I was reminded just now, as I re-read it, that there are some pretty fun bits in here, though, and since the story itself is too specialized to be readily recycled, I think I'll toss a few of the choicer bits in here over the next few days.

In this first one, Kei has turned up at an impromptu-task-force rendezvous with the Intrepid, the "modern-capability starship that looks like a Mk I Connie" special-ops sleeper ship mentioned waaaay back in the ancient WDF Technical Readout (an idea I had 15 or so years before such a thing actually turned up as a playable ship in Star Trek Online), a bit to Gryphon's surprise, as there hasn't been enough time since he put out the call for her to recruit a crew of the size required to operate such a vessel:

	Kei pivoted in the center seat and grinned.
	"Weren't expecting to see me, were you?" she asked.
	Gryphon laughed.  "No, I wasn't at that," he said.  "Where'd
you ever find a crew for this old beast on such short notice?"
	"Well, all I really had to find was a command staff, and with
everybody hanging around waiting for B5 to be ready, that wasn't
hard," she said, patting a metal box bolted to one arm of the conn.
"Our old friend technology handles the rest."  She flipped a toggle
switch on the box, causing a green light to flash, and said briskly,
"M5 terminal link."
	A booming metallic voice replied from the conn's intercom
speaker, "M5."
	"Ship's status?"
	"ALL SYSTEMS OPERATIONAL.  ALERT STATUS GREEN.  M5 STANDING
BY," the voice replied.
	Gryphon blinked.
	"You can't be serious," he said at length, but Kei only
grinned.
	"M5, system status?"
	"M5 MULTITRONIC UNIT FEELING MUCH BETTER NOW," the computer
replied without hesitation.
	Kei nodded.  "OK, stand by."
	"M5," the M5 acknowledged.  Kei switched off the interlink
unit.
	"M5 and I have an understanding," she said to Gryphon's
continuing baffled look.  "It involves him doing what he's told and me
not popping down to Engineering to explain my point of view with an
axe."

--G.
"LOOK, KEI, I CAN SEE YOU'RE REALLY UPSET ABOUT THIS. I HONESTLY THINK YOU OUGHT TO SIT DOWN CALMLY, TAKE A STRESS PILL, AND THINK THINGS OVER."
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Matrix Dragon, J. Random Nutter

--------------------------
CdrMike, Overwatch Reject

In my mind, this collided with the phrase, "If You Ain't Get Better, Wasn't No Better to Get," resulting in a multitronic system with a Funkotroni accent.

Peter Eng
--
"SMACKCHAT BE CHEAP, COVENANT-BOY."

Smiling, Gryphon moved off down the hallway,
following a well-remembered route and hoping the refitters didn't move
any bulkheads around on him.
	They hadn't; a leisurely three-minute walk brought him through
a heavy double door into the cool and noisy expanse of the hangar deck.
This, at least, was more or less as he remembered it.  The fighters
parked in their revetments were a little newer than the ones that had
been here when he'd last been aboard, but the mechanical noises and
faint scents and contained bustle were the same.  The only significant
change was the big banner painted on the aft bulkhead, which read,
		     WELCOME TO ICE STATION ZEBRA
	Gryphon pondered that for a second, got the joke, chuckled to
himself, and then turned to catch the next passing technician.
	"Excuse me.  Spaceman?"
	"Sir?" the dark-haired young woman asked, looking mildly but
not overly flustered to have been hailed by a man wearing the uniform
of a different space force.
	"Where can I find General Currier?"
	"She's gone aboard the Klingon ship, sir.  Discussing close
air support strategies with Colonel Martok in case we get into a
ground battle."
	"Ah," said Gryphon, nodding.
	"Her adjutant's in the squadron office if you'd like to talk
to him," the technician added helpfully.
	"I'll do that.  Thank you," he said.
	She saluted as though not entirely certain whether she should,
but wanting to show respect.  He returned it in the spirit if was
meant, then headed across the hangar to the squadron office.
	"They're actually letting you file your own paperwork now?" he
asked the man who sat at the desk in the outer office.
	Major W. Thomas "Too Tall" Riker, adjutant to General Patricia
"Terror" Currier and lead pilot of Concordia's second Veritech
squadron, grinned through his neatly trimmed beard and swung himself
to his feet.  At six feet four inches tall - two inches above standard
regulation height for a Veritech pilot - he lived up to the nickname
his fellow pilots had bestowed on him in flight school.
	Riker thrust out a hand, pumped Gryphon's, and said, "Believe
me, that's one privilege of rank I could do without.  Come to take a
look at your force's only tactical strike asset, eh?"
	Gryphon laughed.  "Don't let my Delta pilots hear you say
that."
	"The Delta's a good gunboat," Riker acknowledged, "but if
we're going up against Cylons you're going to be damn glad you've got
our VTs and Dragonflies along."
	Gryphon nodded.  "I know it, Tom, believe me.  But then, there
isn't -any- fight where I wouldn't be damn glad to have this ship's
squadrons flying cover for me."  He glanced back over his shoulder,
then said, "I didn't see any Valkyries in the hangar.  Don't tell me
Tricia's finally gone to the Thunderbolt."
	Riker laughed.  "Not a chance.  She told me the other day she
thinks the last re-engining program will see the VF-1 to its fifth
century of service.  She's got the Eight-Balls on standby up on the
portside flight deck, just in case we get jumped when we cross over.
I'm probably going to standby my squadron on the starboard ramp as
soon as I'm done squaring away my will."
	Gryphon arched an eyebrow.  Riker shrugged.
	"Well, we're going off to help fight a desperate war in a
parallel dimension," he said.  "I think we're going to make it back,
but there's no sense making Will sit through probate if we don't."
	Gryphon had to admit he had a point.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Oh, so that's what General Galaxy needed to do with the YF-21. Shame this never happened, and they didn't read your notes.

	The Chief punched the intercom panel on his desk without
looking at it and said in an irritable tone of voice,
	"Unless you're bringing me a Class A helmsman, don't bother
me right now."
	The door opened all the same, admitting the trim shape of his
assistant Ruri, a creature of indeterminate species who looked like a
human girl in her early teens, except for the far-too-mature look of
bored ennui on her pretty face and the curious pale blue shade of her
hair.  She stood in the doorway, unimpressed by the incipient wrath
implied by her superior's growl, and said flatly,
	"By a strange coincidence."
	Then she stepped aside and allowed the person behind her to
enter the office.
	Gryphon looked up as if prepared to be further annoyed, then
blinked in puzzlement.  The person whom Ruri had just shown into his
office was another girl, taller but no less trim, who crossed the
threshold with a slightly fey grace that was wholly out of place in
this old-fashioned, cluttered office.  She stood just inside the
doorway, a lovely girl in a simple gray jumpsuit, with long, straight
hair that was a shade or two darker, but the same gray-blue hue as
Ruri's.  Where Ruri's eyes were golden and bored-looking, this one's
were steel-gray and curious, as though she had never seen an office
before.
	Aside from her odd hair color and peculiar grace, the only
things about this newcomer that didn't look entirely human were her
rather large ears, which stood out from her head, jutting through her
hair, and came to delicate points.  They weren't as extreme as, say,
the ears of a Hyelian, but they weren't the understated points of a
Vulcan or Romulan, either.
	Gryphon was looking at her as if he thought he ought to know
who she was, but either it wasn't coming to him or he kept thinking of
somebody else instead.  He came slowly up out of his chair, the
expression on his face changing from puzzlement to amazement at about
the same rate as he rose, until he was fully standing and fully
amazed-looking.
	With a slightly mischievous smile, the girl in gray squared
herself up to a very respectable military attention and gave a
slightly odd salute, touching the first two fingers of her right hand
to her forehead a little above her right eyebrow.
	The movement seemed to jar Gryphon loose from his frozen
astonishment.
	"Well, I'll be damned," he murmured; then his face split in a
huge grin and he lunged out from behind his desk, rounding it with
arms spread wide.  "LAFIEL!" he cried, seizing the elven girl in an
embrace that, at first glance, seemed rather too rough for her.
	She weathered it easily, though, and returned it in kind.
When they'd finished, he stepped back, hands on her shoulders,
delighted astonishment on his face.
	"What are you doing here?" he asked.
	"I heard a rumor that you needed a helmsman," she replied;
then she smiled, saluted again, and said in a sharp, military voice,
"Lafiel Abriel Nei Dobrusk Paryunu, reporting for duty, Captain!"
	Gryphon blinked, then gave her a a look that combined
skepticism with surprise.
	"Aren't you a little busy to be taking a day job?" he
inquired.
	Lafiel made a dismissive gesture.  "I'm retired," she told
him.  "I'm over three hundred, you know - practically in my dotage.
It's time for me to lay aside the intricate duties of state and spend
my twilight years in quiet, relaxed pursuits."
	"I hadn't heard anything about a change of power in the
Empire."
	"We didn't exactly send out a press kit," said Lafiel wryly.
"The Humankind Empire Abh isn't a corporation, that we have to
advertise our changes of management - oh!"  She blinked and looked
down; the Chief's beagle had come over to introduce himself, and was
now standing with his forepaws braced against her knees, tail wagging
furiously, looking up at her.  "Hello," she said with a smile, bending
down to pet him.
	"Wolfgang, down," said Gryphon with good-natured exasperation.
Wolfgang got down on all his feet again, but didn't leave off wagging
until Lafiel stopped scratching behind his ears and shooed him back to
his basket.  To Gryphon's mild surprise, when shooed, the dog went,
curling up contendedly.
	"Well," said Gryphon, strolling back behind his desk with a
comically exaggerated military-superior air.  "So you want to join the
International Police, eh?"
	Lafiel gave him a look, then played along, bowing like the
teenager she resembled and blurting, "Oh, yes, sir!  More than
anything!"
	"Hmm."  Gryphon threw himself down in his chair, put his feet
up on his desk, and told her, "We don't just take anybody here in the
IPO, you know.  What are your qualifications?"
	Lafiel adopted a look of intense consideration.  "Well... I
was in the Wedge Defense Force for five years... I have 5,000 hours in
the VF-1 and VF/A-4 variable-configuration fighters... and I ruled a
galactic empire of four hundred billion sentients for 300 years."
	Gryphon swung his feet off his desk, slapped his palms down on
the blotter and stood up again, leaning forward.
	"Beautiful," he said.  "You're hired."  He punched a key on his
intercom, then noticed that Ruri was still standing in the doorway and
switched it off again with a mock-embarrassed cough.  "Ruri, please
commission Her Majesty a lieutenant commander in the Space Force and
file all the usual crap accordingly."
	"Right," said Ruri with her usual air of boredom, and she
turned and went back to her own desk in the outer office.
	Gryphon dropped the mock-pompous air he'd assumed for the
"interview" and grinned at Lafiel, then pulled an old flip-top
communicator out of his pocket and flipped it open.  "Gryphon to
Challenger."
	"Go ahead, sir," a voice replied.
	"Lore, have the bridge fitters finished yet?"
	"Not quite.  They're still working on the science station."  A
wry note crept into the remote speaker's voice as he added, "Some of
the controls needed some reinforcement."
	"Ah," said Gryphon, nodding, though the person to whom he was
speaking couldn't see him.  "Well, when they're done with that, have
them re-do the helm station with type 11-C controls, would you?"
	"11-C, sir?"
	"That's right."  Gryphon grinned and said, "The Abh Empire is
having a special on used royalty, and Ruri just got us one hell of a
deal."

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Ah, the Beeblebrox school of computer programming I see.

Michael
“If you don’t open that exit hatch this moment I shall zap straight off to your major data banks and reprogram you with a very large axe, got that?”

Michael C. Fortner
"Maxim 37: There is no such thing as "overkill".
There is only "open fire" and "I need to reload".

> "M5 and I have an understanding," she said to Gryphon's 
>continuing baffled look.  "It involves him doing what he's told and me 
>not popping down to Engineering to explain my point of view with an 
>axe."
>