I have a message from another time... Eyrie Productions, Unlimited presents UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES FUTURE IMPERFECT - SYMPHONY OF THE SWORD No. 4 - Seventh Movement: The Revolution Will Be Televised Benjamin D. Hutchins with Janice Barlow Chad Collier (c) 2004, 2005, 2014 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2409 09:02 AM LOCAL TIME ALDERA, ALDERAAN "I'm Nanami Jinnai for Big Time TV News, coming to you live and direct from the meeting chamber of the High Council of Jedi Masters, in the central temple of the Jedi Order on Alderaan. Today we're witnessing an unprecedented event in television history - an official hearing before the Jedi Council. ... And the councilors are entering the chamber now, so it appears the proceedings are ready to begin." The seven Jedi Masters entered the room and took their seats with unhurried calm, despite the unusual crowd that had gathered in their council chamber. The room was configured like a courtroom, with six councilors seated in a row where the judge would normally be and the seventh at what looked rather like the prosecutor's place. What was to happen here was not precisely a trial, but its structure was similar enough that the furnishings were familiar. The "prosecutor" remained on his feet as the other councilors seated themselves. A tall, rather grim-looking human male with dark skin, he had an air of severity and a military bearing - close-cropped hair, his robes just so, his stance erect, his visage forbidding. "Esteemed members of the High Council," he said, "we are gathered today to hear evidence in the unfortunate affair which took place last week on the Klingon homeworld of Qo'noS, and the parts played in that drama by two members of our Order." Turning, the man raked his eyes over the assemblage of "guests", his expression making it clear how welcome he felt most of them were in the chamber. "For those of you who do not know me," he said, "I am Master Jason Lock. As Prime Sentinel of the Sentinels of Light, I will preside over this hearing. My fellow councilors will now identify themselves for the record." At the far left side of the bench, a white-skinned and comely young twi'lek woman who looked (and dressed) more like a dancer than a Jedi Master said in a tone that hinted at nascent boredom, "Zaerdra vos Kevtiin abti'kva Slaarti-rykom Kinshasa of Ryloth." A few of the more perceptive onlookers thought they saw Lock bristle very slightly at that, but he gave no overt sign. Next to Zaerdra was a diminutive green figure with a pair of sharply pointed antennae and large, glossy purple eyes. He was dressed in a long (for his size) black coat and had a faintly pugnacious air. "Invader Vert," he said, his voice surprisingly mellow for that of such a creature. "Irken Elite, retired; serving the Force by the grace of the Tallest." To Vert's left, a woman in ornate robes combining the styles of the Jedi and the Minbari warrior caste got smoothly to her feet and inclined her spiky-crested head. "Jedi Master Faloon, Archivist of the Jedi Order." As Faloon returned to her seat, the man next to her rose. He was a dark-skinned human like Lock, but completely bald and somewhat less severe-looking. He had a gold-inlaid lightsaber at his belt and carried himself with a lethal grace that stood out even in -this- room. "Jedi Master Mace Windu," he said. "Chairman of the Jedi Council." Windu returned to his seat. The next councilor, a Rodian, didn't stand. Instead, he gazed mildly at Lock with his big, unnervingly blank black eyes, held it just long enough to make the Prime Sentinel shift uncomfortably, and then said in a calm, slightly reedy voice, "Jedi Master Bolo Burke of Rodia, Chief of the Intelligence Service of the Order of Jedi Knights." Then he sat back, steepled his sucker-tipped fingers, and settled into a meditative immobility, his shiny black eyes still fixed on Lock. At the end of the line, on the far right of the council's tribunal-style bench, the last of the councilors shifted slightly on his cushion. Like Burke, he didn't rise. He merely inclined his wrinkled, white-haired head and said, "Yoda am I. Mm." Lock regarded the ancient Jedi Master for a few seconds, expecting him to say more, but more was not forthcoming. After a few moments, he cleared his throat, turned around, and said, "Very well. The Council will begin hearing the testimony of witnesses." "You are Corporal Michael Tucker of the 131st Special Mission Force, Tactical Division, International Police Organization. Correct?" Tucker shifted slightly under the piercing gaze of the Jedi Master, but his voice was steady as he replied, "That's right." For this occasion, Tucker was wearing his full field kit, less weapons - Frame, Barrier, helmet, the works. All the Repo Men were. It wasn't necessary, they were hardly likely to be attacked -here-, but they'd chosen to do so anyway. It was symbolic of their combined resolve or some such. It provided a certain psychological advantage, too. Tucker, for one, knew he felt more comfortable with the familiar armor around him, even if that comfort were purely imaginary. "You were present for the entire Qo'noS incident?" Lock inquired. Tucker nodded. "I wasn't involved in every action - there was a lot going on at any one time - but I was on the planet for the whole incident, yes." "Mm. Suppose you tell the Council how the trouble began, in your opinion, Corporal." Tucker considered. "Well, that'd have to be when that Klingon cockbite took a shot at the Commodore." /-- MONDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2409 QO'NOS, CAPITAL OF THE KLINGON EMPIRE Commodore Utena Tenjou, interim commander of the International Police Space Force while its founder was out on bereavment leave, generally despised giving speeches. This one, commemorating the pact between the Klingon government and the IPO, wasn't so bad, because she'd had some leeway about it, and she was delivering it in Klingonese; the overall effect reminded her of afternoons spent with Kraalgh in the Castle, trading jests in the Warriors' Tongue around exchanges of steel. She fell into the martial rhythm of the language and started to actually enjoy herself as the speech wound up to its conclusion. Utena said. Just then Utena's AEGIS operative, former Psi Cop Carmela Sunderland, who was watching from the audience, shot out of her chair like a bullet from a gun. Sunderland shouted for backup and made for a man dressed in Klingon trooper's livery about eight rows from the podium. The man stood, turned as if to flee, then whirled and yanked a disruptor pistol from his baldric. Utena's eyes widened in surprise; she made to throw herself out of the path of the bolt, thinking as she did so that she was probably too late - - when from behind her there came a tremendous bellow and a blur of motion. The slight distortion in the air behind the Commodore (which few had even noticed before now) abruptly resolved itself into a hulking, blue-armored shape looming protectively over her. Tuncer's appearance was as sudden and startling as a ship jumping unexpectedly out of hyperspace. "AaaaAAAAAaaa bokokata TENjou WURTWURTWURT!" the Last Elite roared as the disruptor bolt, a pulse of modulated energy capable of vaporizing a human in her tracks, slashed across the room. Tuncer moved with impossibly fluid quickness for a creature of his bulk, raising his right hand as if intending to catch the bolt like a baseball - and that was exactly what he did. His normally invisible bodyshield coruscated blue-white as the advanced Covenant energy barrier blocked and shed the blast. "Holy shit!" Sgt. Pete Stacker blurted. "Holy SHIT!" said Tucker. "MAdre de DIOS!" cried Adrian Mendoza. Still moving - his motion had never stopped - the Elite hurled himself from the podium into the crowd, barking a guttural order to his troops. The Repo Men scattered around the chamber were already on it, elbowing their way through the confused and startled crowd, dogpiling the would-be assassin, Sunderland wrestling the disruptor out of his hand. Utena didn't sit still and gawk at Tuncer's move; even as the Elite was intercepting the disruptor blast meant for her, she dove and rolled across the stage. She came up back-to-back with someone else, her lightsaber in her hand, and the snap-hiss of two sabers igniting echoed across the chaos in the room. Anne Springsteen smiled briefly over her shoulder. "So, Commodore," the Jedi said conversationally. "How does it feel to be important enough to be assassinated?" "Well, shit. And here I was just saying what great friends we all are," Utena quipped. "Where's Anthy?" "Bastila and a couple of McCandless's troopers evacuated her when things went south," Anne replied. "Probably back on Challenger by now." Utena chuckled darkly. "Well, they'll live to regret having done -that-," she said. Anne joined in the chuckle. "No doubt. They weren't sufficiently briefed," she added. "They think she's a regular dignitary's wife. Anyway, I think this is over," the Jedi observed, shutting down her lightsaber and looking warily around the room. "I don't sense any disturbances in the Force, and Carmela hasn't picked out any other malcontents." Utena deactivated her saber and surveyed the scene. Tuncer was shaking the unconscious Klingon and roaring at him. Tucker, Mendoza, and Dubbo stood watching him uncertainly, their weapons at port arms. The White Legion troopers were leading the last of the assembled spectators from the room with the aid of some Klingon security officers. Carmela was standing with the Repo Men, looking at Tuncer with some concern. "Tuncer!" Utena called. "Easy! Let him down already. He's not going anywhere." "Boko WURT nakaTABA kaAAaa'aka," Tuncer replied, giving the Klingon a last shake for good measure. "Damn, amigo," Mendoza observed in the sudden silence. "I'm glad you're on -our- side." "Fuckin' A," Tucker agreed. "Tunce, don't kill the motherfucker, we might need him later." --/ "The would-be assassin wouldn't talk, except to say that he acted alone. My efforts to determine his truthfulness were not conclusive," Carmela Sunderland reported calmly. Lock gave her a judicious look. "And what does that mean?" he asked. Sunderland shrugged. "He'd had high-level security training. It's not all that uncommon for soldiers and security operatives to be able to hide things from a surface scan." "But you're a P12 AEGIS operative," Lock pointed out, "and former Psi Cop. A trained telepathic investigator." Sunderland nodded. "And if I'd had the authority to use all my skills, I could have learned whatever I wanted to know," she replied with unperturbed confidence. "However, AEGIS regulations have very clear guidelines as to what levels of telepathic force are permitted under what conditions. With no concrete evidence linking the man to any sort of conspiracy, I had insufficient probable cause to perform a deep scan." "I see," Lock said. "So you were unable to determine whether the assassin had any motivation beyond a simple dislike for Commodore Tenjou and what she represented." "That's correct. My Klingon counterpart, Chief Investigator Ektaar Thalekh of the Imperial Criminal Pursuit Force, believed otherwise, but his application of more conventional local interview techniques was no more fruitful than my own effort." A dark chuckle made the rounds of the gallery at Sunderland's elegant euphemism for "Klingon torture". Lock shot the room a hard look, then turned back to his questioning. "What happened next?" "Things were quiet for the next couple of days," Sunderland replied. "Investigator Thalekh and I pursued some other leads, but nothing came of them. Commodore Tenjou continued her talks with the Council and the Klingon High Command. Nothing else happened until Wednesday." "What happened Wednesday?" Lock asked. Sunderland smiled slightly. "All hell broke loose." /-- WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2409 12:18 PM LOCAL TIME QO'NOS "What's going on?" Utena asked as she entered the High Council's chamber. "We don't know yet," Chancellor Krojaar replied, a little testily. "The military communications network seems to have broken down." "It's not a breakdown," General Ktarl, the Chancellor's chief of staff, growled from the master control console. "Hard links have been cut and transmissions are being jammed." Utena tapped her IPO commbadge. "Tenjou to Challenger. Hoshi? Lore?" Nothing. "Tenjou to Red Team. McCandless, you there?" Again silence was the only response. She frowned. "Definitely not good." She transferred her attention from the badge to the other communications device she possessed, one for which she knew of no effective jamming method. [Lore! What the hell's going on?] The mental "voice" of her executive officer, Lore Soong, replied, and it bore no trace of its usual whimsy. [I was just about to ask if you knew,] Lore said. [A considerable force of Klingon starships has just jumped into the system, along with... well, I'm not really sure -what- it is. Some sort of mobile battlestation. I've never seen anything quite like it. Whatever it is, it's kicking out a lot of subspace interference, making scans difficult.] [Any communications?] [None, but they're approaching the planet in a fairly standard pre-blockade formation. All in all, I'd classify the outlook as 'ominous'. Worse, transporters won't work with this kind of jamming going on,] Lore noted. [We'll have to arrange conventional transport to extract you.] [OK, hang tight. All comms are out down here. I'm trying to piece together where my forces are.] [Roger that.] Utena broke the connection and went "looking" for the only other Lensman in the local contingent. [Tuncer, this is Commodore Tenjou. Where are you?] There was a short pause, and then the Repo Men's commander responded. Having Lens conversations with the Last Elite always felt a little weird to Utena. The hulking alien's mouthparts didn't do so well with Standard, so in person he usually spoke in his own language and let one of the Repo Men translate if anybody needed it. Of course, the limitations of one's body didn't apply to a Lens conversation, so his response came back perfectly clear, but his mental voice "sounded" the same as always. It was strange to hear that voice speaking in words she could understand. [Tuncer reporting,] was the response. [My men and I are in the southeastern district of the capital zone, conducting assault and evasion drills with the Klingon Defense Forces. What is the trouble?] [I'm not sure,] Utena replied, [but I think we might be standing in the middle of an impending coup.] [Indeed. That would explain the strange behavior of the local Klingon garrison commander. He seems inordinately preoccupied.] [Damn. I don't like this at all. I need you guys back here at the Capitol ASAP.] [Aye, we'll disengage and move out immediately. Tuncer out.] Michael Tucker was creeping through the underbrush, attempting to flank the simulated Klingon position and get himself placed for some sniper action, when his helmet comlink clicked to the secure channel and everything changed. came the voice of Tucker's commander, speaking now in his guttural native tongue. The Elite's voice was curiously muffled - he was subvocalizing, keeping his mandibles shut and using his mastoid pickup. Tuncer went on. Up in the top left corner of Tucker's helmet HUD, the leftmost icon on the row of squadmembers ticked from blue to green. Tucker stopped crawling and got busy. First he reached to his holstered plasma sidearm and switched it from training mode to full power. Then he toggled his Frame's shield generator to defense mode. As the charge indicator slid to the right and brightened, he pulled the magazine of training markers from his S2-AM sniper rifle, slotted a mag of genuine armor-piercing shells, and chambered a round. Satisfied that he'd completed the switch to combat mode, he tagged in, switching his own icon on the roster from blue to green. He was the fourth trooper to do so, having been slowed down slightly by the need to reload his rifle the old-fashioned way where the troopers with standard armaments only had to flick a couple of switches. "Tucker!" another voice crackled in Tucker's headset. "What's going on?" "I don't know, Caboose," Tucker replied under his breath. "I heard the same message you did." Private Dougal "Caboose" O'Malley was Tucker's spotter, and though he was decent at the job, he was personally a bit irritating. He had an unfortunate habit of asking dumb questions at bad times. Like now. At the Klingon command post, Commander Kroj vathKanlor looked over the tactical plot, then went to the window of his CP and had a look at the simulated battlefield. Not simulated for much longer, he thought to himself with a smile. said his executive officer, Sub-Commander Vargh tai-Kalek. Kroj's smile broadened, showing his sharpened teeth. Vargh nodded. Kroj's jagged grin became wider still, and nastier. He stabbed a finger down on the command post communications panel. Karg, son of Larg, had been waiting for that moment all day. As the heavy weapons specialist of Kroj's battalion, he'd had his eye on the big reptilian beast the humans called their leader since the exercise began. He'd heard the stories of the Covenant Elite's legendary resilience and battle prowess. Klingons had fought in the Covenant War, centuries before, and the stories of those glorious conflicts had come down to Karg's generation. The phrase for the beasts in the Klingonese of the period translated literally to "Boatman of the Black Fleet". As the wielder of the battalion's Mark XII heavy disruptor, the most powerful man-portable weapon in the Klingon arsenal, Karg considered it his duty and his privilege to show this "boatman" what modern Klingons thought of his kind. Now, receiving the order to commence true battle, he jacked the massive weapon's power output to maximum, raised it, and fired. The brilliant orange beam lashed out, ripping apart the very air in its path with a sound like a thunderclap, and struck the towering alien square in the back. Tuncer roared with fury as his shields went offline with a tremendous POP and sirens began sounding in his helmet. He whirled, trailing smoke from the scorched spot on his back armor, and raised his plasma rifle, but Karg's next blast tore into a Klingon light utility vehicle that was parked nearby, sending the vehicle up in a giant fireball. The shockwave slapped Tuncer down, breaking his grip on his weapon, and he vanished in the wash of flame. Shaking with laughter, Karg sprayed the area with disruptor fire, turning a significant chunk of real estate into a charred and blasted ruin. He only stopped shooting when his Mark XII overheated, a condition which automatically locked the fire control system until the coils cooled back to a safe operating temperature. Karg cried triumphantly. He was interrupted by a guttural, wrathful snarl from behind him. Whirling, he saw a sight his brain at first couldn't interpret: One of the squat, heavy-wheeled vehicles the Defense Forces had recently bought from their IPO allies - the humans called them "Warthogs", a name that didn't translate well into Klingonese - appeared to be rising unsupported into the air. Then something beneath it flickered, shimmered, and resolved itself into a distinctive blue-armored shape. With corded muscles bulging under his scaly hide, a thoroughly non-disintegrated Tuncer heaved the multi-ton utility vehicle into the air above his bullet- shaped head. His quartet of jagged-fanged mandibles swung wide open. "AaaAAaaa kapataka WAMba chaTUkaaa!" Tuncer snarled, and then, with a mighty heave, he hurled the Warthog at Karg. The Klingon snapped up his disruptor and yanked the trigger, but the weapon was still overheated and refused to fire. <... no,> Karg murmured, his mind locked in total disbelief. WHRUNCH. Pete Stacker, who had just emerged from a thicket of small trees near the burning Klingon vehicle, winced. "What's the plan?" he asked. Tuncer replied. Tuncer's alien face made the expression his squadmates had learned to recognize as his version of a sardonic little grin. "And then?" Tuncer found his plasma rifle, picked it up, checked it over, and then turned to Stacker. At that moment, Utena was taking stock of what resources she had, and not liking much of what she was seeing. The Repo Men were entangled in the woods to the southeast of the city. Jay McCandless's Red Team was somewhere in the western part of the city itself, at a Klingon Defense Forces training station. She'd heard nothing from them at all. Bastila was with the Repo Men, Anne Springsteen with the Red Team. The Repo Men had left their Napoleon mini-tank behind when they went out on maneuvers with the KDF two days before, but its commander, Chips Dubbo, was out with them. The unit's Pelican transport and its pilot, Carol "Foe-Hammer" Rowley, were present as well, but the Pelican was slow and unarmed, which made it of limited utility. As for Red Team, they'd left their Pelican too, but not its pilot. Sachiko Asaki was also a trooper - the number-three trooper in the squad - and she was in the field with the rest. All of which left Utena with relatively few assets right where she could put her hands on them. She had Carmela Sunderland, her AEGIS operative. She had herself. She had Anthy. She had her flagship overhead, being closed in on by a much larger Klingon force that was probably hostile. And that was pretty much it. Against that, she wasn't sure what she was up against yet. The Klingon Defense Forces seemed to have fragmented, with some units suddenly turning against the government with the approach of this unknown force and others still professing loyalty. With the communications network fragmented, it was hard to get even a semblance of a picture. All General Ktarl knew for sure was that the capitol garrison, all hand-picked men and women, remained loyal. There had been no announcement yet from any organized opposition. The thing was unfolding haphazardly, in a piecemeal fashion, and if there was a central force guiding events, it hadn't shown itself yet. Utena had just finished relaying that information, such as it was, by Lens to Acting Chief Steve Rogers when that part of the report became obsolete. one of Ktarl's subalterns called from the communications panel. Ktarl ordered. A moment later, the holographic projector in the center of the Klingon High Council's chamber glowed to life, and above it appeared the image of two men. One was dressed all in black, with a hooded cloak obscuring both his face and figure to the point where he was unrecognizable. The other was -instantly- recognizable, and at the sight of him Utena, the general, and the members of the Council all stiffened in sudden shock. He was big and burly even for a Klingon, and he was dressed in armor of a great and ostentatious costliness. Jeweled rings gleamed on his fingers; a large gem twinkled on a chain around his neck. His long hair was snow-white and drawn back into an impressive warrior's queue. he boomed with a broad, triumphant grin. Utena was the first to find her voice, pronouncing the man's name with a combination of shock and venom: "KLAYVOR!" --/ "I could see that it all became clear to Commodore Tenjou at that moment," Sunderland said. "I didn't have a clue myself, not having been around for the beginning of that particular drama, but she filled me in later." "Do you feel qualified to give the Council the broad strokes?" Lock inquired. Sunderland nodded. "It's reasonably simple. Klayvor vestai-Klavaar was a renegade Klingon warlord, the head of a noble house. He's the uncle of a friend of Commodore Tenjou. They once had a run-in regarding Klayvor's niece, I believe, after which Klayvor used one of his family's battlecruisers to ambush the Commodore's first command, the starship Valiant, on her maiden cruise in 2406. The Valiant's crew handed Klayvor and his house troops an embarrassing defeat and took their ship, but Klayvor disappeared. He wasn't seen again until his arrival at Qo'noS last week." "But in the interim he amassed enough of a following within the Klingon Empire's military hierarchy to seize control of a large portion of the Defense Forces - enough to launch a putsch." "Apparently so." "Thank you, Agent Sunderland. That's all I need from you at the moment." Sunderland was replaced in the witness box by a tall, broad-shouldered man with neatly trimmed dark-brown hair and a lantern jaw. He wore an immaculate black military uniform and adopted a precise parade-rest stance. "First Lieutenant John Jay McCandless, Company A, First of the Twenty-First, GENOM Seventh White Legion," he said, then lowered himself smoothly and precisely into the chair, his bearing perfectly correct, perfectly military. This was the kind of thing Lock, a military man himself after a fashion, liked to see. He smiled slightly. "Very good," he said. "Lieutenant McCandless, can you tell the Council where you were when hostilities began?" McCandless nodded. "Certainly, Master Jedi. I was in the western district of the Klingon capital, covering Jedi Knight Anne Springsteen's back while she stole a vehicle." Lock blinked. "... And why did Jedi Springsteen feel it necessary to steal a vehicle?" he asked frostily after taking a moment to collect himself. "It seemed the most expedient way of escaping from the Klingons who were trying to capture or kill us," McCandless said. "We were off-duty at the time. The rest of my squad was within a KDF training compound on a rest cycle; they were captured easily." "But you and Jedi Springsteen were not." "No, sir. We were at liberty in the city proper." "If your entire squad was available, why were they not with you?" Lock asked. McCandless arched an eyebrow slightly. "Respectfully, Master Jedi, do you take the rest of the Council with you when you buy a girl lunch?" Zaerdra Kinshasa didn't even bother stifling a laugh, drawing an instant's glare from Lock. /-- "I'll say this for you, Jay," Anne Springsteen observed wryly as she worked at overriding the garbage truck's control system while disruptor fire thudded and zorched into the metal of the compactor bay behind the cab. "You're never dull to be around." McCandless laughed, though the mirth was a bit forced. Per regulations, since he was off-duty and not in an area designated a combat or militarized zone, McCandless was wearing his class-B uniform, not his White Legion armor. The black duty uniform of a Legion officer incorporated a microweave that made it more durable than it looked, but it was no impervium bodyshell. It didn't have a carbine holster, either, so the only weapon he had was his standard-issue officer's sidearm, a KYD-21 blaster pistol, complete with the muzzle brake that made it sound just like a TIE cannon. Not anywhere near as powerful, though, alas. The stormtrooper lieutenant caught movement in the side mirror. Twisting his body, he leaned out of the passenger window of the truck, facing backward, and pegged the Klingon who had started edging around the end of the compactor. The man staggered, his armor having absorbed part of the blast, and McCandless shot him again. A second later, Anne got the truck started and they were off. McCandless laid down some covering fire as more Klingon troopers came into view, falling behind the truck, but he didn't think he hit any of them. He slid back through the window and into his seat, checking the blaster's charge level, and was just about to remark on the situation when they passed under an overpass and he heard a heavy THUD on the roof of the cab. "Hear that?" he asked. Anne nodded, jamming the wheel hard over and working the thruster pedals to slew the heavy truck around a corner and onto a distressingly narrow side street. "Sounds like we've got a passenger," she said. A second later, a disruptor blast sheared through the thin metal of the cab roof and punched down through the floor, narrowly missing McCandless's shoulder. He considered returning fire, but wasn't all that keen on firing blind in a built-up area. Presumably there were -some- Klingons around here who hadn't just inexplicably turned against them, and it wouldn't do to go shooting up the whole town. Anne took the problem out of his hands by drawing her lightsaber, flipping it upright, igniting it, and then shoving it through the ceiling. The thrust drew a cry of pain from above, and then McCandless saw a Klingon soldier fall from the truck to land heavily in the street. A moment later, a severed hand tumbled down the windshield, rolled across the hood, and disappeared in the slipstream. "Good aim," McCandless remarked as the Jedi put her lightsaber away. Anne shrugged. "Lucky guess," she said, then kicked down some counter-thruster and pivoted the truck like a racing hovercraft. The massive vehicle skidded sideways down a permacrete embankment and onto an expressway, much to the consternation of the traffic already on that road. "We've got to get back to the base as soon as we can," McCandless said, scanning the mirror for pursuit. "God only knows what kind of mess Julius is making as we speak." As it happened, Julius Van der Groot, McCandless's top sergeant, wasn't making a mess at the moment. He wasn't really in a position to do so, on the face of it, since he was strapped quite immobile to a torture device. After throwing the rest of the Red Team's members into cells in the training compound's brig, the Klingons who had seized control of the facility took Van der Groot out of his to the interrogation room and strapped him to a device whose name loosely translated, if his Klingonese were up to the task, as "the agonizer table". This was a sort of rotating pallet that could, with the simple movement of a lever, be turned to bring more or less of the front of the victim's body in contact with a large array of energized probes and needles. The device worked by using phased energy to stimulate nerve endings directly, so it left no outward damage. Van der Groot could almost have admired its elegance if he hadn't been busy being subjected to its effects. The Klingons were apparently doing this just for fun. No one had asked him a single question in the hour or so it had been going on. They just tipped him this way and that, zapped him over and over with different sections of the probe array, occasionally slapped him around a bit for a change of pace, and laughed. It seemed to be grand sport to them. Well, that was all right. He was a Dutch Valerian, a native of a colony whose gravity was nearly three and a half times that of Earth, and he could handle punishment. Better they'd decided to put the big guy on the rack and see if they could break him, rather than turn their attention to one of his squadmates. All the members of the team were necessarily tough - one didn't get to be a trooper in an elite special action force of the White Legion by being weak - but the others didn't have the same amount of mass to work with. Besides, if they were really torturing him just for the fun of it, that was fair. He did, after all, intend to smash their heads together just for the fun of it once he got loose. From his elevated command post, Kroj vathKanlor looked out over the tiny swarm of human IPO troopers trying to escape the exercise area and sneered. He turned to Vargh and pointed, laughing derisively. he said. Vargh made a noncommittal noise. the smaller Klingon replied, Kroj nodded, rubbing his hands together gleefully. In the corner of the command post, two of Kroj's subordinates glanced at each other in surprise. one asked the other, who shrugged. Private Leonard L. Church, deceased, cleared his borrowed throat quickly. Most of the time, he sounded really strange when he possessed someone - sort of pinched, or squeaky - and they always made that weird noise when he jumped in. He couldn't mess this one up. Tucker was counting on him to lure some of these guys out of cover. And besides, he was a -Klingon-. This was -way- cooler than the time Stacker had needed him to possesss a Gungan. Tucker would probably wet himself if he could see Church from here. He flexed for a second and turned back to the other Klingon. "The fuck is he DOING?!" Tucker said, peering into the scope of his S2-AM sniper rifle. "He's up there doing some kind of Klingon beefcake shit when we're supposed to be killing people. Christ." Caboose O'Malley shrugged. "Maybe he's having a problem possessing the guy," he offered. "I mean, has he ever, you know, done that to a Klingon before?" "I don't know," Tucker admitted. "Guess we stay here until he gets back and see what happens. I'll take any shot he can give me." Caboose settled back against the trunk of the tree they were perched in and went back to carving his initials in the branch with his Ka-Bar. "Hey, Tucker," he said suddenly, as if he'd just had a great idea. "Tucker! Tucker, hey, Tucker, Tucker." "-What-," Tucker growled. "You got anything to eat?" Tucker sighed and leaned over the rifle again. Vargh tai-Kalek was an ambitious man, but replacing Kroj vathKanlor after the latter had ignominously choked on the field of battle was not what he had had in mind for his own ascension to power. He contrived to look concerned and punched Kroj in the arm. he asked. Church turned, cleared his throat again - the rumbly sensation was sort of interesting - and hoped to God he didn't fuck up. Kroj roared. Vargh blanched. he lied smoothly. Kroj demanded. Vargh eyed him warily. he replied. Kroj said dismissively, waving a hand. "Tucker?" Caboose asked. "What?" Tucker replied, adjusting the rifle. "Can I, you know... ?" the other Repo Man asked. "NO, Caboose, you -can't- be the sniper this time," Tucker said exasperatedly. "Last time, you killed Church. Again." "But that was the mission!" Caboose protested. "Next time?" "Sure, sure," Tucker mumbled, lining up a shot on the smaller Klingon. "That's it, Church, draw him a out a little more... " "Tucker?" Caboose asked after a moment. "What!" Tucker snapped. "... how do you know which one's Church?" Caboose asked. "I mean, they both look like Klingons, how do you know which one is really Church?" Tucker turned to the younger Marine and replied with some asperity, "Caboose? When you get me get killed someday, which I have no doubt whatsoever that you will? I am going to HAUNT your noob ass. And when I do - when your ass is haunted like MINE is - you will know EXACTLY howIknowWHICHONE'SCHURCH. OK?! Now fucking let me take my SHOT already! Christ." Caboose relented. Tucker sighted on the smaller Klingon and tightened his finger on the trigger. Vargh pondered his commander's increasingly erratic behavior. It was said - by the rank and file, of course, merely a trooper's superstition - that those marked for the Black Fleet were taken by battle madness in their last stands, the better to slaughter the enemy and arrive in Sto-Vo-Kor covered in glory. As a rational man, Vargh doubted such tales; however, Kroj's erratic behavior and strange, bestial noises were not precisely reassuring to his rational mind. In addition, Lord Klayvor disliked treachery in his ranks - but he disliked incompetence even more. Vargh pondered that. Treachery. It was one thing to fell one's commander in cold blood upon his field of battle... ... but quite another to arrange a convenient accident in the heat of war. He sidled behind Kroj and drew his d'k tagh silently. "Well, FUCK," Tucker expostulated. "What?" Caboose said, swinging his legs from the branch gently. "What what? What?" "I'm gonna have to shoot Church," Tucker said, the way a normal person might have said, "I'm gonna have to take the expressway." "So?" Caboose wondered. "Not like you haven't done THAT before." "I didn't shoot him before," Tucker said testily. "I blew him up with a grenade." "Oh," Caboose said. "Uh, yeah, I can see where that'd make a huge philosophical difference. Do you want me to do it? I don't have any ethical problems with killing someone who's already dead." "Shut the fuck up, Caboose," Tucker replied. So saying, he turned back to the rifle and put a round neatly through Kroj vathKanlor's head. Vargh might have expected his commander - enraged by battle madness as he was, and not in control of his faculties, after all - to turn and destroy him for his betrayal. He certainly did not expect Kroj to fall backwards upon him, pinning him beneath the full dead weight of a Klingon warrior. He struggled to force the d'k tagh back into his belt, lest anyone find him in such a compromising position. he ventured. Tucker's next shot silenced the second Klingon's confusion, but after that things got a bit hectic. The other Klingons in Kroj's command staff, looking around in puzzlement after their commander's fall, saw the contrail from the shot that downed their deputy commander, and shouts and disruptor fire started following its vector back toward Tucker and Caboose. "Shit," Tucker growled. He slapped the S2AM's bipod against its barrel shroud and slung the sniper rifle on his back. It was a hell of a weapon, but it did have that one unfortunate feature that the engineers had never quite cracked. "Think they made us?" Caboose asked. A moment later, a disruptor blast ripped through the foliage of the tree, shearing away a thick branch right over the trooper's head. "No," Tucker replied sarcastically. "I figure they just really hate this tree. Come on, let's get out of here!" As he and Caboose beat it through the underbrush away from the enraged Klingon squad, Tucker heard a crackle in his earset and then the voice of Church, speaking with exaggerated patience. "Tucker," the dead man said, "I realize tactics were never your strong suit, so I'm gonna explain this again, slowly. You. Are. Supposed. To. Kill. The. KLINGONS." "Well, then next time how about you actually draw one into my line of fire?" Tucker shot back, crashing through a bush with thorns the size of daggers. Wouldn't want to try -that- without a Frame, he thought offhandedly; man, even the PLANTS on this planet are hostile. "I had the shorter guy cold until you freaking turned -around- and -got in front of him-," he continued. "I was -trying- to lead him out into the open. Figure a few of them would have followed him, you could have set up a domino shot!" "He was about to stab you in the -back-, Church!" Tucker said. "What the fuck did you SAY to him, anyway? I think it's safe to say you blew your cover, anyway." "How am I supposed to know?" Church replied. "I thought I was telling him to follow me, we'd flank the humans and wipe them out, but this language thing isn't an exact science, you know? I sure as hell didn't say 'Iiii am the ghoooost of Chuuuuurch! Follow meeee so my teeeeamkilling buddy can bloooow your head off along with miiiiine!'" "Hey, lay off that teamkilling stuff, man," said Tucker. "I'm telling you, Tucker, your squaddie nickname oughta be 'Own-Goal'," Church continued remorselessly. "It goes well with 'Wrong-Way' and 'Two-Backs'." "Hey, Tucker!" said Caboose eagerly as he thrashed through the underbrush alongside the haunted trooper. "Is that Church you're talking to?" "No, Caboose," Tucker snapped, elbowing down a small tree in his path rather than detouring around it. "It's my own fucking id." "Oh. Well, tell it I said hi," Caboose said cheerily. Back at the Capitol, the news for Utena Tenjou was going from bad to worse. [The enemy fleet is nearly in blockade position, and they're calling on us to surrender,] Lore reported over the Lens. [We're going to have to get out of here within the next ten minutes or we're going to find ourselves very, very outnumbered. Recommend you assemble what personnel you can and use the Pelicans to evacuate.] [I'm not going to abandon the Red Team and the Repo Men, Lore, not to mention our Klingon allies,] Utena replied. [Commodore, I love a good scrap as much as the next android, but with all due respect, this situation is -hopeless-.] [Maybe it is up there, but down here I think we've got enough to put up a decent fight.] [Only until they vaporize you from orbit,] Lore pointed out. [I don't think that's likely. Their ground forces have nuclear weapons. We'd already be plasma if they wanted to go that route.] [You're betting a lot on that hunch,] Lore noted, his mental voice carrying a note of something like admiration. Utena chuckled. [I always do. Listen, here's what you do. Get out of here while you still can. Get the ship to Babylon 6 and report in. I'll get Captain Rogers on the Lens as soon as we're done talking and update him as to what's going on. Stand by and wait for my signal.] [Your signal to -what-?] Lore asked. [Either to come and get us... or not to bother.] There was a long pause. [I hope you know what you're doing, Commodore.] [Me too, Lore. Now get going! Even Challenger can't take on a force like Klayvor's. Get Lu to start pulling together as much of the fleet as she can muster at B6. You might need them later.] [Aye aye, Commodore. Breaking orbit now.] Another, shorter pause, and then Lore's voice came back in a less businesslike tone: [Good luck, Utena.] [Thanks. We're gonna need it.] On a side street in the west end of town, a group of heavily armed Klingon troopers prowled restlessly, poking into trash barrels, peering into Dumpsters, and thrusting their weapons into anything they thought might hide their quarry. They were growing frustrated. It was a simple assignment and they'd managed to bungle it somehow. How do two Earthpeople elude a squad of Klingon soldiers in the heart of the Klingon capital itself? It's not like they could blend in with the populace. With this heartening thought in mind, they kept looking, slowly widening their search radius around the abandoned garbage truck. Behind them, Jay McCandless chinned himself on slimy concrete and watched them go through the slot in a curbside storm drain, then let himself carefully down. "OK," he murmured to his companion. "They're gone." Anne Springsteen nodded and consulted the holographic display of a pocket computer. "If this is a coup," she observed, "it's not a very organized one. They haven't even shut down the city's navigational assistance computer." "They'll think of it before too much longer," McCandless said. "Too late now," Anne said with a wry little smile. "I've saved the map to local memory." She looked at the display for a moment, turned it so McCandless could see it, then switched the device off and put it away. Without another word, the two started making their way through the storm sewers - back toward the KDF training compound. Back at that compound, Julius Van der Groot had just about had enough. He was catching a glimpse of the post commander's wrist chron every time the Klingon smacked him in the face. From those glimpses, he calculated that roughly two and a half hours had passed since the Klingon security officers had rousted everyone in Red Team out of their guest quarters and thrown them in the brig. That was time enough for the guards to get settled back into their routines. It was time to leave. The next time the Klingon headman brought Van der Groot's chest down on the array of agonizer probes, the big Dutchman did something he hadn't done once throughout the two hours of torture preceding: He screamed. The four Klingons in the interrogation room with him took great satisfaction in that. Most offworlders put on the agonizer table screamed immediately, and even Klingon warriors usually cracked after an hour or so. They had to admit a sort of grudging respect for this beefy human's resolve - but that was over now, and it was all downhill from here. Van der Groot wasn't screaming because of the pain from the torture device, though. He was screaming because it was a way for him to focus his mind and body for the task that lay ahead. At the touch of the agonizers, every muscle in his huge body went fully tense, as hard as iron, all pulling at their anchorages to his super-dense bones. The exertion lit his whole body up with a radiance of pain that made the simple skin-scorching sensation of the agonizer seem like a mild itch. A normal man - even a normal Valerian - couldn't push himself like this, thanks to ancient reflexes that prevented people from putting such dangerous strain on their bodies. Some clever Valerians, though, had noticed that their genetically engineered bodies were actually much more durable than those ancient human-calibrated self-preservation reflexes thought they were. In the twenty-second century, they developed a mental discipline for overriding those reflexes and tapping into some of that reserve capacity. It's a dangerous trick - the band between the upper bound of the reflexive inhibition and the point where actual injury awaits is finite - but with sufficient resolve, it can be done. Van der Groot was trained in this Valerian art, known as lichaams beheersing - literally, "body mastery". With concentration, he could ask things of his body that few others could do, and get away with them thanks to the incredible resilience of his superbly conditioned heavy-gravity physique. The first sign the Klingons had that anything was going wrong was when the frame of the agonizer table began making a deep metallic creaking sound. The straps holding the Dutchman's wrists, ankles, and midsection to the frame weren't going to give way - they were molecularly aligned ultrapolymer, with a breaking tension of something over a hundred tons. Straps of the same material were commonly used to hoist parts for armored vehicles and Destroids into position. The table's frame, however, was made from welded steel square tubing - and under the incredible strain being placed on them by Van der Groot's muscles, the welds were failing. By the time the Klingons figured out what was happening, the table frame had radically deformed. A moment later it disintegrated altogether, wrenched apart into a collection of unconnected, mangled metal tubes. Van der Groot dropped free, already twisting his body so that he wouldn't fall with his full weight onto the agonizer grid itself. By the time he hit the floor he was already springing up with a speed and sureness that were visually at odds with his enormous bulk. The Klingons snarled challenges and drew weapons. Two had those spade-pointed daggers of which Klingons were so fond; the other two had pistol disruptors. Van der Groot whirled, using a chunk of table frame still strapped to his wrist to extend his reach, and smacked one of the disruptor-wielders across the temple. The blow sent the man reeling and caused him to drop his weapon. One of the knife-wielders lunged. Van der Groot let him come, slipped aside from the blow, grabbed the man's shoulder in one dinner-plate-sized hand, and flung him toward the second disruptor- wielding guard - the one who had been operating the agonizer table - just as he fired. The flying Klingon intercepted the blast and disintegrated. Roaring with rage, the second man with a knife closed in. This one was more cautious, trying for sweeping slashes instead of lunging in for a thrusting attack. Van der Groot avoided the first two attempts, caught the third on his segment of pipe, twisted the man's blade out of position, and punched him in the face, feeling bones crackle and pop under his fist. The force of the blow drove the Klingon over backward. He crashed down on the agonizer grid, then screamed as its still-active probes energized his entire metal bodysuit with their painful energies. Van der Groot seized him by the breastplate, unmindful of the fact that this sent another jolt of the agonizer's fire through his hand and arm, then lifted the man off the grid, spun, and hurled him across the room. He crashed face-first into the tempered-glass front of a case full of truth drugs, creating a spiderweb of cracks in the wire-reinforced window, then slid bloodily down to the floor and lay still. The still-standing chief torturer grinned ferociously and leveled his disruptor. Van der Groot grinned right back, as if daring him to shoot. The Klingon did, but by the time he finished squeezing the trigger, the Dutchman had thrown himself down and forward in a flying tackle. The orange disruptor beam flashed over his broad back and carved a glowing arc in the far wall before Van der Groot hit the Klingon low and hard, bowling him over backward to the floor. Somehow, the headman had kept his grip on his weapon. Snarling, he twisted in Van der Groot's grip and thrust the disruptor into the Dutchman's face. Van der Groot reached up, closed his left hand around the weapon and the Klingon's right, and crushed them. Then he straightened up, carrying the Klingon with him like a rag doll, turned, and shoved the man's face square into the disruptor grid. "Hurts! Doesn't it!" Van der Groot remarked cheerfully as the chief torturer yelled and twitched. To the right, the Klingon he'd clobbered with the pipe got back to his feet. He couldn't find his pistol, so he drew his knife and lunged in to take care of business while the towering Dutchman was amusing himself with the headman. Van der Groot saw him coming out of the corner of his eye, took a half-step back, and let the Klingon soldier stab his own commander in the gut. Then he grabbed the shocked trooper by the collar, slammed the two Klingons' heads together, and let them both fall from his hands like wet towels. Moving briskly but not hurriedly, Van der Groot freed himself from the restraints and discarded the broken frame segments that had festooned his body throughout the brief fight. Then he bent and checked the commander's chronometer again before swiping his security pass and leaving the interrogation room. By this time, as Van der Groot had expected, the other members of Red Team had made good their own escapes from their particular confinements and into the base at large. Each employed his or her own particular strategy, and each was successful. Sachiko Asaki took the time-honored "taunt your guard until he comes into your cell to teach you a lesson" tack, which worked especially well for her in these circumstances since she was small, human, female, and a master of kempo. The squad's other female member, scout trooper Grace Waldron, had opted for the "feigned seduction" technique. Her squadmates were always amazed when Waldron could pull something like that off, since she was as wiry as a bicycle frame and as plain as a one-credit coin; hardly the picture of a voluptuous seductress. On-duty or off, feigned or serious, her approach usually worked anyway. It even worked across some species barriers, as today. L0-P3Z, the squad's military interpreter droid, had been hauled off to the station's droid recycling facility by the Klingons, who took him for a simple army talkdroid like the Cybot Galactica M-series. Once there, Lopez - who was in fact a fully capable battle droid who happened to have linguistic-aid capabilities as well - activated his backup power supply, incapacitated the droid techs who were trying to dismantle him, and made for the brig armory, where the Klingons had stored all the squad's weapons and equipment. Dexter Grif, Dick Simmons, and Frank Donut distracted the other guards' attention from what Asaki and Waldron were up to by staging a towering row that eventually made the gleeful Klingons release them all into a common cell in hopes of seeing a fight. By then the two women were loose and Lopez had looted the brig armory, though Grif and Simmons were tempted to fight anyway just for the hell of it. While all that was going on, sniper Doug Berry did what he always did in situations like this - sat back, relaxed, and waited for Waldron to spring him. She was the squad scout trooper and thus his spotter. As far as Berry was concerned, that was part of her job. Shortly thereafter, Van der Groot emerged from the interrogation wing to find that they'd all gotten loose and mopped up the cellblock's guards. Waldron took her gear and went to look around while the rest suited up. They were just about ready when she returned and reported, "Lieutenant McCandless and the Jedi aren't in this block. If the Klingons have them, they're being held somewhere else." "Didn't they have a lunch date in town?" Donut asked. "Oh, right," Waldron said. "No doubt the Klingons sent out people to bring them in, though." "They'd never catch those two," Simmons said. "I'll bet they're miles away by now." Just as Simmons finished, the ceiling vent above the formation crashed down with Jay McCandless riding on top of it. The squadleader straightened up, dusting debris from his uniform, and grinned at his troops as Anne Springsteen dropped lightly down from the vent behind him. "What, and leave you guys unsupervised?" McCandless asked. "Who's got my armor?" Once McCandless had his gear back (bidding a sad farewell to his much-abused class-Bs, which were deemed unsalvageable), he put aside the jovial banter and got serious. His squad was, after all, at large in the middle of a hostile military establishment. "Communications are out except for extreme short range," Asaki reported. "All right. We can assume that Commodore Tenjou is still at the capitol, either as a prisoner or helping to lead the resistance," McCandless said. "We'll make for the city center and try to assist her, whichever way it's gone. 621, 1049, find us some transport." /* Overseer "Stompbox" _Wreckage_ */ They made for a sight that the residents of the districts to the immediate southeast of the Capitol Plaza would remember for quite some time to come. It was one of the most memorable sights of that entire unforgettable weekend: a single Targ-class heavy anti-gravity tank, racing through the streets of the capital at top speed with a group of blue-armored humans, a woman in brown robes, and a hulking reptilian alien clinging to its upper hull and turret, pursued by a company of Klingon soldiers in hoverjeeps and troop transports. At the helm of the tank, Pete Stacker struggled with the unfamiliar controls and cursed creatively, heaving the sixty-ton vehicle around corners and up side lanes at speeds entirely unfeasible for such a monstrous ride. Up on the hull, the rest of the Repo Men had the magnetic plates in their bootsoles energized and braced themselves with handholds as they exchanged fire with their Klingon pursuers. "Oi! Bastila!" Chips Dubbo called to the squad's Jedi liaison, who was up on the turret providing cover for Tuncer with her lightsaber. The Elite's shields hadn't recovered from the beating they took at the hands of Karg and his Mark XII, leaving him especially vulnerable to the Klingons' shots, but he was still up there hurling defiance and plasma fire at them. "What?" Bastila said. "Are we 'avin' fun yet?" Dubbo asked with a grin as he tried to draw a bead on the driver of one of the troop transports with his plasma rifle. "No, Corporal, we are not," Bastila replied tartly. "Oh, come on, luv," Dubbo said affably, pegging a couple of shots at the enemy driver and missing. "By Repo Men standards, this's a fine day out!" "I hardly call being pursued through the streets of an alien city by hostile soldiers a fine day out!" Bastila snapped, deflecting disruptor fire away from herself and Tuncer with spinning sweeps of her double lightsaber. Around them on the tank, the other Repo Men grinned at the conversation. Dubbo and Bastila had been at this for almost three months, ever since Operation Counterweight started back in August. The laid-back, no-worries Australian had set his cap for the team's tightly-wound Jedi liaison almost from the moment they were introduced, and her reactions to his light banter had amused the squad for all the time since - especially on the rare but slowly more frequent occasions when she unwound enough to give a bit of it back instead of just getting stiffly disapproving. "Aw, that's just because you haven't been with us long enough. Stick with me, luv, you'll get to like it. Right, men?" "OO-rah!" the Repo Men chorused. "Oh, that's rich," Bastila said. "Charles Augustus Dubbo, if you think for a -moment- that I intend to 'stick with' you for an -instant- longer than my current assignment requires it, you - what?" The last part wasn't actually a comment to Dubbo, but rather a reaction to the fact that while she was chewing him out, a small electronic device attached to a dart had whipped through her guard and stuck to the front of her Jedi robes. She glanced down at it, reached to pull it off, but before she could get hold of it, she disappeared in a sizzling wash of orange light, vanishing completely in the space of a couple of seconds. Dubbo blinked, then turned to look in the direction the dart had come from. If it had been fired by one of the Klingons in the leading troop transport - the most likely possibility - he couldn't tell which. None of them seemed to have the kind of weapon that could have thrown something like that, but then again, with Dubbo's platform and theirs both moving at upward of 60 miles per hour and maneuvering violently through the streets, it wasn't like they were all in parade formation for him to check out their gear. His face going brick-red with anger, Dubbo half-rose from his crouch by the tank's turret and yelled, "Son of a - HEY! WHAT THE HELL DID YOU BASTARDS DO?!" "What's going on back there?" Stacker's voice demanded in his commset. "The bad guys got Bastila!" Mendoza reported. "'Got' her? She's hit?" "No, sir!" Mendoza said. "She's been captured." "Dubbo, you disorganized, grabasstic sack of shit!" Stacker said. "How in the hell did you manage to LOSE our JEDI?" "I didn't LOSE 'er, Sarge!" Dubbo roared, blazing away at the Klingons with his plasma rifle. "The sonsabitches TAGGED 'er!" "Christ," Stacker grumbled. "Everybody double-check your transport barriers. I don't want anybody -else- getting quick-beamed to some Klingon dungeon." Dubbo fired until his plasma rifle, a design extrapolated from the main Covenant weapon of the byegone war, overheated. When it did, he yanked his hand away from the forestock and cursed as its cowling popped open and vented steam. "What about Bastila?" he asked. Tuncer growled. "Let's be realistic, sir," Stacker interjected. "We're outnumbered a zillion to one on a planet that just turned hostile. Once we're bottled up in that capitol building, we're ALL gonna need a rescue!" Tuncer replied. "I'm not sure that meant what you wanted it to mean, sir," Stacker said dubiously. Tuncer just chuckled, raised himself up straighter, and thumbed his plasma sidearm into overcharge mode. "REEpoman bakado kinjai INTO watabo WURTwurtWURT!" he roared, then launched the forced overload in a single blast at one of the pursuing hoverjeeps. The vehicle's engine compartment flew apart; the jeep flipped nose-first, flinging its passengers in all directions, and plowed into the street. "REPO MEN!" the others cried, picking up their rate of fire. --/ "At the time, did anyone know what had become of Bastila?" Lock asked the Repo Man now on the stand. "No, sir," Private Adrian Mendoza replied, shaking his head. "We knew she'd been tagged with a transponder and beamed away by the enemy, but not where they'd taken her or why." "I see. And once you reached the Capitol, what happened?" "We were boxed in. The rebel forces laid siege to the capitol plaza. Kronos City has a, whaddaya call it, acropolis in the center, with all the government buildings on top. The Klingon rebels surrounded it. Hell, we barely got up there before they cut the road. We had to slug it out all the way up the hill. That's when Caboose got it." "You're referring to Private O'Malley?" "Right. He got a pretty bad burn from a disruptor just as we were abandoning the tank at the front gate. Stayed in the line until we got out of there, though. He's still in sick bay, but they say he'll be OK." "How fortunate," Lock said dryly. "That's all, thank you." Mendoza stepped down and was replaced by Sgt. Sachiko Asaki, the number-three trooper in Jay McCandless's special squad. "I believe Lt. McCandless's team arrived at the Capitol shortly after Captain Tuncer's group?" Lock asked her. "Right. The Repo Men covered us on our entry. Got their minitank shot up pretty bad in the process, but nobody else was hurt." "What did Commodore Tenjou do when she was informed that Jedi Shan had been captured?" "She asked Anne if she could locate Bastila. That didn't work - too much background noise from the civil war, I suppose - " "We'll ask her about that when it's her turn to speak," Lock cut in. "Just tell us what you observed." Asaki looked mildly annoyed, but continued, "Well, then she wondered what Klayvor wanted with a Jedi captive. Anne, the commodore, and a couple of the others talked about it for a while and decided to wait and see whether Klayvor mentioned that he had her the next time he called. He liked to gloat, so it seemed likely he would, and Commodore Tenjou was hoping he'd tip his hand in the process." "And that was all? No rescue operation? Not even a plan for one?" "It's hard to rescue someone when you don't have the faintest idea where she is," Asaki pointed out. "We needed a clue, and the only person who could provide it was Klayvor." Lock folded his hands behind his back. "I see. What else did she do at this point?" "There wasn't much anyone could do," Asaki said. "She helped General Ktarl and his staff as much as they'd have it." "As much as they'd -have- it?" "Klingons are a proud people, Master Lock. Ktarl had lost tremendous face by having three-quarters of his army mutiny on him and take the other quarter prisoner. He wasn't in a position to accept a lot of help from outsiders." Asaki shrugged. "Under Commodore Tenjou's overall command, we offered ourselves as forces to be used in his defense of the Capitol, but he wasn't about to have her or Tuncer telling him how to mount that defense." "I see. So what -did- she do?" "She apprised Acting Chief Rogers of the situation by Lens and asked him to send whatever backup he could arrange, if any could be got through the Klingon space blockade. He told her to sit tight, help was on the way - a little at first and then a lot later." "And?" "And we sat tight," Asaki said flatly. "Nothing much happened for the rest of that day and into Thursday. Klayvor's forces made sure they had a good firm hold on the rest of the planet before they tried to do anything about us." "Did you get the backup Chief Rogers promised you?" Lock asked. Asaki smiled. "You could say that." /-- THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2409 10:29 AM "I just hate all this waiting around," Sachiko Asaki said. "The rebels obviously need to take or kill the High Council in order to complete their takeover. What are they waiting for?" Pete Stacker nodded sympathetically. "Wish I knew," he said. "The boss Klingon's probably working on his speech. Ah, well. At least they're not shelling us." He chuckled. "My first incoming, on Kletavu, there were these three bunks, and I asked one of the guys - I'd just sat down! - I asked them how they could tell the difference between incoming and outgoing... " "Hey, what's that?" Asaki interrupted, pointing up at an indistinct streak of light in the sky. Stacker grabbed his binoculars and looked in the indicated direction. "Moving too fast to get a fix on," he grunted. "Me and my big mouth. REPO MEN! INCOMING!" The Repo Men exploded into action, readying their weapons and taking cover where possible. Asaki's shout to McCandless's men prodded them into a similar flurry of movement. The stripe of fire in the sky was becoming more apparent by the moment, its course bringing it ever closer to the courtyard. "Doubt that's a friendly, amigo," Mendoza noted to Tucker. "Oh, right, Mendoza," Tucker replied. "Here we are in the middle of a civil war on Klingon territory, and that's going to be the Good Guys' Welcome Wag - " Anything else Tucker might have said was lost in a deafening howl of metal and a sudden wave of heat that staggered the assembled troopers. A white-hot ball of light resolved from the streak, angling downward to the courtyard in uncontrolled freefall. "COVER!" Stacker bawled over the clamor. The object smashed into the pavement in the center of the courtyard. The shockwave from the impact knocked Asaki off her feet and into Caboose O'Malley, who valiantly attempted to right her before Stacker knocked them both to the ground. Debris rippled up around them; the dark bricks of the courtyard became lethal projectiles, embedding themselves in the black front of the Capitol building. All the windows facing the courtyard burst and rained down to ground level. A long moment passed before anyone managed to struggle upright, but unsurprisingly, Van Der Groot was the first. He took off at a run toward the object, rifle at the ready. Berry, Stacker, Asaki, and Dubbo followed hard on his heels. "Now," Asaki said dryly, "I understand the difference between incoming and outgoing." "Madre," Mendoza observed, spitting up gravel. "Let's rock, compadres." The clearing dust and smoke revealed the object to be a metallic cylinder about ten feet in diameter and twenty feet long, buried several feet into the surface of the plaza. It was still sizzling and steaming, throwing off heat like an opened oven door, when the assembled Red and Blue forces came to a halt before it. Utena, Anthy, and Anne, who had come pelting out of the building at the sound of the crash, got there first; they were standing back a safe distance, looking confused. "Sensors don't report anything explosive, Commodore," Asaki said, saluting absentmindedly with the hand that wasn't holding a tricorder. "It's some kind of exotic alloy... cooling rapidly. I've got life signs inside! One Salusian, I -think-... a Kilrathi... two humans... " She blinked, looked more closely, and blinked again. "...and, uh, a dog, ma'am. At least, I think it's a dog." Utena blinked. "What the hell?" she said under her breath. "Did Lore send me Wolfgang to keep my feet warm?" "Doesn't look like a Klingon device," Anne observed. "They tend a little more baroque, generally. A dog, though?" "Spread out, Repo Men," Stacker barked. "I want every weapon in this outfit trained on that capsule. Nothing's getting out of there until we say so." The Jedi, the assembled combat troops, and the Cephireans waited in a tense silence. The capsule continued to ping softly as it cooled. After a minute or two, Utena stepped forward and used the edge of her jacket to shield her hand as she touched the side of it. To her surprise, she found it already cool enough to touch. Feeling slightly foolish, she rapped gently on the exterior. "Anyone home?" she called. "Hello?" The cylindrical capsule had come to rest mostly upright, leaning over at a jaunty angle. As the troopers and others watched it warily, the flat top suddenly stirred, then started to unscrew like the top of a Thermos bottle. After a few slow, grinding turns, it came away, hefted as though it were a styrofoam prop by a pair of green-armored arms. A small "wurf!" echoed out of the interior of the craft. Utena blinked. The arms tossed the hatch casually aside, and then their owner climbed up to the edge of the opening and jumped down. Utena took a step backward in surprise. There was only one soldier in the universe who showed up for missions clad entirely in green Salusian MJOLNIR Mk. V battle armor, and no one present could fail to recognize him. He introduced himself anyway, with a crisp salute. "Master Chief Petty Officer John Spartan, Royal Salusian Navy, ma'am," the Master Chief said. "Captain Rogers sends his regards, and a few reinforcements. I have a note for you from Professor Ravenhair." He produced a small envelope and handed it to Utena. She opened it and withdrew a card in Skuld's ornately angular handwriting: Utena - Thought you'd appreciate this. My best new trick. It took years to develop and cost a fortune; fortunately, your father had both. I call it the Martian Cannonball! - S.R. Utena threw her head back and laughed. "Well, all right then, Master Chief," she said. "And your troops?" "Come on out, team," the Chief said, turning to the capsule. First out of the gate was a bald, shades-wearing human in a disreputable sheepskin bomber jacket over a black battlesuit that looked like an earlier model of the Repo Men's armor. He carried a helmet, a shotgun, and a satchel of gear, all of which he tossed over the side of the cylinder to the ground. Utena recognized him from the IPO personnel files: Lensman Xander Cage of the CID, a former TacDiv Marine and general hellraiser. Utena seemed to recall he was also a friend of her regular crew's CID agents, Janice Barlow and Neal Krummell. "WOO!" Cage yelled, raising both fists to the sky, standing about waist-high out of the top of the cylinder. "That was all RIGHT!" Leaning down to address someone else still inside, he called, "Geek! You still alive or what?" "I think so," another voice replied. "When are you gonna come across with the Kilrathi Snack you promised?" "Later," Cage said, his broad grin widening. He raised his fists again and addressed the sky: "WOO! Thank you, Dr. Ravenhair!" Then he put a hand on the edge of the cylinder, vaulted over it, and sauntered toward the observers. He stopped and saluted Utena with a grin. "I owe you twice, lady - once for gettin' me out of cleaning the house this weekend, and once for settin' me up for that ride," he said. Utena laughed. "On the whole, I'd rather be cleaning my house, but whatever works for you. Nice to finally meet you. One of these days you'll have to show me how to do that dirt bike barrel roll thing you do." "I'll trade you for some'a that swordfighting shit you do," Cage replied. "I had a mission last fall on Nueva Castilia? Damn near got myself skewered trying to fight off these three guys with a fireplace poker." Utena grinned. "We get out of this alive," she said, "I'll see what I can do." X gave her a nod and turned to the troopers. "Every time I think I got out," he said wryly. "See my boys are all here." The Repo Men crowded around Cage and pounded him on the back. From the chorus of "OO-RAH!" and "X, you old bastard," Utena figured they had history. She let him be carried aside by the fan club and turned back to the capsule. The next occupant had a bit of trouble extricating himself from the small hatch, due to his sheer size. He was an Imperial Kilrathi, burly and tiger-striped, carrying what appeared to be an ExoSal sniper rifle on his back. In addition, he was generally loaded for bear beneath his impressive black drover coat. A small, squarish, blue-lit camera drone wobbled out of the hatch after him. The Kilrathi presented himself to Utena with a bow and shook her hand professionally. "Chad Collier, ma'am," he said. "Pleased to meet you." "Ah," said the camera unit. "tenjou@nit.edu.td. A distinct pleasure to meet you at last. I am 343 Guilty Spark, monitor of the Xander Zone. I trust you enjoyed 'BASEing Blood Gulch'?" "Yep - though to tell you the truth, it was a little flat after 'X Marks the Spot'." "Mm, I warned him that might happen, but does he listen to me? Of course not. I must warn you, though he is considered decorative by most females of your species, you will find him to be the most pigheaded - " "Spark, she called for backup, not a date," Cage interjected. "Sorry about that," Collier put in sheepishly. "Spark's getting a little eccentric lately. It MIGHT be time for a MEMORY WIPE," he added through his (considerable) teeth, glancing significantly at the hovering droid. "You don't scare me, sir," Spark replied placidly. "Wipe my memory stack and you'll never find half of those websites again." "Stripes!" came a call from the hatch, forestalling further exploration of that topic. "Take your damn fucking dog, will you?" A bundle of wriggling fur - which, Utena observed, appeared to be wearing goggles - emerged from the hatch. It was indeed a beagle, like Wolfgang, but it wasn't the Lenshound. Wolfgang was a honey beagle, while this dog had the more traditional tricolor pattern. Chad snickered, accepted the dog, put him down on the ground, and turned back to Utena. "Your security officer has quite a mouth on her," he said. "I got to hear a lot of it on the way down here from orbit." "... -Janice-?!" Utena said. "Right here, Cap'n," the redheaded Ragolian said, following the beagle out of the hatch and accepting a hand down from Collier. "I thought you guys had an assignment on Tomodachi," Utena said. Janice waved a hand dismissively. "It's handled. Steve heard you needed help and we were handy." The beagle shook himself, recovering the dignity damaged by his unceremonious decanting from the cylinder, and barked. "And this is Collier's mouthy dog," Janice added, ruffling the dog's head with abstract affection. "His name's Riddick," Xander Cage put in, "and he ain't Geek's dog, he's mine, Red." "Then why do I always see Chad feeding him?" "'Cause Geek's kissing his ass, that's why." "He doesn't like the way you do his food," Collier objected. Utena raised an eyebrow. "O... K... is this a roommate thing, or what?" Collier shook his head with a tigerish grin. "No, he told me so," he said. Cage made a finger-twirling-around-the-ear gesture and shrugged. "So - what the hell's going on, anyway?" Janice asked. --/ Lock raised an eyebrow. "In response to an urgent request for help from the acting head of the Space Force, the acting chief of the IPO sent only four people?" he inquired archly. "Well, for openers, yes," Sgt. Pete Stacker said. "My guess would be that they were all the forces he had readily available for that delivery method at the time, but you'd have to ask him. At any rate, it's not like he could have FedExed us the whole WDF, though we certainly could have used it." "Did the arrival of these new forces have any effect on the stalemate?" "Not immediately. Commodore Tenjou and the Master Chief started discussing the situation immediately, but things remained relatively stable until 1830." "What happened then?" Stacker frowned. "That was when Bastila came back." /-- THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2409 06:29 PM When the alarms sounded, everyone in the Capitol initially thought this was it - the enemy had stopped waiting and launched their final assault on the building. It was only when the first disjointed reports started coming in from the guard units - first at the outer perimeter, then at the gates of the building itself, and then inside - that it became clear there was only one intrusion taking place, a lightning thrust intended to penetrate, not overwhelm, the Capitol's defenses. In the High Council's chamber at the center of the building, Chancellor Krojaar epetai-Korgoth requested an explanation from his chief of staff. General Ktarl's frustration level was peaking. After spending a few minutes trying to raised guard posts and get answers, he threw down his earbud with a snarl and said, "I will go and find out." Then, before anyone could stop him, he drew his bat'leth from his back and stormed from the room. For several minutes, the councilors sat listening as the faint sounds of yelling and weapons fire grew louder and more distinct, until at last, it sounded as though the fight were right outside the doors. Then the doors burst open and the bulky form of General Ktarl hurtled backward through them, his limbs windmilling, at the end of what looked like a bolt of lightning. The Chief of Staff to the Chancellor crashed into the speaker's podium at the back of the council chamber and crumpled against the wall beyond it, then lay still with smoke curling up from his armor. In each of his hands he clutched half of his bat'leth. The weapon looked like it had been cut in two with a blowtorch. Councilor Klov jumped to the general's side, bent to check him, then turned to the other councilors and declared, "He's -dead-!" A low chuckle came from the doorway through which Ktarl's body had just come. "He and a good many others," said a woman's voice. By this time, the commotion from the front of the building had drawn the Repo Men, who had been mustered in the back courtyard to have their own look at the tactical situation, into the Capitol. Some came into the back of the room at ground level, others onto the upper balconies, all ready for action. What they saw at the front of the room pulled them all up short with cries of surprise. The person who had spoken - the person who had cut down General Ktarl - stepped into the room. The intruder was a lone woman dressed all in black with brown hair drawn back into a pair of short plaits, and several small ridges at the bridge of her nose marked her as a Bajoran. Bastila Shan. "Christ," Pete Stacker said through gritted teeth. Switching his Frame's commset on, he called, "All allied forces, this is Sgt. Stacker on emergency two. The intruder is Bastila, and she's hostile. She's just killed General Ktarl. Request -immediate- backup in the Council room." "Say again, Sergeant?" Utena's voice crackled back, soaked in static from the jamming even though she was within the capitol complex and therefore surely close by. "Bastila's -hostile-? How did that happen?" "How the fuck should -I- know?" Stacker snapped. Utena accepted that as her due for asking a stupid question and replied, "Hold tight, Sergeant. Tuncer, Jedi Springsteen, the Master Chief and I are headed your way from the situation room." There was a loud noise at the other end of the transmission. "Dammit!" "Commodore? What happened?" "The tunnel from the situation bunker just collapsed. Mortar damage, most likely. You'll have to try and hold her until Tuncer can dig us out, Pete." Stacker fingered his plasma rifle's grip. He was a smart and realistic soldier; he knew that he and his men, tough, skilled, and well-equipped as they were, didn't stand much chance of bringing down a Jedi Knight. On the other hand, it wasn't like they had a lot of choice. She was advancing on the High Council now, and when she reached them, who knew -what- would happen? Stacker swallowed. "Roger that, Commodore," he said. Then, turning to the others, he said, "OK, Repo Men, you heard the lady. Let's try not to get killed." "Hang on!" Church's voice crackled in his squadmates' helmet comms. "I'll get her." "Church, WAIT - " Stacker yelled, but he was too late. The spectral form of the undead soldier had already resolved, charging toward Bastila. Before anyone could call out to him further, Church lunged - Bastila wheeled, raised a hand, and sent lightning arcing across the space between them. The Repo Men automatically expected this to pass clean through Church's ghostly shape, as ordinary electricity would have - but this was no normal electrical discharge. What was flowing from Bastila's hand was the distilled essence of the Dark Side of the Force, given a resemblance to electricity in form and effect by her own expectations. It was spirit energy, just like the ghost that was Church, and it tore at him like steel blades would have torn living flesh. Church screamed as concentrated hatred ripped into his spectral being. The blast halted his charge, sent him reeling back, and then, before the horrified eyes of his squadmates, tore him to bits and scattered him like mist before wind. "CHURCH!" Tucker cried, aghast. Bastila closed her hand into a fist, cutting off the flow of energy, and then turned a cold smile to the rest of the Repo Men. "Well?" she said. "Let's -do this-, Repo Men!" Stacker said, his voice snapping his troops out of their shock. "Attack formation G. Shields to full power, and make sure your Barriers are charged. If she gets close, you're gonna need 'em." /* Bad Religion "Come Join Us" _The Gray Race_ */ Two minutes later, more allied forces arrived in the Council chamber, in the form of Janice Barlow, Chad Collier, and Xander Cage. They'd been resting in guest quarters upstairs and were still strapping on equipment as they hustled into the council chamber to find a scene of utter chaos. Klingon guards and Repo Men were scattered everywhere in various states of disrepair. The Repo Men, at least, seemed still to be alive, though some of them looked decidedly uncomfortable. Xander Cage was the first one to arrive, bursting through a side door onto the floor level of the room to see Bastila deflect a barrage of plasma fire from Pete Stacker's rifle. She tried to redirect it toward Chips Dubbo, who was approaching her from the other side, but her aim - or perhaps her concentration - was off, and the pulses of energy scattered harmlessly into the rafters. "Bastila," Dubbo said, trying to keep his voice even, "I don't want to hurt you." "Don't worry, Charles," Bastila replied with cold amusement. "You won't." There was a strange edge in her voice, underlying all the other tones. Janice, up on the balcony level with Collier, zoomed her cyberoptic in on the Jedi's face. Bastila was haggard, her face grey and drawn, her eyes bloodshot and sunken into dark-rimmed sockets. She looked like she hadn't slept in a month. Her mouth was pressed into a flat line, and her sunken eyes had a queer light in them. To Janice, the woman was clearly, to use a technical phrase, out of her fucking tree. Janice pulled her focus back and opened her organic eye - zooming the cybereye with the other one open was a good way to toss lunch - to see Xander Cage down on one knee, sighting through the telescopic sight on his heavily customized A&K Mark 23 pistol. Bastila whirled, seized a chunk of rubble from the floor with the Force, and bounced it off Stacker's helmet, in the process giving Cage a perfect shot - - which he didn't take. Instead, swearing, he holstered the pistol, drew a riot prod from a boot holster, and started running toward her. "Cage, you had a shot!" Janice barked into her tac headset. "Why the hell didn't you drop her?" "I ain't the type to shoot a friendly in the back'a the head, Red. Call it a character flaw." "In case you haven't noticed, she's not looking too friendly right now," Janice noted. "I don't think she knows what she's doin'. Cover me. I'm-a go try and explain it to her." "Stupid, stupid, STUPID," Janice grumbled, then drew her Varista and lobbed a couple of shots at the Jedi. Bastila whirled, evading one shot and getting her lightsaber in front of the other, and then Cage roared and lunged at her with all his considerable speed. She pivoted, cut the riot prod neatly in two, then thrust out a palm. X stopped as if he'd hit an invisible wall. Bastila smiled slightly and nastily, opened her flattened hand into a sort of claw, and then lashed the bald Lensman with blue-white electricity. Cage yelled in pain and collapsed, twitching, on his back. "X!" Chad Collier cried. Then, with a snarling roar that reminded Janice of the jungle beast the Kilrathi resembled, he vaulted the gallery railing. By the time he hit the floor, rolled once, and came up running, he'd already thrown four small, razor-sharp knives at Bastila. Since she was gathering her concentration for a second volley that would have finished frying Cage like General Ktarl, Bastila was actually hit by the first one. She yelped, more in surprise than pain, as the blade sliced across her upper arm, parting her sleeve and drawing blood. Then she turned to face the charging Kilrathi, waving aside his other thrown blades with the power of the Force. Janice Barlow hit the ground running five paces behind him, though his longer stride meant she wasn't gaining on him when Bastila's counterattack hit him full in the face. Collier went over backward and landed heavily next to Cage, in a similar twitching-and- sparking posture. 343 Guilty Spark swooped around to cover his boss as best he could. Bastila ignored him. What did she care if the battle was recorded? Janice wasn't a close combat expert - in the parlance of the Ragol Hunters' Guild, she was a Ranger, not a Hunter - but she knew that standing off and lobbing fire at Bastila was probably not going to get her anywhere. Of course, closing with someone who had a lightsaber and knew how to use it wasn't the best idea either, but what the hell. Maybe she'd get lucky. "Mitra! Covering fire!" she ordered, and her Mag combat remote peeled off to the left, then started blasting at the Jedi with its built-in Photon weapon. Bastila growled and swatted it away with the Force, sending the football-shaped drone tumbling across the room and burying it in a pile of rubble near Ktarl's corpse. Janice kept running; she could see from the status readings in her cybereye's information package that Mitra was undamaged, just a bit stuck. Anyway, the distraction worked. She powered on her Barrier, then raised the arm-mounted energy shield in front of her as she charged. Lightning from Bastila's free hand sheeted over it, making its power indicator in her cybereye's status display dip with alarming speed. Barriers weren't too easy on energy cells to begin with, which was why they were both stronger than suit shields and unable to be turned on all the time. Having been trained on the Frame and the Barrier from childhood, she was able to divert power from her main shield array into the Barrier, a trick even the Repo Men would have had to stop and check the manual to pull off, on the fly. That was good; it kept her from losing her left arm as she used the Barrier to block Bastila's lightsaber. Thrusting the sputtering Barrier against the bright yellow beam-blade as hard as she could, Janice used the remaining momentum of her charge to bring her right fist hard into Bastila's midsection. "On the bright side, sirs," 343 Guilty Spark noted as he hovered near Cage and Collier, his camera eye trained unblinkingly on the fight, "this will net us some mad ka-ching once I can upload it to the Zone." "Geek? Soon's I can move my arms again," Cage grunted, "I'm gonna trash your camera drone." "But he's -right-," Collier replied, mustering a weak grin. The Jedi staggered back, her blade sliding out of contact with Janice's Barrier. Janice regrouped, taking a half-step back herself, and considered her next move as her Barrier's charge indicator flashed red. Her main shields were nearly recharged, but the power wasn't coming back to the Barrier. She suspected one of its coil elements was burned out; the shield was sparking and flickering ominously. She shut it down before it could blow entirely and considered her next move. Dubbo was the only Repo Man left on his feet. Desperate now, he slung his plasma rifle and drew his sidearm, thumbing it into overcharge mode. He didn't want to do it - Bastila wouldn't be able to deflect the explosive overload charge with her saber, but it would probably kill her - but what the hell else could he do now? "Bastila!" he yelled, drawing her attention away from Janice. "Don't - make - me - DO this!" Bastila laughed. The sound was intended to be merrily mocking, but it came out with a sort of slate-on-slate undertone of madness. "Go ahead, Charles," she said dismissively. "It won't do you any good." The blue-armored IPO trooper scanned her face for some sign that his desperation was getting through to her... and saw none. "I'm sorry," he said, and fired. Bastila didn't move, only narrowed her eyes. The crackling sphere of blue-green energy got halfway to her - and then stopped and reversed course without striking her saber or anything else. "CHRIST!" Dubbo yelled, diving for cover. The overload pulse blew the Councilors' bench behind which he dove to pieces, strobed his shields clean offline, and sent him crashing through the bench behind him. He stopped under the next one back, rolled onto his face, and didn't move. Janice charged again, this time aiming to take advantage of Bastila's distraction to come in opposite her lightsaber and - The Jedi turned, made direct eye contact with her assailant, smiled slightly, and then sent Janice hurtling across the room to crater the mural of the Battle of Klinzhai Prime on the far wall. Fuck, thought Janice, and then she peeled away from the wall, hit the floor face-down, and blacked out. A moment later, Mitra freed itself from the rubble and autohomed to her position, where it took up a hovering defensive position over its unconscious mistress. Bastila ignored it as she'd ignored Spark. She looked around, saw nobody else offering to oppose her, and made a slow circle of the spot where she'd just fought off all comers. When she got to X and Chad, she stood looking down at them in surprise. "Chad Collier! You're a -filmmaker-, for pity's sake. And not a very good one, either," she added archly. "Is this what the IPO sent for reinforcements? Pathetic." Xander Cage hauled himself painfully up on his elbows and said, "When I get up, I'm gonna throw you a beating." Bastila smirked slightly, took a half-step back, and then kicked him smartly in the forehead, knocking him out. Chad snarled, tried to lunge up, failed (his muscles were still not quite ready to obey him), and received the same. "Well," she said brightly. "Is that everyone?" With a sudden shower of golden light, a small bend in spacetime appeared and then winked out again in the center of the room, depositing a single brightly-clad figure between Bastila and the stunned Klingon High Councilors. "No," said Anthy Tenjou in reply. "Not quite everyone." Bastila's lip curled. "You should have stayed hidden, witch," she said. "Lord Venger will reward me handsomely indeed for bringing him such a prize as -you- along with Klayvor's quarry." Anthy's emerald eyes narrowed. "I am -no man's- prize, Shan Bastila," she said coldly. Bastila's greyish-pale face flushed slightly when Anthy addressed her with her names in the traditional Bajoran order. For reasons Anthy didn't know, the Jedi had abandoned her Bajoran heritage and all such indicators of it long before whatever had happened to her now, and the nerve was evidently still sensitive enough that it could be prodded. That might be useful. "Get out of my way or I'll kill you, and Venger's desires be damned," Bastila snapped. "Do what you feel you must," Anthy replied. Bastila ignited her lightsaber - both blades - and lunged, howling with wrath. Anthy met the charge, a staff of reddish-dark wood appearing with a lightning crack in her hands. Bastila's sneer returned - this would be easy - and she set herself to destroy the witch's weapon and end her. The half-svartelven witch had no intention of making it easy for her. Perhaps Rosenjaeger couldn't stop a lightsaber's blade - she wasn't sure, and wasn't inclined to find out - but it didn't have to. Drawing on the techniques she'd learned from Corwin Ravenhair in the use of the Draconic warstaff, Anthy concentrated all of her blocks and counterattacks on the -middle- of Bastila's saber. The double saber might have looked and even handled something like a staff, but it could never really be used like one, not the way a normal lightsaber could be used like a regular sword. For her part, Bastila was astonished and infuriated, not only by the witch's skill with the staff, but also with her speed and agility. The woman was visibly, if only a little bit visibly, pregnant, yet she moved with a grace that would have done a fully trained Jedi Knight proud - if Jedi were permitted pride. She was able to not only keep even with Bastila, but actually get a half-step ahead of her - - and then the double saber was gone, wrenched out of its owner's hands by a clever trick and sent spinning across the room. She turned and tried to call it back to her hand with the Force, but Anthy capitalized on the momentary distraction to deal the Jedi a staggering blow with one of her staff's armored endcaps. This was an opponent too dangerous to look away from even for a moment. Bastila snarled. No Force-blind trickstress was going to get the better of -her-, a full-fledged Jedi, a Sentinel of - - wait - She recoiled, a look of intense pain crossing her face, and Anthy pressed her advantage, knocking Bastila back, then sweeping her legs from under her and beating her painfully down. Anthy wasn't holding anything back. Her normal mildness was completely erased by her unhesitating certainty that if she faltered for even a moment, this opponent would destroy her and those she sought to protect. It was the sort of straight-ahead, teeth-gritted purposefulness she'd learned from both her loves, and it served her well in this clash. Once Bastila was down, Anthy whirled her staff away from her adversary and glided back, regrouping. It wouldn't do to get so caught up in pressing her advantage that she found herself drawn into a trap. But Bastila's distress was no trap. The fallen Jedi lay where Anthy's blows had put her, then slowly rolled onto her face and pushed herself up to one elbow, her bloodshot eyes staring wildly at the littered stone floor of the Council chamber. She looked as though her battle were now as much with herself as with Anthy. "Your pagh has been badly damaged by whatever's happened to you, Bastila," Anthy said, her voice mild but tinged with the uncompromising tone Corwin liked to call her witch voice. "If you don't stop this right now, I'll make it possible for you to feel just -how- badly." That seemed to put some wind back in Bastila's sails. She shoved herself up to her knees, raising her furious eyes to Anthy's, and spat, "I don't believe in that superstitious Bajoran nonsense!" "Then you've nothing to worry about... -have- you?" Anthy replied calmly. Bastila roared and threw herself forward, hands outstretched, all her powers and skills washed away by a burst of blinding rage and the need to crush the life from the witch with her bare hands. Anthy made a small gesture and spoke a single syllable, and the air in the room reverberated like the inside of a cannon. Bastila reeled, her charge snubbed as if by a concrete wall. The witch moved her hands in a more intricate pattern then, her scarlet raiments flowing around her as if blown by a small cyclone, and chanted in a language no one else in the room could understand: >Heart of the World, hear the call of thy High Priestess! And I shall shed thy light over dark Evil, For the dark things cannot stand the light: The Light of the ROSE PRINCE!< In the basement, Utena was watching as Tuncer and the Master Chief cursed and dug at the rubble blocking their way while Anne Springsteen concentrated on keeping the rest of the tunnel from caving in around them. Suddenly she flinched and staggered back against the tunnel wall, her rose seal suddenly pulsing with a brilliant white light. "What the hell - ?!" the Master Chief blurted. In the Council chamber, as Anthy completed the invocation, a beam of unbearably bright white light leapt from the brand on her forehead to Bastila's chest, suffusing the black-clad Jedi with its brilliant glow. Bastila shrieked, her body going taut, as the light of Cephiro's purity tore at the shadowed places in her spirit - and right now, that was most of them. The light show and the screaming went on for five seconds, then stopped as if someone had thrown a switch, and Bastila collapsed to the floor on her face and lay unmoving for a few moments. When she did move again, she first slowly pushed herself to hands and knees, then remained there, her shoulders heaving, as her tears spattered the stone near her hands. "... what... have i done?" she whispered. Then, raising her bloodshot, anguished eyes to Anthy, she said, "Well? Finish it!" "I don't think there's any need for that now," Anthy told her. "DAMN you, you self-righteous WITCH - did I ASK you to HELP me?" Bastila raged. "Did I ASK you for COMPASSION? Did I ASK you for PITY?!" She heaved herself to her feet, fueled by pure anger, and demanded, "FINISH IT!" Anthy made another small gesture and replied in a quiet voice, >Sleep now.< Bastila's rage-blackened face was cleared for an instant by a look of immense surprise, and then she sagged and fell unconscious to the floor. A moment later the main doors, which had been held by Bastila's power since she invaded the room, burst open. Through them came the rest of the allied forces - Utena, the Master Chief, Tuncer, and Anne, along with Xander Cage's dog Riddick, all running in advance of the Red Team. "Anthy!" Utena cried as she rounded the wreckage of the speaker's podium. "Hang on, we're - " She skidded to a halt, both physical and verbal, as she saw the devastated room and the crumpled, black-clad Jedi lying at her wife's feet. Utena started to ask what had happened, but Anthy held up a hand to forestall any questions, then closed her eyes and concentrated. She held her hands cupped toward each other in front of her, much as she would when summoning the Heart of the Rose from within her husband, but instead of a bright sphere of light forming between them, a misty whitish glow gathered slowly there. Anthy drew a deep breath through her nose, compressed the wispy sphere of mist slightly between her hands, then raised it, opened her eyes, and blew gently into the manifestation. Rather than dispelling the strange, glowing vapor, her breath seemed to strengthen it, making it grow larger and denser - until at last it resolved itself into the slightly transparent shape of a man in an armored suit. "BWASRGHuhHURGH!" Leonard Church blurted, then took off his spectral helmet and shook his head. "Phoo! Now I know how -that- feels. -Damn-." He noticed that he was almost standing on Bastila's unconscious form, then looked around at the wreckage of the Council room. "Ooooh. What'd I miss?" "Church!" Caboose O'Malley blurted as Julius Van der Groot helped him up off the floor. He winced, favoring his wounded arm, then went on, "You're alive!" Church gave Caboose a look. "No," he said. "No, Caboose, I am in fact still -dead-. However, I am no longer scattered all the hell over the -building-, and for that I'm grateful," he added, turning to Anthy. She smiled. "You're welcome," she said. Utena stepped to Anthy's side and gestured to the general scene. "Did you do this?" she asked. Anthy nodded. "Mm-hmm." "Did you invoke me?" "Yes." "OK. Good. I couldn't think who the hell else might have done it." Utena put a hand on her wife's shoulder. "Are you OK?" "I'm fine," Anthy replied positively. "All right," Utena said, her tension relaxing slightly. She raked a hand back through her hair, turned to take in the devastated room, and said with a sigh, "I guess we'd better see how bad the damage is." --/ "Seventy-three percent of the Council Guards unit wiped out; the only remaining loyal flag officer in the capital dead; four more of the IPO troopers injured," Jason Lock mused. He shook his bowed head and added rhetorically, "A -monumental- disgrace to the Order. As its perpetrator's teacher, I hold myself responsible." "So do I," Bolo Burke agreed gravely. Lock shot him a sharp look, then covered it and turned to the others. "Fellow councilors, we will discuss my apprentice's failure and my own culpability later. For now, let us finish gathering the facts of the incident surrounding it, that we may better understand its context." Faloon nodded. "Very well. Call your next witness, Master Lock." Lock nodded. "Charles Dubbo," he said, turning to the gallery. "Step forward, please." Dubbo did so. "You are one of the troopers of the IPO special mission force involved in this matter, correct?" "That's right," Dubbo said. His usual laid-back Aussie equanimity kept him from quailing much before Lock's severe aspect, unlike some of the other troopers so far interviewed. He sat relaxed and calm in the box, addressing Lock as an equal rather than a superior. Like the other Repo Men, he wore his Frame, but in place of its helmet he had on his much-battered, much-loved bush hat, the left side of its brim pinned to the crown. "Were you present in the Klingon command center when Klayvor vestai-Klavaar next communicated with the High Council?" Dubbo nodded. "I was indeed. That would've been about 2200 Thursday night, a few hours after Bastila's attack." "What was the general tone of that communication?" Dubbo grinned. "Well, I'm no expert on Klingon psychology, you understand, but I should say he was right pissed off, especially when Utena got to jerking his beard." /-- Utena stood with her hands on her hips and gave the holographic image of Klayvor a nasty smile. "Looks like you're going to have to try Plan B, Klayvor," she said. "Thanks for sending our missing Jedi back - you know how I hate it when I misplace things. By the way, who's Venger? Your decorator?" Klayvor's scowl could have cracked plate glass. "I'll see your insolence repaid in blood. First yours, then that of everyone you love," he hissed. Utena just snorted. "That'll be an uphill climb. Good luck with that." Klayvor gritted his teeth, then ignored her, turned to Chancellor Krojaar, and spoke to him in the hardest and harshest of Klingonese dialects. The grey-bearded Chancellor regarded Klayvor's holographic visage for a long moment, as if considering his officer. Then he emitted a single bark of laughter and a single Standard word: "Nuts!" Before Klayvor could even react to that, Krojaar made a short chopping gesture and the transmission was cut off. Utena chuckled. "Good choice, Krojaar," she said. "He'll have to go look that up." Krojaar laughed, then sobered. "Two hours. Our situation, I fear, is worse than General McAuliffe's. There will be no Patton to come to our rescue." Utena glanced from Krojaar to Anne Springsteen to the middle distance, then chewed thoughtfully at her lower lip for a second. "Maybe... maybe not," she mused. Then, tapping her commbadge, she said, "Master Chief Spartan? I need you, Tuncer, Sgt. Stacker, and Lt. McCandless in the situation room ASAP." "On my way," the Master Chief's voice replied. It said something about Klingon culture, Carmela Sunderland reflected, that their highest government building - the Klingon equivalent of Earthdome in Geneva, or the Federation Assembly Hall in Paris - had a detention center in the basement. Brings a whole new meaning to the old adage, "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer," she mused wryly as she passed the Klingon guard at the door and entered the brig itself. The trooper looked a little nervous, and Sunderland couldn't blame him. After all, it wasn't every day a man stood guard over a brig containing a rogue Jedi Knight. Not that Bastila Shan looked particularly dangerous at the moment. She sat crumpled in the back corner of the detention cell furthest from the brig entrance, knees drawn up, head down upon them, the very picture of defeat and misery. She barely glanced up when Carmela shut off the force door. "Come to have a look around?" she asked dully. "In a manner of speaking," the provisional AEGIS operative replied. "You told Commodore Tenjou you don't know what happened to you while you were missing." Bastila nodded slightly, her eyes fixed on the metal bulkhead opposite her. "Well," Carmela pressed on, "we need to know what happened before we can try to put it right... so if you can't remember, I need to go and see if I can find any clues in your subconscious mind." Bastila finally turned her head to look at Carmela, then shrugged faintly. "Do what you want," she said, then sank back into apathy. Carmela stood looking at her for a second, then sighed and knelt down in front of her. "I'll be as careful as I can," she said, "but this may be uncomfortable." Bastila didn't respond, so Carmela closed her eyes and began. An hour later, a slightly wan and tired-looking Carmela Sunderland reported to Utena back in the situation room, where she and the others she'd called before were still looking over the big holographic map. Utena and Anne Springsteen left the Master Chief and Tuncer debating some point of tactics whil they broke away to take Carmela's report. "I know what happened to Bastila," the ex-Psi Cop said without preamble. Utena arched an eyebrow. "Oh?" Carmela nodded. "She's suffered a - well, the technical term is 'acute cerebropsionic insult', but that hardly does it justice." Utena frowned. "Telepathic rape." "Essentially, yes. Someone - a powerful and well-trained telepath - struck at the weak points of her mental resistance structure in a way designed especially to overcome it. When that happened, it triggered a fugue state similar to the one that happened to your friend Juri when I tried to immobilize her on Tau Ceti. The main difference is that that was an accident caused by a rare combination of factors. What happened to Bastila was deliberate." Anne looked grave. "So you're saying... " "I'm saying someone set out specifically to wreck Bastila's self-control," Carmela said. "Which means whoever did it knew what that would do to someone with Bastila's training," Anne said, catching on. At Utena and Carmela's questioning looks, she went on, "We Jedi are pretty well equipped to deal with telepathy, even though we derive our own psionic abilities from a completely different vector... but there are gaps." Carmela nodded. "It's not just limited to Force-users," she said. "Some normals are also highly trained to block telepathic intrusion. Zardon Judges are notorious for their resistance, for example." "Can't a powerful enough telepath just smash through that, though, given enough time to work on it?" Utena asked. "I mean, I've been zapped by Psi Cops myself, and I held 'em off, but it hurt like hell. I wouldn't want to try it for 48 hours." "Theoretically, yes, but there's a danger. Breaking through someone's psionic resistance is like trying to crack a safe. Just applying sufficient brute force isn't enough - you run the risk of destroying the whole structure and what's inside it. In order to break it open without wrecking its contents entirely, you have to find weak points and attack them." "In turn, we're taught to cover those weak points," Anne said, "but... " She paused, looking for a way to phrase what came next. "Some of us more readily deny we have them." "Against normals, unfulfilled desires and unconfronted fears are the most common levers," Carmela said. "And I would guess - with all due respect, Master Jedi - that members of a monastic order like the Jedi have more than their share of unfulfilled desires." "We're -not- monastic," Anne said. "Not all of us." "But the Sentinels of Light... " Utena mused. Anne nodded. "Yeah. Bastila would have been particularly vulnerable to something like that, too. She was taken by the Order at just exactly the wrong age. Old enough to have permanent memories of her family, too young to understand why she was leaving them. It would've been explained to her later, of course, but... that kind of thing leaves a mark." "Or, as in this case, a crack," Carmela noted. "Mm. One that our unknown telepath exploited ruthlessly." Anne folded her arms pensively. "That's diabolical." "It's worse than that, I'm afraid," Carmela said. "By training and inclination, I'm a forensic telepath. I can read the signs left in a mind that's been tampered with and tell things about the person who did the tampering. In this case, Bastila's mind bears the hallmarks of a particular sort of Psi Cop - the ones we internally called Dominators." "... which means... " Utena mused in her I'm-putting-these- pieces-together voice. Carmela filled it in for her. "Which means Bastila was pushed into a rage fugue by someone who has Dominator experience, and who knew both the weak points of a Jedi's mental resistance -and- the consequences for a traditionally educated Jedi who is put in a position where her actions are governed by anger." Anne blinked. "So we're looking at someone with both Psi Cop and Jedi training? Is that even possible?" "Roger Tremayne," Utena said, her face going grim. "Roger Tremayne? He was killed in the Titan incident," Carmela said. "Your own forces - " Utena shook her head. "He was wounded - we all thought mortally wounded - but someone beamed him away before we could see him die, and the body was never found." She drove a fist into the opposite palm. "That explains a lot about this whole cockamamie setup." "How so? Aside from Bastila, of course." "Oh, the whole standing around waiting for us to lose heart and surrender thing," Utena said with a vague gesture. "That's been puzzling me all day. It's so... un-Klingon. But it makes perfect sense if one of the people running the offensive is a Sith Lord. Never just crush your enemies if you can humiliate them too." "I think he's underestimating you rather badly, then," Carmela observed archly. Utena chuckled dryly. "He wasn't expecting me to be here, and by the time he found out, his side was committed to the strategy. Klayvor's not good at thinking on his feet." She shook her head. "Roger must be grinding his teeth flat." "Why would a Klingon warlord and a Sith Lord be teaming up to overthrow Krojaar's government?" Anne wondered. "The Sith like to make a mess, true, but usually they have something to gain from it." "It's a safe bet Klayvor's government won't continue the Empire's alliance with the IPO," Utena pointed out. "What weakens the IPO weakens the galaxy's resistance to the Sith, especially now that we've solidified our partnership with the Jedi Order." "True. I didn't think they were that organized, though. Until very recently we've thought they were extinct altogether." The blonde Jedi gave a wry laugh. "This will make a very interesting set of reports for all of us, assuming we survive to write them." Utena grinned. "I plan on it," she said. "Come on. Let's get back to it. Good work, Carmela. How's she doing?" "She's... very low," Carmela said. "She's mostly recovered from the attack itself, but its consequences... well, I'm hardly qualified to say what might help her there. In her eyes, she's betrayed everything she spent her life working toward." The ex-Psi Cop produced a crooked little smile. "I know the feeling, but there's not much I can do about it. She'll have to work through it on her own... " One level up and a hundred yards or so to the south, Xander Cage was in the guest quarters, sorting out his stuff and trying to get a clear picture of what worked and what didn't after his dance with Bastila. When Janice Barlow arrived at his room, she found him sitting on the edge of the bed, facing away from the door. He had his Frame torn down and spread out on the bed in front of him, its central module connected up to a diagnostic unit, and he was sitting there in fatigue pants and unlaced boots, looking critically down the slide of his dismantled sidearm. Janice paused in the doorway and just took in the view for a moment - jeez, the guy was built like a fuckin' concrete railway overpass, complete with interesting graffiti - before clearing her throat to get his attention. "Hey, Cage. You OK?" "Huh?" Cage turned around, saw her, and nodded. "Yeah, I'll live." "Listen... sorry I yelled at you," Janice said. Cage shrugged. "You were probably right." "Well, yeah, in a purely military sense, maybe, but... " Janice hesitated, then went on, "That's not how we're supposed to do things in the IPO. I guess I'm still getting used to that. Where I come from, something wants to kill you, you kill it first. You don't think about why it's doing what it's doing." The burly agent grinned. He had an oddly disarming grin, one which broke up his customary muscled, bald-headed, tattooed, forbidding tough-guy air so suddenly and so completely that Janice always found it a bit shocking. "And I thought I came from a tough neighborhood," he said. "My whole home planet's like that," Janice said. "The wildlife tends to be huge and homicidal. That's where all this gear came from," she added, gesturing to Cage's Frame. "Back on Ragol, we've got a word for people who don't have weapons and armor and know how to use them." Cage leaned back against the headboard of the bunk, hands behind his head, and gave her a lazy smile. "Oh yeah?" he said. "What word is that?" "Lunch," Janice replied, straight-faced. Cage laughed. "We had some pretty big rats back in Delta City, but nothin' like -that-." "So how does an underground extreme-sports folk hero with a penchant for civil disobedience end up a Lensman, anyway?" Janice asked. "Heh. Civil disobedience. Haven't heard it called -that- before." "Seriously. How'd you ever end up in this line of work?" He gave her a skeptical look. "You really want to know?" Janice sat down on the corner at the foot of the bed and nodded. "OK. I'll tell ya. Once upon a time, there was a kid named Xander. He wasn't a good kid. Pissed off at the world, outta control, headed for a bad end. You know the type." Janice nodded. "Until one day, the FINEST-lookin' redhead you ever IMAGINED in your LIFE comes along and kicks Xander's ass for him. And when she's was done with that, she says, "'Listen, you little bastard - you're a piece of shit, but you've got potential. You can either let me unlock that potential, or I can throw you in the deepest hole you ever saw and leave you there to rot. So what's it gonna be, sport?' "Well, Xander, he's a gamer," Cage went on with a smile, "and he figures he can play along and then pull some shit." As he talked, he disconnected the diagnostic module from his Frame and started putting it back together. "What he doesn't realize is, he's up against the -original- gamer here. Nobody plays Kei Morgan, least of all some punk from New Detroit who thinks he's hot shit." He spread his hands. "So here I am. Xander Cage, Lensman, Defender of the Galaxy." Janice threw him the skeptical glance again. "Just like that." "Well, no, I left some shit out, but it ain't like we got all day," Cage replied, reassembling his sidearm. "You're not shitting me, though? Kei Morgan made you a Lensman?" "No, -Skuld- made me a Lensman," said Cage mock-pedantically. Then he sobered, slapped a magazine into his pistol, dropped the slide, set the safety, and said quietly, as if talking to himself rather than to Janice, "... Kei made me a person." Janice had nothing to say to that. "Well, anyway," said Cage briskly. He holstered the A&K, pulled on a T-shirt, and stood up. "That's all for 'True Confessions in the Xander Zone' today. Let's go see what kinda mess the brass is gettin' ready to make." He whistled, waking his dog from a doze in the corner of the room. "C'mon, Riddick." "OK, sure," Janice said, standing up to follow him. "Hey, listen... thanks for telling me that, Cage." Cage grinned his disarming grin again. "Thought I told you: Friends call me X." The next time someone switched off the force door to her cell, Bastila was feeling sufficiently interested in her surroundings to at least look up. What she saw was Chips Dubbo, rather the worse for wear. He wasn't wearing his Frame, and the coverall-style Tac Div uniform underneath was crumpled, dirty, and none too sweet-smelling. Dubbo himself was unshaven and tired-looking, though he'd washed his face and hands recently. The white square of an analgesic slap patch was clearly visible on the side of his neck, and he walked with a slight limp, favoring his left knee. He had on his non-regulation bush hat, which had escaped being lost with most of his other non-field gear because he'd left it behind in his minitank. Bastila glanced at him just long enough to take all this in, then looked away and murmured bitterly to the wall, "I suppose you've come to gloat." "Nope," Dubbo replied with his usual Aussie cheer, sitting down on the hard, narrow metal shelf that served the cell for a bunk. He tossed an object onto the floor in front of Bastila, who raised her head slightly and peered over her knees at the plastic SLAP of it against the diamond-plate decking. "Came to see if you wanted something to eat," Dubbo added. Bastila slowly uncoiled from her hunched brooding posture to a sort of sidesaddle seated position on the floor, then reached out and picked up the object Dubbo had tossed down in front of her. It was a military field ration, universally known as a P-ration after the black plastic pouch it was sealed in. "... Something to EAT?" she demanded. "I abandon everything that's ever meant anything to me, slaughter dozens of people, nearly kill you and your squadmates, and generally make a stuPENdous ass of myself, and YOU want to know if I'm HUNGRY?" Dubbo shrugged. "Yeah, basically." Bastila stared at him incredulously for a few seconds, and then - almost despite herself - smiled a little. "... I am a bit," she admitted. "Cheers," Dubbo said, raising his pouch in salute before tearing off the end. Steam rose from the open top of the packet as the pouch's auto-heater energized, flash-heating the food inside. "Aw, bugger it," the soldier went on, sounding disappointed. "Spaghetti again. What's yours?" Bastila tore off the end of her P-ration, looked inside, and took a cautious sniff. "It looks like some kind of meat stew." "Don't suppose you'd like to trade." "Is the spaghetti bad?" "No, but I've had it the last four meals in a bloody row." "Ah." Bastila traded pouches with him, peeled the memory-plastic spoon off the side of the pouch and watched with detached fascination as it stiffened from a spoon-shaped strip of flat, ductile plastic into a solid, three-dimensional utensil, then started eating. "You ought to see Tuncer eat one of these bloody things," Dubbo noted presently. "He shoves the whole thing in his face, works it for a few seconds, then spits out what's left of the pouch. It's the stuff of your darkest nightmares to watch that bastard eat." At Bastila's skeptical glance, he nodded and went on, "We went to a pig roast luau on New Oahu one time. The sheer carnage beggared description. I'd never seen him eat anything that was still recognizably an animal before. To this day I can't look at a ham without feelin' queasy." Bastila eyed Dubbo, unsuccessfully suppressing a snicker. "You're making that up." "Maybe," Dubbo said with a shrug and a grin. Bastila finished eating, then got up from the floor, tossed the packet into the waste chute on the wall, and hesitated for a moment before slowly sitting down on the bunk-shelf next to Dubbo. "Charles... " she said, then stopped, her voice trailing off. Dubbo wadded up his empty pouch, lobbed it overhand at the chute, and made a small satisfied noise as it went in. "Mm?" he replied. "I always thought... this would be different." Dubbo blinked. "Er... sorry?" "I've thought before about what would happen if I gave in to my anger and the Dark Side took me," Bastila said, looking down at her hands. "I never thought... I never thought I would regret it afterward if it happened. I didn't think that was the way it worked." The Repo Man's look of puzzlement deepened. He didn't have the beginning of a clue about Jedi philosophy or metaphysics, but he sensed this was important, so he took a game stab at it anyway. How did that smartass psychoanalytical software do it? General questions, man, general questions. "OK... for the sake of argument, what did you -think- would happen?" Bastila thought that over. "Well... I don't know... it's hard to explain it to someone who's never felt the Force, but... I always thought it would be like I had died, and there was a new person where I used to be. A vile, despicable person who would laugh at the suffering she caused. But I feel... like the same person I've always been, with the knowledge that I was still that same person when I did the things I did." She looked down at the floor, her shoulders hunching, and went on in a small voice, "I think I would prefer having died." Dubbo put an arm over her shoulders, leaning close, and spoke as soothingly as he knew how. "Hey, now. Church aside, there's nothing to be gained out of any situation by -dying-. Besides, this wasn't your fault. They messed about with your head. No court in the galaxy would convict you." Bastila shook her head. "You don't understand," she said miserably. "I should have resisted what they did to me. I should have been -stronger-. I'm - I was - a Sentinel. The last line of defense. I've been trained since I was six years old to face and put down monsters like Darth Venger... and when it came to it, not only did I -fail-, I let him turn me into his puppet. Dead, I could at least be forgotten. Alive, I'm an embarrassment. To my master, to my calling, to the whole Jedi Order." She bowed her head further, tears running down her cheeks. "It's just as well none of us is likely to leave this building alive." Dubbo searched his mind frantically for something to say. "Listen," he said finally. "I'm not the right guy to ask about the Jedi stuff, I'm about as unspiritual as a man gets, but I know this." He shifted on the bench so that he was more or less facing her, took her chin between thumb and forefinger and turned her head to face him, looked her straight in the eye, and said in a low, utterly serious tone of voice she'd never heard from him before: "We are -going- to get out of here alive. We are -going- to get this all sorted out. And -I- am -going- to stick by you until it -is- sorted out. And if any bastard tries to tell me you'd be better off dead, I'll make him wish he was never fucking born." Bastila wanted to tell him that he had it all wrong, that even if they did survive the next couple of days, even if they lived to see anyplace other than Qo'noS again, there was going to be no "sorting out" the mess she was in. She wanted to explain to him that by the standards of her Order, she was irreparably damaged goods, that she'd never be welcomed in their ranks again, that she'd be cast out and heaped with scorn, and that she deserved every bit she would get. She wanted to make him understand that her life had been ruined by her weakness and anger, that she was bound for a miserable and worthless existence, and that if he associated himself with her, he'd only be dragged down too. None of it would form into sentences. In the face of his conviction, she couldn't even get any of it to feel really true, though all her training and instincts told her it was. Dubbo's words and the look in his eyes as he spoke them kindled something like hope in her desolate heart, and though she knew she had no right to it, she seized it and fanned it to life anyway. She opened her mouth to say something, anything, but nothing would come out. So, not really knowing why, she kissed him instead. Dubbo was surprised by that - like many people, he'd formed the mistaken impression that the Jedi were a monastic order - but he wasn't so slow that he didn't know how to react when a woman like Bastila laid a kiss like -that- on him. She wasn't looking her best, admittedly, but hell, neither was he. He wondered idly if anyone had ever done this kind of thing in the Klingon capitol lockup before. Whatever bastard designed the bloody bench didn't have it in mind, that was for damn sure. Chips Dubbo turned up in the Repo Men's staging area up in the east wing an hour later, his dishevelement further advanced, his spirits somewhat elevated, and his thought processes not entirely organized. He was just in time; as he arrived, a message came up from Tuncer and Stacker in the situation room calling the squad to operational readiness. Rebel forces were massing for a push on the capitol as Klayvor's midnight deadline approached. "Hey, Dubbo," Adrian Mendoza greeted him as the Repo Men started gearing up. "How was Bastila?" Dubbo stopped short and stared at him. "WHAT?!" he blurted, then saw Mendoza's baffled expression and realized what the man meant. "Er, right. Uh... well, y'know, mate," he said, striving for nonchalance. "She's had better days, yeh?" Mendoza nodded, eyeing his squadmate dubiously. "You OK, man? You look a little flushed." Dubbo went to his rack and started fitting on his Frame. "Gotta be a hundred degrees in here," he grumbled. "Klingon High Council, you'd think they could afford some fucking AC." --/ "Plan B turned out to be a frontal assault on the capitol. Klayvor probably expected that Bastila had killed most of the defenders - which wasn't far off," Chad Collier admitted. The big Kilrathi had raised a few eyebrows when he entered the witness box, not only because he was burly and battle-scarred (sporting an obvious cybereye), but also because he had the rich orange-and-black tiger-striped coat that only the Kilrathi noble class, the so-called thrakh'ra, were born with. Lock, however, seemed entirely unperturbed. "They had complete space supremacy over the planet at that point," he pointed out. "Why do you think they refrained from simply bombarding the area from orbit?" "Two reasons," Collier said. "One, they wanted to take Chancellor Krojaar, the High Council, and Commodore Tenjou alive and make examples of them on national TV. And two, it's hard to govern a planet when the first thing you do is glass the government center. Even if they intended to replace the entire bureaucracy, they'd still need the records." Lock nodded. "Sensible," he said. "Who was in charge of the defenses at this point?" "Well, with General Ktarl dead, Chancellor Krojaar was nominally in command." "Nominally?" Lock asked, raising an eyebrow. "Krojaar's a statesman, not a military type. People don't think of the Klingons, even the ruling ones, as politicians, but there you are. In defensive matters, he deferred to the people around him with more experience." "Such as?" "Master Chief Spartan, Captain Tuncer, and Lieutenant McCandless all had input, but when you got right down to it everybody recognized that Commodore Tenjou was the one in command." "Is that not a bit unusual?" Lock asked. Collier smiled faintly. "It was an unusual day, Master Jedi." "Indeed," Lock acknowledged, nodding. "There were two Jedi Knights in attendance. Were they consulted?" "Jedi Springsteen was, sure." "But not Bastila Shan?" "You heard Mrs. Tenjou's testimony about what happened to Bastila earlier that night. She wasn't good for much of anything." The Kilrathi grinned and added in a sardonically chipper tone, "I think the only thing she said all day was when she told Utena that we'd all be slaughtered if we continued our pointless resistance, and that was when we first tossed her in the cooler." "I... see. Thank you, Mr. Collier. That's all." Collier left the stand. The next witness also raised a few eyebrows around the room, but for completely different reasons. In her case, it was because she took the stand as a quarter-scale holographic projection of a pretty humanized Salusian woman who appeared to be made of colored light and subtly shifting numeric patterns. "You are Cortana, a class-two Salusian machine intelligence assigned to assist Master Chief Petty Officer John Spartan. Is that correct?" Lock asked. "More or less," Cortana replied. "Expand," Lock ordered, as though he were speaking to a standard information-retrieval program or some such nonsentient interface. "No thanks," Cortana said. "This system is already uncomfortably cramped. Can't you guys afford anything better?" To Lock's mildly surprised look, Cortana's projection put one hand on her hip, made a vague gesture with the other hand, and added, "Look, you're not going to get anywhere talking to me like I'm a library bot. Ask me your questions and and I'll answer them, just like your IQ was normal." Lock scowled - Cortana could almost hear him thinking, Insolent program! - and cleared his throat. "Fine," he said. "Do you concur with Mr. Collier's impression that Commodore Tenjou was in command of the capitol defenses at this point, Cortana? That is, early Friday morning, when the last rebel push to take the building began?" "Absolutely," Cortana replied. "She had the authority of a Grey Lensman and the trust of the High Council, and she handled them both ably. She used all the resources at her disposal. I was impressed, and I can tell you, I don't impress easily." "What was her response to the rebel assault?" "Bold," said Cortana, a note of admiration in her voice. "She knew a breakout or counterattack wouldn't work with the force strength we had, so she positioned most of our forces to hold the rebels off while she detached a few of us to make an end run." "An 'end run'?" "Klayvor and Tremayne were with the ground forces trying to storm the building," Cortana explained. "Utena saw an opportunity in that. She sent seven of us to steal a shuttle and seize control of Klayvor's mobile battlestation." Lock's eyebrows went up. "Commodore Tenjou sent -six people- and a machine intelligence to seize control of an entire Klingon battlestation? You're a military command and control system, Cortana; do you not consider that action a reckless gamble?" Cortana folded her arms. "Sending a company of marines to storm an enemy battlestation is a reckless gamble, Master Jedi. Sending a SPARTAN is a -strategy-." Lock absorbed that for a moment, then said, "I presume your strike force was able to reach the battlestation." Cortana nodded. "That was the easy part." /-- FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2409 02:03 AM Janice Barlow browsed the racks and shelves of the capitol armory like a woman stopping by a bookstore on her lunch hour - a bit pressed for time, but careful and judicious all the same. Most of the weapons in the armory were, unsurprisingly, Klingon ones, in which she wasn't interested, but there was also some stuff the KDF had acquired in gear swaps with the International Police, and Barlow was looking this material over carefully. She had her Varista sidearm and Justy rifle with her, but no mid-range firepower, and she was hardly going to need an anti-mecha rifle to storm a battle station. Chad Collier prowled the armory as well, though his interest was more personal than professional. He wasn't in need of more firepower; he just liked sharp things, with which the Klingon weapons room was well stocked. "Oh hey!" he said, delighted. "The Klingons have the Woodman's Pal too." Janice turned to see the Kilrathi holding up a Klingon sword of a type that did rather resemble the weirdly-shaped machete Collier carried at his belt. "That's a mek'leth," she said with an indulgent smile. "Mackleth, Woodman's Pal, different cultures have different names," Collier replied, beaming. Barlow shook her head, chuckling, and went back to searching the armory. Alas, she found nothing she considered suitable; although they'd leaned on their IPO allies a bit for explosives and special weapons, the Klingons seemed content to leave the heavy lifting in the small-arms department to their own disruptor technology. Janice didn't like continuous-beam weapons. Her training wasn't suited to them; her instincts were all tuned for projectile or pulse weapons. Sighing, she resolved to make do with her sidearm and went back out to the assembly area, making a mental note to send back to Ragol for a decent mid-range rifle when she got home. By the time she got there, the others who were going on the "end run" mission were geared up and waiting for a final review by the Master Chief. They were a pretty motley-looking little group for an assault force intended to seize control of an entire Klingon battle station. Nobody's gear matched anyone else's. The Master Chief had his gleaming green MJOLNIR-V armor, of course, and one of the new Salusian BR-55 assault rifles - a pretty sexy piece of equipment, Janice thought, for an old-fashioned slug-throwing rifle. Xander Cage had his repainted early-model IPO Frame, his AK-23, and that pump shotgun he'd brought along from Tomodachi. As Janice emerged from the weapons room, Cage was just getting done fitting out his dog with some kind of armored battle harness. She had to stop and just check that out for a second. The harness covered most of the animal's torso with sleek alloy plating. On his back were the low humps of a pair of pop-up weapons arrays. He still had on his dark goggles. Carol "Foe-Hammer" Rowley, the Repo Men's transport pilot, looked like she didn't quite know what to make of that. She had on a standard IPO Frame in 131 SMF blue, but carried only a plasma sidearm. Anything bigger would have gotten in her way. Next to her hulked the massive form of Tuncer, his blue Elite armor battered, scorched, and generally not looking its best. The Master Chief saw Janice approaching and nodded his head. "Looks like we're all here," he said. "Rowley?" "Sir," Foe-Hammer replied. "Can you fly a leQ'var-class Klingon transport?" "As well as anybody can," she replied with a slight, wry smile. "Thing's a piece of shit." "Noted," the Master Chief said with a faint note of amusement in his gravelly voice. "Stand by, then. The rest of you, come with me. Before Foe-Hammer can do her part, we have to get her something to fly." "Anybody got a rifle I can borrow?" Janice asked. "The Klingons don't have anything in that size class except their own shit." Foe-Hammer nodded. "Grab my plasma rifle from the rack behind my seat in the Pelican on your way out," she said. "I never use the thing, but it gets checked every time we do an equipment audit, so it should be fine." Janice grinned. "Thanks." Slipping out of the capitol grounds undetected wasn't hard, with the rebel Klingons concentrating most of their forces and all of their attention on the assault. Wiping out one of their reinforcing squads and stealing their transport was slightly tougher. With Cortana working the rebel datanet from the transport's own comm systems, the next part - getting clearance to dock with the enemy battle station - turned out not to be a challenge at all. "I think it's an automated system," Cortana mused from the Master Chief's helmet speakers. "Look at the size of that thing," Foe-Hammer said as she guided the stolen transport toward their destination. Indeed, the Hammer of Kahless, as the battle station had identified itself to the transport's comm systems, was an impressive sight. It had the usual dull-green Klingon hull coloration, and some of its lines were distinctly similar to those of the bigger Klingon warships, but it had a strangely organic sort of flow to it that was at odds with the rest of the look. Standing behind Rowley's seat watching it grow larger in the front viewport, John Spartan couldn't shake the feeling that it looked somehow familiar. "Tapaga wo jaKIda naaaa," Tuncer rumbled. The Master Chief turned sharply to look at him, surprised, then nodded slowly. "You're right," he said after a few moments' thought. "It -does- look a little like a Thunderer." "A what?" Xander Cage asked. "A Thunderous Word-class Covenant battle platform," the Master Chief elaborated. "One of their mid-range monitors." The transport rocked slightly. "Tractor beam," Foe-Hammer reported. "That's me," Cortana told her. "No problem." The small, boxy craft swooped closer and closer to the station's hull, until the monstrous construct filled the forward viewport. A door slid open, admitting them to a cavernous and mostly empty docking bay. The corridors of the Hammer of Kahless were dimly lit and curiously empty. The strike team went unchallenged - indeed, apparently unnoticed - as they penetrated from the docking level deeper into the station. Foe-Hammer stayed behind, standing by at the controls of their stolen transport, ready to make good the team's escape should it prove necessary. The others worked their way inward until they found a computer center where Cortana could access the ship's main data systems. The Master Chief was by now an old hand at this kind of thing. It took him only a few seconds to pull Cortana's core crystal, sealed in its protective duraplastic block, from his helmet bus, assemble an adapter around it, and slot it into the Klingon battle computer. "Now establishing local system control," Cortana's voice reported from the console. A moment later her face appeared on a display panel nearby. "It'll take me a few seconds to get a complete tactical picture." She took those few seconds, and a few seconds besides, then said, "This is interesting... this system architecture is familiar, but it's not like any Klingon system I've encountered before. It's... " She blinked. "It's a Covenant computer." The Master Chief managed to look taken aback despite his faceless helmet. "Are you sure?" "Of course I'm sure," Cortana replied. "I've crashed enough of them. This is a Covenant battle control system, and - uh-huh, there's the AI. It hasn't noticed me yet. Bypassing alarms - that should get its attention." It took Cortana a few minutes to subdue the Hammer's onboard intelligence, which gave her access to almost all of the ship's control and sensor functions. "This -is- a Covenant-built station," she reported, sounding amazed. "It's got some elements of Klingon technology, but the base tech is all Covenant." "How is that possible?" the Master Chief asked. Tuncer asked more or less the same thing at the same time. "Search me. It's not like there's historical data in here," Cortana replied archly. "Buuuut," she added a few moments later, sounding intrigued, "there -is- something interesting... " "Whenever you're ready," the Master Chief said dryly. "Our friend Klayvor is one paranoid customer," she said. "This station's comm system is rigged with the prefix codes of all the ships in his fleet. Looks like he doesn't trust his traitor captains not to betray him as well. From here, he could have the station's -late- AI seize control of the whole fleet." Janice Barlow grinned nastily. "Jackpot," she said. "It's not quite that simple, unfortunately," Cortana said. "There are interlocks that have to be released manually before I can take control of those functions or the station's own weapons. They seem to be... yes. They're on the command deck, 15 levels up." She looked at the Master Chief. "Someone's going to have to go up there and deactivate them before I can do much more than this." The Master Chief nodded and turned to the others. "Cage, Barlow, Riddick - you three stay here and secure this area. Make sure no one gets to Cortana. If anybody gets curious, deal with it." Then he turned to the Last Elite. "Tuncer, you and I have some switches to flip." --/ "Soy un soldado robótico," the member of Red Team currently in the witness box reported. "Mi designación es L0-P3Z. Me llamo Lopez el Pesado." Jason Lock crooked an eyebrow. "... Interesting." One of the other GENOM troopers stood up. "Excuse me a second, Master Jedi. Lopez!" "¿Que, Señor Donut?" "You're doing it again." The military translator droid gave an internal click, then said, "Oh. Apologies." Lock took a moment to favor the whole scene with a slight scowl - something he'd been doing a lot over the course of the day - and then sighed slightly and went on with his questioning. /-- The Master Chief reloaded his BR-55 in one motion and opened fire on the Klingon troopers swarming the corridor. He switched to secured COM and pinged Cortana. "Sitrep, Cortana." "No problems here, John," Cortana replied with a slightly distracted air. "Cage and Barlow have this sector secure. Major Tuncer is two decks below you and proceeding toward the command deck undetected... with a little help." Her verbal smirk was unmistakable. John smiled to himself despite his own troubles. "Collier get anyone killed yet?" he said. Cortana's projection winked to life in the corner of his helmet display. She bit her lip. "The rebel forces have called in air strikes," she said, worry creasing her forehead. "Targeted on the Capitol building. Collier, Tucker, and Berry are holding the roof, Chief, but if those fighters make a pass overhead, they've got nothing." "Anything you can do to assist?" the Chief replied, making headway down the corridor and approaching a junction. "Negative, Chief," Cortana replied. "The main air defense controls are secured in the garrison adjoining the Capitol. The systems are hardened; I'd have to take my focus away from securing our escape to assist ground forces. I'm sorry, sir." "Just let them know where to go, Cortana," John replied, knocking in the helmet of one of Klayvor's men with the butt of his rifle. "I have faith." Chad Collier lined up a shot and neatly picked off one of Klayvor's men from the barricades in front of the Capitol. "Get me an angle, Spark," he requested laconically over his com headset. He was hanging over a cornice on the east corner of the building with his S2-AM, keeping the rabble from getting too rowdy. The other enemy-facing quadrants of the roof were being handled by Tucker and Berry. Between the three of them, they'd managed to pick off enough Klingons to make most of the rest of them think twice about storming the building, especially knowing that a Jedi Knight, McCandless, Van Der Groot, Stacker, and the rest of Red Team and the Repo Men were waiting for them inside. Cortana's voice crackled over the com. "This is Cortana to all IPO troops within broadcast range. Enemy airstrikes are incoming to the Capitol grounds, ETA seven minutes. The air defense consoles are located in the guard garrison outside the capitol building. Get someone into the garrison and activate the defenses. Hurry!" "Shit," Collier said, slapping another magazine into his rifle. "You guys hear that?" "No worries, mate," Chips Dubbo replied. "Cover me." "Roger that," Chad said. "I'm in no hurry to get off this roof." Down below, Chad heard Pete Stacker bellow, "COVERING FIRE!" "REPO MEN!" the other members of the squad chorused, and then plasma fire started pouring out of the barricaded front entrance to the Capitol. The Klingon insurgents fell back in disarray, startled by the sudden burst of fire. Dubbo's wiry form darted across the courtyard, heading at an angle away from both the main building and the insurgent force at the gates, making for the low, squad garrison in the corner of the compound. Chad scanned the Klingon force quickly, spotted a man who had noticed Dubbo and was drawing a bead, and dropped him. To his left, he heard the distinctive bark of a second S2-AM and knew that Tucker had repositioned to cover Dubbo's run as well, trusting his spotter to let him know if the Klingons on the north corner got any ideas from his absence. A ballsy move, slightly risky, but the kind of thing Chad had come to expect the Repo Men to do for each other. The running trooper made it to the garrison and hurled himself through an already-broken window. The Repo Men kept up their covering fire for a few more seconds, then broke it off. Chad glanced to his left and saw Tucker hustling back to his original station. Dubbo hit the rubble-littered floor of the garrison rolling, sprang to his feet, and swept the room with his plasma rifle one-handed. Nobody was inside. The rebels had nailed the building early on with a shoulder-fired plasma torpedo, causing its abandonment, but it was still inside the defended perimeter, and thus as secure as anything got around here right now. He followed the navigational markers Cortana dropped into his helmet HUD down into the basement, down a hallway, and into a fortified room containing a large, immediately recognizable master control console. It was built to be manned by a team of five, four of them each responsible for a sector of airspace over the capitol complex and a fifth at a supervisory station. Dubbo unhesitatingly made for that station. Since he wasn't an officer, some people tended to dismiss Chips Dubbo as an unsophisticated, uneducated soldier, not familiar with technical matters beyond the care and feeding of his own equipment. The truth of the matter was, he was a graduate of the IPO Tactical Division's Master Technician program, which made him capable of repairs and modification work to pretty much any piece of advanced technology out there. Including Klingon fire control computers. Within five minutes, he had torn out the safety interlocks, bypassed the security system, energized the sensor and weapons arrays, and readied the whole system for action. The problem was, he didn't have four Klingons to operate the defense quadrants. But then again, he didn't need them. "Ready, Frank?" "Ready!" the brain in a jar chirped. "Patching you through... -now-." "Ert! Wha? Ooooo." "Is it working?" Dubbo asked. "Do you see anything?" When Frank's voice answered, after a second's pause, there was a slightly deeper timbre to it, and a note of enormous satisfaction. "No... I see -everything-." On the capitol roof, Chad Collier saw the defense turrets and missile batteries ranged along the top of the perimeter wall and in various other places on the grounds twitch, twitch again, and then start tracking - first randomly, and then with a distinctly purposeful air. Then they opened fire, slashing orange-red blasterfire and fire-trailing missiles into the skies. The missiles were bound for the incoming Klingon attack craft; the blasterfire was mostly tasked with intercepting the air-to-surface missiles the Klingon fighters had already fired. The attacking Klingon pilots hadn't expected the air defense system to be operative. Many of them were shot down before they fully realized what was happening. Some of the others peeled off, trying to fox the defense system by coming in from other directions or varying their altitudes. Others bored grimly in, determined to at least take a chunk of the defense network out so that the next wave would have an easier time of it. Frank played the system like a piano, his bionic sensory interpreters breaking the multiple streams of input from the sensor arrays all around the capitol complex into inputs he could understand and respond to, his multiple command drivers entirely unconcerned that they were being used to operate blaster turrets and missile batteries instead of a tank's treads and cannon. He identified and dispatched each incoming enemy craft with a calm precision that was very unlike the brain's excitable social persona. However comical the Grunts might have seemed in holos and games based after the fact on the Covenant War, they were soldiers born and bred, and Frank had been an unusually tough, tenacious, and, yes, even smart one. How else had he survived long enough to be captured and delivered to the strange Salusian doctor who had turned him into a brain in a jar? He wasn't infallible, though, nor was the system he was using. With so much going on, so much data pouring through his bionic interface systems into his brain all at once, he lost track of one enemy craft. To be fair, he -had- noticed it early in the Klingon squadron's close-in attack phase, and had even launched a missile at it, but though it did score a hit, the missile had failed to destroy the target. He'd literally fired and forgotten, and Wingleader Relkat was taking advantage of it. Relkat's missiles were exhausted, his craft was crippled, and he knew from experience that the garrison, where the air defense control center was, couldn't be breached by his fighter's blaster cannons. He also knew that, having lost almost his whole squadron on this mission, his life was forfeit even if he returned from it... so he firewalled his throttles, aimed his attack craft at the garrison, and roared a salute to the Unforgettable Kahless. On the capitol roof, Chad Collier was scanning the enemy forward position with his scope looking for a particularly good target when 343 Guilty Spark's voice said in his ear, "I think you should see what's approaching from the west, sir." Collier rolled onto his back - it was quicker than getting up - and saw the smoking aerocraft approaching. It was moving fairly slowly, even for a subsonic jet, thanks to the visible damage to one wing and the black smoke pouring from the exhaust, but it was still coming at a good clip. For a second, Chad thought the pilot intended to ram the capitol. He scrambled to his feet, leaving his S2-AM where it was, and snatched up the -other- shoulder weapon that had been lying next to him since he took up this position. "Man-portable Getter Beam rifle," the Kilrathi muttered as he shouldered Janice Barlow's Justy and squinted through the scope. "I must be outta my fuckin' mind." Then he pulled the trigger. The recoil was surprisingly light - almost nonexistent - as a solid bar of bright-green light briefly connected him to the oncoming fighter. The rifle's report was more like a loud hum, with just a mild harmonic crack of plasmatized air. Relkat's fighter exploded in mid-air, rolled over, and crashed upside-down on the roof of the empty treasury office building behind the capitol. Collier felt the shockwave roll across the capitol roof and rustle his coat before the flash of heat slapped him in the face. "-Nice-," he said, looking down at the Justy. Then he put it back down, resumed his prone position, and took up his S2-AM again. --/ "Of course, we should have known it wasn't going to be that simple," Janice Barlow observed. "How so?" Lock inquired. "The Hammer of Kahless had a skeleton crew - most of its complement were on the surface, helping their boss in his final push on the capitol - but there were security troopers aboard, and these guys were fanatics. Real hardcore believers in Klayvor's cause. They figured out pretty quick that they had intruders when the ship's computer systems started going wonky. Cortana managed to lock most of them up in a housing block on the lower levels, but she didn't get all of them. Some tried to intercept the Master Chief and Tuncer, and then she detected a group of them headed for the engine room." "What were they planning to do there?" Janice mostly suppressed a sardonic grin. "You'd have to ask them to be sure, but Cortana found a hardwired self-destruct system in the section they were headed for? So my guess would be they didn't just plan to fuck with the lights." If Lock was ruffled, he didn't show it. "So she dispatched you to deal with them." "That's right. I went down to the engineering spaces to intercept that team. Meanwhile, there was some kind of mechanical lockout on the antenna array she needed to make the fleet override happen, so X had to go out on the hull and mess with that. All in all? I think I got the better job." /-- Xander Cage exited the airlock and stepped out onto the hull of the Hammer of Kahless, immediately making for the waypoint marker Cortana had dumped into the HUD of his vac-helmet. It was most certainly not the first time he'd ever been weightless, or even the first time he'd magbooted across the exterior of a starship, so he was able to skip the usual "What the crap?!" moment the average human brain produced when placed in such a situation. If anything, he was a bit bummed that he didn't have time to admire the view, both of the space around him and the vastness of the Hammer itself. "The price of doin' business and shit," he muttered to himself. "I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that," said a voice in his ear. Cage wasn't quite used to the near-omniscient presence of Cortana yet, but managed to find his humor before his annoyance. "I said I don't know how I ever managed to do anything like this before I met you, Cortana." The ACI chuckled. "Awwww, flattery will get you everywhere, Mr. Cage. Even the sarcastic kind. You're about 20 yards from the ledge of the sensor pit. You should be able to see the array from there. It's the big white-ringed dish structure in the center." X approached the ledge in question and stopped to take a quick overhead survey. The sensor pit was a large scoop structure in the hull, one side being a gentle slope and the other, which Cage stood above, a sheer wall that dropped at least 40 yards to the 'floor' below. Various bumps and spikes littered the entire pit, but the center was occupied by the main communications array and emitter. "Sorry about the climb down, Cage, I had to get you to the closest airlock." X smiled a lopsided grin. "This ain't nothin'. Besides, it'll be faster." He carefully stepped over the edge and let his boots stick him to the 'wall', transitioning 90 degrees and making that the new floor. He took a few steps, looked up to get his bearings, tucked himself into a crouch, and then pushed off, releasing his boots at the same time. "Uhhh, Xander?" Cortana said in mock-calm. "You do realize that you're in -space-, right? And that we're under hostile conditions and if you were to, say, -drift off into open space-, there's a pretty good chance that I wouldn't be able to recover you?" "Yup." "... OK. Just checking." "No problem. I do this for a living, you know." "Of course I know. You think I've never been to your website?" "Flattery will get you everywhere, Cortana. And by the way." "Yes?" Cage paused just long enough to snag the tip of a sensor mast in one hand, then swung around on it once and change his trajectory feet-first for the hull right next to the dish and the nearest security interlock. He landed with a muffled "whung!", then grinned inside his helmet as he thumbed his magboots back online, heard their distinctive whine-clunk, and felt them stick him to the deck. "Call me X." Janice Barlow had tracked and killed (and sometimes cooked and eaten) some of the deadliest creatures in the known galaxy. She had therefore been plenty ready, even eager, when Cortana had asked her to head to the engine room, disable as many of the opfor as possible, and break shit. Creeping around on the trail of monsters was SOP for her. She hadn't expected that trail to be marked in broad, angular purple arrows, luminescently pointing the way to the engine room. Each arrow was also labeled; she assumed the markings were helpful to whatever sort of creature spoke Pointy-Curly Angled Squiggling, but they didn't do much for her. Cortana's nav pointer was generally more helpful, overall. "Nice arrows on the floor they've got here," Janice commented to Cortana. "Klingons aren't that dumb, usually.. and this isn't even pIqaD. What the hell are they up to?" "If I'm correct..." Cortana said, trailing off as though in thought, "... well, let's just say the help around here is usually a lot dumber than your average Klingon warrior." "Oh, really," Janice remarked dryly. "Any chance I'll find the help before I find the Klingons?" "... I hope not," Cortana replied, and the somber note in her voice silenced even Janice's questions. They traveled in that silence for a few minutes; as Janice approached the engine room, she started to evaluate her options for gaining the drop on the Klingons. "Cortana," she whispered. "Nearest panel I can pry out to get into the conduits?" "Four meters behind you," Cortana replied. "It'll be on your left." Janice backed up carefully, Varista at the ready, and found the access panel. She pried it out and looked inside; there was just about enough room for her to get in there and start climbing. She holstered her Varista - - just as Mitra flashed a warning in her HUD, catching her attention. Janice whirled as a disruptor bolt blistered the air near her leg; the Klingon trooper who had fired on her shouted a challenge and charged, firing wildly. "Mitra, fuck him up, would you?" Janice said as she hit the deckplates and threw her Barrier in front of her face, reaching for her Varista with her free hand. "There's a dear." Mitra paused for a moment, acquiring a solid target lock. The Mag's optic pulsed once in a disturbing shade of Getter-ray green, then spewed forth a bolt of energy that caught the Klingon high on the right shoulder. Janice's shot struck center mass nanoseconds later, and the trooper toppled to the deck with a crash. Janice sighed, holstered the Varista again, summoned Mitra to her side, and started climbing a lot faster. Klayvor's flunkies would have heard that one. Cortana sat in the center of her electronic web, pushing her perceptions as deep into the Klingon battle platform's systems as they would go. She was still being kept out of the command overrides, the weapons systems, and the communications and electronic warfare systems, but she had pretty much everything else sewn up, and new areas of the vessel's functionality were opening to her all the time. At the same time, she was absorbing the databanks of the late Covenant AI that had occupied the position in which she now found herself, sorting and archiving every piece of data it had possessed for later analysis. She was so caught up in that, and directing the movements of the four commandos through the interior of the ship itself, that she didn't notice the Klingon security team approaching her own position until they had almost reached that deck. If she had to guess - and she did, this was no time to be checking the securicam logs - she'd say they'd split off from the group heading down to the engineering level. Obviously they'd figured out that someone was screwing with the computer systems, and were on their way to have a word with that someone. Quickly, Cortana checked the status of her troops. All were too far away now to be of any use handling this (and Barlow's mission was too time-sensitive in its own right to retask her now). She could call Tuncer or the Master Chief back and they -might- make it in time... but probably not. So that left team member number five. Cortana patched into the wireless comm interface on Riddick's battle harness and hoped for the best. "Riddick? Can you hear me?" "Yeah, I hear you," the dog replied. Cortana was momentarily startled. Not only did his cybernetic "voice" "sound" just like his master's real one, she wasn't expecting a complete sentence. "Wait a second, you're sapient?" she blurted. "Uh huh," said Riddick laconically. "Then why didn't you speak up before?" Cortana could almost feel the nonchalant shrug in his reply: "Didn't have anything to say." She might have pondered this development further, but the reason she'd initiated the conversation was too pressing, so she shook off her surprise and said, "There's a Klingon security team headed for this location." "I know," Riddick said. He sounded calm, almost bored. "How do you know?" A dark chuckle. "I can smell them." "Can you hold them off?" "Kill the lights." Cortana would've blinked if she'd been projecting her face. "What?" "Kill. The -lights-," Riddick repeated in the tone of one who is being patient. Cortana did as she was asked, shutting down the standard and emergency lighting on the systems deck. Then, since she couldn't do much else under the circumstances, she switched that deck's cameras to infrared mode and sat back to see what kind of work her unusual little accomplice could do. /* Looking Glass Studios "Hydroponics A" _System Shock 2_ */ The Klingon security troopers were heavily armed and itching for a fight, astonished and enraged that someone would have the temerity to invade their mighty flagship. A good dog would have gotten the hell out of their way. When it suited him, Richard B. Riddick could be a very, very bad dog indeed. The seven-man security team emerged from the turbolift at the far end of the corridor from the computer center. They were surprised to find the level in pitch darkness, without even the dull amber glow of emergency lighting. That was annoying, but not an insurmountable problem. It wasn't like they had a lot of complicated maneuvering to do. The computer room was directly ahead, a hundred yards or so down a straight corridor with no elevation changes. The Klingons switched on their field lights and advanced. The point man moved forward, his disruptor rifle leveled, alert for trouble. There didn't seem to be anyone up ahead - his rifle's light was casting a white circle on the door to the computer center, and there was obviously nothing in between. He smiled. The intruders must be holed up inside the room itself. That would make the job of dealing with them much simpler. It was a small room. If the demolition charges that took out the door didn't kill them, mopping them up afterward would still be easy. Except for the quiet sounds of the security patrol moving forward, the corridor was eerily silent - until suddenly the point man heard something. The sound was a sort of blend of a low-pitched whir with a nearly-ultrasonic whine, and it lasted for only about a second. He wasn't sure what it was, but it came from up ahead. He held up a hand and paused. he muttered. the squad leader asked. The point man peered into the darkness ahead. Below the disk of light his rifle was casting on the door, he could just make out two tiny points of silvery-blue light. They almost looked like -eyes-, but they were only about a foot above the floor. He shifted his rifle, swinging the light downward, and all hell broke loose. For all that she gave the appearance of humanoid mannerisms when she spoke to people, Cortana -wasn't- humanoid. One of the ways in which this manifested itself was her ability to multitask. The humanoid mind can do more than one thing at a time, of course, but not all that well, and there's always an element of distraction when one is, for instance, doing something and talking to someone at the same time. Cortana didn't have that problem. Within the limits of her processing power - which were significant - she could carry out multiple actions with no degradation. It was possible for her to be so busy she got distracted, but it took work. Also, since her interface with the physical world was entirely virtual, she could do something no humanoid could manage - have more than one completely separate conversation at the same time. So it was that, while watching Riddick do his thing (and being quite impressed by it), she was also talking the dog's master through his task out on the hull. "... so all you have to do is disable the three interlocks around the dish. That will allow you access to the main security panel. Once you're there, it's a simple key sequence and I can take it from there." Xander Cage looked thoughtfully at the first interlock panel at his feet. "Does 'disable' mean 'destroy'?" "Yes." "I'm a pro at that, too." Cage reached for one of his plasma grenades. "You can't use an energy weapon," Cortana said hastily. "It will overload the local circuit and lock us out completely." Cortana added a smile to her voice. "Your Frame should be able to handle doing it manually. And you're a big guy and all." Cage, lacking any other cue, looked up with a dubious expression. "You're right," he said with a crooked grin, "but that would be -work-." He reached over his shoulder and pulled a battered Mossberg 590 shotgun with a pistol grip from a custom holster on the back of his Frame. "OK, that wins you style points," Cortana noted dryly, "but somehow I don't think you're going to impress anything with buckshot." "You wound me." X racked the pump on the weapon. "These are custom-made slug rounds. A pal of mine back home makes 'em out of scavenged Destroid armor. Delta City Express, when you absolutely, positively have to make a giant fucking hole... " With that he aimed the gun downwards and fired. The report, carried by the chassis of his armored suit to the atmosphere inside, was muffled but plainly audible. The interlock shattered, sending a backblast of glittering debris up around Cage and into space. "Objection withdrawn. Hurry up and get the other two so I can get you the hell - " Cortana stopped short. "Oops, I hadn't noticed that." "Noticed what?" "Seems there's an automated defense system." Cage scanned the space around the sensor pit. "Well, nothing's been shooting at me, so I guess you don't mean stationary." "Nope. The ship's database only lists them as 'sentinels'. They appear to be drones of some sort. Coming up from aft, I'll put a marker in your HUD." A yellow icon appeared in X's field of view and he turned to the direction it noted. He toggled the zoom function of his visor, but they were still too far away for him to make anything out beyond a handful of silver specks moving his way. "If they're wired into the ship's systems, can't you just crash them or make them fly to Halloran V or something?" "-Ice Planet- Halloran V," the AI replied in a mocking tone. She continued before he could complain about her sense of humor. "They're autonomous once they leave their bays. They'd go away if they came out here and nothing was wrong, but you've already blown one hole in the hull, so even if you hid they'd just orbit until a work detail came out to fix it. The good news is, from what data I have, your little toy there will take care of them nicely. There's five of them, how many rounds do you have?" "Nine now." Cage jacked the shotgun. The shotgun's mechanism flung the used shell out at a tangent away from the ship, into its own orbit around Qo'noS. He frowned and looked 'up' again. "Wait. That's the -good- news. Did I already get the bad news?" "That depends whether you assumed they were armed. If you did, then yes. Class IV disruptors. Your shields should be able to take a few hits." He groaned. "Come on, X, I thought you lived for this shit," Cortana cajoled him. X turned back to the drones, which had cut the distance to him significantly. He could make them out now: sleek, faceted metallic insects with extended grav booms and a plainly obvious emitter lens in the front of each, glowing faintly red. He crouched, preparing to jump, as the emitter on the closest sentinel began to brighten. "You're lucky you're cute, Cortana," he said, just before leaping out of the way of the first glowing orange energy beam. Marteth tai-Kaavor dusted his hands and moved quickly to the next junction box. Lord Klayvor had hand-picked him to serve as the battlestation's chief engineer, and he was proud to say that of all the officers of the Hammer, he alone possessed the fullest command of the intricacies of Covenant technology. He had studied alongside the strange beings that accompanied Lord Klayvor everywhere; they were honorable warriors, but unsuited for the work of teaching, leaving him to derive for himself the functions of their odd devices. He was absorbed in the main power regulators for the fusion reactor control system, aligning the modules so that the destruct console in the center of the room would be usable, when Janice arrived in the overhead maze of piping and conduits that formed the ceiling of the Hammer's engine room. She was hanging from a zipline in one of the far recesses of the room. Mitra was running point in the actual tangle of cabling above. The Mag sent her an image of the Klingon engineer; Janice dumped it to Cortana's uplink and waited. The AI came back in a heartbeat, whispering even though they technically couldn't be overheard. "Marteth tai-Kaavor," Cortana said. "One of Klayvor's engineering staff. If he's working on the fusion control system, the Covenant must trust him with their technology." "Want him alive, or glowing in the dark?" Janice subvocalized. Cortana's smirk was audible. "If you can get him -out- of here alive, I'm sure Mr. Rogers and Queen Asrial have some questions they'd like him to answer," she said dryly. "Got it," Janice replied. /* Juno Reactor "Angels and Men" _Labyrinth_ */ The Ragolian surveyed the room one last time, then retracted the line and climbed back into the conduit maze. Mitra had already staked out a spot where she could, if she was quick, sit and snipe at least two of the five Klingons in the room. The engineer was going to take personal handling; the drawback of a Varista was its lethality. She swung through the cabling and perched atop a squarish chunk of pipe. Fortunately, she'd put the scope on her Varista and done a hurried job of sighting it in before they'd landed on Qo'noS; while it wouldn't have been precise by most standards if it had been a slug thrower, it wasn't a slug thrower. She figured she only had a couple of shots before someone noticed, as it was. Her first two shots, however, were intended for the burly-even-for-Klingons security types stationed at the main door to the engine room. After that, she was fairly sure things were going to get messy. She lined up her first shot and eased the trigger back. One dead Klingon sprawled against the main doors; his partner turned and shouted something, bringing the others in the room to full attention. Janice heard disruptors being drawn across the entire expanse of the engineering area, and tensed. Her second shot brought down the one who'd sounded the alarm. She pulled Mitra back with a mental command and sent the drone down the far side of the room. One shot from Mitra took out an engineering aide who'd dropped into a defensive crouch with his back against the environmental console. Janice hid the Mag in a pipe bend and made her own move - attacking not one of the Klingons, but the console in the middle of the room which Cortana had marked as the hardwired self-destruct. With one well-placed shot, Janice slagged it. "Well, that stops them from handling the situation -that- way," Cortana mused. "Now we just need to capture that engineer." "('We'?)" Janice mumbled. Cortana ignored the remark in favor of offering a little tactical update. "They think there are two snipers," she noted. "They're supposed to," Janice replied. one of the Klingon troopers barked, handily identifying himself as an officer. Janice crossed over a couple of big pipes (noting with some alarm that one of them was hot enough to draw down her shield power slightly), then dropped into the gap between two conduits, spanning them with her elbows to keep from falling through. Trying to be as quiet as possible, she swung her feet up and over the conduits, then folded in her arms and dropped so she was hanging by her knees. The officer who'd spoken earlier was standing twenty feet away, his back to her. He never knew what hit him. That was where her luck ran out, though - another of the security troopers spotted the green flare of her Varista and yelled, lacing the air around her with disruptor fire. Cursing, she swung back up into the conduits and tried to disappear. As it happened, her two-tone grey Frame was well-suited to hiding in the industrial setting of a Klingon engine room, but a couple of the bastards had her dialed in now. As she jumped from pipe to pipe and hand-over-handed through a series of cables, she wondered how much damage their disruptors streams were doing as they slashed indiscriminately through the hanging machinery behind her. It'd be a hell of a note for one of them to set off some kind of chain reaction and blow the whole place up by -accident-. While she was ruminating on that, she got to a wall she hadn't noticed in the lousy lighting, swore, turned, and caught a disruptor blast full in the chest. There was an actinic flash and a sharp PAF as the energy ripped into her Frame's shields, causing a violent superheating of the air just outside them as they shed the disruptor energy in all directions. With her shield alarm throbbing in her helmet, Janice knew she couldn't take another hit. Thinking fast, she dropped through the gap between a couple of big, imposing pieces of gear she couldn't identify. She fell ten feet and landed hard, going down on one knee and catching herself with her gun hand, Varista pressed flat to the deck on its side. The crash of metal on metal was unmistakable as she hit the grated deck. Mitra, covering the far side of the room, showed her several of the Klingons homing in on her position, about to round the corner of the wall of bent pipes ahead. Without time to holster her Varista, she just left it where it lay and whipped Foe-Hammer's plasma rifle from her back. The unfamiliar weapon felt clumsy as she raised it into position, but she didn't need precision for this. These guys thought they were charging down on a sniper. As they rounded the corner, she triggered the rifle into full-auto mode and mowed them down. "Whoa, that was dumb - can't believe we did that," she remarked quietly inside her helmet as the rifle hissed and sputtered through its cooling cycle. She slung it again, picked up her Varista, and faded to - what was that, starboard? She'd lost track - before the others could investigate the burst of plasma fire and shouts of pain. With her back pressed to a bulkhead, she edged to the corner and waited for the reassuring hum of her shields recharging. It never came. "Damn," she muttered. The same thing had happened to Tuncer after his encounter with the heavy weapons trooper in the Repo Men's initial enemy encounter. Apparently Klingon disruptor fire had a particularly bad effect on the generating coils for Frame bodyshields. A useful thing for the R&D boys to know, she decided, if either of the people it had happened to got out of this mess alive... Mitra, meanwhile, moved at an angle in the opposite direction, scanning for the remaining Klingons. Two of them were crouched warily on either side of a small hatchway leading to a maintenance crawlspace, the Klingon equivalent of a Jefferies tube. Marteth was nowhere to be seen. "That J-tube leads to the metaspace point generator core," Cortana said to Janice with carefully modulated alarm. "If Marteth destabilizes that and powers it up, we'll have the unique experience of spending one nanosecond simultaneously occupying every point in the universe." "And then?" "Then nothing," Cortana replied. "There's already something -in- every point in the universe." "... Oh. OK, that's bad." Janice climbed onto the top of a big metallic box that hummed and vibrated under her - power transformer, maybe? It was kind of soothing - and considered her options. If she just charged these two guys, both of whom were armed with disruptor rifles, she'd be no better off than the guys who ran into her plasma rifle had been, especially with her shield generator having taken the Final Jump. On the other hand... Mitra popped out from hiding and blasted one of the guards. The other whirled, and this time the Mag made no effort to hide. The guard seemed taken slightly aback to find himself confronted by a hovering mechanical device about the size (and vaguely the shape) of a football. By the time he realized that he'd been suckered, it was too late. He turned, swinging his rifle to bear, just in time to be caught high in the chest by a bolt from Janice's Varista. "Hurry!" Cortana urged her. "There's no camera in the core chamber. I'm not seeing power fluctuations, but I can't see what Marteth is doing, and by the time I do see power on the system it might be too late." Janice hauled open the hatch, grabbed the rail just above the coaming with her free hand, and swung her feet through the opening onto the first step of a steep ladder. The maintenance tube was maybe three feet in diameter, big enough to crawl through without great inconvenience, and sloped sharply downward for perhaps fifty feet. Marteth was still in the tube, about three-quarters of the way down. Janice considered her options, then set her insteps and palms on the outsides of the ladder uprights and let gravity take over. She hit the unsuspecting Marteth like a ton of bricks, knocking him off the ladder and piling both of them up in a heap in the little sloped room at the bottom of the tube. Snarling, the stunned but very much conscious Klingon threw her off him, straightened up, and drew a mek'leth from his back. In the close confines of the J-tube room, he wasn't going to be able to do anything fancy, but he could still swing the thing hard enough to cause a problem. Janice knew she had to get this done with quickly. She blocked his first overhand swing with her Barrier. The device, which had already had a bad weekend, sputtered, its projected shield flickering. Janice balled a fist and drove it into Marteth's midsection with all the strength her Frame could give her. The Klingon folded up with an explosive gasp. Janice grabbed the back of his head and rammed his furrowed brow into her upraised knee, then straightened him up and slugged him. Well, OK, she thought as he crumpled to the deck. Steve might have a hard time interrogating him with his jaw wired, but at least he's alive. Then she looked down at his armored bulk, looked back up the steeply angled tube to the exit hatch, and sighed. "Now I have to lug your Klingon ass all the fuck back up there," she grumbled, kicking lightly at him. "They might send another team down here," Cortana said. "Go into the core chamber and I'll talk you through disabling the point generator so it can't be used to destroy the station." Janice gave the upper left corner of the room (it seemed as good a place as any) a dubious look. "Trust me," Cortana said. "If I can talk Xander Cage through adjusting a comm relay, this should be simple enough." The Ragolian chuckled darkly and popped the lower hatch, clambering through into the room beyond. The metaspace point core chamber was a hemispherical room about fifty feet in radius, its walls covered in a gleaming, featureless alloy. In the center, there was a techy-looking pedestal with a matching excrescence jutting down from the ceiling. Between the two hovered a crystalline shard about a foot long, which filled the room with a blue-silvery light and a faint shimmery sound. There was someone standing at that pedestal, messing with the controls. "What the - ?!" Janice blurted, drawing her Varista again. "Hey! Hold it!" she barked. The figure at the pedestal half-turned. He didn't look like a Klingon, although that was kind of hard to say for sure. Certainly he wasn't wearing a Klingon uniform. Instead he was clad from head to toe in black armor, its lines vaguely reminiscent of the Frames worn by the Repo Men, but with heavier-looking plating and a helmet that put Janice more in mind of a motorcyclist. The man in black, having taken stock of the person who'd shouted, seemed unconcerned. He went back to work. "Get away from that console if you don't want to get ventilated, pal," Janice said. "Hold on," Cortana told her. "I don't know who this guy is, but he's doing what I sent you down here to do. He's initiating a core shutdown." "He what?!" Janice replied. A moment later, most of the probes pointed at it from both upper and lower nodes retracted. The sound and glow of the core crystal faded. The man in black stepped back from the console, then walked around to the side of the pedestal, reached up, and removed the crystal from its place. With that, the room darkened almost entirely, the only source of light in it (other than the greenish glow of Janice's Varista) the faint radiance coming from the crystal itself. The man turned and, with a casual underhand gesture, tossed the crystal to Janice. Startled, she took her off hand from her Varista, caught it, and regarded it for a second before looking back at the black-clad man. "Who the hell are you?" she asked. He reached up and flipped open the visor of his helmet. Since this only revealed him from his eyebrows to the bridge of his nose, and the room was practically dark, that didn't help much. She could only just make out a pair of merrily twinkling eyes. He gave her a conspiratorial little wink, then snapped his visor shut again... ... and disappeared with a brief display of silvery light that didn't look like any transporter Janice had ever seen. "... What the -hell-," Janice said. "Search me," Cortana replied. "You'd better get back up to the systems level. With that taken care of, there's nothing another team can mess with that I can't prevent from here." Janice turned, regarding the crystal. "This thing isn't dangerous or anything, is it?" she said. "If it's like the others I've seen, it's slightly radioactive, but nothing your Frame can't protect you from." "... great," Janice said, tucking the crystal into a storage compartment on her leg. She crossed the room, ducked through the hatch into the J-tube, and then paused. "Cortana?" she asked as she surveyed the complete absence of Marteth. "Is Engineer Boy roaming around the reactor room again?" "He never came out of the tube," Cortana replied. "Well, there's no other exit from this room," Janice said. "All the same, he never emerged. He's apparently nowhere aboard." "... Well, at least that means I don't have to drag his ass up this ladder," Janice said philosophically as she began to climb. On the ground, the situation wasn't going quite the way Utena would have liked, though she had to admit it was probably going about as well as she could reasonably have hoped. The rebels were almost literally throwing everything they had at the capitol, and she simply didn't have the weight of force necessary to throw them back. The building's defenses were starting to crumble. The structure was taking so much abuse from the enemy's weapons that her troops were having a hard time finding decent physical cover; they were holding their positions with tremendous guts and skill, but those positions were eroding out from under them. It left a sour taste in her mouth, but there was only one viable option now. "Capitol defense forces, this is Commodore Tenjou," she declared on the short-range tactical band. "Fall back to Defensive Perimeter C and reinforce." "Say again, Commodore? Did you order Perimeter C?" Pete Stacker's voice replied. "That's affirm, Sergeant," Utena said. "We have to evacuate the upper floors before the rebels bring 'em down around our ears." "Roger that," Stacker replied, his tone clearly indicating that he felt it was the right move. "You heard the lady, Repo Men - let's get outta here." "Red Team, falling back," McCandless chipped in, his voice cool and brisk. The sounds of battle in the background weren't as audible when the GENOM trooper spoke - his full-enclosure helmet did a better job of muffling them. /* Rage Against the Machine "Pistol Grip Pump" _Renegades_ */ The defense drone Xander Cage was riding bucked under him, trying desperately to shake him off. Not only was it doing this in an effort to remove him, for he was most certainly not supposed to be there, but he'd managed to hang on long enough that the rudimentary SI onboard the other two remaining drones had, in the ever-continuing effort to be efficient, simply designated the X/drone unit as a single threat. The drones were now doing their best to carve both Cage and his ride up at once. What this strange set of circumstances was doing to the decision-chain in the targeted drone's processing unit would probably have been fascinating to whoever originally programmed them. Were it actually sentient, the drone would probably describe the sensation as a migraine. There would always be a part of X's brain that enjoyed being in situations like this. Watching a holovid of his exploits later would be a blast. Right then, however, he was thinking about too many things at once. The main priority was keeping his leg hooked around and clamped in just the right way so that the grav-field around the drone didn't just make him slip off into orbit around Qo'noS. The next priority after that was shooting the other drones down. He'd managed one while still on the hull, than had jumped the one he was on and taken another out. That was when they decided not to be picky about shooting at one of their own. He hadn't quite expected them to learn quite so fast, and what he'd thought would be a simple matter of attrition was now taking far too long. "Uhhhh, Cortana? Little help?" "Awww, I think you're doing just fine. Cowboy." "Very (shit!) funny. C'mon, they're just fucking robots, right? Can't you do some computer shit or something?" "No, but you can. I just found the layout for those drones. Give me a second and I'll put a diagram of what you need to do on your HUD." "You expect me to slice into this thing while - aargh! - it's trying to kill me?" "Don't worry, X, it's right up your alley. Sending you the data now." X blinked as his HUD lit up with a line drawing of the machine that was doing its best to kill him. He was quiet for a moment. "So, it's just that there?" He said, pointing to a spot in front of his knees. "Yep." "And just with... ?" "Uh-huh." X paused a moment. "OK, if you say so." With that he freed his right hand from his shotgun, pulled back his armored fist, and brought it crashing down on the panel in question. The drone dropped a good five feet all at once, almost throwing him into the hull. Blue sparks flashed around his arm for a moment, leaving some artistic scoring on his Frame. "Perfect." Cortana chirped. "Taking control now. I'd like to wrap this up, so I hope you don't mind if I drive?" "Just as long as you're going my way." Cortana took over the drone without comment to that, zipping X right along the deck and neatly skewering one of the other drones on its disruptor beam. Her second shot went wide and the last drone escaped and looped around behind them. Cortana started evasive maneuvers and altered the drone's grav field so that it wasn't such a pain for X to hang on. X made a crooked grin and, free of the slippery gravity field, turned and crouched backwards on the back of the drone. "Uhhhhh, X?" "Relax, I can handle this. Just don't let it hit you." Before the AI could comment further, he leapt. Straight up. Into open space. The single target the pursuing drone was chasing suddenly split into two. Noting that its fellow sentinel still appeared to be hostile and the primary target was now floating off uncontrolled into space, it flagged the other drone as its Primary Target and ignored X. Showing him its back as it passed below him. X grinned. "Bad move, brutha'." Another muffled whump of his shotgun and the last drone wheeled over a bit, leaving a glittering contrail of debris before shattering as its power core detonated. Cortana powered her drone around to pick X up. "Nice job." "Yeah, yeah, yeah. What do I have to bribe you with to have you save off the sensor footage of all that? Lifetime membership to the site or something?" "As if I couldn't sweet-talk that out of Spark myself." X chuckled. "Right. Get me back to the dish so I can get out of this fucking helmet." "Yessir, Mr. Cage, sir," Cortana said with an audible wink, then whisked him off. The Master Chief reached the door to the station's control room precisely on time, just as Cortana finished disabling the security system and opened it for him. With an M6 pistol in each hand, he slipped around the doorframe, scanning the area for hostiles. The control room of the Hammer of Kahless had two levels, a circular main deck and an upper "balcony" that ringed the aft half. There was no one on the balcony, and none of the consoles on it had functions which were immediately apparent to the Master Chief. He went to the railing and looked down into the main control room. Nobody there either. The Master Chief's thumbs pricked. This level was as vacant as the docking and systems levels had been. He'd run into security teams in several places on the way up... but the command deck itself was empty? That was weird, and the Master Chief didn't like it when weird things happened in battle. He took one more look around, then triggered his comm system. "I'm in, Cortana. On the upper level." "OK, good. Tuncer is about a minute behind you down below." "The command deck is deserted," the Master Chief reported. "No one here at all. I don't like it." "I don't either, but we've got too much to do right now to worry about that. I'm giving you and Tuncer nav markers for the consoles I need you to access." The Master Chief followed the marker in his HUD to one of the control panels along the balcony's edge, then performed a simple operation at Cortana's direction. "Right. That unlocks the communications and EW systems. I should be able to kill the wide-area jamming and initiate a fleet override now. Try your long-range comms." "Stand by." The Master Chief switched his helmet comm to long-range. "Commodore Tenjou, this is SPARTAN-117. Do you read me?" "Loud and clear, Master Chief," Utena's voice replied. "I take it you guys are making some progress, and not a moment too soon." "What's your situation?" "We've fallen back to Perimeter C," Utena said. "They've got us bottled up in the basement. We're holding so far, but it's tense. What've you got for me, John?" "Cortana has control of the enemy battle platform's computer." The Master Chief looked down over the railing and saw Tuncer entering. "Tuncer's on the command deck lower level; hopefully he'll be able to give her control of the platform's tactical systems as well. Then we might be able to give you some fire sup - " Below, Tuncer scanned the room, turned to head for one of the consoles, then abruptly froze. The blue-armored Elite almost pointed like a hunting dog. " - wait one, Commodore. Tuncer? What've you got?" Instead of responding via his own comlink, Tuncer roared aloud, "AAAaaaAAAAaaa kataba WANgo taNAAAAA!" Then, to the Master Chief's distinct and unpleasant surprise, the blue-clad Elite was answered: "WURT WURT WURT!" "WHAT the - ?!" "Chief? What's going on?" On the far side of the control room's lower level, a massive shape suddenly popped into visibility with the familiar effect of Covenant active camouflage being switched off. Before Tuncer could react, the other figure on the lower deck smashed his objective console. "How in the - POSITIVE CONTACT!" the Master Chief declared on both his short- and long-range tactical bands. "Assault team, we have a Covenant Elite on the command deck. White armor, a type I've never seen before, but it's definitely an Elite. Exercise extreme caution - the Covenant almost never travel singly." Oh, -great-, thought Janice Barlow down on the systems deck. She double-checked her plasma rifle, jacked up the gain on her cybereye's infrared filter, and ordered Mitra into a tighter patrol pattern, then stood with her back to the door and gazed warily down the corridor. Beside her, Riddick deployed his PPG pods again. She found the sound of the weapons charging curiously comforting. Inside the data center, Cortana realized she had a bigger problem. The white-clad Elite had destroyed the console she'd been sending Tuncer toward, and there was no backup on that level. She was now, as far as she could tell from the schematics, permanently locked out of the Hammer of Kahless's tactical systems. She still had her other card to play, but now her insurance for playing that card was gone. Still, there was no other move available. "Heads up, assault team," she said. "I'm initiating prefix overrides on all the rebel warships." Aboard the rebel battleship Rektar, Commander Kamar vathTilkat was trying to make sense of the communications traffic coming from the Hammer of Kahless. It seemed as though the battle platform had been boarded, but he couldn't raise anyone over there to tell him anything about the situation. Most of the command staff, including Lord Klayvor and Lord Venger, were dirtside, leading the final attack on the capitol. The platform had possessed only a skeleton crew, and now none of them seemed to be answering their comms. Kamar frowned at his tactical display and was just about to order his communications officer to hail Klayvor when his ship suddenly went to combat alert. Kamar barked. the tactical officer replied, looking alarmed. the helm officer cried a moment later. the captain ordered. Engineer Kaveth worked at his panel for a moment, then turned an ashen face to his commander. the tac officer cut in, pointing to the tactical display on the main viewer. A second later the ship shuddered with the unmistakable shock of a weapon impact. the tactical officer reported. All around the rebel fleet's siege perimeter, the same story was playing out as Cortana seized control of ship after ship. Within a minute, she was playing Klayvor's whole fleet - the ships that had arrived with him, and the KDF vessels that had defected or been captured - like a gigantic organ of engines, disruptor batteries, and photon torpedo tubes. A hundred capital ships and sixty support vessels were under her direct control, and like a woman controlling both sides of a chess board, she set them against each other in a colossal display of coordinated violence. The feat taxed the processing power of the Hammer's Covenant computer core to the limit and required every bit of her concentration, but it was an almighty hell of a rush. In the corridor just outside the data center, Janice Barlow was in a position to observe none of this. All she noticed was that the corridor lights noticeably dimmed a moment after Cortana declared that she was starting the game. A few seconds later, the maintenance hatch partway down the corridor swung open and Xander Cage emerged, the muzzle of his AK-23 leading the way. He looked one way, then the other, sweeping his surroundings, then shut the hatch behind him and walked slowly toward the systems room, taking in the carnage littering the floor along his way. "Somebody's been busy," he observed. Then, crouching next to Riddick, he ruffled the hound's armored head and said, "Good boy, Riddy. Hit Geek up for a snack when we get back." The dog grunted an acknowledgement. Cage stood up and grinned at Janice. "Have any trouble in the engine room, Red?" "Not much," Janice replied. "You look like you had fun topside," she added, gesturing to the carbon scoring on his Frame. "Hnh," Cage said. "Nearly got myself spaced. Just another day at the office." "Yeah, well, now we're working overtime. You get the Master Chief's broadcast?" "About the Elite? Yeah. What's the plan?" Janice shrugged. "Stand by for evac, I guess. Tuncer's handling it." Had he heard Janice's declaration of faith in him, the team member known, apparently in error, as the Last Elite would have found it touching, but possibly misplaced. In fact, if viewing the situation dispassionately, Tuncer would've had to admit that he was getting -worked-. He hadn't had to go up against one of his own kind in more than a century, and the skills specific to that task were long-rusty. His shield generator had been destroyed in the first engagement of this protracted incident, his active camo was working only intermittently, his armor was battered and so, to be honest, was the creature within. For the moment, Tuncer was taking on his opponent alone. The white-armored Elite had apparently not noticed the Master Chief on the upper level, an advantage the SPARTAN had capitalized on by switching in his own active camo as soon as the two Elites started to tangle. It went against the Master Chief's instincts not to engage an obvious enemy, but with Tuncer going hand-to-hand with the white-armored Elite, it was going to be tricky to get a clear shot. "Tuncer? You OK?" the Master Chief asked over the short-range band. A moment later, the enemy Elite picked Tuncer up and hurled him bodily into a bulkhead, crushing the plate and leaving the blue-armored warrior semi-reclining in a hole in the wall. "Bokata na. JaKOta," Tuncer snarled, and the Master Chief's HUD provided a simultaneous translation: Then Tuncer heaved himself out of the hole and hurled himself at his enemy again. The Elite in white was not only much fresher than Tuncer, but seemed to be slightly faster and stronger as well. He blocked the next attack, then got an arm across Tuncer's breastplate and threw him down. The blue-clad Elite stayed where he landed for a second, stunned. The White Elite stepped toward his fallen foe, then took a small piece of equipment from his armored battlesuit's belt. For the first time since his initial bark of recognition, he spoke. he said, then ignited his weapon - a three-foot-long, wickedly crackling plasma sword, one of the signature weapons of the Covenant Elite. Tuncer growled to the Master Chief. "I figured that would impugn your honor," the Master Chief replied impassively. Tuncer said, then abandoned his play-dead position, rolled under the White Elite's intended coup de grace, and smashed a fist into his scaly midsection, right under the lower edge of his plastron. Roaring in pain, the White Elite reared back, raising his blade for another strike. "OK, then," the Master Chief said. Then he switched off his active camo and calmly dropped a quick triple-triple - three rapid squeezes of his BR-55's trigger, each dispatching a burst of three rounds - into the center of the White Elite's chest. The unexpected attack didn't kill the creature, but it did take down his shields and send him reeling back, roaring in surprised pain, as the last round punched through his breastplate and raised a small spray of blood. Tuncer didn't miss his cue. With his opponent startled and off-balance, he leaped to his feet, seized the White Elite's right wrist in his left hand, pivoted, applied all his strength, and - before the unfortunate Covenant warrior quite had a chance to realize what was happening - cut his enemy's head off with his own plasma sword. The Last Elite stood, breathing hard, over his fallen foe for a moment, then shook his head. The Master Chief vaulted the rail from the upper level and landed next to Tuncer, then straightened up and regarded the dead White Elite. Then he turned to Tuncer, his head cocked inquisitively, and said, "'Screw my honor'? That's a very human thing for you to say." Tuncer made a derisive noise. he said. "That was a nice move." Tuncer replied. The Master Chief gave his BR-55 an affectionate pat. "It's official," he said. "I love this rifle." "I'm glad it makes you happy, John," Cortana cut in. "Get back to the systems level - we have another problem." On the systems deck, Riddick noticed it first - a faint vibration of the deck under his feet, then the far-off sounds of explosions. "Cortana?" Janice Barlow inquired a few seconds later. "What's that noise?" With evident chagrin in her voice, Cortana replied, "That would be multiple photon torpedo impacts. Some of the rebel captains are smarter than I thought. They've found ways to bypass their main computers and still fight their ships." "And we can't fight back." "Correct." "Wonderful." Cortana didn't reply for a few seconds; then she said, "It gets better. They just destroyed my main communications array. I've lost control of the fleet. Mind you, that doesn't mean -they- all have control -back- yet, but it still means this neighborhood's going to get too hot for us -very- soon now." She considered the problem for a few microseconds, using the processing power freed up by her loss of fleet control, then went on, "With help, I might be able to reroute nonessential systems and take control of some of the defensive equipment that way - " Xander Cage looked like an idea had just smacked him in the face. "No," he interrupted. "Shut it all down. Shut -everything- down." "What?" The Master Chief's voice cut in. "Cage is right. Kill everything but life support. Let the Klingons destroy the station. If they do that, they won't be able to get a salvage crew aboard and reactivate the jammers." "Which is great, except for the us-getting-blown-up part," Cortana said skeptically. The Master Chief and Tuncer rounded the corner and joined up with the other three, and Janice could almost hear the wink in the green-armored SPARTAN's voice as he told Cortana, "Trust me." Then, becoming brisk again, he said, "Set up a wireless link to whatever systems you still control and sort yourself for extraction. I want you back in my helmet bus in one minute." Klayvor vestai-Klavaar strode like the conquering hero he fancied himself into the capitol's war room. The day wasn't quite won yet, it was true - the defenders of the building were backed into a corner, all of those who remained crammed into this one room, but their density now that they were here was such that reducing the room itself would be a challenge - especially if he wanted to take some of them alive. Still, with his fleet in complete command of the space above, his ground forces in control of most of the planet, and a large number of guns at his back, he felt confident that it was only a matter of time. Soon, very soon now, all Qo'noS - all the empire - would be his. And then he would be able to make his examples. Seeing the pink-haired human at the head of the defenders, standing grim-faced and silent next to Chancellor Krojaar, he smiled. "So," he said, "it's true. I didn't think it could be, but it is. Not only are you still here, but it's been -you- who has commanded the forces arrayed against me since General Ktarl's death. Hasn't it?" Utena didn't reply. Klayvor threw back his white-maned head and laughed, then address Krojaar. he said in his native language, Krojaar was unimpressed. That got Klayvor's goat. Scowling at Krojaar, he thundered, Krojaar only smiled. Klayvor roared. Krojaar snorted. The Chancellor gave his would-be overthrower a look of deep distaste and continued, He spat on the stone floor at Klayvor's feet. Klayvor stared in disbelief at the Chancellor - even between deadly enemies, a comparison to the hated Romulans was a low blow indeed - and then drew himself up. he growled. Then, pointing a thick forefinger at Utena, he declared in Standard, "I promised to repay myself for your insolence with blood." Utena gave him a second's unimpressed gaze, then took one long stride forward. When she began that stride, she was wearing a plain Space Force dress uniform, somewhat worse for wear thanks to its owner's several days without a change of clothes. When she finished it, the uniform had acquired gleaming golden epaulets, a decorative chain, broad white-and-red sleeve cuffs, and a frilled petticoat, all appearing in a shower of yellow sparks. She drew her black, basket-hilted sword from its place on her right hip, raised it in a crusader's salute, then lowered it into an en-garde position. "Come ahead, then," she said coldly. The council's defenders pushed back from the middle of the room as best they could, keeping their weapons still warily trained on Klayvor's supporters at the other end. This would be a first for Utena - she'd never fought a duel in the middle of a suspended gunfight before - but what the hell, it was a day for firsts. Near the middle of each group was one figure who stood out a bit from the others, each watching the other warily. Anne Springsteen had one hand on her lightsaber and both eyes on the black-cloaked man who was the only non-Klingon on the opposite side, feeling his eyes boring into her as she watched him. "Darth Venger, I presume," Carmela Sunderland murmured in her ear. Anne nodded. "That'd be my guess," she replied. "That's him," Anthy confirmed softly. "That's Roger Tremayne." "OK, well, watch him close," Anne said. "Believe me," Carmela replied, fingering the cowling of the plasma pistol one of the Repo Men had given her, "if that bastard so much as twitches, I'm going to blow him straight to Praxis." A moment later, while almost everyone's eyes were still locked on the clash of steel in the middle of the war room, Venger did something very peculiar indeed. He left the room. "Where the hell is -he- going?" Carmela wondered. "I don't know," Anne replied, "but I don't like the idea of him roaming around loose. Come on." Getting out of the room without being noticed by Klayvor's retainers wasn't easy, even with all of them riveted on their warlord's duel, but Anne was a Jedi Knight and Carmela an AEGIS agent trained as a Psi Cop. They managed. Utena's duel with Klayvor was a bit of an anticlimax, really. Despite his ferocity and stamina, the Klingon warlord was simply and obviously no match for her. He was relying on his strength and fury to beat her, but she met his every roaring bull rush with an expert, economical riposte. She drew first blood, and second, and third. In a fair duel, he'd have notched his second loss to a member of the Order of the Rose... but, as always, Klayvor had no attachment to the concept of fairness. Utena squared him up perfectly, then set herself and made her trademark tiger's spring, the one that seemed to punctuate the climax of every really serious duel she found herself involved in. She leaped, red-runed black blade leading the way, and time seemed to slow as she hurtled toward her opponent - - the air flickered, mirage-like, in the space between them, and suddenly something plowed into the middle of her body with terrific force. Her momentum folded her up on whatever she struck a split-second before the blow reversed her flight entirely, sending her tumbling like a disjointed puppet across the war room's stone floor. As Utena slid limply to a halt at the edge of the makeshift arena, her sword continued on without her in the opposite direction, embedding itself several inches deep in the wall. Anthy gasped and darted to her side. The Repo Men and Red Team all emitted various noises of shock and consternation - and so, to their surprise, did the Klingons. A moment later, with the familiar shimmering dissolve of Tuncer's active camouflage, another white-armored Covenant Elite appeared in the center of the room. To everyone's further surprise, when this one spoke, his words were Standard. "Death to the Rose Knight!" he roared. In the capitol's sub-subbasement, two slim figures slipped quietly past a pair of suddenly distracted Klingon troopers and followed the black-cloaked figure of Darth Venger down a service corridor. [I don't get it,] Carmela Sunderland mused telepathically. [According to my map, this corridor leads to the reactor vault. What is he planning to do, shut off the lights in the war room?] Anne Springsteen didn't reply at first - until, with a sudden, sickening burst of insight, she realized exactly what Venger was planning to do. [No,] she replied. [He's going to blow up the acropolis and kill us all.] [... And his allies with us?] Sunderland thought skeptically. [To a Sith Lord, that's a perfectly acceptable way of breaking a deadlock,] Anne explained. [He's not suicidal, though. He must have somebody standing by to beam him out. Come on!] [I don't have a weapon that can be of any help in this fight,] Carmela pointed out. [Just keep his telepathy out of the picture,] Anne replied. [I'll handle the rest.] So saying, the Jedi gathered herself, drew the Force to her, and dashed down the corridor. She moved much faster than any normal human could go - so fast, in fact, that she blew right past the man in black, then pivoted and skidded to a stop facing him. "That's far enough, Tremayne," she said. Venger smiled thinly. "If you're going to challenge me, Jedi, you might at least have the courtesy to call me by the name that has meaning to your kind." "Courtesy to Sith Lords. That's an interesting concept," Anne remarked. Venger chuckled. "You know, you were marked for my little experiment as well as the Sentinel, but my allies were too inept to capture you as they did her. I had wondered if I would get the chance to test my theories on you as well. Now I see I'm to have that chance after all." He narrowed his eyes in concentration, then blinked as his telepathic assault was blocked. "Wha - ?" he wondered, then whirled. "You!" Sunderland smiled. "Party's over, blip," she said with cold wryness. Venger gave her a venomous look, then turned to face Anne again. "Fine," he said. "I'm not that attached to the experiment." He drew his lightsaber and ignited it. "I'll cut you down, then deal with my ex-colleague at my leisure." Anne's violet saber hissed to life in response. "What, no diplomatic overture?" Venger inquired mockingly. "No attempt to sway me at the last moment from the path of darkness? Doesn't a true Jedi always try to avoid a fight?" "Oh, trust me," Anne replied, whirling her saber to a ready position. "I'd much rather be in bed." Venger hissed angrily, then charged. In the war room, Klayvor limped to the company of his astonished guards, sneering. In the middle of the ersatz arena in which the Klingon warlord had fought his duel, the White Elite energized his plasma sword and started walking slowly, deliberately across the floor toward Utena's crumpled form. She was slowly starting to stir, trying to pull herself together, but it was obvious that she wasn't going to be anything like on her feet and ready again by the time he reached her. (If, indeed, she could be at all - Stacker thought he'd heard some of her ribs go when she took that body blow.) At one side of the Repo Men's formation, Mike Tucker swore and shouldered his S2-AM. He knew that if he took a shot, A, he might not drop the Elite with one round, and B, he would probably set off a firefight that saw everybody in the room get killed... but dammit, he couldn't just stand here and watch the Commodore get wasted like that! It wasn't... wasn't a good way for someone like her to go. He was mildly surprised to hear the voice of Leonard Church in his earpiece as he sighted on the Elite's head. "Say the word and I'll grab the Klingon 2 in C. Maybe between the two of us we can bring this bastard down before the rest of the Klingons kill everyone." A wry chuckle. "I mean, what the hell. I'm already dead." Tucker nodded, not sure if Church could see him or not. He hoped so. It was the best he could do - his throat was too dry to speak. He swallowed hard, hoping to muster enough moisture to at least tell Church to go. Before he could put this admittedly-dubious plan into motion, however, something more unusual happened. /* Origa "Inner Universe" _Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex OST_ */ Anthy Tenjou, who had knelt at her fallen husband's side as soon as Utena came to rest, turned toward the Elite with fury in her eyes. Her plain, dark clothes dissolved in a spray of golden sparks, replaced by a slightly martial-looking scarlet gown. In a ringing voice, she spoke several strange syllables, then slapped her hand down, palm flat, against the floor. When she did, bright silvery light rayed out through the cracks in the ancient stone, spreading in a fashion that was almost like circuit patterns until it described a circle roughly inscribed within the bounds of the arena. The circle flared up, drawing a shimmering cylinder of light like a force field in the air, then subsided to a low, lambent glow. Klayvor roared an order to his guards. They opened fire, but their blasts got only as far as the edge of the circle before disappearing, leaving behind only ripples as on the surface of a pond. Within the circle were only the Elite, who seemed stunned into immobility, and the two women, one kneeling, the other still lying prone. "She can't mean to fight that thing herself," Sachiko Asaki muttered to her commander. "I don't think so," McCandless replied. "Watch." Watch she did, as did everyone else in the room, as Anthy, grim-faced, bent her concentration to her next task. The scarlet-clad witch rose to her feet, worked her hands in complex signs, and spoke some more words no one present could understand. With a chiming, musical sound, another cylinder of light appeared, this one pure white. It was much smaller, drawn only around the sprawled form of the Commodore. As the rebel Klingons and their opponents all watched in astonishment, her limp, crumpled body rose into the air, coming slowly upright. She was floating within that pillar of light, Jay McCandless thought, almost like a person in a bacta tank. As he suspected, the simile was apt. Anthy opened her hands, the light became brighter still, and another burst of golden sparks raced up from the floor to rush over the hovering form of Utena Tenjou. Where they passed, they erased the bruises, scrapes, and cuts she had sustained in the preceding hours of hard fighting. Where they passed, they swept away the tatters of her much-abused Space Force uniform and replaced it with the black and scarlet armor of the Rose Knight. The column of light slowly lowered Utena to the floor. When the soles of her boots touched the stone, her eyes snapped open, fixing the dumbstruck Elite with a hard azure glare. "That. Hurt," she growled as the musical sound of Anthy's most powerful restoration spell faded away. Then she reached to her belt, drew the lightsaber she'd acquired during her duel with Bastila, and thumbed its scarlet blade to life. That seemed to snap the White Elite out of his shocked stupor. He shook his head, then roared and leaped into battle. On the reactor level, Carmela Sunderland might have missed out on the spectacle of Anthy's intervention, but she was witnessing something few enough people got a chance to see in the modern galaxy: a fully trained Jedi Knight locked in all-out battle with a Dark Lord of the Sith. With Carmela running telepathic interference, Anne Springsteen was free to confront Darth Venger as she would any other Dark Jedi. Their combat existed on two levels. There was the purely physical confrontation of martial skill against martial skill, lightsaber on lightsaber; and there was the subtler clash of wills as both used their power over the Force to influence the battle. Carmela could see the former in front of her eyes, and being an experienced fencer, she could very much appreciate the show. She caught only the faintest hints and echoes of the latter, where the ripples in the Force brushed against the edges of her highly sensitive telepathic talent, but that was enough for her to know that this, too, was a hard-fought struggle. Anne Springsteen was one of the modern-day Jedi Order's best- trained lightsaber duelists, personally taught the craft by the Jedi Council's master-at-arms, Mace Windu. Most Jedi knew only a single form of lightsaber combat, prosaically known within the Order as Form I - an all-purpose style, visually similar to Japanese kendo, which contained useful counters for ranged weapons and a decent selection of maneuvers for use against another saber duelist. Anne knew -seven-, and had been extensively drilled in the subtle art of switching between them as the situation warranted. As good as she was, though, it soon became apparent that Venger had some advantages of his own. His ability with the lightsaber wasn't as extensive as hers, but he was very solidly grounded in the forms he knew, and his experience of actual battle was greater. Moreover, it could be argued - and was, by some Jedi Masters who disagreed with Mace Windu's teaching methods - that his students' mastery of the lightsaber came at the cost of neglecting other ways of interacting with the Force. The result was a clash in which neither side seemed quite able to get the upper hand. As she fought to keep him out of the reactor core, Anne mused about the condition of the man she faced. She'd read the report of the Valiant crew's encounter with him some years back. He'd been seriously wounded in battle with one of the Rose Duelists; according to the report, he'd lost most of his right arm and been all but disemboweled. Well, he certainly wasn't fighting like any of that had happened to him - which meant whoever extracted him from that situation had possessed considerable resources and was willing to expend them to keep this man alive and capable of fighting. That, like so many other things about this situation, pointed to a Sith organization that was considerably more advanced than the IPO and the Jedi Order thought existed. Anne found that intensely interesting, if ominous, and she knew her teacher, among others, would be intrigued as well. She pushed the notion out of her head with an effort. This was no time to be thinking strategically; just achieving some kind of tactical advantage was going to take effort enough. Hell, just staying ahead of the -environmental- hazards in this place was sufficiently taxing. The engineering sub-level of the Klingon capitol was a sprawling maze of corridors, passages, blast doors, and giant multi-story rooms criscrossed with catwalks and power conduits. Anne wondered idly as she blocked a spray of Force lightning with her saber just why places like power stations and defense complexes were always these vast, sprawling underground things with bottomless pits and exposed conduits. It was as though the people who built them were completely ignorant of even the most rudimentary industrial safety standards. Take this reactor core chamber, for instance. The core was a vertical cylinder ten stories high in the center of a vast subterranean vault. A 200-foot radial catwalk connected it to the outlet of one of the capitol complex's maintenance corridors. High above, the room's stone ceiling was studded with conduits, power-regulation devices, and other metallic arcana. Far below, the brackish water of the cooling pond lapped at the base of the core tower. The catwalk didn't even have handrails. It wasn't so surprising on Qo'noS, perhaps - the Klingons historically didn't -care- about industrial safety standards - but in her travels around the galaxy Anne had found herself in -dozens- of places like this, often constructed by people otherwise much more conscious of basic architectural precautions. It was, she had long suspected, something on which a good sociology paper might be based. She wasn't sure how long they'd been at it - it wasn't like she had many opportunities to look at her watch - but she could sense Venger's frustration and anger growing as they fought. It was obvious she was obstructing him from doing something he considered important, as she had suspected. Suddenly, with a snarl, Venger changed his tactics entirely. The switch caught Anne a bit off-guard. He caught her saber with his, pushed it out of position, and kicked her away, then... turned and ran? "What the - ?!" she wondered as she regained her balance and started to pursue. The Sith Lord had backed her nearly to the threshold of the reactor core - it was a mere 30 feet or so behind the point where he'd turned and run. Why give up now? "He must be on a schedule," Carmela Sunderland said as she caught up with Anne. "As he turned away, he was distracted - I caught just a flash, something about being out of time. He must have to get to an extraction point." "Makes sense. Whoever his backup is certainly isn't going to be able to beam him out of -this- place," Anne noted. She gathered herself to leap, thinking she would try to intercept Venger before he got to the end of the catwalk and disappeared into the maintenance tunnels. Just before she would have launched herself, she felt a wrongness - Venger was doing something with the Force. She hesitated, then heard a metallic groaning noise. Anne and Carmela looked up to see one of the giant power regulation units detach itself from the ceiling and plunge straight toward them. /* Juno Reactor "War Dogs" _Labyrinth_ */ Ever since the Repo Men started working with Commodore Tenjou, Pete Stacker had entertained a mild fantasy of what it might look like if the legendary Duelist threw down with Tuncer. He'd read about Utena's occasional duels with the Chief of the IPO, and of course he'd seen the Last Elite in action more times than he could count. Between those two factors, he had enough information to construct a basic mental image, enough to convince him that such a duel would truly be spectacular. Now he was seeing the next best thing, and it was quickly clear to him that his expectations had been ludicrously modest. The white-armored Elite topped the black-armored woman's height by almost three feet, and Utena Tenjou was not a short woman; in her armored boots she probably stood five-ten or -eleven. The creature's hulking shoulders had more than twice the span of the commodore's, his arms nearly twice the reach. And, most tellingly of all, his great bulk didn't slow him down at all. Like Tuncer, the White Elite was shockingly quick and nimble for his size. Bred and trained exclusively for battle, the Elite - known to the Klingons of Klayvor's rebellion simply as "Emissary One" - had expected this to go smoothly, and at first it had. For two days he had been listening to the distasteful infidels Klayvor and Venger go on about the Rose Knight's prowess; for all his public dismissal of her, Klayvor had great respect for her abilities - indeed, actually feared her, which the Elite had found privately laughable. He'd seen some talent in her clash with Klayvor, but the Klingon was a fool. It wouldn't take much of a warrior to bring him down. When he stepped in to rescue his grudging ally from his folly and dealt Utena that first crushing blow, Emissary One had reasonably expected that this battle was over before it began. He'd never seen anything like what the dark-skinned human had done after that, and it had left him flat-footed and stunned. Not even the Covenant's matchless technology could produce effects like that. Emissary One had heard rumors of strange slave beings belonging to one of the infidel races of the Wild Sectors who could do such things, but had never known such abilities ascribed to a human. Was this creature, then, the Rose Knight's slave from some far-flung, unknown sector? No matter. He was an Elite, one so exalted as to wear the white armor of the Legion of Purity. He was the ultimate expression of the Covenant's doctrine of martial perfection. He could not be defeated by any pair of mammal childbearers. An experienced soldier himself, and familiar with Elite mannerisms from his long association with Tuncer, Pete Stacker could see the arrogance in Emissary One's movements. The white-clad Elite obviously expected Anthy's grandstand reverse to be a minor setback at best. It could be excused for that failing, Stacker decided. It had never seen anything like Commodore Utena Tenjou before. She couldn't block the Elite's blows directly; her unaugmented human frame simply didn't have the power for that. Her every parry was an artful maneuver that turned most of the creature's strength away rather than trying to meet it head-on. Most the time she avoided Emissary One's attacks entirely, leaving him to spend his effort against the air, or carve coruscating furrows in the near-invisible barrier surrounding the "arena", or scorch long burns in the floor. For her part, Utena did her best to stay a half-step ahead of him and take her openings where she could find them. This was a frustrating process, since every time she got a chance and made a strike, her lightsaber struck against the Elite's shields, strobing them but failing to penetrate. She knew from watching Tuncer fight that his shields couldn't withstand infinite punishment, but this one wore armor that had presumably benefited from another two centuries of Covenant development. Who knew how long they could hold out? After a few more furious passes, she thought she had her answer, and she didn't like it. She ducked a vicious crackling sweep of his plasma blade, rolled under the arc of his arm, and penetrated his guard on the way past, drawing a line of sparks across one of his legs with her saber. As she tumbled out of the follow-through and spun to face him, the Elite whirled, roaring. Utena saw that her blow had actually penetrated his shields and left a scorch mark on the white armor of his leg - but as she regrouped, she noticed a barely-visible yellowish flickering around him. In their next clash, she deflected his weapon over her head, their energy blades shrieking as they passed edge-to-edge. She barely tagged his arm at the end of that pass - and saw his shields strobe and push the touch aside. Damn, she thought. His shields auto-regenerate - and they do it faster than I can wear them down. Unless I think of something else to try, it's only a matter of time before he nails me. She glanced to her right and saw Anthy looking at her with laser-like concentration. Their eyes met for the slightest fraction of a second before Utena had to throw herself out of the path of Emissary One's next attack. That was long enough. Anthy began to murmur faintly under her breath, moving her hands in intricate paths again. The Elite glanced at her, sensed that she was up to something, and moved to deal with her. Utena gathered herself, dropping to one knee like a sprinter settling into the blocks, her lightsaber drawn back at her side. Then, with a yell that would have done Corwin Ravenhair's Viking ancestors proud, she hurled herself at the white-clad Elite, letting the spring-like tension she'd just marshaled within herself uncoil all at once. Emissary One heard her coming, whirled, and suddenly found himself engulfed in a storm of snarling scarlet light. It seemed to come at him from all directions, as though he were suddenly beset by a hundred lightsabers at once, chipping and chewing at his shields. For nearly a full second, the blows came thick and fast, much faster than he could deflect them with his large and slightly cumbersome weapon. The onslaught flatlined his shields altogether - but just when it might have begun to pose a significant threat to him, it ended. It wasn't a perfectly executed Storm of a Hundred Blades, but it would certainly have been deemed acceptable for journeyrank in the Asagiri Katsujinkenryuu. Utena whirled out of the follow-through breathing hard, felt the sweat collecting at her hairline and running down her back inside her armor. It almost felt like her heart was banging her ribs against the inside of her breastplate. Kate makes it look so easy, she thought to herself as she pivoted to face off against the startled but mostly unharmed Elite. Emissary One snarled and advanced. It had been an impressive assault, he had to admit that, but the human female was weak - she hadn't had the endurance to press it home and make it count. His shields were down but not out, and in two seconds they would regenerate completely. By then, he'd have finished the so-called Rose Knight and laid open the path to the annihilation of her followers. Utena moved in, undaunted, but she didn't quite have her breath back yet. She caught his counterattack, but wasn't able to deflect it as smoothly as she had been doing. The impact of the blow sent her hands numb and twisted her lightsaber from her grasp. As the weapon spun away, its blade automatically extinguished, the White Elite dealt her a bone-shaking backfist with his off hand and knocked her to the floor. Then, laughing gutturally, he raised his blade and prepared to bring it down upon her. Carmela Sunderland wasn't having her best day either. She wasn't sure exactly -how- she ended up in front of the falling power regulator instead of behind it. She suspected Anne Springsteen had shoved her clear of the impact zone with the Force - but that had left the Jedi standing right smack in the middle of the part of the catwalk that wasn't there any more. It also left Carmela on the part that contained Darth Venger. Not that Venger paid her any attention. He kept running, not looking back. Sunderland picked herself up, spared a second for a disheartened glance at the jagged gap in the catwalk where her only available ally had been a second before, and then, without really thinking about it, gave chase. He was fast, damned fast, but Carmela Sunderland was a runner, and determined as well. It wasn't the most well-advised determination a person could experience, it had to be said. Had Carmela stopped to think about it for a second, she would have realized that the situation was like those old cartoons with the desert bird and the extinct predator. If she managed to catch Venger, what was she planning on doing with him? She would have to come up with an answer, ready or not, when they emerged from the reactor tunnel into another, smaller chamber, this one crammed with catwalks and machinery whose purpose Carmela didn't know. It was there that Venger noticed he was being chased. He turned. Carmela dropped to one knee and fired the plasma pistol she'd been loaned by one of the Repo Men. The green pulse of energy flicked past Venger, and for a moment he thought she'd missed him clean. Then he heard the heavy blast door crash down behind him, turned, and saw that she'd hit precisely what she was aiming at - the door controls. "That wasn't very smart," he remarked, drawing his lightsaber smoothly from his belt and igniting its orange-white blade. "You'll never be able to stop me with that toy." So saying, he lunged. Sunderland dodged, rolled, and fired. Venger deflected the plasma bolt, but he didn't quite have the feel of that kind of weapon fire yet; the deflected bolt zarched into the dimly-lit machinery overhead instead of bouncing back to menace the woman who'd fired it. The alien weapons were strange, their discharges almost... slippery, somehow. Still, that just delayed the inevitable. She couldn't evade him forever, and she had no defense that could stand against his weapon. Besides, his telepathy might be of little use against this enemy, but there were other ways. At various places around the room, bits of machinery started to creak, then vibrate, then pull free of their moorings. Oh, crap, Carmela thought as the first one - a rusty-colored metal cylinder, purpose unknown, looked a bit like a fire extinguisher - tore away from the far wall and hurtled toward her. She rolled under it; ducked a second, more angular piece; was clipped by a flying chunk of pipe; dropped to the floor to avoid being decapitated by a sheet of catwalk decking; then rolled sideways out of the way as Venger's lightsaber tore down through a catwalk and severed a metallic hose, releasing a gout of foul-smelling grey mist. He growled, annoyed, and turned, but he'd lost sight of her in the mist for a second. Carmela took full advantage of the momentary opportunity and shot him. Venger didn't yell, only grunted as if surprised, as the plasma pulse took him high in the chest and bowled him over backward, its green flash lighting up his face. Carmela rose from the floor, weapon ready, but did not advance. It was just as well; a moment later, smoking from the hole in his black robes but apparently unharmed, the Sith Lord bounced to his feet. Body armor? Carmela thought, then discarded the thought as unproductive and started peppering him with fire. He deflected it, blast after blast, sending them zinging away into all corners of the room. Carmela knew she couldn't keep the rate of fire up forever; he'd eventually either figure out how to bounce the shots back at her, or the plasma pistol would overheat. Before either of those things happened, she got lucky and received first-hand evidence that Sith Lords were not, after all, invincible. One shot from her fusillade got through his guard and struck him in the leg, and this time he -did- yell. The black-clad man even stumbled slightly. The foul smell from the severed pipe was joined by the distinctive reek of burned meat. A moment later, the pistol did overheat, its housing popping open as it vented steam. Carmela wasn't wearing the armored gauntlets expected by the weapon's designers. Scalded, she cursed and dropped the pistol. Darth Venger recovered his balance and advanced, a faint glint of satisfaction appearing in his eyes. Suddenly, he was brought up short by the sound of another lightsaber igniting. He whirled, then looked up to see Bastila Shan standing on the overhead catwalk, one half of her yellow-bladed double saber illuminating her. She was still dressed in the remains of her Sith robes, and on her head she wore a starkly incongruous Australian bush hat with the left side of its brim pinned up. "That's far enough, 'Lord Venger'." Venger chuckled. "You don't think -you- can stop me? When I hold all the keys to your fears?" he asked, his voice silky and dark. Bastila smiled coldly. "Fear is for people with something left to lose, Mr. Tremayne," she said, and then she ignited the other half of her saber and leaped to the attack. Emissary One didn't realize it yet, but he'd committed a critical error. In his consuming fury at having his defenses so sorely tried by this miserable infidel, his attention slipped away entirely from the -other- female - who now saw her opening and seized it. Anthy completed her preliminary incantation at the same time Utena finished her attack. As Emissary One turned to pursue the black-armored Duelist, the scarlet-clad witch darted forward, an eerie midnight-blue fire trailing from her hands. With the spell all but cast, all she had to do was deliver it. This she did with a simple touch, her fingertips to the broad back plate of the Elite's white armor, and the completion of the spell by uttering its Name: >ENTROPIC SNARE!< What happened next made no sense to Emissary One. For two seconds, his armor's status displays went berserk, suddenly spilling out a litany of system faults. One by one the suit's advanced systems sputtered and died, going down so rapidly that he had no time to interpret one failure message before the next arrived - until at last the status monitoring system itself failed and the suit went entirely dark. His plasma sword was still active, but in the space of mere seconds, his suit had been transformed from one of the most advanced personal battle systems in the universe to an inert polyalloy shell. He looked down at himself in reflexive disbelief, then recoiled in further shock as he saw that his armor's gleaming white finish had become a dull grey patina, streaked with corrosion and grime. It was as though the suit had suddenly aged a century or more - which was, in a sense, exactly what had happened. The spell Anthy used was originally intended to -protect- things - cherished weapons, suits of armor, whatever - from the ravages of time and the universe's general tendency to slide into disrepair... but as an experienced and powerful witch, she had reversed its effect. The formerly-white Elite didn't, couldn't, know that, but he -was- able to deduce that whatever had happened, she must have done it. He whirled, roaring. She hadn't expected him to recover from his surprise quite that fast, and though her evasive maneuver was quick and fluid, he was still able to catch her with his free hand. "What - ARE - you?!" he demanded, his fanged mandibles spread wide with rage, as he lifted her from the floor by the neck. Utena's fallen lightsaber spun in place, then lifted from the floor and hurtled across the "arena" as though caught in a tractor beam. Before its black and silver cylinder had even smacked into the palm of its wielder's outstretched hand, the scarlet-edged blade had already hissed from the emitter. Utena, too, was in motion by the time the saber reached her, in the middle of a tiger spring forward, the whole operation performed entirely by instinct. Her lightsaber flashed, weathered armor and alien flesh parted, and Anthy dropped to the floor with the Elite's massive hand slackening at her throat. "She's my wife," Utena snarled, then rammed her shoulder into the Elite's barrel chest. It felt like charging a granite column, but her own armor saved her from the worst of the impact, and it did have the desired effect. Off-balance and startled by the sudden loss of his left hand and forearm, Emissary One stumbled back. He recovered quickly, lashing out with a kick that Utena didn't quite dodge. Grazed by the powerful blow, she skidded a dozen paces away, turning almost completely around in the process. Emissary One let out a roar that shook the room and leaped, nearly hitting the ceiling before bringing his blade down with all his weight and strength behind it. The blow shattered the stone floor, sending fragments pinging and clattering off the inside of the barrier that defined the "arena". For a moment, he and his quarry both disappeared in a cloud of rock dust. A moment later, the Elite exploded backward out of the dust cloud, trailing tendrils of smoky residue behind him, slammed into the barrier, rebounded, and fell to one knee. His plasma sword sputtered and went out as it fell from his hand. Utena Tenjou rocketed out of the cloud after him, a swirling void in the dust appearing around her as if blown clear by a miniature cyclone. With a long, wordless yell she crossed the distance between them in an eyeblink and buried her lightsaber to its hilt in Emissary One's chest. The Elite threw back his head, his remaining hand clawing emptily at the air, and let out an ululating howl... then slumped forward, tilted sideways, and sprawled dead at the Rose Knight's feet. Utena shut down her lightsaber, then stood for a second looking down at the corpse. Only once in her life had she relished the prospect of a duel to the death. This had been necessary - she had no doubt of that, and no remorse on that account - but all the same, she felt strangely diminished by her enemy's demise. Her armor sparkled and disappeared, replaced by the snow-white uniform of the Prince of Cephiro. She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to see Anthy giving her a sad smile. They had only this short moment before events would sweep them up again, but it was enough. Utena covered the hand on her shoulder with her own and gave it a gentle squeeze, smiling gratefully. Then they both turned to face the astonished Klayvor and his troops, who stared at them in utter disbelief as Anthy's barrier flickered and died away. Klayvor worked his jaw up and down uselessly a couple of times, then blinked and seemed to realize where he was. His face darkening with rage, he drew a breath and bellowed, For a woman who had just had her whole world turned upside down -and- suffered a serious beating at the hands of Anthy Tenjou, Bastila Shan put up a pretty good fight. Carmela had to admit she was impressed. She hadn't liked the Bajoran Jedi much during Operation Counterweight; Bastila was uptight, stuck-up, haughty, imperious, and several other things that reminded Carmela of working with particularly self-impressed Psi Corps instructors back in the old days. Her opinion of Bastila hadn't been particularly lowered by the Jedi's brush with the Dark Side, since Carmela knew beyond doubt that it wasn't really her fault, but it hadn't been all that high to begin with. Now, though - battered by friend and foe alike, with her worldview unraveling around her - Bastila impressed the former Psi Cop immensely. Her tenacious defense of an ally against the wrathful Sith Lord was selfless and well-prosecuted. Bastila weathered the storm of Force lightning Venger threw at her handily, catching it on the blades of her double saber and scattering it harmlessly. She was his match in purely martial skill, having mastered the treacherous double blade - a weapon not even employed by many Jedi Masters - where Venger wielded a traditional lightsaber. Her determination to see him defeated, bolstered by the hope that Chips Dubbo had infused her spirit with, gave her the mental strength to deflect his attempts to break open her old wounds again. At the same time, she trod the razor's edge carefully, not letting that determination flash over into a lust to revenge herself on her tormentor. It was a brilliant performance, the very essence of the Jedi way - and its brilliance was completely lost on its performer. In the end, it was Bastila's body that gave out, not her focus or her spirit. She executed a block perfectly, but her waning strength wasn't equal to Venger's attack. Her saber spun out of her hands, clanged and rolled under a catwalk, and she was at his mercy, the point of his saber at her throat. "I won't beg," she told him flatly, looking him in the eye, "so you'd best just get on with it." Venger gave her a coldly triumphant glare for a moment, clearly savoring her defeat. Then a slightly quizzical look came into his flat, reptilian eyes. "Where did you get that -ridiculous hat-?" he inquired. There was a faint flicker, a ripple in the Force, and the slight whisper of fabric on fabric behind him as something dropped out of the machinery above. Surprised - he hadn't felt any sign of someone approaching - Venger started to turn. Anne Springsteen - her hair plastered to her head, her outer robe gone, her inner garb soaking wet - hit him. That was surprising, to say the least. He could have sworn he'd felt her essence blink out, its light in the Force snuffed, as the regulator had smashed through the catwalk and carried her down to a watery death in the reactor's cooling lake... but here she was, quickly, efficiently, dispassionately beating the living hell out of him. She wasn't using her lightsaber; the weapon hung inactive on her belt. She moved quickly, hit hard, struck at pressure points. With a sharp CRACK his right arm, more than three-quarters mechanical, became useless as she smashed the bionic junction in his shoulder joint. A series of fast, painful blows rocked his head back and set his teeth grinding. He tried to concentrate, summon the Force to his aid, but it wouldn't come. The effort of dealing with Sunderland and Bastila had drawn down his own reserves as well, however much he'd been playing up his apparent lack of fatigue for their sake when he'd brought them to the edge of defeat. Besides, it was hard to marshal any of his powers when she kept -hitting- him like that. Venger dredged up his Psi Corps unarmed-combat training, rusty with disuse for these many years, and blocked a few of her punches and kicks. This wasn't a Jedi art she was using. Where had a Jedi Knight trained in the traditional way, from childhood, learned something like this? Anne overwhelmed his defenses, finally bringing him down with a resounding wheel kick that snapped his head around and switched his consciousness off like a light. The black-clad Sith Lord half-spun and dropped to the floor on his face. The Jedi shook her head, shoved her wet hair back away from her face, and turned to the other two. "Are you guys OK?" she asked. "As well as can be expected," Sunderland asked. "I thought you were dead." "You were supposed to," Anne said with a wry smile. "Or -he- was, anyway," she added, gesturing to the prone form of Venger. "Have you got any restraints?" "The full field kit," Carmela replied with a mock-jaunty air. She opened one of her belt pouches, secured Venger's wrists and ankles with high-tensile zip ties, and then injected the contents of a single-use spray hypo into the side of his neck. "Sleepers," she explained to Anne's questioning look. "I don't think he'll be coming to for a while, but when he does, he won't have his telepathy to help him if he tries to escape. Won't really be able to concentrate on much of anything, actually. The IPO's formulation isn't very sophisticated," she added with an arch dash of her old company pride. "Come on," Anne said, shouldering the unconscious Sith Lord. (That surprised Carmela a little - the blonde Jedi wasn't a big woman, but she hefted him without much apparent strain.) "I feel something... they're going to need us topside." Bastila nodded. "I... feel it too," she said hesitantly. "It seems the Force... is still with me." Anne gave her a sympathetic smile. "You did good," she said. "Don't think I won't say so when we get back to Alderaan." "Thank you," Bastila said. She retrieved her lightsaber, then used it to cut open the door Carmela had jammed. "What's the matter with yours?" Sunderland asked, gesturing to Anne's belt. "Didn't appreciate the sudden bath. Neither did I, come to that," Anne replied. "God knows what was in that water. I'm going to need a complete decontamination screening when we get out of this... " They arrived back in the war room through a maintenance duct in the wall just in time to hear Klayvor issue the order to kill everyone. Anne left Venger in the duct with Sunderland and jumped down with the Sith Lord's unfamiliar but serviceable lightsaber in hand. Bastila hesitated for a nanosecond, then followed. The two deflected the rebel Klingons' first barrage, preventing Anthy and Utena from being cut down where they stood, but the situation was not particularly improved. Anne glanced at Bastila, then looked up. Bastila caught on and joined in. The two Jedi bent their wills against the structure of the decorative stonework sheathing the cavernous war room's ceiling; in seconds, several great slabs of stone peeled free and crashed down in the middle of the room, effectively providing the Repo Men, Red Team, and their charges with hard cover. Utena, Anthy, and the two Jedi sprang behind this cover as the Repo Men and McCandless's troopers started pouring counterfire at the suddenly-exposed Klingons, who scrambled to regroup. "This is -not- good," Pete Stacker observed. "Thanks for the cover, but I think all it's gonna do is delay the inevitable... " "Maybe, maybe not," Utena said with a sudden smile. In orbit, a confused situation suddenly got even more confused. Commander Kamar vathTilkat, in de facto command of the rebel fleet with Klayvor tied up on the surface and the Hammer of Kahless under enemy control, had managed his forces brilliantly. His engineering officer, Kaveth, son of Krorr, had excelled himself coming up with a workaround for the helm override problem, first giving Kamar control of his own vessel, then restoring the authority of other commanders throughout the fleet. These vessels had immediately regrouped under Kamar's command and begun an all-out assault on the Hammer. Kamar's sensor officer suddenly cried. Kamar came halfway out of his conn. he blurted. No one who has seen an entire battle fleet execute a simultaneous spacefold can ever forget the sight. The void of space ripples, seems to twist, almost imperceptibly at first. Then there is a great outflow of light, a side effect of the process that bends the universe to allow the fleet to make the jump. In a fleet fold operation, only one vessel, usually the flagship, has an active fold drive. It arrives first, and the others come an instant later, riding the first ship's sub-etheric "wake". Then the light draws in on itself and the fold unwinds, space seems to "snap" back to its proper shape... and there the fleet is. A group of warships emerging from hyperspace is a grand sight indeed, and a fleet flowing from a metaspace crossover point can be breathtaking... but nothing can approach the visual drama, the sheer pit-of-the-stomach tension, of a mass spacefold. Kamar blurted. It wasn't the biggest fleet Kamar had ever seen; indeed, he could see just at this glance that his own force outmassed it considerably. Still, no one had seen this many International Police ships in one place before, and Kamar knew well their reputation for having power out of all proportion to their size. This group represented formidable opposition - and it had an unexpected component, too. The ship that had carried the rest of them across the spacefold was -not- the flagship. That was Challenger, undeniable and unique, gliding into place at the front of the formation, her shields actually visible with a double charge. Slipping into place -behind- the flagship, however, was a vessel of a type Kamar would never have expected to see appearing in support of an IPSF strike force - a vast, blocky chunk of duralloy whose bristling profile and twin smallcraft bays were as unmistakable as Challenger's swooping lines. "Fold operation complete, Commander!" Commander Thaddeus Cain, Colonial Armed Forces, grinned broadly. "Get me Challenger," he said. Then, when the comm operator in the work pit forward of his conn turned to him and nodded, he grinned more broadly still and said, "It's your show, Lore!" The voice of Lore Soong, in response, sounded unusually serious for the usually-lighthearted android. "Thank you, Commander. Cover our backs." "Count on it. Pegasus out." Cain turned to his airboss. "Launch all Vipers!" Kamar's sensor operator reported. Kamar ordered. Kamar's communications officer frowned at his panel. Kamar ordered, and a moment later he was listening to rock music. /* The Scorpions "In the Flesh" _Roger Waters' The Wall: Live in Berlin_ */ The International Police Space Force did not indulge in canned goldfish warnings. They didn't do them at all, usually, but after the Valiant's involvement in the Battle of Titan, it had seemed appropriate to Lore to have one when he led the fleet back to Qo'noS to retrieve Commodore Tenjou. He wasn't going to be satisfied with any commonplace recording for the transmission, though, and he wasn't sure where he would find a band on such short notice. The traditional group for Valiant engagements was scattered far and wide, its leader way out on Ishiyama, and there was no way there would be time enough to retrieve her. But, thanks to the miracle of modern technology and Sumire Kanzaki's near-complete lack of attachment to her money, that turned out not to be an issue - and though she was performing with a different band and singing from a specially equipped studio several sectors away, Kaitlyn Hutchins was nevertheless providing the diversion live and direct, her voice angry and taunting, the message aimed squarely at Klayvor himself. So you thought you might like to Go to the show To feel the warm thrill of confusion That space-cadet glow Tell me, is something eluding you, sunshine? Is this not what you expected to see? If you want to find out what's behind these cold eyes You'll just have to claw your way through their disguise On the ground, Utena heard her best friend's voice in the background when Lore called her to report his arrival, and the sound put a smile on her face despite the awkwardness of her current position. "Stand by, Commodore - we're going to get you out of there," Lore said. "We have Chancellor Krojaar and the Council with us," Utena told him. "You won't be able to pick them out of all the other Klingon lifesigns down here with a transporter. Send down a tactical force to push back Klayvor's troops long enough for us to regroup and withdraw in an orderly fashion." "Negative," Lore replied. "We don't have time for that. Their fleet outmasses ours something like seven to one." "I'm not abandoning the Chancellor and his council!" Utena snapped. "You won't have to. Just stand by - and trust me. Challenger out." Amid the chaos of the three-way space battle, with the IPO ships' goldfish warning jamming up the tactical communications systems, none of the Klingon sensor officers noticed the small merchant vessel that jumped out of metaspace and maneuvered to dock with the Hammer of Kahless. Even those who were aboard ships that were attacking the platform lost its signature against the target's bulk and the clutter of the ongoing battle. From that vessel, allies of the beleaguered defenders launched a two-pronged extraction effort under the cover of the IPSF's assault, which was designed almost exclusively to do just that. /* The Wallflowers "Everybody Out of the Water" _Red Letter Days_ */ Utena deflected a blast from the disruptor of one of Klayvor's men with her lightsaber, pivoted, and punched the man off her group's impromptu barricades with the spiked basket hilt of the Thorn of the Rose. All around her, the Repo Men and members of Red Team were similarly getting to grips with the enemy's final charge. "Lore, if you're going to do something about getting us out of here? -Now's the time-," she said. "Roger that, Commodore. Help is on the way." A moment later, in one of the hollows behind the defenders' weakening line, the blue-white shimmer of a transporter appeared, depositing not a tactical reinforcement team, but rather a single man. He was slim, yellow-eyed, and covered in dark blue fur, and he was dressed in a long, brass-buttoned, double-breasted coat that made him look like an old-fashioned naval officer. Kurt Wagner grinned at Utena for a microsecond, then turned to the rest of the defenders and announced, "Right. If you need a transporter tag, raise your hand and hold still." The members of the Klingon High Council and Chancellor Krojaar did, as did Carmela Sunderland. With a glint in his yellow eyes, Wagner looked quickly from one to the next as if mapping their positions in his mind - - and then, to some astonishment, began teleporting from one to another, each short jump instantaneous, each one accompanied by a loud thump of displaced air and a blue-black puff of sulphurous vapor. At each one he paused for the barest of instants, slapped on an isolinear marker tag, and then he was off to the next. Carmela took hers off - she had an IPO commbadge and didn't need it for herself - and stuck it to the unconscious Darth Venger's tunic. It took Wagner all of two seconds to make the round and tag everyone without IPO comm gear. Then he teleported back to Utena's side, tagged his own commbadge, and announced, "Wagner to Challenger. Go!" A moment later, Klayvor vestai-Kalaan scaled the debris barricade to find his quarry vanishing in a spray of blue light. Furious, he raised his face to the ruined ceiling and roared, then turned to his second-in-command. "Signal the fleet! I want Challenger reduced to -dust-! NO PRISONERS!" Aboard the Hammer of Kahless, the Master Chief and his group were holed up in a corner of the main docking bay, shooting it out with a group of Klingons who had surrounded their landing craft. Foe-Hammer, who had prudently decamped when the guards torched their way into the bay, was with them, cursing. Like any good pilot, she hated it passionately when circumstances forced her to pound the ground. "The good news is, this thing is so -massive- that it's going to take the fleet a while to deal it fatal damage even with the shields offline," Cortana reported from the Master Chief's helmet bus. "The bad news is, the rest of the security force have escaped from the housing block I trapped them in and are moving to box us in. The -worse- news is, the situation on the ground is unraveling -fast-. Even if we get out of here, it's doubtful we'll have anywhere to go." A moment later, a titanic explosion ripped through the bay, knocking almost everyone in it, friend and foe alike, off their feet. The Master Chief kept his footing, barely, and looked to see the atmosphere processors sucking away a great cloud of smoke from the far end, revealing a jagged hole where the master docking port had been. Through that hole poured a brightly-colored assemblage of beings that, for a moment, the startled SPARTAN was no more able to identify than were the Klingons whose position they were suddenly overrunning. Only when the attackers closed to hand-to-hand range with the Klingons did their identity, or at least their species, suddenly become apparent: They were Barsaivian t'skrang, flamboyantly dressed and daubed with war paint, shouting piratically as they broke through the Klingons' inward-facing defense perimeter to open a path for the Master Chief and his team. "Sky!" Janice Barlow cried as a gas-flame-blue t'skrang with opulent silks and a golden saber cut down the nearest Klingon. The t'skrang turned, gave her a reptilian grin, and raised his saber in salute. "What, ho, warriors!" he declared. "This way to the fabulous egress!" When the group arrived on the beautifully fitted bridge of the Kuratai, which looked more like the ballroom of a grand hotel than the bridge of a starship, the vessel was bucking beneath their feet as the damage to the Hammer of Kahless accelerated. "Some of the enemy ships have noticed us, and we've got a failure cascade beginning in the Hammer's main reactors," Cortana reported tensely. "If we're going to get out of here at all, we have to do it now." Seated in her overstuffed leather conn like a woman in an armchair at home, Liza Shustal only nodded calmly and said, "Jandia?" "Aye aye, Captain," the green, tiger-striped t'skrang at the executive officer's station ackowledged. "Jettison the boarding tube! Rig the ship for emergency hyperjump!" Explosive bolts blasted the boarding tube free of the vessel. Her sharp prow swung away from the dying battlestation as Jandia poured on the coal. Several Klingon vessels strafed the burning Hammer of Kahless, then broke off to pursue the Kuratai, their disruptor fire splashing against the t'skrang vessel's shields. The Kuratai's turbolaser turrets answered, lashing the Klingon ships, but they stuck grimly to their pursuit vectors. A moment later, the Kuratai's engines flared white and the vessel leaped forward into hyperspace, vanishing from under the Klingons' guns less than a second before one of them launched a spread of photon torpedoes. Utena arrived on the Challenger's battle-lit bridge at a run, still decked out in her white Prince's uniform, which took some members of her bridge crew slightly aback. "Welcome back, Commodore," Lore said with a slight smile as he relinquished the center seat. "Thanks," Utena replied. "What's our situation?" "Kuratai is away. All friendly forces are accounted for," Klaang reported from the sensor console. "The Hammer of Kahless?" "Burning and adrift, but the enemy has broken off attacks on it," said Klaang. A heavy impact shook the deck under them, setting off a shield-condition alarm. "We're almost out of time," Lore said. "We have to get out of here." For a second, Utena's natural resistance to retreat battled with the fact that she knew he was right. "... damn," she muttered. "OK, regroup the fleet and prepare to withdraw." A moment later, however, comm officer Hoshi Sato called out, "Steamrunner has lost main power!" "Belay!" Utena snapped at once. "Move to support." "If we try to stand and fight they'll wipe us out," Lafiel Abriel noted - not advocating against trying, just pointing out the fact. Utena smiled grimly. "Then let's give them something bigger to worry about," she said. "Challenger to all ships. Pegasus, prepare for spacefold. HoSghaj, Pennsylvania, Surprise, move to cover Steamrunner. All destroyers form up for withdrawal." Then, switching the fleet channel closed, she went on, "Lafiel, make your course 303 mark 16, all ahead three-quarters. T'Vek - finish off the Hammer." The Vulcan weapons officer looked momentarily startled, then grinned as she grasped Utena's meaning. "Aye aye, Commodore," she said, bending over her weapons console as Lafiel maneuvered the massive flagship. Under the Abh pilot's deft hand, Challenger swooped between a pair of Klingon battleships, performed a graceful barrel roll, and lined up precisely on the burning battlestation. "Fire!" Utena ordered, and a fiercely grinning T'Vek thumbed the MODE SELECT key on her console. The deck jumped under Utena's seat again, this time not in response to enemy fire, but because of the massive discharge of the IPSF flagship's own main weapon. The quantum torpedo launcher, a huge device that occupied most of the lowermost deck of the vessel's ovoid main hull, volleyed a half-dozen torpedoes, each packing the power of a dozen conventional photorps, in roughly one second. The six sparkling blue lights streaked through space and plunged one after another into the side of the stricken Hammer of Kahless, ripping through the superstructure into the core of the platform. That had the desired effect. Anticipating the cookoff of the battlestation's huge reactors, the Klingon vessels broke and scattered, abandoning their pursuit of the crippled Steamrunner long enough for the Pennsylvania to take her in tow. "All ships in position for fold-out," Lore reported. "Challenger to Pegasus!" Utena snapped. "Go!" "Acknowledged," Cain's voice replied. A moment later, the battlestar's blue-white engine glow turned red, space itself bent, and the fleet was gone - all but Challenger, which now stood alone against Klayvor's force. Utena hesitated for the barest of instants, hating with all her heart to abandon the field of battle this way - but with the Hammer of Kahless heading for a cookoff and the full fury of the rebel starfleet bearing down on her, she had no choice. "Mr. Kirk, lay in a course for Babylon 6," she said. Jinto Kirk nodded, pushed his sandy hair back out of his eyes, and set to work. In seconds he had the course plotted and locked into the computer. "Lafiel - maximum warp," Utena said, and the Abh's graceful fingers touched the engine controls. Challenger herself seemed to hesitate for a moment, as if echoing her commander's reluctance to flee; then the stars smeared into rainbow lines and she was gone, streaking away at a speed even the fastest Klingon scoutship couldn't match. A few of the gamer vessels in Klayvor's disorganized fleet gave chase, only to give up within a parsec or so. The rest just scrambled to get out of the way before the Hammer of Kahless went up with the second-largest bang ever recorded in the Qo'noS system. Chancellor Krojaar stood in the conference room aft of the bridge, watching the stars slip past and recede, when Utena entered. He turned, nodded, and then turned back to his contemplation for a few moments. "They say that only a fool fights in a burning house... but somehow that seems like a hollow excuse when it's your own house that's burning," he said. Utena rounded the conference table to stand next to him. "I'm sorry, Chancellor." Krojaar shook his head. "Don't be," he told her. "You've done more than anyone in your position could have been expected to do. You were thrown into the mess by blind chance and barely escaped with your life. If not for you, I and my council would be dead. Thanks to you, we live, and with us, hope for the future of the Klingon Empire." Utena nodded, but didn't look convinced. "Still... " She sighed tiredly. "I just hate to lose." Krojaar chuckled. "You wouldn't be a warrior if you didn't. Have no fear, Commodore. There will come a day for the fight to retake the Homeworld for the true sons of Kahless. When that day comes, I'll be pleased to have you fight for my side. You fought like a Klingon this day." Utena smiled wryly. "Thank you, Chancellor. Do you need anything? I'm going to retire until we reach Babylon 6." The grey-bearded Klingon shook his head. "No, I require nothing. Nothing but time. I must plan my next move." Utena nodded again, took her leave of the chancellor, and went down to the captain's quarters. She found Anthy waiting there, changed from her scarlet gown to a nightdress. The darker Tenjou looked concerned, but said nothing while Utena went into the bathroom and took a long, hot shower. She didn't bother to dress after that, just drew back the covers and flopped into bed. Anthy smiled and quietly slipped in next to her while Wolfgang jumped up and arranged himself at the foot of the bunk. "You must be exhausted," she said quietly. "Aren't you?" Utena asked blurrily. "I'm tired, yes," Anthy admitted, "but I wasn't going nonstop the whole time like you were." She paused, then added in a voice that was softer still, "I'm very proud of you, my love." "I lost," Utena pointed out. "Did you? We're alive and out of Klayvor's grasp." "That's what Krojaar said, too," Utena said with a drowsy chuckle. "Wake me when we get to B6?" "Of course." --/ "... and that was pretty much that," Utena said. "We regrouped with the fleet and Kuratai at Babylon 6; then Challenger and a small support force took Chancellor Krojaar and his council to Klinzhai Prime, where the elements of the KDF that remained loyal to Krojaar's government had regrouped after the fall of Qo'noS." "That will serve as the Klingon government's capital until such time as they are able to retake Qo'noS, then?" Lock asked. "That's the Chancellor's plan, yes. After that we returned to B6 for full debriefing, and you know the rest. You sent Master Windu there to collect us for this hearing." Lock nodded. "Thank you, Commodore. That's all." Utena quit the stand and returned to her place in the gallery. Lock watched her go, then turned to the rest of the Jedi Council. "That concludes the reports on the Qo'noS incident," he said. Mace Windu rose to his feet. "The Council has much to discuss," he announced. "The witnesses are excused; all other parties will please remain within the temple's precincts until we reconvene to give our findings." Hours later, Bastila slowly walked down one of the corridors of the Jedi Temple, wondering if it would be the last time she saw the place. When the Council returned from their meditations, they would surely impose some sanction on her for her failure on Qo'noS, and she had no illusions as to what sanction her old master would demand. A day ago, she would have believed him right. She would have thought expulsion from the Order, banishment from the Temple, the only appropriate punishment for a crime such as hers. Now... she wasn't so sure. What would she do if they did cast her out? Where would she go? What could she make of herself? Thanks to Master Lock's way of teaching, she no longer had any connection to her family, her homeworld, her original culture. All she had was the Order. Wasn't that so? She certainly couldn't go and become a camp follower of the Repo Men. Without the Force, she would certainly be of little use to them, and anyway, would the IPO take on a failed Jedi? The Order was part of the IPO, in a way... ... so what else was there? She didn't know, and thinking about it was only making her more miserable. She tried to push thoughts of the future out of her head and just enjoy what might be her last chance to soak up the ancient stillness and serenity of the great temple. "Ha! Too slow!" ... eh? She rounded a corner and found herself in one of the temple's many training rooms - chambers similar to, but somewhat smaller than, the great dojo in the Duelists' Castle on Jeraddo, where Jedi Masters and their students practiced the Jedi arts of battle. This particular one, being set along one of the corridors that ringed the pyramidal temple's outer wall, had great slanting windows of armored crystal on one side which filled it with the beautiful light of an Alderaan afternoon. The two figures sparring with practice lightsabers in the middle of the room, however, were not a Jedi Master and student. One, a human woman with bright red hair, dressed in a T-shirt, black jeans, and chunky boots, didn't look like a Jedi at all, and her sparring partner certainly wasn't one - it was a battered humanoid droid, not too unlike the practice droids the Jedi sometimes used for early swordplay training. It was the woman who had told the robot he was too slow. The robot ducked her counterstrike and replied in a mellow, amused male voice, "We'll see." His riposte was fast and had surprising skill, given that he was only a droid. It staggered the redheaded woman, putting her briefly off-balance before she could shift her weight and recover. "Nice!" she said, grinning broadly. "Try -this-!" Her next strike penetrated the droid's defense, but not quite the way she'd expected. The yellow blade of her saber cut neatly through the joint of the droid's left wrist, sending his free hand clattering to the floor. Both woman and droid paused in their combat and looked down at it, their twin looks of bemusement vaguely comical. "Whoops," the woman said. "Oh, -bother-," the droid added with a synthetic sigh of resignation. The redhead shut down her lightsaber, put it back in the training rack on the wall, and said with a sheepish grin, "Sorry." The droid replaced his saber as well, then picked up his hand and regarded it critically. "No great harm done," he said. "You've bisected the joint servo - the structural members themselves are unharmed. A simple enough repair." Bastila hesitated. There had been a time, not so very long ago at all, that she would have swept into the room like an offended schoolmarm and demanded to know WHAT these people thought they were DOING, playing with lightsabers as if they were toys. Now, though, she didn't have the heart for it. She had no remaining confidence in her authority. Still, what they had been doing was dangerous, and if they didn't belong here, -someone- had to make them aware of it. "Excuse me," she said hesitantly. The redhead and the droid both turned to face her. "Oh, hi," said the woman. "Uh... sorry about that. I know regular people aren't supposed to mess with these things, but I've always wanted to try one, and Jamie never lets anybody touch his." Bastila blinked, taken aback by her openness about the whole thing, then said, ""Well... as you've seen, they're dangerous." "Oh, it's all right," said the droid pleasantly. "Mistress Kari has damaged me much more extensively than this before." So saying, he fitted his hand back into its place, gave it a twist, then flexed the fingers a few times. "Good as new." Bastila looked the droid over dubiously. He was a model with which she was familiar, a Federated Robotics Nestor Series 5, and he was, to put it charitably, somewhat the worse for wear. NS-5s had a standard mechanical chassis, but their outer plating on torso, head, and sections of their arms and legs was made of a translucent ballistic polymer which was normally a bland, inoffensive greyish-white. This droid's polymer shell was pitted, scorched, carbon-scored, and discolored. On one of his forearms it was shriveled and blackened as if it had been exposed to a security field. His human-like face - the engineering triumph of the Series 5, much-touted when the droids first hit the market in the early 23rd century - was intact and still fully expressive, with blue eyes that had surprising depth, but the plastic "flesh" was discolored in a couple of patches by what appeared to be soot, and featured an obvious seal-repair just above the ridge of one "eyebrow". "So, listen... you're not going to rat us out to the Man, are you?" the woman (Kari, apparently) said with a conspiratorial grin. Bastila smiled hesitantly - she didn't really feel like it, or at least hadn't a few moments before, but the redhead's cheer was infectious - and said, "No. Besides," she added archly, "the Man is a bit busy right now, and I'm the last one he would listen to in any event." "Oh. You must be Bastila, then. I'm Kari Byron. I work for Jamie Hyneman at M5." "Ah," Bastila said. "Of course. I saw Master Hyneman at the hearing." "And you may call me Buster," the NS-5 added. "Pleased to meet you." "Listen to him," Kari said, grinning. "Next he'll be telling you his function is human/cyborg relations." "Certainly not," Buster said, mock-miffed. "HCR is for those chrome creampuffs Cybot Galactica stamps out." Drawing himself up importantly, the NS-5 added, "-I- am a -stunt performer-." Then, leaning forward confidentially, he added, "But not a stunt butt. I leave that task to those better-qualified for it, such as Kari." Kari rolled her eyes. "Nobody is -ever- going to let me live the spaceliner toilet episode down." "It does seem very unlikely," Buster agreed, nodding sagely. "So," Kari said, becoming serious. "I guess you're kind of on the hot seat, huh." "You... could say that, yes," Bastila replied. "Well... can you weld?" "I'm sorry?" "Or work with wood, or electronics, or anything like that? I mean, the shop's always hiring." Bastila saw what she was getting at. "Oh. No, I'm afraid not. My training has been in much less... practical... fields." Kari nodded. "Well... for what it's worth, I'm pretty sure Jamie's on your side. He's not on the Council, but I think some of them respect what he thinks." "He certainly won't be able to sway my... my former master," Bastila said. "Master Hyneman trained under Master Lock himself. They have... disagreed philosophically since Master Hyneman passed his Trials." "Mm," Kari said, nodding glumly. "Well, hey... it looked to me like you had a lot of support in there. We'll just have to see how it goes, I guess." "I guess so." Bastila's commbadge chirped. "Bastila," the voice of Jason Lock said curtly. "We're ready for you." The transmission cut off before she could acknowledge it. When the Council reconvened, Lock was surprised to see that the gallery was still full. He'd expected that some of the witnesses, at least, would have left, finding no interest in the proceedings once they had fulfilled the terms of their summons, but here they all were, grouped together in front, and behind them were others who hadn't been involved in the incident, but were interested for whatever reason in its outcome. Slaarti the Hutt was plain to see, wedged into the back of the gallery with his dubious band. That irritating dandy Morpheus Windu, Mace Windu's elder brother, was there, with a few members of his crew of mismatched reprobates. Other attendees included the self-styled Jedi Kyle Katarn, of all people. Not quite Lock's ideal guest list for the humiliation of casting out his own padawan. On the other hand, some of them -were- people he had long thought would benefit from seeing an example made. Aldous Gajic was conspicuous in his absence. All the Jedi Masters had been summoned for this occasion, but not all had come, and Gajic hadn't answered a summons from the Council for a decade and more. Lock wished he had seen fit to answer this one; as a fellow Sentinel, he would have been a welcome presence, and his serenity would have been well-used on the Council, to say nothing of the gallery. "Fellow councilors," Lock said. "You have heard the story of the unfortunate events on Qo'noS and the parts in them played by two members of this Order. "It must be said that one of these members, the Jedi Knight Anne Springsteen, acquitted herself well and in accordance with the standards of the Jedi," he went on. "She played a key role in preventing the assassinations of the Klingon Chancellor and his High Council, as well as Commodore Tenjou and other members of the International Police delegation, and for that she deserves the recognition of this council for a job well done." Mace Windu inclined his head. "Agreed," he said. "As to the other... I think there can be little debate that the other, Bastila Shan - no less than a Sentinel of Light herself - failed in an appalling fashion. By permitting herself to be lured to the Dark Side by the Sith Lord known as Darth Venger, she transgressed against the Jedi Code, her training, and all the members of this council. While under the sway of the Sith, she slaughtered the soldiers of the Klingon capitol defense force and murdered General Ktarl, Chancellor Krojaar's chief of staff. She denies none of this, and it has been confirmed by the testimony of numerous witnesses, including that of the woman who finally halted her rampage." Lock paused for a moment, as if collecting his thoughts, then went on, "Others have testified that there were extenuating circumstances surrounding Bastila's fall. You have heard Carmela Sunderland, Commodore Tenjou's AEGIS operative, state that Bastila's mind was tampered with by telepathic powers beyond the scope of the Force. Fellow councilors, I submit to you that -no power- is beyond the scope of the Force. I submit to you that -no circumstance- can extenuate a crime like this one." He turned to face the rest of the Council, folding his hands behind his back, elevated his chin, and said in his hardest voice, "The ancient writings prescribe a very specific discipline for such an act. I recommend that Bastila Shan's connection to the Force be sealed by this council, and that she be cast out of the Order of Jedi Knights." That pronouncement shot a murmur of consternation throughout the room - even among some of the other councilors. Such things had been done, it was true, but for Lock to ask the council to do such a thing to his -own student-... Vert's soft but undeniable voice cut through the murmur. "Bastila," he said. Bastila - who had gone stonefaced and utterly silent when Lock made his recommendation - blinked and hesitantly looked up to meet the Irken's glossy purple eyes. "Do you wish to leave the Order?" Vert asked. "... No, Master Vert," she said quietly. "If the Council will have me, I would remain, and atone for my crime in whatever way you see fit to prescribe." Vert smiled and turned to address Lock, but before he could do so, the tall, patrician Corellian had cut him off. "With respect, your question is out of order, Master Vert," Lock said disapprovingly. "The Council should hardly take its direction in matters of punishment from the criminal herself - " Another voice cut through the resurgent chatter of the gallery, but this one, though also undeniable, was not in any way soft. It was a great, booming foghorn of a voice, deep and rough, and what it said, in four explosive syllables that silenced the room utterly, was, "This is -bullshit-." Lock froze, then slowly turned around to see Xander Cage standing up in the gallery and looking at him with a challenging air. A few seats down from Cage in the front row, Utena Tenjou closed her mouth and waited to see what he had to say. "... I -beg- your pardon?" said Lock. "You heard me. I said this is bullshit," Cage repeated. "I don't know what your real problem is, pal, but it ain't her," he went on, pointing at Bastila. "You don't know our ways, -Mister- Cage," said Lock frostily. "You don't hear the Force." "No. You're right. I -don't- hear the Force," Cage replied. "But unlike -you-, I -do- hear the words of Jedi Master Kor-Na Venn, who said, 'If a Jedi, who through his own fault leaves the Order or is expelled, desires to return, let him first promise full amendment of the fault for which he left; and then let him be received in the last place, that by this means his humility be tried.'" Lock blinked, his icy contempt swept away by astonishment. "Bastila's made that promise," Cage continued, "and you're gonna cut her off from the Force and throw her out on her ear? What kinda Jedi Master are you?" Lock regained his composure somewhat and said dismissively, "Kor-Na Venn was hardly - " "No?" Cage cut him off. "Then how about Vodo-Siosk Baas? 'The Jedi Master ought always to remember what he is and what he is called, and to know that to whom much has been entrusted, from him much will be required; and let him understand what a difficult and arduous task he assumes in governing his padawan's growth in the Force.'" Cage folded his arms. "Seems to me you have a responsibility here. Listen, I've been a teacher. I know it's tough, but you can't just walk away when something goes wrong." Lock stared at the burly Lensman in undisguised bafflement, then turned back toward the Council. Most of them looked surprised as well. Zaerdra Kinshasa was the one who showed it the most obviously on her face; in addition to a look of complete incredulity, her face also had a hint of a flush about it, something which drew a deep chuckle from Slaarti at the back of the gallery. After a moment, Faloon got to her feet. "The Earthman knows his Jedi lore, Master Lock," she said. "His quotation of Master Baas is from the New Standard translation of the XVII Holocron of Vodo-Siosk Baas, completed in 2274 by the late Archivist Borsval Wal'jak." With a faint note of wonder in her voice, the Minbari archivist added, "It is... perfect." Lock found his voice. "This is outrageous. I will -not- be lectured on Jedi philosophy by a man who cannot even hear the call of the Force!" Utena could remain silent no longer. "No?" she said. "Then maybe you'll listen to -me-. After all, you've spent the last couple of months all but trying to draft me because I -do- hear it." "You hear it, but you have had no training to interpret it," Lock told her. "In fact, you have willfully -rejected- such training. By your own choice, you have -no- understanding of the issues we confront here. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that your presence had a corrosive influence on Bastila's own self-control. You do seem to inspire those around you to emulate your bullheaded rashness." Utena chuckled darkly. "You haven't even got me going yet." "That's just what I mean. You're reckless. You challenge things you don't even understand. You allow your passions not only to control you, but to -define- you." "Well, I guess I'd rather be defined by my passions than my limitations," Utena replied tartly. "But, OK, say for the sake of argument that I don't understand what you're up against here. You're supposed to be a great teacher - make me understand. Tell me why jikharra is bad." Lock gave her a puzzled look. "I'm not familiar with the term." "It's from the t'skrangish language of Barsaive," Utena told him. "The most concise translation is 'to live with passionate intensity'. It's one of their core virtues, but, surprisingly enough, they've failed to become the scourge of all galactic life." Lock gave her a level gaze. "Do you really want me to explain?" he asked. "Or are you simply mocking me?" "See, that's exactly what I'm talking about," Utena said. "Why does everything have to be one thing or the other with you?" Lock's level gaze remained unchanged. Utena held up a conciliatory palm. "Go on. Explain. I'm listening, I swear." The Jedi Master looked very faintly dubious for a moment, then nodded. "Very well. You must understand that you ask the impossible - the summation of a philosophy that takes years to teach correctly - but I'll try." Lock composed his thoughts for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice had an oratorical quality to it. He was a good speechmaker, and Utena could see that he probably -was- a good teacher, under the right conditions, as he said, "Both the Light and the Dark exact a price from their servants. The Jedi is required to put her own passions and desires aside, to always serve the common good before herself. Even what you would call positive emotions, like love, can be dangerous if they keep her from thinking and acting clearly. The Light Side requires patience, serenity and discipline. "The Sith, by contrast, is encouraged to indulge his every selfish whim at the expense of those weaker than himself. His appetites and hatreds, rather than being sated, grow ever stronger until he is their slave rather than their master. The Dark Side offers instant gratification at the cost of never knowing peace or contentment." He fell silent again, considering, then asked in a more normal tone of voice, "Does that explain things to your satisfaction, Commodore? Did you not -see- what became of Bastila when she threw aside her dispassion and indulged her animal fury?" Utena arched an eyebrow and gave Lock her is-this-guy-serious look. As she spoke her reply, she walked around the end of the rail that separated the gallery from the rest of the council chamber, then paced the middle of the room like a lawyer delivering a closing argument. "OK," she said, "leaving aside for a moment the fact that you're attributing deliberate actions to someone with the functional equivalent of a severe head injury, which would get you laughed out of any real court in the galaxy, I have some problems with the way you're presenting generalizations as universal truth. Deny your passions or be consumed by them? You call that a philosophy? You guys aren't real big on -balance-, are you?" Lock shook his head. "It's not as simple as - " "I think it is," Utena interjected. "I mean, look. Stay calm, think things through - that makes sense. That's a good thing to shoot for. But, cripes, you guys are turning people with minor emotional problems into -warheads- by winding them up with this binary dichotomy crap. You had Bastila so convinced that if she ever felt anger she was automatically a creature of evil that when a Psi Cop blasted her into a rage fugue, she actually -convinced herself she believed in his cause-. Instant delusion, just add pain. That's -not- -healthy-." "History is filled with examples of the dangers of the Dark Side," Lock told her, in the tone of a person who is addressing a small child. "You've encountered at least one yourself - repeatedly - and had cause to regret it." Utena snorted. "What, Roger Tremayne? The guy's a sociopath. He was a sociopath before he learned to use the Force and he's a sociopath now. Give a psycho Force training and he becomes a major menace. Gosh. Film at 11." Lock gave her a blandly indulgent smile and said in a patronizing tone, "You have it backward, Commodore." "No, Master Lock, I believe -you- have it backward. This is a simple application of Occam's Razor. You're consistently overlooking the simplest, most logical explanation: that a lot of the people who become really hardcore bad guys after they 'fall to the Dark Side' are dangerous, defective individuals from eight o'clock, day one." "And Bastila?" Lock asked coldly. "You tell me," Utena shot back. "You're the one who programmed her." Lock narrowed his eyes. "And when I 'programmed' her," he asked, his tone now fully that of a cross-examining attorney, "was she a 'dangerous, defective' individual, or just someone with a 'minor problem'?" "Judging by the level of remorse she showed once she knew who she -was- again," Utena replied dryly, "I wouldn't say she's a sociopath." Lock arched an eyebrow. "So you consider Bastila's crime on Qo'noS 'minor'?" he asked. "Of course it wasn't minor!" Utena said, exasperated. "What I'm saying is, she probably -started- with something minor - maybe a little self-image problem, I dunno, I wasn't there - before years of living under the pressure of your standards turned it into a crack big enough for Roger to jam a wedge into. Don't you -get- it? You're setting your own students up to fail! It's called a self-fulfilling prophecy." Lock opened his mouth to interject, but Utena had a full head of steam now, and she wasn't going to stop until she'd finished saying her piece. "You put her in a box she didn't fit in and she cracked. Big surprise. And now you want to try and put me in the same box? Well, I've got news for you, pal. The last guy who tried to stuff me in a box ended up in a -coffin-. I know what's right and what's wrong for me, and I govern myself accordingly. If that doesn't fit into your worldview, then that's YOUR problem, Master Lock. NOT MINE." Then she pivoted on her heel and, without looking at him again, walked with dignified tread back to her seat. For a moment, there was silence. Then, a few rows back, the mustachioed, beret-wearing form of Jamie Hyneman got to his feet and slowly began to applaud. Others joined him, one by one - even a few members of the Jedi Council - until the room fairly rang with applause. When order was restored, Lock turned to the Council, his face dark with outrage. "... -Well-, fellow Councilors?" he asked. "Are we going to stand for such disrespect in our own chamber?" "I think it was very well said," Bolo Burke observed mildly. Lock's patience, never at its best when dealing with the Rodian, was finally exceeded. "You -would-, Burke," he snapped. "Your morality is as flexible as your identity." Burke made a dismissive gesture. "You may as well assassinate someone else's character, Deadbolt. I know what's right and what's wrong for me, and I govern myself accordingly." "This is hardly a laughing matter," Lock said stiffly as a chuckle made the rounds of the room. "That young woman, in addition to being willful, prideful, and insolent, just implied that OUR TEACHINGS are responsible for the fact that so many of our students over the centuries have failed to heed the dangers of the Dark Side!" "She's right," Vert said flatly. Lock blinked, unable to believe that he was hearing such a betrayal from another councilor, even one as dubious as Vert. "... WHAT?" "I said she's right, human," the Irken said, his antennae twitching back. "How can someone as tall as you be so thick? We're programming our own students to fail." "I... believe Vert may be correct," Faloon mused, in a tone that said she wasn't entirely comfortable with the idea. "A rigid tree cannot flex with the wind. The earliest of Valen's writings point out this obvious truth, and Valen, though no Jedi, was a man who clearly heard the Force." "I... I agree," Zaerdra said hesitantly. "I... can't believe no one's ever thought of this before." "This bears looking into," Mace Windu said, nodding. "Master Chairman, this is -farcical-," Lock protested. "A girl with no training in the Force and no conception of the millennia-long history of the Order comes in here and makes the outrageous claim that our own teaching methods are - what? - driving our students MAD? - and you BELIEVE her?" "I didn't say that," Windu replied. "I think the theory has merit and should be studied in greater detail." Lock was about to turn to the only councilor who hadn't yet weighed in on the matter - indeed, the councilor who had said hardly a thing throughout the proceedings - but before he could entreat the ancient and august Master Yoda to put a stop to this madness, the wizened Jedi Master spoke a single, barely audible, word: "Blind." Lock blinked. "... I beg your pardon, Master Yoda?" "Blind we are," Yoda said softly, as if only to himself. Then, in a slightly louder voice, he added, "Blind we have -been-. Since the time of Nemo shar Atrados... blind we have been." Everybody started talking at once. After more than three hours of disorganized, noisy, really rather unseemly public discussion, the High Council turned everyone out of their chamber and set to debating all that had been thrown before them in a private session. No one knew how long they might be in there. Some of the visitors dispersed into Aldera, knowing they would be paged if anything momentous were afoot. Others went to the temple's guest quarters to wait and wonder. Janice was loitering in the hallway outside the Council chambers, feeling a little at loose ends after all the excitement. Suddenly, Xander Cage's hand closed on her shoulder. She turned and gave an uncertain smile. "Red," Cage said. "C'mon. You, me, and Geek gotta celebrate somehow." "Where is Chad, anyhow?" Janice said, peering around through her cybereye. "I didn't see him leave." "Aw, he's over there with Scott," X said, jamming a thumb in the air. "Let's make some introductions, yeah?" Janice followed in Cage's impressive wake, Riddick trotting at her heels; they made their way past a small clot of reporters and camera drones, waving away questions as they went, until they found Chad. He was standing next to a tall red-haired human with a quick grin, dressed in Network 23 livery and trailed by a camera drone of his own. Chad turned around and smiled as the two IPO agents approached. "Hey, Hoss," he said to the other man. "You already know this guy, but this is Sergeant Janice Barlow, IPO CID. Janice, this is my brother, Scott Wheeler, Network 23, Aldera office." "Well, hello there," Scott said, offering a hand. "Can I get a picture of the three of you real quick here?" X grinned and threw his arms around Chad and Janice, slapping their shoulders heartily until they smiled for the camera. Scott winked and got the shot. "Thank you very much, lady, gentleman, and furball. You comin' back to the house, Chad?" "Thinking about it," Chad replied. "X? You up for a trip to the sticks tonight?" X rubbed a hand over his cueball head. "Red? You wanna go see what a hick Geek really is?" Janice turned to Chad and blinked. Chad shrugged and grinned. "You're certainly welcome," he said. "My parents have plenty of space for guests." "OK with me, then, as long as it's all right with your parents," Janice replied. Just then, a smiling man with short-cropped red hair joined the group. He nodded to X and Scott, then turned to Chad. "So, my student, we meet again," Adam Savage intoned gravely. "But this time, I'm the one having to explain myself to the authorities," Chad said, grinning. "Good to see you, Adam." "So, are we all repairing to the Collier Compound to test the fur filter in the hot tub," Adam inquired, "or do I have to find something to do over at Alderaan State tonight?" He rolled his eyes and gestured vaguely toward the temple interior. "Jamie's not gonna leave." He held up his hands in front of his face, imitating a heavy mustache with his fingers, and said in a deeper-than-normal tone, "Ah, this is a very, ah, critical -juncture- for the Jedi Order... " "Something to do at Alderaan State? Like break into your old office and leave presents for my ex-girlfriend?" Chad asked. "I might be up for that." Adam feigned innocence. "Bite your tongue, young man," he replied. "Scottie's still on the M5 payroll, you know, and you're still not." "Sumire might have something to say to me about that," Chad said, chuckling. "But yes, as a matter of fact, I was -just- about to invite you over to foul my parents' hot tub with your Kryptonian cooties. And maybe even drink my parents' beer. And stay out of my dad's machine shop. And not put X up to a machete baseball rematch." "Oh, come on. It's not like that can hurt me," Adam pointed out. "Much. And grapefruit really are the perfect size." Scott, Janice, and Riddick exchanged wary glances. 10:10 PM In one of the temple's guest rooms, as evening turned slowly into night, there was silence. Wolfgang lay sprawled on his side at the foot of the bed, dreaming. Anthy Tenjou was in an armchair, quietly reading a book. Utena was on the bed, her uniform jacket unfastened, a forearm folded over her eyes, apparently asleep. Apparently, at least, until she spoke without moving her arm: "Anthy?" "Yes, dear," Anthy replied, not looking up from her book. "I did it again, didn't I." "Yes, love, you did," said Anthy with a mild smile. At this, Utena sat up, brushed her hair back away from her face, and gave Anthy a baffled look. "All I did was tell 'em what I thought." Anthy marked her place, put the book down, turned to face her husband, and replied fondly, "'All I did was stand up for this one girl... '" Utena chuckled wryly, then got up and closed her jacket. "I'm going to go see if I can find something to eat. You want anything?" Anthy shook her head. "I'm fine." "OK. I'll be back in a bit." Utena kissed her goodbye, then left the room and walked down one of the crystal-lined corridors. From this high up - the guest area was on a level not far from the top of the temple - the lights of Aldera were spread out beyond the slanting windows. It was a handsome city - nothing to compare with New Avalon, in Utena's admittedly biased opinion, but prettier at night than Nekomikoka, where she made her home nowadays. She turned a corner, trying to remember just where the commissary she'd seen earlier was, and paused at the sight of a small, black-coated green figure coming the other way. "Master Vert!" she said. "I hadn't expected to see you. Has the council finished its deliberations?" Vert chuckled dryly. "Hardly. I'm merely getting some fresh air. It's just as well I've run into you, though." Four spindly robotic legs suddenly extended from the slender metal pack affixed to the Irken Jedi's back. They lifted him from the floor, raising him so that his face was at her eye level. "Walk with me, Master Tenjou," he said, turning to head back in the direction from which he'd come. Utena took two trotting steps to draw even with him as he ticked along on his robotic spider legs, then blinked as it hit her what he'd called her. "What?" she said, puzzled. Vert didn't speak directly to the question. Instead, he said, "I wish to make certain that you understand the magnitude of what you've done." Then, with a slight smile, he added, "I gather from your file in the Babylon Project database that you rarely do." Utena blushed slightly - she'd never read her BPGD file, but she supposed it didn't surprise her much that it said something like that. "I have to admit," she said carefully, "I'm surprised at the stir my remarks seem to have caused. I mean... thinking back on what I said, it strikes me as unlikely that the point's never been made before. The Jedi Order is -ancient-." Vert nodded. "The point -has- been made before. Thousands of times before, I would imagine. But almost all of the people making it have been fallen students trying to explain what happened to them." He shook his head. "Low credibility. But you? Here is a woman who is clearly strong in the Force, and who is -equally- clearly governed by her passions... to a degree which would strike a conservative Jedi, such as Jason Lock, as -shockingly- unhealthy... and all she's ever managed to do with her life is spread justice and nobility everywhere she goes." "I don't know if I'd say -that-." "I would. We reviewed your record. It was the first thing we did after we turned the observers out of the council chamber. Chairman Windu used his BPGD access level to get the Foundation's complete dossier on you, and we reviewed it in depth, searching for any factor that might hint at a hidden agenda, an ulterior motive, -anything- to indicate why you might seek to destabilize our Order... and found nothing. "Instead, we found a record filled with deeds of a sort that would reflect well on our own order, were you one of us. Devlin Carter's rescue from the slavery of the Psi Corps. The Battle of Titan. Your magnificent campaign to expel the Elasi pirate clans from the Triangle. The liberation of Tau Ceti. Your recent steadfast support of the Klingon Chancellor. A Jedi Master could look back at such a career with satisfaction... but you have barely begun." Utena blinked. Her surprised expression drew another small grin from the Irken. "By the standards of the most traditional among us, a person such as you - a woman so strong in the Force, so wholeheartedly passionate, and so obviously marked by destiny - should by now hold the galaxy in an -iron fist- and laugh with wicked delight at its wails of suffering. Indeed, I think it's entirely possible that if you were of a mind to do just that, you'd have no trouble. You would sweep all before you... but you don't. You yourself are the best evidence that what you've told us is true. "Some of the Council sniff at the fact that so many of your achievements have been feats of arms," Vert admitted. "But I am an Invader. I have always understood the essential paradox: that a peaceful galaxy must have those willing to wage war to make it so. Some of our more philosophical members either fail or refuse to acknowledge this essential truth, as they fail or refuse to grasp the truth you showed us today... but that, I think will be a struggle for another time." Vert paused, turning to her, and went on, "Forgive me. I digress. The important thing is this: It's not that no one had ever told the Jedi what you said today... it's that the Jedi had never -heard- it before." "But why - " "Why were you the one to make us hear when so many had failed before you? I don't know... but I have a theory." Another person emerged from a side corridor just ahead of them. He was human, dark-skinned and bald, dressed not in Jedi robes but in dark, stylish formalwear, complete with a pair of mirrored pince-nez. After a moment's surprise - where did -he- come from? - Utena recognized him as Mace Windu's elder brother Morpheus. "There is an ancient prophecy," Morpheus said, "that there will come One who will bring balance to the Force. Today, like all the Jedi Order's most ancient bits of lore, this is a controversial subject. Some say the prophecy is a myth. Others believe that the One was Darth Vader." "The Sith Lord who caused the fall of Atlantis?" Utena asked. Vert nodded. "And nearly wiped out both the Jedi and the Sith - hence the belief that he was the One." "Harsh balance," Utena observed. Vert chuckled. "Indeed." "Still others," Morpheus continued, "Vert and myself among them, believe that the prophecy is yet to be fulfilled, and that the time is right for the One to be found." The finely-dressed Jedi Master reached up, removed his pince-nez, and tucked them into the top pocket of his coat, then looked Utena straight in the eye. With the mirrorshades off, he seemed to lose some of his detached Jedi briskness, becoming more human, as he said quietly, "I've been searching all my life for that One... and now I believe I've found her." Utena gave him an incredulous look. "... You're kidding." Morpheus shook his head. "I wouldn't joke about something like that. I think we saw the beginning of the prophecy's fulfillment today." His piece said, the Jedi replaced his pince-nez, and with it his detached, businesslike demeanor. "I have to go," he said. "May the Force be with you, Commodore." "Uh... and you, Master Windu," Utena said. Morpheus nodded to Vert, then turned and disappeared through a side door. Utena turned slowly to Vert. "Do you agree with him? Do you think your One is -me-?" Vert nodded solemnly. "I do. And -that-... is why I call you Master." The Irken abruptly retracted his spider-legs and dropped back to his own feet. "I must return to the council chamber." Vert bowed low. "Good evening, Master Tenjou." "Good night, Master Vert," Utena replied. Then she stood and watched the little green Jedi walk back up the corridor and vanish through a side door. "... OK, that was -weird-," she murmured once he was gone. 11:45 PM FORT ORGANA, ALDERAAN /* Modest Mouse "Float On" _Good News for People Who Love Bad News_ */ Chad tipped back the rest of his beer and sighed. It was a nice night in Fort Organa; his parents owned a five-acre lot with all the amenities, including a hot tub big enough to hold a family reunion in. Right now it was accommodating him, Janice, Adam, Scott, Xander, and Riddick without really crowding anybody. There were times, when he, X, and Riddick were cooped up for days in hyperspace aboard the Gravy Train, that Chad dreamed of this tub with an all-consuming hunger. He couldn't help but feel a little wistful, though. They'd defended the Klingon capitol complex and rescued the Council, but lost the planet in the process. He sighed again and looked around. "Doesn't feel like much of a win, does it," Janice said, swimming over and taking the seat near him. "Was it supposed to?" Chad asked, setting his empty in the cupholder on the edge of the tub. "I'm not exactly a Space Hero, I wouldn't know." He winced inwardly at the bitterness in his voice, but Janice didn't seem to notice. Riddick made a grumping noise, and Chad nodded. "Yeah," he said. Janice sat for a long moment, idly bobbing to the surface of the tub and kicking out. Then she looked at him, her cyberoptic mirroring his. "Not much different from hunting, is it," she said. "Sometimes you get your best shot and you're still going to be out there all day tracking your quarry." Chad blinked for a second. "Forgot where you're from for a minute there, Red," he said with a small chuckle. "Good point." They sat in silence for a few minutes. Chad intentionally submerged himself for amusement's sake several times, demonstrating how his third eyelid let him keep his eyes open underwater for longer than most people could. Janice nursed the last few sips of her beer and finally kicked off the bottom of the tub. "Anyhow," she said. "Not going to get all philosophical and shit when I'm this tired. Which room is mine tonight?" Chad surfaced and shook the water out of his ears. "My sister's old room is the first one on the right on the second floor," he said. "Just make yourself comfortable, there are towels in the closet and you've got your own bathroom. G'night, Red." "'Night, Stripes," she replied, levering herself out of the tub. "'Night, rest of you. Don't get up to too much trouble unless you come get me first." The others waved, and she left the screen house, slinging her towel across her shoulders. She headed down the path to the main house, Mitra bobbing behind. In her relaxed state, it didn't come as much of a surprise to her to hear Cortana on her neuroprocessor's comm band. "Janice," the AI said. "Am I interrupting anything?" Janice snorted. "My boyfriend's on Tomodachi," she said, "assuming those BTL runners haven't cleared system and gone to the Rim yet. There's nothing to interrupt, as you already know." "I don't like to assume," Cortana replied puckishly. "I wanted to thank you for your performance aboard the Hammer of Kahless." "Some guy in black power armor did what you needed, Cortana," Janice said. "Not to put myself down or anything, but I didn't do that much." "Janice," Cortana said. "What you and your friends did for us today was above and beyond anything we could have expected. John's... not used to working with police. He's a soldier. We've been in this business a long time, and we expected... " She trailed off for a moment, then picked back up briskly. "Well, what we expected wasn't what we got, and we're grateful. John would never tell you himself, of course." Janice stopped in the middle of the path, looked up through the pines, and did an impromptu victory dance on the flagstones. "You can't see it, but I'm grateful, Cortana," she said. Cortana chuckled. "I won't tell X that you were doing that," she replied, "and I won't give him Mitra's logs, either." "Don't make me ask Shiori how to hurt you," Janice said with a snort. "Good night, Cortana." "Good night, Janice. Pleasure to work with you," the AI replied before closing the connection. Janice stood there for another long moment before heading into the house. Tomorrow would bring another mission, and tonight was a good night for much-needed sleep. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2409 02:12 AM A somewhat uncomfortable silence ruled the chamber of the Jedi Council. Six of the councilors were present, but after hours of debate, they had all exhausted whatever they had to say for the moment. Two, Vert and Bolo Burke, were meditating. Two, Zaerdra Kinshasa and Yoda, appeared to have simply fallen asleep. Mace Windu sat in his chair, silent but not tuning out the world in meditation. Whatever he was thinking, he was keeping it behind his impassive face. Jason Lock stood at the panoramic window with his hands folded tightly behind his back, looking out at the lights of Aldera, exerting all his Jedi self- control to stop himself from pacing. The chamber door opened to admit Faloon, who looked grave and, Mace Windu thought, just possibly a bit troubled. "Have you completed your initial survey of the archives, Master Faloon?" Windu asked. "I have, Master Windu," the Minbari historian-Jedi replied, taking her seat. Her arrival roused the dozing or meditating councilors and drew Lock back to his seat. The six regarded Faloon with interest as they awaited her report. When none was forthcoming, Windu prompted her gently. "And your findings?" Faloon hesitated. "I... well," she said after a moment, "you understand, Master Windu, this is just a preliminary analysis, but... I believe I -have- detected a pattern." She paused, grappling with what she wanted to say, then shook her head and got to her feet. The lines of her face hardened slightly as she made up her mind. A Jedi Master she might be, and one of the most tranquil, but Faloon came from the warrior caste of the tri-lobal Minbari society, and warrior-caste Minbari are not known for being indecisive, nor for being apathetic about their conclusions once reached. When she spoke, her voice had shed all its hushed hesitancy, and it was in a clear and unequivocal tone that she said, "No. I cannot permit politics or delicacy of feeling to interfere with the truth of what I have found. There -is- a pattern, and when viewed from the perspective I find myself forced into by Commodore Tenjou's remarks, it is a dark and terrible one." "What are you saying?" said Lock, his voice harboring an odd mixture of skepticism and alarm. Faloon, the Archivist, was one of the most conservative Jedi Masters of the Order. For her to speak this way, he knew she must have been deeply shaken by what she saw in her records. Faloon glanced at him, then looked away and addressed the council as a whole. "My fellow councilors, this is our order's eternal shame. In our zeal to protect the universe, it now appears the Jedi have destroyed countless lives. Our history is filled with the grim roster of the fallen, and in a great many cases there is evidence to support the commodore's thesis. "I recognize," she went on, cutting Lock off as he opened his mouth to interject, "that this is a preliminary study and that much more work must be done in order to provide solid conclusions; a truly comprehensive concordance of the Archives will take me and my staff many months, perhaps years. "However, I have seen enough to convince me that Master Yoda is correct. We have been blind. Worse - we have blinded ourselves. There is no ignorance, the Jedi Code says; but the history of our Order tells a different tale." Faloon slowly seated herself, folded her hands in her lap, cast a flinty look around the rest of the council, and said in a final tone, "So speak the Archives." There followed another prolonged silence. Windu looked around the table. Yoda sat slumped on his cushion, eyes closed, deep in thought. The ancient master had seen much of the history on which Faloon was reporting. No doubt he was mulling over his own experiences in the light of her report, drawing his own parallels. Zaerdra, too, looked very thoughtful, the tips of her head-tails twitching as she considered what she had heard. Bolo Burke was inscrutable as always, his Rodian face giving away nothing, but Vert looked positively -satisfied- with what he'd heard. Jason Lock, on the other hand, looked thunderstruck. At first, Windu had expected him to be furious at Faloon's remarks, but on reflection, he thought he understood what was running through his fellow Corellian's mind. A faint smile played at Windu's lips as he broke the silence by saying, "Fellow councilors - your thoughts on the Archivist's report?" For a moment, no one spoke. When one of the councilors did respond, it was Lock. "Master Chairman... if I may have a moment to consult with Master Vert?" he asked slowly. "I require his... unique perspective on certain matters." Windu raised his eyebrows slightly. "By all means, Master Lock," he said, gesturing with an open hand. 08:39 AM "Five minutes ago, the High Council of Jedi Masters reconvened a public session here in their council chamber on Alderaan," Nanami Jinnai reported, a trifle breathlessly. "They say they're ready to announce their conclusions after a full night of debate and consideration following yesterday's testimony. The dramatic remarks of the International Police's Commodore Utena Tenjou which closed yesterday's public session undoubtedly sparked much of that debate. The chamber's gallery is packed with observers, including all the witnesses who gave testimony yesterday and a number of other interested parties, and the atmosphere in here is electric. The Council should be returning to the chamber at any moment - and here they come now." As they had the day before, the seven councilors filed into the room and took their places. This time they didn't introduce themselves. Instead, they sat silent, passing thoughtful gazes over the gallery, for a few moments before Jason Lock got to his feet and began to speak. What he said surprised a good many people. "Yesterday, in this room, a woman without Jedi training delivered what we, the Jedi Council, could only receive as a scathing indictment of certain of our practices. Commodore Utena Tenjou of the International Police Space Force expressed her belief that it was our own training policies that ultimately led to the unfortunate events of November 12, when one of our own broke with the traditions of the Jedi Order and killed a high-ranking Klingon defense official. "If Commodore Tenjou is right, then the conclusion is inevitable. If Commodore Tenjou is right, then during our history we have taken some of the most talented students we have and broken them on our own pride. Our pride in our purity, our pride in our sense of right... no, not pride. Arrogance. Our -arrogance- has brought us here, to the point where we may have become unwitting servants of the Dark Side, by being willfully blind to our own flaws." Lock paused, looked around the room, and then, his voice firm and steady as stone, he went on, "After much deliberation, we have concluded that she -is- right." The statement shot an electric current through the room, twice over - once for the incredible import of the words themselves, and another because they were coming from none other than Jason Lock himself. "Master Faloon, the Archivist of the Order, spent much of the evening researching the matter. She has determined that a pattern does exist in many of the best-documented failures the Order has faced over its many centuries of history. Private writings of some of the greatest Jedi Masters of ages past also reveal that this is not a new problem, but one with which past councils have grappled... always in secret, and always in failure." Lock stopped again, for a moment, to let his words sink in. Then, gripping the rail in front of the council's dais with both hands, he leaned slightly forward and declared flatly, "We can afford neither secrecy nor failure now." Another murmur rippled around the room. Lock, his piece said, returned to his seat. A moment later, Mace Windu got to his feet, held up a hand, and announced, "Master Faloon's survey of our history is only beginning. More information will be available as she and her staff carry out a complete investigation into the matter. In the meantime, however, the Order of Jedi Knights will immediately begin a full review of our training practices and doctrines. All of us - from the council to the youngest padawans in training - will contribute to this, which we believe to be the first truly comprehensive review of the Order's practices ever undertaken. "One change which will be made immediately concerns the Sentinels of Light, the subset of our Order charged with vigilance against corruption in the galaxy at large and within the Jedi Knights themselves. No longer will Sentinels be trained for the role from the beginnings of their Jedi careers. Henceforth, Sentinels will be selected only from among adult, fully qualified Jedi Knights. We hope that by doing this, we will enable our Sentinels to have a broader perspective on the Order, the galaxy, and themselves." Windu let that sink in for a second, then continued, "Master Jason Lock will remain as Prime Sentinel. His integrity is unquestioned, his knowledge of the Sentinel role unmatched. However, as part of the change to the Sentinels, he will no longer sit on the Council, but rather serve in an advisory capacity. A replacement will be named soon." Lock got to his feet, his face giving away nothing, and when he spoke, the emotion in his voice was unmistakable. "Learned masters of the Jedi Council, this I promise you: The Sentinels of Light will be reborn," he said. "We will learn perspective. We will learn to temper pride in ourselves and our mission with humility, for both excessive pride and excessive humility are forms of arrogance. It is a very fine line we will tread, but we are determined to tread it. We will be humbly proud to serve as the answer to the age-old question: Who watches the watchmen? Thank you." As Lock resumed his seat, the chairman let the excited buzz roll around the room for a second, then cut in again, his voice quiet but undeniably firm. "Now to the more immediate business at hand. Bastila Shan?" Bastila got to her feet and began to speak, then thought better of it, so that all that came out was, "Ah... " Windu gave her a questioning look. "Yes?" Bastila hesitated, then squared her shoulders and said respectfully, "Well... if you please, Master Windu... I am Bajoran. Traditionally, our family names are given first." Windu smiled just a tiny bit, his dark eyes twinkling. "Shan Bastila, then. The Council has considered your case and reached the following conclusion. "Due to the expert testimony of several witnesses and our own recent findings, we have decided not to hold you responsible for your actions on Qo'noS on November 12." The Jedi Master was interrupted by a spontaneous burst of applause from the gallery. He held up a hand, waited for it to die down, and then continued, "In fact, we believe you showed great courage and selflessness in facing and helping to capture the Sith Lord called Venger despite the injury and indignity you suffered at his hands earlier in the incident. "However!" Windu said, raising his voice slightly to intercept the next spurt of applause. "However. The psychological wounds caused by that incident will need to be healed before you can be reinstated as a Jedi Knight. We ask that you accept reassignment as a padawan learner to a new Jedi Master, as treatment for your injuries. Once you're healed, you can re-take your trial and regain your knighthood." Bastila looked as if she had no idea what to say. She hesitated for a few seconds, then lowered her head and said, "I accept the Council's wisdom gratefully, Master Windu." Windu smiled. "It's not a punishment, Bastila," he told her. "We want to make certain nothing like this can ever happen to you again." Bastila looked up, met his eye, and nodded. "I'll do anything you prescribe," she said. "Good. Then that's settled. We'll notify you of your new assignment shortly." As Bastila returned to her seat, she was applauded further - especially by the Repo Men, who whistled and cheered in a fashion that was not often seen in the Jedi Council's chamber. Windu let them get it out of their systems, then addressed the room gravely. "This has been a difficult incident for all of us," he said. "We have a lot to think about - as councilors, as teachers, and as Jedi. The next few years will be a very interesting time. "Thank you all. This Council is adjourned." Utena improvised her way through a brief follow-up interview with Nanami and Network 23's John Trussell, then excused herself and crossed the room to find Anthy talking with Bastila. "I'm happy for you," Anthy said. "I hope you find what you need with your new teacher." Bastila smiled, only a little wanly. "I believe I will," she said. "I can already feel my outlook... changing." "I'm sorry I had to be rough with you." The Bajoran shook her head. "Don't apologize. Violence was the only language I could understand in that state. If anything, I should thank you. What you did... started me on the path to being whole again. Or possibly for the first time." She noticed Utena's approach then. "Commodore. Congratulations," she said, her smile still tired but now a little bit impish. "You've made quite an impression." Utena gave a rueful grin. "It's a gift, I guess," she said wryly. "Listen - are you going to be OK?" Bastila considered the question seriously, then nodded. "I think I am," she said. "I really do." "That's good. Listen - keep in touch, all right? I know we didn't really get along for... well, almost all of our time together, but... if you get a chance to ship out with me again, I'd be willing to give it another shot." Bastila laughed. "Perhaps one day I'll take you up on that." Then, sobering, she said, "What of you? Will you continue to explore your connection to the Force? You can't deny it, you know." Utena nodded. "I've got too much going on in my life to be anyone's student, but I'm not going to ignore it," she said. "Well... be careful," Bastila said. "You've seen how badly such things can go wrong." Utena grinned. "Don't worry about me," she said. "I've got people to keep me in line." Bastila glanced at Anthy and smiled. "Indeed." Then she made that hybrid curtsey-bow gesture Utena had seen several female Jedi make and added, "May the Force be with you, Commodore." "Call me Utena," replied the commodore with a smile. EPILOGUE I TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2409 10:13 AM AVALON STANDARD TIME IPS CHALLENGER, IN ORBIT OVER ALDERAAN John Spartan was in the ship's recreation center, working out in one of the weight training rooms, when the door opened and the monarch he'd served for the last several centuries entered the room. Like any good soldier of the Crown, he was on bended knee within seconds. "My Queen," he said. Asrial I, queen of Salusia, shut the door behind her, then spoke in a normal, non-regal tone of voice. "Stand up, John," she said. "This isn't an official visit. Technically I'm not even here... but I had to hear it from you." As the Master Chief rose to his feet, she looked up - for he was much, much taller than she, and she wasn't a short woman - into his eyes and asked, "Is it true?" The Master Chief nodded. "Major Tuncer and I engaged an Elite on the command deck of the Klingon battle platform Hammer of Kahless," he said. "Commodore Tenjou killed another on the surface. Sergeant Barlow recovered Covenant technology from the battle platform's engineering spaces, and Cortana's confirmed it. They're still out there." Asrial turned away, clenched a fist, and struck it gently against her thigh. "Damn," she muttered, almost under her breath. Then she seemed to recover herself, turned, and spoke to the towering SPARTAN in a brisker tone. "Master Chief, you're Salusia's greatest living expert on the Covenant, militarily. If they return to menace the galaxy again, you'll be needed, desperately needed. I promised not to pull you away from your assignment to the IPO except in the direst of circumstances... well, a new Covenant invasion would qualify. I hope it doesn't come to that, but I owe you that truth up front. You've been one of my most loyal, courageous supporters for many decades, John, and if the Covenant return, I'll need you again." "You only have to ask," the Master Chief replied. "I enjoy working with the IPO, but in the final analysis, I'm a Salusian soldier. If my country calls, I go. It's that simple." Asrial smiled sadly. "I wish I could let you go altogether," she said. "You're the last SPARTAN-II; you've earned an honorable retirement a thousand times over. But it's -because- you're the last that I can't afford to... especially if the Covenant's still active." The Master Chief nodded again. "Don't concern yourself, Your Majesty," he said. "You know what choice I'd make, anyway." "And Cortana?" The 1/4-scale holographic image of Cortana rezzed up on the projector plate near the weight bench's control terminal. "I go where John goes," she said. Asrial considered that, then nodded. "Thank you both," she said. "For now, carry on - but if you encounter any more evidence of Covenant activity, please inform me at once. Don't go through channels. Contact me directly." The queen cracked the faintest hint of a smile. "I'm sure you can manage that, can't you, Cortana?" Cortana grinned. "I can work something out," she said. "All right, then. Take care, you two," Asrial said, and then she slipped out of the room and closed it behind her. "Well, that was weird," Cortana mused. The Master Chief grunted noncommittally and went back to his workout. EPILOGUE II CAPTAIN'S OFFICE, IPS CHALLENGER Utena was frowning at the screen of her dataterminal, considering the best way to phrase the part of her report where she described inadvertently touching off a firestorm of revolution within the Jedi Order itself - how would that look on one's resume, anyway? - when the face of Luornu Durgo appeared in a pop-up window at the corner of the display. "Call for you, Commodore," she said. Utena sighed and sat back in her chair. "Finally, an excuse to stop doing -this- for a while," she said. Lu grinned. "Patching you through." A second later, the window expanded slightly and flickered, replacing Lu's face with that of Kaitlyn Hutchins. Utena's relieved smile broadened. "Hey, Kate!" she said. "Thanks for the soundtrack last Friday. Getting into a heap of trouble on a simple ground mission just wasn't the same without you along." Kate laughed. "I bet." "Who'd you have backing you up? It didn't sound like the usual crew." Kate shook her head. "It wasn't. Everybody else was still on Tomodachi, there wasn't time to round them up. Fortunately, Joe and his band were around - they're helping me with one of the movies I'm scoring for Sumire." "Oh, cool. I thought that guitar sound was familiar." Kate grinned. "Yeah, the Crush is pretty distinctive." Then, with a sly grin, she added, "So I hear you had another one of those Professor Harris moments with the Jedi Council the other day." Utena covered her face, then looked out through her spread fingers and asked, "What, does everybody know about that?" "Sumire has contacts -everywhere-," Kaitlyn replied with a grin. Utena laughed. "Well, anyway, yeah, it's true. Now I'm trying to figure out how to write that part up in my incident report." Kaitlyn shrugged. "Just say 'then I did that thing I do,' Dad'll know exactly what you mean." Utena snorted. "Speaking of which, I think he'll be ready to leave Ishiyama soon," Kate went on. Utena slumped in her chair. "Thank God. Maybe I can finally have my -life- back. Although - have you seen him? Is he really OK, or do you think he's just going to decide it's taking too long?" Kate shook her head. "No, I think he's better. Not really -OK-, but better. My spies tell me he's had company up at the cabin for the past few weeks, which is a very good sign." Utena nodded, her face thoughtful. "All right... good," she said. "I mean, I don't want to do this forever, but if he needs more time, I can manage." Kate smiled. "I'm sure he knows that. He won't come back if he doesn't think he can handle it. Besides, like I say, he's got some... uh... help." Utena raised an eyebrow. "What kind of 'help'?" she asked, but Kate only gave her an enigmatic smile. "You'll know when you see them," she said. "Anyway, I'm here until New Year's. Want to be in a movie? Sumire and I have... " She paused to think. "... four in the works right now." Utena raised the other eyebrow too. "You've been busy." "Sumire's idea of therapy," Kate said. "It's mostly worked, too." Utena laughed. "I can see that," she said, making Kate blush a little. "I might come out after I get all this squared away," she went on. "Maybe next week. Anthy and I would like to see the -house- again at some point... " Kate grinned. "Yeah, me too. I'm having a lot of fun here, but it'll be good to get home. Well, listen, I gotta go - this fight scene isn't going to shoot itself." "OK. Take it easy, Kate." Utena reached to cut off the connection, then paused. "... Hey, Kate?" "Mm?" "... I just realized you're not stuttering." "Hmm? Oh." Kaitlyn grinned mysteriously again. "No, I'm not, am I? Well, I'll have to tell you about that when I see you. Bye!" Utena waved. "Bye... " The window disappeared. "... the -hell-?" She shook her head and went back to work, only to be interrupted a few seconds later by the appearance of another comm window, this one a priority signal that didn't have to go through Lu Durgo's console. "Oh, hey, Steve," Utena said, smiling at the lantern-jawed face of Steve Rogers. "What's doing?" "I know you're busy, Commodore, but I have two things I thought you ought to know," Rogers said. "OK... shoot." "First, good work capturing that Klingon engineer alive. My contact with the Royal Salusian Intelligence Service tells me he's being very helpful." "Thanks, I'll pass that on to Janice," Utena said, then added with a wry grin, "Not that either of us knows how the guy ended up in -your office-." Rogers chuckled, then became serious again. "The other isn't such good news. Roger Tremayne broke out of Terminal Island this morning." Utena frowned. "That was quick." "Mm, well, he had help," Rogers said wryly. "At 0345, a massive strike force hit the prison. Survivors from the security force and monitor logs confirm at least three members of the Magnificent Ten. Shockwave Alberto, Fitzcarrald, and Red Mask. The rest of the attackers were members of the Kempu ninja clan, not Black Hoods." Utena's eyebrows went up. "-Three- of the Magnificent Ten? -And- the Kempu clan? They really weren't screwing around." Rogers shook his head. "They all but leveled the south wing of the prison - made off with about a hundred inmates along with Tremayne, most of them Big Fire members." "I thought the Terminal Island security force was trained to handle things like that." "They are, but no one ever expected three members of the Ten to hit the place at once, let alone with the Kempu clan along. We simply didn't have the firepower. Lieutenant Hol is beside herself, never mind that she's lucky just to be alive." Utena nodded. "How many casualties on our side?" "We're still picking up the pieces. Too many. At least ten dead that we know of, and I'm sure there'll be more. The Titans are securing the scene now." "What does Big Fire want with a fugitive Sith Lord?" Utena wondered rhetorically, tapping at her lower lip with the ball of her thumb. "Nothing good, I'm sure," Rogers replied. "Anyway, I thought you should know. I don't think he'll come after you - as a member of the Chief's family, you're on Big Fire's no-strike list, and they're liable to keep him on a pretty short leash now that they've got him. All the same, watch your back. You should know better than anyone what a slippery character he is." Utena nodded again. "Thanks for the warning, Steve. Hey, tell Dad to call me if he gets a minute, will you? My report's not ready, but I haven't talked to him since July." Rogers smiled. "I'll do that. Good work on Qo'noS, by the way. I've read the preliminaries from the Repo Men and the Master Chief." "I'm having a hard time feeling good about losing," Utena admitted. Rogers shrugged. "It's all in how you look at it," he said. "Keeping Chancellor Krojaar and his council alive and out of Klayvor's hands, getting your whole force out of a mess like that in one piece, -and- bloodying Klayvor's nose on the way out the door... put it this way, I'd be satisfied with that day's work." Utena chuckled. "And I followed it up by making a hell of a mess," she said. "That I don't know as much about," Rogers confessed, "but from what little I -do- know, it looks to me like it might have been a mess that needed to be made." "Maybe. We'll see, I guess. You know what's funny, though?" "What?" "I keep thinking about the Covenant Elite I killed." "That's normal. Nobody enjoys killing an enemy, even when it has to be done. Nobody decent, anyway." Utena nodded. "I don't regret the action itself," she said. "Not exactly. I know he would have killed me, and Anthy, and maybe everybody else there, if I hadn't done it." "But you regret that it became necessary," Rogers said with an understanding nod. "Exactly. I feel like... like I failed somehow, because things got to that point. Being a Duelist isn't about death." "Every soldier faces a moment like this sooner or later," Rogers said. "Is that what I am, though? It's not something I ever aspired to." Rogers chuckled. "A prince on a white horse is a kind of soldier," he said. "Listen, Utena - it's good that you can't just brush it off, but at the same time, don't dwell on it. It wasn't an ordinary day; it was war." Utena nodded slowly. "I don't like war," she said. Rogers grinned sadly. "Good soldiers shouldn't," he said. "I have to go. We can talk more when you get to town if you like." Utena smiled. "Thanks, Steve. I appreciate it. Take care - I'll see you soon." Rogers drew himself up, saluted, and disappeared as the window closed. Utena looked at where he had been for a second, then sighed and went back to work. EPILOGUE III WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2409 JYURAI, ENIGMA SECTOR Carmela Sunderland emerged onto the concourse of the IPO's private spaceport outside the capital city of Jyurai and turned to thank the pilot who'd brought her to the hard-to-reach world. Anne Springsteen smiled. "I was headed this way anyway. Got to pick up some parts for my Delta." She sealed the docking hatch of the IPO runabout they'd used to get to Jyurai, then turned and said, "C'mon, I'll walk with you to customs." Sunderland had a new spring in her step, and no wonder; word had come from the office of the Acting Chief that when Gryphon returned, which was expected any day now, she'd almost certainly be granted Zetan citizenship and accepted as a full-fledged AEGIS operative following an orientation course at the IPO's Psionics Academy here on Jyurai - so she might as well get started on that course in advance of his return. In a way, it made the ex-Psi Cop slightly sad, the severing of that last tie with her past, but at the same time, it was exciting and gratifying to know that she'd earned the trust of her former enemies so completely. "How are you feeling?" she asked Anne as they walked down the long, curving concourse toward the Jyuraian Foreign Ministry's customs checkpoint. "Fine," Anne replied. Medical examination aboard Challenger after the evacuation from Qo'noS had revealed that the Jedi had soaked up a nasty dose of radiation and picked up some unpleasant toxins during her dip in the Klingon capitol's reactor cooling pool, but the Force had kept the immediate symptoms at bay and swift attention from the ship's highly-qualified chief surgeon, the Vulcan Doctor Selar, had averted any long-term problems. The only real hassle was that Anne had been forced to refurbish her lightsaber, which had been knocked out of commission by the radiation. "Listen - I meant to ask you, but there wasn't any time. Those moves you used to bring Venger down when your lightsaber wasn't working... those weren't Jedi techniques, were they?" Anne shook her head. "No," she said, smiling. "That was wing chun kung fu." Carmela raised an eyebrow. "Where does a childhood-trained Jedi Knight learn wing chun?" "My master ended up in the hospital for a couple of months when I was 14 - vizorium poisoning," Anne said. "While he was out of commission, his brother took over my training. Master Morpheus is a big believer in cross-training, so he spent most of that time teaching me alternate systems. Some t'ai chi, some kiliari, a little drunken boxing, but mostly wing chun." "You learned all that in two months?" Anne made a modest gesture. "A real empty-hand martial artist would have taken me apart," she said. "It only looked good because Venger was even further out of his depth than I was." Carmela smiled, not quite believing it, but willing to let it drop for conversation's sake. Anyway, they'd reached the checkpoint, and it was time for them to go their separate ways - Anne out into the world, and Carmela down the hall to the left and into the Academy. "It was nice working with you," Anne said with a smile. "Congratulations." Carmela returned the smile. "Thanks. See you around, Master Jedi." EPILOGUE IV THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2409 12:49 PM NEW AVALON, ZETA CYGNI Shan Bastila climbed out of the black cab, pulled her bag out behind her, paid the driver, then stood looking at the building while the cab pulled away. It wasn't much to look at - just a nondescript red-brick warehouse, one of dozens in the industrial Puckett's Landing district of New Avalon north of the Docklands. The only identifier on it was a welded metal plate hanging over the door that read "M5 INDUSTRIES". "Well... this looks like the place," Bastila mused. She hefted the bag to her shoulder, touched her elaborate Bajoran earring self-consciously - she still wasn't quite used to it being there - then crossed the sidewalk and opened the door. Inside, the place was just as industrial and unpromising - basically a big open space with a high metal-raftered ceiling, a lot of sodium-arc lights, and a concrete floor. Bits and pieces of paraphernalia unidentifiable to Bastila were scattered here and there on benches and the floor. At the far end, what appeared to be a six-foot hollow plastic cube contained a scorched and battered toilet. The wall to her right was covered with metal shelves bearing dozens and dozens of plastic storage containers, each clearly labeled in big black letters. She ran her eyes over the rows, noting the alleged contents of some of them. BOLTS, ASST'D. PLASTIC SHEETING. ARKANIAN ENERGY SHIELDS. TIBANNA CARTRIDGES (No. 2). R2 MOTIVATORS. MEAT (RAW). ORANGE CRUSH. RUBBER CHICKENS. DALEK, ONE. When her gaze reached the top, she saw a man dressed in jeans and a T-shirt standing casually by the rack, rummaging in a box labeled AMMUNITION (NAPOLEONIC). That wasn't so odd, really, except for the fact that the soles of his sneakered feet were a good 15 feet above the concrete floor, apparently supported by nothing but his desire to be up there. Bastila blinked. "Uh... hello? Hello up there!" The man looked around, then down, and saw her. "Huh? Oh, hi!" He extracted a black iron ball about the size of a bowling ball from the container, closed it, slid it back into place, then dropped lightly to the floor in front of her. Up close, he was a smiling, friendly-looking man with a close-cropped head of red hair and heavy black-rimmed glasses. "You must be Bastila," he said, tucking the ball under one arm and sticking out a hand. "I'm Adam." "Oh, uh... hello. Nice to meet you," Bastila said, shaking the hand. "Is Master Hyneman here?" Adam looked vaguely bemused that someone would ask him that. "Uh, no, Master Hyneman is out shopping for latex body parts at the moment. Did they assign you to him?" Bastila nodded. "Yes, they - " Adam interrupted her with a big grin. "-Great-. We can really use the extra hand while Scottie's stuck on Alderaan. Can you weld?" "No, but - " Adam waved it away. "Oh, well, never mind - here, hold this cannonball, I'll go find the jumper cables. Kari? Where's that Destroid capacitor?" Kari Byron mildly startled Bastila by emerging from the far wall without bothering to use the door. "Isn't it in the fab shop? I thought we were going to put a housing on - oh, hi, Bastila! You've got a package." Bastila, holding the cannonball in both arms, blinked. "Already?" Kari nodded. "Yeah, it got here this morning. Hang on, I'll go get it." She vanished back through the wall again, then reappeared a few minutes later with a Federated Express box. Adam took the cannonball back while Bastila opened the box. "Oh wow, -nice- hat," Kari said as Bastila smilingly removed a grey Australian bush hat from the package and settled it on her head. "Great, another -hat- person," Adam said with mock exasperation. "At least you don't have the walrus 'stache." He looked around for a second as if at a loss, then put the cannonball on the floor and chocked it against one of the metal legs holding up the shelves so it wouldn't roll away. "C'mon," he said, gesturing. "Let's go meet the crew. If you're working with Jamie, you're going to be spending a lot of time here." Bastila looked around the shop, listened to Adam and Kari banter as they led her deeper into the building, adjusted her bush hat to a more rakish angle, and decided she could live with that. EPILOGUE V MONDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2409 GREEN SECTOR, BABYLON 6 Zargh Thalekh adjusted the baldric of his uniform and turned to survey his quarters one last time. For the first time in several years, the uniform he wore was not the ornate ceremonial armor of a diplomat, but the battle-scarred, practical garb of a warrior. He had served since the Babylon station's opening as its ambassador from the Klingon Empire, and though the position was not entirely to his liking, he had fulfilled his duties with honor... but no more. With the Klingon Defense Forces cut in half and the Homeworld seized by the treachery of the foul usurper Klayvor vestai-Klavaar, the -true- government of the Empire, in exile on Klinzhai Prime, needed all the able-bodied soldiers it could get. A man like Zargh, a genuine war hero with more honors to his name than many active line officers, was much more valuable to the Empire now as a soldier. Zargh Thalekh was going back to war. The door to his quarters chimed. "Come in," Zargh called, expecting to see his adjutant - but instead, he found himself facing B'Elanna O'Brien. "What do you want?" he asked - not belligerently, just by way of greeting. He was mildly surprised when she replied in Klingonese, Zargh frowned. she replied. Her dusky face darkened as she went on, Zargh said. B'Elanna said with a cold little smile. Zargh wondered. she said without hesitation, surprising him again with her forthrightness. She shook her head. Zargh gazed at her for a few moments, his eyes thoughtful. Then he shook his head and said, B'Elanna said. Zargh bared his teeth in an expression half grin and half snarl. he said. B'Elanna's hand went to her belt and returned with a spade-pointed dagger - the ubiquitous Klingon daqtagh. she said. Zargh weighed this for a moment, then drew his own dagger and thumbed open its side blades. B'Elanna advanced into the room; the door hissed shut behind her. For a few long seconds, she and Zargh - a man more than a foot taller and probably twice as massive - regarded at each other past the points of their leveled blades. Then Zargh grinned, relaxed, and put his blade away. he observed. B'Elanna sheathed her daqtagh. she said. Zargh's grin quirked a little. he said. B'Elanna smiled darkly. she said, and Zargh laughed. he said. B'Elanna replied, saluted with forearm across chest, and then left the room. Boba Fett was leaning against the corridor bulkhead one door down when she emerged. "Well?" he asked. "I'm in," she said. "Tomorrow at 3. He's thinking of making me a battle engineer on one of his birds of prey." "Well, I can't say I like it," Fett said, falling into step beside her as she made for the turbolift, "but I understand why you're doing it." They had a farewell party at the Castle for B'Elanna that night. Her adoptive father, Babylon 6 chief engineer Miles O'Brien, stopped by and gave her a full set of Klingon starship engineer's tools, much to her surprise - where he'd gotten them, he wouldn't say. Fett contributed a disruptor pistol from his extensive collection of captured weapons. The others offered their best wishes and the devout hope that she wouldn't be killed. They all knew it was going to be a bloody conflict - but they also knew that she was a veteran of several Valiant campaigns and a survivor by nature. The next day she reported for duty, and within a week, along with the rest of Zargh's fleet, she was gone, vanished into the stars, destination deeply classified. For the rest of the fall term, life in the Castle had an odd sort of arrhythmia to it, as if part of the machine that defined the house's daily cycles were missing... / * Juno Reactor "Conquistador" _Labyrinth_ */ Eyrie Productions, Unlimited presented UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES FUTURE IMPERFECT -Symphony of the Sword No. 4- Seventh Movement: The Revolution Will Be Televised The Cast (in order of appearance) Nanami Jinnai Jason Lock Zaerdra Kinshasa Vert Faloon Mace Windu Bolo Burke Yoda Mike Tucker Utena Tenjou Carmela Sunderland Tuncer Pete Stacker Adrian Mendoza Anne Springsteen Chips Dubbo Krojaar epetai-Korgoth Ktarl Lore Soong Dougal "Caboose" O'Malley Kroj vathKanlor Vargh tai-Kalek Karg, son of Larg Klayvor vestai-Klavaar John J. McCandless Julius Van der Groot Leonard L. Church Sachiko Asaki Grace Waldron L0-P3Z Dexter Grif Dick Simmons Franklin Delano Donut Douglas Berry Bastila Shan MCPO Sir John Spartan KDC, RSN Xander Cage Chad Collier 343 Guilty Spark Janice Barlow Klov Anthy Tenjou Cortana Carol Rowley Frank Relkat Marteth tai-Kaavor Emissary Two Kamar vathTilkat Kaveth, son of Krorr Roger Tremayne Emissary One Kaitlyn Hutchins Kurt Wagner T'skaia Vorokoshiga'ar Ixtixtaaqitl't'chl'Vraihelt Ishkarat Elisabeth R'tas Shustal Jandia R'lajj Metolin Ishkarat Klaang tai-Kalaan Hoshi Sato Lafiel Abriel T'Vek Jinto Lin Kirk Wolfgang Kari Byron Buster Slaarti Teslure Jamie Hyneman Scott Wheeler Adam Savage Morpheus Windu Asrial Arconian Luornu Durgo Steve Rogers Zargh Thalekh B'Elanna O'Brien Boba Fett musical guests The Crush of Love introducing Lucy Collier as Richard B. Riddick and featuring Lloyd Bridges as Commander Thaddeus Cain Head of the Revolutionary Tribunal Benjamin D. Hutchins Team SPARTAN Liaison Janice Barlow Assistant to Mr. Cage Chad Collier Jason Lock's Force tutorial by Kelly St. Clair A few dialogue bits by Geoff Depew Xander Cage's Jedi master quotations adapted from the Rule of St. Benedict The usual suspicious activities by The Usual Suspects Obvious debts owed to George Lucas and Gene Roddenberry, among many others Slightly less obvious debts owed to Glen Larson Most of the Repo Men and some of Red Team adapted from characters created by Rooster Teeth Productions Some characters adapted from the cast of "MythBusters" (on the Discovery Channel) The Master Chief, Cortana, and Tuncer adapted from characters in "Halo" by Bungie Studios The "goldfish warning" concept created by Kris Overstreet The producers wish to acknowledge the gracious cooperation of the KLINGON DEFENSE FORCES without which this production would not have been possible E P U (colour) 2014