[UF][FanFic] Redneck: Wilderness Pt. 1

[Kris Overstreet]

Earth, North America, Texas Free Republic
August 1, 2388

The hot summer sun beat down on the small graveyard surrounded
by tall trees and dense underbrush. A faint summer wind managed to dip
down beneath the vegetation to touch the tombstones, most of them aged
and etched with the tiny strokes of centuries of exposure. In the
unused portion of the cemetery, grass twitched and rippled in the
fitful breeze, while an occasional dust devil blew up from the older,
long-used area.
On a plot next to the old aluminum fence lay a low plaque- not
even quite a tombstone- engraved with two flags- that of the old
United States, and the first flag of the Zardon Republic. The name on
the plaque read, MAJOR GENERAL ARLIN BRUCE OVERSTREET: USN VIETNAM WAR
1968-1970, ZRPA ZARDON CIVIL WAR 2002-2006. BORN JUNE 5, 1950: DIED
OCTOBER 27, 2028.
The gate to the graveyard squeaked open slowly, admitting a
nondescript figure in a bright red flight suit, covered by a vinyl
jacket with fake-fur collar and multiple patches, listing flight
squadrons, ship assignments, and honors almost beyond belief. On
the left shoulder a rectangular patch, solid black save for a highly
stylized golden thunderbolt, proclaimed the nationality of its wearer-
Freespacer.. Two five-pointed stars flanked by laurel wreaths shone in
silver thread from the lapel of the flight jacket, proclaiming its
wearer as holding the titular rank of Vice Admiral in the Freespacers'
principal military arm.
The figure removed his flight helmet, revealing a large,
unruly bundle of blond hair, curling and twisting above a pair of
bright eyes, an average nose, and a bushy red beard. The hazel eyes
dimmed sadly, contemplating the tombstones as their owner walked to
the plaque by the fence.
The pilot knelt by the grave, careful not to touch the precise
spot of burial. From inside the jacket, he drew out a small Texas flag
and an United States flag. Setting the two flags in tiny holes in the
pedestal, the man sighed and said:
"Hey, Dad. I'm home."

WHITE LIGHTNING PRODUCTIONS

in association with

EYRIE PRODUCTIONS, UNLTD.

presents

REDNECK: WILDERNESS

a story of the CFMF

Starring

Kris "Redneck" Overstreet
Washuu Hakubi
Terri "Crash" Curtiss
Rianna Santova
May Azland

Co-Starring

Aya Nakajima
James Joseph Condorcet XVIII
James Joseph Condorcet XX
Doubledealer
Mayl Popp'fl

Guest Starring So Many Characters It Might Make Your Head Spin

SCREENPLAY BY J. CONRAD SPADE, LAWRENCE MANN, MARTIN ROSE,
ROBERT SHANNON, BENJAMIN J. HUTCHINS
DIRECTED BY BENJAMIN J. HUTCHINS

A number of characters portrayed in this work are not the
creation of the author. The author makes no claim to those characters
pre-created in other works by other creators. These creators include,
but are not limited to, George Lucas, Ted Nomura, Ben Dunn, Altier
Lana, Ikkou Sahara, Gene Roddenberry, David Weber, Sergio Aragones,
Lois McMaster Bujold, Fred Perry, Hasbro, ArtMic, Pioneer, AIC, Johji
Manabe, Nintendo of America, Western Designs, Masamune Shirow, Glen A.
Larson, Donald Bellisario, and many more we can't recall just now.

Thanks to my father for having lived, and thanks to my mother for
letting me live.
This fanfic novel is dedicated to Alan Shepard, Jr. You were
not -the- first, but you were -our- first, in a time and place where
we desperately needed heroes. You reached up and touched the stars;
your footprints are on the Moon.
And now only four are left...

Chapter 1/THEN

Deep space near Ammuuz
October 28, 2028

Rear Admiral Kristan Overstreet, second in command of the
United Galactica Joint Fleet Command, Outer Rim Territories, dug
wearily through the ten-kazillionth - or so it seemed- report about
various conflicts of command between the three services involved in
the Joint Fleet.
From the tone of the various reports, one would think that the
Royal Salusian Navy, the Zardon Republican Space Navy, and the
Confederate Freespacers Mercenary Fleet had never worked together
before in their existence. Kris was responsible for the latter
organization in particular, and he longed to get to the bottom of the
incoming e-mail pile so he could write up final orders to the
twenty-odd ships under his command and get some sleep.
Kris' desk clock read 2205 hours, CFMF Camelot time. In about
eight hours, the combined fleet would complete the enveloping movement
which would trap, once and for all, the last major fleet belonging to
the Zardon Imperial Restoration Front, immobile in defending its
crippled flagship. The capture of the fleet, and its supreme commander
the Empress Dowager Malificent Zard'al, would spell the end of the war
which started when the Imperials stole two experimental CFMF warships,
the CFMF Dreadnought and CFMF Henry V, from drydock.
Not long after the experimental ships disappeared, a large
fleet based around the two ships appeared in orbit around the Zardon
homeworld. After two costly hours of bitter combat, the combined
Zardon and Salusian forces in the Salusal system drove out the
Imperial fleet, but the battle left the local forces in no condition
to follow up the victory or even defend against another attack.
The war which followed stretched on for two grinding years,
prosecuted by a vaguely cooperative effort between the CFMF, the
Zardon Republic, and the Salusians, with occasional assistance from
the Wedge Defense Force. After some initial successes, the Imperials
began losing, and then losing badly, against the combined fleets. Only
the secret the two stolen Freespacer ships had been built to test
allowed the Imperials to stay in the field after the first year; a new
shield design, based upon the Kuat Drive Yards TSS shield projectors,
which projected a triple-layered shield grid using only slightly more
power than the standard single layer.
However, the engineers (with some grudging hints from one
Washuu Hakubi) had finally isolated a flaw which, if all went well,
would prove decisive. In a small section of the ship directly above
the projectors- two roughly two-meter square spots on ships three
hundred meters long- the shields did not cover the ship. A direct hit
would knock out the shields and produce a feedback effect into the
ship's main engines, leading to the automatic shutdown of all ship's
systems.
In eight hours, the starfighter corps of the three fleets
would test that theory, while the capital ships demolished the few,
battered remnants of the fleet which had begun to take shape twenty
years before with the fall of the Zardon Empire.
However, even on the eve of final victory, Kris had to deal
with the minor annoyances of joint command, as witness the letter
currently ready to send on his terminal:

To: Captain Rias Dewben
From: Rear Adm. Kristan Overstreet, cmdg CFMF
Subject: Re: Action on Insult

Although I can sympathize with you, I must ask that you
forgive Captain James Condorcet and excuse him from the duel of honor
you have requested with him. He means no ill will, but his natural
tendencies towards uncouth behavior can put off those not familiar
with his nature. Soon I hope to show you evidence of his better nature
in combat; his valor, his chivalry, and his selfless courage on behalf
of his comrades in arms.
As regards the specifics of your complaint with Cpt.
Condorcet, I regret that I have no authority over the private lives of
CFMF personnel save where they come in direct conflict with duty.
Therefore, I cannot forbid the Captain from visiting your widowed
sister and courting her as per his customs. However, I can and will
pass the message on to his wife, Commander Reina Sabre Condorcet, who
will undoubtedly act on it.
Once more, I ask you to lay aside the honor of your family for
the greater honor of the service. Captain Condorcet is, I assure you,
sincere in his affections- he is, quite frankly, in love with all that
is beautiful and feminine in the world. I will do what I can to curb
his attentions away from your family, but I suggest rather that you be
more accepting of Captain Condorcet's affections to your sister and
niece in the future.

Your obedient servant,

Kristan Overstreet, Rear Adm. cmdg CFMF forces

He'd just begun his reply to the next post, a request for
information from a Zardon captain, when a small communications window
opened up on his desktop. "Pardon me, Admiral," Lieutenant M'ryll, the
Camelot's Caitian communications officer said, "but you have an
incoming message from Earth."
Earth? "Put it through to me here, Lieutenant," he said.
The furry Caitian face blipped out, replaced by the
grey-headed form of Patricia McDowell. Once, she and Kris had been
lovers. For twenty years, she'd been Butch Overstreet's wife... Kris'
stepmother. "Hi, Kris," her voice called over the lightyears. Her
tough, handsome face bent in carefully suppressed sorrow as she said,
"I've got bad news. Your father is dead. The cancer got him."
"Cancer?" An icy chill stabbed Kris in the gut and stayed
there. He hadn't known his father was ill, and in any case cancer was
now treatable across the board. "Why didn't he see the doctor?"
"He'll tell you for himself," Patricia said. "He left a
message for you. I'm sending it through now..."
The screen turned to static for a second before resolving into
the old den add-on of the Overstreet trailer house. Butch Overstreet,
grey-haired, mostly bald actually, and aged, squinted slightly into
the camera. "Kris? If you're watching this, I'm dead, probably from
widespread cancer. I didn't go get it cured because, basically, I'm
tired. I've been in and out of the hospital so many times I could
spit, between one thing and another. I've taken the cancer cure twice
already, dammit. I've used up my body. Ain't nothin' left to fix no
more. I've had my life, and it's time for me to go."
Butch shifted around in his easy chair, grunting loudly with
the effort. As Kris' fingers gripped the bottom of the keyboard, the
recording continued, "'Sides, I got no intention of lettin' a doctor
get his hands on me this late in the game. This is my fight, and fuck
the doctors." The old smile, the charming friendly smile Kris had
inherited, shone out one last time from the video screen.
Kris' eyes teared up as his father continued, "It's been one
helluva ride, hasn't it? Two wars, more jobs than you could shake a
stick at... I've had my time, son, and it's been fun. Oh, I could go
in and have the surgery, take the retrovirus and live another forty
years, or get a cyborg body and live however long I liked... but why?
Son, it's time for me to rest. I'm gonna go naturally, at home,
probably in my sleep... the way I was intended to.
"Now, you've got one helluva life ahead of you. You're gonna
see one hell of a lot of stuff, feel a helluva lot of pain, and have a
lot of fun. And one day, when it's time, you'll know when to let go
and let someone else have a go at it. Just remember, son... I'll..."
The figure on the screen stopped for a moment to compose himself,
giving Kris the time to do the same. "Remember, Kris," the old man
said at last, "I'll always be with you, watching your back. You ain't
never alone, and I ain't never really gone. I'll always be there for
you when you need me."
The figure took a ragged breath, turned to the screen one last
time, and said, "Kris... I love you, very very much. I only wish I'd
been a better dad than you had, taught you better, been there more...
I love you..." Butch turned his face and mumbled, "How d'ya turn this
damn thing off?," and the recording ended, leaving Patricia's face to
stare at Kris.
Kris stared dully back, finally working up the mental capacity
to whisper, "When is the funeral?"
"Tomorrow," Patricia said. "I know you can't make it... we'll
leave a chair open for you just the same..."
"Thanks, Boom Box," Kris said, using her old callsign from
when she had been his second-in-command in the MASS-01 Rebel Squadron.
"Goodbye." The screen went dark, and Kris pushed his chair away from
the desk and cried for a few minutes.
In eight hours, he would be responsible for roughly a quarter
of the combined attack fleet, commanding from the bridge of his
flagship with a confident look and a cool exterior.
Tonight, he would mourn the dead.

The battle ended as expected, and the Marines who boarded the
crippled Dreadnought found Zerina Zard'al, Malificent's puppet Empress
Elect, crying over her mother's limp body; she had poisoned herself
before the Marines could reach their quarters. The so-called Empress
wept loud and long as the troopers carried her away from her mother's
corpse to the brig of the CFMF King Arthur.
At the end of the boarding ramp, Thalona Zard'al, the youngest
of Malificent and Garth Zard'al's three daughters, stood beside
Admiral Overstreet and waited. As Zerina and her captors stepped off
of the ramp, Kris signaled them to halt. He glared down at her and
growled, "Princess Zerina, you will be transported to the Salusal
system, where you will be tried for your crimes against Salusia,
Zardon, the Confederate Freespacers Mercenary Fleet, and the United
Galactica."
Zerina glared right back at Kris through her tears and
screeched, "Don't you have the decency to let me mourn? My mother is
DEAD! You KILLED her like you killed my father!! Don't you have any
idea of how I feel?"
Kris' eyes grew dark as opals, hard and cold His aura glowed
slightly with emotion as he whispered, "As a matter of fact, yes I do.
My father died yesterday. Because of your vainglorious little war, I'm
going to miss his funeral. I didn't have a chance to tell him goodbye,
or even to pay respects, because I was too busy making sure you never
broke the peace again. You, little miss, have wasted time so precious
to me that your entire life and death couldn't pay back a day of it."
He turned his back on the self-proclaimed Empress, and facing
Thalona, he growled, "You may arrange funeral ceremonies for your
mother. Like it or not, she was once the Empress, and for all her
crimes she deserves some respect." As he turned to leave, he said,
"And keep that motherfucking self-centered bitch out of my sight!"
Thalona watched the Freespacer admiral storm off, stunned
motionless by his words. Behind her, Zerina asked, "What about you,
Thalona? Don't you have any tears to shed for our mother?"
"I shed all my tears the night I left the two of you to your
madness," Thalona said. "I have no mother anymore."
Zerina gaped in disbelief at her sister. "How can you say
that? This is our MOTHER. Don't you have any love left for her?"
"Why should I?" Thalona said. "She never had any for us. We
were just her tools. She never saw anyone as anything other than
tools. Well, let's see her use someone now."
Zerina stared for a long moment, and then her face sank back
into tears. Whining quietly, she walked away with her guards, shoulder
to shoulder with them and totally alone in the universe.
Thalona watched her sister leave, as the tears she denied
built up in her eyes.
The Empress is dead, she thought. Let her stay dead.
And may whatever forces there are in the universe have mercy
on her soul.

Chapter 1/NOW

Magnolia Hill Cemetery, Segno Community, Texas, Earth
August 1, 2388

Kris Overstreet stood by the grave of his father, looking down
with only the tiniest hint of the old pain in his eyes. "Dad, I'm glad
I got to come back to visit, before everything hits the fan," he said,
letting his accent thicken as he spoke. "I don't know if you noticed
or not, but things are getting bad here in the land of the livin'.
GENOM's runnin' roughshod over ever'body, the WDF's scramblin' to stop
'em, and ever'body else seems to be runnin' around like chickens with
their heads cut off."
The assessment was fairly accurate. The major independent
space powers, each with different priorities, had scattered to the
winds, and now each fleet was getting a beating by turns. The
Salusians and Zardons sat besieged in their home system; the United
Federation of Planets' Starfleet, after several pointless and costly
single-ship encounters, had gathered their remaining fleet for one
final stand at Wolf 349; and the various smaller forces, including the
Confederate Freespacers Mercenary Fleet, either worked with the WDF,
assisted sector defense commands, or protected their homeworlds from
possible (and frequent) GENOM attack.
"Things are gonna be rough," Kris said. "I got the Home Fleet
helping to evacuate all the civilians from the Enigma Sector defense
bases, and the Tactical Fleet's keeping a lookout in case GENOM
attacks. Once we have the refugees out of the way, we'll hook up with
the WDF and make our stand with them. God willing, we'll come through
okay."
Kris let the rustle of the leaves under the summer breeze echo
through the cemetery for a few moments. After some thought, he reached
into his jacket pocket and took out a ring. "I've been thinking, Dad.
I met this girl, you see, and I think I'm in love with her. If we both
live through..." He chuckled bitterly at that; these days, he could
live through nearly anything. "If we both live through this... this
shit... I'm going to ask her to marry me.
"Her name's Terri Curtiss. She's a really sweet person, Dad...
and she understands, Dad, she understands all the weirdness." Once,
long long ago, Kris had been a writer for comic books. He'd ended up
in space by a strange happenstance and had seen some of the characters
he'd written for, somewhat different in certain ways, in the flesh.
He'd flown vehicles from fiction, met alien races taken from movies,
and generally lived a strange life. Terri just accepted all of it as
status quo.
"Dad... I just wish you'd lived... stuck around... hell, I
don't even know where Mom was buried, or when. I'm all I got left, and
it's really hurting me sometimes. I need someone to be there for me."
A loud beep sounded from the flight jacket, and Kris took out
an older model Starfleet personal communicator. Flipping it open, he
said, "Overstreet here."
"Admiral, we just received a report. Starfleet got waxed at
Wolf 349. The main GENOM fleet'll be here in three hours. Olympus has
issued a planetary evacuation code, they're heading for the hills.
Time to bug out, Red." Like almost every other Condorcet before him,
the commanding officer of the battlecruiser CFMF Tinker, James Joseph
Condorcet XVIII, handed Kris his share of bitter pills to swallow.
This time, for once, the grey-haired, bullheaded, sexist old warrior
couldn't be blamed, so Kris swallowed his anger and forced himself
into some measure of professionalism.
"All right, JJ," Kris said quietly. "Prepare for rendezvous in
thirty minutes. Overstreet out."
Kris pocketed his communicator and crouched down to adjust the
little flags in their holders. "Got to go, Dad. Thanks for
listening... hope you'll be watching." Kris stood from his crouch and
looked around the cemetery, to the tall pine, oak, and magnolia trees,
and remembered the days long, long ago, when he had wanted so badly to
escape the rural life and see the wide world. Today he sought for just
a moment to forget the wide world he'd sought out, first as a student,
then as a writer, and then, most improbably, as a starfighter pilot
and mercenary.
Precious moments, Kris thought. Time stolen from a schedule
too tight to permit it. But who knows... I might not see this place
again for a LONG time... or ever, maybe.
Across the years, he could still hear his father's voice, the
little mundane things that, somehow, had tied two people together in
an unbreakable bond.
"Hey, Kris, ya wanta go to th' beer joint?"
"Kris, you wanna give me a hand with this?"
"KRISTAN OREN OVERSTREET, YOU GET YOUR ASS IN HERE!!"
"I don't think this is a good idea, Kris, but whatever you
ever want to do, I'll back ya, one hundred percent of th' way."
Kris forced himself to smile as he left the graveyard,
carefully closing the gate behind him, and called out to the small
metal dome situated midway up the fuselage of the Incom T-65 Dragonfly
starfighter parked carefully beneath the massive old magnolia trees
which had given the cemetery its name. "Hey, Sparky, crank 'er up, we
gotta go!"
"You got it, boss!" an electronic voice called up, and the
engines on the X-Wing roared into life. Kris tossed his helmet into
the fighter seat, took a running start, and LEAPED up into the lower
branches of the trees, swinging down and landing in the open cockpit,
snatching up his helmet and slamming it onto his head as he landed. A
few seconds later, a searing hot wind blew through the trees, blasting
red clay dust through the clearing and down the old road leading down
to the old Segno settlement.
The roar of the fighter's engines faded, the wind died down,
and the dead were alone once more.

JJ Condorcet stepped off of the hangar control deck and walked
down the steps to the hangar bay itself as the Tinker's hangar tractor
beam dropped Kris' fighter into its proper place on the flight deck.
As the astromech crane lifted Sparky from his socket behind the
canopy, JJ waved to his admiral, smiling the classic Condorcet grin as
he shouted up, "Hi, Redneck! How was your visit home?"
Kris removed his helmet and dropped it into the fighter's seat
behind him as he climbed out. "Short," he said at last. "Give me a
status report on the fleet."
"Lessee..." JJ fingered his thick grey mustache as he ran
through the lists of CFMF fighting ships, working out mentally who was
where at the moment. "MASS units sixteen through twenty-five are
deployed at Wilderness Station with the Home Fleet; the rest is
escorting refugee evacuation fleets to Zeta Cygni. All five carrier
task forces are at Wilderness, along with most of the smaller ships...
the Palendrom's bottled up in the Salusal system with the Salusian
RSN... the Guys and Dolls is returning from its patrol of space around
Jyurai, should rendezvous with the fleet in another eight hours... the
Defiant is still on its shakedown cruise after its engine refit... and
then there's us."
"Great," Kris nodded. "Get to the bridge and get us out of
here. Best speed to Wilderness Station."
"Will do, Admiral," JJ grinned. With a mock salute, he turned
and walked briskly towards the turbolift, cracking his knuckles as he
let the smile drop back into the worried frown he'd had all too often
the last two months.
Starfleet couldn't stop 'em, he thought. The Salusians can't
stop 'em. The WDF can't even get half its ships out of drydock.
An' we're gonna be right dead in their way when they come
through to finish off Largo's little pet project.
What the hell are we gonna do?

Kris strolled leisurely along the deck, working open the seal
on his flight suit, taking the time to look around him and inspect the
hangar. Two of the Tinker's six squadrons, plus his own fighter, stood
in the ready-launch bays, ready to go... along with two other, much
larger objects which took up a large chunk of the Tinker's remaining
hangar space.
One of these objects, a large mobile missile launcher, flashed
its lights and called out to him. "Hey, Admiral!" it shouted in a
deep, laconic voice. "Glad to see you back!"
"Hello, Major, how's it going?" Kris called out.
"Not too bad," Major Doubledealer, second in command of the
Ninth Regiment, Freespacer Marine Corps, replied. "Of course, I'd like
some room to stretch out one of these days..."
Kris tried not to chuckle at the thought. In robot form, the
Transformer stood about eighty feet tall, give or take. "I'll see
about getting you some shore leave on New Avalon in the near future.
In the meantime, all I can do is up your lube rations and tell ya to
keep your manifold from seizing up."
"Fair enough. You take care too," Doubledealer replied.
A much smaller figure, a human roughly five feet four, ran
over from the other object, a large gunboat- sized starfighter done up
in silver and white trim. "Admiral!" Dr. Hitaki Kizuki shouted.
"Admiral, you must stop these horrible military- minded cretins. They
want to launch the Starlight prematurely! Can't you please explain to
them what the situation is?"
Kris rolled his eyes. Rear Admiral Grosvenor Rollins, known in
and out of the CFMF as Groo the Quartermaster, had assumed ever since
the Starlight prototype heavy fighter left drydock last month that it
was ready for combat, and he had tried to put it on the front lines
more than once. The grim reality was that the Starlight's special
innovative pilot-ship interface- the point of the whole business-
required massive cybernetic and genetic manipulation of its pilot, and
the chosen test pilot, Dr. Kizuki's daughter Mitsuha, was still
recovering from the surgeries. Both Dr. Kizuki and Washuu insisted on
more time for training and observation before putting the extremely
experimental system into combat.
"Look, Dr. Kizuki," Kris sighed, "I'll get Quartermaster Corps
off your back... again... but if you can show them something, anything
in the next couple of weeks that could help..." The background hum of
the engines rose slightly, and Kris smiled as he walked away. "Now if
you'll excuse me, Doctor, we've just hit warp, and I really need to be
on the bridge."
"But Admiral!" Dr. Kizuki followed Kris right up to the
turbolift doors. "What about the security of the project? Is the
Starlight safe here? I've already arranged to have my children sent to
New Avalon, but-"
"Dr. Kizuki," Kris smiled, "this is the most potent starship
the CFMF has. The Starlight, quite literally, could not be in a safer
place." With that, he stepped into the turbolift, mumbled, "Main
Bridge, Level One," and relaxed.
Ah, stress, annoyance, and the acts of fools.
Back to work, Mr. Overstreet.

Chapter 2/THEN

Sol System, solar orbit near Earth
May 4, 2385

Four ships floated in open space, lit by the yellow star which
they orbited and the tiny blue and grey spheres which lay some ten
million miles behind them. Two Miranda-class light cruisers
represented the United Federation of Planets Starfleet, flanked on
either side by the massive Royal Salusian battleship HMS Lord Mathis
and the even more massive flagship of the CFMF, the CFMF Tinker. A
vague distance ahead of the capital ships, dozens of starfighters
buzzed around the edge of a disturbance in spacetime, a strange
buckling and curving of reality distorting the starfield beyond it
Air traffic controllers coordinated the various Olympus/Earth,
Starfleet, Salusian, and Freespacer fighters from the upper deck of
the Tinker's vast bridge, while on the lower deck various science
officers examined the scans sent back by the fighters patrolling the
anomaly. In the pit of the bridge, gathered around an auxiliary
display screen, Admiral Overstreet, Captain JJ Condorcet, Washuu
Hakubi, and the captains of the other three ships watched a computer
simulation of the anomaly grow, open up for a few moments, then close,
shrink, and fade away.
"To explain what's happening in layman's terms, a neighboring
universe is brushing close to ours," Washuu said. "There will be a
short period of imbalance as the other universe penetrates ours, and
then the universes will drift back apart and the effect will
subside.."
"Can anything from the other universe cross over into this
one?" Captain Juarez, the swarthy, impeccably trimmed commander of the
USS Saratoga, asked.
"Of course it could!" Washuu smiled. "However, I've looked
into the universe in question, and-"
"Excuse me?" Captain Jerisht, the Lord Mathis' commander and
an old, grey-furred veteran of centuries with the Salusian military,
asked softly. "You visited this other universe?"
"No, not personally," Washuu said. "I just looked inside it
for a bit."
"But how did-"
Jerisht felt a hand gently grasp his shoulder. The owner of
the hand said quietly, "Don't ask how she does it, but I assure you
Professor Washuu is quite capable of doing it."
"I'll take your word for it, Admiral," the Salusian nodded.
"The universe in question is very similar to ours, except for
a slight delay in its process of time," Washuu said. "There is an
Earth on the other side, on which the current year is 2045 or so.
Their technology is significantly inferior to our universe; in
particular, they have no hyperlight drive. The odds of their detecting
the disturbance, much less purposely sending something through it
before it subsides, are so low it's laughable.
"Only the most luckless, clumsy, boneheaded accident could
bring anything through the hole for the... oh..." Washuu punched a few
keys on the console, nodded at the result with satisfaction, "fifteen
seconds the portal will be open."
"Nevertheless, we shall continue to observe the phenomenon
with our ships at alert status until the effect has completely
subsided," Captain Douglass, a tall, broad-shouldered man whose
Starfleet uniform fit even more rigidly than Captain Juarez's, folded
his arms and stared impassively at the Freespacer and Salusian
commanders. "Such are Starfleet's orders."
"Hey, you can do whatever you like," Captain Condorcet growled
back, "but we ain't under contract to y'all, and we ain't under
Starfleet or Federation command. Why, we oughta-"
"JJ," Kris said quietly, "cool it, okay?" To the other
captains, he said, "The Freespacers shall continue to assist
Starfleet, Earth, and Salusian forces in this operation. In fact, as
soon as the Tinker launches its second shift of fighters, we will
offer refueling services to the other fighters."
"That would be appreciated," Douglass replied.
"However," Kris continued, "until an active threat presents
itself, this ship will limit its alert status to its hangar bay and
starfighter forces and support crews. All other functions, including
the monitoring of the phenomenon, will be conducted under normal duty
conditions."
"If that is your choice." Douglass said, his voice not
betraying one ounce of emotion. "However, Captain Juarez and I have
specific orders to treat this operation as a potential military
threat. We will remain at general quarters."
"For seven hours?" Washuu said. "That's how long it's going to
be before the activity peaks." She smiled slyly at the Starfleet
captain. "Or do you like seeing your young female officers all at
their stations at once, in those tight-fitting uniforms and
form-fitting trousers..." Her smile turned truly wicked as she added,
"Or have you gone back to those little butt-hugging miniskirts?"
Douglass blushed and huffed uncomfortably at Washuu's leer.
"Washuu, give it a rest," Kris grumbled. "Gentlemen, I shall
revise the rotation shifts of our starfighters, and I suggest you all
do the same. I shall pass on that suggestion to the commanders of the
Earth defense forces at Olympus. You are invited back here in six
hours to monitor the peak event. Until then, I suggest we all try to
get a little sleep."
"Excuse me?" Jerisht replied. "On my ship, the day is just
starting."
Kris groaned. "Or whatever," he said. "Six hours, gentlemen...
ah, 0130 hours, Tinker ship time." As the captains went to the lift to
take the transporter to their ships, Kris said to Captain Condorcet,
"JJ, please arrange for half of the incoming pilots to get some rest.
I want all possible ships flying in seven hours. Okay?"
"Sure thing, Red," JJ replied. "You want me to rig up a
fighter for you?"
"Um... no," Kris replied. "I think this time I'll be of more
use on the bridge."
"Then I hope you don't mind if I take your place," JJ replied.
"Wouldn't want to get rusty, y'know."
"Fine," Kris said. "Have fun. I'll be back on the bridge in
six hours."
"Would you like me to tuck you in, Kris?" Washuu said just a
little too sweetly.
"Washuu..." Kris glared down at Washuu for a moment before
sighing and continuing, "That just... isn't... funny." Kris trudged to
the turbolift, mentally trying to prepare himself for sleep he knew he
wasn't likely to get.
Washuu stood behind on the bridge, and said quietly, "But I'm
not laughing."

At 0227 hours according to the clocks on the CFMF Tinker, the
disturbance, which had grown steadily larger and more turbulent over
time, split in the center, forming a ring of brilliant light around a
tiny glimpse of normal-looking space. The science officers of the four
ships studied the readings from the other universe intently, as the
gap grew slightly wider and stabilized for a few seconds.
Then the starfighter tumbled through the gap and into the
midst of the swarm of Dragonflies, Epees, Valkyries, Headhunters,
Myrmidons, and other assorted fighters.
The battlescarred fighter rolled end over end, drifting
through and away from the rift. One wingtip had been blasted clean
away, and one of the twin tailfins was dented badly from a glancing
impact. The running lights and cockpit sat, dead and dark, at the
outer edges of the ship. The rift closed up behind the starfighter;
the ring of light narrowed and winked out, and the turbulence began to
subside.
Kris jumped up from the Tinker's command chair and strode over
to a console, focusing the Tinker's scanners on the vessel. As he
thought, all power systems read as totally dead... but there -were-
life signs, faint, but present, in the cockpit. The pilot was still
alive... but unless the ship could be rescued, that life would be
short.
"Helm!" Kris shouted. "Take us in, one-quarter sublight! Hangar
bay, prepare to receive salvage vessel! Medic team, report to main
hangar!" The Tinker's bridge flew into motion, and with a subliminal
rumble of engines the Tinker moved forward towards the disturbance.
"Get our airspace clear!" he shouted to the ATC officers around the
bridge.
Starfighters scattered, speeding away from the otherworldly
fighter as the Tinker moved forward. Gracefully the battleship
reversed its position, turning its rear towards the derelict and
opening its main hangar doors. A tractor beam latched onto the craft,
halted its spin, and gently brought it into the hangar, where another
beam guided it over to the corner of the hangar closest to the main
turbolift.
From the console on the bridge, Kris got his first clear look
at the fighter. The main ramjet engine intake gaping in the front, the
twin jet intakes atop the stubby wings, the bulging canopy and twin
tailfins... Kris pushed his memory for the place he'd seen the design
before, and finally came up with the reference. Four hundred years
ago, when he'd been something other than a mercenary...
The Starfleet captains stared with surprise when Kris' leaped
up to the upper deck of the bridge and ran to the turbolift. Captain
Jerisht didn't bat an eye; his early career had been spent as a junior
officer on the old SDF-17 Wayward Son, and he'd seen enough during his
career to be surprised at virtually nothing.
In the sickbay, a young redheaded woman with a rich crop of
freckles on her cheeks lay unconscious on a diagnostic bed. The senior
medic, a Salusian named Dr. Bifran Piers, checked the bed's display
panel and said to Kris, "Well, Red, she'll be just fine. Her ship was
probably rendered powerless crossing between universes. She's only
been out for a couple of minutes. In fact, she'll be waking up any
moment now."
As Dr. Piers spoke, the woman's eyelids fluttered, and she
groaned slightly. She stared for a long moment into the furred face of
the Salusian doctor, took a deep breath, and screamed wildly. Kris
leaned over her, pinned her arms down, and yelled, "QUIET!"
The woman stopped screaming and looked curiously at Kris, who
stared back calmly. "What is your name?" he said.
"I..." The woman gulped down a breath and continued, "I'm
Lieutenant Terri Curtiss, Earth Volunteer Group."
"Terri Curtiss," Kris said. Luckless, clumsy, totally
accidental. Straight from the comics.
"Terri," Kris said quietly, "my name is Kris Overstreet. You
aren't in the world you used to be in..."
Terri's eyes widened. She sat up slightly, looking around her.
She said quietly, "What? ...What year is this?"
"2385," Kris said.
Terri stared at Kris for a long time. "Four hundred years?"
Kris nodded. "Close enough."
"Another universe?"
Kris nodded again.
Terri collapsed back into her bunk, groaning. "I should have
known," she grumbled. "I'm in a spin-off title."

Chapter 2/NOW

DSS Wilderness Station, Enigma Sector
August 2, 2388

Near the center of Enigma Sector, in the long-ago days between
the fall of Atlantis and the first Kilrathi War, a Salusian scout
placed a navigation beacon to guide the slow, clunky hyperdrive ships
of the time through the regions of dark nebulae and rogue planets
which gave the sector its name. The new routes through the region sped
up travel through the sector by days, and soon the beacon became the
hub of travel for the region.
Hubs of travel, as any Ferengi could tell you, mean money.
And money means that someone will come along seeking to
transfer some of the money from the spacers flitting past the hub into
their pockets. One particular someone, an entrepreneur whose name is
lost to memory, moved a small planetoid to within a few million miles
of the beacon and built in orbit around it what would later be called
Wilderness Station.
By the twenty-fourth century AD, Earth Gregorian Calendar,
warp drives were well on the way to supplanting hyperdrives for
large-scale commercial transport. Newer, better sensor systems meant
that ships could plow directly through the nebulae and asteroid fields
rather than stick to the older trade routes.
Despite changes in technology, one thing remained constant;
within a fifteen-lightyear radius, Wilderness Station was the best
place to resupply, rest, and recreate. It was also one of the best
defended stations in space; a ship within ten klicks of Wilderness
Station was as safe as in orbit around Salusia itself. Not even
MacLeod Station, built near the actual center of Enigma Sector, could
compete with the ancient and immense Salusian station.
Naturally Wilderness Station became one of the centers of
organized defense when GENOM's fleet appeared, almost from nowhere, to
begin its run at galactic conquest. For the past month, the CFMF had
been contracted to the Federation as sector defense and evacuation
guard. For its headquarters, the Freespacer command had chosen
Wilderness, and the Confederate Freespacer Alliance moved the core of
its Home Fleet into orbit around the grand old space station.
Dropping to sublight, the Tinker was greeted with the
magnificent view of the Freespacer Home Fleet, in a loose orbital
cluster around the immense bulk of Wilderness Station.
A tourist, upon catching first sight of the running lights of
the fleet, would see the older starfighters of the Home Fleet Defense
Force, or occasionally one of the new X-Wings of the MASS-01, the
traditional escort force of the Freespacer government, on skirmisher
duty. The tourist's ship would then pass into the outer perimeter of
the fleet, a disorganized area where as many as a couple hundred ships
of varying size from tiny tramp freighters up to huge bulk haulers,
sleek warships and clumsy habitat ships, would either sit, awaiting
instructions from the Freespacer fleet ATC, or move from one position
to another around the fleet's edge.
Beyond the outer edge lay the fleet proper, a strictly
organized flight pattern organized to prevent collisions while
allowing for easy passage in, through, and out of the pattern. At the
heart of the fleet lay five ships, which above all represented the
core of the Freespacer nation; the twin triangles of the capitol
ships, the CFA Washington and CFA Richmond; the two principal drydock
vessels, the streamlined CFA Birmingham and the gigantic CFA
Bethlehem; and at the very core of the fleet, the motley hulk of metal
and good wishes, almost as big as Wilderness Station itself, the CFA
New Orleans. These five ships, by themselves, held some 70,000
permanent residents; the entire fleet, over 2,500 ships in all,
normally had a total population of over a million people.
Today, as the Tinker glided through the pattern to its
position close by the Washington, that population had been drastically
increased.
Kris stood on the bridge of the Tinker, watching the ships
gliding around and through the pattern. Dozens of private haulers,
some out-and-out smugglers, raced their ships through the pattern,
running to and from larger transports with their cargo of refugees.
The starfighter cordon was supplemented by the combined force of half
the fleet's MASS units and the six active carriers of the CFMF
Tactical Fleet. Many more non-Freespacer ships than usual were in the
pattern, taking advantage of the additional protection to restock,
rest, and scurry on to safety.
In the current situation, safety was a relative concept. Each
day, more worlds came under attack from GENOM forces. Salusia, Zardon,
Vulcan, Sirius and Cybertron were all under siege. On Earth, the
Olympus arcology had been bombarded almost out of existence in
minutes, and the planetary defense forces had been driven underground
or into guerrilla warfare. Smaller task forces were attacking places
like Manticore, Corellia, and Ord Mantell. More and more refugees,
displaced from old safe ports, were being re-routed to the new Dyson
Sphere which had replaced the old Utopia Planitia Ship Yards.
"All stop," JJ ordered, and the helmsman's hands danced across
the keys, bringing the motion of the ship into sync with the rest of
the fleet. Through the viewports, Kris picked out three of the
Tactical Fleet's Camelot-class carriers, along with several
Plymouth-III and Broadway fast corvettes. The fleet's mixture of the
incredibly-modified Headhunters, slightly-less-modified Myrmidons, and
brand-new Dragonflies zipped back and forth across the pattern, tiny
sparks against the multicolored shapes of the main Home Fleet.
"Thank you for the ride, Captain," Kris said. "If my launch is
ready, I'll be heading over to the Washington now and get a dent put
in the paperwork." Kris' smile said that he'd rather clean out a
Bantha stable.
"Anytime, Red- uh, Admiral," JJ said. "Say hi to Little Joe
for me, willya?"
"Will do, JJ," Kris replied. "Carry on."

Once inside the turbolift for a long ride down to the hangar
and his personal shuttle, Kris wished to himself that he could risk
the new transporters he'd had installed in all the ships
Dreadnought-class and larger. However, he thought, trying to use a
matter-energy transporter on a lifeform which absorbed energy would
lead to extremely unpleasant consequences.
A few minutes later, Kris' private launch eased out of the
Tinker's hangar, aiming itself towards the Washington. As Kris guided
the small shuttle through the pattern, he noted one particular X-wing
cutting across the pattern at high speed, whisking just above or below
the hulls of various ships, apparently trying to intercept him. The
markings on the fighter, even at this distance, identified it as one
of the MASS-21 Cosmotigers.
Kris' heart sank even as his hands keyed in an evasion
protocol, barely convincing the shuttle to duck under the fighter's
path. The fighter passed overhead, overcorrected, grazed a passing
freighter with its wingtip, and spun wildly towards the Washington. A
few seconds before the fighter could collide with the larger ship, a
tractor beam lanced out from its starboard vane and slowed the
fighter, stopping it a few meters from its hull.
"Overstreet to Washington," Kris said quietly. "Is that
Lieutenant Curtiss in that fighter?"
"Sure is, Admiral," the deck officer replied. "Would you like
to speak to her when you land?"
Kris suppressed what he'd really like to do- all four
variations- and said, "That would be a good idea."

Chief Warrant Officer Boris Konig groaned as he inspected the
Incom T-65-A Dragonfly Lieutenant Curtiss had nearly wrecked (again).
Between her frequent visits to the Washington and other incidents, he
saw the fighter more often than the Cosmotiger's crew chief, Petty
Officer Larzac, ever did.
Off to one side of the Washington's hangar bay, the Admiral's
launch was settling to the deck, its hatch already opening up before
the engines had cycled to a complete stop. The Admiral himself almost
jumped out of the shuttle, looking around angrily for Lieutenant
Curtiss.
Finally, his eyes fell on the redheaded woman in the orange
flight suit standing meekly in the middle of the bay.
"Terri, what the HELL was that out there?" he shouted from
halfway across the hangar, his boots clacking loudly on the metal.
"You come barreling across the goddamn fleet like a bat out of hell-
about as blind, too- and nearly get yourself AND me killed! What the
HELL WERE YOU THINKING?"
"I... I'm sorry, Red, I just wanted to see you so badly, I
mean..." Chief Konig watched as Terri shifted on her feet with a
discomfort he'd never been able to inspire in her.
"I ought to have you grounded- AGAIN- for that display,"
Redneck barked. "If I didn't know you were rougher on the enemy than
on our own ships, I'd have you assigned to Quartermaster Corps!"
"But... I... I didn't mean to hurt anybody...."
And on it went, for several more minutes, as the Chief watched
the Admiral give the lieutenant the dressing-down of her life.
Finally, he grumbled, "I'm going to refer this to MASS Command for
action, Lieutenant. I'm sure they'll find SOMETHING that might make an
impression on that redheaded brain of yours! Dismissed!"
"Yes, sir..." Terri mumbled. "Um... would you like to have
dinner with me tonight?"
"Hm? Um, yeah, sure," the Admiral nodded. "8 PM in the forward
commissary, as usual?"
Chief Konig shook his head and returned to his inspection of
Terri's fighter.
No doubt about it, he thought, the Admiral's got it bad...

Chapter 3/THEN

Uncharted planet
November 16, 2234

Kris floated through his dreams, trying to relax while
searching madly for a peculiar type of dream he had on occasion.
Ever since he could remember, Kris had seen places, and
occasionally people, in his dreams. Places he hadn't been, people he'd
never met. He'd wake up and forget the dream- until he saw the place
or met the person, when he'd be hit with the feeling he nicknamed Deja
View.
A week ago, he'd orbited this planet, a nameless watery world
dominated by one large continent of mostly grasslands, after
thirty-two years of wandering uncharted space and getting stranded on
various planets trying to repair his decrepit scout ship. He'd never
seen the world before- in fact, as far as anyone knew, no one from the
United Galactica had come this way.
But he'd seen the planet before... and he'd known, at once, he
had to land. He set his ship down near the center of the grassland,
and he'd hiked a couple of miles before he found a small grass hut
alone in the wilderness. He'd walked up to the hut and looked
around... and found a note addressed to Kristan Overstreet.
MAKE YOURSELF COMFORTABLE; I WILL RETURN SHORTLY.
In the week since, he'd listened to the old man who showed up
that evening, meditated while he ran alongside the bovine creatures of
the plains, concentrated on not concentrating. Already his control
over his ability to absorb and manipulate energy had become more
refined and less instinctive. He could feel and control every action,
every process in his body.
Not bad for a Jedi in training.
Tonight, sensing the Force but not able to touch it, Kris
stumbled from dream to dream, rushing through the chaotic images in
search of a true vision. Views of various Condorcets, of Washuu and
Sparky, of Leeanna and Asrial and Ichi and Jeremy, of the Wayward Son,
the New Orleans, the ex-Sivar carrier CFMF Jyurai, of worlds and
people and ships beyond number, blurred together into a phantasmal
blur.
But tonight, it seemed, there would be no 'special' dreams, no
Deja Views. Resigning himself to failure, Kris settled into a more
restful sleep, vowing to try again another time, and another, as long
as it took.
More to learn, he thought, and how much time to learn in?

Early in the morning on the seventh day of Kris' training,
Jaicyen led him on a trek across the plain, the old man running
effortlessly through the waist-high grass ahead while Kris gasped and
panted his way back up to a trot behind him. For the millionth time or
so, Kris regretted promising not to boost his strength or endurance
during training; his lungs were raw, his legs shaking, and he wanted
to throw up. Looking back, he could barely make out the hut, some
three or four miles back. The horizon before them appeared
featureless, save for a stunted tree here or there rising from the
grassland.
"Come, Kristan!" Jaicyen shouted back. "The Jedi gains
strength and endurance from the Force! Let the Force flow through
you!"
Kris smothered the thought of letting anything flow at all and
kept running.
The small wash appeared out of nowhere, breaking the endless
plain in front of them. Laughing, Jaicyen jumped off the wash's high
banks; groaning, Kris followed, dropping and rolling as he hit the
wash bed about twelve feet below. Jaicyen had apparently had no need
even to roll, he stood, staff in hand, looking at Kris with the same
penetrating stare as when the two had first met.
For a few seconds, Kris steadied himself, allowing his
regeneration to catch up with his exertions. At the same time, he
carefully relaxed himself, little by little, opening himself up to the
Force. The first couple of times, it seemed to flee from him; the
third time, he felt it flow through him; as he touched it, he felt a
cold, hungry darkness around him.
"What..." Kris said, careful not to lose his concentration...
"what am I feeling?"
"What _are_ you feeling?" Jaicyen asked.
"Something is wrong here," Kris murmured. Standing, he took a
few tentative steps, then turned and faced the arroyo's bank. In front
of him was a low cave, where past floods had washed away the soil to
reveal the limestone beneath. The hole might admit a human, crouched
over, carefully.
The cave reeked of the darkness; in a flash, Kris saw the cave
and its surroundings as if on a moonlit night, except that the
darkness flowed from the cave, eating away at the daylight.
The vision passed, and Kris took a step closer. "There is
something in the cave, isn't there?" he said at last.
"In ancient times," Jaicyen said at last, "a great battle was
fought here, between a Jedi Master and a Lord of the Sith. Since that
battle, this place, this tomb, has been strong, strong with the Dark
Side of the Force.
"You must go inside."
Kris balked. "I don't want to go inside. You've warned me more
times than I can count about the Dark Side, why should I want to go
in?"
"Sooner or later, Kristan, each of us must face the Dark Side
for the first time," Jaicyen said. "If you do not go in now, you
merely put off the inevitable for a day when you may not expect it."
"Am I ready?" Kris asked.
"No," Jaicyen replied. "There is no way to be ready."
"I'm afraid," Kris said.
"That is natural," Jaicyen said. "Be careful not to let your
fear control you. Control your emotions, do not let your emotions
control your actions, and you will be safe."
"What will I find in there?"
"Only what you bring with you."
Kris looked at Jaicyen, then at the cave, and then, taking a
deep breath, he crawled into the hole.
For a second, Kris saw the dimly lit cave, water dripping down
into the depths of an enormous cavern, shadows creeping at every
side...

Kris blinked furiously. The cave was gone; he stood in an
alley of some sort. Around him stood high sandstone palaces, carved
with the images of birds of prey, of hunting animals, and of tall
bipeds with leonine faces. The smell of smoke filled his nostrils, the
furnace heat and cloying moisture of a tropical city clung to his
skin. Kilrah, Kris realized, this is the Kilrathi homeworld. What the
hell am I doing here?
Behind him, something exploded with horrific force, throwing
him to the ground. Terror welled up inside him, and he forced himself
to calm down. There is no emotion; there is peace, he thought.
The voice inside him which said, Yeah, right, did nothing to
help his state of mind.
Footsteps crunched slowly against the sandstone street.
Kris spun around to face a humanoid form, roughly Kris' height,
dressed, cloaked and hooded in black, took long measured strides,
walking towards, and then past, Kris, without looking aside.
A Kilrathi female, a young cub clutched tight in her arms,
stumbled into the alleyway, gasping for breath and glancing behind
her. Apparently satisfied that her pursuers were gone, the Kilrathi
woman stepped forward, paused, and gasped as she saw the smaller,
human form before her.
The Kilrathi screamed.
The cloaked human raised a hand, and small bolts of energy
flew from his palm to slash through the woman's body. Screaming in
fear and pain, she fell atop her baby, carefully shielding the cub
without crushing it against the ground. The energy-shivs continued,
cutting hole after hole into the Kilrathi's body. Finally, the
Kilrathi woman's screams died out, leaving the crying of the cub to
echo through the quiet alleyway.
Kris gaped as the cloaked man bent forward, pushing the
Kilrathi's body off her cub. The cub looked up, silent and fearful, as
the cloaked man picked it up by the scruff in its neck. An energy
blade appeared in the man's hand, and wordlessly he raised it to
strike.
"STOP!" Kris managed to shout at last, and he ran towards the
man and cub, energy staff appearing in his own hand.
The cloaked man paid no attention; with a flick of the wrist,
the cub's head tumbled away, landing with a soft splotch. With a
gesture of disgust, the man tossed the lifeless body away.
"No..." Kris's staff vanished, and ignoring the cloaked man,
he knelt down and cradled the headless cub in his arms. Then, tears
steaming down his face, he looked up at the cloaked man and said,
"Why? Who are you! WHY?"
In reply, the hooded man reached up and pulled the hood away
from his face. Wild, unkempt blonde hair matted down on a pale head,
and a manic grin gleamed through a tangled red beard. Two slits which
might have been eyes glowed as red as the energy blade which still
glowed in the man's right hand.
Kris gasped, "You... you're me."
"Wrong," the man said quietly. "I am me. You merely think you
are me. But you are a lie, a denial. I am the true Redneck, little
man. And there are Kilrathi to kill."
"NO!" Kris said, and, dropping his link to the Force, he
focused all the energy at his doppelganger-

-and Kris stood, in a dark, damp cave, water up to his calves,
fists glowing with energy ready to expel.
No, he thought, carefully dissipating the energy gathered in
his hands, no, that wasn't me.
That was only a vision. It isn't real.
I would never be that cold, that wild a killer.
I hope.

Outside the cave, Jaicyen watched and waited, and thought.
And he kept his thoughts to himself.

The dreams again, the images, the searching.
A week had passed since his trial at the cave. Jaicyen had
refused to tell him if he'd passed or failed, and Kris didn't know
himself. The image of himself as a cold, heartless killer filled Kris
with terror, a terror he had to wrestle down almost constantly.
The images returned, and this time Kris felt he was on the
right track. A black-haired woman with horns, a redheaded elf with an
ancient sword, and a scantily-clad blonde woman with a fedora; these
were images totally unknown to him, as were the many images of a small
redheaded child, smiling happily up at him. He saw a young woman with
long, straight black hair, her ivory face broken by three spots of
blue, then saw a feminine figure- the same woman?- in gleaming black
power armor, facing off against an enormous wolf. A man both old
and young, man and machine, enemy and friend, glowered at him. A man
with an insane grin, and glowing red eyes, wearing a blue business
suit, sat in a spinning office chair and smirked at everything around
him...
Kris fell into a dark, dark pit...

... running through the black-walled corridors, beam-staff in
hand, seeking... what?

... anger, much anger, whose? Fear, fear and hatred soaked
through the walls- how am I feeling this? Turn a corner and-

-the pain, the pain of the innocent- who is doing this? I hear
the screams, what are they doing? Why am I here? WHY?

"Kristan! Wake up!"
Kris jerked up from his bunk, sweat plastering his bedsheet to
his skin. Above him stood Master Jaicyen, whose sad eyes watched him
with grave concern. "You were seeking the future, I see," he said.
"And you have found it."
"Did you... did you see that?" Kris asked. The image echoed in
his mind, fresh and strong; he fought to lock away the fear and anger
he'd felt in the dream.
"I am not sure," Jaicyen said. "I saw something which gave me
concern... and I awoke and felt your fear. Wherever the place was you
saw, it was deep, deep in the Dark Side... and you were in grave
danger."
"Danger? From who? I didn't see nobody."
"From yourself," Jaicyen said. "Much of the anger, the hatred,
was yours." With a soft grunt, the old Jedi stood and walked to the
shelf on the other side of the room. He pulled down a couple of
earthen jars, then whispered, "I cannot teach you anymore."
"What?" Kris started. "But Master, I was just beginning to
learn! What about the other lessons, the other techniques?"
Jaicyen looked into Kris' eyes, the regret in the master's
face regarding the confusion and fear in the student's. "I saw two
futures," he said at last. "Maybe one is true, maybe the other, maybe
neither. In one, I taught you and made you a Jedi Knight; that much
ability is in you. And then you fell to the Dark Side, and had not the
strength to come back. In the other, you left me, and you learned a
little on your own, and you came close to the Dark Side, but stepped
away from the edge.
"For your sake, and the sake of those you call friend, I must
refuse to teach you anything else. I would appreciate it if you left
this world at once." Jaicyen gestured to a rack, upon which some dried
meat and a few pale tubers hung. "I have prepared some supplies which
should see you as far as the next system. There you will find an
industrial world capable of servicing your ship. May the Force be with
you." The old man picked up the jars and strode out of the hut door
into the pre-dawn shadows, leaving Kris alone to dress and pack.
A few hours later, with his gear stowed back into the Sunday
Driver, Redneck took his ship up into the skies above the nameless
little planet, soaring across the grassy plains. He passed over the
plain several times, startling some bovines, hoping to catch a final
glimpse of the shack he'd spent the last two weeks learning so much
in.
Jaicyen's hut was nowhere to be found.

Chapter 3/NOW
CFA Washington
August 3, 2388

Staring out a window- whose window?- watching ships in
combat... the battle is one-sided, a huge fleet of huge ships smashing
a smaller fleet of much, much smaller ships...

...a redheaded form flashes by, too fast to see, in the
cockpit of an X-Wing, flying into the heart of the fighting. The laser
blasts find the fighter, and I hear the screams... screams ...

"TERRI!"
Kris sat up in his bed, sweat soaking the bedsheets and
running down his face and chest. The dark cabin on the CFA Washington
lay around him, dimly lit by the running lights and engines of the
fleet shining through the viewport. Shaking slightly, Kris got up from
the bed and walked over to his desk, checking the time and date; 0342
8-3-88, the small readout glowed.
The dream's horror faded slightly, and Kris forced himself to
calm down. A battle- must be us against GENOM, no one else has a fleet
that big- and Terri? Terri dead? ...
Kris got up, wrapped a robe around himself and strode through
the cabin door, through his office, past the reception desk and out
into the corridor. Even at this late hour, pages for the Legate and
Washington crewmen passed by on their errands; a couple paused to
stare at the disheveled admiral in a green terrycloth robe standing in
the middle of the walkway.
Across the corridor from Kris' office door stood a plain
wooden door, familiar to any child who ever watched the educational TV
series "Washuu's Lab." Where most of the doors on the Washington slid
open, the wooden door hinged, opening into a vast, vast space not
shown in the blueprints of the ship... mostly because, Kris knew, the
space didn't exist in the ship, or in this dimension, at all.
The door closed behind Kris, the crab-shaped door chime
clattering as the door vanished behind him. Kris knew where to find it
when he wished to leave; this was hardly his first visit into Washuu's
laboratory. As usual, Washuu sat near the door on a cushion suspended
in midair, typing madly away on a holographic terminal. At the sound
of the door closing, she looked up and smiled warmly. "Hi, Kris!" she
said. "Having trouble sleeping?"
Kris walked over to Washuu and knelt so his face and Washuu's
were on the same level; where Kris was a hair under six feet tall,
Washuu was between four and five feet tall, and sitting didn't make
her any taller. "Washuu, I need to ask some advice," Kris said.
"Go ahead," Washuu said, more sober than usual.
"I'm in love with a person," Kris said, and Washuu's eyes lit
up excitedly. "The problem is, I think- well, I had a premonition-
well, there's a good chance she's going to die soon. I don't know what
to do about it."
"Die?" Washuu said. "Are you sure about this?"
Kris hung his head miserably. "I don't see any hope of
avoiding it," he mumbled. "I'm as sure as I am of anything, more so
even."
"Well, if you really think she's going to die, then there's no
time to waste!" Washuu said. "You need to tell this person right now
just how you feel! Use the time you have together to the maximum!
Don't let the opportunity slip away! Once she's dead, you'll never
have the chance again!" Sitting back on her cushion, she said, "I've
made that mistake too often to let it happen again, if I can help it."
"When was this?" Kris asked.
"Oh, long before you were born," Washuu said. "That's not
important now. Listen to me. There is nothing more precious in this
universe, in my experience, than love. Nothing is harder to find,
harder to keep, and harder to part with. If you love someone, and you
think you're going to lose them, then you hold on tight, and you make
every moment you have together the best it can possibly be."
Kris nodded. "You're right," he said. "That's what I'll do!
Thank you for pointing it out to me!" Kris hugged Washuu tightly, and
Washuu shed a tear of joy. Releasing her, Kris said, "I'll go ask
Terri right now!"
Washuu's smile faltered. "Terri?"
"Yes! Terri and I are gonna be- well, if she accepts- I gotta
go propose!" Kris ran through the Lab door, banging it against the
ship's bulkhead on the other side. Washuu stared through the door
until it swung closed, and the small crab chime clattered above the
frame.
Then she put her head in her hands and cried.

<Gleep.>
<Gleep.>
"Yawn... whuzzisit?" Terri groaned. Stumbling from the guest
bunk she'd requested for the night, she wrapped a nightgown around
herself and keyed the door open.
For a second, she looked around and saw nothing; then she
noticed the man kneeling in a bathrobe in front of her. In his hand
was an ancient ring-box, a small ring crowned with a cluster of tiny
diamonds inside.
"Theresa Amy Curtiss..." Kris said quietly, "I ask for your
hand in marriage."
"huh?" Terri hadn't woken up yet.
"Terri..." Kris said, slightly annoyed, "Will... You...
Marry... Me?"
The words sank in at last, and Terri staggered slightly.
"M-marry?" Terri took the ring-box from Kris' hand and looked at it,
and him, like a startled deer entranced by a spotlight. "M-m-m-m-m-
marry me? Marry you? But-but I- but-"
"Terri... I love you very deeply. And I don't want to lose
you."
"But... but this is so... sudden," Terri said. "I need time to
think about this... maybe..." Terri closed the ring-box and turned to
the door. "I'll have to think about it," she said. "I'll let you know
when I have a decision."
"Don't take too long," Kris said, rising up. "We may not have
much time... and I don't want to waste one minute of what we have."
Terri smiled. "Is that a come-on?" she said.
It was Kris' turn to stutter. "Uh, wha, bwa?"
"Great!" Terri said. "I get a test-drive before I buy!"
Grasping Kris' robe by its lapels, she pulled him into the stateroom,
keying the door closed behind them.

Washuu cried and cried, on through the night, unable to stop,
emotions pouring from her like the tears running down her face.
I've failed, she thought.
I've failed.