corner of the
instrument panel abruptly increase and smiled. Knowing there was only
one place aboard where they could end up, he keyed the intercom.
"Mission accomplished, I take it."
Startled by the disembodied voice, the group jumped almost as
one, ending up in a heap on the floor.
"You take it correctly," Kris grumbled, having gotten caught
on the bottom of the pile.
"Well, head out to the lounge and get comfortable," Gryphon
replied, "ETA X-21 in five hours."
"Dibs on the game table," Washuu piped, dancing off the top of
the pile and into the lounge. Bel and Skuld followed, and a somewhat
bruised Keiichi and Redneck followed after.
"Someday," Keiichi mused, half to Redneck and half to himself,
"I may get used to this kind of thing."
"Why?" Kris mumbled. "I never have."

In the rear of the ship, just inside Daggerdisc's cargo hold,
Kris laid his back against the wall and began to meditate.
A very long time ago, on a world thousands of parsecs away,
he'd taken the first steps of Jedi training under an old man named
Jaicyen. In two weeks he'd crammed in more learning than most people
got in as many years... and then, because of a Jedi Foreseeing,
Jaicyen had cut him off, refused to train him further, and sent him
away.
Now, Kris intended to use one of the tricks Jaicyen had taught
him, a Jedi hibernation method which allowed the user to cram hours of
sleep into minutes if need be. When Daggerdisc came out of hyper, he
intended to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, as the saying went.
Breathing deeply, relaxing his mind and body, Kris allowed the
Force to flow through him...
...and he dreamed...

...the waves are roiling, boiling, and still so cold... where
am I? What is this place?

Snow piled high, drifting, blowing- bitter wind, draining the
life away from me- is this Hell? I hear the screams of the damned- no,
the screams of the battlefield, the moans of pain, betrayal- so
lonely, so hopeless-

A dark woman comes- what's with her skin? Half healthy, half
dead and blue, yuck- she points and people die, I see their ashes
blowing into the snow- she points at me-

No! Won't let it happen! running, beamstaff in hand- why do I
feel so tired all of a sudden? So very, very tired... no, gotta help,
gotta get there-

the staff vanishes- the woman looks at me and laughs- I look
at my hand, it's withered and spotted with age- I can't move- I can't
breathe- what is happening?

-the laughter grows louder- the screams of the dying, the
dead- the witch is pointing-

-the PAIN!!!!!-

"YAAAAAAAH!"
Kris lurched back from his curled sitting position, catching
his head on the hold's bulkhead. Still trembling with adrenalin, he
pulled himself up to his feet, leaning heavily against the
wall. Reaching out again to the Force, he fought to regain some degree
of equilibrium, fighting down the memory of fear, slowing his
heartbeat.
The scorchmarks around where he'd been lying bore testament to
the severity of the dream. Apparently he'd lashed out in his sleep-
just as well, he thought, I decided to use the hold to take my nap
in. I could have hurt somone otherwise. As the terror faded, Kris lit
up a small sphere of light, testing his own inner power
levels. Whatever had happened, he was still pretty near full power,
but the idea of him losing control like that disturbed him. That
hadn't happened in a -long- time.
With an uneasy sigh, he went back to sleep.

SECOND SEAL: END
--
Benjamin D. Hutchins, cofounder and Keeper-Straight of the Continuity
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited - An AnimeTech Limited Company -><-