I have a message from another time...

		     Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
			       presents

		UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES FUTURE IMPERFECT
		   - SYMPHONY OF THE SWORD No. 3 -

		   Fourth Movement: Coming to Terms

			 Benjamin D. Hutchins
			   Kris Overstreet

		(c) 2002 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited


			MONDAY, JULY 24, 2406
		INTERNATIONAL POLICE STATION BABYLON 6
	       EPSILON ERIDANI SYSTEM, CENTAURI SECTOR

	Susan Ivanova had the distinct and unpleasant feeling that it
was going to be one of those weeks.  She based this assumption on two
primary facts: one, that the weekend had been lousy; and two, that she
had been awakened two hours early this morning to deal with an
anomalous situation.
	Susan Ivanova did not like anomalous situations.
	Now she stood on the station's command deck, looking out the
window at a starship parked outside.  There was nothing wrong with the
parking job; the ship was right where it ought to be, out of the way,
not bothering anybody.
	Well, anybody except Ivanova, who stood scowling at it through
the command-deck windows.  It was a peculiarly configured vessel, of a
type Ivanova, an experienced spacer, had never seen before.  It looked
to her to be a bit more than 200 yards long - comparable to a large
destroyer or light frigate, perhaps, but the length was a deceiving
statistic in this ship's case, since most of its length was in a pair
of long, blade-like strakes projecting forward from a much smaller
main body.  Without the strakes, the core body of the ship was no more
than corvette-sized, albeit with a rather oversized set of sublight
thrusters.
	The control deck door opened and Ambassador Delenn of Minbar
entered, looking a bit perplexed.
	"You sent for me, Commander?" she asked Ivanova.
	"Yes, Ambassador, thanks for coming," Ivanova replied.  "I
have a bit of a mystery on my hands that I thought you might be able
to help me with."  She gestured to the unknown ship and asked, "Is
that one of yours?"
	Delenn looked, considered, and replied, "I do not believe so.
Some elements of its design are reminiscent of ours, perhaps, but...
the drive configuration looks Corellian to me.  Have you asked
Ambassador bel Vardis?"
	Ivanova nodded ruefully.  "He's the one who said he thought it
looked Minbari."  She sighed.  "Thanks for your help, anyway."
	Delenn looked at the ship again, then turned back to Ivanova.
"Have you not been able to contact it?"
	"Nope.  It doesn't respond to hails.  No crew response, no ID
transponder, nothing."
	"Where did it come from?"
	"Nobody knows.  One minute, business as usual; the next, it
was just parked there.  It hasn't done anything since.  If I can't
find someone who's willing to claim it soon, I'm going to ask
Garibaldi to take a squad and see if they can get aboard."
	"It doesn't seem to be aggressive... "
	"No, which is why I've left it alone for the time being, and
let Captain Bacon sleep," Ivanova agreed, nodding.  "But it's damn
irregular, all the same."
	"Mm," said Delenn, nodding.  "Well... good luck unraveling the
mystery, Commander.  If I can be of any further help, please let me
know."
	"I will.  Thanks."
	Ivanova watched the Minbari ambassador leave, then leaned
against her console and sighed glumly.  Why did this stuff always
happen on her watch?

		     NOVAPLEX GRAND CALRAN HOTEL
		  CALRA, CORELLIA FREE TRADING STATE

	"Maury, I do not particularly care what commitments Millenium
has made in our name.  Not only would performing in the Earth Alliance
be illogical, it would be -foolish-."
	"Ssssh!  Keep it -down- in there!" one of the four young men
seated on the penthouse suite's largest couch shouted back to the
bedroom, where the fifth of their number was on the vidphone to their
agent.  "We're trying to watch the news!"
	The group were, in general qualities, alike.  Each had dark
hair, black or nearly so, cut close and brushed neatly.  They shared
the same greenish complexion, slanted eyebrows and pointed ears of the
Vulcanoid race.  They all wore black, ranging from the loose bathrobe
worn by the broad-built one on one end of the couch to the full formal
robes of the skinny one with pen and notepad on his lap to the black
T-shirt and jeans of the big-boned lad on the other end.
	And, most telling of all, all of them followed the Network 23
repeats of the Earth-in-Crisis coverage with intense scrutiny, not
wanting to spare any time for agents or record labels and their petty
demands.
	"Now -listen-, Maury," the group's leader said, only a little
quieter, "S'bann didn't want to do any Earth concerts anyway.  He's a
Freespacer... yes, Maury, I know the audience doesn't know that, but
he doesn't want to go.  And now neither do I.  My family's back in New
Avalon.  And Sketh grew up on New Athens, he's technically an Earth
Alliance citizen - do you think he wants to go back now?  Do you want
the Psi Corps to get their hands on a Vulcan, Maury?"
	"We have got to change labels," the large Vulcan rumbled in a
basso profundo that belied his youth.  "Corellian record companies
don't know when to quit."
	"We've still got three records to go on our deal," the skinny
one replied, scribbling idly on his notebook.  "Not counting the one
that - " He looked up, his pointed ears visibly twitching at
something.  "Turn up the sound on the TV," he muttered.
	A few seconds later, as Network 23's video cut between footage
of the Battle of Titan (man, whoever is piloting that one little ship
can -fly-) and a rock band on the roof of a building somewhere, the
skinny one shouted, "Surel!  Get off the phone and get in here!  You
gotta -hear- these guys!"

			    IPS CHALLENGER
	       ON STATION OVER TITAN, SOL VI TERRITORY
		    SOLAR SYSTEM, CENTAURI SECTOR

	Wakaba Shinohara woke up, sat up, and briefly wondered where
the hell she was.  The room looked just enough like the cabin she and
Saionji had been sharing aboard the Valiant this summer that its
differences - like the fact that it was much larger, and the bathroom
door was on the wrong side - were more startling than they would have
been had the room been -radically- different.  The feeling passed
quickly enough, though it was replaced by another, even more
unpleasant sensation: remembering what had happened yesterday.
	She got out of bed and ran to the bathroom, prepared herself
to face the day as fast as possible, and then went back to assess her
clothing prospects.  The clothes she'd been wearing for the defense of
Beltane's Government Center were pretty much ruined, but the
processor on the wall (another thing her quarters on the Valiant
lacked) was quite happy to take her sizes and provide her with new
ones.  The thing even had a menu of special t-shirts it could make,
from a database stocked by the ship's crew and the graphic arts
department.
	Thus, when she arrived at the ship's sickbay at a dead run,
she was wearing new jeans that didn't feel new and a Scarlet Sentinel
t-shirt.  In her haste, she'd forgotten about her boots entirely and
left her hair down.  Doctor Phlox, who, like everyone else who knew
Wakaba, had become used to her usual onion-like hairstyle, had to stop
for a moment and wonder who she was when she came skidding through the
doors and into sickbay.
	The doctor's confusion only lasted a moment, though, and by
the time she registered the somber look on his face and started to
become alarmed, he had recognized her and held up a hand.
	"As far as we can predict right now," he said, "Mr. Saionji is
going to be all right.  He's in nanoregeneration now, and stable.
Complications could still arise, of course," Phlox went on seriously,
"but Dr. Selar and I both think them unlikely.  He has a very strong
constitution and a powerful will to live."
	Wakaba seemed to sag slightly with relief; then she looked
concerned and asked, "Then why the long face?  Is... is Guy not doing
as well?"
	Phlox shook his head sadly.  "Young Mr. Morgan is much more
seriously injured," he said.  "Mr. Saionji's wound is major, but of a
fairly simple type, and there's only one.  With Mr. Morgan... well,
it's easier to make a list of the parts of him that -aren't- damaged."
The Denobulan clucked worriedly.  "I very much fear that there's
little we can do to help him."
	"Oh."  Wakaba looked downcast.  "That's... that's too bad.
Guy's a good kid.  We've all grown to like him a lot since he's been
with us this summer.  He was... he -is- thinking of applying to DSM
next year... "  She sighed.  "I hope he pulls through.  If anybody can
pull him through, it's you."
	Phlox smiled, a little sadly, and inclined his head at the
compliment.  "Thank you, Miss Shinohara.  We'll do our best, of that
you can be sure.  Would you like to see Mr. Saionji?  He's not much to
look at right now, I'm afraid, but I've noticed that humans like to
visit their loved ones anyway under such conditions."
	Wakaba gave him an odd little glance, then smiled.  "Sure.
That'd be great."
	Phlox was right; Saionji wasn't much to look at, floating in a
big tube of pink goo in his underwear with an oxygen mask strapped to
his face.  Fortunately, the awful wound in his right side couldn't be
seen; it was covered by a thick sheet of regen-matrix membrane,
protecting the injured area as it guided the nanosurgeons in their
work.  Wakaba had gotten one look at it, when she'd run to his side
upon arriving in the basement of Government Center, and one was
enough.  She felt her stomach turn just thinking about it, and had to
think about something else in haste to avoid being sick all over
again.
	Instead, she looked at his face, what she could see of it with
the breathing mask in place.  He looked at peace, asleep, the lines of
his visage relaxed and his eyes closed but not clamped shut.  His wavy
green hair floated in a cloud behind him.  His long limbs floated,
arms at his sides and a little before him, hands slack and spread.
His whole form was perfectly relaxed, buoyed by the thick nanofluid
suspension medium.  Wakaba placed her hand against the cool side of
the tank and regarded him for a few moments, and was a bit surprised
to feel tears filling her eyes.
	Phlox was surprised as well.  A little awkwardly, he offered
her a tissue, then said, "We really do expect him to make a full
recovery."
	Wakaba nodded.  "I know.  It's just... I was just thinking...
I was about to break up with him."
	Phlox raised an eyebrow.  "I beg your pardon?"
	"I was planning to go back home to Cephiro next month," Wakaba
replied.  "Back to our old school.  I have... certain obligations...
there.  And, of course, he's staying here.  His life is here now."
She sighed, a slight tremor in it, and went on, "So once we were done
here and on our way to Proxima, I was going to give him the 'while I'm
gone we should see other people' speech.
	"You know, it was no big deal, us getting together," she
added, leaving the perplexed doctor further behind.  Human
relationships didn't make sense to him at the best of times, but by
standing there and listening, he felt he was helping to do his job as
a physician and relieve pain, so he stayed and tried not to look too
lost as Wakaba continued,
	"It wasn't like I had this all-consuming passion, like back in
the old days when I wrote him stupid notes and stuck them in his
locker.  I just thought, well, I'm a big girl now, and he's reasonably
sane, and he's still cute as hell - so why not have a few laughs?
It's no big deal... "
	She splayed her hand against the nanotank, bowed her head, and
said in a softer voice, "Or at least it wasn't until I almost lost
him... "
	Phlox took a breath, then hesitated, abandoned what he had
been about to say, and tried again.  "Well," he said gently, "then I
suppose you'll have something to talk about with him when he
recovers."
	Wakaba turned to face the doctor, her expression troubled.
"It doesn't change anything, though.  I still have the same
obligations, and so does he."
	"Yes," said another voice, making both Wakaba and Phlox jump
slightly.  They both turned to see two figures standing in the regen
room's doorway.  The speaker was the shorter of the two, a man not
much more than two feet tall.  At first glance, the ornately robed
little figure appeared to be a child - but no child ever had eyes like
those.
	"We have to talk about your obligations, you and I," he went
on gravely.
	"Master Clef!" gasped Wakaba.  She looked as if she didn't
know what to do with herself, whether she should curtsey or bow or
perhaps kneel, and ended up just sort of nodding at him.  Only then
did she register the person standing behind him, the tall, slim form
in red and white with the long midnight-black hair.  "Lady Skuld!" she
added, now even more disconcerted.
	Skuld smiled, going a long way toward putting her at ease,
though the Master Mage of the Tenth World was still giving her that
unnervingly intense look.  "Can we have a few minutes of your time,
Wakaba?" said Skuld.  "There's nobody in the observation lounge just
now... "

	Down on the surface of Titan, in the diplomatic quarters of
Government Center in the city of Beltane, Utena Tenjou woke slowly,
turned over, looked at the clock on the bedside table, and groaned.
Her body clock had anticipated the alarm by seven minutes - just long
enough to get back to sleep before the alarm rang, not nearly long
enough to enjoy doing so.  Grumbling under her breath, she reached,
turned the alarm off, and then got out of bed.
	Her wife Anthy stirred, curled up again, and went back to
sleep.  Utena stood for a moment by the bed alternately adoring and
envying her, then bent down and kissed her on the forehead before
trudging off to shower.
	Fifteen minutes later, her hair still damp, she was entering
the office of the Governor of Titan, fastening the shoulder strap of
her IPSF dress tunic as she went.  Had she possessed just slightly
less regard for the niceties of social discourse, she'd have been
scarfing down a piece of toast as well; as it was, she merely hoped
that a) this wouldn't take too long and b) her stomach wouldn't make
an embarrassing noise during the process.  After all, the Chief was
present.
	Miriam Ondeen, Governor of Titan Colony, was an elderly woman
with silver hair, bright green eyes and a smile that must have been
something to see in her youth.  Utena knew she meant well, and so
tried her best not to hold it against the Governor that she'd had to
get up at 8:45 in the freaking morning for this little gathering.
Instead she smiled her most winning smile as Governor Ondeen rose from
her chair behind her enormous desk to greet her.
	"Captain Tenjou," said the Governor.  "Thank you for coming."
	"My pleasure, Your Honor," Utena lied with a smile.  Social
dishonesty, like any other kind, didn't come easily to her, but for
this nice old lady she felt obligated to make a special effort.
Next to her, Utena noticed Gryphon stifling a yawn of his own, which
made -her- have to stifle a giggle, which made -him- have to stifle a
giggle, and the whole thing became very precarious indeed until Utena
had the presence of mind to break eye contact with him and defuse the
danger.
	Governor Ondeen didn't seem to have noticed.  She bade Utena
have a seat, resumed her own, and folded her hands on her desk
blotter.
	"Well," she said primly.  "It's a great pleasure to meet you
at last, Captain - the girl who saved Titan."
	Utena felt a blush creep into her cheeks.  "Well, Your Honor,
I'm not sure that - "
	"No, no, not a bit of false modesty, dear," said the Governor,
waving a hand.  "You were the ranking International Police officer in
the area, you took charge of the defense of Titan, and under your
leadership, the day was carried.  That's why I asked you to come here
this morning, so I could thank you personally for your heroism."
	"It was my honor, Madame Governor," said Utena, her blush
deepening as she inclined her head.
	"In recognition of your great service to Titan Colony and the
Sol VI Territory," the Governor went briskly on, rising from her chair
and rounding the end of her desk, "I have a little something for you."
	Utena blinked, got up, and stood at attention as Governor
Ondeen rummaged in one of the pockets of her voluminous green dress.
"Now, I know I put it in here," the Governor muttered to herself;
then, with a sound of triumph, she drew a glittering metallic object
from her pocket and held it up.  Governor Ondeen was so short that
Utena had more or less to bow in order to make the front of her
uniform available for the Governor to pin the medal to it; then she
straightened again and was surprised when the smiling old lady gave
her a very respectable salute to return.
	"By the power vested in me by the Zeta Cygni Assembly and the
Council of Selectmen of the Sol VI Territory," said the Governor
formally, "it is my privilege to award you the Order of the Platinum
Rings."
	Utena glanced down at the medal, which hung just below her
IPSF commbadge by a beautifully iridescent blue-green ribbon.  It was
a gold Saturn with bright, silvery rings, about the size of a
half-credit piece.  Around the front arc of the outermost ring were
engraved the words, "FOR VALOR".
	"Thank you very much, Madame Governor," Utena said, "but I
didn't do this alone."
	"Oh, I know that, dear," said the Governor as she went back to
her seat.  Once seated again, she leaned forward on her elbows and
said with a twinkling smile, "That's why I want you to draw me up a
list of everyone else you think should be rewarded, and suggest
appropriate rewards for them.  Just in your own contingent, mind you -
I know who among my own defense forces deserve recognition already."
	Utena blinked, blinked again, then smiled the slightly forced
smile of someone who has just been handed a lengthy and tedious school
assignment by a favorite teacher.  "I'll... ah... get right on that,
Your Honor," she said.  She angled a quick, desperate glance of
consternation at Gryphon, who shrugged almost imperceptibly.
	Missing the byplay completely, Governor Ondeen smiled
beatifically.  "Good, good.  Thank you so much for all your help,
dear.  And do take care.  I look forward to talking over your list
later on.  Just come see my secretary, she'll let you in.  You're such
a nice girl."

	Gryphon and Utena were emerging from the Governor's outer
office, the Chief admiring his protege's new medal as she made
distressed little noises about the amount of fiddly work Her Honor had
just dumped on her still-fatigued shoulders, when Captain Jean-Luc
Picard, Starfleet, met them in the hallway.
	"Ah, Gryphon, Captain," he nodded gravely to them in turn.  "I
was looking for you.  I've recieved new orders from Starfleet of which
both of you should be made aware."
	"Shoot," Gryphon said.
	"I'm here to inform Captain Tenjou and her crew that the Earth
Alliance has been denied extradition of those involved in the incidents 
in Toronto," Picard said carefully, holding his hands behind his back
in a formal stance, almost a parade-rest.
	"Is that so," Utena said lightly, anger welling inside of her
at the thought of extradition.  Just -let- anyone try to drag her back
to Earth...
	"However," Picard continued very reluctantly, "should any of
the Valiant's current crew or passengers return to Earth Alliance
space, the Federation will not interfere in any future attempts to
apprehend them.  This is by order of the Federation High Council."
	"Understood, Captain," Utena replied coldly.  She would have
said more, but Gryphon laid a hand on her shoulder and squeezed
gently.
	His eyes were focused on Picard as he said, "This can't have
been easy for you to tell us, Jean-Luc."
	"I felt it better you hear it from me in person," Picard said.
"Particularly in light of my orders.  Starfleet has ordered Enterprise
to escort IPS Valiant clear of Earth Alliance space."
	"-Excuse- me?" Utena asked angrily.  "Escort -who-?  My ship
is not going anywhere.  Maybe the Federation High Council isn't aware
of such minor details," she added with a bitter twist on 'minor', "but
the Earth Alliance's thugs put two of my crew in intensive care.  One
of them may still die, and if he does, then by God - "
	"Nobody's 'escorting' one of my ships out of one of my own
ports, Jean-Luc," Gryphon interrupted.  He squeezed Utena's shoulder
again, a little more firmly this time, and added, "Captain Tenjou has
my full support	in this.  Valiant leaves Titan when she's good and
ready, and not a moment before."
	Picard stared back for a moment.  Slowly, his grave demeanor
gave way to a wry little smile, and with an uncharacteristically
Gallic shrug he said, "Then my reports to Starfleet will say that
you're moving very, very slowly.  It cannot be helped."
	Utena looked faintly taken aback, charmed despite herself by
Picard's sudden transformation.  It mollified her slightly toward him
in particular, though her anger toward both the Federation and
Earthforce remained undimmed.
	Picard's smile faded as he added, "But I do agree with
Starfleet's concerns.  Things are still very tense here, especially
with fighting still going on back on Earth.  Admiral Morrow is
concerned that agents from Earth, with or without authorization, will
attempt to seize your ship or crew.  I strongly recommend you remain
on your guard."
	"Any agents, Earth or otherwise, who try to seize -my- ship
or any member of my crew will go home in a number-two shipping tube,"
Utena said flatly, "third-class parcel post."
	"No doubt."  Picard's smile returned, slight but present.
"Would you like Mr. Worf to assign some officers to assist with the
packing tape?"
	"All things considered," Utena said, "I think we'll pass,
thanks.  After the High Council's other decisions, I don't think my
crew would appreciate Federation officers on board."  After a moment's
silence, she added, "You're invited to the band's next concert,
though.  I'm sorry I snapped at you, Captain.  It's not you I'm angry
with."
	"Then I will most certainly be there," Picard nodded, "if my
duties and orders permit.  At present, however," he added with an air
of reluctance, "I must report this interview to Starfleet Command."
He smiled wryly at Utena and added, "I'll be sure to tell them that
you were most uncooperative, Captain."
	"Good," Utena replied with a smile.  "I wouldn't want to
damage my reputation as a hard case.  Clear skies, Captain Picard."
	Picard nodded to her, then to Gryphon, touched his commbadge,
and disappeared in a wash of blue-silver light.
	Once he was gone, Utena dropped the smile and sighed.
	"What do you think?" she asked Gryphon.  "What he said about
Earth sending agents - am I endangering the rest of my crew by staying
here?"
	"Maybe," Gryphon admitted.  "Or maybe Earthforce was planning
to use Enterprise as a Judas goat to lead you into an ambush."
	Utena's eyes widened.  "Are you serious?"
	"Jean-Luc wouldn't knowingly have anything to do with a plan
like that, of course," Gryphon hastened to add, "but I wouldn't put it
past Al Parker," he went on, shaking his head with a scowl.  "That son
of a bitch would skin his own grandmother if she made him look as
stupid as you did yesterday.  Anyway, don't worry.  I've contracted
with the Wedge Defense Force to reinforce the defenses of Sol VI
Territory.  They'll be here in six hours.  Meantime, T'Vek's on the 
job."
	Utena looked puzzled.  "The WDF?"
	"Mm-hmm."
	"Not the Freespacers?"
	"I was going to ask for Aya Nakajima's task force, but Terri
Curtiss says the CFMF is prohibited from getting involved in this
case.  So I asked Noriko to send someone who would annoy the EA and
Starfleet Command almost as much."
	"Jim Kirk?" asked Utena, the sparkle coming back to her eyes.
	"Jim Kirk," Gryphon confirmed.
	Utena chuckled darkly.  "You are an evil, evil man, Dad," she
said, hooking an arm around his waist.
	He responded by draping his arm over her shoulders, and as
they went down the hall he replied, "I know.  Ain't it cool?  I'm an
evil -starving- man, though.  Let's get some breakfast."

	Wakaba felt a little like a lab animal as she sat on the couch
in Challenger's forward observation lounge.  That was mainly because
Clef was standing in front of her, regarding her intently through the
gemstone lodged in the crook of his beaked mage's staff, while Skuld
sat beside her, Wakaba's left hand held before her, examining the
Duelist's Lens with a jeweler's loupe.
	"Hmm," said Clef.  "Very interesting."
	"Indeed," Skuld replied, a bit absently.
	"What?" Wakaba replied.  "-What-?" she repeated, a bit more
strongly, when neither one responded.  "Am I going to turn green or
something?"
	Clef blinked, his eye comically magnified by the gem, then
moved it aside and smiled at her.
	"No, Wakaba, you're not going to turn green.  At least I don't
think you are."  He glanced a question at Skuld, received a nod for an
answer, and went on, "I believe I understand the source of the strange
power you displayed in the battle yesterday."
	Wakaba nodded.  "Your gift of magic?"
	"So it would seem.  It appears I bungled the job a bit," he
added with a slightly sheepish look that really didn't suit the Master
Mage, in Wakaba's opinion.  "The Gift is supposed to awaken the latent
sorcerous potential in its subject, opening the way for the
development of a spellcasting talent.  That's how it worked with the
three original Rune Knights."
	Wakaba nodded.  "Yeah, I know.  We've talked.  Hikaru tried to
explain to me how to tap into it the way she and the others did - you
know, feel the words come to mind, and all that - only there weren't
any."
	Skuld let go of her hand, slid to the other end of the couch
to view her from a more conversational distance, and nodded
thoughtfully.  "But when I gave you the Test of Light, I could sense
there was something different about you - something which was similar
to the sort of thing my sister sensed in Utena when she helped seal
her runaway power.  I thought there was a chance that your Lens might
help you harness it; they're designed to interact with their owners'
unique characteristics... and it seems like, under the stress of the
battle, that's what finally happened."
	Wakaba looked at her Lens.  "I thought it might be something
like that."  She glanced up at Skuld, then Clef.  "It was... an
incredible feeling," she said.  "But a little scary, too.  It was like
I didn't have complete control of it.  Like I could... could make
-suggestions- to it, but... "  She shrugged.  "It's hard to explain."
	"Not to me," Skuld said with a smile.  "I went through the
very same thing with my own power when I was a girl.  I think, though,
that with the Master Mage's help, I can adjust your Lens to do a
better job of focusing your gift for you, if you don't mind."
	"Sure," said Wakaba.  She unbuckled the strap that held her
Lens to her arm, took it off, and handed it carefully to the goddess.
Skuld took care not to touch the now-dark Lens itself, holding it the
strap, and eyed it contemplatively.
	"If it's to be used as a weapon as well as a shield," Clef
mused, "then the wrist isn't the most convenient of locations.  If I
might make a suggestion?"
	Skuld turned her eyes to him, smiling.  "By all means," she
said.

	Elizabeth R'tas Shustal knelt in darkness, deep in
meditation, her t'skrangish saber laid crossways over her knees.  Her
eyes were closed, her breathing deep and regular, as she sought and
felt and merged with all the rhythms and patterns of the life flowing
through her body, gathering her strength for what she was to attempt
today.
	Last night she had been in agony, not physically but
emotionally, trying to decide which of her two horribly wounded
crewmates and friends to help with her anodyne factor, the extremely
rare talent of psionic healing.  Exhausted by the almost non-stop
sprint that the previous forty hours had been, with only a short nap
between the end of the Sneaky Dee's show and the sounding of yellow
alert aboard Valiant for Earth's declaration of martial law, she had
tried to help both of them and succeeded only in knocking herself out.
She'd awakened this morning, after nearly twelve hours of sleep,
filled with the terrible fear that both Saionji and Guy had died
during her absence.
	She had been tremendously relieved to learn that Fate had
dealt them a different hand entirely, that Saionji was now out of
danger and she could concentrate all her efforts on Kaitlyn's
brother.  She'd known him all his life, and yet not for very long at
all, thanks to the way she'd lived her life for the first sixteen
years of it.  She'd really only known Guy since June, when he'd joined
the crew of the Valiant to get away from his twin sister Priss for a
while.  The Morgan twins were thirteen, an awkward age, the same age
as Liza's youngest sister Mary, and Guy was growing up more slowly
than his sister, which let him in for considerable torment.
	He was, Liza thought, a terrific kid - helpful, thoughtful,
caring like his eldest sister, but bolder, with that particular sort
of social courage that came from being naturally attractive.  He
wasn't really conscious of that last fact, but it was there all the
same.  Both of the Morgan twins had received a full measure of their
mother's beauty, tempered with some of the better elements of what
their father thought of as his own much more modest offering, and the
result, all the women of the Valiant agreed, was a young man who was
very easy to look at.  Granted, he was no Miki Kaoru, but could any
ship's company have gotten anything done with two of him around?  Such
sweet distraction!
	Anyway, Liza liked Guy, because it was pretty much impossible
not to, and she wasn't going to let him die if she had anything to say
about it.  And, thanks to a quirk of genetics, it was just possible
that she had.
	She got up smoothly, sheathed her saber at her side, and left
the darkened conference room.

	Anthy Tenjou emerged from the bathroom at 10:30, feeling
mildly decadent for having stayed in bed so long.  After dressing for
the beautiful weather outside in a light yellow sundress, she went to
out into the suite's sitting room to find Utena in an armchair, her
dress tunic slung over one of the arms, a notepad propped up on her
knee, scribbling and occasionally pausing to chew thoughtfully on the
end of the pen.
	"What are you doing?" asked Anthy curiously.
	"My homework," Utena replied wryly.  When that elicited only a
puzzled look, she smiled and explained, "Governor Ondeen wanted me to
give her a list of everybody in my command I think deserves a reward
for their performance yesterday, and what I think they should get."
	"Goodness," said Anthy, raising an eyebrow.
	"So that's pretty much everybody," Utena went on, then puffed
out her bottom lip and blew her bangs up in exasperation.  "It's like
figuring out what to get people for Christmas, and you know how bad I
am at that."
	Anthy smiled.  "You'll do fine," she said.  "At any rate, if
you're busy, I think I'll go up to Challenger and find out how things
are going there."
	Utena nodded.  "I called up after my meeting with the
Governor," she said.  "Saionji's going to be OK, but they still don't
know about Guy."
	Anthy sighed with mixed relief and worry.  "Poor Guy.
Well... I guess I'll go up and see if there's anything I can do for
anyone.  Will you be all right here?"
	"Sure, I'll be fine.  I'll holler if I need you."
	Anthy smiled.  "All right."  She bent down and gave Utena a
kiss, then left the suite and went upstairs to the transporter office.
	She arrived in Theater 3 of Challenger's sickbay just in time
to see Liza Shustal faint and Doctor Selar catch her.
	Guy Morgan lay on the medibed in the middle of the room with a
blanket drawn up to his chin.  To look at his face, a person would
think there wasn't much wrong with him - a minor burn on his cheek,
his eyebrows a bit singed, his formerly-long orange hair burned off to
shoulder length.  The raised area under the blanket, though, told the
real story, or enough of it to leave a taste of horror in Anthy's
mouth.  There was far too little of it for Guy to be whole under
there.
	Liza regained consciousness almost instantly; she hadn't even
finished falling and being caught when she recovered her balance and
wobbled back upright.  Selar hovered near her, a look of profound (for
a Vulcan) disapproval on her face, as Liza leaned against the edge of
the medibed on trembling arms, panting and dripping sweat from her
face to the blanket.
	"This is folly," Selar insisted, a hand on Liza's shoulder,
trying to urge her back from the bed.  "You persist in this attempt
despite the agony it causes you, despite its hopelessness.  If you
keep trying, you may kill yourself.  It is an act driven by passion,
not sense."
	Liza turned her head to smile at the Vulcan doctor, tossing
her blonde curls behind her head and then wiping the sweat from her
brow with a forearm.  "I'm a human being, Doctor, who rediscovered her
soul in the ways of the t'skrang and took a Dantrovian for her lover.
Passion drives everything I do.  Passion is what I am."
	Selar backed up a half-step, folded her arms, and shook her
head.  "Most illogical," she insisted.
	"Ah," said Liza, "you're catching on," and she bent over Guy
to try again.  She put a hand gently, very gently, on the middle of
his chest, outside the blanket.  Her other hand softly caressed his
cheek.  It was almost, Anthy noted, like the touch of a lover - soft,
caring, and just a little bit proprietary, though not in a greedy or
jealous way.  It was such a little thing, and yet it spoke volumes.
	In the next instant, Liza's body went rigid with pain, or
effort, or both.  A stifled grunt forced its way past her suddenly
clenched teeth; Anthy could see the muscles at the corner of her jaw
bunch and quiver.  Tears squeezed out from under her tight-clamped
eyelids.  A low, raspy moan started deep in the blonde's throat as she
strove with all her strength and power against the horrible weight of
Guy's injuries.  It slowly built and built, kept furiously in check,
until finally it would no longer be denied and burst out of her in a
long, wavering cry that trailed off into nothing as she swooned back
away from the bed again.
	This time it was Anthy who caught her, and she didn't recover
as fast.  Anthy had finished lowering Liza carefully to the floor by
the time the blonde's eyelids fluttered open and her crystal-blue eyes
focused on her rescuer's face.
	Selar knelt down, ran her medical scanner over Liza, and
informed her impassively, "Your heart rate is one hundred fifty-eight.
Your pain reaction level is at the top of the scale.  If you persist,
you will kill yourself.  I cannot permit you to do that."
	"It's - my life - not yours," Liza panted.  "Anthy - help me -
up... "
	Deep concern touched the dark girl's face, but she did as she
was asked, for Anthy Tenjou knew a thing or two about persisting in
the face of anguish and possible death.
	"Self-sacrifice is an admirable thing," Selar noted, "but only
when it has meaning.  You -have- caused some improvement in Mr. Morgan's 
condition, but the rate of change produced by your efforts so far does
not indicate that significant improvement would result from a fatal
effort on your part."
	"Why did you - ever become - a doctor?" Liza asked her,
without rancor.  "Healing - isn't about - numbers."
	"For those of us born without gifts bordering on the
supernatural," Selar replied, equally without rancor, "it is."
	Doctor Phlox, observing from the doorway, disagreed, but
wisely held his tongue.
	Something tickled at the back of Anthy's mind.  She furrowed
her brow and chased it whle Selar went on, "Your dedication to the
fate of your friend is also admirable, but your refusal to accept that
your efforts are futile is foolish.  I do not impugn your will to help
him.  I merely state that you lack the raw power required."
	"Listen, you," Liza began, but Selar cut her off, raising her
voice ever so slightly.
	"All four of Mr. Morgan's limbs have been at least 90%
disintegrated," she said clinically.  "His remaining body surface is
almost completely covered with third-degree burns.  His internal
systems have suffered disruptor bleed damage as well as the massive
shock of his burns.  His Detian heritage has kept him alive this long,
but even it cannot save him.  If he were an -adult- Detian, fully
established, even -then- his survival would be extremely doubtful.  I
take no pleasure in telling you this, Miss Shustal, truly I do not,
but the fact is the fact: Gai Morgan is dying and cannot be saved."
	Liza, her strength returning rapidly at least to a point,
straightened up from Anthy's supporting embrace and grinned at the
Vulcan, an open, friendly, no-hard-feelings kind of grin.
	"You must be a damned good doctor," she said, "because you
sure didn't get the job based on your bedside manner."
	Selar didn't seem to know what to make of that, but it didn't
really matter - before she could have framed a reply, Anthy had
spoken, softly, almost to herself, but clearly audible in the quiet of
sickbay:
	"Will."
	"I beg your pardon?" said Selar.
	"Will," Anthy repeated, a little louder.  "Will... and power."
Then she turned to Liza and said urgently, "Don't do anything until I
get back.  All right?"
	"Uh... all right, but - "
	"I won't be long!" Anthy assured her, already running from
sickbay.
	She ran all the way to Transporter Room C, dashed up onto the
platform and ordered the startled tech on duty in a voice that brooked
no debate,
	"Send me to Valiant and stand by.  I'll be back in less than
five minutes."
	"Uh... yes, ma'am," said the tech.
	"Energize!"
	As soon as she'd finished resolving, Anthy was down off the
Valiant's platform and out into the corridor.  She entered Corwin's
office, searched his desk quickly but thoroughly, and, not finding
what she was looking for, went next door to his quarters.
	He was still asleep, having had as busy a day as any of them
the day before and not having been awakened at 8:45 to be given a
medal.  Anthy paused in the doorway for a fraction of a second to
smile at him as he slept, then turned to business and started rapidly,
methodically searching his room.  She found what she was looking for
in his sock drawer.
	Smiling at the knowledge that the universe was in order, she
turned to leave, then paused and impulsively kissed him before
hurrying from his room.  (He didn't awaken, but the fact of it
reverberated interestingly in his dreamscape for a little while.)
	Anthy returned to Challenger's sickbay at the run, her
precious cargo clutched in her hand, and then paused to catch her
breath before displaying it triumphantly to Liza.
	"An emerald?" Liza wondered; then her eyes widened slightly.
"No... more than that.  What is it?"
	"It's a gem from my homeworld," said Anthy.  "We call it
gaolith, or G-stone.  Corwin's been experimenting with it lately.  He
told me once that its energy output can be amplified by the exercise
of will."
	Liza looked impressed.  "-Really-," she said, interested.
"The more you put into it... "
	"The more you get out," Anthy confirmed.  "Several Cephirean
gems work that way, but G-stone is by far the most powerful."
	Liza smiled slowly as Anthy's intent spread across her own
mind like a breaking dawn.
	"Think it'll work?" she asked.
	"We have only one way of knowing," Anthy replied.  "Are you
ready?"
	"As I'll ever be," Liza declared.  "How do we go about it?"
	Anthy went to the head of the medibed, looking down at Guy's
sleeping face, upside down from her perspective.  She folded her arms
over her chest in a prayerlike attitude, closed her eyes - 
	- and with a sudden breeze and a dazzle of golden sparks, her
clothing changed from the yellow sundress to the distinctive scarlet
gown and golden tiara of the Priestess of Cephiro.
	Selar arched an eyebrow, but evinced no other reaction, while
Liza let out a quiet, respectful "oh."
	Anthy held the G-stone, a glowing green gem roughly the size
of a hockey puck, in both hands above Guy's chest, as if making an
offering of it.  She bowed her head and closed her eyes again, held
the pose in silence for a moment, and then said in a quiet but intense
voice,

	>Gaolith's light, green flame of life,
	Hear the voice of the Priestess of Your World
	  and lend your strength to that which must be done.<

	The gem pinged with a high, musical tone, glowed brighter, and
levitated out of Anthy's hands.  Ceremoniously she raised her right
hand so that it cupped the stone again, placed the palm of her left
gently on Guy's forehead, and entered the second phase - the amplifying 
spell itself.

	>Elemental spirits,
	Unseen forces which move the World,
	Hear the voice of She Who Calls
	  and take this body as your conduit
	  to be of aid in that which follows:
	Gate of Strength!<

	The gem glowed even brighter, ringing with a higher note and
filling the whole room with its light.  Liza gazed into it, her face
awash with wonder.
	"Now, Liza," said Anthy through her teeth.  The Priestess's
head was back, her hair rustling in the mystic wind that blew around
the G-stone, her face set like a mahogany mask.  Slowly, reverently,
Liza Shustal reached into the glow, placed one hand softly on Guy's
chest, put the other on the G-stone.  Her hand and Anthy's linked,
palms facing each other, each pressed to a side of the stone, and the
light poured out between their fingers.  The stone was warm, almost as
though it were alive, and in it Liza felt the thrilling blend of
powers already there: all poised to throw their strength behind her
own, if only she had the will to wield it.
	She closed her eyes, felt through its link with Anthy to the
sputtering spark that was Gai Morgan's life, and threw all her will
into the stone.
	The brilliant green glow washed out everything else, causing
even Selar, who was from a planet famed for its bright, harsh light,
to look away, lest her second eyelids reflexively close and blind her
outright for an inconveniently long time.  The musical sound of the
gem built in intensity and complexity until it was a veritable crystal
symphony, an exultant hallelujah chorus filling Challenger's sickbay.
	Presently, both the glow and the song faded and died away.
Liza and Anthy stood by Guy's bed, their hands linked, and for a
moment there was stillness.  Then, with another wash of golden sparks,
Anthy's clothes returned to their former state.  Slowly, the two girls
fell away in opposite directions, both unconscious.  Selar sprang to
catch Liza once more, while Phlox, the dumbfounded expression still on
his face, bounded across from the doorway to catch Anthy.
	When Anthy's hand and Liza's parted, there was nothing between
them.
	The two physicians carried Anthy and Liza to diagnostic beds
along the wall and, working in silence that betrayed even Selar's
concern, checked them over.  The relief on Phlox's face when it became
clear that both were fine, just passed out from the exertion, was much
more obvious than that on Selar's - but it was there on both faces.
	The two doctors stood silently looking at each other, as if
daring each other to try and make some comment that would in some way
sum up what they had just experienced.  This went on for several
seconds; it was broken up at last by a quiet, faintly confused voice
behind them:
	"Excuse me... can someone tell me what's going on?"
	Both doctors turned - and saw Guy Morgan sitting up on his
medibed, bare feet hanging over the side, blanket bunched up in his
lap to cover him from waist to calves, right hand raking back through
his thick, jaggedly unruly waist-length orange hair, the other splayed
modestly over his slim, slightly muscular chest.  Through the smooth,
unbroken skin on the back of his left hand, the doctors could just
make out a faint, familiar green glow.
	Doctor Selar blinked and said softly, "-Fascinating-."

	Juri Arisugawa lay on a bed in the guest quarters she and
Kaitlyn had claimed aboard Challenger the night before, trying and
failing to read Mark Twain's "Roughing It".  It was one of Kate's
favorite books, and Juri had been meaning to read it for some time,
but today was really not the day to be tackling a new reading project,
and Juri ruefully admitted this to herself as she rolled onto her back
and laid a forearm across her eyes.  Kate was at the desk, playing
Bach's third Brandenburg Concerto on her small portable keyboard, but
that wasn't what was preventing Juri from reading.  She liked to read
while Kate played classical music on her piano or keyboard; it was
relaxing and helped her focus.
	It just wasn't a good day to read.
	Sergei the tiger, who was too polite to bother Juri when she
was reading, noticed that she wasn't any more, climbed up onto the
bunk, and snuggled up to her with an ingratiating growl.  Juri smiled
faintly and played with the tiger's ears in the way she knew he liked,
closed her eyes, and tried to lose herself in Kate's music instead.
She couldn't get the image of poor Guy out of her head - the awful
ruin he had been reduced to as his payment for heroically saving her
life and those of the four Romulan guardsmen Amanda had sent to help
defend Government Center.
	Such fearlessness, such selflessness... and what was his
reward?  An agonizing death, all but certainly.  Kate was still in
denial, but Juri was the realist of their realist-romantic pairing,
and she knew death when she saw it stalk another.  Hadn't she seen it
before, after all?  Kaitlyn never had, but Juri remembered its face.
	Juri sighed and hugged Sergei with her free arm.  Why the
hell did she have to think of Ruka at a time like this?  She turned
her face from the overhead lights, buried it in the tiger's fur, and
wished, most irrationally, that he were her old friend Miki Kaoru.
Miki's presence was soothing, especially when the old wounds in the
past she shared with him but not with Kate festered and itched.
	But Miki was down on Titan, probably still sleeping off the
day before in the arms of his patient robot lover Dorothy, Dorothy who
could bend steel without effort and yet treated him so tenderly that
it was a warmth and a wonder to behold... 
	... My goodness, Arisugawa, she mused to herself, your mind is
just a total ferment today, isn't it?
	But then, I suppose a brush with death will do that to a
person.
	The intercom beeped and announced twice in the passionless
voice of Doctor Selar, "Kaitlyn Hutchins to sickbay please."  Kate
stopped playing and slowly rose.  Juri raised herself on an elbow and
asked quietly,
	"Do you want - "
	But Kaitlyn shook her head before the redhead could finish the
question.  She knew, Juri could see it in her face now, and she wanted
to face it alone.  There would be a time for Juri to help, but it
wasn't the moment itself.
	Juri saw all this in a moment, understood it, and nodded.
	"I'll be here," she said, and Kate left the room.
	While she was gone, Juri lay back, rubbed Sergei's head, and
chased her thoughts in circles some more.  How would she feel if her
sister died?  Well, she almost had once, hadn't she?  Anyway, they
weren't very close.  Her family wasn't nearly as closely knit as
Kaitlyn's, and Guy was probably the sibling Kate knew -least- well.
It was an odd sort of irony that Kate's best friend among her blood
relations, after her father, was probably her half-brother, Corwin,
rather than one of her full siblings or her mother.  But even the
relatively distant ones were so close by Juri's standards...
	... This will tear her apart, she thought sadly.  She's never
had to face tragedy like this before.  Never thought she would have
to, with her family's immortality.  She's strong, she'll get through
it, but for a while... 
	The door hissed open again, and there was Kaitlyn, her lower
lip quivering, tears streaming down her face.  Juri closed her eyes,
coming as close as her agnostic heart could to saying a prayer for
Guy's soul, and then sat up.  She felt her own eyes get hot as she
said softly, hoping her voice wouldn't break,
	"Kate, I'm - "
	But Kaitlyn interrupted her, her tear-streaked face breaking
into a luminous smile as she held out her hand for Juri to take and
said in a breathless, wonder-filled whisper,
	"J-Juri... c-c-come and see the m-miracle."

	Three corpses, plus scattered fragments of two others, lay on
coroner's slabs in the basement of Beltane's city police headquarters.
Looking them over slowly were the Chief of the Beltane Municipal
Police, Enron Krez; TDF commander Maylira Corleen; IPO Chief Hutchins;
and a young woman wearing a leather jacket over well-worn spacer's
coveralls.  Her long dark hair flowed around a pair of long, curiously
bent horns, yellow and black stripes framing her head.
	"I'm sorry, Captain."  Rianna Santova, Dark Knight of the
Sith, shrugged.  "None of this looks or feels familiar to me.  I've
only known one other true Sith for certain, and that was my mother."
	"You've encountered more than your share of dark Jedi in the
past," Gryphon said.  "You're the closest thing to an expert I could
find in this sector."  He stared at the dead cyborgs and said, "Does
anything about them look familiar?  Any hidden symbols, the style of
the armor, anything like that?"
	"Nothing," Rianna said decisively.  "If they had been Sith,
even initiates, I would have felt something about them.  I did feel
traces of a powerful Sith warrior, the one you told me about, at
Government Center... along with another talent, partly formed and very
strong."  She looked up from her study of one body to give Gryphon a
warning look.  "If you know who that is, I suggest you keep a very
close eye on him.  He is at a dangerous stage."
	"He's well in hand," Gryphon said.  "But nothing from these
guys?"
	"Nothing," Rianna nodded.  "I can't speak for the modern Sith
tradition - in fact, I wasn't sure there was one until you told me -
but the Sith didn't go in for cyborg implants and powered armor in the
old days.  We did not -need- them."  She pointed to one body, whose
helmet had been pulled off to reveal several cyber-plugs and other
evidence of implants in his skull.  "Nor did the Sith need electronics
to control those they wished enslaved.  The Sith use trickery, deceit,
and mental domination - not props."
	"Then we're back at square one," Chief Krez grumbled, running
a hand over his bristly grey hair.
	"No, we aren't," Gryphon said.  "Not quite.  Mia Ausa
recognized the Sith Knight as our old friend from the Psi Corps, Roger
Tremayne.  Since we can be -pretty- sure that these aren't Sith
warriors," he nodded his acknowledgement to Rianna, "then we have to
presume that Tremayne got them from his more conventional employers."
	"You mean those are Psi Corps officers?" General Corleen
asked.
	"Probably not officially," Gryphon said.  "No Psi Corps badge,
for one thing.  Although... "  He reached past Rianna, brushed up the
short-cropped hair on the helmetless cyborg and noted a bare spot, a
brand in the shape of the Greek letter omega burned into his scalp.
"Ten to one the Corps has a deniable-ops branch set up somewhere, full
of guys just like this.  A hundred to one."
	"No proof, though," Chief Krez said.
	"None we could take to the Federation."  Gryphon shrugged.
"Maybe the autopsy will turn something up."
	As the IPO chief and the Sith left the station together and
went on out into the bright sunlight of Government Center's plaza,
Gryphon said, "Thanks for coming, Rianna."
	"You're welcome," Rianna replied.  "I'm sorry I wasn't able to
shed more light on the subject... so to speak."
	Gryphon chuckled.  "Well, like my grandmother used to say,
it'll all come out in the wash."
	"Mm," said Rianna, nodding.  "I just hope it doesn't stain.
Listen, there's one favor you can do for me, if you feel like it."
	Gryphon regretted that he didn't know her well enough to
reply, "OK, but I've only got an hour," instead responding, "What's
that?"
	She gave him just the faintest hint of a smirk, then went on
in a businesslike tone, "You said the Sith the kids encountered left
behind his lightsaber.  I'd like to see it."
	"Sure.  It's up on Challenger, I - "
	Gryphon's communicator tweedled.
	" - hold on a second."  He drew it from his belt, flipped it
open, and said, "Yeah."
	"Your presence is requested aboard, sir," said the voice of
Hoshi Sato.  "Stand by to beam up."
	"I was just about to call you.  Make it two."

	Kozue Kaoru stood amid the noise and confusion of one of the
Titan Defense Forces' aerospace hangars and looked over what probably
three out of five people asked would have called, charitably, an
obsolete vehicle, and uncharitably, a heap of worthless junk.
	It was a Salusian-built Subpro Z-95E Headhunter starfighter,
long-nosed, snub-tailed, straight-winged and sleek.  Called the "Mark
IV" in Subpro's official literature (there had been no Z-95D), the
Z-95E was the last of the Headhunters.  With its sophisticated target
tracking equipment, missile delivery system, and integral hyperdrive,
it represented the absolute state of the art, the last word in space
superiority fighters...
	... in 2002.
	The fighter before her now, Kozue read on the datasheet she'd
been handed by the TDF 21st Fighter Wing crew chief, had come off the
Subpro line in April of 2005, which made it... ye gods, four hundred
and one years old.  And yet, she had to remind herself, that wasn't
all that old for a spacecraft.  Corwin's converted freighter, the
One-Hit Wonder, had been built in the 1950s sometime, and it was still
going strong.
	Most of the freighter's systems had been replaced, admittedly.
Little about it was original now save the spaceframe; but one of the
many, many things Kozue had learned from Corwin Ravenhair was that a
good spaceframe with dead systems was a spacecraft, while a bunch of
good systems with a bad spaceframe was scrap.
	This spaceframe, Kozue thought, was still good.  She wouldn't
have been able to quantify exactly why she thought that, if anyone had
asked.  It was just the way it sat, parked patiently in the corner of
the hangar, upright on its landing gear, wings straight and level,
waiting.  Most of the TDF's Headhunters had been stripped, sold off to
even less significant military forces, or scrapped outright.  Four
remained, and none were spaceworthy now that Jung Freud had burned the
power core out of the last flyable one in yesterday's battle with
Earthforce.
	Of the three others, one was missing a wing, one had suffered
an electrical fire, and this one... well, according to the record in
her hand and the master tech's memory, there was nothing wrong with
this one.  The pilots had just stopped flying it when the TDF's
secondhand T-65E Dragonflies had arrived the previous year.  It wasn't
fueled and its storage cells were dead; it was covered in dust, its
paint was drab and faded, its official markings had been removed
(leaving odd blank patches in its paint job), and its cockpit bubble
had yellowed with age... 
	... but something about the way it sat here, like an old horse
retired to a corner stall, told Kozue it was still sound.
	She felt a presence behind her and turned her head to see
Corwin, dressed in one of the smudgy coveralls he wore when working in
Valiant's engine room, approaching across the hangar.  He raised a
hand in greeting; Kozue smiled and returned the gesture.
	"Doing a little shopping?" he asked as he reached her.
	"Governor Ondeen said I could have anything the Defense Forces
didn't want to keep."  She smiled, chuckling, and added, "Captain
McCarthy tried to give me one of the X-wings anyway, but I managed to
convince him that they should really hold onto those."
	Corwin laughed.  "You're a legend in your own time."
	"I know.  It's a little unnerving.  I was on the -news- this
morning."  She touched the medal on the front of her IPSF duty
uniform's jacket - having fought the entire engagement in her party
clothes, Kozue had felt it only fair to wear her uniform for the
downtime afterward - and added, "Being a hero feels weird."
	Smiling, Corwin put a hand on her shoulder and assured her
wryly, "You'll get used to it."  Then he took a slow walk around the
Headhunter, making little 'hmm' noises every now and then, tapping on
body panels gently with his fingertips, and crouching down to look at
the oleos on the main gear with a critical eye.
	Then, straightening, he said, "Needs a lot of work, but the
spaceframe's good and straight."
	Kozue grinned.  "I thought so.  Can you help me with it?"
	"Sure.  Give us something to do after school again next year,"
Corwin replied.  "We'll have to take the wings off to fit it in
Valiant's shuttlebay alongside the Swordfish.  Or Dad could take it
with him - Challenger's got plenty of bay room - and we could sort it
out later."
	"That works," said Kozue.  "We won't really have the
facilities to do anything with it the rest of the summer anyway."
	"By the way," said Corwin as he flipped the Headhunter's
boarding footstep down and hiked himself up to have a look in the
cockpit, "do you know where you're staying yet?"
	"Looks like with the Roses," Kozue responded, "ironically
enough.  You?"
	"Dad thinks he's found a place for me down in the Millrace, by
the Morgan River," said Corwin.  He cupped his hands around his eyes
and peered into the cockpit, then went on, slightly muffled, "I'm
probably going to check out a stimsim of it later today."
	"Cool.  Mind if I tag along?  I can give you that feminine
perspective."
	Corwin took his hands away from the age-clouded transaluminum
and gave her an off-axis look, which made her giggle.
	A moment later, his handlink beeped.  He raised it, tapped it
and answered, "Corwin here."
	"It's Utena," replied a voice consistent with that claim.
"Can you come up to Challenger?  There's something you need to see."
	"Uh... sure."  He climbed back down the side of the
Headhunter, toed the step back into its stowed position, and asked,
"Can you give me a hint?"
	"I think it's best if you just come and see."
	"... OK," said Corwin, a little puzzled.  "Kozue's with me, do
you want her too?"
	"Sure, the more the merrier."
	Kozue turned, waved to the man in the TDF Master Technician's
uniform, and shouted to him across the noisy hangar, "THIS ONE!"
	Master Tech Sesteen nodded with a broad grin and gave her a
thumbs-up.  "GOOD CHOICE!"
	"WE'LL BE BACK FOR IT LATER!  OK?"
	Another thumbs-up.  "OK!"

	The starship Challenger's forward lounge was no longer
deserted by the time Corwin and Kozue were brought there by Utena.
Instead the place was packed with people.  Most of the Valiant's
complement was here, as were a few of the blue-suited personnel from
IPO HQ Beltane and some members of the flagship's crew.
	The room had a festive atmosphere, more like a party than the
modest award ceremony the visiting defenders of Titan had been treated
to when Utena had completed her list.  People had drinks and snacks,
were laughing and talking in animated tones.  It struck Corwin as a
bit inappropriate, given what had happened to - 
	"GUY!" he cried as he spotted the redheaded figure in black
jeans and Art of Noise t-shirt at the center of attention.
	Guy turned, grinned, and made his way through the crowd to his
brother, but before the two young men could say anything more, the
redhead's name was shouted again, this time as a high, almost keening,
two-part-harmony cry that came from behind Corwin.  The engineer found
himself jostled as two smaller shapes darted past him, one on each
side.  One was topped with a streak of orange not unlike Guy's, the
other a smudge of coal black.
	The orange one reached Guy first, and hit him so hard it
knocked him flat on his back on the carpet.  Having underestimated her
own strength a bit, Priss Morgan found herself not hugging her twin
brother, but rather lying on top of him.
	That didn't seem to daunt her, though, as she kissed him and
squeezed him in her arms, then rested her head against his chest and
tried with an almost total lack of success to apologize for everything
she'd ever done to him and beg him to forgive her and come home, all in
less than five seconds.
	For his part, Guy just lay there on the floor, arms bent at
the elbow, hands raised in the air as if in surrender, a look of
bemused surprise on his face.  A moment behind Priss, Sylvie Daniels
arrived; she was at least smart enough not to pile on, but instead
knelt down beside the twins and grabbed Guy's left hand, adding her
voice to the incoherent chorus.
	"Easy, easy, easy," said another voice, and the twins' mother,
Kei Morgan, made her way through the crowd with an amused smile on her
face.  "Don't kill him again."
	Priss released her brother, scrambled to her feet and whirled
indignantly to her mother.  "Mom!" she said.  "Don't even joke!"
	Kei brushed aside her daughter's indignation, reached down,
grabbed Guy's free hand, and hauled him to his feet.  "You OK, Lion?"
she asked him as she drew him into an embrace of her own.
	The young man grinned and replied, "I feel great, Mom.  Better
than I ever have."
	"Hey!" Priss blurted, tugging him back out of their mother's
arms and grabbing a fistful of his thick orange hair.  "Your hair got
lighter!"
	Guy looked, and sure enough, it had; his hair was now a shade
or  two brighter than his sister's.
	"So it did," he said.
	"We don't MATCH!" Priss cried.  "That's not fair!"
	"Sorry," said Guy.  He saw that she was really upset and put
his free hand on her shoulder.  "I didn't have a choice... "
	"Hey," said Sylvie, who still had hold of Guy's left hand.
"What's with your hand?"  When Kei glanced curiously at her, the
black-haired girl held up Guy's hand, showing his mother the pale
green glow shining through the back of it.
	"Oh, uh... we're not really sure yet," Guy replied, gently
retrieving his hand and regarding it thoughtfully.
	Kei laughed, head back.  "Not another one!" she remarked with
a merry twinkle in her brown eyes.  "Ben, has another of our children
found some kind of cosmic calling?"
	"So it would appear," Gryphon replied.  "But you know what I
say," he added, shrugging nonchalantly.  "As long as they're happy and
stay off the stims... "
	Kei laughed, gave her younger son another hug and mussed his
unruly orange hair, then released him back to the tender captivity of
his still-slightly-disgruntled twin and her best friend.

	Off to one side, Kozue Kaoru chuckled and leaned over to her
own twin, murmuring, "Maybe that's what we needed."
	"What?" Miki replied mildly.  "A co-conspirator to help you
more effectively torture me?"
	"Yeah," Kozue replied, hugging her brother's arm.  "Something
like that."
	"I'm not generally the volunteering type," Azalynn dv'Ir
Natashkan observed as she slid up behind them both, "but... "
	Kozue laughed.  R. Dorothy Wayneright gave them all an odd
look, then shook her head with mock resignation, carried her grey cat
Peril to the piano, put him down on top of it, and sat down to play.

/*  L. van Beethoven  Sonata No. 8 in C Minor, Op. 13 'Pathetique'  */

	Utena surveyed the scene and smiled.  Guy's miracle recovery
was the perfect cap to the adventure, the perfect reversal of the
gloom that had hung over them all and kept them from enjoying their
victory.
	Sure, the galaxy at large was still a bit of a mess.  As
insane as it seemed to the crew of the Valiant, political opinion had
come out in -favor- of Earth's actions.  The Earth Alliance's member
worlds off-Earth were overwhelmingly in support of President Clark.
So were a number of other worlds, including not a few independent
ex-Salusian colonies.  Vulcan had approved of Earth's actions,
although the persons polled there 'deplored the use of violence in
solving political differences.'  Corellia... well, the polls there
went according to who paid for the polls, so their massive support was
no surprise.
	What was surprising, though, was that the numbers were
-rising- with every successive poll.  Even Network 23, now exiled from
the Earth Alliance, reported that opinion polls taken on human worlds
favored Clark's actions by substantial margins.  Only on a handful of
worlds - Narn, Salusia itself, some parts of the Greater Galactic
Co-Prosperity Sphere, Zeta Cygni, some more enlightened spots on the
Rim - did the majority disapprove of the Earth Alliance's acts.
	Utena knew -why- this was happening, of course; she was no
master schemer, but neither was she the hopelessly naive creature who
had arrived at Ohtori Academy years ago, hunting a legend.  She knew
the way things worked.  The reason for the massive approval was
because the only news coming from Earth and its Alliance now came from
the new, "improved" ISN (The Truth When You Need It).  And the new ISN
was only showing things that painted the new world order in a positive
light: crowds of cheering Argentines showering the occupation forces
with flowers, the new "popularly elected" Governor of Texas sucking up
to President Clark, the King of England smiling and waving as he gave
up his crown and his country "voluntarily".
	There was nothing on ISN about the stubborn, heroic resistance
of the United States of Australia and New Zealand.  The Royal
Australasian Air Force had been wiped out almost to their last
fighter, the Australia-New Zealand Army Coalition all but erased from
history.  That much Utena knew for a fact, having seen it on Network
23 as that network fled Australia in transports belonging to their
major sponsor, the ZikZak Corporation.  And the rumors filtering into
Titan from resistance groups on Earth, relayed by sympathetic Free
Martians, were even worse.
	If those rumors were to be believed, thousands of Muscovites
had stormed Red Square in the wee hours of Monday morning, armed with
nothing but rocks, bricks and bottles, and been gunned down by
Earthforce soldiers shipped in from outside Russia.  The patriots of
Texas had chosen guerilla warfare instead of Anzed's heroic but futile
stand, and their ongoing resistance was being dismissed by Earthdome's
puppet press as "scattered attacks by terrorist cells."  The Prince of
Zanzibar was in solitary confinement in Geneva, or possibly on the
Moon, or maybe he had been executed.
	The report Utena liked best, and most hoped was true, was the
one about Canada.  According to the Martian drums, the military
leadership of Canada had been quite aware that their forces could
never stand up to Earthforce, and they had chosen neither guerilla
war, which would tear the peaceful country apart, nor open defiance,
which would cost thousands of lives.
	Instead, the former Dominion had submitted peacefully on
Sunday... and not shown up for work on Monday.  No one.  Not one
soldier, not one cop, not one lawyer or judge or doctor or auto
mechanic or bus driver.  The hundred fifty million people of Canada
were sitting out the civil war en masse, making their disapproval of
the situation known by their vast and contemptuous silence, and
Earthforce didn't have enough personnel to go and force them out.
	It wouldn't last, of course, even if it were true - people had
to eat, and would go back to work when the food ran out - but Utena
hoped it was true all the same, because it struck her as enormously
funny in a perverse sort of way.
	So the universe had lost its mind, or at least the Earth
Alliance had.  Tensions were running high, the Federation was kissing
the Alliance's boots, everyone was eyeing his neighbor and keeping a
hand near his blaster...
	... but Saionji was going to be OK, Guy was better than new,
and Titan was still free, and Utena Tenjou had learned to take her
victories where they found her.  So she was reasonably content as she
leaned against the wall near the lounge entrance and smiled at
everybody.
	She noticed Wakaba and Imra Ardeen sitting on one of the
lounge's sofas off to one side, laughing and talking, and went over
to join them.
	"Hey," said Wakaba, shoving over to to make room for her.
"How's Anthy?"
	"Fine," Utena replied.  "Worn out, sleeping it off, but happy
she could help.  She and Liza both."  She yawned, stretching, and
added, "I know the feeling.  How are you guys?"
	"Not bad," Imra allowed.
	"I'm great," Wakaba said with a grin.  She held out her left
hand, fingers splayed, like a girl showing off an engagement ring, and
said, "Like my new toy?"
	Utena looked, blinked, and looked more closely.  Wakaba's Rose
Seal, which marked her as both an Institute Duelist and a member of
the Cephirean Order of the Rose, had changed.  It was no longer a
silver band with the Tenjou Academy rose signet atop it in pink; now
the signet was green, a rich, full, emerald green, and the metal of
the ring was black.  It was that last detail which distracted Utena
momentarily, delaying her notice of the subtly shifting green light in
the gem of the signet.  When she did notice that light, she realized
immediately that the Seal was also a Lens, replacing the one that was
now absent from Wakaba's wrist.
	She gave Wakaba a faintly uneasy look and asked, "Why is it
black?"
	"It's not," Wakaba replied, turning her hand so the faintly
glowing gem caught the light.  "It's green."
	"I know it's green, but the ring itself is black," Utena
replied, exasperated by her old friend's deliberate obtuseness.
	Wakaba sighed.  "Because black goes better with green, Utena,
relax," she said.  "It changed when Master Clef and Skuld combined it
with my Lens, that's all.  It's supposed to help me channel the power
Clef gave me more effectively."
	"Does it work?"
	"I haven't really tested it yet," Wakaba replied, shrugging,
"but it -feels- better.  Less... restless.  I'm not sure I can really
explain."
	Remembering the uneasy way the Power of Dios had sat within
her at first, Utena grinned.  "I understand," she said.
	"So," Imra asked with an impish grin, "are you going to design
yourself a costume?  What will you call yourself?"  She raised her
hands in a framing gesture and said pompously, "'The Emerald
Crusader!'"
	Wakaba rolled her eyes.  "Don't be a weirdo, Imra."

	Gryphon laughed at the joke Kei had just made and remarked to
himself that today was turning out to be a much better day than he had
expected it to be when he got up (obscenely early) to be present, for
solidarity's sake, at Utena's meeting with Governor Ondeen.  His train
of thought on that subject was very similar to hers, and doesn't need
to be retold, but as he was considering the Canada shutdown (he too
hoped it was true; it was so in character for the country, of which he
was quite fond), he found himself rousted from his reverie by the
arrival of Mia Ausa.
	"Excuse me, Captain," she said diffidently.  "Could I have a
word with you?"
	Gryphon blinked.  "Sure," he said.  "Rianna and I were just
headed down to the dojo.  Walk with us.  Kei, you can hold things
together here?"
	Kei eyed the pleasant gathering with a mock-dubious eye and
said, "Well, I'll -try- to keep these animals under control, but... "
	Gryphon laughed, kissed her, and then squired Mia out into the
corridor with Rianna following behind them.  The Sith Knight followed
silently and patiently (and, thought Mia, a little unnervingly),
keeping her nose out of Gryphon's business with the girl.
	"What's on your mind, Mia?" asked Gryphon.  "You don't have to
call me Captain, by the way.  Not when your dad and I go back as far
as we do."
	It was a little-known fact that John Trussell was the member
of the core of twentieth-century Wedge Defense Force immortals whom
Gryphon had known longest.  Alone among the group of WPI students
thrust by circumstance and ancient machination into positions of
galactic prominence, Truss had known Gryphon -before- WPI, several
years before, when they'd met at what Truss had described, rather
vaguely, to his daughter as "summer camp for smart kids."
	That little tidbit went a long way toward muting Mia's natural
tendency to be slightly in awe of the man: her father had known him
before he was a space hero, before he was a samurai, before he was
anything other than a seventh-grade kid from Maine who couldn't stand
the food at the College of the Atlantic.  It gave her the confidence
she needed to go up to him, one of the most important men in the
galaxy, and ask a favor.
	"When I left Minbar," she told him, "I had to renounce my
Minbari citizenship to do it, and claim Australian citizenship based
on my blood tie to Dad.  That... might be kind of a problem now.  Or
it will be as soon as the EA has finished subjugating Anzed and
absorbing all their records."
	"When did Truss become an Australian citizen?" asked Gryphon,
puzzled.
	"When he started working for Network 23," Mia replied.  "It
was easier than trying to go through the Salusian consulate all the
time."
	"Oh.  I guess that makes sense."  Like all the WDF's original
WPI core, Truss had been made a Salusian subject when their original
country had declared the Wedge Defense Force persona non grata after
the destruction of Neo-Worcester in the early 1990s.  Most of them
still were, or had converted over to the Republic of Zeta Cygni when
Gryphon and Lord Fahrvergnugen had founded that state in 2380.  He
couldn't think of a single one that had gone back to Earth, at least
legitimately.
	"Anyway," said Mia, "my Earth citizenship could be a legal
liability now.  After all, I'm a wanted criminal on Earth.  All of us
in Utena's crew are."
	Gryphon nodded.  "And you've certainly made yourself an enemy
in the Psi Corps," he added, "not that that's necessarily directly
relevant to you, but - "
	"It is," Mia told him flatly.  When that stopped him and got
him giving her an "oh really?" look, she added, "P2 or worse - contact
empathy, basically - but with my... other talents... well, that Sith
Psi Cop was definitely interested... "
	Rianna interposed herself for the first time.  "Excuse me,"
she said.  "Are you the girl who recognized him for a Sith?"
	Mia nodded.  "Yes, I am."
	"Oh, sorry," said Gryphon.  "Rude of me.  Um, Mia Ausa, Rianna
Santova."
	"Nice to meet you," said Mia politely; then she got back to
business and continued, "I have an ancient Atlantean text on the Jedi
Knights and their enemies - it dates back to the Second Epoch, when
both orders were at the peak of their power."
	"Really," said Rianna.  "Mother has a similar book, except
it's Santovasku, of course.  Possibly a translation of the same work.
It would be interesting to compare them someday."
	Mia took a closer look at her interlocutor, taking in the
horns, and then said, "Are you... you're Santovasku, aren't you?  That
explains your name."
	"Half," Rianna replied.  "And you're half-Minbari, which
explains yours."
	Mia nodded.
	"Interesting," Rianna repeated.  "Aside from his garb, did the
man you encountered do anything that indicated he was a Knight of the
Sith, and not simply a Psi Cop with a lightsaber?"
	Mia took this question in the spirit in which it was meant;
Rianna didn't know her, didn't know the ways of the Anla'shok, and so
had no reason to be confident in her assessment.  So instead of
getting upset and defensive, she just nodded.
	"He employed several documented Jedi techniques, but the most
obvious one, and the one that marked him as a darksider, was the
lightning."
	Rianna's eyebrows rose a tenth of an inch.  "He cast
lightning?" she asked.
	"Mm," said Mia, nodding again.  "Anthy said it was what he
knocked her out with.  He also used it against Saionji - I'd come to
in time to see that."
	Rianna tapped her chin thoughtfully with a fingertip.  "Thank
you.  That's not good news, but it does help us in considering what
we're dealing with."
	"You're welcome.  I'm glad I could be of some help... I
certainly wasn't any -against- him," she said ruefully.
	"If he was a genuine Knight of the Sith, you have no cause for
shame," Rianna replied (with, Mia thought, more than a trace of
arrogance - the woman reminded her a little bit of a member of the
Warrior Caste).
	Choosing not to argue the point, Mia merely nodded polite
acknowledgement and turned back to Gryphon.  "Do you... think you can
help me?"
	Gryphon nodded.  "You have your current ID on you?"
	"I gathered up all my paperwork before I came over from the
Valiant."
	"OK."  Gryphon paused at the next corridor intersection and
punched the intercom panel online.  "Gryphon to the bridge."
	"Bridge here, O Mighty One," replied the voice of executive
officer Lore Soong.  "You're missing No Pants Day."
	Gryphon gave the panel a dubious look.  "That's... nice,
Lore.  Is Lu there?"
	"Yeah, but she's not being any fun," Lore replied.  "Not
getting into the spirit of our Special Days.  I think you're going to
have to keep shopping."
	In the background, Gryphon could hear Luornu Durgo, his new
yeoman, giggling; he smiled and said, "Stop trying to freak her out,
Lore, it's only her second day.  Put her on, will you?"
	"I've been putting her on all day," Lore replied petulantly,
"but she just won't bite."
	"I'm right here, sir," said Lu.
	"Lu, I'm sending up a girl named Mia Ausa," said Gryphon.
"She's John Trussell's daughter and she's in a jam - she was rash
enough to get Earth Alliance citizenship last year," (he paused to
wink at Mia), "and now she figures that could get inconvenient.  She's
got all her current paperwork with her.  Run it through the gizmos in
my office and tell Vision she needs the standard package, will you?"
	"Sure thing, sir!" Lu replied.
	"Great, thanks.  Gryphon out."  He thumbed the panel offline
and grinned at Mia.
	"That's all?" she asked, grinning back.
	"After Utena and all her friends last year," Gryphon said,
putting a hand on Mia's shoulder as he led the way to a turboshaft,
"we've got this stuff down to a science."

			      BABYLON 6
				16:39

	When Susan Ivanova sent Babylon 6 Security Chief Michael
Garibaldi to check out the mysterious ship that was parked near the
station, she had expected him to come back showing some kind of
reaction to what he found inside.  She hadn't expected that reaction
to be giggling, though, and that's what Garibaldi was doing as he
removed his environment suit's helmet in the Command-level airlock.
	"What's so funny?" Ivanova wanted to know.
	"This whole situation," Garibaldi replied, still snickering as
he undid the rest of the suit, put it away, and smoothed his uniform.
"The ship's got a command AI."
	"It was what let you on board?"
	"Yeah.  Opened the main hatch right up for me."
	"Why didn't it admit the other security officers I sent over?"
	"She didn't have orders to," Garibaldi said.  He reached into
the pocket of the spacesuit and removed a piece of paper before
shutting the locker, then turned to Ivanova and asked, "Where's
Truss?"
	"The reporter?  He and his crew were dropped off by Princess
Dessler's ship two hours ago.  I think they're in the Marche now."
	"Good.  C'mon along if you want.  I've got a message for him."
	"Wait a minute, what about this mystery ship?"
	"That's what the message is about," replied Garibaldi with a
grin as he left the room.
	Throwing her hands in the air, Ivanova uttered something
impolite in Russian and followed him.

	John Trussell, ace reporter for Network 23, surveyed his
tablemates with a touch of glumness, for they were a rather
bedraggled-looking lot.  He and his pilot partner, Jung Freud, had had
a chance to shower and change clothes, since they lived aboard the
station, but they still looked tired and frazzled.  One of their two
Neimoidian security droids was scuffed and dented, the other was
missing an arm, and their R5 unit looked a bit ungainly with an
improvised carrier pack strapped to him.  The pack contained the core
of their late ship's onboard machine intelligence, Al.
	"So," said Jung.
	"So," Truss replied.
	"We need a new ship," Jung said.
	"That we do."
	"A -better- ship."
	Truss hadn't seen anything wrong with the old Morning Sun, but
then, he hadn't been the driver.  He shrugged equably.  "If we can
afford it," he said.  "I don't know what kind of budget the network
will have for things like that now."
	"We don't know if the network even -exists-," grumbled Jung.
"For all we know, we could be out of jobs.  You suppose ISN is
hiring?"
	"Don't even joke."
	At the end of the table, G-3N3, one of the battle droids, had
taken an interest in a pair of chopsticks which Jung had been given
with her beef chow mein, but which she hadn't used.  The robot was
fumbling with them in his rather clumsy two-fingered hands; his thumbs
weren't quite fully opposable.  Truss and Jung stopped talking and
watched with a kind of disturbed fascination as the droid - designed
for war, adapted for security, and certainly not interested in human
food - tried to figure out how to use the table implements.
	Their fascination (and possibly their disturbance) grew as the
other, R-06R, turned to his counterpart and said in his monotone
synthetic voice:
	"What are you doing?"
	"Please enjoy your Nice Chinese Food with Chopstick," replied
Gene, "the traditional and typical of Chinese glonous history and
cultual."  For illustration, the battle droid gestured to the red
paper wrapper the chopsticks had come in.
	Roger seemed to accept this as a reasonable (for that matter,
intelligible) answer; he watched Gene fumble for a moment more, then
leaned over, took hold of his counterpart's hand with one of his own
and the chopsticks in the other, and told him,
	"No no - like this.  Hold this - move this.  See?  Now you can
pick up anything."
	Gene opened and closed the chopsticks several times, then
turned and tried to lift R5-T1.  The only part of the astromech droid
small enough for the battle droid to grasp with the chopsticks was his
comm antenna, and trying to lift him by that appendage accomplished
nothing other than to elicit a stream of indignant electronic noises.
	Stymied, Gene turned to Roger and observed, "Not anything."
	Truss and Jung looked at each other in astonishment.
	"Those droids need a memory wipe," Jung observed.
	"Hey, Truss," said Garibaldi, slipping up to the table with
Ivanova in tow.  "Got a minute?"
	"I've got a lot of minutes," Truss replied ruefully.  "What do
you need, Chief?"
	"I've got a message for you," said Garibaldi.  "Would you mind
coming up to the observation deck?"

	Ten minutes later they were all in the observation deck,
looking out at the mysterious white ship - Truss, his crew, Garibaldi,
Ivanova, and Minbari Ambassador Delenn, who looked slightly perplexed.
	"Ambassador, this message was found aboard our mystery ship,"
Garibaldi said.  He held up the piece of paper he'd taken from his
spacesuit pocket, which appeared to be a standard pale yellow sticky
note.  "I thought you might be interested in being present when I
deliver it to its intended recipient."
	Then he turned and handed the note to Truss, who, looking even
more puzzled than the Minbari ambassador, unfolded it and read aloud:
	"Dear Truss, Sorry about your ship.  I figured you would need
a new one, and this one has some features I think you'll appreciate,
so I sent it along.  Hail Eris!  Love... "  The blue-haired reporter's
brow furrowed in extreme consternation.  "... VALEN?!"
	Ambassador Delenn blinked, then turned to Garibaldi and said
with a distinct coolness in her voice,
	"Mr. Garibaldi, if this is your idea of humor, it has exceeded
the boundaries of good taste."
	Garibaldi spread his hands.  "I swear, Ambassador, it's just
like I found it.  The ship has a humanoid-interface machine
intelligence, and she told me the same thing.  She says she - the
ship, I mean - is a present for John Trussell from... well, Valen."
	Delenn would have arched an eyebrow if she'd had any.  "This
machine intelligence - does it look like a Minbari?"
	"Well... no," Garibaldi admitted, "but she said that was
because Valen was sending her to work with humans, and so she adapted
her appearance to suit."
	The Minbari diplomat studied Garibaldi's face carefully.
After more than a year stationed at Babylon 6, she had become quite
familiar with Garibaldi's fondness for gags and pranks, even if she
still didn't quite understand the human version of humor.  Despite
that, she had the impression that he was sincere.  She didn't think
him capable of such a crass mockery of another people's traditions;
the man was a bit coarse, but he was essentially good-hearted and his
jokes were never intended to hurt.
	She let it pass and turned to Ivanova.  "If this is to be
believed," she said, "then that ship must have come to this place from
the distant past.  Valen died over a thousand Standard years ago."
	"Then how did he know Truss would need a ship?" wondered
Garibaldi.
	"Why does he CARE that Truss needs a ship?!" Ivanova blurted,
throwing up her hands in frustration.  "This doesn't make any sense at
all!"
	"Careful, Commander, remember your blood pressure," Garibaldi
admonished her, drawing a well-deserved glare.
	"I guess there's only one way to find out," said Truss.
"We'll have to go over and talk to the ship."

	With the mystery ship still not acknowledging any hails,
transporting over was impossible, so Truss and Jung had to be fitted
with environment suits, given a quick refresher on operating the
thruster packs, and then guided over by Garibaldi.
	Inside, the ship was just as white as outside, or at least the
airlock was.  Once it had finished cycling, they checked their
readings, removed their helmets, and Garibaldi pressed the control for
the inner door, which looked fairly standard.
	As it trundled open, they were met by a young woman in an
elaborate dress.  She had long green hair in a fat, heavy braid and
greeted them with a big, friendly smile - and the most disconcerting
thing about her was that she had just appeared from nowhere when the
door opened.
	"Hi!" she said.  "You have been recognized as John Trussell
and Jung Freud, owner and primary operator of this vessel.  Welcome
aboard the Swordbreaker.  My name's Canal; I run the ship.  I'm sure
we'll all be great friends!"
	Truss blinked.  He glanced at Jung and saw that she was also
blinking, then glanced at Garibaldi and saw that -he- was struggling
not to laugh, which wasn't much help.
	"Uh... pleased to meet you," he said.
	"Now that you're aboard, would you like me to set up a
standard routine for answering hails and identity queries?  I have
everything programmed and ready."
	"Then... why aren't you already doing it?"
	"Valen told me not to talk to anyone who wasn't on the list,"
Canal replied.  "I do as Valen instructs me."
	"Valen the ancient Minbari prophet?" said Jung skeptically.
	"That's the one," Canal replied, nodding.
	"Ambassador Delenn had a good point.  If you're a Minbari
computer," said the redhead, "why don't you look like a Minbari?"
	"Oh, that's easy," said Canal cheerfully.  "Originally, I
did," (and she did,) "but Valen reprogrammed me," (and she didn't.)
"He said Captain Trussell had a thing for girls with green hair."
	As Truss felt his face go red, Garibaldi leaned over and
muttered behind his hand, "BUS-ted," which didn't help, and Jung
stifled a laugh and added,
	"(And blue, and purple, and red, and... )" which didn't help
either.
	"Uh... yes, well," said Truss.  Canal didn't seem to have
noticed his discomfiture or the others' comments at all; she just
stood there with her hands folded, beaming at him.  "Can you tell me
why... uh, Valen... sent me a ship?"
	"Because you needed one," Canal replied simply.  "Now, would
you like a tour?  The sooner you get acquainted with the ship, the
sooner you can move in and get back to your important work.  Did you
bring the processor for your controller AI with you?  There's an
installation module and separate superprocessor for him in the core
chamber... "
	Canal nattered happily on about the various features of the
ship as she led Truss, Jung and Garibaldi deeper into the interior,
pointing out different rooms and systems; but Truss hardly heard her.
He was too busy being hopelessly perplexed.

			    IPS CHALLENGER
				19:21

	As afternoon became evening over Beltane, the party
celebrating Guy's miraculous recovery gradually evolved into a more
general victory celebration, now that the shadow of his impending
death had been removed from over the participants' heads.  People came
and went from Challenger's forward lounge and mingled in shifting
groups.  Guy, still the guest of honor, was rarely alone, which he
would have liked.  He was grateful that people were glad he had
survived, and his cheeks still burned at the memory of the kiss of
thanks he had received from the normally undemonstrative Juri for
saving her life with his heroic action, but he would have appreciated
some time alone to think about all that had happened to him.
	Ah, well.  That time would come, he supposed.  In the
meantime, he was happy just to be alive and whole.  He went to the bar
and got a Coke, then made his way forward to look out the big windows
at Saturn.
	Mimi Shinguuji, the girl from Ishiyama who had joined the
Valiant's crew there to get a feel for life among the Duelists, came
up beside him and stood looking for a moment, then said, "Hey."
	"Hi, Mimi," said Guy.  "How are things?"
	"All right, I guess.  I tried to write a letter home today,
but I didn't have much to say, so it was kind of embarrassing."
	Guy cocked an eyebrow.  "Embarrassing?"
	"I didn't -do- anything yesterday," Mimi explained.  "Oh, it's
all very well for B'Elanna, -she- was down in the engine room helping
Mr. Cochrane fill in for Corwin.  She wasn't in the fighting directly,
but she had something to -do-.  I went down to Titan to try to help
out, like you and Juri and the rest, and nothing HAPPENED on level 5!"
	Guy chuckled.  The girl's dark eyes flashed at him.
Recognizing the look of danger from long experience, he hastily
explained, "You didn't miss much, is all I mean.  Would you rather
have been blown up in a disruptor overload?  It wasn't much fun,
believe me."
	"I suppose not.  But still... my parents are both these great
heroes, you know?  I just want to feel like I'm measuring up."
	Guy chuckled again.  "Believe me," he repeated, "I know."
	Mimi blinked at him, then laughed.  "Man, I'm so clueless,"
she said.  "Of course you do.  Say - why does your mother call you
'Lion'?"
	Guy smiled.  "Family joke.  She once called me 'Tiger', but of
course Kate's the one in our family who's into tigers," he said,
pointing across the room to the spot where his sister's pet neotiger
was balancing on a large rubber ball to the delight of onlookers.
"Kate was seven and very gravely informed Mom that -she- was the tiger
in the family, but then she thought about it for a second and said,
'Well, I guess Guy can be a lion.'  And it sort of... stuck."
	"Oh.  That's cool.  I'm just Mimi because otherwise people
would mix me up with my godmother."  She paused for a moment, at a
loss for a way to continue, then asked, "Um... so... are you going to
go home like your sister wants?"
	Guy shook his head.  "She was just upset.  I'll go home at the
end of the summer like we planned."  He smiled fondly.  "I'll pay for
it, but that's life with Priss and Sylv.  I never really realized how
much I'd miss them until I ran away from them... "
	"Hmm.  I wish my parents had had another kid," said Mimi.  "As
it is, I'm the only one anywhere near my age back home.  That's why I
want to go to DSM next year."
	"I've been thinking about that myself," Guy mused.  "But I
think Priss would kill me."
	"Bring her along," Mimi suggested.
	"I don't think Jeraddo is ready for Priss and Sylvie," said
Guy with a wry grin.

	Down in the ship's dojo, Rianna Santova finished a series of
saber drills with the lightsaber Roger Tremayne had left behind, shut
it down, and turned to Gryphon.
	"Interesting," she said.  "He must not have had it for very
long; there's no trace of him in it.  Most lightsabers acquire a
certain resonance with their owners over time, if the owners invest
any emotional value at all in their use."
	Gryphon nodded.  "The same thing often happens with our swords
in Katsujinkenryuu," he said, touching the grip of his ancient katana,
Ryuu-no-tsume, over his right shoulder.  "Sometimes I fancy I can feel
the spirits of my predecessors as O-sensei, all the way back to Tetsuo
Asagiri, guiding my hand."
	"So you know what I'm getting at," said Rianna.  "Traditionally, 
Jedi and Sith both build their own sabers, and the investment process
starts there, but this one feels almost unused.  This Roger person must 
have been a very cold fish - which is very odd for a Sith.  His weapon
is practically a blank.  It doesn't feel like a Sith's weapon at all."
	She held the saber up between them, turning it in her hand,
examining and displaying the intricate workmanship of its silver body
with its ribs and its three elaborately shaped, clawlike prongs
surrounding the emitter.  "And yet somebody obviously worked very hard
on it.  It's no simple slap-together job.  If I had to guess... "
	Rianna trailed off, looking pensive.  Gryphon let her think
for a few seconds, then prompted gently, "If you had to guess... ?"
	The horned Sith Knight shook her head, silencing him; then she
ignited the saber again, struck a stance, and said, "If you would
oblige me?"
	Gryphon blinked, then drew Ryuu-no-tsume and faced her.  She
didn't bother to warn him that his metal blade would be useless
against the saber; she knew what it was to be a master of the Asagiri
Katsujinkenryuu.
	They clashed, retired, clashed again, and then engaged for
five minutes or so, not working terribly hard, just enough to get
things flowing.  Then, when Rianna was satisfied, they disengaged and
she shut the saber down again.
	"I'm almost sure of it now," she said, weighing the weapon in
her hand.  "This isn't a Sith lightsaber - it was made by a Jedi."
	Gryphon blinked.  "Wha?"
	"The man your daughter's student fought didn't build this,"
Rianna told him.  "He killed the man who did, and took it as a trophy.
I'll bet you anything you want to name.  That's why it feels so
strange to me.  The differences are subtle, but important.  I've never
handled a brightsider's blade before, or I'd have realized it sooner."
	"Interesting," Gryphon mused as he took the saber back from
Rianna.  "Very interesting indeed."
	"What will you do with it?" Rianna asked as they left the
dojo.
	"Put it with the other one, I suppose," Gryphon replied.  "I
have the one that belonged to Talar Kem, the Jedi who helped Tetsuo
Asagiri found Katsujinkenryuu.  I keep it in a trunk at home."
	"Why not carry it, if your form has the styles for it?"
	Gryphon chuckled.  "Never been confident enough that I
wouldn't chop my own damn legs off," he replied, which made Rianna
laugh slightly.
	"It does take getting used to," she allowed.  She let the
joking moment pass, then went on more seriously, "If this is what it
appears to be - if some splinter of the old Order of the Sith has
survived and is intertwined with the Earth Alliance government and the
Psi Corps... well, I don't have to tell you, it doesn't bode well.  We
can't assume that another offshoot of the Order will have the same... 
enlightened view, if you'll pardon the expression... that Mother
taught me."
	Gryphon nodded.  "I've been thinking about that.  I know the
Jedi survived the Fall of Atlantis, after a fashion.  If the Sith are
making a comeback, and if they're tied in somehow with the Corps or
Earthgov... well, I think we're going to need them."  He gave Rianna a
wry smile.  "I don't suppose you know any."
	But she surprised him by getting a thoughtful look.  "As a
matter of fact I do," she replied.
	"Besides Redneck?" asked Gryphon.
	"Yes," Rianna said.  "A Jedi Master.  I met him a few years
ago during a job on the Rim."
	That got another chuckle from Gryphon.  "That must have been
interesting."
	Rianna smiled dryly.  "Mm, it was exciting for the locals for
a few minutes there.  Anyway, we parted on decent terms.  I've got his
contact information somewhere - when I get home I'll dig it up and
send it to you.  He might know where to start looking for others."
	"Thanks.  I appreciate it.  Buy you dinner?"
	"No, thanks.  I've got to get back.  Who knows what kind of
disaster Mayl's caused while I've been gone... "

	Not everyone who had participated in the previous day's
excitement felt like celebrating.  Azalynn dv'Ir Natashkan was one of
those.  She'd gone to see Guy, who she was pleased was all right, and
she'd done her part to make the occasion festive - but she wasn't
fully committed to it, and when she noticed one particular person's
absence, she decided to slip away from the party early and go in
search of him.
	She found him down in Beltane, sitting on a stone bench in the
deserted and silent Government Center Plaza, not far from the smashed
fountain.  The shadows of day were starting to lengthen toward evening
as Azalynn crossed the plaza and sat down quietly next to him.
	"Hey," she said quietly.
	"Hey," Moose MacEchearn rumbled in reply.
	"You're missing Guy's party," said Azalynn, her tone merely
informative.
	"Mm," said Moose.  "How's he look?"
	"Great.  Better than new.  If he were just a little older... "
	Moose chuckled.  "Well, someday... "
	Azalynn nodded, then leaned back in the bench with her feet
splayed out in front of her, balanced on their heels.  "Mm-hmm," she
said, folding her hands across her stomach.
	"So," said Moose after a few moments' silence, "why are -you-
missing Guy's party?"
	"I've done my part," Azalynn replied.  "Besides... I don't
feel much like celebrating."
	Moose glanced sideways at her.  "Funny," he said.  "I thought
I was the only one."
	"Mm, no," said Azalynn thoughtfully.  "I think more and more
are going to drift away from it as the evening goes on.  We've all got
a lot to think about.  Kate and Juri had already gone to bed by the
time I left, and some of the others were thinking about it too.  Quiet
time.  After yesterday, we needed the release, but now we need the
quiet."
	Moose nodded.  They sat in silence for a while, watching the
shadow of the Government Center Tower stretch and move across the
plaza.  It swung toward their bench little by little as the sun sank
away and the afternoon light turned gold.
	"I never saw anybody die before," said Moose suddenly, in that
same quiet conversational tone.  "I mean, I know Janice killed one of
the Klingons who were trying to take the Valiant last month, but I
didn't see it.  And then yesterday... those people started shooting
each other at the club... I'm pretty sure some of the soldiers trying
to stop us at the spaceport died... a -lot- of people must have died
when Amanda's ship blew up that destroyer.  All of that was kind of
unreal, though.  It didn't really hit me what was happening until
Dorothy threw that guy out the window up there... "
	He gestured to the ruined fountain, which had been ruined by
the impact of one of the armored marauders who had attacked Government
Center.
	"He was trying to kill all of us," Moose went on, before
Azalynn could point it out to him.  "I know that.  He nearly burned
down Edward where she stood... but still, it was a shock to see
Dorothy just... -kill- him like that.  You think you know someone,
what they're capable of, and then they surprise you that way."
	Azalynn nodded.  "I've been feeling strange about it all too.
I -have- seen people die; Dantrov isn't the safest place to be a
lifeform that weighs less than 500 pounds.  But I've never seen war
before, and that's what yesterday was.  On a small scale, but war, all
the same.
	"But... I'm proud of the role we played.  We had to fight to
protect ourselves, but our main job was to inspire our side, and we
did that well.  I don't feel bad about having been involved.  You know
our side was right, right?  You're not having doubts about -that-?"
	Moose shook his head.  "No, no," he said.  "I'm not a
simpleton," he added mildly.
	"I didn't think so," Azalynn replied.  "It's like the old song
goes, Moose - we didn't start the fire."
	Moose nodded, a small, nostalgic smile crossing his broad,
pleasantly ugly face.  "We didn't light it but we tried to fight it."
	"Yeah."
	"Yeah."
	Silence followed.  Night fell.  Hoffmanite and Dantrovian
remained on the bench as the stars came out and a few thin clouds
scudded past Saturn.
	"Getting pretty cold out here," Moose observed.
	"Mm-hmm," Azalynn replied, in a tone that indicated that she'd
noticed, but it didn't really matter to her.
	"How's Liza?" asked Moose.
	"Still in sickbay," said Azalynn.  "She's fine, but Selar
wants to keep an eye on her while she sleeps it off."
	"Mm.  So you're alone tonight?"
	"I hope not.  Today is Survivors' Day."
	Moose chuckled.  "Well, that's appropriate.  Are you sure
you're not just making these holidays up as you go along?"
	"Cross my heart," Azalynn replied piously.

CAPTAIN'S LOG
NETWORK MEDIA STARSHIP SWORDBREAKER (NM-1963-A)
MONDAY, JULY 24, 2406
20:03 GMT

This ship is incredible.  There's no other word for it.  Canal claims
that Valen sent it from his own time, over a thousand years ago, and
yet some of its systems are so futuristic I've never seen anything
like them.  Some of the technology is Minbari, some of it is... not,
and I have no idea what it is.  Canal is cheerfully evasive if pressed
on the subject.  It's frustrating.  I'm supposed to be a reporter and
I can't even find out who built my own ship?

We went out for a little testing run, to the Denorios Belt and back.
Jung is happier than I've ever seen her.  She says the ship
outperforms the Morning Sun in every respect.

I -liked- the Morning Sun.

I guess I'll get used to this ship, but it'll take some time.  The
color scheme's awfully dull.  We'll have to liven it up.

On the other hand, the shipwide holographic projection system is
light-years ahead of the system on the Sun; it can maintain both Al
and Canal simultaneously anywhere on board.  Al's almost as happy as
Jung, with a supercore to play in, and he claims that this ship's comm
array blows away anything Network 23 ever installed anywhere.  He says
once he learns all the ins and outs of it and we hit the field, we'll
be all-powerful - his word.  We'll see.  I know one thing already:
Canal doesn't think much of his taste in clothes.

Whoever built this ship knew exactly what I would need for facilities.
It's eerie.  It had that extra core and module ready and waiting for
Al; there are maintenance bays for Rusty, Gene and Roger - even spare
parts for the battle droids, which we thought we would have to
special-order from the manufacturer.

What the heck is going on?

Rhetorical question.

Wherever it came from, and whyever it came to us, this ship has
everything we need to cover the crisis I think we all know is coming.
It's like a gift from the gods (which I guess Delenn would say it
is).

I just hope we're still getting paid to do that.  Murph called and
said that Cheviot was going to make an announcement tomorrow, so I
guess we'll see.

END RECORDING

			   SOL VI TERRITORY
				22:57

	Eventually, as Azalynn had predicted, the party broke up and
people returned to their rightful places.  Back aboard Valiant and
yawning prodigiously, Utena made one sweep for form's sake through the
bridge, made sure that all was in order, then headed back to take one
last look in the engine room before calling it a night.
	On the upper balcony of Main Engineering, the part of the big
two-story room that was on Deck 1, she found Corwin Ravenhair leaning
against the safety rail, gazing thoughtfully at the slow idling throb
of the warp core.  Aside from the two of them, the engine room was
deserted.
	"Hey," said Utena, leaning against the rail next to him.
	"Hey," Corwin replied.
	They stood like that, shoulder to shoulder, in silence, for
several minutes.
	"Copper?" said Utena.
	"I was just thinking," said Corwin, "about what a crazy
universe it is.  You know they finished the autopsy on those armored
goons who covered Roger Tremayne's attack on Government Center?"
	"No," Utena replied.  "I didn't.  What'd they find out?"
	"They're some kind of enforcer unit for the Psi Corps.  Dad
thinks they're designed to hunt down and kill rogue Psi Cops."  His
voice got lower, coming from a tighter throat, as he added, "They're
normals."
	"Normals?  Working for the Psi Corps?"
	"Genebank records identified them," Corwin said.  "They're all
convicted criminals who are listed as killed in prison disturbances."
	Utena turned a puzzled look to him.  "Wha?  That doesn't make
sense.  Why would criminals work for the Psi Corps?"
	"They didn't get a choice," Corwin replied.  "Their brains had
been altered.  Butchered.  They'd had cybernetic barrier elements
installed, pieces of brain material removed, especially in the parts
of the frontal and temporal lobes where esper ability and memory are
concentrated.  Made them invulnerable to telepathy... and removed
their free will.  As far as Selar can tell, they were basically just... 
organic droids.  Mindless killers.  Drones."
	Utena was struck speechless.  Slowly, she turned to face the
warp core again, watched it pulse a few times, and then murmured,
"God, that's horrible."
	"I used to think the Psi Corps, as an organization, was wrong.
That their conscription policies were inhumane - that they were
basically a bunch of telepathic fascists," said Corwin quietly.  "But
now I know different.  Now I know they're -evil-.  They do things like
that to their own citizens - NORMAL citizens, citizens they're not
even supposed to have any legal dominion over - and they employ men
like Roger Tremayne... "
	He trailed off, his disgust and anger swallowing whatever
elaboration he might have made.  His hands gripped the rail as though
he meant to crush it.  After a few moments, he said in a low voice,
"And they damn near killed my brother... "
	Utena covered one of his hands with her own; after a few
moments he relaxed his grip, released the rail and turned the hand to
take hers.
	"When Klaang got the message that Guy and Saionji had been
hurt," she said softly, "Dad was on the viewer.  I'm sure he didn't
mean to, but Klaang just about scared me to death.  He said, 'Several
of the others have been injured, two gravely.  One is your son,' and
my heart just about stopped.  Then he said it was Guy, and... "  She
hesitated.  "I was so relieved I almost fainted.  And then I hated
myself for being relieved that Guy was almost killed and not you.
But... I was."
	Corwin nodded slowly, turning to look her in the eye.  "It's
OK," he said.  "Don't worry about it.  He pulled through - because of
you, in a way."
	"Because of me?  I didn't do anything," Utena said.
	"If you hadn't been here, would Anthy have been?  Would I have
had that G-stone?  Hell, would Saionji have turned Liza's life around?"
	Utena smiled despite herself.  "If you're going to go -that-
far back, if I hadn't been here none of this would have happened to us
in the first place.  Guy wouldn't even have been here to get hurt."
	"Maybe," said Corwin, "but you see my point."  He squeezed her
hand gently.  "Anyway, Guy wouldn't hold it against you if he knew.
He understands things like that."  He smiled.  "We can't help the way
we feel - we just feel it."
	"Isn't that the truth," said Utena with a chuckle.
	They stood there for a few minutes longer, side by side, hand
in hand, looking thoughtfully at the slow pulse of the warp core.
Then, as if obeying some silent cue, without exchanging any apparent
signal, they slowly leaned together into a long, gentle kiss.
	"Good night, Corwin," said Utena when they parted.
	"Good night, Utena," he replied, and she left him.
	He remained, watching the engine with a little half-smile on
his face, for several minutes before lifting himself from the rail
with a mild sigh and leaving the engine alone with its thoughts.

			      BABYLON 6
			TUESDAY, JULY 25, 2406
				09:00

	The broadcast center was a bit smaller and a lot more
improvised than the ones Ben Cheviot was used to working with, but
that was all right.  The message he was conveying was a lot more
important than any he had conveyed in years, and, if pressed, he would
have had to admit that he was feeling more alive than he had in
years.  An elderly man - nearly 150 - Cheviot was still spry, still
had a full head of hair to go with his aristocratic face, and his
hands were steady.
	He remained vigorously involved with his network despite his
periodic semi-retirements, and had personally led the evacuation.  His
employees had rallied around him; when they'd arrived at Babylon 6,
their temporary home, he'd offered anyone who wanted to call enough
enough a generous severance package and a good recommendation to
anywhere they wanted to try their luck.  Almost no one had taken him
up on it.  It was well known throughout the broadcast industry that
Ben Cheviot took care of his people, and in return, his people took
care of Ben Cheviot.
	Cheviot adjusted his tie and looked past the camera - Edison
Carter's ethercam, wielded by one of John Trussell's field security
droids - and met the eyes of his network's news director.  Carter
nodded, then tapped the droid on the shoulder.  The red light atop
the camera illuminated, and Ben Cheviot was on the air for the first
time in almost ten years.
	"Good morning," he said.  "I'm Ben Cheviot, president and
chief operating officer of Network 23 Broadcast Services, coming to
you live and direct on Network 23.  As you are probably aware, the
Earth Alliance annexed all its interior territories yesterday, save
for the Free Republic of Mars and the Sol VI Territory, including
Titan Colony.  What you may -not- be aware of is the fact that the
Alliance government seized control of all media outlets at the same
time, as part of their institution of Alliance-wide martial law.
	"We at Network 23 have always prided ourselves on our
independence.  We have a long history of impartial reporting and a
solid commitment to the truth.  Unfortunately, the truth, like civil
liberties and the sovereign rights of nations, has been suspended in
the Earth Alliance for the duration of the supposed crisis," Cheviot
added dryly, "and so we had to leave.
	"By now you have probably heard Inter-Stellar News, the Earth
Alliance's new government mouthpiece, say that Network 23 is finished.
That we can't possibly go on without our Sydney Broadcast Center.
That our network of reporters is too scattered, or too afraid, to keep
reporting the news.  That we've been absorbed by our primary sponsor,
the ZikZak Corporation of Neimoidia, and will return, if we return at
all, as a ZikZak home shopping channel."
	Cheviot folded his hands in front of him, leaned forward
slightly, and informed the camera grimly, "I'm here to tell you that
that none of that is so.
	"This morning, I concluded negotiations with the Salusian
Crown reincorporating Network 23 Broadcast Services, Incorporated as a
Salusian corporation, under the protection of the Crown's Freedom of
Broadcast Communications Act.  Our ships will carry Salusian
registry.  Our news staff will continue to report the news as they
have always done - by sniffing out, digging up and displaying the
truth for all the galaxy to see.  Until our new Saenar Broadcast
Center is completed, we will transmit from our temporary quarters on
Babylon 6 - but we will transmit, of that you can be sure!"
	Cheviot paused to collect himself, turned the steely glare
that had seen Network 23 through its hardest moments on the camera
again, and went on in an uncompromising tone.
	"In the coming years, I fear you will hear a great deal of
misinformation, propaganda, and outright lies from the organs of the
Earth Alliance.  We at Network 23 are going to tell you the truth, and
we're going to keep telling it until there is nowhere left in the
galaxy for an honest man to make a stand.  The Clark administration
can shoot at our reporters.  It can chase us from our home and grind
that home under its heel.  It can smear us, slander us, and lie about
us.  But it cannot kill the truth - and the truth is still in business.  
	"Thank you."

		   BELTANE, TITAN, SOL VI TERRITORY
		    SOLAR SYSTEM, CENTAURI SECTOR

	Janice Barlow switched off the TV and chuckled.
	"Pretty good speech," she said.  "Don't you think?"
	"Sure, whatever," replied Neal Krummell grumpily from his
hospital bed.  He moved a little, making the rigging rattle on the
traction harness which kept his right arm sticking out from the side
of his body at a 90-degree angle.  "Why the hell can't they give me a
bone-bond already?"
	"Because, you big baby," Janice replied patiently, "they have
to make sure there's no nerve damage."
	"If there was nerve damage, it wouldn't goddamn HURT," Neal
grumbled.
	"Well, Sergeant," said a voice from the doorway, "I haven't
got a bone bonder or any pain meds, I'm afraid, but I might have
something that can take your mind off the pain."
	Neal brightened as Professor Skuld Ravenhair entered the
room.  "You brought me a double cheeseburger and fries?"
	Skuld made a face.  "At nine o'clock in the morning?  No.  But
maybe," she went on with a smile, "you'd like a promotion to sergeant
and a transfer to CID?"
	Neal blinked - he was distracted enough that it hadn't
registered she'd called him "sergeant" when she came in.  "Uh...
that'd suit me fine, Professor," he said.
	"Janice," Skuld went on, "the Chief thought I might find you
here.  He wanted me to tell you that, after Sunday's little adventure,
you can consider your internship pretty much foregone."  She grinned.
"Would you rather spend your college career as a reserve Tac Div
officer or a reserve CID constable?"
	Janice glanced at Neal, then said, "Um... not to be rude,
ma'am, but what do -you- think?"
	Skuld nodded solemnly.  "You're right - it would be a terrible
distraction.  Tac Div it is."  She held the straight face for several
awkwardly silent seconds of Janice goggling at her, then laughed.
"I'm joking, Constable, put your eye back in your head."
	Janice blinked, self-consciously poked at her cybereye to make
sure it hadn't actually jumped its mount, and then went a bit red.
	"Sorry," said Skuld, winking.  "Well, congratulations, you
two.  One more bit of business, and then I'll leave you to your
medical misery."  She became serious again, genuinely serious, and
looked at Janice.  "It's not your time yet," she told the redheaded
Ragolian, and Janice knew immediately what she was talking about and
nodded.  "But you, Sergeant Krummell," added Skuld as she turned to
face Neal, "have been selected to undergo the Test of Light."
	Neal blinked again.
	"Uh... me?"

	Corwin entered the Valiant's wardroom in search of sustenance
to find the captain working the grill, treating her award-winning crew
to a good, old-fashioned Duelists' Castle breakfast.  He gave her a
good-morning wave and grin, which were returned, and then sat down at
one of the long tables next to Anthy.
	"Good morning," he said to her.  "I wasn't expecting to see
you out of bed today.  Word is you tapped yourself out pretty well
helping Liza with Guy."
	Anthy smiled.  "Nothing a good night's sleep... well, all
right, twenty hours... couldn't fix," she replied.  "I was actually
going to come looking for you when I was finished with breakfast if
you hadn't come."
	Corwin raised an eyebrow.  "Me?  What for?"
	"I want to step up my staff training," she said.  "After all
my pretty words about learning to take care of myself and pull my
weight, I was all but helpless against that horrible man from the Psi
Corps."  She shook her head, green eyes flashing, and said, "I must
work harder."
	Corwin chuckled, putting a hand on her shoulder.  "Slow down,
Anthy, slow down," he said.  "Roger Tremayne was a -Sith Knight-.
From what I heard about his fight with Saionji, I might have had a
hard time against him myself, and I've been trained to fight all my
life.  You can't become a world-beater with just a couple months'
work, however determined you are."
	"Utena did," Anthy replied, and Corwin had to admit, with a
genuine, delighted laugh, that this was true.
	"But Utena is Utena," he said.  "And you're not, you're you."
	Anthy considered this statement, rather simplistic on the face
of it, and then smiled.
	"You're right, I suppose," she said.  "But still, I want to
work harder if you have the time to train me.  I've asked Mia about
doing the same with my sorcery lessons - you know she's been continuing 
them while we're away from Aunt Bell - and she said she'd see what she
could do.  I think she's a bit chagrined by the ease with which
Mr. Tremayne overpowered her as well."
	"She shouldn't be," Corwin said, shaking his head.  "Part of
being a warrior is knowing and accepting your limitations.  I'm
surprised Mia doesn't know that - she's had training from some of the
best.  People laugh at the Anla'shok, but that's only because people
are stupid."
	Anthy smiled gently and told him, "Ah yes, Corwin.  I've seen
first-hand how adept -you- are at accepting -your- limitations... "
	Corwin choked on his orange juice, managed to keep from
spraying it across the table onto a bemused Moose MacEchearn,
swallowed, and said, "Touche.  OK, I'll see what I can do too."
	"Thank you," she said, squeezing his arm.  "I do appreciate
it."
	"I know you do," he said, smiling.  Then he became more
serious, leaned closer, and said in a quieter tone, slipping his voice
underneath the breakfast conversation, "Listen... I want you to know
something."
	"Mm?" asked Anthy, interested.
	"On Sunday, when I was out with Big O fighting, I felt this
sudden, terrible pain.  Like I was being electrocuted or something.
And I just... instinctively knew... that it was -you-.  That you were
in danger.    I finished them off as fast as I could and beat it back
for Beltane, but by the time I got there it was all over.  So there's
a limitation I've had to accept, whether I wanted to or not.  You were
in danger and I couldn't help you.  It was... it was an awful feeling."
	Anthy looked thoughtful for a moment, then murmured, "You know, 
that's amazing.  Utena told me almost the same thing Sunday night,
after we went to bed."
	"Really?"
	"Mm.  She said she almost abandoned the fight up above,
ordered Kozue to fly the ship down to my rescue, but Kozue and
Amanda's ship commander talked her out of it.  She was ashamed that
she'd thought of abandoning her duty -and- ashamed that she couldn't
help me at the same time.  You see, that's why I want to become a
better sorceress, and get better with the staff... so the two of you
can be at ease when your duties keep you from being right at my side,
and tend to those duties."  She paused, choosing words, then said, "I
want to be your partner, Corwin, yours and Utena's - not your
responsibility."
	Corwin absorbed that in silence, then slowly nodded.  "I
understand," he said.  "I'll help you get to that goal any way I
can."
	She thanked him and they made a date to meet for staff training 
later in the day.  Then they broke out of their private conversational
knot and rejoined the community of their table, thanking their stars
for friends who understood a conference like that and stayed out of it.
	It wasn't until much later in the day that it occurred to
Corwin how odd it was that she'd included him explicitly in the
statement of her goals.

	As for the goals of the Art of Noise, Juri covered those
fairly comprehensively at the band meeting that afternoon.
	"Obviously," she said, indicating the large calendar taped to
the wall of the band's impromptu studio in Cargo Bay 3, "the remainder
of the shows in the Earth Alliance are off.  That means the next
scheduled show will be the one at the opening of Liza's resort, on
Saturday.  On the one hand, perhaps you could use the rest; last
weekend was a tough time for all of us and a little downtime might not
hurt."
	"And on the other... ?" asked Miki Kaoru with a smile.
	Juri returned it in her usual understated way, then said, "On
the other, over the last five hours I've been asked by everyone from
Governor Ondeen on down if the Art of Noise might consider playing a
few extra concerts in Beltane this week to make up for the loss of the
rest of the tour's EA leg."
	"Where?" wondered Azalynn.
	"Weather permitting," Juri replied, "Government Center Plaza.
The Governor and Police Chief Krez have told me that if we like,
they'll set up a stage near the tower and provide crowd control for
any or all of the next three nights."
	"C-c-crowd control?" said Kate dubiously.  "W-we're not - "
	She was interrupted just then by the opening of the powered
door into the cargo bay and the entrance of Liza Shustal.  Kate broke
off what she'd been saying, jumped to her feet, and went and embraced
her former arch-foe.  The rest of the band and their manager broke
into applause.
	Liza blushed slightly, accepted Kate's embrace and her hushed
thanks for saving her brother's life, and, once released, bowed with a
slightly embarrassed little smile, and said wryly,
	"OK, thank you, thank you... please, no autographs... "
	Kate laughed and walloped the blonde affectionately on the
shoulder.
	"How are you feeling?" asked Moose.  "Word was you'd wrung
yourself out pretty well."
	Liza grinned.  "I've been livelier than I was when we got
done," she admitted, "but Anthy did most of the work.  I was just
steering, she worked the pedals."
	Kate chuckled, giving Liza a glance that told her she knew she
was downplaying her part in things, and Liza winked.  "Anyway, a good
night's sleep and I feel great!  Especially after that breakfast.
Kate's Dad rescued me from sickbay food, for which I am eternally
grateful.  I think I'd like to marry him, he's very thoughtful.  And
it would make Daddy's head explode."
	Kaitlyn gave Liza a cockeyed look as she powered up her mental
photo lab and made a quick composite image; then she was seized with a
paroxysm of giggles that forced her to retire to the edge of the band
riser, to be supported by a smiling Miki.  Liza caught Kate's eye and
wagged her eyebrows, making her break down further, then relented and
perched herself on one of the monitor amps.
	"Sorry, Red, didn't mean to interrupt," she said to Juri.
"Kate, you were saying we're not something?"
	Kate stayed right where she was, sitting on the edge of the
band riser, bent over sideways, giggling into Miki's shoulder and
patting his chest spasmodically with her free hand, for several
moments longer.  Then she slowly recovered herself, straightened up,
wiped her eyes, shook an admonishing finger at Liza, and said,
	"Ah... y-yeah.  I w-w-was saying, 'C-crowd c-c-control?  We're
n-not C-Cthia.'"
	Juri smiled.  "No... but it's funny you should mention them."
	Kate blinked.  "Uh... w-why?"
	"Because," said Juri, "while you were in the shower this
morning, I got a call from Sesik asking if you would be interested in
meeting with them."
	Kate got that dubious look again.  "Uh... O, OK... w-what
about?"
	"It's probably best if you let them explain that in person
once they get here," Juri told her.  "Assuming you're willing to meet
with them, of course," she added with a small smile.
	"Of c-course I'm w-w-willing," Kate replied, faintly
exasperated.  "B-but... oh, n-never mind.  W-when are they
c-c-coming?"
	The intercom panel on the wall beeped and Utena's voice came
from it.  "Juri, a Vulcan courier ship, of all things, just came out
of the Titan metagate and wants to beam some people over.  They say
they have an appointment with -you-."
	"That's correct," said Juri.  "Would you please send them down
to Bay 3?"
	"Um... sure.  Nice of you to warn me they were coming,"
replied Utena in only a mildly grumpy tone.
	"Sorry," said Juri sincerely.  "I wasn't sure they were
coming, and I've been very busy this morning."
	"OK, no problem.  Bridge out."
	Kate gave Juri a suspicious look.  "Y-y-you're up to
s-something," she said.  "I c-c-can f-feel it."
	Juri tried to look innocent, but failed, and Kate, realizing
she wasn't going to get anything more out of the redhead in this mood,
sat back to consider all she knew about their visitors.  Cthia was one
of two things: it was the Vulcan word for 'seeing things as they truly
are,' and it was the name of the hottest band in the pop music of the
young 25th century.
	Cthia was a group of five young male Vulcans (between the ages
of thirty-five and forty-five) who performed Earth rock music using
Earth instruments in a precise, didactic Vulcan manner.  They had
first exploded onto the Galactic music scene in 2400, and their stage
presence, their cold attitudes, and their Vulcan hairdos had somehow
combined to make the galaxy's girls (human age equivalency twelve to
twenty) go nuts over them.  Nobody could explain -why-, although
dozens of theories were proposed.
	There were five of them, dressed and groomed identically, each
with a name that sounded ludicrous in Standard.  The band leader was
Sesik, a fine tenor who played both guitar and the Vulcan lyre.  His
backup on guitar, Stark, was infamous for rumors of unpredictable 'pon
farrs' with various female celebrities.  The bassist, Stank, never
spoke, breaking his meditation only to play.  Smirk, the keyboard
player, was the favorite subject of fantasies by young women who
thought he could be 'turned to emotion.'  Finally, there was Skulk,
the towering drummer, whose Surakian enlightenment was a few watts
short, and who could always be relied upon to make philosophical
statements with all the depth of a Tatooine mud puddle.
	Combined, these five Vulcans could fill any stadium on any
planet... except Vulcan itself, where their records, if sold at all,
were racked with the 'Novelty' albums.  Their stage presence could
make a crowd roar with laughter, scream with forbidden lusts, and
occasionally (when the group played a traditional Vulcan piece)
silence it again with awe.
	Kate had a couple of their albums.  They were technically
quite competent, but she frankly thought their music missed the point
of... well, -music- altogether, and she could not for the life of her
understand what Azalynn saw in their bassist.  Still, when Juri said
that Cthia wanted to meet the band that played through the Battle of
Titan, she wasn't about to turn them away.  Besides, their adaptations
of pre-Surak Vulcan music to rock instruments and tempo intrigued her,
and if nothing else she'd like to talk for a while with the person who
did that.
	She had just reached that conclusion when the cargo bay door
opened and B'Elanna Torres entered, bringing with her three young
Vulcans.
	"Your visitors," said the half-Klingon girl with a sweeping
game-show-presenter gesture.  "Three of 'em, anyway.  The other two
are moving equipment into Bay 2.  You guys get acquainted - I'm gonna
go help 'em out."
	"Thanks, B'Elanna," said Juri as the younger girl showed
herself out again.
	Of the three Vulcans who had just entered, one was slightly
stocky, one was very tall and burly, and the third was of average
height and build.  Otherwise they looked very much alike, in formal
Vulcan robes, with the usual black hair in the usual Surakite bowl
haircuts, ascetic faces, dark eyes.
	The one with the average build raised his right hand in the
split-fingered Vulcan salute, but what he said (in a fine tenor voice)
was a bit surprising, under the circumstances:
	"Yo.  We're the Illogics.  We're looking for Kate Hutchins?"
	Juri, who was not accustomed to being caught unawares,
blinked.  "Yo"?  What kind of Surakite Vulcan opened a conversation
with "Yo"?
	Moose MacEchearn, leaning against the wall next to the band
riser, indicated the brown-haired girl perched on the edge near him.
"Our esteemed bandleader is seated next to me," he said in his most
pompous voice (the Vulcans' appearance seemed to call for it somehow).
"I am the Honourable J. Maurice McEchearn the Fourth.  My friends call
me Moose."  He raised an eyebrow and added in a slightly puzzled tone,
"We we expecting Cthia."
	"You and ten trillion other sentients," said the slightly
stocky one with a grin.
	Liza Shustal might as well have had a visible question mark
above her head as she asked, "Uh... who -are- you guys?" 
	"Well, I'm - " began the one who had spoken first, but he was
interrupted by R. Dorothy's 'analytical' tone:
	"The one in front is Sesik.  Stark is on the left, Skulk on the
right."
	There was a moment's awkward silence as the members of
Dorothy's own band blinked at her - especially Azalynn, who had just
been about to say the same thing, not expecting anyone else in the Art
of Noise to recognize them.
	"... Dorothy?" asked Miki.
	Dorothy shrugged faintly and replied, "I like traditional
Vulcan music."
	Sesik nodded.  "Girl's right.  We've been doing the Cthia gag
for about six years.  We were bumming around gigs here and there as
the Illogics, and then one night we pretended to be a bunch of
tightass Surakites for our sound-test."
	"You aren't?" asked Moose.  Juri folded her arms and scowled.
She disliked it when people confused her.
	Sesik chuckled.  "Nah. Stank - I mean Synok, our bassist - is
the only one of us who was even -born- on Vulcan, and he's from
Palon'shar."
	"Your names are fake?!" Azalynn blurted.
	"Of course they are," Sesik said.  "My name's actually Surel.
This is Sketh," he said, pointing to Stark, "and S'bann.  Smirk's real
name is Sanan.  Like I said, Synok's from Palon'shar - that's the
northernmost city on Vulcan, up in the snowy country most people don't
think Vulcan has.  The Way of Surak never caught on up there."
	Liza nodded.  "We know someone from there."
	Surel raised an eyebrow.  "Really?  Is he around here?"
	"She is, yes," Liza replied.  "Her name's T'Vek - she's the
Challenger's chief of security."
	"Cool.  Synok'll be thrilled.  You don't find many Palon'shartha
off Vulcan.  Anyway, he's the only native -Vulcan- Vulcan in the group; 
the rest of us follow the Way of Sybok."
	Sketh, the one Dorothy had identified as "Stark", sidled up to
her, almost draped himself on her, and asked in a low, suggestive voice, 
"So, baby, what's -your- secret pain?"
	Unruffled, Dorothy replied conversationally, "I don't know,
but if you don't move your hand, yours will become quite public."
	Sesik threw back his head and laughed.  "Gotcha, Sketh.
Anyway, we made fun of the Surakites - 'We are of Vulcan.  We do not
feel the animal passions.  We live by the code of Logic.'  And they
demanded more.  And we've been mooching off it ever since."
	"In fact," said Sketh, who had moved his hand, "we figure that
we've made enough money in the past five years that we never need to
work again in our lifetimes."
	Surel added, "And Vulcans can live to 300 years, so that's a
-lot- of dough.  So the last year or so - we have an album coming out
next week, be our  seventh - we've been thinking - " 
	"-You've- been thinking," said Sketh pointedly.
	"Hey, -I'm- telling this, all right?  We've been thinking of
dropping the gag.  The fad's got to die off in another couple years
anyway, so maybe it's time to go back to who we are - make Cthia
something more than a name.  Be who we really are.
	"'Course," Surel went on, "the problem is, it's an all or
nothing move, right?  We've got -no- way to test how it works.  And
then we catch your music on Network 23 during the nasty stuff here.
You guys are -hot-!  And, well, we just -had- to come see you in
person, swap tunes, you know?"
	"So the boss man here calls a vote," said Sketh, "and I'm with
him, I mean, 'Stark' might get laid in the papers but I -never- do.
Can't risk it.  Five years is enough, I want my life back.  And Sanan
wants to talk with your arranger.  He does all of our stuff."
	"So, with a majority vote - and with our Earth Alliance
gigs shot to hell anyway - we decided to audition for your opening
act," Surel finished.
	Kaitlyn blinked.  "C-c-c-Cthia w-w-wants t-to au-au-aud-dition
f-f-for... "
	"Nooooooo, no," Surel interrupted, shaking his head.  "Not
yet.  Cthia is officially on Corellia planning the 2407 tour.  The
-Illogics- want to audition."
	Still parked on her monitor amp, Liza murmured, "(I think
that's a better name anyway.)"  Azalynn shushed her.
	Juri, still frowning, told Surel in a faintly annoyed tone,
"I'm not following you."
	"Look, Cthia's whole gag is that the only music they play with
emotion is -Vulcan- music, right?" Surel told her.  "More than half
Cthia's appeal is the stage act - not the oh-so-fucking-precise rock
music.  Synok's still having fun with it, but I want to -rock-.  I
want to make music that says the hell with the rules, like the old
classical masters.  But I don't want to do that unless we can do it
-right-."
	"And you think that we do it right?" Moose asked.
	Surel nodded vigorously.  "You -connect-.  You make the
audience feel the emotion.  You give them music that plays the
listener.  We make a few people laugh, a lot of girls scream, and a
few Vulcans very constipated... "  The Vulcan trailed off as Kaitlyn
turned to a new page in her music notebook and started writing
furiously.  "... but that's all... I'm sorry, are you taking notes or
something?  There won't be a quiz at the end," he said with a grin.
	"No," said Juri, trying not to be too curt.  Now that the
whole thing had been laid out, it seemed reasonable, but she was still
a bit put out at the surprise.  Juri Arisugawa had never been a big
one for surprises.  "She has a lot to say, and she doesn't want to
spend half an hour saying it."
	"Oh," said Surel, looking slightly puzzled.  Kate paused in
her writing long enough to give him a little shrug and say,
	"S-s-sp-speech imp-p-p-p-imp-pedim-m-ment."
	"... I guess so," said Sketh, sounding impressed.  Surel
stomped on his foot, but Kate didn't seem to mind; she just went back
to writing.  After a few moments, she finished and handed the notebook
to Juri, who nodded.
	"She says that she's familiar with Cthia's work," Juri
informed the Vulcans, "but she's willing to give you a try anyway.
She says that the connection isn't something you can fake - it has to
be you on the stage, and you in the music.  The only way to learn that
is to do it."
	Kate took the notebook back with an "I've just thought of
something" look on her face, wrote a bit more, and showed it to Juri,
who smiled.
	"Oh, and at some point in the future, she wants Stark to give
her kid sister an autograph." 
	Stark grinned broadly.  "Hey hey, my pleasure - " 
	Kate scribbled a little more furiously.  Juri firmly held back
a smile (though she welcomed the feeling that prompted it - it broke
up the cloud Cthia's unwelcome surprise had put over her mood) and
added, "'- and -only- an autograph.'  For your information, she's 12."
	"She and her friend might try to convince you otherwise," Miki
cautioned with an indulgent smile.
	"So you heard it here first!" Azalynn admonished the Vulcan
with an upraised finger.
	"That's all I meant, honest," Sketh replied with a gesture of
surrender.
	"We're cool with that," said Surel, nodding.  "And anytime you
want Cthia to do a gig with you, or you with us, we'll make it happen."
	"You got it," Sketh agreed.
	Azalynn hopped down from next to Liza, went around Sketh one
way and Surel the other, then stopped in front of S'bann and looked
up, up, up into his face - the man was nearly as tall as Moose, if
nowhere near as broad.
	"How about you, big fella?" she asked.  "What do you have to
say about it?"
	S'bann shrugged and rumbled, "Eh... so long as there's drums,
I'm happy."
	"No wisdom from Cthia's philosopher?" Azalynn teased lightly.
	"You want wisdom?" S'bann replied, looking amused.  He
composed himself into the dull-wittedly profound look he affected as
Skulk, 'thought' for a moment, and then intoned, "'Six years is too
long to go without a cheeseburger.'"  Returning to a more normal
posture, he added, "I don't know how Surakites live on a vegetarian
diet.  No offense if any of you do too."
	He was assured that none of them did.
	Kate wrote for a moment, then sighed and put down the
notebook.  "I'm n-n-n-not a d-d-d-deaf m-m-mute," she grumbled.
"Ok-k-k-K.  G-g-g-get s-s-set, s-set up in C-C-C-Cargo B-Bay Th...
Th... Three, and w-w-we'll s-s-s-see w-w-what you've g-g-g-got."

		    INTERNATIONAL POLICE SHIPYARDS
		       PLANITIA [ZETA CYGNI II]
		       ZETA CYGNI, CYGNI SECTOR

	The bad news was, all leaves were cancelled at the IPO yards,
because all hands were needed for emergency transit to Titan aboard
the Confederate Freespacer drydock ship CFA Pascagoula, in convoy with
the Wedge Defense Force Strategic Fleet's Flag Task Force, Admiral
James T. Kirk, commanding.  The mission: to effect repairs to IPS
Valiant, damaged in battle against the Earthforce occupation fleet
that had tried to take Titan, and restore that vessel to 100%
operational capacity for the potentially perilous transit across EA
space to Jezebel.
	The good news was, after the said repairs were complete, the
Pascagoula and all the repair personnel aboard would leave Kirk's task
force reinforcing Titan and follow Valiant and Challenger to Jezebel,
where they would participate in the grand opening ceremonies, listen
to the Art of Noise, and celebrate the fact that their friends and
allies in the ship's crew hadn't suffered a fatal casualty in the
fight with Earthforce's best.
	Harcourt McKenzie was among the tiny minority who had other
transport arrangements: specifically, the CFA No Bull, his personal
spaceship.  Yes, he had to leave early because it didn't have
metadrive, and yes, flying it required the skills of a blind organist
playing an old pedal-driven pipe organ with three rows of keyboards
and twenty unlabeled stops, but it was his and he was damned if he was
going to ride on any other ship.
	Mac was packing for the trip in his usual fashion - gathering
up all his belongings into one huge duffel - when the clank of glass
against glass caught his attention.  With ginger care Mac laid the
bundle of clothes in his hands onto his Transient Officer's Quarters
bunk and spread them apart.  At the center, totally forgotten by him,
lay eight shot glasses in a serving tray and a large, nearly full
bottle of 2393 Jim Beam bourbon whiskey.
	Mac scowled at the bottle.  It reminded him of why he'd bought
and rebuilt the No Bull in the first place.  It reminded him of a lot
of other things, very few of them pleasant anymore.  It especially
reminded him that he didn't really like whiskey, and he decided that
his life would be significantly better minus one bottle of Jim Beam.
	Mac had the bottle over the transients' communal sink and was
unscrewing the bottle when another figure emerged from a transient
bunk, wearing Wedge Defense Force officer's uniform, Variant Three
(waistcoat).  The man's short-cropped dark hair was shot with just a
distinguished level of gray, his midsection was thick to just the
point of respectable weight, and his mustache was trimmed to just the
point of Federation Starfleet dress code, out of habit.  His face,
however, was well beyond the point of respectable shock.
	"Hey, HEY!" Montgomery Scott shouted, dropping his own duffel
and rushing to the sink before Mac could tip the bottle's neck down.
"What're ye DOIN', lad?" he asked in his thickest Scots burr,
snatching the bottle away.  "If ye don't want it no more, y'could at
least donate it t'a worthy cause!"  He tipped the bottle to his lips,
gulped down an unhealthy amount of liquor, and smacked his lips in
appreciation.  "Not as good as proper Jack Daniels Black Label, and
not a touch on a true single malt Scotch o'course, but fine enow for a
thirsty throat."
	"Help yourself, Scotty," Mac shrugged.  Although Scott was not
officially on the IPO staff, he was one of the prime designers for the
Defiant project.  He had crossed Mac's path on numerous occasions,
having taken a limited leave of absence from the WDF to assist in the
trial runs of both IPS Defiant and IPS Valiant.  Mac had fetched
coffee, tools, and on one occasion haggis for Scotty, and the two were
almost on first-name terms, if you accepted 'Laddie' as being close
enough to a first name for government work.
	"I don't want it anymore," Mac went on.
	Scotty did indeed help himself to a second drink, this one
less enthusiastic than the first.  "A fine sipping whiskey indeed," he
said.  "Now, I ask myself, why would a young man like yourself be
disposin' of such respectable whiskey in such a disrespectful
fashion?"
	Before Mac could answer, Scotty continued, "It must be woman
troubles.  Never did I see a man give up drinkin' but for woman
troubles.  Well, that and th' DTs, but mostly woman troubles.  So let
me guess," he said, sipping the whiskey and looking upwards as he
said, "Your ladylove and you had a tiff.  There were words spoken.
Y'went away, thinking all wa' lost, and blew your pay on as fine a
bottle of hard liquor as you could afford.  Then, just before you
could get yourself blind stinking drunk, your lady calls ye and says
all is forgiven.  Blessing your lucky stars, y'decide to put
temptation behind ye once and for all by disposin' of a good day's
wages in th' sink.  An' there we are."
	Mac stared at Scotty in awe. "That is truly amazing," Mac said
at last.
	"Och, noo," Scotty shrugged.
	"I am just astounded," Mac continued.  "That is absolutely,
precisely, one hundred percent wrong.  How do you do it?"
	Scotty chuckled and said, "Well, I'm a miracle worker, not a
mind-reader.  For that ye want Captain Spock.  How about ye tell me
why, then?"
	"All right," Mac said.  "I was throwing out that booze
because... "  Mac hesitated for a moment, realizing that he'd been
maneuvered somewhere he hadn't wanted to be.
	"Aye?"
	"... because my father gave it to me," Mac finished quietly.
	"Aahhhhh," Scotty said.  "I think I ken th' thing now.  I was
seventeen once myself, believe it or no."
	Mac nodded. "Do you know why I've been pulling double shifts
every time they'll let me?"
	Scotty thought for a moment, then took the bottlecap from
Mac's fingers and sealed up the remaining half-bottle of whiskey.  "Ye
mentioned that ye needed th' money," he said.  "Ye dinna say why, and
I dinna think it my business ta ask."
	"My first day off on the job," Mac said, "I visited my family
in the Freespacer Home Fleet.  CFA Aurochs.  My father and I discussed
my future plans."
	"Oh aye?"
	"Oh aye.  You know what I want to be."  Scotty nodded: space
construction was one of Mac's very small number of pleasures.  "My
father believes I owe it to him and to the family to take over the
Aurochs from him when the time comes.  The two are not compatible."
	"Aye, I see," Scotty said.  "An' words were spoken, I take
it?"
	"Yes."
	"Angry words?"
	"Yes."
	"Th' kind of words a man canna take back an' be a man?"
	"He told me I was going to attend the Shipwright Academy for
my senior year of school," Mac said.  "Shipwright Academy?  It's
WORTHLESS!  It's a diploma-mill boarding school that nobody but the
Freespacers would ever allow to operate.  It's a finishing school for
dead-end shipowners' sons and daughters to learn how to be just like
their parents.  And after that, no college, no career, straight to
work as first mate of the Aurochs."
	Scotty offered the bottle to Mac.  "Sure ye dinna want a sip?"
	"NO, I don't want a sip!" Mac said, in full spate now.  "So it
boiled down to choosing my family or my life.  He MADE ME CHOOSE,
Scotty.  Him or me... "  Mac sighed, slumping against the sink, and
finished miserably, "And I chose me.  So I have to come up with six
thousand credits for fall tuition at Mandeville Memorial, not counting
room and board - although I could live in the No Bull if I had to... "
	"No Bull?"
	"My ship, Scotty."
	"Oh.  Go on."
	"That's it," Mac said.  "I've told my father off, and the only
member of my family who's talking to me right now is my senile
ancestor the Dread Pirate bel Bendi."
	"Aye," Scotty nodded.  "It was the same wi' me an' my dad.
Monty, he told me, ye'll be an engineer like fifteen generations of
Scotts before ye, an' I said, Da, I want ta play th' bagpipes.  An' I
thought he was th' daftest man in th' world."
	"Bagpipes?"
	"Aye, I play th' bagpipes.  Only on special occasions, of
course," Scotty added.  "Only for cultured ears.  But 'tis beside th'
point.  Now I know that me da was wiser than I gave him credit for.
He knew me well, an' he knew I'd only be truly happy with a ship's
engine under me fingers an' a pile of technical journals on my desk."
	"Hm," Mac said.  He braced himself to hear that he should
listen to his father's advice and consider that his father was only
looking out for Mac's interests, no matter how wrongheaded it seemed
to Mac.
	What actually came out of Scotty's mouth caught Mac by
surprise.  "An' besides, e'en if my da was th' greatest dolt I ever
met, well know I ken of a man wi' e'en less sense!  First mate on a
freighter?  You?  Faith, lad, 'twould be such a waste of talent!"
	Mac stared at Scotty, jaw agape.  "Pardon?"
	"Lad, ye practically built a ship from scratch wi' nothin'
more than your own two hands an' some spare parts.  Ye know your way
around ships better than most captains do!  Ye're an engineer, born to
it.  Don't let any pinheaded fool tell ye otherwise!"
	"It's no big deal," Mac muttered, still shocked.  "I mean, the
hull was intact, all I - "
	"Of course, ye could stand a few pointers, an' I've got some
free time," Scotty grinned.  "Tell ye what, bide a spell while I make
a call."  Scotty reached for his waist, grumbled, and then tapped the
WDF badge on his waistcoat.  "Scott to Enterprise."
	A rich female voice replied, "Enterprise here, Scotty.  Ready
to beam up?"
	"Nae, Uhura," Scotty replied, "I'm takin' alternate transport.
Tell th' Admiral an' all I'll meet them there.  If I'm needed, I'll be
on th' No Bull... what's th' registry number, laddie?"
	"CFA-5290," Mac replied.
	"CFA-5290," Scotty repeated.  "Home port Freespacer Home
Fleet.  Did ye get that, lass?"
	"Of course, Scotty," Uhura's bewildered voice replied.  "Is
there anything else?"
	"Not just now," Scotty replied.  "I'll call ye later if I find
something.  Scott out."  Keying off the badge-communicator, he smiled,
"I left a couple of things in my room.  I'll meet ye at th' docks, all
right?"
	"You really don't have to do this, Scotty," Mac said.  "I
appreciate the thought, but - "
	"Lad, lad," Scotty grinned, "I have -faith- in ye.  Go see to
your ship, I'll be along directly."  He waited until Mac returned to
his transient cabin, then dashed to his own - careful not to slosh the
whiskey - and keyed up his terminal for the full readouts on CFA No
Bull.
	A quick minute's reading later, he keyed on his communicator
again.  "Scott to Enterprise.  Uhura?"
	"Uhura here, Scotty."
	"I'd appreciate it if you could prevail upon th' Admiral tae
follow us into metaspace.  Discreetly, o'course.  Just in case
somethin' happens."
	Montgomery Scott had all the faith in the world in Mac
McKenzie's raw talent... but that didn't mean a man took foolish
chances, now did it?

    /*  The Rolling Stones  "Jumpin' Jack Flash"  _Hot Rocks_  */

	Kate had to admit, she was impressed.  The Illogics weren't
the tightest band she'd ever heard; they had a tentative, hesitant
quality that most likely came from the fact that they had spent six
years rigorously suppressing the emotional displays and responses they
were now trying to give free passage to.  Except for their keyboard
player, who had never quite been able to sustain the Cthia facade in
the first place (resulting in his female fans' assumption that he
could be 'turned'), they all kept catching themselves being rigid when
they were supposed to be letting loose.
	They had chops, though.  There was genuine musical ability
under that dorky facade, and genuine heart, too.  It would have to be
cultivated, encouraged, and honed before they would be ready to throw
aside their disguises and reveal the real band beneath Cthia to the
galaxy... but as she watched their sound check and audition, Kate felt
herself becoming convinced that maybe, just maybe, they could do it.
	She turned and made a quick eye poll of the rest of her band.
One by one, each of them nodded.  Liza moved next to her and told her,
"I think they're gonna be OK."
	Miki Kaoru broke ranks, stepped up next to Kate and Liza, and
leaned to murmur, "They need work - if we want to give them a try at
tonight's show we'll have to work with them all afternoon - but if
you're willing to put that kind of time into it, I think it could turn
out to be really something."
	Kate nodded.  "I was j-just th-thinking the s-s-same thing.
T-tell 'em, will you, L-Liza?"
	Liza nodded, then clapped her hands to get their attention.
The Illogics stopped playing, looking curious.
	"OK, you guys," she said.  "It's going to take a lot of work
for you to unlearn all that stiff stage routine you've built up over
the last few years and really let loose, but we think you've got
potential, so we're going to help you out with it.  It's gonna be a
long, hard day, and your reward at the end, IF you do well, is to play
second billing to a band without a major record deal in the capital
city of a backcountry colony under siege.  Sound like a good deal?"
	"Better than answering to 'Smirk' for the rest of my life,"
replied wiry Sanan behind the keyboards, grinning.  "Let's get it on."

		   GOVERNMENT CENTER PLAZA, BELTANE
				20:30

	"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for inviting us to
play for you this week," said Azalynn into her standing microphone.
She paused for the cheers - Government Center Plaza was -packed-,
there had to be twenty or thirty thousand people out here tonight -
and then went on, "We'd like to dedicate this show to all our fans in
Meier City, the capital of Proxima III Colony, who are missing our
show tonight thanks to President William Clark."  Boos washed over the
crowd.
	"If anybody out there has a pirate transmitter and a subether
band to Proxima," Azalynn added with a broad wink, "you'd better not
be letting them in on the fun."  A laugh rippled through the plaza;
the Dantrovian let it pass, then said, "OK, let's get started!  We're
very pleased to have some visitors with us tonight.  First, all the
way from Jeraddo in the Bajor-B'hava'el system, please welcome our
special guest guitarist, our close personal friend and the lead
guitarist of the Port Jeradar Surphony Orchestra - Mister ZACH!
STEPHENS!"
	Tall, lanky, straw-yellow-haired Zach ambled up from
backstage, his Toronto Maple Leafs Telecaster slung over his shoulder,
and waved, grinning, at the cheering crowd.
	"But first," Azalynn announced, "give it up for our opening
act!  Five young men we think are going to make a big, big name for
themselves in the not too distant future, we feel very fortunate to
have them opening up for us!  Ladies and gentlemen - direct from the
burning sands of Planet Vulcan, please welcome: THE ILLOGICS!"
	Nobody in the crowd had ever heard of the Illogics, which was
precisely the point, but they cheered and applauded nonetheless -
after all, the Art of Noise thought enough of this group to have them
open up for 'em, right?  The Art almost never had opening acts, so
their fans (old and new - their participation in the Battle of Titan
had won them many of the latter) figured whoever the Illogics were,
they had to be worth a cheer.
	Azalynn waved and ducked back as the Illogics took the stage:
five young Vulcans in ripped jeans, Vulcan-besloganed t-shirts (Kate,
who could read some Vulcan, had found Surel's shirt, which literally
said "Mate Vigorously with the Rules", most bemusing), and disheveled
punk hairstyles, wielding their instruments with an odd combination of
hesitancy and verve.
	Their style was a little rough, but earnest; their playlist
was mostly covers and classics, but showed good taste (Kaitlyn and
Miki had helped extensively with the selection).  There were a few
awkward moments that made the Art, listening backstage, cringe a
little, like when Surel, handing the solo in the middle of the Reactor
Cores' 2231 classic "Blast Me Baby (With Your Phaser of Love)" over to
Sketh, had said, "Take it, St - uh, Sketh!"  But overall it went quite
well, and the Illogics left the stage a half-hour later flushed,
excited, and to the tune of very genuine applause.
	Then the Art of Noise took the stage, and the noise from the
crowd was deafening.  At first, as they took their places, adjusted
their instruments, and readied themselves, it was just applause and
cheers, but as they got closer to ready, it resolved itself into a
steady, pounding, rhythmic chant, two words uttered over and over
again from twenty-odd-thousand throats:
	"FREE!  WORLD!  FREE!  WORLD!  FREE!  WORLD!"
	Kaitlyn smiled, leaned over to Azalynn, and said, "I g-g-guess
we w-w-won't be opening with 'H-Higher P-P-Place' for a w-while."
	"I guess not," Azalynn replied; she glanced around at the
others, got their answering nods, and waited.  One second passed; then
Dorothy wound up and obliged the chant, launching them into the
hammering opening of "Rockin' in the Free World".

		       SICKBAY, IPS CHALLENGER
		       WEDNESDAY, JULY 26, 2406
				10:24

	Kyouichi Saionji was no stranger to weird dreams.  Back during
the Grand Tournament he'd had them all the time, nightmarish,
nonsensical visions of... well, he couldn't even really remember any
more.  They'd sapped his mental equilibrium, making him even more
susceptible to the madness that had swept over him in those days, and
he was in hindsight quite sure that they had been part of the Deputy
Chairman's grand machinations, visited upon him for precisely that
reason.
	More recently - since he'd started training in the Asagiri
Katsujinkenryuu under Kaitlyn - the tenor of his dreams had changed a
great deal.  They had ceased to be nightmares, stopped draining the
strength and balance of his mind, but they hadn't started making much
more sense.  Those that didn't have a simple, visceral explanation,
like the ones that were replays of the day's workouts or harmless
little erotic fantasies about people he knew, seemed to have a sort
of... cosmic significance to them, in a way that so far had eluded his
conscious efforts to sort it out upon awakening.
	He'd mentioned these dreams to Kaitlyn once, and she had
seemed pleased.  She reminded him that one of the founders of the
Asagiri Katsujinkenryuu had been a Jedi Knight, and that some of the
spiritual basis of Katsujinkenryuu was thus derived from their quasi-
religious believe in an all-surrounding 'Force' - which the form's
kenjutsu roots held to be an interaction between the swordsman's ki,
life force, and that of others around him.
	Sensitivity to the cosmic scope of this Force, and with it the
ability to develop more than the immediate extrasensory awareness that
samurai call zanshin - to feel the greater shape of the universe, its
history, possibly even its future - was a thing better known to the
Jedi than their Katsujinkenryuu cousins.  Gryphon, the form's
O-sensei, said he had experienced it rarely, but he couldn't call it
up consistently.  Kaitlyn had, to her knowledge, never experienced it
at all, though her zanshin was quite advanced.
	"M-maybe that's w-w-what those d-dreams are," Kate had mused.
"W-when L-Len comes b-back, m-maybe you c-can ask him... "
	That was an intriguing thought, but given that Kate's brother
Leonard had only begin studying to become a Jedi Knight two months
previous, Saionji suspected he would have to wait a while for his
answers.
	He'd been having one of those dreams, blurred and disjointed
but with an undeniable frisson about them that made them feel more
important than random neural firings, just now.  He was in a desert,
hot and dusty and uncompromising, doing battle against hideous things
from beyond the stars, and he had an ally, a young man he did not
know.
	He had the impression that the fellow was just as much of a
stranger to him in whatever frame of reference he was seeing as to his
semiconscious dreaming mind, but they were working together nicely all
the same, doing quite well for themselves against their horrific foes.
The young man cried a warning, the words unintelligible in the fog of
the dream but the meaning perfectly clear, and Saionji whirled,
cutting down one of the monstrous serpentine things in a flash of
green-white light... 
	... and then, without any palpable sense of transition,
without a start or an utterance, he was awake.  He found himself lying
on a slightly angled bed in a dimly lit room that felt large.
	Without really thinking about it, he sat up.  When, a moment
later, his memory reminded him of his last known condition before
entering the unconsciousness that had just ended, he was surprised
that the action hadn't sent him to the floor in a whiteout of agony.
Before he could investigate this, however, he'd been wrapped in arms,
pulled close to a warm, curved form, and quite thoroughly kissed.
	A moment later, the form recoiled, making distressed coughing
and spitting noises.  Saionji cocked an eyebrow at the unusual sight
of Wakaba Shinohara in black jeans and green t-shirt, her hair down,
her face distorted in disgust.  She'd never done -that- after kissing
him before.
	A moment after that, as his own senses checked back in with
his brain one by one, he got his first report from his own sense of
taste and realized -why-.
	"Ugh," sputtered Wakaba, wiping at her mouth with the back of
her arm.  "Urgh, blech!  Memo to myself: Never, ever kiss someone
who's just come out of regen again, no matter -how- happy I am he's
alive.  Oh, God, bleagh."
	A Vulcan woman in a medical smock over an IP Space Force
uniform handed her a cup of some bright pink liquid, then turned
expressionlessly back to the worktable she'd come from to get
another.  Saionji smiled slightly despite the horrible taste - rotten
peaches, perhaps? - in his own mouth.  He was fairly sure Doctor Selar
(who else would she be?  This wasn't the Valiant's sickbay by a long
shot, it was bigger than that ship's bridge) had intended that first
cup for -him-, and the ease with which she'd shifted gears amused
him.
	Once she'd downed the liquid, coughing slightly at its sharp,
pungent intensity, Wakaba shook her head, blinked, and then gave
Saionji a sheepish smile.
	"Sorry," she said.  "Wasn't actually kissing you that made me
almost throw up... "
	Saionji took the second cup from Selar, drank it, winced as
the sharply citric flavor seared away the taste of the regen base
fluid, and handed it back.
	"Believe me," he replied dryly, "I understand why you did."
Now, finally, he was able to investigate why sitting up hadn't hurt;
he lifted the sheet he was covered with, which had bunched up at his
waist when he sat up, and peered underneath at the place where, by his
reckoning, he ought to be just about divided in half at the beltline
	Nothing there but what his specifications called for - not
even a scar.  He prodded experimentally at the area, gingerly at first
and then more firmly, and felt nothing but workout-hardened muscle
under skin.
	Looking up at Selar, he asked a question with his eyes, and
the doctor nodded.  "Miss Shustal came by earlier and put the
finishing touches on, once the regen chamber had reconstructed the
gross structures," she said.  "Her power is quite... "  The Vulcan
stopped, searched her mind for an appropriate word, then gave an
almost imperceptible shrug of resignation and went on in a faintly
reluctant tone, "... miraculous."
	Saionji got to his feet, dragging the sheet with him and
forming it into an impromptu toga, tested his balance, and found it
just fine.  He felt great, except for the lingering aftertaste of the
stuff that had killed the lingering aftertaste of the regen fluid, and
another, mysterous sensation.  He took an experimental walk up and
down the sickbay theater, frowning pensively, as he tried to identify
it - this gnawing sensation of incompleteness, of -emptiness-, deep in
the pit of his being.
	"You're hungry," Doctor Selar informed him dispassionately.
	He blinked, looked up at her, and smiled.
	"Yes," he said with a so-that's-it expression.  "Yes, I am."
	"There's no reason why you shouldn't eat.  You've made a
complete recovery.  Your clothes were a complete loss, though.  You
can get a jumpsuit through there."  She pointed to a door off to one
side.
	"Shame," Saionji replied, looking at his current raiment.  "I
was hoping I might start a trend."
	Selar gave him an unamused look.

	Back aboard the Valiant, Saionji was in the process of hunting
up some of his own clothes to replace the ill-fitting, ugly-green
medical jumpsuit.  As he did so, Wakaba paced pensively.  He let her
pace; he knew her moods well enough by now to know that she was
working herself up to say something, and she'd get to it in her own
time.
	He was just fastening himself into a pair of jeans when she
suddenly went, keyed the door lock, and said, "Kyouichi... "
	He turned, raising an eyebrow.  Like most of his friends,
Wakaba usually called him by his last name.  Anthy was the only one
who routinely called him Kyouichi (aside from Kaitlyn's half-teasing
tendency to call him "Kyouichi-kun" when in sensei mode), so when one
of the others did it, especially Wakaba, he knew it had to be a
prelude to a serious discussion.
	"Yes?" he replied.
	Wakaba hesitated, then blurted, "I... I'm not leaving you."
	"... That's good," Saionji replied, a bit at a loss.
	"I was planning to.  Break up with you, I mean," Wakaba said.
"Because I was going back to Cephiro this fall, and I didn't want us
to have to try and have a long distance relationship, and... and...
stuff."
	Saionji absorbed this, then nodded.  "Reasonable.  Why aren't
you going back, though?  You were looking forward to it."
	"Well, partly because of -you-, you big jerk," she said, eyes
flashing.
	"Granted, and appreciated," Saionji replied, pulling his head
through the neckhole of a navy-blue turtleneck.  "Why else?"
	"Well... part of the reason I was going back was because I was
Master Clef's apprentice, and he was planning to make me Deputy
Chairman of the Academy after I graduated.  I was going to be the End
of the World and help him put the Order of the Rose back together,
make it what it used to be."
	Saionji nodded.  "Yes, I know.  We've discussed all this.
What changed?"
	"-I- changed," Wakaba replied.  "I'm not cut out to be a
sorcerer's apprentice.  I've always wondered about that, and what
happened to me Sunday made it clear.  The Gift of Magic Clef gave me
didn't awaken the sorcerer in me like it did with the Rune Knights,
because I'm not that kind of person, any more than Utena is.  She's a
Rune Knight and she doesn't cast spells; she -is- one, in a sense,
because of her power as the Rose Prince."
	Saionji nodded again, patiently.
	"Well - the same kind of thing's happened to me.  When those
armored... things... attacked Government Center, I ended up going up
against one with just my sword and a blaster.  It should have taken me
apart, but it didn't, because of the... the -fire- inside me.  Look.
Watch this."
	She held up her left fist; the green Rose Seal on it
flickered, then glowed strongly, its light spreading to surround her
in an aura.
	Saionji raised both eyebrows this time.
	"My my," he commented.  "Just like in your old comics."
	Wakaba chuckled, letting the glow die.  "Master Clef thinks
the form my power took was influenced by the impressions those books
made on my subconscious mind.  He was a little startled by the
concept, though Skuld seemed amused enough.  Anyway, you see what it
is - there'd be no point in making me fulfil my agreement to be his
apprentice, so he let me out of it.  As for the rest... well,
rebuilding the Order is important, but there are other people who can
help him with it, and I'd rather stay here with you and the rest of my
friends."
	The green-haired young man took all this in, then smiled,
crossed the room, and put his hands on her shoulders.
	"I'm glad," he said softly.  "I wouldn't have held you back if
you had wanted to take that path, but I'm glad you've chosen this one
instead."
	Wakaba closed her eyes, leaned closer to him, and reached her
face up to find his.

	"By the way," Saionji asked as they left the cabin an hour or
so later, "did Master Clef say who he would get to be the End of the
World instead of you?"
	"Mm," Wakaba replied.  "Kanae Ohtori."
	Saionji stopped in the corridor and turned to give her a
startled look.  She giggled at the sight - it wasn't often she got to
see her boyfriend totally gobsmacked, especially since his training
with Kaitlyn had started to enhance his inner serenity.
	"According to Clef," she told him, "Kanae's started getting
her memories back of what happened during the Grand Tournament, and
she's -really- mad.  She told him she wants to serve the Academy, to
do what she can to offset the stain on her family name that -he- left
behind.  She took a blood oath to uphold the Trinity and joined the
Order on its weight."
	"Well.  Tenjou's reaction to that little bit of news ought to
be interesting.  I do hope you haven't told her already."
	"It hasn't come up.  Where are we going?"
	"I'm going over to Challenger to talk with Kaitlyn-sensei and
her father," Saionji replied.  "You can come along if you want, but
it's not required."
	"Oh.  OK," said Wakaba, keeping stride with him toward the
transporter room.
	"You forgot to put up your hair," he noted after another
moment.
	"I'm trying it down for a while," Wakaba replied.  "Time for a
change and all that."
	Saionji smiled.  "Fair enough," he said.
	"Do you like it?"
	"Of course I like it."
	"No, really.  Seriously, do you like it?"
	"Yes.  I do.  I think it frames your face nicely and sets off
your eyes better."
	"Really?  Thanks!"
	"And your head doesn't look like an onion any more."
	"You... creep!" she declared, punching him in the arm.

	In Challenger's dojo, with Wakaba sitting off in a corner out
of the way, Saionji finished proving to his teacher's satisfaction and
her teacher's satisfaction that his brush with mortality hadn't
damaged his concentration or his commitment.  As he completed the last
kata, he smoothly 'sheathed' his bokuto through his belt and flowed
into seiza facing Kaitlyn, who sat regarding him with thoughtful,
critical eyes.
	Then she nodded.  "G-good," she said.  "I'm s-sorry about your
t-t-tachi," she said.  "You'll c-carry your j-j-journeyman's k-katana
now?"
	Saionji paused, considering the dream he'd had, then said,
"Actually, Sensei, I have a request."
	Kate looked intrigued.  "G-go on," she said.
	"You have often told me that one of the founders of our school
was a Jedi Knight, and that you feel I may be capable of touching the
Force that the Jedi knew."
	"That's t-true."
	"After my encounter with the Sith Knight, I feel you may be
right.  I would like to explore that aspect of Katsujinkenryuu in
greater depth... and as such, I request permission to take my fallen
enemy's lightsaber as my journeyman's blade."
	Kaitlyn arched an eyebrow.
	"I kn-know l-little of the l-lightsaber s-styles," she
confessed.  "I've always b-b-been more c-comfortable with a s-steel
blade, and th-there my s-sp-specialization lies."  She turned and
looked at her father.  "O-sensei... have you any thoughts?"
	Gryphon smiled slightly - his eldest in her serious, even
slightly harsh sensei mode still touched him with faintly amused
pleasure - and replied, "The lightsaber disciplines are mainly
technical.  Maintenance, repair, construction.  The use of the weapon
in combat is much the same as that of a normal sword, as it's done in
Katsujinkenryuu.  It's a more dangerous weapon to its wielder than a
steel sword, but I think he's capable enough to handle it - would you
agree?"
	Kaitlyn nodded without hesitation.  "Yes, I would."
	"Then there's only one caveat I'd raise," said Gryphon.  He
turned to Saionji and told him, "If you make a lightsaber your main
weapon, it will probably take you considerably longer to develop the
Blade of the Inviolate Soul technique than it would if you continued
to carry a conventional blade - because there will be no practical
need for you to do so.  By exploring this tangent, you may delay your
achievement of mastery by years, maybe even forestall it completely."
	Saionji considered this; then he turned to Kate and said,
"Sensei, if you'll allow it, I'm prepared to pay that price.  I
feel... "  He hesitated, weighing his choices, then said, "... I feel
a rightness about it that I cannot put into words."
	Kate smiled slightly.  That in itself was a strong indication
that the Force was with him, more so than with her or her father.  She
had insights like that, but they were rare, and usually of a much
smaller scope.
	She nodded.  "V-very well.  In the d-d-dojo you'll c-carry
w-wood or steel, for obv-v-vious reasons, b-but if you w-wish it, the
s-saber is yours."
	Saionji bowed until his forehead touched the floor and
replied, "Thank you, Kaitlyn-sensei."
	Gryphon got to his feet and said, "Let me go and get it, so
you can try it out - then I'll buy you guys some lunch."

	    /*  Edvard Grieg  Peer Gynt Suite #1, Op. 46:
		 In the Hall of the Mountain King  */

	With the lightsaber he had claimed from Roger Tremayne in his
hands, Saionji ran through every single-blade kata he knew, starting
slowly with the simple ones and accelerating steadily through the
intermediate stages.  By the time he reached the the advanced stages,
the green saber was nothing but a blur surrounding him, its vibrant
crackle and hum an almost continuous noise as he wheeled this way,
turned that way, shuffled and stomped, cut and redirected.  His focus
was absolute, his face a mask.
	Kaitlyn sat at the end of the dojo in seiza, watching him, her
eyes following his every move and nuance, her senses open to the flow
of her student's ki.  Right away, she could sense a difference.
Saionji's approach to the sword forms had always been a workmanlike
one, born more of determination than raw talent.  Swords to him were
tools of a trade, not the implements of an artist, and though his
commitment could not be faulted, he could be said, at all but his best
moments, to lack a certain... passion.
	With the lightsaber in his hands, that changed.  He seemed
more... -alive-, somehow, even following well-worn patterns he could
have done in his sleep, defending himself and counterattacking against
the same well-remembered imaginary enemies.  There was a new light in
his eyes, a new snap to his movements.  Watching him wield the glowing
energy blade was like watching a new swordsman, one not only
technically brilliant but inspired.  It was similar, thought Kate, to
the difference in Juri between a normal, everyday sparring match and
the Rose Duel they had fought as part of Kate's trial of mastery.
	Something in Kate responded to this change in her student.
She didn't even notice the dojo doors opening and the Tenjous slipping
in, so intent was she on Saionji's movements, watching, timing.  At
the exact right moment, without even realizing she was going to until
she did it, Kaitlyn flowed to her feet, bared Kotetsu no Sasayaki, and
joined him in his dance.
	If Saionji was surprised, he didn't show it; he merely
adjusted his pattern to suit, effortlessly shifting from one- to
two-person kata.  His green-white energy blade sparked against
Kaitlyn's steel one, which was protected by the power of his master's
concentration alone.  They went up and back, testing each other,
slipping imperceptibly from kata to open combat, out of the patterns
and into an improvised dance of steel and light -
	- and then, with the suddenness of a switched-off machine,
they ceased, falling back into themselves and becoming quiet.  Kaitlyn
sheathed her zatoichi; Saionji put the lightsaber on his belt with
exactly the gesture of a samurai sheathing his blade, the beam-blade
retracting just as if it were a steel one sliding into its saya.  The
most amazing thing about that, from Kaitlyn's point of view, was that
it was plain he hadn't been intending to do it or showing off - it was
just what his hands had done when it had come time for him to put the
weapon away.
	She glanced at her father and saw that he'd noticed it as
well, if the grin on his face was any indication.  He looked back at
her and nodded.
	Kaitlyn and Saionji bowed to each other, and Kaitlyn dropped
her serious dojo persona and smiled.
	"OK," she said.  "I'm s-s-satisf-fied you won't c-c-cut your
a-arms off, K-Kyouichi-kun."
	They turned then and saw that, in addition to Wakaba, both
Utena and Anthy Tenjou were now standing off to the side.  All three
of them were staring wide-eyed, unable to quite believe what they had
just seen.
	Utena found her voice first: "... -Whoa-, Saionji."  Then she
recovered her composure, grinned wryly, and added, "I can hardly
believe you're the same loser whose butt I whipped with a broken
stick."
	Saionji returned the grin and replied, "There are days,
Tenjou, when I have difficulty believing it myself."  He removed the
lightsaber from his belt and studied it for a moment.  "That was a
remarkable experience," he went on.  "Now I fully understand what
people like you and Kaitlyn-sensei mean when they speak of feeling a
connection with their weapons.  I've felt it once before, but only
fleetingly - when I wielded your blade, Sensei, against Lafarga in
Cephiro."
	He hefted the lightsaber again, twirled it in his hand, and
returned it smoothly to his belt.  "This feels right to me in a way no
normal blade ever has, but for that one time," he said, his tone
thoughtful.
	Utena nodded.  "I know just what you mean.  I felt it the
first time I held my Heart, after the Sword of Dios failed me... and
again when Corwin gave me the Thorn," she added, touching the basket
hilt of the sword at her side.  "It's a nice feeling, isn't it?"
	"Very much so," Saionji agreed.
	"Well, congratulations, Kyouichi," said Anthy with a smile.
"And we're all relieved to see that you're well."
	"Thank you.  It doesn't come as a disappointment to me,
either," he added with a wry little smile.
	"Chu!" added Chu Chu from his perch on Anthy's shoulder.
	"Oh, you're finally awake?" asked Saionji dryly.  "I was
beginning to think you'd decided to sleep off the entire summer."
	"Warp travel doesn't agree with him, poor thing," said Anthy
solicitously, petting the creature's head.  "I think he'd have been
happier if he'd stayed in the rose garden to keep Mr. Haineley
company, but he insisted... "
	"Well, he'll feel better after some lunch," said Saionji, and
then they all chuckled as Chu Chu perked up immediately.

	The Art of Noise played another show that night, this time
dedicated to their recovered friends Guy and Saionji, and one the
following night.  Every night the crowd got larger.  On Thursday
night, after their third encore, Kate was startled to be informed by
Police Chief Krez that he estimated fully half the population of
-Titan- was crammed into Government Center Plaza.  Admittedly, that
population was a measly hundred thousand, and 90 percent of them lived
within a hundred miles or so of Beltane - but still, my God, -half the
colony-?
	Every night the Illogics got better, too, more comfortable in
(or should that be out of) their roles, more natural behind their
instruments.  Kate and Surel, examining the band's performance each
night, were well pleased.

	On Friday morning, the grateful Titanese held a parade through
Beltane to honor their departing liberators, and then it was time for
the IPO ships to bid farewell to Titan and make for Jezebel (in
Valiant's case) and home (in Challenger's).

	"Well, Captain," WDF Admiral James T. Kirk observed from the
Valiant's main viewer, "things seem quiet enough around here."
	Utena grinned.  "I hope they stay that way, Admiral.  We
worked hard enough quieting them down."
	"We'll try to keep them that way," Kirk assured her.  "Clear
skies, Valiant."
	"Clear skies, Enterprise.  Valiant out."  The screen beeped
and switched to a forward view of the elegant old Constitution-class
ship, with Titan in the background and Saturn behind that, and Utena
sighed.
	"Wonder when we'll ever see this place again," she murmured.
"Ah, well... guess we've got a schedule to keep.  Kozue?"
	Kozue smiled and plied her controls.  "Breaking orbit."
	"Signal from the Chief," B'Elanna reported from the comm
station.
	"Put him on," said Utena, smiling, and Gryphon appeared on her
viewer.
	"Looks like this is where we part company," he said.  "You
guys try and stay out of trouble, OK?  I'm too damn busy to keep
bailing you out like this."  The last was said with a wide grin, to
let her know he was joking, and Utena laughed.
	"We'll be good, I promise," she replied.  "I can't speak for
the -rest- of the galaxy, though."
	"Well, if you do need help, just yell," he said, clearing away
the joke now that it had served its purpose.  "One last time before we
go - you all did damn good work here.  Something to be proud of for
the rest of your careers."
	"And may they be long and fruitful, and filled with prizes!"
called Lore's voice from the background.
	"Thanks," said Utena.  "Take it easy, Dad."
	"You too, hon.  You too.  Challenger out."
	The forward view returned.  Titan was already out of the
picture, and as Kozue completed her turn and put on some speed,
Saturn too slid out of view, leaving nothing in front of the Valiant's
shark-mouthed prow but open space.
	"Pascagoula's just gone to metaspace," Klaang reported from
the sensor console.
	"Now we're being hailed by the -other- Enterprise," said
B'Elanna.
	Utena chuckled.  "OK, put him on."  The screen switched to the
bridge of the Galaxy-class USS Enterprise, where Jean-Luc Picard
smiled out at the Valiant's captain.
	"We await your convenience, Captain Tenjou," said Picard.
"And please try not to outrun us -too- badly."
	"Will do, Captain Picard," Utena replied with a grin.  "See
you on Jezebel.  Valiant out."
	"Course laid in for Jezebel," Miki Kaoru reported from the
navigator's station as the starfield replaced Picard's face.
	Utena thumbed one of her intercom controls.  "Everything OK
down there, Corwin?"
	"Finest kind," Corwin replied.  "Ready when you are."
	"That'd be now," Utena replied with a smile.  "Kozue - hit
it."
	Valiant gathered herself and plunged past lightspeed in a
burst of rainbow light.

	On the charts of the Galactic Survey, the world the bold
little ship found herself orbiting a few hours later was merely called
"Centauri 71 Two", the second planet from the seventy-first charted
star in the Centauri sector.  The system was a nondescript one - a
G-class star similar to Sol and Bajor-B'hava'el, an asteroid belt, and
three planets - a class-C rockball too close to the star, a class-A
gas supergiant with two icy moons, and a class-M world smack in the
middle of the habitable zone.  The system itself was within Federation
space, not far from the border with the Cardassian Union, but had been
itself unclaimed by any of the Federation's member states.
	Until, that is, it was claimed under galactic survey law by
Shustal Enterprises, Limited, a corporation with nominal headquarters
on the independent planet Barsaive.  The only people who could have
disputed this claim - by right of having previously surveyed and
settled the system - were precluded from doing so by the fact that they
had done that surveying and settling illegally, having been members of
the Cardassian Obsidian Order.
	So, System C-71 having no indigenous sentient lifeforms nor
recognized colonists, Shustal Enterprises was held by the Federation's
galactic survey court to have full dominion over the system.  The
system's name was left unchanged by its new owners, but the second
planet, the class-M, was renamed from C-71-2 to "Jezebel" and
registered as a starport with Type Two automatic beacon facilities and
ample landing room for ships capable of taking advantage of it.
	The only settlement on Jezebel was also Shustal Enterprises'
sole commercial venture: the Jezebel Resort, which was just what its
simple name claimed it was.
	For this stop, everybody went down to the surface, leaving the
Valiant orbiting alone in standby mode.  Kozue wanted to test out the
ship's landing capabilities, but as they were marked in the operations
manual "only for emergency use", Utena vetoed it.  Instead, most of
the crew beamed down, others rode down in the Pascagoula's lighters,
and the captain disembarked last aboard her private fighter.
	As she climbed down from the Swordfish II's cockpit in one of
the VIP revetments of the spaceport facility built next to the
resort's reception complex, Utena took a look around and smiled.
Sure, it was a spaceport, they all looked pretty much alike - but that
was one impressive range of mountains off to the west, and she lived
in a castle that overlooked one of the most spectacular ranges on
Jeraddo, so she knew from good-looking mountain ranges.
	The air smelled nice, too.  She'd been told that it was
springtime on Jezebel, just coming into the really nice time of year
at the resort's latitude, and she could certainly believe that as she
crossed the tarmac to the reception building.
	When she entered the building, Utena could see that everyone
else was already there, gathered on the great inlaid tile rosette in
the center of the entrance hall.  Even Devlin Carter, Amanda Dessler
and Rina Dragonaar were there, the Lorica having rejoined Valiant once
again after swinging by Babylon 6 to drop off their Network 23
refugees.  As she drew nearer, Utena saw that Amanda's ship had picked
up a few people as well, as arranged: Beld Marmo, the Centauri who had
the distinctions of being the first Institute Duelist to graduate from
Satori Mandeville Memorial, and G'Kron of Narn, his roommate and a
friend to all the Duelists, were among those waiting.  So, too, was
Mac McKenzie, who had beamed down from the Pascagoula (where
Montgomery Scott had insisted on performing "some wee repairs" to the
No Bull while Mac enjoyed his vacation).
	"Wow, Liza," she said as she joined the rest of the group in
the Art Deco splendor of the central hall.  "Your decorators did a
great job.  You can't even tell this place used to be a Cardassian
military post.  It looks just like a 1930s grand hotel!"
	"I know, isn't it wonderful?" asked Liza, twirling about under
the vaulted hall's grand chandelier.  "And look at these rugs!  I
shudder to think where the boys must have stolen them from."
	"You wound me to the heart, fair Lishustai," remarked a voice
from up the main corridor, and the Duelists all turned to see the
familiar blue-skinned form of their t'skrang comrade, the redoubtable
T'skaia Vorokoshiga'ar Ixtixtaaqitl't'chl'Vraihelt Ishkarat, striding
toward them.  He swept Liza up in his arms and turned her around,
setting her back in the exact spot he'd acquired her from, then backed
up and bowed his courtliest bow to the rest of them before continuing,
	"Not only do you impugn my acquisitional talents - I will have
you know these rugs were acquired perfectly legitimately, albeit at a
very compelling discount - you have also caused me to miss the
-second- great height of the legendary career of the Valiant!"  He
fell to one knee, clawed hand splayed dramatically across his chest,
and cried, "Oh, woe, lament!"
	"You didn't miss much," Guy and Saionji told him
simultaneously, then looked at each other and grinned while Mimi
Shinguuji and Wakaba broke out laughing.
	"Ah, but I'm sure you'll regale me with all the details over
dinner," said Sky, rising back to his feet.
	"Hey, everyone!" cried a voice from the main doors.  Sky
turned and the others looked past him to see the lanky form of Zach
Stephens trotting up the corridor, waving merrily.  Behind him, the
low black form of his antique Cadillac could be seen through the
ornamented cut glass of the doors.
	Several members of the Valiant's crew gaped at him.  Utena
glanced at Amanda, who shook her head and shrugged.  Janice Barlow
merely smiled knowingly.  Gudrun Truemace, on the other hand, pushed
her way to the front, met him with open arms, and declared,
	"Why, Zachiel Firewheel, as I live and breathe!"  She pulled
him into a hug, mussed his hair, and then said, "Sorry I missed you on
Titan - I was so busy with the Beltane police no one even told me you
were around until you'd left.  I thought we'd left you behind."
	Zach grinned.  "Ah, well, you know me, GT - I'm a hard guy to
get distance on."  He leaned over and added in a mock-confidential
stage mutter behind his hand, "(By the way, thanks for totally blowin'
my cover.)"
	"Well!" said Sky briskly.  "Now that we're all here, this way
to the dining hall!  I think you'll be especially pleased with the
work the painters have done."
	The dining hall was an immense room with a vaulted ceiling
that rivaled that of the great reception hall they'd just left.  It
wasn't so much compared to, say, the Great Hall of Odin's palace in
Asgard, but for a mortal edifice it was quite inspiring - and as soon
as the Duelists and their friends entered the room they saw what Sky
meant about the painters.  One entire wall of the room was dominated
by a painting of the Duelists' Castle on Jeraddo, complete with the
whole Society as of the end of the 2405-2406 school year gathered out
front having a cookout, each Duelist nearly life-size.
	It was almost like they'd been captured in a photograph and
then painted from that, instead of being assembled in the painter's
mind: Corwin and Utena running the grill, Anthy and Chu Chu and a
laughing Kaitlyn, Serge balanced on his ball, Juri looking privately
amused, Dorothy (with Peril the cat on her shoulder) and Miki hand in
hand, Liza laughing with Azalynn on her back, B'Elanna looking
indignant as her hair was mussed by Beld Marmo while Professor
Kraalgh, the Society's faculty advisor, laughed, Sky and Mia and
Saionji and Wakaba, all of them smiling, all of them just as in life.
Some of their non-Duelist friends were there too, coming around the
side of the castle as if approaching from the rose garden, wearing
expressions of greeting - Devlin and Amanda and Rina, Moose and
G'Kron, Mac McKenzie, Zach (with a pizza), Mr. Haineley the school
counselor, even Tom Palmer and Nall.
	"Welcome to Jezebel Resort," said Liza with a smile as she
went to the head of the table.  "We officially open for business late
tomorrow afternoon, and tomorrow night we celebrate our Grand Opening
with a concert - but tonight and the day tomorrow are just for us.
Just for -you-, all of you - my friends."  Her expression softened and
she added without her usual wry humor, "You gave me friendship when I
deserved none; you accepted me after I spent so long rejecting you,
then came to you in need; you forgave me for all my crimes against
you... and for that I can never truly repay you.  I offer you this
dinner at my table, this night under my roof, not as an attempt at
that payment, but as a gesture of my gratitude.  Eat, my friends, in
good health.  Shustal!"
	"Shustal," said the assembled in response; they knew just
enough of the t'skrang language from their association with Liza and
Sky to know that she wasn't just saying her name.  When she'd chosen
her new names, Liza had selected "R'tas" from among those of her
t'skrang swordmaster mentor, and "Shustal" was a t'skrang word often
invoked at the ends of speeches and stories.  It meant, roughly,
"'Nuff said," which seemed appropriate under the circumstances.
Nothing more -did- have to be said, about this occasion or about
Liza's reinvention of herself.
	As the assembled guests took their seats and immaculately
liveried t'skrang served them soup, the aforementioned dragon swooped
down out of the rafters, took a moment to loop showily around a
chandelier chain, and then settled on Corwin's shoulder.  "You guys
are late," he remarked.
	"The hell we are," Corwin replied, ruffling the dragon's
ears.  "You're looking smug.  Is Umi here?"
	"No," Nall replied indignantly, "she isn't.  She and the girls
aren't coming until tomorrow.  Pervoid."
	Corwin shrugged, nearly dislodging him.  "Just wondering," he
said, "no need to get testy.  How's your summer been going?"
	"Pretty good," said Nall.  "Yours has been more exciting,
though."
	"For sufficiently stressful values of exciting," Corwin
allowed.
	"OK," said Nall, stretching, "you're boring me.  I'm off to
sit with Utena."
	"The Draconian Senate is going to hear about these constant
treaty violations," Corwin said jokingly as the little dragon winged
across the table.
	"Sue me," Nall tossed back over his shoulder.  "-You've- had
her all summer," he added as he settled on Utena's shoulder, rubbed
his face against her cheek, and wound his tail around her neck.
	Corwin gave him a cockeyed half-glare for a second, then had a
spoonful of his soup.  "Mm!" he said, his eyebrows rising.  He turned
to Liza and said, "This is some soup, Liza.  Is it a Barsaivian
recipe?"
	Liza nodded.  "Traditional to Ishkarat, the Great House I have
some small tie to," she added with a sidelong grin for Sky.  "It's
three different kinds of fish from the Serpent River, seasoned with a
spice called kuratai."
	"It's d-d-delicious," Kaitlyn concurred.
	"And how," Nall agreed.  "I had some earlier, while we were
waiting for you guys, who are -late-," he added with a pointed look at
Corwin.  The young god pretended to be preparing to throw his spoon at
the dragon, then went back to eating.
	When the wine came, G'Kron proposed a toast.  In that toast,
which took longer than some senatorial filibusters, he deplored the
outrages perpetrated upon the Valiant's company by the power-mad
creatures in the highest echelons of the Earth Alliance and the Psi
Corps, he lamented the state of the galaxy that such injustices were
allowed to go unpunished by the highest authorities recognized among
the stars, and he praised his friends for their moral courage in the
face of atrocity.  When he finally yielded the floor, the main course
was being served, and he retired to great applause - though how much
was for the speech and how much was for the fact that it was over was
an open question in some people's minds.
	The Duelists and their friends retired to their rooms in the
resort's main hotel complex that night replete and happy, warm and
content, feeling truly secure and able to relax for the first time
since entering the Centauri Sector eight days before.  At last, the
ghosts of the Earth crisis were put to rest, and the Valiant's crew
slept the sleep of the just.

			    IPS CHALLENGER
		       ON STATION AT BABYLON 6
				23:35

	Gryphon yawned, pushed some papers around listlessly on his
desk, and decided he might as well go to bed.  There must have been
some delay, and he was sure he'd hear all about it in due time.
	Just as he was thinking that, the door of his office opened
and Lu Durgo put her head in.  "He's here, sir," she said.
	"Show him in," said Gryphon, straightening up a bit.
	Lu nodded, entered, and moved aside to clear the doorway for
a man to enter behind her.  He was tall, broad-shouldered, powerfully
built, and he moved with the grace and economy of a martial artist.
Gryphon rose from his seat, hands on his desk, to take his visitor
in.
	He was completely bald, whether naturally or because he shaved
his head Gryphon couldn't say, with rich dark skin, strong features,
and intelligent eyes.  The man fairly radiated confidence and
trustworthiness, and Gryphon, himself an experienced martial artist,
sized him up immediately as the sort of man a person would feel good
about having at his back in a fight.  He was dressed in the simple,
sturdy traveling garb of the itinerant Jedi, all in shades of cream
and light tan, and at his belt was a beautifully made lightsaber that
gleamed in gold and chrome.
	"Master Windu?" said Gryphon, though from the man's bearing
and Rianna's description, he could hardly be anyone else.
	The visitor nodded anyway.  "I'm Mace Windu," he said, in a
voice as strong and steady as the rest of him.  Gryphon extended a
hand; Windu shook it firmly, then released it.
	"Thanks for coming," Gryphon said.  "Please, have a seat."
	"I was glad to," Windu replied, sitting down in one of the
chairs opposite the Fleet Captain's desk.  "I apologize for not being
here when I said I would be - I had to help the ship I booked passage
on deal with some pirates in the CBZ."
	Gryphon sighed.  "As soon as I've got more forces at my
disposal - when the DDNGs start coming off the line in numbers this
fall - I'm going to start tightening up that area," he promised.  The
Cardassian Border Zone was an open wound in the edge of the Centauri
Sector, full of pirates many suspected to be sponsored by the
government on Cardassia Prime, and Starfleet was much too busy to do
anything about it at present.  "I hope you came away from it all
right."
	Windu nodded.  "Amateurs," he said, "and I was traveling on an
Ishkarat ship - they've been well prepared for Cardie pirates since
they lost the Spirit of the River last year.  It was a rout."  The
Jedi Master's satisfaction in that fact was apparent in his voice,
underneath the classic Jedi dispassion, and Gryphon smiled slightly.
	"Good.  If you're tired, we can do this tomorrow - no need to
stay up to all hours after you've had a hard day."
	Windu shook his head.  "If it's all the same to you, Captain,
I'd rather get on.  Your communication intrigued me, and now that I'm
here, I'm not sure how well I'll sleep before I know more," he added
with a dry little grin.
	Gryphon laughed.  "Fair enough," he said.  "Lu, you can hit
the sack - we're grown men, we can take our own notes if we insist on
having our meeting in the middle of the night."
	His yeoman smiled, her violet eyes twinkling.  "All the same
to you, sir, I'd rather stick around and check out Master Windu's...
reaction to your proposal."
	That got another laugh from her boss, who replied, "You're in
a mood today, aren't you?  I swear, sometimes it's like you're a
different person.  OK, you can stay."
	Lu grinned and sat down in the captain's other visitor chair.
"Do you want anything, Master Windu?  Coffee?  A snack?"
	Windu smiled.  "I'd love coffee.  And maybe a chocolate
cruller if you've got some."
	"That sounds good," said Gryphon.  "Make my drink a Dew,
though."
	"One coffee, one Dew, two crullers," Lu repeated, nodding.
Then she turned to the Jedi Master and asked with a sly smile, "How do
you take it, Master Windu?"
	Mace Windu returned the smile with interest and replied,
"Black."
	Lu gave him a wink and headed out to get their orders.  Once
the door was shut behind her, Windu turned a smile to Gryphon and
said, "Cute kid.  I shouldn't tease, but she makes it too easy."
	Gryphon chuckled.  "Don't worry about Lu," he said.  "When she
gets into this mood, she gives as good as she gets, and she knows
exactly where the lines are."
	"Handy talent to have."
	"Yep.  So - business.  You're probably not going to like what
I have to tell you."
	Since it was about the confirmed encounter of members of the
Valiant's crew with a Knight of the Sith, Windu certainly didn't.
While Gryphon told the story, he ate his cruller and sipped at his
coffee.  When the story was done, he put the mug down on the corner of
Gryphon's desk, stroked his chin thoughtfully, and said,
	"That's not good."
	Gryphon nodded.  "I know.  One of the things I've put the
International Police together for is to centralize a force that can
combat threats like this - espers to counter the Psi Corps, top-grade
field people to deal with Big Fire, investigators, the Space Force.
Trying to plug up the gaps left by purely military forces like the WDF
and Confederate Freespacers."
	Windu nodded.  "A worthy cause."
	"I'm glad you think so - because I asked you here to help me
set up a new branch.  If the Sith are back, and if they're tied in
with the Psi Corps and the Earth Alliance government, then I'm going
to need a force to counter them.  I have some top agents who could
take on a Sith, and I'm going to recruit more - the man who took out
Roger Tremayne is on my short list for the Lens just as soon as he's a
little further along in his training - but to form a really effective
counter to them, only one thing will do."
	Gryphon folded his hands on his desk blotter, looked Mace
Windu straight in the eye, and said, "The International Police need
Jedi Knights."
	Windu looked thoughtful.
	"Perhaps," he allowed after a few seconds' pondering.  "The
Order hasn't been really organized since the Fall of Atlantis, you
know that.  I know you're acquainted with at least two of us, Aldous
Gajic and Kris Overstreet."  At Gryphon's cocked eyebrow, Windu went
on, "The Redneck might only have been a padawan, but a padawan is a
Jedi all the same, even though his training is incomplete."
	"Fair enough," said Gryphon.  "You might make that count
three, then - my son Leonard is Master Gajic's padawan."
	"Really.  I didn't know that," said Windu.  "Not that
surprising.  There are about a dozen Jedi Masters in the galaxy today,
and though we all know each other, we don't keep in constant touch.
That's the real problem you'll face if you try to recruit us: there is
no central Order any more.  Just the loose network of Masters and...
oh... maybe fifty or sixty Knights.  They would have to be tracked
through their former masters, and not all of them are still alive."
	"That many," said Gryphon.  "I had been half-expecting there
to be a dozen or so Jedi, period, let alone Masters."
	"It's one of the ways our traditions survived the Purge,"
Windu explained.  "We scattered, and we've been careful only to
maintain loose contact, so that we -couldn't- all be tracked and wiped
out.  There's probably no need for that now - Darth Vader is long
dead, after all - but old habits die hard.  You'll be in for an uphill
battle tracking us down, and even if you do, you won't get all of us
to join."
	Gryphon nodded.  "I realize that, but given this new threat, I
have to try.  I would have a lot better luck, and a lot more leverage
to make my proposal, if I had a Jedi Master on my side at the outset.
Aldous Gajic is out; he's busy training my son, and I won't interrupt
his training for anything, not after what he went through to find the
path of the Force in the first place.  So I'm asking you: Will you
join the Experts of Justice?  Will you help me find the Jedi and
gather as many of them as will join me to my cause?"
	Windu closed his eyes and sat in silent meditation for a few
minutes, consulting the Force for guidance, perhaps.  Gryphon waited
patiently, knowing that what he asked was no small thing, hoping that
the Jedi Master would agree with his reasoning, hoping that he
wouldn't have to start all over again.
	Finally, Windu opened his eyes and focused them on the faint
glow of the First Lensman's Lens.  He held that gaze for a few
moments, then looked up to meet Gryphon's eyes.
	"OK," he said.  "I'm in."

			 JEZEBEL, SYSTEM C-71
		       SATURDAY, JULY 29, 2406

	After a breakfast every bit as good (if not as formal) as
dinner, the Duelists and their friends scattered to explore Liza's
resort in all its glories.  Utena was surprised, thrilled and touched
that Amanda and her crew had taken the trouble to bring not only
G'Kron and Beld from their meeting place on Babylon 6, but also her
horse, Thunderbolt, from the DSM stables on Jeraddo.
	The stable hands, like almost all the staff of Jezebel Resort,
were t'skrang, which meant they were more accustomed to the animals of
Barsaive than of Earth - but they knew horses, all the same, and they
were very complimentary about Thunderbolt as Utena brushed and saddled
him.  Utena accepted their compliments gladly, for she was justly
proud of her horse.
	Thunderbolt had been the mount of the Prince of Cephiro before
her, the great and noble Dios, and he looked every inch the prince's
white charger; but he was gentle and kindhearted, like his first master
had been.  He had been a pawn in the vicious games of his -second-
master, that was true, but he had't known the difference, and Utena
couldn't hold it against him.  She'd been overjoyed to find him still
alive after that nightmarish Grand Tournament had finally ended.
	Now, as she worked at preparing him for a ride, she noticed
Anthy entering the stable and smiled.  "Good morning," she said.  "I
figured you'd still be in bed for a while.  You hit the wine a little
harder than I did last night."
	"Not to excess, surely," replied Anthy primly.  "And certainly
not as hard as Dr. Cochrane," she added with a giggle.
	"You've got a point there," Utena observed, laughing.  "I
don't think I've ever heard that particular version of 'It's a Long
Way to Tipperary' before."
	"Indeed."  Anthy stood watching Utena work for a moment, then
asked, "May I come riding with you?"
	Utena blinked.  "Sure!  I didn't know you knew how."
	"I'm not very good at it," Anthy admitted, "but I know the
basics.  My brother showed me, long ago, in better times... "
	Utena nodded and turned to the stablehand who'd been seeing to
Thunderbolt when she arrived.  "Have you got a horse my wife can ride?
She's a novice, so he should be gentle - but not a plug," she
cautioned him with a grin.  "She's not made of glass," she added with
a wink to Anthy.
	The green-grey t'skrang gave her a little grin and said, "I
know just the one.  This way, Lady Tenjou, and we'll get you fixed
right up.  Don't worry about a thing."
	A few minutes later, as Utena sat astride Thunderbolt at the
entrance to the riding path in the woods behind the resort, Anthy came
up beside her, smiling.  Her mount was smaller than Thunderbolt, who,
being a Percheron, was no small horse, but he was perfectly suitable
for Anthy's light frame: a chocolate-brown Appaloosa, his spotted
white blanket visible aft of the saddle.  Utena wasn't sold on Apps in
general - she'd read that they could be pretty flighty sometimes - but
this one looked calm enough.  Not very smart, perhaps, but horses
weren't the animal kingdom's hyperdrive researchers.
	"OK?" asked Utena.
	"Fine," said Anthy with a smile, patting the horse's neck.  "I
think Scout and I have an understanding.  So long as you don't leave
me behind, I should be all right."
	Utena smiled.  "I'll never leave you behind," she replied.
"Shall we?"

	They spent a pleasant morning riding through the
sweet-smelling north forest, a mix of conifers and deciduous trees
that didn't look all that different from those in Cephiro or on
Jeraddo.  As they rode, at a leisurely pace, they talked about the
last few days, the last few months.
	As they did, the others went here and there on different
errands of exploration.  When they gathered for lunch back in the main
hall, the air was full of their stories.  Utena and Anthy's woods
ride, Corwin's hike in the crags of the mountains to the west, the
Kaorus and Dorothy powerboating on the lake - everyone had done
something exciting, or restful, or beautiful, as the mood took them.
Azalynn summed it up perfectly when she said,
	"Liza, this place has -everything-."
	That afternoon, having been apart from her horse all summer,
Utena went riding again - this time with Corwin, observing their
weekly time together (moved to Saturday at Anthy's insistence, since
their usual Friday-evening time had been pre-empted by Liza's grand
dinner).  The stablehands matched him with a larger, somewhat more
spirited horse, a black mare of unspecified breed; but he had learned
his horsemanship from the Valkyrie, who sometimes rode horses that
could -fly-, so he had no difficulties.  Their ride was somewhat more
spirited than the morning's had been, an impromptu steeplechase
through the rugged corner of the forest with its hedgerows and stone
fences deliberately placed to enhance the experience.
	By the time they saw properly to their mounts (other guests
might leave such matters to the stablehands, but both of them had been
trained better) and returned to the main hall, the first of the
resort's real customers had begun arriving, along with several more of
Liza's special invitees - the officers of the Enterprise, Duelist
faculty advisor Kraalgh, her sister Mary and Mary's foster parents
(who just happened to be Corwin's Aunt Bell and Uncle Keiichi), and
the three Rune Knights of Cephiro and their families.
	Liza hadn't set up Jezebel specifically as a resort for the
rich, but its location made it somewhat inevitable that it would be
one, at least starting out.  Still, the place's rates weren't the
biggest obstacle to booking a stay there; rather, the biggest hurdle
was the Selection Committee, a group of professional t'skrang
hoteliers whose job was to make sure that any prospective guest would
fit into the intended atmosphere of the place, get along with the
staff and the other guests, not abuse the facilities, the people, or
the animals.
	The Committee didn't accept or deny aspirant guests based on
their incomes or portfolios; in fact, they didn't have access to that
data.  They made their determinations strictly on their keen judgment
of sentient character and the interviews each person wanting to book a
stay had to submit to.  They had turned away some very, very rich
people - including, much to Liza's delight, her own father, Ephrem
Broadbank, the very wealthy Vice President of Operations for
Aztechnology Corporation.
	As such, the guests who were arriving were fairly well-heeled,
but all seemed to be quite pleasant folks - even the Hutt, a GENOM
vice-president named Nalga Tiure, who, they all discovered at dinner,
had exemplary table manners and really looked quite dashing in a
tuxedo that could have protected a good-sized automobile from a
rainstorm.
	"It seems to me," the Hutt was intoning as the roast belgad
was served, "that this place was intended as a retreat for anyone,
regardless of economic standing, who can appreciate it.  Am I
correct?"
	"That was the basic idea, yes," Liza replied.  "I grew up
wealthy, and the thing that always bothered me about the places like
this my family visited was that air of exclusivity.  I wanted a
certain exclusivity here, as well, but not -that- kind."
	"Yet its location does impose a certain economic limitation on
the clientele you get," Nalga went on thoughtfully.
	"That's true," Liza admitted.  "We are a bit off the beaten
track.  It's my hope, though, that as the word gets around and Jezebel
becomes more popular, routes will change and passage will become more
affordable."
	"A metaspace jumpgate could help considerably in that aim,"
the Hutt mused.
	"It would, yes," said Liza.  "Unfortunately, such a thing is
well beyond my means.  I invested everything I had in getting the
resort itself up and running, and I intend to reinvest my profits in
improvements and dividends for the staff."
	Nalga nodded ponderously.  "Indeed.  Employee retention makes
life a great deal easier in any industry.  However, as to the
metagate... my employers, as you know, manufacture them.  As such, the
cost to us is negligible.  It can be buried in all manner of budgetary
contortions, the precise details of which are only of interest to an
accountant droid.  When I return to my office next week... I will see
what can be shaken loose, as the saying goes."
	Liza blinked, then recovered her composure and replied
smoothly, "I'm afraid I couldn't possibly impose on your generosity in
such a manner, Vice-President Tiure."  (By which she meant, of course,
and Nalga knew it, "And just who would I have to kill?")
	The Hutt made a dismissive gesture with one pudgy hand.  "You
already have, Miss Shustal.  Your chef makes the finest entrailles de
la grenouille au beurre noir that I've had since leaving Nal Hutta.
As I have the appalling bad taste to speak to people in languages
other than Huttese, pay my employees a fair wage and do business
honestly, you can imagine that I've not been welcome there for some
time."
	Everyone at the table looked slightly uncomfortable about
that, until Nalga himself began to laugh, his bulk rocking
seismically.  Once it was clear that he himself found the situation
humorous, everyone laughed, because as a joke, it was a pretty good
one.
	That broke the ice, and the dinner conversations became
scattered and varied, guests introducing themselves to each other, the
whole gathering becoming convivial, transcending class division - just
as Liza had hoped dinners in this place would do.  She glanced at the
spot catercornered to her right, caught Azalynn's eye, and grinned.
The Dantrovian's golden eyes glittered in the light of the chandeliers
and the table's candelabra as she smiled and winked back.

	After dinner and coffee, the guests moved outside under the
glittering night sky, to the Amphitheatre.  One of the interesting
features of Jezebel was the fact that the planet had three moons, each
tending to reflect the light of G-71 with a different tint.  They
traveled in and out of phase interestingly with each other, so that
some nights on Jezebel had a blue glow to them, some green, and some
red, with occasional forays into cyan, magenta, yellow, even (about
once a year) white.
	Tonight the blue moon dominated, washing everything in a soft
blue glow as first the Illogics and then the Art of Noise took to the
Amphitheatre's stage and rocked the resort for the first time ever.
	During the intermission, Liza managed to break away from both
the band's sound board and the dozens of congratulatory well-wishers
in the crowd.  With a deep sigh of relief, she went into the main hall
(where the reception was set up), managed to squeeze around a buffet
table, slipped a darkened hallway, and up a little to a balcony she'd
noticed when she and her fellow castaways had taken the complex from
the prior management.
	As she stepped out into the cobalt-tinted moonlight of
Jezebel's evening, she noticed a tall, slender figure leaning on the
balcony's railing - on the very spot, she noted, where her grapple had
caught during the taking of the base.  The light of Jezebel's largest
moon colored his normally gray uniform, and the light wind ruffled the
unruly, tall-combed strands of his dark hair.
	"It's a very beautiful planet," Mac McKenzie said without
turning, and from the view available that was nothing less than the
truth.  To the right rose the wall of mountains that the former
Cardassian base leaned against, the blue moonlight glimmering off of
permanent snowcaps far above.  To the left ran the rolling hills and
plains covered in dense semitropical jungle.  In the far distance,
visible only as a lighter line on the northern horizon, lay the open
grasslands where Liza's lifeboat had crashed the year before.  The
lake and the temperate forest were behind their current position, out
of view.
	"It is indeed," Liza said, stepping up to the railing beside
Mac.  She could sense without asking that he'd come here to get away
from the crowd, as she had for a little while.  Satisfied to stand in
silence, the two looked out at the stars, fighting the large full moon
for their position in the night sky.
	Minutes passed before Mac said, "You know, the Freespacers
have a lot more agoraphobes and claustrophobes than most other
cultures in the Federation."  He gestured out at the landscape and
continued, "There are some people I know who would look at this view
and shake because they can't find the ceiling, the bulkheads, the
deck.  For them, this is far too open.
	"And then," he said, a hint of resignation filling his voice,
"there are people for whom no planetary surface is open enough.
People who crave the cockpit of a small ship and the free void of deep
space... "
	"And who get the screaming heebie-jeebies in large crowds?"
Liza smiled.  "You seem to cope well, McKenzie."
	"In small doses," Mac nodded.  "Besides, compared to other
fears, claustrophobia is a minor thing."  After a few moments more of
silence, he added, "We have something more in common these days."
	"Hm?" Liza asked, not sure what he meant.
	"I abandoned my parents this summer," Mac said quietly.  "I
took control of my own life.  I'll be going back to DSM for my senior
year, against my father's wishes."  Liza heard the unspoken part of
Mac's statement - that he really didn't know yet -how- he was going to
manage it - but left it lie.
	"You broke off because your dad didn't want you going to DSM?"
Liza asked.
	"We had seriously divergent plans for my life," Mac said
quietly.  "He wanted me to take over the family business.  I...
disagreed."
	"Heh.  You think you have it bad?  At least -your- parents
-want- you to take over," Liza chuckled.  "My mother and father
treated me like their employee, not their daughter.  I found out
yesterday that my... -progenitors-," she spat out, "couldn't even be
bothered to spell my bloody -name- right."
	Mac turned slowly to face Liza, the moonlight shadowing his
bewildered expression.  "Your name?"
	"I was named after my grandmother," Liza said.  "That's what I
was always told, anyway.  And now I have to find out from my Grandpa,
by -accident-, that they misspelled Grandma's name on my birth
certificate.  And my mother and father never cared enough to lay out
the pocket change to have it fixed."
	"Are you sure your grandfather didn't make a mistake?"
	"My grandfather's old, McKenzie," Liza said, "but not
feeble-minded.  He built Aztechnology singlehandedly.  He has the best
mind for detail I know.  He -lives- for details.  No, he didn't slip
up on this one.  Check the records for yourself, they're on file.
It's a matter of public record.  My grandmother's name is spelled
'Elisabeth', with an 's'."
	Mac sighed and shook his head.  "Parents," he muttered.
	"Fuck 'em," Liza added.  As the sounds of the band preparing
to start the second half of the concert echoed across the resort, she
added, "C'mon, Mac.  Let's go ruin our lives and -really- piss our
parents off."  Smiling, she offered her arm to McKenzie, who wrapped
his around it, and side by side they returned to the noise and life of
the grand opening celebration.

       /*  Mono Puff  "Guitar Was the Case"  _Unsupervised_  */

		     Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
			      presented
			UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES
			   FUTURE IMPERFECT
		   - Symphony of the Sword No. 3 -
		   Fourth Movement: COMING TO TERMS

			       The Cast
		       (in order of appearance)
			    Susan Ivanova
				Delenn
				Surel
				Sketh
				S'bann
				Sanan
			   Wakaba Shinohara
				Phlox
			   Kyouichi Saionji
		     Clef, Master Mage of Cephiro
			   Skuld Ravenhair
			     Utena Tenjou
			     Anthy Tenjou
			    Miriam Ondeen
			 Benjamin D. Hutchins
			   Jean-Luc Picard
		       Elisabeth R'tas Shustal
				Selar
			   Gai "Guy" Morgan
			    John Standish
			   Corwin Ravenhair
			    Juri Arisugawa
			   Kaitlyn Hutchins
				Sergei
			      Enron Krez
			   Maylira Corleen
			    Rianna Santova
			     Kozue Kaoru
			    Garm Seseteen
			     Priss Morgan
			    Sylvie Daniels
			    Kei J. Morgan
			      Miki Kaoru
		       Azalynn dv'Ir Natashkan
			R. Dorothy Wayneright
			     Imra Ardeen
			       Mia Ausa
			      Lore Soong
			     Luornu Durgo
			  Michael Garibaldi
			    John Trussell
			      Jung Freud
				G-3N3
				R-06R
				R5-T1
			    Canal Vorfeed
			   Sumire Shinguuji
		  The Hon. J. Maurice MacEchearn IV
			     Ben Cheviot
			    Edison Carter
			    Janice Barlow
			    Neal Krummell
			   B'Elanna Torres
				Synok
			 Harcourt M. McKenzie
			   Montgomery Scott
			     Nyota Uhura
			    Zach Stephens
			       Chu Chu
			    James T. Kirk
			    Devlin Carter
			Amanda Elektra Dessler
		      Kitarina Telaia Dragonaar
			      Beld Marmo
				G'Kron
     T'skaia Vorokishiga'ar Ixtixtaaqitl't'chl'Vraihelt Ishkarat
			   Gudrun Truemace
			   Nall Silverclaw
			      Mace Windu
			     Thunderbolt
			   Chiricahua Scout
		       Voran Toronomik Ch'skai
			    Mary Broadbank
		    Verthandi Wishbringer Morisato
			   Keiichi Morisato
			    Hikaru Shidou
			   Uum'y R'yuu'z'ky
			     Fuu Hououji
			     Nalga Tiure

	 and featuring much of the population of Titan Colony

			    Cruise Captain
			 Benjamin D. Hutchins

			 Activities Director
			   Kris Overstreet

				Truss
			    John Trussell

			Baker of the Brownies
			      Anne Cross

			     Ground Crew
			  The Usual Suspects

	       Ben Cheviot's address partly inspired by
			J. Michael Straczynski

	 The Symphony will return with "The End of the Tour"

			 E P U (colour) 2002