R-minus 13:11:00:00.00

Searching for things in deep space is one of the most thankless of tasks for any modern space force. When judged against the yawning blackness of the void, even the most massive of starships is almost inconsequential in comparison. In essence it becomes a case of comparing against relative scales. The larger something is when compared against its environment, the easier it is to find. One just has to not be overwhelmed by the daunting sameness surrounding it.

There are ways to finesse the problem, of course: using special sensors to scan for unique energy signatures, using search patterns to optimize the coverage of your sweeps, and other techniques. It also doesn't hurt to have a lot of manpower to throw at the problem.

Especially when one is trying to find manufactured probes among the billions of rocky iceballs that make up a normal solar system's Oort cloud, and one doesn't have a lot of time to do it...

R-minus 13:05:15:45.23

"Now entering search grid 521-33-12," reported a Zentraedi Regult Tactical Scout Pod pilot as his sensor team followed the brawny form of Karl "Calvin" Klein's VA-1 Judicator through yet another of the thousands of designated grid locations in the cloud. Several grids over (which translated to several hundred thousand miles), another Scout Pod team was following Harry "Hobbes" Watterson's Myrmidon Longprobe on the same mission.

"Roger, Scout 12," answered Klein, checking his own sensor boards. With his Judicator primed and ready, he stood a very good chance of taking out any GENOM probes hiding among the cometary debris before their own sensors could pick up the energy signatures of the patrols that were scouring the Oort cloud. "If you pick anything up, let me know immediately."

"Roger, Crusader Five," replied the Zentraedi pilot. Then he fell silent as he and his team went to work. Klein savored the quiet for a while, thinking his private thoughts and listening to a soft classical music track, when suddenly the squad's shared channel crackled to life with raw electric guitar riffs.

People talkin' but they just don't know,
What's in my heart, and why I love you so.
I love you baby like a miner loves gold.
Come on sugar, let the good times roll. Hey!

Karl grimaced and checked his display for the source, though he had a good idea who was pushing the old-time Earth rock to the group whether they wanted it or not. He pushed to talk and yelled at his teammate. "Will you turn that disrespectful junk OFF!?"

"Respect the classics, man! It's Hendrix!" Hobbes rejoined over the search squadron's channel.

"I dunno, I kinda like it," opined the Zentraedi technician leading the other scout pod team. "Hold it - just picked up a refined metals trace and signal transmission. Initiating jamming and forwarding probe location, Crusader Six."

"Excellent! Rock ON!" With that, the Longprobe kicked in the thrust and closed in on the target. When he gained the correct range, Hobbes started firing at the distant probe with his ion cannons, disabling it before putting it out of its digital misery with his lasers.

Karl sighed. It looked like it was shaping up to be a very long day...

R-minus 13:04:20:22.15

Elsewhere, Carole "Xmas" Greenhouse's Variable Glaug fighter swooped through another search grid, followed by the larger, trailing-spiked form of a Zentraedi Quel-Quallie AWACS ship. Inside it, three Zentraedi watched multiple displays that took advantage of the ship's powerful sensors.

"Just let me know when we find another one, boys," Xmas's voice crackled over their shared commline. "I'm feeling on a roll today."

The three Zentraedi chuckled and glanced at each other. The first replied, "You'll be the first to know it."

Indeed, within a half hour, the Quel-Quallie had picked up another GENOM sensor probe, just within their scan range. With its powerful sensors, they could detect the range of the probe's own scanners, which weren't quite as strong and hadn't picked up their existence. "Crusader Three, we have another contact. Forwarding targeting data."

"Got it... Yep, I see it now." The Variable Glaug moved over slightly as its pilot considered possible firing solutions.

"Bet you can't stick it, Miss Xmas," the second Zentraedi challenged from his own console, watching for any reaction from the distant probe. The third monitored the local space for any possible communications traffic.

There was a grin in Carole's voice as she replied, "Watch me."

With those words, her fighter's underslung heavy particle cannon charged up. She held her breath, lining up the shot, and pressed the trigger. The frame of the Variable Glaug shuddered as a bolt of contained artificial lightning lashed through the intervening space, vaporizing several cometary masses along the way before spearing the GENOM probe and shredding it entirely.

"HAH!" Carole exclaimed.

"Good shot, Miss Xmas," answered the first Zentraedi, who then glanced at the third technician in the ship. "Any response?"

"Checking buffered traffic... Yes!" he said with a grin. "We got a transmission vector as it sent its out-of-service signal."

"Excellent," replied Xmas. "Get some more of these taken out, and I think before the day's over, we should have their relay station pinpointed."

"The sooner the better," the second Zentraedi commented. "This is getting expensive."

Carole laughed, and they moved onto another search grid.

Saturday, June 22, 2374
0730 GST

R-minus 12:04:30:00.00

Donnell Reagan, sensor technician first class, GENOM Intelligence Division, yawned, scratched his side, and wondered not for the first time in his life just who among the higher-ups he'd managed to piss off to get this dead-end assignment. It wasn't that the listening post for the Zeta Cygni system wasn't important; technically it was, for even now it kept watch for any signs of activity in the former nerve center of the Wedge Defense Force.

But the base's heyday had been over eight decades ago. Ever since then, traffic had rather significantly decreased. There was the occasional prospector who drifted through, decided the asteroid belt was not worth the bother to scan (never mind attempting to mine) and left. Sometimes some pirates would choose another asteroid to serve as a temporary base, at least until whoever was hunting them decided to arrive and chase them off. None of that mattered to the staff of the hidden listening post, and they pretty much left them alone. They were only here to watch for any signs that the Wedge Defense Force was trying to stagger back to its feet - and by this point in history, that seemed about as likely as Teddy Roosevelt coming back from the dead.

No, at the present time, the only things available to do at GENOM INTEL Post 4412-31-7 were to check up on the state of the long-range probes in the Oort Cloud, forward any worthwhile telemetry back to the home office, surf the web, play a video game or two, watch bad movies, dream of being anywhere else in the galaxy, and play with oneself. Even the post's Vulture boomer fighters, stored in two hidden hangars underneath the surface of the asteroid, were bored. That's how bad it was.

"How's it looking today, Donnell?" asked one of the other current members of the listening post as he entered the central monitor nexus. Reagan grunted, and looked back over his shoulder. He didn't particularly like Ruben Marshall (whose time would be up in a few months and he very well knew it), but it would have required too much effort to do more than be mildly irked at him.

"Same as before, really. What'd you expect?" He gestured with a handy chopstick at the array of screens that surrounded the room. "Got some probe failures in the cloud again. Before you ask, yes, they've been noted, and a request for new ones have been forwarded to your account to be signed off on."

Marshall nodded, and took his own seat nearby. "Good, thanks. Maybe before I get rotated out, corporate supply will actually bother to send us some new ones."

"Probably not," grumbled a bulky-looking man who lurked down in one of the analysis pits. "They've got worse warranties than the ones on the BU-44's." He took a long draw from his beer can, crushed it, and pulled another from the mini refrigerator next to his station and cracked it open.

"Which? The probes, or corporate supply, Julio?"

"Either. Both. Who cares?" Julio chugged down the next beer, and set it aside. "Crappy damn-ass discontinued equipment. Not even worth bothering getting maintenance for."

"Tell me about it," rejoined another, thinner man with a narrow face. "Hey, toss me a beer, willya?"

Without looking, Julio reached into the refrigerator, pulled out another beer, and tossed it to the man. "Here, Ahat. Don't say I never did anything for you."

"You never did before, Julio." With that, Ahat opened the caught beer, and returned his attentions to his own station (and more specifically, the 'adult watching' newsfeed sites).

Reagan shook his head, poked a bit at his Salusian stir fry with his chopsticks, and wondered whether it would require too much energy to get up and head to the microwave to reheat his meal.

R-minus 12:02:03:54.12

"Dwimmerlaik to Palantķr, Dwimmerlaik to Palantķr, status, over."

"Palantķr to Dwimmerlaik, status nominal. The Red Eye watches Osgiliath, the Winged Shadows circle, the guards of Cirith Ungol sleep. Over."

"Roger, Palantķr. The Mūmakil sallies forth. Entulessė enters the Gulf of Lhūn. Khamūl, status, over."

"Khamūl to Dwimmerlaik, status nominal. The Uruk-hai assemble at the crossroads. Over."

"...for the hour is come for the oathbreakers: at the Stone of Erech they shall stand again..."

R-minus 12:01:29:43.22

Ruben Marshall paused in reading his corporate email as a small alert flag popped up on his display. He look briefly puzzled, considered the contents of the alert flag, and then raised his voice. "Hey. Donnell."

Donnell Reagan, who was currently watching a pirated Tomadachi samurai flick, didn't bother turning away from his own display. "What?"

"Check out probe 515."

Donnell shifted his head fractionally, where on another display, a grid of lights reported the status of the GENOM probes in the system. It was mostly green, with a handful of yellows and some splotches of red. He peered at the indicator for probe 515, one of the closer ones to the base. "Yeah, it's active. What about it?"

"No, check it out. It's picking up something on the livefeed."

"Huh?" Mildly surprised, Reagan sat up a little straighter in his seat, and summoned up the status board and sensor reports for 515. Through the camera and subether haze, he could make out a vague rectangular object. "Well, I'll be damned. There is something out there."

"So it's not just me, then. Right. Julio, Ahat, see if you can get some better telemetry on that thing, starting with 515 and moving to the others nearby."

At this, the two men down in the analysis pits sat up straighter. Finally released from the constraints of their forced inaction, they worked rapidly and efficiently, using telemetry feeds from other probes to enhance the data.

Within moments, a clearer picture began to coalesce, and Marshall sent it to the monitor nexus's main display so that all could see. What they saw both surprised and puzzled them.

"An Ikazuchi? What the hell's one of those doing way out here?" asked Julio.

"Well, wherever it came from, it isn't doing so hot," replied Ahat. He enhanced the image in several places. With that done, they could see that the ship was listing and moving slowly, the red glow of oxygen fires spilling out from holes in the hull, one main drive thruster dead, another at half power, and the outer guns badly damaged. "It's got the right IFF for the company, though some of the signal is munged." Ahat paused, and turned a few controls. "Wait, I'm getting a hail..."

"Onscreen," Marshall ordered, feeling a measure of purpose and importance returning to him. There was a quick 'pleep', and an inset window appeared on the main display.

The image was one filled with distortion and static, but both Reagan and Marshall could make out the layout of a rather damaged Ikazuchi bridge, smoke and haze in the background. On that bridge, a bloodstained woman wearing glasses, her brown hair pulled back into a bun, was desperately pleading for help.

"-- anyb -- ho ca -- ear us; th -- he GENO -- ration Car -- Alcarondas. -- have take -- avy dama -- werplant -- ailing. -- ase resp -- ed immediate -- To -- body wh -- he -- this is t -- NOM Corpo --"

The video feed abruptly jumped, then cut out. All that was left on the screen was the image of the limping Ikazuchi.

"Message cut off at the source," reported Ahat. "Transmission error."

Marshall grimaced. "Damn! And we don't have anything here to help them..."

Reagan blinked, feeling at a loss. "So, what do we do now?"

"We'd better launch the Vultures; they can do a flyby of the carrier, and if things get really desperate, the survivors can go EVA and ride on them."

"All right." Donnell nodded, and moved to another station. He keyed in a series of commands, flipped some switches, and then removed the covers from a pair of larger red buttons. "Vulture mission specs downloaded. Vulture boomer fighters... " At this he pressed the buttons with his extended index and middle fingers "... released!"

Deep within the asteroid, narrow red optics flared to life. The Vulture boomer fighters, each one of them a flat, efficient, pronged killing machine, stirred in their overhead racks. Within seconds, they had received the mission parameters. Several seconds after that, the charging cables for their blasters and the missile loading feeds were retracted. Then, before a full minute had passed, the overhead restraints were released and the Vultures shot forward.

It was only as he watched the Vultures depart the 'nest' on the main viewer that Donnell Reagan wondered, "... wait a second. Marshall? If this is one of our Ikazuchis... what the hell is it doing out here? And for that matter, how would they even know that there was a company station here to answer them?"

Ruben looked crossly at Donnell. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Holy - look at that!" Julio exclaimed, pointing at the master display. The two men quickly turned around, then looked on in shock.

The Ikazuchi on the screen was no longer burning. Instead, the fires had abruptly gone out, the ship had righted itself, the glow of the rear sublight thrusters had steadied... and most importantly, the gun turrets had sprung to life, filling the area around it with blazing electric death. The boomer fighters that had flown out to survey the 'wreck' were now dodging for their artificial lives.

As the men in the listening station watched, the main hangar doors on the flanks of the starship slowly opened, and a motley assortment of fightercraft launched and engaged the Vultures. The flashes of armed conflict were clearly visible to the various probes in the system - and it was also clear that the Vultures were on the losing end of the conflict.

Reuben cursed. "Shit! Get on the horn to corporate! We need backup, and fast!"

Donnell grabbed his rarely used headset, slapped it on his head, and tried to open a subspace channel to the nearest operative GENOM station. As soon as the comm system powered up, his ears were abruptly filled with a dour, ominous voice in some language he didn't recognize. It set his nerves on edge and chilled his bones, though he'd never be able to articulate why to the end of his days.

"... Gū kībum kelkum-ishi, burzum-ishi. Akha - gūm-ishi ashi gurum ..."

He grimaced and yanked the headset off. " - the fuck?!"

At that moment, the room shuddered. "What the hell was that?" demanded Ruben.

Ahat rapidly consulted his boards. "We've got a breach! Detonation in Vulture hangar one!"

"Quick, seal off the area before any fires reach - " Ruben ordered, but before he could finish his sentence, the room shook again, accompanied with a furious clanging and the sound of more explosions.

Then there were several impacts, an abrupt kRuNch, and the main doors of the monitor nexus were blown clear out of their hydraulic tracks. They crashed to the floor, bent and mangled, and figures in dark armor stormed through the smoke of the explosion into the room proper.

In the lead was a man, clad in what had to be a Cyclone-class personal battroid, but of a type unlike any either Ruben or Donnell had ever seen. It was big and dark, with missile tubes on the left forearm, some sort of blaster over the right, and a long blocky unit that flanked the right shoulder. Even more oddly, the black Cyclone had two separate unit flashes: one a stylized, vicious-looking slash of a toothed face in white, the other an inverted triangle with a letter 'M' in the middle.

"Drop your weapons and move away from the consoles!" the man bellowed, even as the rest of his unit stormed the room and took up flanking positions. "Do it NOW!"

Another figure, this one clad in female-issue CVR-3F under a much lighter Bartley Cyclone, gestured with her EP-37, all business. "Quickly, quickly..."

Donnell and Ruben twitched, their hands hovering over their sidearms, locked in indecision. Julio and Ahat twitched as well, but for different reasons than the other two men.

With sudden shuddering, hunching motions, Julio and Ahat roared, their skins shredding as plastic, ceramic, and metal erupted from within. Now revealed as the Bu-55C security boomers that they truly were, they lunged out of the analysis pits towards the Cyclone-clad soldiers.

The soldiers didn't waste any time. The man in the dark Cyclone pulled back slightly and braced himself as the long rectangular weapon on his right side pivoted up and forward. Rapidly steadying it, he grabbed the unit's grip and pulled the trigger.

With an answering crackBOOM, the Cyclone's shoulder-mounted linear induction cannon roared to life, volleying several explosive penetration rounds towards the boomer who had once been Julio. The Julio-boomer was catapulted backward by the shots, his torso utterly shredded and his core functions offline before he hit the projection wall of the monitor nexus.

At the same time, the woman and several of her compatriots opened up with their own sidearms. Ahat-the-boomer was rapidly Swiss-cheesed by the crossfire, collapsing to the floor to lie in a pool of his own orange nutrient fluid.

Taking advantage of the gunfire and explosions, Ruben abruptly spun and flipped open an emergency panel on Donnell's console. Before anybody could realize what he was doing, he slammed his palm down on the big red button within.

"HOLD IT!" the woman exclaimed, and fired a lowered shot at Ruben. It winged the GENOM employee and spanged against the console, but the red button, now pressed, continued to glow.

"You're too late," Ruben sneered, even as the Cyclone leader and his men turned and trained their weapons on Ruben and Donnell. "I just armed the emergency bottle. It'll be out of the system before you can even blink!"

At that instant, the post's computer spoke up. "Emergency data buoy primed. Emergency data buoy launched."

Then, the base shuddered one last time. Ruben looked triumphant that he'd managed to achieve an end run around these interlopers, but his grin faded as he realized that the soldiers in Cyclones didn't even seem all that concerned that he'd launched a fold-capable emergency data buoy.

The man in the dark Cyclone tilted his head, listening to a report on his helmet speakers, then grinned. He returned his attentions to the two GENOM technicians.

" 'Emergency data buoy launched,' " he parroted the computer's inflection. "Emergency data buoy destroyed," he continued in a more serious tone.

Ruben swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. Next to him, Donnell had already pulled his sidearm out and dropped it to the floor in front of him. Knowing he was beaten, Ruben did the same.

"Very good," said the woman with approval. She moved closer to the two men, reslinging her EP-37 rifle and palming two objects. "Now, say goodnight, Gracie."

"What the - ngghk!" Donnell Reagan blurted out as a small adhesive device was slapped onto the side of his neck. Ruben Marshall made much the same sound as another stunpatch was placed on the side of his own neck; then he and Reagan collapsed to the deck.

The woman turned and sketched a courtly bow towards the leader in the dark Cyclone. "Here you go, Vince. Two GENOM employees, taking the express train to la-la land."

"Good work, Nova." Vince surveyed the monitor nexus, sizing it up, and then gestured to his men. "Nova, work with Kreddik and Lamar to yank everything they have out of their nets. Donlen, Selver, Trace, Carelton, pull everything data-related you can physically grab. Crix, Fernlaw, tag and bag those two for transport." He pointed to the two unconscious technicians. "We've got a lot of intel to get and not a lot of time to grab it."

R-minus 11:23:15:35.41

Maia Sterling watched from the bridge of the Voronda Elendil as the last ship returned from the asteroid. She had been the first to depart the scene; her Shadow Alpha had been just what the doctor ordered to lie in wait for any last-minute surprises from the listening post. Second had been Therčse Sterling in her Seeker Valkyrie, who had blanketed the immediate area with RF and subspace noise, making it impossible for the base to reliably observe anything, to call for help, or to coordinate the attacks of the Vulture boomers. And now Miranda Sterling, her fraternal twin sister, was returning in the Shadow Beta, carrying Vince Grant's Cyclone riders (The Fighting Uruk-hai) in the cargo/bomb bay.

Life was good. Life was very good.

Maia relaxed in her seat and waited, idly rubbing at her face and hair with a towel. Soon, her patience was rewarded, as the bridge doors swooshed open, revealing her two sisters as well as bulky, buzz-cut Vince Grant and the lithe blonde form of Nova Satori. Smiling, Maia turned in her seat. "So, have you got the goods?"

Nova nodded, holding up several data solids. "Complete downloads of the listening post's computers. An up-to-the-minute plot of the monitor probes in the Oort Cloud, Kuiper Belt, and Asteroid Belt. Zeta Cygni sensor, transmission and communication logs for both the probes and the base over the past two years."

Maia's eyebrows went up. "Impressive. Excellent. Good work, you four."

Nova Satori's primary ears twitched with satisfaction, and Vince Grant smiled. "Does that mean we'll get a raise?"

Maia smirked. "We'll have to think about it. But I wouldn't discount the possibility of a mission completion bonus in the next salary draft."

"Fair enough," Vince conceded.

Maia turned her attentions to Therčse. "Thanks for your help, sis; it really gave us an edge."

Therčse shrugged, smiling. " 'sno problem. GENOM sensor tech on the fringes is so crappy that a 10-year-old with a Speak & Spell and a music player could jam it."

"... riiight. Uh-huh." Maia regarded her younger sister dubiously, then turned slightly in her seat. She could see that Nova had taken a seat at the sensor console, and that Miranda had headed for the weapons officer's position. Meanwhile at the helm station, Helen Samantos was scrubbing her cheek with a washcloth, trying to remove a persistent spot of fake blood.

Nodding with satisfaction, Maia turned to face Therčse once more. "So, you heading back to the Frank Lloyd Wright now with the probe map data?"

Therčse waved her hand absently. "Only after you guys take care of the base. I want to watch this." She grinned.

"Fair enough." Maia smiled back, and turned her chair around. "Miranda, it's your show."

Miranda glanced back at Maia, grinned, and returned her focus to the ship's weapon controls. She reconfigured the battlecarrier's energy distribution network, shunting power to the Ikazuchi's main gun. In a past life, it had been a potent multiphasic laser array; powerful, but nowhere near the strength of the Wedge Defense Force's or Royal Salusian Navy's Omega-Class weapons.

Nowadays, it was quite different. The past several decades had led to improvements and enhancements to the Voronda Elendil's main gun, and now it packed much more punch than its sister ships could ever claim to have.

A series of data boxes and targeting brackets popped up on Miranda's display and was mirrored on the main bridge viewer. The assembled crew on the bridge could see the distant asteroid base, just one lump of rock among many, being singled out.

"Target lock achieved," Miranda reported. "Power levels optimum. Arc attenuators standing by, dampers in place."

Maia nodded. "Miranda? You may fire when ready."

A cool, hungry smile crossed Miranda's normally pleasant face, as she took the main gun's deployed firing grip (which had some cursive script engraved on it) and pulled the trigger.

"That which was broken shall be remade, you sons of bitches!"

The Voronda Elendil shivered as Nehtėril, Flame of the Wedge, lashed out and a concentrated beam of fiery death lanced through the blackness. The blast hit its target head-on, and within moments, GENOM INTEL Post 4412-31-7 ceased to exist.

There was applause from the starship's bridge crew as they watched the very satisfactory display of precision destruction. Maia, in particular, regarded her twin sister with a bemused-yet-deadpan expression.

"I'm ... not sure that last part is in the actual prophecy, Mir."

Miranda blushed. "Sorry. I got caught up in the moment."

"Housecleaning" : A Reunion Mini-Serial Side-Story, Written by Philip Jeremy Moyer
Reunion Mini-Serial plotted by Philip J. Moyer
Special to the Eyrie Productions Forum
(c) 2007 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited

*shatters, utterly, into quakes of laughter*

I know if I actually had the cognitive capability at the moment to check, that'd be translated near-exactly too.

-OM

Y'know I don't know if the whole Nazgul Squadron idea was for this specific punchline but, I just have to say, it pays off very VERY well :D

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A long long time ago, in a galaxy far far away. THERE IS ONLY WAR.
-kinda makes sense if you think about it.