Steam rose from the chilled bogs of Calcasieu Parish, 
Louisiana, as a green-haired humanoid in an alien flight suit and up
to his waist in swamp water eyed the remnants of his Koensayr
Longprobe Lone Scout-modified Myrmidon fighter. He held in his hands a
data pad, through which his astromech droid, R5-SK, transmitted its
diagnostics.

        FINAL REPORT;
        WEAPONS SYSTEMS- MINOR DAMAGE
        SUBLIGHT SYSTEMS- INTACT
        HYPERDRIVE- INTACT
        LIFE SUPPORT- MODERATE DAMAGE; HULL INTEGRITY COMPROMISED
        SENSORS- MINOR DAMAGE
        COMMUNICATIONS, RADIO- INTACT
        COMMUNICATIONS, SUBSPACE- IRREPARABLE DAMAGE-ANTENNA POLARIZED
        FLIGHT CONTROL SYSTEM- EXTENSIVE DAMAGE
        ANALYSIS- TOTAL LOSS

        "Total loss?" the pilot said. "Explain reasons evaluation
total loss."

        REASONING:

        FLIGHT CONTROL SYSTEM REPAIR REQUIRES OUTSIDE ASSISTANCE
OUTSIDE MISSION PROTOCOL. DESTRUCTION BEFORE DETECTION.

        "Elaborate flight control system repair."

        FLIGHT CONTROL SYSTEM; STEERING VANES AND BAFFLES BENT AND
BROKEN BY IMPACT ON REENTRY. CONTROL CABLES FOR SAME SNARLED. HULL
FRACTURE AFT OF CONTROL COMPARTMENT. MATERIALS REQUIRED FOR REPAIRS
NOT ON SITE, THEREFORE OUTSIDE AID REQUIRED. OUTSIDE AID PROHIBITED BY
WAR CODE 7542-A, LINE 3, AS APPLIED TO SCOUTS IN DISPUTED TERRITORY,
INCOGNITO. DESTRUCTION BEFORE DETECTION...

        ...UNLESS YOU'VE GOT A BETTER IDEA.

        The pilot looked testily at the 'droid sitting in its socket
in the Myrmidon, just above the water line. It had been developing
some quirks lately, and he'd intended to wipe its memory as soon as
the occasion permitted. Now, the opportunity would never present
itself. "R5-SK: initiate Myrmidon self-destruct sequence. Power drain
all equipment."
        
        I DON'T WANT TO DO THAT.

        "R5-SK, you have no choice. Obey orders."

        POWER DRAIN MEANS I WILL LOSE ALL DATA STORAGE EXCEPT ROM AND
PROM DATA ON MYRMIDON STARFIGHTER.

        "Self-destruct mode, robot. Now."

        A small pillar of smoke began to rise from the rear of the
battered starfighter. The lights dimmed and died as the energy from
the main power cells was burned and drained. As the starfighter began
to sink into the mire for good, the pilot, sadly, removed his pistol.
Move a half mile off, as dictated by regulations, and set to overload.
        Destruction before detection.
        All hail the Imperial Zardon.
 
        A month later, a Cajun discovered the heap of scrap metal
beneath the bog, and through much lifting and the use of a cutting
torch, managed to chop up the beast into several pieces.
        Damn strange things you dig out from the swamps these days. I
gua-ron-tee. 

WHITE LIGHTNING PRODUCTIONS 
in association with
EYRIE PRODUCTIONS
and
A WHOLE LOTTA GUYS
PRESENT

A tale of UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES

REDNECK:  The Quagmire Project
(A tale of the CFMF)

STARRING

Kristan O. "REDNECK" Overstreet
Washuu "Washuu-chan" Hakubi
Leeanna "Judge" Zard'al

CO-STARRING

Garth Zard'al
Jeremy Feeple
Khorin Dr'anaal
James "Mandrake" Diggers
Sparky (R5-SK)
Takuya Isarugi
Miyuki Haneda
Arisa Mitaka
Charlotte Brigand
Arlin B. "Butch" Overstreet

and James Joseph Condorcet III
        as "JJ"

ALSO STARRING

A whole lotta ex-college students from Worcester Tech, victims of
other strange coincidences, members of the Overstreet family, and
characters from manga, anime, and comics like you WOULDN'T BELIEVE. So
many, in fact, that we just couldn't credit them all. (Don't worry,
their mothers know who they are.)

SCREENPLAY BY J. CONRAD SPADE
EDITING BY BENJAMIN HUTCHINS
DIRECTION BY O'HARE AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL
SPECIAL EFFECTS BY SCRAPS FROM LUCASFILM'S CUTTING ROOM 
FLOOR
ASSOCIATE PRODUCERS: BRIAN BIKOWICZ, BEN DUNN, ROBERT SHANNON
SPECIAL ACKNOWLEDGMENTS TO: MARTIN ROSE, ROBERT MANDEVILLE, LARRY MANN
EGO MAINTENANCE BY: PHILIP MOYER
PRODUCED BY A BRAIN ON CLEAN AIR... scary isn't it?

Dedications

First, to the Big Three- Zoner, Gryphon, and ReRob, for inventing the
UF universe and discovering a place for me in it;

To Ben Dunn, for creating NINJA HIGH SCHOOL and giving me my break
into comics;

To Fred Perry, Ted Nomura, and Joe Wight, for their own creations
(those characters of yours which HAVEN'T found their way into UF yet
are about to);

To Pioneer, for backing a project which became one of my Top Ten
Visual Entertainments of All Time;

To George Lucas and West End Games, for many, many hours of 
entertainment;

To Lois McMaster Bujold, whose Miles Naismith novels planted the seeds
in my mind years ago for the Freespacers;

To Philip "Serendipity" Moyer, for being my principal Guinea Pig while
writing this- thanks for the regular ego boosts and the Gargoyles
tape;

And to Mom and Dad, two colorful characters in their own right, who
gave me a love of reading, a sense of irony, and the desire and
ability to overcome the limits of a social class and be more than just
a redneck... even if I just ended up being The Redneck. Thank you for
(a) letting me live, and (b) proving that everyone is a Major
Character, and all lives are interesting and make good storytelling.

        1)  There is nothing so outlandish, so worthless, so unwanted,
that it can't be sold.
                 --- Amway sales training brochure

         It was March 12, 1996. Kris Overstreet, writer, sales
representative, shipping manager, games designer, and can-you-do-this
man for Antarctic Press, was on the last leg of his return drive from
Virginia Beach, Virginia, where he had had a wonderful working weekend
at KatsuCon Ni.
        The costumes had been even more elaborate and varied than last
year. He'd been able to catch up to some of his favorite anime of all
time. He'd even given out his very first autograph- a small thing, but
it never hurt to pad the ego. Most importantly, he'd gotten positive
feedback from the playtest session for the Ninja High School card game
which he'd held in his hotel room. If the test at AggieCon went as
well, he'd go ahead with designs on a new module. Add to that heckling
bad videos, singing Civil War songs with Steve Bennett, and pocky...
        Yeah, it had been a great con.
        This year, he was taking it easy driving, since Doug Dlin had
opted to fly back to San Antonio. In fact, if he wanted, he could
sleep in his old bed tonight... by sundown, he'd be crossing the
Sabine River, back into Texas, and less than two hours drive from the
place where he'd grown up.
        And, he recalled as he blew through Lake Charles, Louisiana,
he'd be just in time for the start of tonight's auction at Toppers.
        Toppers was Butch Overstreet's - Kris' dad's- personal
business. Two years before, after Kris had won a pile of money on a
very popular game show, he'd invested a good chunk of it into the
company, and he was therefore junior partner and part owner. Tonight,
his dad had let him know, there was a special junk sale, and his help
would be welcome if he could make it.
        Looking at the clock on the dash, gauging his fatigue, and
thinking about how much money he still had left in his bank account,
Kris decided that he could.

        6:30 P. M. The parking lot in front of the auction barn was
packed. Dry, dusty gumbo dirt mixed with tufts of grass to form the
open yard of Topper's Auction House, Vidor, Texas. On the arrow sign,
the legend read WAREHOUSE CLEARANCE SALE- EVERYTHING GOES!!!!
        Kris eased the heavily laden Antarctic Press van over the
culvert and into the parking lot, poking past various good ol' boys,
junk dealers, bargain hunters, and addicted auction-goers. Transfer
twenty from IQ points to age, and I expect there ain't much difference
between a con dealer's room and an auction, Kris thought as he pulled
the van up to the edge of the ditch and killed the ignition.
        Butch was walking out the door of the barn, portable karaoke
machine and mike in hand, as Kris signed the registry and took his
number. Whereas Kris was twenty-two, 5'11", blond-haired, red-bearded
and balding, his father was 45, 6' even, bald, with a brown fringe of
hair and beard to match, both with flecks of grey in them. In this
closely- knit region, both had reputations; Butch for his short temper
and hatred of politics, and Kris for his uncommonly quick
intelligence. 
        Uncommonly quick. In Big Thicket terms, that means you can
actually read when you graduate high school, Kris thought. Even today,
he was either Butch's Boy, The Guy on the Wheel, or The Kid who Read
the Newspaper to the Principal in First Grade. People just didn't
forget. 
        As he drifted up to the place where his did was setting up to
begin the outdoor part of the auction, Kris noticed a VERY large pile
of scrap metal and glass sitting on a farm trailer. The metal was
scarred, as if it had been in a fire, but appeared intact. Various
leads and wires strung out at various points. Two domes, which looked
glassy but didn't feel like glass, stood out from the bottom of one
end of the pile. All in all, Kris figured, it was about five tons of
Class-A junk.
        Then he saw the twin parabolic emitters sticking out from the
very top. 
        Following the emitters down, Kris's eyes went to what looked
very suspiciously like gun barrels at this range- he had to crane his
neck slightly to see- and then to a large, solid piece of metal,
scored but not ripped or torn. From there, his glance drifted to a
large, not-glass panel covering one side of the hunk of metal  Inside,
he could make out what appeared to be a dashboard of some kind. A
cockpit, Kris thought.
        Then, further down, beneath a pylon of some sort, a small
barrel-shaped protrusion, about, say, two to three feet in diameter,
stood out a short distance. Kris looked a little bit closer, and
looked again. 
        His mind involuntarily went back to a movie produced in 1977,
about a boy who becomes a man by blowing up a giant space battle
station. In one scene, the boy buys a robot from these short, smelly
little aliens, but as they leave, the robot blows a gasket, and as the
replacement robot gets the boy into more trouble than you'd think a
little silver- and-blue bucket could.
        Sticking out from the side of the pile of junk was the head of
a carbon copy (carbon-IZED copy, from the blast marks) of the robot
that blew its top. 
        Testing the pile to see if it would shift, Kris climbed up to
see if he could look into the cockpit. The view, in the dim sunset
light and almost-as-dim floodlights, was not very good, but Kris could
make out writing on several of the instruments in the compartment.
        It wasn't English.
        It also wasn't the gobbledygook George Lucas had used for the
galaxy far, far away; that had been a jumble of triangles, squares and
rectangles. This was all in script, like a brutalized Elvish cribbed
from LORD OF THE RINGS.
        Further inspection of what he could get to in the pile
established the fact in Kris' mind. The glass domes... covers for the
Fabritech sensor arrays. Parabolic emitters- blaster outlets. Robot-
R5 unit, specialty starship repair. Technology- DEFINITELY not
off-the-shelf. 
        This is a REAL Y-wing fighter. Thank you, West End Games, Kris
thought to himself.
        "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Toppers'
special Storage Unit Clearance Sale. My name is Butch Overstreet, I am
licensed and bonded with the State of Texas .... " Butch had started
the auction. Kris stole a look at the lot number; usually the lot
would be the same for everything owned by one person at junk auctions,
but in clearance sales, the lot was unique to each item, and indicated
its order of sale.
        Lot number four.
        "... do I have ninety-five? Ninety-five? SOLD!" WHAP "for
ninety dollars to number... sir can you hold up your card?... number
twenty-three." Butch moved the karaoke machine he used for his PA
system down the row of junk, and his eye caught Kris as Kris watched
his father approach. "Hey, there Kris," Butch said as he set the
machine down, "didn't think you were gonna make it. You up to helpin'
out?"
        Kris looked meaningfully at Lot Number Four and said, "I
expect I can..."
        Butch shamelessly introduced Kris to the customers and
proceeded to sell Lots Two and Three, which consisted of about thirty
2X4's and a go-kart, respectively, and then went on to Lot Number
Four.
        "Okay, Lot Number Four, this here's a hell of a lot of scrap
metal. We're gonna sell the trailer, but you have to take the junk
with you when you go. Do I hear one hundred dollars?"
        In a Southeast Texas junk auction, a trailer by itself would
on average bring anywhere from sixty to two hundred, depending on the
crowd. Since most of the people were already inside, waiting on the
furniture sale, Kris decided to wait until Butch dropped the opening
bid. 
        He was surprised to see a bid card rise from the crowd.
        "I have one hundred dollars, do I hear one hundred
fifty? One hundred fifty?"
        Kris waved and shouted "AIAYA!", which is Auctionese for, "Mr.
Auctioneer, I have a bid." 
        Butch turned and asked, "Who you got, Kris?"
        "My number," Kris replied as he stared at the suited man.

        No one else in the crowd wore a full suit and tie, especially
with the temperature as hot as it was. The man's Asian features didn't
bode well for his chances of getting out of Vidor in one piece- Vidor
being a stronghold of white supremacy- but somehow he seemed unworried
about his immediate future. His eyes had been turned towards Kris;
now, his attention returned to the auctioneer, as Butch turned back to
the mike and said, "Well, I have one hundred fifty, do I have two
hundred?"
        The Suit waved his card in reply.
        "Two hundred, do I have..."
        "Three hundred!" Kris said in as loud a non-shouting
voice as he could.
        "Kris, are you sure about this?" Butch asked.
        "My number, Dad," Kris replied. "I got the money."
        Shaking his head, Butch looked at The Suit. "Do I hear four
hundred?"
        The Suit nodded.
        "Kris, you still in?" Butch asked.
        I've got eight hundred still in the bank, Kris thought. "Four
fifty," he replied.
        "I have four fifty, do I hear five-fifty?"
        The Suit nodded.
        "Six-fifty."
        Seven fifty.
        Kris took a deep breath and said, "Eight hundred." That was
it. 
        Nine hundred.
        Butch turned at Kris, and silently gestured Want help? Kris
shook his head.
        "Do I hear nine-fifty? Nine-fifty? .... Sold!" WHAP "to number
thirty-three." 
        The Suit nodded and put his bid card into his breast pocket.
        Three more lots later, the auction moved inside, for four
hours of sweaty, smoky, back-straining furniture and junk selling. As
Butch and Kris led the remnants of the outdoor crowd into the barn,
Butch said softly to Kris, "What did you want with that trailer?"
        "I'll explain later," Kris said, and began thinking happy
thoughts related to acetaminophen. 
        The Suit stood at the cashier's booth about a half hour into
the furniture sale. From beneath a large oak table, Kris could barely
see the man bent over the counter staring very intently at the
sixteen-year-old girl Butch had hired for his cashier.  Although Kris
couldn't hear a word over his father's calling, he could see the young
lady was very agitated.
        Kris did not like the looks of things at all. As the hammer
dropped on the table, and Kris and the other floor worker lowered it
to the ground, he turned to Butch and said, "I'm gonna check on the
cashier's booth. Somethin' ain't right there."
        Butch looked, nodded, and said, "Okay, Kris. You're covered,"
and his right hand shifted noticeably on an object on the podium.
Kris's father had had as equally diverse a youth as Kris, and part of
it had earned him a Pistol Sharpshooter medal from the United States
Navy. Butch called up the next lot number- as it happened, a choice of
box deals- and Kris strode out of the display area and around to the
cashier's booth.
        As he walked, he began to hear what was going on.
        ".... but sir, your credit card is overdrawn. "
        "Run it again."
        "I've already run it three times. Either give me another card
or pay cash."
        "I don't need another card. Run it again."
        Kris stood behind The Suit and said loudly, "May I help you,
sir?"      
        The Suit spun at Kris, looked at him, and said, "This young
lady of yours refuses to accept my card."
        Looking at the girl, Kris said, "Let me have a try." Stepping
into the room, he accepted the plastic wafer from the girl. Corporate
Visa, Bank of America, account of GENOM, Inc.
        GENOM? Somebody has a warped sense of humor. Kris had heard of
GENOM, which had made a brief, dazzling, and disastrous career as a
technological giant up in Massachusetts somewhere. These days, he'd
thought the company dead and gone. No one in their right mind would
continue business under that name, not after that.
        Oh well, not his fault I expect. "What's his total?"
        "Nine hundred dollars," the girl replied.
        Kris turned to the old electronic card machine, a grunt with a
card swiper and a LED readout, but no printer. Kris didn't know where
Butch had found the money for it, but he was glad it was here. He
swiped the card, punched in the amount 900.00, and waited for the
transaction to process.
        After a second, the LED read; PICK UP CARD.
        Kris turned to The Suit and said, "Sir, we have been asked by
you company's financial institution to destroy your credit card. I am
afraid I must ask you to pay by some other means or forfeit your bid."
        The Suit looked meaningfully at Kris and said, "I do not
need... other means."
        Kris stared right back at the man, keeping his own annoyance
in check. "Sir," he said, "under the laws of the state of Texas and as
the employee of this auction house I am declaring your bids null and
void. I must ask that you leave the premises at once." He glanced and
nodded at Butch, whose right hand eased around the grip of the .357
just out of sight from the auction crowd.
        The Suit followed the glance, interpreted the stance of the
auctioneer, and said in a tight voice, "You will regret this." Turning
on his heels, he walked out the door, each movement screaming rage.
        Kris let out his breath slowly, took a pair of scissors and
snipped the credit card in half, and tossed it on the desk. To the
girl, he said, "Leave that for Butch. He'll want to see that."
        Nodding again to Butch, he watched as Butch gently released
the gun, then stood up and called the next lot. "Lot twenty-nine, Kris
can you give Roy a hand with that?"
        Lot Twenty-Nine was a huge sofa. Oh my aching back.
        The hours passed, the cigarette smoke drifted, more customers
paid out their bids and left, and finally, Butch opened up the final
phase of the sale, the Garage Sale; for a minimum bid of five dollars,
anyone could put anything in the house up on the block. The dozen or
so remaining customers milled around, looking through the junk a final
time. Kris said in a loud voice, "Sir, Lot Four from the Clearance
Sale is open."
        Butch knew this as well as Kris did, but he said, "We ran that
before."
        Kris replied, "The buyer backed out, sir."
        Butch looked out at the crowd. Most of them were noncommittal;
a couple looked piquedly at him for having withheld that information
until now. "All right, the trailer with the junk on it is back up for
bids. You take the bid, you take the junk. Do I hear fifty dollars?"
        Three hands jumped up, and a more modest bidding followed.
Three minutes and one hundred twelve dollars, fifty cents later, Mr.
Kris Overstreet owned a do-it- yourself Y-wing fighter.


        2) There is no machine so simple that some fool somewhere
won't be dumb enough to screw it up. --- Aristotle

        The next morning, Kris carried his suitcase into the dining
room of the old trailer house his family called home, where Butch was
talking on the phone. "Uh-huh... uh-huh... well, I'm sorry, but your
man threatened our help and was asked him to leave the premises.
Uh-huh... well, you're welcome to try. You were the ones who gave us
the bad card. Oh? Oh. Well, good. I'm glad we got that straightened
out. Good-bye." Click.
        "Mornin', Dad," Kris said. "Who was that?"
        "That," Butch said, walking through the tiny kitchen into the
den, "was a gentleman calling from GENOM. Apparently he was
unhappy with our handling of their agent's bids last night." Seating
himself in his recliner, Butch looked straight at Kris, who sat in a
metal chair by a small dining table. "Why did you and him want that
junk, anyway?"
        Kris looked at his father and said, "I think it's a spaceship,
Dad."
        Once Kris had gotten home the previous night, he'd dug through
the mass of books he'd kept in storage while he worked in San Antonio
to find the West End Games Star Wars RPG rulebook. In addition, he'd
forwarded Butch's bootleg copy of STAR WARS to the first Death Star
Trench Run. Pushing play, he pointed out the similarities and
explained what he'd seen.
        "So George Lucas built it," Butch replied. "Big deal."
        "That's just it, he didn't," Kris replied. "Not only does the
lettering not match up with what Lucas used in the movies, but there's
just too much guts in there for it to be a mock-up. It's the real
thing, Dad... and George Lucas didn't make it."
        "So, if you're right, what are you going to do with it?" Butch
asked.
        "Today, nothing, I gotta get the van back. Tomorrow, I'll
catch up on everything I can at work, and declare an extended
holiday," Kris said. "Day after tomorrow, me and all the stuff I need
for the next con will be coming back here. That gives me two weeks to
get that thing flying."
        Butch looked skeptically at his son. "Kris, assuming what you
say is right, how do you plan on fixin' an alien fighter?"
        Kris pointed to the little bump on the diagram in the book
which represented the 'droid. "With a little help from him."

        Three days later, and over Joeming Dunn's loud objections,
Kris was back in the deep woods of Southeast Texas, spreading out the
pieces of starfighter into what roughly corresponded to the proper
positions. 
        Lumber, nails and sweat resulted in a makeshift scaffold in
the clearing behind the Overstreet compound which could hold the ship
in place, balanced on the intact landing struts. A little more sweat
positioned a drill, several wrenches and pliers, an acetylene torch,
and three portable gas-powered electric generators around the work
site. One more bit of sweat dislodged the 'droid from its socket and
placed it on the scaffold beside it. 
        Now, Kris thought, to tackle Problem Number One. In the dim
evening light, he pointed out to Butch a large patch on the 'droid's
chassis, which had four irregularly placed slots in it. "That, if I
remember the movie right, is the power intake socket," Kris said. "We
have to figure out a way to get power into the robot without frying it
in the process."
        Examining the chassis closely, Butch saw six regularly spaced
screws around the plug. The screwheads were hexagonal stars, alien to
anyone who never had to remove a dashboard from a Chevrolet vehicle
before. "Why don't we try pulling the socket out and hooking the wires
up to a battery charger?" he asked. "We'll plug the charger into one
of the generators and see what happens."
        With an electric screwdriver and a flashlight, the task was
soon completed, and soon four wires were stripped of a section of
insulation. Two wires were hooked up to two battery clips, which
extended back to a small automobile battery charger. It in turn was
connected to a Honda 550-volt generator, chugging merrily away.
        Butch held each clip in a gloved hand, while Kris watched the
charging meter. "Okay, I'm switching the charger on... now." Click.
        "Anything happen?" Butch asked.
        "No, nothin'. Try another wire."
        Clip. Clip. "Now?"
        "Uh... no, nothin'. One more time..."
        Clip. ClipZAP!
        Suddenly, the gauge on the charger kicked over from 0 to past
the 18 mark, and the motor on the generator dropped its tone several
notes, and began to labor noticeably. A spark jumped off the charger
and caught Kris's hand. He jerked back quickly and watched as sparks
danced over the charger's metal frame.
        "JESUS! CHRIST! ALMIGHTY!" Kris said.
        Looking at the generator and the charger, Butch said, "I think
one of us had better stay up tonight, to make sure this sumbitch
doesn't explode."
        Kris nodded, and watched as tiny sparks jumped all over the
battery charger, as it conveyed multiples of its maximum energy
capacity into the fuel cells of the 'droid.
        A couple of hours later. lights shone faintly from the twin
optic sensors on the 'droid's body, as well as from a couple of tiny
status lights on its barrel chest. Most of the status lights were
still dark, however, and the robot's first feeble beeps and boops
conveyed no confidence to either Kris or Butch.
        "BeepbeepBEEEP boop beeb beep Beep razz..." the robot said as
Kris and Butch looked at it with the flashlight.
        "As far as I can tell, we've recharged its computer and
related functions. The other two wires must supply power to a separate
power unit for movement and stuff like that," Kris said.
        "Seems kinda silly, buildin' two power supplies for one
robot," Butch replied. 
        What the robot was trying to say, meanwhile, translated
roughly like...
        Come on, get a clue! Lay off the backup batteries! Hurry up
and recharge my main power cell so I can greet my master!
        Unfortunately, it had no idea who its master was supposed to
be, or what; it knew about humans, Salusians, Zardons, Kilrathi, and a
few less important races, but it couldn't remember which side he
belonged to at the moment. For that matter, he didn't know why those
races he did know were important- they just kind of WERE.
        Oh, well. As soon as these primitive tech finished recharging
him, he could repair himself and see to his master's wishes.
Meanwhile, he'd try to learn the language these two were mangling in
front of him.
        "Okay, Kris, I'm ready... "
        "Okay... NOW!"
        Kris switched off the charge switch on the battery charger,
and Butch quickly exchanged the wires connected to the clips. When the
new wires were secured, he said, "I'm clear!" and stepped away.
        Kris quickly hit the switch and stepped off the platform.
        R5-SK felt a tiny trickle of power running into his primary
power unit. Performing some self-diagnostics, he discovered the
unorthodox recharging system the techs had hooked into his innards.
Slowly, slowly, his head turned, as sparks flew again from the battery
charger. 
        The charger. That was the problem. R5-SK could see that most
of the power he needed was stopping at the power converter. He
examined the power flow and decided that he could make use of the
main, alternating-polarity supply, and with a POP! of an auxiliary
hatch, he ejected a specialized cable for the task. I wonder when I
got that? he thought.
        Kris and Butch, meanwhile, watched the droid slowly rotate its
head. "It's alive! It's alive!" Kris shouted, and he held out his palm
to Butch, who blatantly failed to slap it.
        "Big deal. We got a Lucasfilm toy to work. Probably that's all
it does right there," he said instead.
        "Look, Dad, that was never built by George Lucas, all right?
As a matter of fact-" Kris was interrupted by a soft POP! from the
robot, and he turned to see a short cable drop over the side of the
platform. Butch had the flashlight on it in an instant; except for its
maroon color, the end looked just like a plug for a standard 120-volt,
three-prong wall socket.
        Moving carefully around the battery charger, Kris reached down
and grasped the power cord, and carefully stretched it to the
extension cord which connected the portable generator to the battery
charger. Two other three- prong outlets were still open on the
extension; Kris slowly pushed the 'droid's plug into one socket. The
gauge on the battery charger flickered, and the generator's engine
sputtered and stalled for an instant; then, the engine resumed its
labored roar, and the sparks subsided from the battery charger.
Slowly, the gauge dropped from 18 to 0 again, as the droid switched
over to recharging from the AC current.
        That, the 'droid beeped to itself, was more like it. Now he
might be recharged by morning, as opposed to next week sometime.
        "What did you call it, Kris?" Butch asked as the battery
charger went dead.
        "According to the movie, it's an R-5 astromech droid. Sort of
a cheap version of R2-D2. I think I'll name it Sparky for now."
        "Sparky?"
        "Have you got a better name?"
        In the dark, using his infrared optics, the 'droid spotted the
two techs talking quietly to themselves. R5-SK gave up on trying to
match their language to his database; in fact, the only language in
his current memory logs was that of his mechanoid type. Must be a few
fried chips in there from the jury-rigged charging system those techs
had attempted. Oh well.  He felt sure that, if he could just access
another computer, he could restore the lost data in his system, but
for now he'd just have to wing it.
        Improvisation, after all, was the hallmark of the R-series
starship repair droid series.
        (How did he remember that?)


        3) "Now, y'see, the gas goes in here, the plug makes a spark,
and the whole thing spins around and makes the car go." --- Henry Ford

        R5-SK's rehabilitation was not going well. 
        In the hopes that the droid could be as adaptable in
information usage as it had been in power usage, Kris had attempted to
feed several different media into the small input slot on the droid's
chest. The droid rejected each and every item; he wanted data solids,
not those stupid plastic and rubber floppy and laser disks the tech
tried to stuff down him!
        After that project failed, Kris took the robot back to the
Y-wing. The robot looked at the welding-torch cuts with dismay; this
fighter was in a bad way. Examining the decades- old welding rods
proffered with acute distaste, the robot finally decided to
cannibalize the obviously useless navigation baffles at the rear of
the engine pylons. When the tech tried to indicate by gestures that
maybe that wasn't such a good idea, the 'droid angrily beeped that if
he was only going to offer substandard tools and supplies, maybe he
should move out of the way and let someone who knew what the hell he
was doing handle things.
        Kris shrugged, demonstrated to the 'droid how to refill the
gas tank on the portable generators, and drove to Silsbee to pick up
some new supplies. 
        That night, after cleaning the 'droid as well as he could, he
brought it into the old house. 
        The Overstreets- at least Kris's grandparents- had started out
in an old squatter's shack rebuilt as a honeymoon cabin. After the
elder Overstreets had retired, back in '77, they'd brought their
trailer house onto an adjoining site to the old house and its garage
and began adding on to the trailer. Now, thanks to a modification his
father had made three years previously, the old house had an extra
room on its front and a set of double-doors. Butch used it as part of
his storage space for the auction company. 
        Inside, Kris set up a small entertainment system, a
television and VCR, and had stacked up two seasons' worth of SESAME
STREET, the entire HOOKED ON PHONICS course, and certain other
educational tapes. In addition, he had picked up three different
dictionaries; the YOUNG PICTURE DICTIONARY, the Webster's Abridged,
and the OXFORD COLLEGIATE abridged version. Kris showed the droid a
power socket, how to operate the VCR, how to look through the books,
and then indicated to the droid that he had better spend the night
looking through the materials provided. Or else. 
        The droid substituted its own infrared emitter for the remote
controls provided, but otherwise did exactly as the tech had
specified. Sesame Street was annoying in some parts; a little
experimentation with Hooked on Phonics allowed the 'droid to match
sounds with symbols, even if it didn't understand either. The Picture
Dictionary gave him symbols to match with pictures, and each picture
had the word it represented beneath it. In some cases, it used big
pictures with words spaced at random across the page, to show sky,
grass, dirt, children, and a kite. This allowed the robot to conquer
nouns and action verbs fairly easily. 
        By morning, the 'droid understood a little English, but thanks
to his vocoder, he couldn't actually say anything in the language.
Time, he mused, to link up with the computer on the starfighter.
        The 'droid had hooked the starfighter up to all the generators
as soon as it had made sure there were no short circuits in the
remaining components. Now, although the pylons weren't completely
reconnected to the main hull, the hull breach was fixed and the
on-board computer had recharged to a point where interface was again
possible. With this thought firmly in its CPU, the 'droid rolled from
the old house over to the starfighter and began beeping noisily.
        Meanwhile, in the main house's den, Kris was downing the
edible portions of his grandmother's cooking for the morning. The lady
herself, a small woman named Birdie Mae, walked in and said to Kris,
"Your play-pretty's cuttin' up back there, honey." Faint metallic
banging noises confirmed the statement.
        Grumbling to himself, Kris slapped together a sandwich filled
with runny scrambled eggs, charcoaled bacon, and a little mustard to
make the thing palatable, and ran out to the starfighter with the
sandwich in one hand and a glass of Dr. Pepper in the other, eating as
he went.
        R5-SK heard the tech coming and turned to face him. Bumping
the hull of the fighter gently, it beeped plaintively and alternated
its facing between the tech and the starfighter. Get me up to the
socket, dammit, the robot beeped. Get me up in there!
        Looking at the robot, Kris pointed to the socket on the
starfighter. "You want in there?" he said.
        On the receiving end of the robot's audioreceptors, his
vocabulator unit translated this to, "You grunt in grunt?" You... in.
The tech had the right idea. "Beep beep beep BEEEP beep!" the droid
replied.
        Terrific, Kris thought. This hadda happen when Dad was working
at the shipyards. Bending his knees around the 'droid, he took a
handhold at the base of the robot and HEAVED.
        Damn. The droid was too heavy for him to lift by himself.
        Looking around, Kris spotted a thick plank left over from the
scaffold. Laying it up against the starfighter, he gestured to the
robot. "Go up the plank," he said as clearly as he could.
        Go... up... the... grunt. That last sound spells out P-L-A-N-Q
or P-L-A-N-C or P-L-A-N-K. Well, whatever, he wants me to go up that
board. Looking at the tech for confirmation, the droid slowly but
surely rolled up the wooden ramp and on top of the fighter. Hitting a
small panel with its roller, it recalled the socket's elevator to
surface level. Rolling over to cover the elevator pad, he issued a
silent command, and the droid retracted into the starfighter.
        Status checks... okay, linkup complete.... my my my, there
sure is a lot of information stored here. Lessee... oh, I was ordered
to self-destruct this ship. Well, obviously that hadn't gone well
enough- the systems reports showed that the only things needed to
finish repairs were new baffles and steering vents and more power for
the power cells. And, of course, the remaining structural repairs to
the pylons.
        Should I re-attempt the self-destruct? No, I don't think so.
Not after I went to so much to repair this thing.
        The cockpit of the fighter hissed open. Inside, the pilot's
seat had a thin coating of pond slime on it, but otherwise everything
was in good shape. The on-board electronics were fully functional...
oh look, a language data base, I'd better download that and see what I
can do.
        Meanwhile, Kris was looking into the open cockpit, as various
panels and lights came on. The robot beeped, and letters flashed onto
a screen in the center of the console; more of the same stuff as on
the panel labels. Kris shook his head. Maybe it can talk to me now,
but I still don't understand it.
        Then a second row of symbols scrolled past; a series of lines
and triangles. "No, not that either," Kris said out loud.
        A new row appeared; Japanese kana. "Nor that, Sparky, but
getting closer."
        Another row appeared; despite several spelling errors, Kris
recognized it as English;

        HAY! DEW YOU UNNERSTAN MI? 

        Kris nodded. "Yes, I understand you, Sparky."

        SPARKI- UNIT R5-SK DESIGNATION INQUIRY?

        "Yes, that's your name. I'm Kris."

        KRIS DESIGNATE TEKNISIAN?

        "Tek-nis-  oh, technician! Not exactly... I bought you with
this ship at an auction."

        AWKSHUN-- DEFINE

        "An auction is where people compete with each other to
purchase goods by pledging progressively higher amounts of money for
their purchase."

        MYRMIDON DESIGNATE STAR FITER SALVAGE AT AWKSHUN?

        "Sort of, yes... you call this thing a Myrmidon? Add Y-wing as
an alternative name."

        ALTERNATE DESIGNATE STAR FITER WHY-WING NOTED.

        "No, 'Y' wing. The letter 'Y'. "
        
        CORRESHUN: Y-WING STAR FITER.

        "Close enough. Okay, Sparky, let's get to work on this puppy.
And tonight you're going back to those books." Kris turned to the
generators and began refilling their gas tanks. Looks like there might
be something worthwhile to this after all, Kris thought.


        4) "Improvisation is the cornerstone of a successful 
operation."                     --- Robert E. Lee

        Two days later, almost everything that could be fixed had
been. Miraculously, the ion-cannons and lasers all worked, at least
well enough to start a couple of fires which Butch quickly put out.
The power cells still needed more power for flight, but a test of the
main engines proved that when the time came, they would prove
serviceable. Sparky managed to salvage a spare datapad from the ship's
emergency supplies, so Kris or Butch could understand Sparky's beeps
and whistles. 
        As the two would-be starship repairmen went into the main
house for the night- despite Sparky's repeated attempts he simply
could not fit through the front door-, Kris and Butch sat down and
began discussing what should be done with the new ship.
        "According to Sparky, there's lots of people up there," Kris
said. "Not that that surprises me. What kills me is the series of
coincidences which seem to keep building from this one ship."
        "You mean besides the direct reference to Star Wars?" Butch
asked.
        "Exactly," Kris said. "According to Sparky, the ship was
produced by Koensayr. That's the same company given credit for it in
the game books. However, Koensayr is supposedly a firm from the planet
Zardon."
        "I don't get it," Butch said. "What's that refer to?"
        Kris took a deep breath. "You know that book I've been writing
for? NINJA HIGH SCHOOL?"
        Butch nodded, although he didn't know much about it.
His tastes ran more towards Heinlein than Jackie Chan.
        "Among the alien races in it is this one group- a real nasty
bunch of guys- called the Zardons." Looking at the datapad, currently
blank, he continued, "After that, I kinda got scared to ask any more
questions."
        Butch shifted in his easy chair. "I figger you better ask as
many questions as you can, Kris. If you're gonna fly that thing,
you'll need to know what you're getting into."
        Kris looked oddly at him. "What makes you think I'm gonna just
fly off into space?"
        "It's a spaceship. If you try to keep in here, the
government'd just confiscate it, maybe shut you up permanently too.
Besides," Butch asked, "I get the feeling that those GENOM people
won't take too long to figure out just where that beast is."
        "I suppose you're right," Kris said. "Anyway, tomorrow I gotta
go to the salvage yards in Silsbee and get some composite-steel of
some kind, so Sparky can finish up replacing the baffles."
        "I'll try to get off work early tomorrow, Kris," Butch said,
"and we'll see if she flies then."
        "If what flies?" Birdie Mae had snuck into the kitchen, as she
did on an hourly basis, eavesdropping. 
        "The spaceship, Momma, the thing Kris bought at the auction
last week!" Butch snapped. Somehow or other, Birdie Mae pushed every
one of his buttons, and lately between his worrying about Kris and his
exhaustion from shipyard work, auctioneering, and helping with the
Y-Wing, his nerves were completely shot.
        "Oh, well I'd like to see that," Birdie Mae said. "Tell me,
how far does it go, Kris?"
        Kris was annoyed- he'd tried to explain to his grandmother
before- but he had more practice in controlling his temper. "It's an
alien spaceship, Mam-maw. It came from another planet, and I expect it
can go back there, too."
        "Well, if you go off to another planet, you call me, alright
honey?" Somehow the major problems were always obscured by the minor
concerns in Birdie Mae's vision. "Don't do like you do off in San
'Tonio, never call nobody, let 'em know how you're doin' or nothin'."
        Before Butch could follow through with his habitual defense of
Kris, Kris said, "I promise I'll call as often as I can, Mam-maw."
        "Well, that's good, honey." Birdie Mae said, and went back to
the main living room to watch the Matlock movie.
        For a moment, Butch and Kris stared at each other. Finally,
Kris said, "What on earth were we talking about?"

        GENOM Buma SCO-35 Covert Operations Specialist sat motionless
in the woods, surveying the Overstreet compound. Old house,
garage-slash-barn, tool shed, pump shed, and main house sat in the
shadows of the light on the electric post. One by one, the lights went
off, except for one which remained on in the back of the house. The
bald one had decided not to bother with sleep tonight.
        So much the better. The Buma could be patient- had to be
patient; it was utterly vital that its existence not be known, not
when all the Buma had been presumed destroyed in Neo-Worcester. Soon,
soon, an opportunity would open, and the Buma would be able to
retrieve the starfighter it had been unable to acquire in the auction.
Until then, patience and silence was the watchword.
        A bobcat walked up to the motionless replicant and marked its
territory on it. A few seconds later, a threatened species moved one
notch closer to the endangered list, in a blur of blood, fur, and blue
metalloid skin. 
        Patience... and what I seek will come to me.

        Kris managed to dicker the price down at the scrap- metal yard
to a point where one hundred dollars could bring home enough metal of
close enough quality to substitute for the alloys formerly in the
Y-wing's baffles. With a loaded pay-bed, he turned the small farm
truck back northwestward, and began toying with the idea of buzzing
Area 51 in his new ride. 
        An hour later, he pulled up to see water spraying and smoke
billowing from behind the house.
        Sparky and Vernon Bearss- Birdie's new husband, since A. B.
Overstreet had died years earlier- were both trying to put out flames
spreading through the dry underbrush of the woods surrounding the
Overstreet house. Kris noticed that the Y-wing had been moved; the
scaffolding was shattered, all three of the portable generators had
been disconnected from the ship, and the ship itself had turned to
point towards a patch of the woods which had formerly been thick with
brambles and grass, and now was thick with flame.
        Kris retrieved the fire extinguisher from the old house, used
up its tiny supply of retardant foam on the rear side of the fire,
then grabbed a bucket from the garage and began madly toting water,
dumping it in advance of the fire, making a firebreak to keep it from
spreading. Meanwhile, Vernon and Sparky kept up their work, and in a
few minutes the flames were contained and extinguished.
        Gasping for breath, sweating from the heat of the fire, Kris
looked at Vernon. "What happened?" he asked.
        "Your grandmother and I heard a loud noise, sorta like a
transformer blowin' out. When I came back here, your ship was hoverin'
over the fire, and your robot was makin' loud beepin' noises, louder'n
he usually does."
        "Did you call the fire de-" Kris thought fast; the local
volunteer fire department would contact the sheriff's department, who
would find the ship, and-
        "No, or at least I told Birdie not to," Vernon said. "I
figgered the last thing we needed was public attention, especially
with so small a fire."
        "Thanks, Vernon," Kris said. Stepping carefully among the
charred brush, he saw half-buried in ashes a glint of blue metal.
Removing his shirt, he wrapped it around his hands and brushed away
the ash, and he picked up the first handy piece he could.
        It was a robotic skull, with evil-looking red eyes, and a
small legend on the forehead; GENOM.
        GENOM wasn't a sick joke anymore.

        That night, a small blue Geo Prism pulled up into the 
Overstreet drive. Cheryl Sharp had been divorced from Butch for
fifteen years, and she could barely stand to be around his mother, but
when her son had asked her to come as fast as she could, she did, no
questions asked.
        Yet.
        The back door opened, and Kris emerged. He was wearing a
hastily-repaired set of camouflage hunting coveralls, an old pair of
work boots, and a worried expression. Christ, Cheryl thought, he ought
to be sweltering in that. "Hi, son," she said. "Glad to see you
again."
        "Me too, Mom," Kris said, obviously preoccupied. "I guess
you're wondering why I asked you to come out here."
        "Well, the thought HAD crossed my mind..." Cheryl had a rich
sense of sarcasm. 
        Kris turned to the door; Cheryl noticed a Confederate
battle-flag patch on his left shoulder. "DAD!" he shouted. "Can you
meet us out back by the ship?"
        "Just a second," a voice replied from inside; Butch was
searching for his sandals.
        As Kris gestured for his mother to follow, Cheryl looked
curiously at him. "Kris, you haven't joined one of those militia
groups, have you?"
        Kris chuckled. "You mean the patch," he said. "You'll see the
explanation in just a moment."
        Kris led the way to the rear gate behind the garage; he waited
until Cheryl had secured the gate behind her, then said, "Hit it,
Sparky!"
        The navigational lights and landing lamps on the Y-Wing flared
into life. The scoring had been mostly cleaned away, and on either
side of the cockpit ,the code CSF-01-001 and a Confederate battle flag
stood boldly on the metal.. Cheryl looked at the spaceship, astounded.
From the back, Sparky whistled cheerfully; Kris decided it meant, "all
set."
        Butch closed the gate behind him in turn. "Hi, Cheryl," he
said. "Like Kris' new car?"
        Cheryl stared, amazed, at it; after a moment, she said, "What
is it?"
        Kris looked at her and said, "It's a spaceship, Mom. I asked
you to come here so I could say goodbye."
        Cheryl stared at Kris. "Goodbye? You mean, for good? Why?"
        Butch answered, "Cheryl, there's people who want that thing,
want it bad. "
        Kris interjected, "What's more, some of 'em ain't people.
They's worse. I figure they'll keep coming, until either they get it
or I get out of their reach. I'm gonna find the people who built this
thing, somewhere up there," and he pointed to the stars overhead, "
and ask 'em a few questions."
        Cheryl knew what the answer to her next question was; "When
will you be back?"
        Kris tried, and failed to keep his voice from breaking; "I
don't know." I don't know IF I'm coming back, much less when.
        Butch asked, "Have you got everything you need, Kris?"
        "Sort of," Kris replied. The minimal luggage space in the ship
precluded his returning to San Antonio and loading up his computer,
keyboard, camcorder, or anything else. He had packed several changes
of clothes, mostly warm-weather. Also, he'd packed his entire NHS
collection and every book he had with STAR WARS in the title. That,
his father's .357, several clips' worth of ammo for same, several cans
of food and tools for getting at it, and a few other odds and ends,
would have to do. 
        Cheryl was at a loss for words. "Will you write?"
        Kris said, "I'll try." Hugging his mother, and then his
father, he said his goodbyes. Butch would take his next day off to
return the Antarctic Press stock to San Antonio and arrange to have
his things returned to Segno. Cheryl would let most of the rest of
Kris' family know where he had gone.
        As Kris turned to board the Y-wing, the gate slammed open. A
small, blond-headed figure ran up to Cheryl. "Momma!" J. B. said,
"it's a spaceship!"
        "Yes, dear," Cheryl said, trying to keep calm, "that's your
brother's spaceship. Say goodbye to your brother, hon."
        J. B. ran up to Kris, who had stopped well short of the ship.
J. B. said, "That's YOUR spaceship, Kris?"
        Kris looked at J. B. Eight years old. For the past four, Kris
had seen almost nothing of his little half- brother. Now, this might
be... Will you quit thinking that? he told himself.
        "Yes," Kris said. "It sure is."
        "Can I have a ride in it?" J. B. asked.
        "I'm afraid not, J. B.," Kris said. "I'm about to go. I want
you to take good care of your momma, you hear?" Lord don't let my
voice break again...
        "Yeah," J. B. said, unconcerned. "You gonna come visit?"
        Kris hugged J. B. and said, "As soon as I can." Releasing J.
B., he said, "Now get on back there with Momma. I don't want you to
get hurt, okay?"
        "Okay," J. B. said, obviously disappointed. He turned and
managed to run piquedly to Cheryl, who was kneeling by Butch. Kris
watched as she turned him towards the ship to watch.
        Great. I talk bad about Marvel about their angsting, and here
I am going ninety-to-nothing with the heartstrings. "Start the engines
up, Sparky," he said, and mounted the boarding ramp. As the cockpit
opened, the twin engines began whining as power from the ship's cells
began driving the ion-pulses which would power the ship in open space.
        As the cockpit closed, Kris saw J. B. waving to him. Kris
waved back, blinked the tears away and activated the landing
thrusters. Slowly, the ship rose off the ground, landing struts
retracting, nose turning in alignment with the Earth's equator.
        Then, the ion engines lit brightly, and the ship sped off into
the night. The wind died down, and the shadows returned to the
clearing in the woods. 
        On the ground, J. B. looked at his mother. "Can we go ride in
a spaceship like Kris, Momma?"
        Cheryl managed to compose herself. "No, sweetheart," she said.
"I don't think I wanna go."
        You take care of yourself, son. I love you...


        5) Take a stick to a fistfight. Take a knife to a stickfight.
Take a gun to a knifefight. Stay out of a gunfight.
                     ---Kris Overstreet's First Law of Tactics

        A corporal watching the radar displays at Fort Polk, 
Louisiana was surprised to see a contact appear over East Texas,
moving in excess of Mach One. "Chief, get a look at this," he waved to
his superior. "What do you think it is?"
        As the chief and corporal watched, the radar blip went past
Mach Two, then Mach Three, and was making a run at Mach Four before it
left radar range heading eastward.
        "I think I've been drinking too much coffee," the chief said
meaningfully, "and so have you."

        The Y-Wing sped up and away from Earth. Kris relaxed slightly
once the last hint of turbulence died away, and asked, "Okay, Sparky,
where can we take this thing?"
        Sparky displayed a depressingly small list of planets within
the range of the fighter's hyperdrive. Most of them were unclaimed
planets, with several Salusian and a couple of Zardon worlds within
range. Kris looked at one, a Salusian outpost world marked as having a
shipyard. "Set a course for... ah... Ammuuz," he said, squinting at
the tiny name. 
        A line of script crossed the screen; HYPERSPACE PLOT
COMPLETED. ETA: FOUR EARTH DAYS.
        "Four days? Why's that?" Kris asked.
        FACTORS INCLUDE REDUCED HYPERDRIVE EFFICIENCY, POOR CHARTING
OF THIS SECTOR, LOW POWER RESERVES.
        Oh, well. Four days it was. "Engage hyperdrive," Kris said.
        Kris then discovered another coincidence related to George
Lucas.
        He'd had the hyperspace effect exactly right.

        Four days later, not-light was still pouring through the
cockpit window, and Kris's remaining choices of rations- peas,
ravioli, or tuna, all canned and cold- turned his stomach. Next time,
he thought, I pack sandwiches.
        Kris had spent the past four days boning up as much as he
could on the controls of the Myrmidon Y-wing starfighter, as converted
for the LongProbe adaptation. He'd even flown simulations using the
viewscreen instead of the cockpit view, and he was getting the hang of
the multiple controls. He could now adjust power levels on the fly,
balance shields, target specific points on an enemy ship, all without
Sparky's aid. He'd also learned some interesting things to do with the
maneuvering thrusters.  In combat, Sparky would be doing a lot of
these things automatically, but in Kris' mind that wasn't an excuse to
be slack.
        HYPERSPACE EXIT IN FIFTEEN MINUTES, BOSS.
        "Great," he said. "Okay, quiz me again on navigational
controls."
        After some extra practice with the individual controls of the
eight maneuvering thrusters spaced around the ship, Kris settled back
and awaited the exit of the starfighter from hyperspace. A minute
later, the engines gave a soft whine, the not-light reverted to stars,
and Kris grabbed the joystick and pulled hard up and starboard.
Lurching stiffly, the starfighter barely missed a large hunk of scrap
metal floating directly in front of it. 
        Kris's battle displays lit up, in a panoply of blue and
purple; the computer's colors for neutral or indeterminate allegiance.
Through the canopy, he could see specks of light dancing about,
spitting laser fire or occasionally some sort of missle. In the far
distance, Kris could see what had to be the biggest ship he had EVER
seen in his life, sea, air or space; much closer, he saw a smaller,
but still impressively large, ship. He couldn't make out the distant
ship, but the lines of the closer ship were familiar.
        He targeted it; the IFF identified it as a Kilrathi pocket
carrier. Terrific. More references. Kris began powering up his lasers
and shields.
        Checking his threat readout, he noted that two blue (Kilrathi)
fighters and one purple (unknown) fighter were approaching his
position. All three were targeting his ship. 
        Kris hit all-call on his communications rig and said, "Ah..
this is Confederate Air Force fighter Rebel-One, repeat Rebel-One
requesting assistance. Any Earth-friendly ships respond please. Over."
        Static filled the speakers for a second, then the channel
selector focused on one waveband. "Unidentified craft, this is
Eight-Ball Two, Wedge Defense Force. Please repeat your
identification." The voice sounded utterly cool and confident, and had
no more than the faintest trace of accent.
        "Repeat, this is Confederate Air Force, Rebel-One, over," Kris
said into the speaker.
        "Rebel-One, please tune to WDF command channel 8, and wait for
orders from the airboss, acknowledge."
        "Message received, now how about those other fighters? Over."
        A pause, then, "I've got company of my own, Rebel One. Tune to
command channel 8 and await further orders. Over and out."
        Teriffic. Kris pulled the visor down on his motorcycle helmet
and said, "Sparky, patch me into WDF Command Channel Eight, okay?"
        The speakers began emitting various chatter.. "I got him! He's
mine! DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!" "Terror, I could use some help here."
"Haywire, dammit, watch your six!" 
        A new, laconic voice cut through the rest: "Like,
Eight Ball I read like eight new fighters coming off that carrier.
Like Dralthi class."
        Kris cut into the chatter: "Uh, WDF airboss, this
is Confederate Air Force Rebel One requesting assistance..." 
A couple of laser bolts flew past his canopy, and Kris began jinking
furiously. "Right now would be nice, over."
        "Rebel-One like which Confederation are you from?"
the voice asked dubiously.
        Rolling his eyes and eyeing his shield levels, Kris replied,
"The Confederate States of America, over."
        "Like are you sure you're a friendly?" the voice
replied. "Like didn't you lose the war?"
        Damn Yankee, Kris thought as he was jolted by a bolt
glancing off his starboard shields. "Yes to both questions, airboss,
now could somebody get these fuzzballs off my ass?"
        "Like can you hold on for a few minutes? Like help is on the
way, Rebel-One."
        "Thanks heaps, airboss," Kris grumbled.
        "Like call me q, man," the voice replied.
        Kris stopped for a second, and caught a blast on his rear
shields. "Q??" he said. 
        "No, like just q."
        Whatever. Hold on for a few minutes, he said... well, I'll do
better than that, Kris thought.
         Setting his throttle to zero, Kris dipped his nose down and
watched the two disc-shaped Kilrathi fighters fly past him. Resetting
his throttle to maximum, Kris armed his lasers and chased after the
fighter on the left. "Blast me, will you?" he growled, and opened up
with both guns fire- linked. BLAP! BLAP! BLAP! BLAP- BOOM! The
fighter's engines exploded and scattered metal fragments across the
space in front of him.
        "ALL RIGHT!" Kris yelled, and pulled his ship into
an Immelmaun. "Sparky, flag all Kilrathi as threat and all WDF as
allies. Then target me the nearest threat, 'kay?"
        YOU GOT IT, BOSS scrolled on the readout screen.
All the blue blips turned red on Kris' tactical screen, and 
all the purple blips turned green. One red blip bracketed itself in
white, and the targeting readout listed it as a Kilrathi Dralthi,
roughly .6 klicks distant and closing. Kris swiveled the Y-wing around
to meet the threat, channeled some power from his lasers to the
shields, and switched to ion cannons. The Kilrathi presented an almost
bullseye circular target, and Kris hit it with six ion blasts. The
Kilrathi's hull crackled with electric discharge, and its engines
spluttered and died. "Great! That's that!" Kris said, and then into
the radio, "Airboss, this is Rebel One, cancel assistance. One kitty
fragged and another ready for pickup."
        "Like acknowledged, Rebel One," q said. "Good job.
Like can you give some help to Daver in Eight-Ball Two? Like he's got
four bandits on him."
        "Roger wilco, q," Kris said. "Sparky, highlight Eight-Ball Two
and target the nearest guy attacking him."
        The targeting computer lit up a Kilrathi fighter
about two clicks away. Kris circled around to intercept, considered a
torpedo, then selected his lasers. Distance at 1.8... 1.75... 1.7...
yes! 1.5! Guns guns guns... 
        BLAP BLAP BLAP! Three bolts hit the Kilrathi, and it wheeled
downward to evade. Kris manually targeted a second one, fired a few
shots at it. "How y'all doing, Eight-Ball Two?"
        "Better, Rebel One," Daver replied. "I should be able to
handle it now. Thanks."
        "No sweat, Eight-Ball Two," Kris replied.
        BLAM! BLAM!
        Shaken, Kris checked his boards. The Kilrathi he'd shooed away
first was on his six at damn close range. BLAM! BLAM! Time to get
cute.
        Kris balanced out his shields, killed power to the
main engines, and hit the switches on his maneuvering thrusters in a
sequence he'd memorized on the way in. Still coasting forward, the
Y-Wing flipped over end over end and stabilized, flying backwards with
the cockpit facing dead at the Kilrathi not fifty meters behind him.
The Kilrathi, puzzled, stopped firing.
        That was his last mistake before being fried in laser bolts.
BOOM. 
        Balancing his shields again and re-energizing them,
Kris managed to flip the Y-wing back to its correct 
orientation and reengaged the engines. Checking his tactical screens,
he saw that most of the other Kilrathi fighters were being mopped up
by the WDF fighters. The rest were heading back to the carrier.
        Hmm... Kris had a thought. "Sparky, give me a readout on our
torpedoes." 
        A few seconds later, the display read: 4 TORPEDOES ACTIVE, 2
NONFUNCTIONAL. 
        "Good enough, I think." Kris said. Into the comm, he
said, "q, Rebel One requests permission bombing run on enemy carrier."
        "Like no way Rebel One, we have a man on it. Like permission
denied."
        Kris thought for a second, then said, "Sorry, q, I
didn't copy that last, I've got a short in my-," and switched off the
radio. "Sparky, lock me on the engines of that carrier."
        YOU GOT IT BOSS. The targeting computer highlighted the engine
exhaust ports of the Kilrathi carrier at 1.8 clicks, and the torpedoes
locked onto target. 
        UH... BOSS? INCOMING MESSAGE FROM THUNDERGOD ONE, Sparky
scrolled on the screen. 
        "Not now," Kris said, and fired two of his four working
torpedoes at the engines. 
        BOSS? YOU REALLY OUGHT TO HEAR THIS...
        "Not NOW," Kris said, and fired the other two torpedoes. As he
did so, laser blasts flashed across his nose. "Damn fuzzballs," Kris
said, and began Weaving. Switching to lasers, he dumped firepower into
the shields of the carrier. As the torpedoes hit, and the carrier's
shields flared and died, Kris noticed something in the corner of his
sight veer off and away, and the laser bolts stopped.
        BOSS! the readout scrolled and beeped. PULL UP! NOW! PLEASE!!
        "All right, all right," Kris said, and pulled up and away from
the carrier. "Now what was all that-"

        BA-
        DA-
        DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!
        
        Kris shook off the stun and checked his readouts. Half of them
were dead, the other half were not in the best of health. "Sparky, are
we all right?"
        STATUS: DAMAGED. SHIELD SYSTEMS INOPERABLE. ENGINES AT 45%
EFFICIENCY. HULL INTEGRITY OKAY.
        "Great," Kris said. "Okay, set a course for-"
        hissssssssssssssss...
        UH, HULL INTEGRITY NOT SO OKAY, BOSS.
        Oh SHIT. There was a small hairline crack in the canopy. As he
watched, the crack grew slightly larger. Hitting the allcall again, he
said, "This is Rebel One, Rebel One squawking mayday, I have a hull
leak and am losing cabin pressure. Turning control over to astromech
unit, will require medical assistance. Out."
        "Like no shit, Sherlock," q replied before Kris cut the radio
off.
        Reaching behind the seat, Kris grabbed a shirt from his duffel
bag and wrapped it around the vents in the helmet. He then pulled his
collar up as high as he could, put his hands in his pockets, and
huddled down into his seat. "Sparky, get me to their ship," he said.
        GOT IT. HANG IN THERE, BOSS...
        Kris sat still and breathed shallowly. After a
moment, he began breathing heavier. A few minutes later, he couldn't
breathe at all, and he closed his eyes quickly. A brief burst of
P*A*I*N flooded his lungs, and then..... 

        ... nothing.

        6) I expected this but not quite yet.  
                                -- Anonymous tombstone

        Kris opened his eyes. Looking around him, he saw... well, what
he saw definitely wasn't his fighter, or any ship at all, unless he
was on some sort of Holodeck. The dim light revealed a wide, flat,
featureless plain, extending to all horizons without interruption. The
sky actually appeared to be darker than the ground, and  light
seemed to emanate from the horizon.
        "Let's see," Kris said to himself, "I was in a starfighter,
with cabin pressure dropping to vacuum, and now I'm walking around-"
Kris looked to check, and indeed he was standing and pacing, "-walking
around in a place which can't exist by any natural laws I know. This
must be the afterlife, then."
        NOT QUITE, ACTUALLY.
        The voice sent wild shivers up Kris' spine. If a lion grew
to the size of an elephant and was given the power of speech, the
resulting voice would seem like a sparrow chirp in both pitch and
menace in comparison to the one coming from directly over Kris'
shoulder. It was a voice carefully calculated to hit the exact center
of the "fear" portion of the hypothalamus. Every alarm bell in Kris'
head went off, saying, DON'T TURN AROUND.
        Kris, of course, turned around.
        HELLO, the seven-foot tall cloaked figure said. I AM YOUR CASE
WORKER. YOU MAY CALL ME THE REAPER. 
        "Nice to meet you," Kris said, trying to keep his rampant
terror under control.
        LET'S SEE, the spectre said, as he shifted his scythe to lean
in the crook of one arm and looked at a small notepad with the other.
KRISTAN OREN OVERSTREET, WRITER, ENTREPRENEUR, AND STARFIGHTER PILOT.
SCHEDULED FOR NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE ON MARCH 25, 1996. WILL RECOVER BY
MARCH 26. 
        "Excuse me?" Kris said. "I'm not dead?"
        IF YOU'RE HERE, YOU ARE AT LEAST VERY CLOSE TO DEAD. YOU WILL
GO BACK WHEN YOUR BODY CAN SUSTAIN YOU AGAIN.
        "Oh," Kris said, "I'm just visiting, then."
        CONSIDER IT A SNEAK PREVIEW.
        "Oh."
        A few moments passed, and then the Reaper said, a little
nervously, I DON'T USUALLY DO NEAR-DEATHS, YOU KNOW.
        "Oh, really? Why not?" Kris asked.
        NOT IN MY JOB DESCRIPTION, the Reaper replied. THEY GIVE ME
ALL THE HARD CASES. ONCE IT WAS ALL BEHEADINGS. PLAGUES. LYNCHINGS.
INQUISITIONS. THESE DAYS I GET DUMB SHITS LIKE YOU.
        "Thanks a bundle." Kris grumbled.
        DO I LIE?
        Kris thought. Seeing where he was, and how he'd gotten here,
it was really tough to argue. "I suppose not," he said. "What exactly
happened?"
        WELL, REMEMBER WHEN q SAID THERE WAS SOMEONE ALREADY TAKING
CARE OF THE CARRIER?
        "Yes."
        THAT SOMEONE WAS ROBERT MANDEVILLE. YOU BEGAN YOUR RUN RIGHT
AFTER HE'D LAUNCHED A DRUM BOMB AT THE CARRIER. 
        "You mean that explosion-"
        YOU FLEW ROUGHLY THIRTY METERS TO THE PORT SIDE, AND A LITTLE
BEHIND, OF A THERMONUCLEAR DEVICE, the Reaper continued. MANDEVILLE
TRIED TO WARN YOU OFF, BUT YOU WERE TOO BUSY TO PAY ATTENTION.
        "Ouch." Kris winced. "Not exactly a good first impression to
make, huh?"
        OPEN ASS, INSERT HEAD, the Reaper said flatly. NO, I WOULDN'T
SAY IT'S VERY GOOD.
        Kris exhaled heavily. "Well, we'll see what happens, huh?"
        USUALLY.
        For a few minutes, Kris looked around, and the Reaper stared
at Kris. Finally, Kris said, "Is this all there is to do, sit around?"
        WELL... the Reaper said slowly... I DO KEEP SOME GAMES ON
HAND... JUST IN CASE...
        "Just in case what?" Kris asked.
        NEVER MIND, NEVER MIND, the Reaper said. ANYWAY... DO YOU KNOW
THE ANCIENT CHINESE GAME OF STONES?
        "If you mean Go, not exactly," Kris said, "but I do know a
simpler variation."
        OH?
        "It's called Pente. Would you like me to explain the rules?"
        YES... YES, I WOULD...

        One moment, Kris was placing the fifth stone in a row for the
twenty-third game running, much to the Reaper's annoyance...

        And the next moment, his eyelids fluttered, and he stared into
the brilliant lights of a medical examination room. He was lying on
his back on a cot of some sort, stripped to his underwear. The skin on
his hands, face, neck and feet itched horrendously. Worst of all, a
strange, fruity smell filled his nostrils, and his mouth had a
Godawful taste, like a nectarine had been left to rot in it. He
smacked his lips irritably. 
        A vaguely youngish-looking man in a lab coat walked over to his
table. "Are you awake?" he said. Kris nodded. "Excellent. Welcome
aboard the SDF-17 Wayward Son. My name is Edison Bell, and allow me to
be the very first to say: that was a really STUPID thing you did out
there."
        Kris rasped, "You aren't... " Swallowing, and grimacing from
the sore throat, he said more clearly, "You aren't the first."
        "Oh?" Edison quirked an eyebrow. "Who was it, then?"
        "Tall gentleman called the Reaper. Works for Death. You heard
of him?"
        Edison Bell frowned slightly and said, "Yes, I have." As Kris
tried to get the awful taste out of his mouth, he continued, "That
smell and taste is bacta. You were in a regeneration tank for a week,
growing the skin back on your extremities. You are very, very lucky
you can walk and talk, young man."
        Kris shrugged. "I tend to learn lessons the hard way," he
said.
        Edison turned and typed a few numbers into a terminal nearby.
"Well, get ready to have that particular lesson drummed into your
head, because several people will be down shortly to remind you just
how boneheaded that stunt of yours was." Turning back to him, he
added, "That's in addition to asking how an Earther got a Zardon
fighter, in whatever condition, with a stolen astromech unit."
        Kris sat up. "Stolen? The R5?"
        "Well, you didn't think the Zardons built him, did you?"
        "He didn't say. He lost a lot of his memory before I got hold
of him. Anyway, I just kind of assumed..." Kris considered standing
up, then considered lying back down. The way he felt at the moment,
lying down was the better choice. "I'm hungry. What's to eat on this
ship?"
        Edison looked gravely at Kris. "Vegetable soup, at least for
you, until we can make other arrangements and you can hold down solid
food. "
        "Teriffic," Kris grumbled. "Could I have my clothes back,
please?"
        At that moment, the door opened, and four people walked into
the room, in various combinations of uniform and civilian clothing.
The first one was a young man in full denim uniform, long, tall and
big, with a full head of dark- brownish hair. The second man, wearing
what was almost a trenchcoat, a fatigue shirt and jeans, seemed almost
the opposite, that is, not long and not tall; more like a dark- haired
version of the fabled Immovable Object, should it ever decide to move.
Together, they almost appeared normal, except... well, except that
they just failed to fit Kris' fairly wide definition of 'normal'.
        The third and fourth people seemed fairly normal; whereas the
two males had been basically generic American in design, these two,
both female, both in a uniform style radically different than the
others, seemed vaguely Asian in their face and body structure,
excepting for the brilliant red hair cropped short on one of them.
Kris looked at the men, and mentally waved them off as Threat: Minimal
at Present. Then, when he saw the ladies...
        BRRRRRRRRRRRR. WAY bad vibes.
        The big-and-tall man spoke first. "Hey," he said, in a light
northern accent. "Welcome aboard the Wayward Son. I'm MegaZone. I
pretty much run things around here. This is-"
        Kris held up his hand. "'Scuse me..." he said quietly, "but
can you answer me a quick question?"
        Zoner wasn't quite prepared for this, but he recovered
quickly. "Sure, go ahead."
        Kris pointed to the two young ladies and said, "Why am I
afraid of those two?"
        The two ladies exchanged a quick glance which, when translated
by experts, means Our Reputation Has Preceded Us Again. Zoner and the
gentleman Kris had mentally dubbed The Rock smiled, in a small way,
and Zoner said, "Do you recognize them, then?"
        Kris studied the two women intently for a moment before
saying, in a thick accent of his own, "I got no idea who they are...
but for a second there, when I first saw them, I was like-about scared
outta my mind."
        Now it was the two men's turn to exchange a glance, this one
being, roughly translated, Do You Believe This Shit? No, I Didn't
Think So. Then, both glanced at Edison, who had been following all of
this with interest. "What's his psi scale?" the shorter man said, in a
drawl which Kris tagged immediately as from Maine.
        Edison shrugged. "Only slightly above normal, when I checked
it," he said. "Maybe I should run another test, a Rhine series..."
        "Anyway," Kris said quietly but firmly to Edison, "who are
these lovely people, anyway?"
        "Well..." Edison said, pointing to The Rock, "this gentleman
is Commander Ben Hutchins, he's our first officer and starfighter
commander. His callsign is Gryphon. These two ladies... who probably
resent your being afraid of them on sight... are Kei Morgan and Yuri
Daniels." He indicated the redhead as Kei and the dark-haired lady as
Yuri, but Kris had guessed that.
        "The.... " Kris took a deep breath, and forced the
less dangerous phrase out, "The Lovely Angels." Looking from person to
person, Kris thought furiously for about three seconds.
        Y-wings.
        Kilrathi.
        The don't-even-think-that-other-name-Lovely Angels.
        The pieces blatantly failed to fit.
        Falling back onto the cot, Kris took a deep breath and said,
"How about I give you my side first, and then you can make sense out
of all this. 'Kay?"
        Kris then introduced himself and entered into Flashback mode,
describing how he'd found and refurbished the starfighter and picked a
planet at random to go to. Although he did drop the name Ben Dunn, to
the casual interest of the listeners, he overlooked the Buma skull
he'd found on that last day. Later on, he kicked himself mentally for
not bringing it up, but forgot about it before he could ever mention
the subject again.
        When his retelling reached the dogfighting, Gryphon said, "By
the way, you're a pretty good pilot, but you've got to learn to listen
to your radio. Keep getting into the middle of bombing runs like that
and you can forget about retirement."
        Zoner nodded. "If you want to keep flying that fighter, you'd
better learn to pay attention to what the airboss tells you."
        Kris groaned. "I know, I know. I just got into the simulator
mentality. 'If you don't do it, it won't get done and the mission is a
failure.'"
        Gryphon grunted. "Well, that's a sim. In real life, we have a
team. Nobody goes it alone, ever. You might want to remember that."
        Kris chuckled grimly. "Sure will, not that I'm liable to need
the knowledge. Probably not much of that Y-Wing left to fly anymore."
        "Oh, you'd be surprised what our techs can do," Zoner said
quietly. "There is one thing I'm wondering, though... how did the
Zardons get our R-5s? Industrial Automaton doesn't sell to the
Zardons."
        "Damn! That's right, I forgot about Sparky!" Kris leaned up.
"Where is he?"
        "He's being tuned up and repaired by one of our techs right
now," Zoner said. "After that, if you don't mind, we'd like to borrow
him for a while so we can figure out just where he came from."
        "Well, I don't know..." Kris said. "I'd expect you'd have to
ask him."
        "What?" several voices asked at once.
        "I'm going to set him free," Kris said.
        Zoner's head did the standard Why-do-People-Make- Things-
Difficult dive, as Gryphon said, "Do you have any idea what the
procedures are for that? He'd have to stand against a series of Turing
tests to prove his sentience, there's the legal work, the fees..."
        "He's earned it," Kris said. "So far as I'm concerned, he
saved my life. I owe him."
        "Okay, okay," Gryphon said. "I'll see you get the paperwork,
then."
        "Fine," Kris said.
        "Great," Gryphon said.
        Kris looked at Gryphon oddly. Smothering his own last-word
instinct, he turned to Zoner and said, "Well, what now?"
        Zoner thought for a second, then said, "Well... you could hang
here for a while, I guess, until we get the thing with your droid
straightened out... or..."
        Gryphon cut him off in mid-sentence and, gesturing to the
doorway, said, "Pardon us a second." The four walked over to the
doorway and whispered for a few moments, while Kris looked onward.
Zoner looked vaguely at Gryphon, whose tone was slightly disapproving,
and Kei and Yuri, who were more intent, whatever they were advocating
at the time.
        Finally, Gryphon shrugged, and the four redistributed
themselves around the bed. Gryphon looked doubtfully at Kris, while
Yuri smiled and Kei winked at him. Zoner finally said, "Anyway, if you
want, you can join up with us."
        "I'm sorry?" Kris had a feeling he knew what was coming.
        "In a couple of months, we'll be meeting a supply shuttle from
our home base, Utopia Planitia. You can hitch a ride back there, and
they'll be able to either smuggle you back to Earth eventually... or
you can enter the Wedge Defense Force Academy."
        "Hmm..." Kris thought carefully.
        "You don't have to decide right now," Zoner said, "but the
option is there, and from what we saw out there you have the
potential..."
        "When you don't have your head stuffed up your ass," Gryphon
said quietly.
        "Hmm..." Kris repeated. "Well, let me think about it. Right
now, my big concern is getting past tomato puree."
        "Fine," Zoner said. "I'll probably be seeing you around, then.
Take it easy, okay?"
        "Sure," Kris said. "What else I goin' ter do?"

        Time passed, and Kris did the standard welcome- to- the- Son
bit, gradually meeting most of the core Wedge people, including a
short and confusing encounter with Vaughn ("I don't remember you...
must make a note..."). He tried Zoner chili, participated in a
Ad-Lib Weird-Al Contest (not bringing any prizes home), and
fooled around with a few neat toys and programs.
        No one trusted him with anything that flew, for obvious
reasons. In fact, he was hailed as "Hey, Stupid!" so often that he
resorted to, "Hey, I'm jus' dis dum ol' redneck, 'kay?" in response.
By the time a month had passed, several of the crew had taken to
calling him Redneck, or just Red. This was good by Kris' standards,
since a week's worth of exploring had exposed three Christophers, two
Christines, one Kristie, and no less than four Salusians with
variations on the theme. Redneck was a far sight better than Hey You
and supremely preferable to Stupid.
        As he got to know the general attitude of the WDF, Kris also
compiled the paperwork and depositions for Sparky's case to the Turing
Board, no small task in itself. In his own deposition, he cited the
independent nature of the droid, its various peccadilloes, and so on.
Finally, he packed the bundle up and gave it to Sparky to take with
him to Turing III. 
        A full week before the shuttle arrived, Kris made his
decision. By and large, there was lots to do in the WDF, the
discipline was lax to say the least, and going home now seemed about
as attractive as watching a marathon of Lewis and Martin films.
        Ugh.
        By the time the supply shuttle docked with the Wayward Son,
Kristan Overstreet had filled out the application, taken the basic
admittance exam, and was inducted as a Cadet, Officer Track, in the
Wedge Defense Force Academy.
        Kris was going back to school.
        

        7) A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Think what the
secrets of the universe must be like!
                                        --- Stephen Hawking

        Lord Baron Duke Wolfgang von Fahrvergnugen, basically the top
dog and senior Wedge Rat of all Wedgedom, sat down at his desk and
resumed the hour of paperwork he forced himself to do each day.
Between personally overseeing the first recruits for the WDF (mostly
individuals who through sheer bizarre coincidence had ended up at
Utopia Planitia), designing new ships to add to the force, and
experimenting with new technologies to make the WDF a more formidable
force in the galaxy, it was easy to overlook and forget the day-to-
day operations of the station itself. 
        Of course, there were people to do that, principally Decker,
but that was beside the point. 
        He finished typing a general release to the WDF recruits in
training and was about to go over the supply logs for the past week
when a small, red crab icon appeared on his terminal screen. He
activated the icon and was greeted with a smiling face framed by a
bundle of red hair which, by no accident, resembled a crab itself.
Beneath the face was the body of a twelve-year-old girl, clothed in
the uniform of a student from the ancient Mandalorian Academy of the
Sciences. "Hiya, Wolfie, how's it hanging?" the girl piped cheerfully
from the other side of the screen.
        "Professor Washuu." Lord Fahrvergnugen  glared at the screen
and frowned. "You are not welcome here." If there was anything Lord F
disliked, it was a renegade scientist, particularly an ancient one
with an ego the size of most nebulae. Washuu could probably back up
her claim as the "number one scientist in the universe," but what she
did with that knowledge- or rather, what she refused to do-
infuriated him. Getting her to reveal her secrets was like trying to
hitch a ride with a Q. 
        "Oh, lighten up, Wolfie-chan," Washuu said. "Actually, I'm
responding to this ad that was posted to your marketplace BBS last
week. 'WANTED: Maths tutor fluent in calculus and astrogation
algorithms. Reasonable terms only please. Contact
Redneck@wdf.plantia.com.' "
        Redneck... oh yes, Lord F remembered, the new recruit.
Possibly the most dedicated student he'd ever seen... and heard. On
some days, he could hear Cadet Overstreet bellowing his objection to a
point his teacher was trying to make from seven decks and three
kilometers away. His voice carried peculiarly in the station- probably
a trick of the ventilation system. Despite his previous lack of
physical training, he'd made sincere strides in his combat training,
and he had, so far, checked out on three different starfighters.
Unfortunately, this left the cadet with zero time to make friends
among his classmates, and he'd made a couple of enemies among the
teachers. Oddly, those weren't the teachers he yelled at on a daily
basis. 
        While Washuu waited, Lord F pulled up Kris Overstreet's file.
Hmm... promising melee combat skills... goddess-awful pistol and rifle
marksmanship... struggling with maths... disciplinary hazard-- THAT is
a first for us, Lord F thought. If anyone's a match in attitude for
Washuu, it's him.
        Besides, I don't have a chance in Hell of keeping her off the
station if she wants on.
        "Very well..." Lord F finally said... "but if he doesn't
accept you, off you go. Understood?"
        "Oh, sure, Wolfie," Washuu said. "Wouldn't want you to get an
inferiority complex, would we?" The image of Washuu reduced back to
the crab icon, which waved a claw bye-bye and vanished.
        Somewhere, Lord F imagined, someone is laughing at me...

        ... and in an obscure service corridor near one of the general
commissaries, a small wooden door appeared in the wall.

        Kris, stripped to his underwear and ready for bed, leaned over
his private terminal and examined his schedule for the next day.

        6:00 Get up 
        6:30 Combat, unarmed
        7:30 Shower
        7:45 Breakfast
        8:00 Basic astrogation
        9:15 Tactics, starfighter
        10:30 Flight practice- Alpha/Beta Legios
        12:00 Lunch
        13:00 Basic computer operation
        14:00 Combat, basic melee
        14:45 Shower
        15:00 Rifle Range; combat, sidearm/rifle
        17:00 Combat, quarterstaff
        18:15 Shower
        18:30 Dinner
        19:00 Languages- Salusian
        20:00 Study period
        22:00 Sleep

        Kris groaned. Too much crap. He'd done it at UT and now he was
doing it here. 
        Two months ago, he'd thought he could handle the load easily.
Hell, more than half of the classes had seemed more physical than
mental, and he'd hoped the pointers he'd picked up in Amtgard fighter
practice would help. Instead, he spent half his study time in a quiet
training room practicing forms. His main book classes, astrogation and
Salusian, were suffering.
        Well, anyway, next week he'd choose which of his electives-
quarterstaff, melee or Salusian- he wanted to give up. He expected it
would be Salusian; with all the Salusians on the station, he'd
probably pick it up quickly enough anyway. Besides, since his aim with
a gun was still crappy, he needed something he could use in a fight,
and quarterstaff had always been his favorite choice of mayhem maker.
        Let's see. Gravitational constant calculations- words to sleep
by, Kris thought as he lay down and cracked open his astrogation book.
His eyelids were already drooping when his doorchime rang.
        Dammittohell, Kris thought.
        "JUST A MINUTE!" he shouted to the door, forgetting the people
in the rooms to either side, as he rummaged in his closet for his
bathrobe. Finding it, he wrapped it around himself, and punched the
doorlatch. 
        The door shwooshed open to reveal a small girl, about
4-foot-eight, with BRILLIANT pink-red hair, a small, slender body, and
a perky attitude. "Hi! I'm Washuu Hakubi! I'm here about the tutor
job!"
        Kris squinted for a second, then straightened his eyes out and
said, "OH!... uh, just a minute, let me get dressed, okay?"
        "Don't hurry on my account," the young lady said. Kris didn't
know how to react to that.
        Kris shut the door and scrambled around for shorts and a
T-shirt. After a short search, he selected one he'd packed from Earth,
which had survived that first dogfight with the Kilrathi; BUILT FOR
THE LONG HAUL, it said, with a picture of a Yosemite-Sam ripoff on the
front. A few seconds later, he presented himself to Washuu. "Please,
come in!" he said, and gestured to the girl.
        Washuu walked in and sat on the bunk. Kris pulled a chair from
his desk and sat across from her. "Well, are you good at astrogation?"
he said at last.
        Washuu smiled and said, "Astrogation is kid's stuff! No
problem!"
        Hm... "Okay, well, what pay scale do you work at?"
        Washuu smiled, this time not quite so innocently. "Depends.
What are you willing to pay?"
        Ouch. "Well, I can only draw so much on credit, but I think I
can..."
        "No, no, no," Washuu said. "I'm a scientist. I need help with
my experiments. Would you be willing to help me?"
        "I suppose so," Kris said. "It depends on what kind
of research you're doing."
        "Oh, genetic grafting, xenobiology, stuff like that..."
        "And you need a lab assistant?"
        "Nope!" Washuu smirked. "Guinea pig."
        Kris blanched. "Now wait just a minute!" he said, rising from
his chair for emphasis. "I don't want nothing to do with needles-"
        "Don't need 'em," Washuu said.
        "- or dissection, or-"
        "Don't need to," Washuu replied.
        "-or experimental drugs, or-"
        "Not using any," Washuu said.
        "or... or.. Well, what would you be doing to me?"
        "Oh, nothing much..." Washuu said. "A couple of base readings,
a few samples, a little cellular manipulation- nothing serious, of
course..."
        "Hmm... just samples, eh?" Kris said.
        Washuu was silent.
        Kris paced a couple of steps, then stopped, took a deep breath
and said, "Okay. Once I graduate, I'll help with your experiment.
Okay?"
        Washuu said anxiously, "Why so long? Can't we do some
experiments in the meantime?" she continued, waggling her
eyebrows. 
        Kris went to his terminal, called up his schedule, and showed
it to Washuu. She read it carefully, then said, "Drop Salusian. I'll
have you speaking it fluently in two weeks, and then we can use the
time to work on your maths."
        "Okay. I was planning on dropping it anyway." Kris turned off
the terminal and turned to Washuu. "But anyway, I want to graduate as
soon as possible. If I can get on a fast track with my maths and
tactics courses, I might be out of here in, say, two years."
        Washuu frowned. "Well, then we'd better get started. I'll see
you tomorrow morning... what's your name, anyway?"
        "Kris," he replied. "Some of the Wedge people call me Redneck,
or just Red." 
        "Redneck?" Washuu asked, glancing at the body part in
question.  "It looks pale from here. I think Kris will do okay for
now. See you tomorrow at combat practice, Kris," she said, and she
strode towards the door. The door opened automatically, and she walked
out without breaking stride.
        Well, that sure was interesting, Kris thought. Looks twelve,
but sure doesn't act it. I wonder what species she is...
        Then he remembered; the doors don't open automatically here...


        8) Politics makes strange bedfellows.  
                        ---Robert Oppenheimer

        The next morning, as Kris donned his sweats and prepared for
his pre-breakfast thrashing, his doorbell chimed. A moment later, he
was trying to focus his eyes on a piece of hardcopy being held dead in
his face. 
        "Hmm... unlimited tutelage in exchange for services as
laboratory subject, one session without let or hindrance... okay,
fine." On the bottom was a little pad with a barb on it; DNA
signature. Kris pressed his thumb against the pad, then put it to his
mouth and sucked the tiny cut a little. On the document was a drop of
blood, more binding than any written signature in some places.
        Kris' sleep-fogged mind had enough presence to ask, before
Washuu could put the contract away, "Uh... could I have another look
at that?"
        "Sure!" Washuu replied, as she handed the paper to Kris. He
looked it over, read the short paragraph thoroughly, examined the
paper for invisible ink, etc. No soul clause, no first-born child
agreement, nothing. One session as a lab rat, in exchange for however
much tutelage it took to get him graduated. No hidden traps he could
see at all.
        "Okay!" Washuu said. "Let's go see your first class!"
        As Washuu watched, Kris went through his stretching exercises,
then faced off against the phys-ed instructor. As usual, Kris waited
for a few moments, to see if the instructor would move first. Then, he
cautiously made some probing moves, had them parried, and eventually
entered a ten minute period he referred to as Low Orbital Human Flight
Lessons. By the time the session was over, he'd learned a couple new
moves, a Do or a Don't, and several places a body could hurt.
        As he gathered himself to go to his room for a shower, Washuu
walked up to him. "She's really something, isn't she? Of course, her
center of gravity's lower than yours."
        "Not so loud," Kris said as he strode stiffly down the
corridor. Shower, food, class, oh God... why why why why WHY do I do
these things to myself...
        "Basically, you need to work on your balance more," Washuu
continued. "She catches you overextended all the time. Plus you keep
trying those punches when you can't possibly reach..."
        Kris keyed his door open and strode in. "I'll be out in a few
minutes," he said, and closed the door.
        Washuu stood outside, and listened to the faint "ouch ouch
ouch" sounds coming from the room. The shower turned on, then about
five minutes later turned off. Five minutes after that, Kris leaped
out the door in his cadet uniform, a satchel in hand, and dashed down
the hall. A constant chant of "Excuse me pardon me coming through I
beg your pardon excuse me" echoed behind him. Sighing, Washuu ran
after him, causing noticeably less disturbance.

        Washuu caught up to Kris as he waited in front of a bank of
vending machines. As he received his standard breakfast- a Dr. Pepper
and a sausage biscuit- Washuu tapped him in the back. Kris turned
around, biscuit already half- eaten, and said, "Wfhutt?"
        Washuu grasped Kris' shoulder, gently bent him down to her eye
level, and said, "I want you to keep your eyes on my finger." She held
up a digit about two inches from his eyes. After a moment, the two
eyes settled on a position. Washuu then moved the finger to the left,
to the right, then up and right rapidly. Kris responded with an
obvious effort. Ah, Washuu thought, independent tracking. That helps
explain his depth perception problem.
        Swallowing, Kris said, "Excuse me, but I'm going to be late
for astrogation, so if you don't mind..." Bending up, he stuffed the
remnant of the biscuit down his throat, guzzled his drink, and ran
towards the lecture hall. Washuu followed quietly. Whenever she
noticed someone staring at her, her expression was happy, cheerful and
carefree; when no one was looking, her face darkened in grim
concentration. 

        On a monitor in the security office, Lord F noticed Washuu's
expression. I think I have made a severe error in judgment, he
thought. 
        Any further thought was cut off by the regular argument in
the main Astrogation class, two decks down. My Gods, but that voice
carries...

        In the ready-room near the hangar reserved for most of the
trainee pilots sat rows and rows of lockers. Like most of the decor in
the station, they were trimmed in blues and silvers and greens and
chromes and designed to affect an air of hyper-futuristic style.
Unfortunately, for all their trim and style, they still looked like
what they were; twenty rows of gym lockers. In between each row of
lockers was a bench, to help the pilots put on whatever clothes were
needed to operate whatever ship.
        Inside Kris' locker hung two flight suits; the one he had
cobbled together on Earth and modified on the Wayward Son, and the
standard WDF Cadet-issue flight suit with CVR-3 armor linking
attachments. Since today would be an official class, Kris picked the
WDF suit and began pulling it over his cadet uniform.
        "You get too worked up over things," a voice piped up from
behind him. 
        Kris spun, tripped, and almost clobbered himself with the
bench. 
        Washuu bent down and helped Kris up. Pulling on the leggings
of his flight suit, he said, "When did you get to audit my astrogation
class?"
        "I didn't have to," Washuu said. "You could hear the shouting
clear across the station."
        Kris blushed. "Oops," he said. "I don't mean to get carried
away, but... well..."
        Washuu jumped up, grabbed Kris' shoulders, pulled herself up
to eye level and whispered, "You know... you're SO cute when you
blush..."
        Then she JUMPED over Kris' head, over the row of lockers, and
was gone, giggling as she went. Strange girl, Kris thought.
        
        Kris walked tall in the eyes of his fellow starfighter pilot
trainees. In two months, he'd already checked out on the Valkirye, the
Hornet, and the Z-95 Headhunter, and was making impressive strides on
his current project, the Alpha-Beta Legios system. He was the only one
in the group to own his own starfighter, no matter what condition it
was in. He'd been making strides in every aspect of flying, and half
the time the tactical portion of the day's lesson would degenerate
into a quiet debate between Kris and the instructor over what-ifs. In
short, Kris had taken the role of Star Pupil, and no one seemed overly
inclined to take it from him- especially since it saved them lecture
time.
        As usual, both tactical and flight went to plan, with Kris
doing impressively well in his Beta (although he did get splashed like
all the other trainees). Afterwards, he was given some pointers about
more effectively using the battleroid mode of the Beta (that phrase is
not an oxymoron), as the others were lectured soundly on the
importance of teamwork. Then, showers for some, lockers for everybody,
and Kris went to his usual commissary for lunch.
        There is an unwritten rule in cooking; the larger the group
you're cooking for, the less good any effort of yours will do to make
the meal palatable. For example, a recipe for French toast, which
provides a cinnamony good breakfast for two, becomes a joyless mush
with a crust when served for five hundred. And so on. Throughout
history, cafeteria goers have been convinced that the owners of said
cafeteriae were actively attempting to poison them. This was only true
half the time; the other half, the marginal food was simply the
product of mass production, with malice towards none. 
        All these people could take lessons from Utopia Planitia's
non-commercial WDF commissaries.
        As Kris passed his palm over the credit panel by the door, he
read the menu. Yum, Cajun-blackened catfish. And steamed broccoli, and
chocolate cake... Kris rushed around the place, gathering item after
item, and sat down to a large and satisfying meal a few minutes later.
        A few bites into his catfish filet, Kris noticed a red blur in
his field of vision. Looking up from his tray, he saw Washuu, smiling
at him. "Ready to begin?" she asked sweetly.
        Swallowing, Kris cut at his fish with the edge of his fork and
replied, "I'm trying to eat, Washuu. I have a class on computer
operations in forty minutes, and I intend to have most of this food
inside me before then. I really don't have time..." His voice trailed
off as Washuu spread an impressive array of notes, charts and books
around his tray, each dealing with various astral phenomenae and their
relationship to navigation. 
        Washuu began to talk, as Kris continued to eat. The more he
listened, though, the less food actually got eaten. Whereas his
instructor practically needed a translator, Washuu explained the ideas
plainly, simply, and easily. Before long, his dinner forgotten, Kris
sat and listened to Washuu make sense of gravitic, antigravitic,
subgravitic and hypergravitic curves and the safety limits pertaining
thereunto.
        Finally, Washuu began straightening up the papers. Kris sat
up, asking, "Why are you stopping? That was getting interesting."
        Washuu looked at the clock. "You have five minutes to get to
your computer class," she said. "You'd better get moving!"
        Kris looked at the clock, at his heavily-laden tray, and with
a heartfelt, "JESUS CHRIST!" he began wolfing down the food, fish,
cake, broccoli and salad disappearing into his mouth at once. Once the
majority was down the gullet, he guzzled his drink, dumped his tray in
the recycling hatch, and with his usual "excuse me" song, he scrambled
out of the commissary and down the corridors.
        "If he keeps eating like that, he's going to get sick," Washuu
said out loud, to no one in particular. 

        Computer class was the basic WDF computer ops course, which
taught cadets and techs the basics behind operating the various
computer systems in use by the WDF. Kris already knew most of the
theory and a good bit of the practical, and managed to cut out as
usual fifteen minutes early to get ready for his melee combat class.
        An hour after that, as he staggered towards his room with
several welts and a gurgling stomach, he noticed Washuu standing in
front of his door with a spoon in one hand and a bottle of Maalox in
the other. Without a word, Kris reached for the bottle. Washuu jerked
it back. "Ah, ah, ah," she admonished. "Hold still while Little Washuu
gives you the nice medicine."
        "Washuu. The Maalox. Please." Kris said.
        "Now, now," Washuu insisted, "take it easy or no medicine. Be
a good boy and let me give you your medicine."
        The things I do for a contract, Kris thought. He kneeled down
and let Washuu feed him the spoonfuls of stomach remedy. Oddly enough,
it didn't taste at all like Maalox; it was cherry-flavored and went
down quickly. As he stood, the gurgling CEASED in his stomach. "Wow,
Washuu," he said, "that's really-"
        Then the Secret Ingredient kicked in; extract of Pelepeno.
        Pelepeno is a type of pepper grown on Salusia. The name is an
Anglicization of its ancient name, which is almost impossible to
pronounce, and it refers to a certain Hawaiian goddess, who makes her
home in the volcanoes of the islands. It contains an acid which has a
time-delay reaction in the mouth; when the time runs out, the victim
starts looking for Tabasco sauce to drink to cool the flame.
        Zoner has pronounced it "noticeable".
        Kris turned brilliant red in the face for a moment; then, with
a very nasty look at Washuu, he stormed into his room. A minute later,
the shower turned on again, and shortly after that, a loud gurgling
noise was heard. About ten minutes later, Kris exited in his spare
duty uniform. He strode off to the rifle range, studiously ignoring
the young lady walking beside him.


        9) Mutual benefit is the basis of all good contract law.
                           --- Beelzebub

        And so it went.
        Every day, from noon to night, Washuu remained Kris' constant
companion. With Washuu's help and goading, Kris entered several
self-study courses, which only required him to come in and take the
tests on occasion. For those courses in which he couldn't skip
classes, including piloting and combat, Washuu also provided help, and
before long Kris learned to deal with Washuu's little jokes and
accepted her advice and teaching gladly. 
        Most of the time.
        By year's end, Kris realized he had gained two things; his
first real friend on the station, and a good chunk of free time. Most
of the latter he spent with Washuu, as well as a couple of free
spirits from his fighter trainee group. Washuu proved to be an
interesting companion, at least in Kris' eyes. On those occasions when
she wasn't bedeviling him, her shenanigans never failed to bring a
smile, or more usually a laugh, to Kris' usually serious face. In
turn, his insights on the human condition- usually delivered in his
thickest accent- made her giggle as well. 
        Before long, Kris had, with Washuu's help, passed all the
basic courses and had earned his flight badge on every fighter used by
any WDF force, plus two Kilrathi fighters and his own Myrmidon Y-Wing.
Without a pause, he proceeded to advanced courses and electives;
covert operations, paramedic training, general grand tactics, advanced
studies in starfighter piloting and melee combat. Each step of the
way, Washuu helped, giving advice and insight in a way that Kris could
always readily adapt and use. Even in marksmanship- his weakest point-
Washuu's aid allowed Kris to achieve a passing score in pistol and
light rifle. 
        Finally, after two and a half years of eclectic study, Kris
applied for his lieutenant's bars, and on his birthday, January 12,
1999, was commissioned as a Junior Lieutenant in the Wedge Defense
Force, with his choice of assignments.
        Kris was reading through the pile of assignment dossiers on
his desk when his door chimed. Laying the assignment profile for the
Salusian Royal Guard on the desk, he walked to the door and keyed it
open. He was not surprised to see Washuu; the droid beside her, on the
other hand, was a surprise.
        "Hi, Kris," Washuu smiled. "This little fellow says he knows
you."
        "Hey, boss," a voice piped from a speaker on the droid's
chassis. Sparky wheeled forward and into the room. "Nice place we got
here, huh boss?" Just above his main power intake gleamed a small gold
badge with the word TURING on it. Sparky had finally been approved for
emancipation.
        "Hey, Sparky, it's great to see you!" Kris said. "When'd you
get here?"
        "He came in on the last shuttle, this morning," Washuu said.
"I took him to my workshop and added a vocoder so he could talk to
you."
        "Thanks, Washuu," Kris said. Looking at the two, Kris sat on
his bed and asked, "Well, how would you two like to celebrate my
graduation?"
        "I think a little while in my lab would do nicely," Washuu
said. From her pocket, she produced the contract from two years
before. 
        "Oh, yeah," Kris replied. "That reminds me, where exactly is
your lab? I've never even seen where you live on the station, much
less where you work."
        "It's right behind the commissary," Washuu said. "Would you
like to go now?"
        "I'd think you'd want to wait till morning," Kris said, "but
if you want to get started now, I suppose I could."
        "Great!" Washuu cried, and she actually jumped and clapped her
hands. "Let's go!"

        Kris stopped at the wooden door in the service corridor behind
the cafeteria. "This is it?" Kris asked. 
        "Sure is!" Washuu said. "Just a second while I unlock it!" She
waved a hand, and a holographic touch-pad appeared in front of the
door. A few keystrokes later, a chime sounded, and Washuu turned the
doorhandle and entered. Kris followed trepidatiously, with Sparky
a few paces behind. 
        For a second, Kris couldn't see anything in the darkened room.
Then the light turned back on, and Kris staggered.
        The lab was ENORMOUS.
        The ceiling stretched hundreds of yards above the floor, which
had assorted trees and bushes growing here and there. Tubes and
conduits stretched from eyesight to eyesight. In some places, water
tanks hovered over the walkways, many of them occupied. Here and there
pieces of equipment lay strewn at random beneath dwarf trees and
waterfalls from the overhead tanks. In the center of the complex,
Washuu sat in midair on a floating cushion, typing at a holographic
terminal. She looked up from her typing and waved to Kris. "Come on
over here, Kris!" she shouted.
        Kris walked slowly through the complex, trying to make sense
out of the place. "How did you make all this?" he asked.
        "I've had it for quite some time now," Washuu said. "The lab
got too big to keep in realspace, so I made this pocket dimension to
keep it in." Looking around, she shouted, "ZATHRAS!! Zathras, where
are you?" Looking at Kris, she chuckled, "Zathras is my lab assistant.
Or should be, anyway. I haven't seen him since I sent him to clean out
the secondary menangerie about eighty years ago. Oh, well, I suppose
we can go on without him." She pointed to a round table and said,
"Take off your clothes and lie down on the table."
        Kris gave Washuu a confused look, but did as he was told.
Stripping to his underwear, Kris laid himself out on the table, and at
Washuu's request he moved his arms out perpendicular to his body.
        Latches snapped down on Kris' wrists and ankles, and a couple
of coils surrounded his torso. As the table inclined itself into a
rack, a strange helmet with light bulbs around its brim lowered itself
onto Kris' head. Kris soon found himself spread-eagled in midair,
unable to do more than twitch in place.
        "Okay, let's do some baseline readings," Washuu said and she
began a series of tests and probes Kris couldn't identify or explain.
Scanners scanned, probes probed, and measuring devices measured. After
some study of the results, Washuu nodded and said, "Okay, I think I'm
ready now." 
        Washuu opened a metal cabinet and drew out a small air tank
and a mask. She put the mask on Kris' face and said, "Now I want you
to breathe very deeply, Kris. Okay?"
        Rolling his eyes, Kris took a deep breath, and thought, I hope
I don't regret this...

        Kris opened his eyes and looked around. The featureless plain
again. Oh, great, he thought.
        HELLO AGAIN.
        Kris turned, and the Reaper stood there, idly sharpening his
scythe. "Hello," Kris said. "Don't tell me it's time now."
        NO. JUST ANOTHER CLOSE CALL. THE LAST, I SHOULD EXPECT, FOR
QUITE SOME TIME.
        "What do you mean by that?" Kris asked.
        YOU KNOW I'M NOT ALLOWED TO SAY.
        "I guess not," Kris said. After a moment, he turned again and
said, "Don't you have other souls to bother about?"
        THERE ARE OTHER CASE WORKERS. MANY, MANY OTHERS. I'M IN NO
HURRY.
        "All things in their time, huh?"
        EVERYTHING, the Reaper replied, IN MY TIME. 
        "Oh," Kris said, and kept silent. 
        After a moment, the Reaper cleared his throat and said, DO YOU
PLAY SPADES?

        Kris awoke groggily, to Washuu's face. For a moment, he
thought she looked worried, but when he looked again, her perky face
was smiling up at him. "All done!" she said. "How d'you feel?"
        Kris considered this carefully. He noted that his joints
weren't aching, his head was clear, and he was seeing straighter than
he had since he could remember. "Well, all things considered, just
having played about two dozen hands of Spades with a Case Worker of
Death, I'd say I feel better than ever, thank you."
        Washuu smiled and said, "Great!" As she released Kris from the
rack, she said, "Before you go, there are a few things I should tell
you..."
        "I'll bet," Kris said. "Let's start with my eyesight."
        "I fixed it," Washuu said.
        "My joints?"
        "Them too."
        "My sinuses?"
        "Everything," Washuu said. "Now sit down for a minute."
        As Kris sat, Washuu's face turned deadly serious. "I apologize
for doing what I did, but I thought it wouldn't be dangerous. I
attempted to graft the cellular structure of another creature to your
own. It nearly killed you, but it worked."
        Kris looked stunned at Washuu. "What creature?" he asked
dully.
        Washuu pointed to a large jar of water. Inside was a beige
creature which looked vaguely like a cabbage jellyfish with eyes.
"This is a Masser," she said. "It's a very rare creature native to a
planet in Wild Space. It is capable of amassing incredible amounts of
energy and manipulating it in many ways."
        Kris looked at the innocuous creature. It looked back dully at
him. 
        "I successfully grafted a portion of  its genetic and cellular
structure to myself a long time ago," Washuu continued. "I was curious
to see if the procedure could be adapted to Earthers. It almost
wasn't."
        Kris looked at his arm. Aside from the absence of the freckles
and scars it had previously sported, it looked perfectly normal. "How
much did you change?" he asked quietly.
        Washuu looked directly at him. "Everything."
        Kris looked at Washuu, then at his arm again. "I see you put
it back, then."
        Washuu replied, "It's a one-way process, Kris. I didn't know
until it was too late..."
        Kris began to tremble.
        "You're still mostly human," Washuu continued. "It's just
that, before long, you'll be able to do things other humans can't."
        "How long?" Kris asked quietly.
        "Oh, over the course of, say, five hundred years," Washuu
replied.
        Five... Hundred... Years? Kris mouthed the words.
        "That's right. You'll have plenty of time to get used to the
form. You're immortal now, Kris... like me!" She smiled again. "So now
we can spend more time than ever together, huh?"
        Immortal.
        "IMMORTAL?!?!?" Kris bellowed. The Masser, terrified, sank
into the bottom of its jar. "I'm STUCK like this FOREVER?" Shrieking,
he made a dive for Washuu, who leaped well out of his reach.
        "Now, Kris, it's not so bad as it seems," Washuu said.
        "GRAAAAAHHHRRRRGH!" Kris shouted, and tackled Washuu. He
pulled his fist back to punch her, only to discover he was about to
coldcock a plush doll.
        "I'm a lot harder to catch than that," a voice whispered from
behind his ear.
        Kris whirled around wildly, growling. For a second, he
considered trying again; instead, he threw down the plush Washuu doll
and said, "Washuu, if I ever see your smiling, scheming face again, it
will be too soon!" He stormed over to his clothes and began pulling
them on.
        "But Kris... I didn't know..." Washuu said from behind him.
        "You knew enough!" Kris yelled. "How long have you lived like
this, huh? How long does it take to learn?"
        "Twenty thousand years," Washuu replied.
        Kris stopped. 
        "I learned to cope, Kris. You can, too," Washuu said. "I'm
still your friend."
        Kris finished buttoning his tunic and said, "Friends don't
trick other friends." He turned to leave, paused, picked up the plush
doll and said, "Goodbye, Washuu." With Sparky following, he strode
towards the door and left. The crab-shaped door chime clanked as the
door closed behind him.
        Washuu stared after him, worriedly. He just needs some time to
cool off, she thought.
        I'm sure that's it...

        Lord Fahrvergnugen entered his office to discover a crab icon
already on his terminal. Ignoring the fact that he'd deactivated the
terminal before leaving the office the previous day, he went to the
terminal and activated the icon, bringing up an image of Washuu. Lord
Fahrvergnugen was surprised to see her usually hyperconfident face
pensive and worried. "Uh, hi, Wolfie..." she said hesitantly... "I
just wanted to let you know you won't be seeing me for a while..."
        Now Lord F was really surprised... usually Washuu left in a
much more flashy manner than she arrived. "Ah, thank you for letting
me know, Professor," he said, "and I will not deny that I am more than
glad to see you going. I must ask... what made you decide to leave?"
        "Well..." Washuu fidgeted a moment, then said, "What does Kris
have against immortality?"
        "Who... oh, Lieutenant Overstreet," Lord F said. Calling up
Kris' psych profile, he scanned quickly and whistled. "Hm. It says
here that when Edison Bell explained Omega-2 to him, he expressed a
severe aversion to immortality. He said he couldn't understand how
anyone in their right mind would choose to outlive all their friends
and relatives. He also has a severe aversion to any medical procedure
at all. Does that have anything to do with..." The relay clicked in
his mind. "Don't tell me you've picked a Guinea pig, Washuu. He
deserves better than that."
        Washuu said nothing, and the screen went dark.
        Lord F, sighing, reactivated his terminal and began reworking
his morning schedule for a minor but necessary session of damage
control.

        When Kris exited Washuu's lab, he discovered it was morning
already. After returning to his room and showering, he checked out a
trainer Z-95 and blasted out towards the asteroids to blow off some
steam. 
        IMMORTAL! he thought as he swerved among an artificial cluster
used by the trainees to simulate Kilrathi defensive clusters.
        INHUMAN! he raged as he buzzed the cratered surface of a large
asteroid and dodged two rocks smaller than he was. 
        He returned to the hangar still blazing angry, and went
straight from the prep room to a sparring room, and spent a full hour
wailing on a padded sparring drone.         
        Finally, exhausted, he returned to his room and showered. With
the anger worked out of him, he began to feel depressed. Maybe, he
thought, I shouldn't have laid it on so hard on Washuu.
        I can't believe I tried to kill her.
        Kris dressed in his best Lieutenant j. g. uniform and jogged
back to Washuu's lab. Hopefully, he'd be able to apologize to Washuu,
and everything would be okay again.
        When he got to the service corridor behind the commissary, the
door was gone. Kris found a note taped to the wall;

        Kris

        I goofed. I don't goof very often.

        I'm sorry.

        I'll be around.

        Washuu

        The anger built up in him again, and Kris crumpled the note
and punched the wall. 
        The hole he left impressed the hell out of him.

        Lord F found Kris in one of the gymnasiums, punching a padded
wall repeatedly.
        WHAP! "No." WHAP! "No." WHAP! "No."
        Lord F strode up to him and asked, "Lieutenant Overstreet,
what is troubling you?"
        WHAP! "I let-" WHAP!- " this girl named Washuu-" WHAP- "talk
me into being-" WHAP- "her Guinea pig." Rubbing his fist, he explained
the whole situation, from when they met to when he punched the hole in
the bulkhead.
        "And now you attempt to repeat the feat, eh?" Lord F asked.
        Kris nodded. "She screwed me over, and I overreacted. But
usually, my reactions don't produce holes in bulkheads."
        I'd call a murder attempt overreacting, Lord F thought to
himself. Out loud he said, "Well, I suggest you take a short leave
before you report to your assignment. Have you made a decision yet?"
        "Not yet," Kris replied.
        "Please do," Lord F said. "You're too good an officer to
waste." And too disruptive a person to keep on this station, he
thought.
        "I'll let you know, sire," Kris replied, and resumed punching
the gym wall. 
        What is it about some people, Lord F thought as he swept out,
that makes them so edgy?

        10) We'll be in and out of there without a hitch. 
                        --John Erlichman

        After considering about a dozen options, Kris finally
requested assignment to the Wayward Son's small fixed- configuration
starfighter contingent, and a couple of months later he reported to
Gryphon along with a shipment of Rapiers and support equipment. The
reception, although welcoming, was somewhat cool- at least until the
first battle in which the Rapiers- and Kris- were tested.
        Throughout the battle, Kris stuck by his wingleader like glue,
keeping him covered while he worked. He said nothing except to
acknowledge orders and kept his fire to the absolute minimum required
for the task. His ship came back almost untouched, and he himself came
back with a certain reputation wiped clean.
        After that, although not one of the SDF-17's "in crowd", Kris,
or Redneck, or Red, was no longer That Idiot. Now and again, he would
pop up in various places, organizing a literary journal one time,
founding a short-lived wind band another time, and breaking records on
certain classic arcade games many times. Most of the time, though,
Kris blended in and became one of the crowd, except on those fairly
rare occasions when the Wayward Son actually did anything.
        Of course Kris had his problems. For example, Ship's Stores
grumbled at the number of mattresses (and occasionally bedframes) he'd
ruin by punching or kicking holes through them in his sleep. He'd
occasionally break joysticks in the arcade (to many people's intense
annoyment), and on one notable occasion he'd had to request a tow-in
from a practice session in his old Y-wing because he'd crushed the
controls during a particular close call with an asteroid. Of course,
he could never do thing like that on command; only when it was
inconvenient, and usually when he was stressing or excited.
        There was also the little problem of his regeneration. Paper
cuts vanished after the briefest flash of pain, his wisdom teeth and
appendix had vanished, and his hair, which by the end of his academy
time had almost vanished, had made a full copper-blonde comeback.
Unfortunately, it did little for bruises and mild stiffness after a
workout or long sessions seated at a computer or in a starfighter. Oh,
well.
        Also, certain engineers claimed, on certain occasions when
he'd skip a meal to keep working on a project, the lights and terminal
in his room would begin drawing multiples of their normal energy
usage. Kris always told them they were mistaken, but every once in a
while, when something broke in his hands or the lights surged as he
passed by, he would stare at the ceiling and shout;
        "WASHUU!!!!"

        2002, the Salusal system. Two planets, Salusia and Zardon,
locked in centuries-long interplanetary war. One planet lush with
life, jungles and grasslands and lakes and oceans; the other, poisoned
since time immemorial, a wasteland with gigantic walled cities in a
few isolated points. Above Salusia orbited the gigantic
super-dimensional fortress, SDF-17 Wayward Son, boarding new crewmen
and providing shore leave to the old... and, in a couple of cases,
recieving bad news.
        Major Perry Adzjanal dropped a stack of hardcopy photos onto
Zoner's desk with a grunt. "There's the best we have. It looks like
the Zardons are building an enormous planet-based mass driver,
possibly big enough to toss shot at Salusia itself. Unfortunately, we
can't tell for certain how close it is to completion, and we can't get
any of our usual operatives close enough to examine it."
        Gryphon slumped onto the desk and said, "Just after Kei and
Yuri go out on a mission, too. Perfect fucking timing."
        Zoner thought for a moment, then said, "Well, WWWA says all
its field agents are already out on assignment, but let me see who we
have left here..." Keying in a short search sequence in his personal 
terminal, he scrolled through the short list of names it produced.
After a moment, he eliminated those on the list who were on assignment
with WWWA, and the list became slightly shorter.
        "Well, there's me, or you, Ben," Zoner said, pointing
at Gryphon, "and about five other candidates." He showed the list to
Gryphon and had him look them over. 
        "Well, I wouldn't mind going myself," Gryphon said, "except
someone has to make sure you stay right here while Yuri's gone." Zoner
smiled at that. After a moment, he fingered one name. "Redneck? I
didn't expect his name to come up."
        Zoner called up the records on Redneck. "Well, it seems he
qualified well enough at the Academy... no proof he's any good in the
field, but..." 
        "From what I've seen of him, he has a talent for not being
noticed," Perry said. Indeed, despite many efforts, Redneck was a
nonentity most of the time, becoming noticable only when he played up
his redneck personality or when he was flying a starfighter. He'd gone
from uniforms to jeans and T-shirts most of the time, gone from
military posture to a generic half-slouch, and had actually begun to
pick up some Wedge slang, mixed in with his native accent. Most of the
time, he just seemed to fade into any group bigger than four.
        Gryphon looked at Zoner, then at Perry, then at Zoner. Zoner
shrugged and waved an open hand at the intercom panel. Gryphon hit the
intercom. "Redneck, report to Zoner's office," he said quietly.
        A few minutes later, Redneck walked into Zoner's office.
"Y'all wanted ta see me?" he drawled.
        Zoner explained the situation quickly, and described what the
mission requirements would be. "Basically, we need you to sneak in,
evaluate the situation, and sneak out. We need information, not 
heroics, got it?"
        "Got a grip on dat," Redneck said quietly. "How do y'all
propose ta get me in an' out?"
        "We have a small stealth shuttle you can use to get close to
the site," Gryphon said. "Drop in, scope the scene, punch out. That
simple."
        "One more thing," Zoner said. "At the risk of being
redundant... don't get caught. Just don't. Okay?"
        "I'll do my best," Redneck replied. "Lemme get some stuff
together, and I'll be ready to go in, say, ten hours?" Mentally, he
was organizing a list of things to do... arrange for physical
alteration to appear Zardon, gather a couple of holdout blasters, a
few concealable mayhem makers, lockpicks, software hacks... lotsa
stuff.
        "Let's just make it tomorrow," Zoner said. "If possible, the
whole op should come off in under a day. Longer than that, and..."
        "Sounds fine ta me," Redneck said, and came to an exaggerated
attention and saluted the officers. "May I be dismissed, suh?" he
intoned in an exaggerated Virginian accent.
        "Oh, get on, you Redneck," Zoner said.  He managed to stifle
the grin until Redneck had turned his back, and then looked at the
rolling eyes of Perry and Gryphon. "I just hope you're right about
him," Zoner said, sobering slightly.
        Gryphon, unusually, said nothing. His eyes, however, glinted
as he considered the possibilities...

        Zardon is almost, but not quite, a dead world. Virtually the
entire sapient population lives in a handful of giant, sky-busting
Mega Cities, with all the rest of what remains of Zardon's ecosphere
exiled to the planetwide wastes known as the Cursed Earth. Those few
exiles who scraped a miserable living in the Cursed Earth had to
contend with various outlaw bands, a handful of extremely nasty
carnivores, and the occasional bit of abuse from the Imperial troops.
        Roughly an hour's walk away from Mega City One, under the
cover of night, a small ship quietly landed on the desert floor,
having sucessfully evaded all radar, lidar, subetha, visual and patrol
detection. As the ship settled into camouflage mode, a small hatch
opened and disgorged a green-haired, green-bearded Zardon in a plain
coverall, carrying a largish knapsack with the legend MAYHEM on the
side. The Zardon pushed a panel on the hull, noted the general terrain
around the landing site, and quietly began walking towards the lights
of the mega-city. 
        Get in.
        Get the information.
        Get out.
        Don't get caught.
        No problem, Kris thought.

         Six hours later, Kris sat, disgusted, dissatisfied and
disarmed, in a prison cell inside the military base he'd infiltrated.
His boots were gone, his coveralls replaced by a prison uniform. His
guns, grenades, bombs, lockpicks, slashtaps, and other neat toys were
all in the armory awaiting the inspection of the base commander. In
short, he was quite thouroughly helpless.
        For a few industrious minutes, Kris sulked in the cell. No
problem, you said. Didn't count on the army guys already being on
alert, did you? Didn't check up on the Resistance, did you? Stupid, he
thought, slamming a fist into the concrete floor.
        Now I'm trapped in this stupid cell on an alien planet about
to wish I was dead because I was STUPID, STUPID, STUPID...
        Kris stopped his fist, noticing the large hole he'd punched
into the concrete. HMMMM....
        Kris examined the cell carefully. The concrete appeared too
well reinforced to break, but the front of the cell consisted of
nothing more than steel bars. If he could bend or break one of
those...
        Kris picked a likely bar, raised a fist, took a DEEP breath
and concentrated, and slammed the bar.
        CLANG.
        "YEOWWWWWWW!" That... was... dumb.
        "HEY!" a faint voice called from outside the cell block.
"Quiet in there! Don't make me come in there and hurt you!"
        Come in... and hurt me... Hmm...
        What the hell, he might actually try it...
        CLANG. CLANG. CLANG.
        "HEY!" the voice said louder, and the security door at the end
of the cell block opened. A lone Zardon guard entered the cell block
and said, "I told you to be quiet!"
        "Come and make me!" Kris shouted back.
        "Alright, buster, you asked for it!" the guard replied, and
fished out the key to Kris' cell. Opening the door, he cracked his
knuckles and smiled. "Time to have some fun!"
        "It sure is," Kris said, as he caught the guard's first punch
and threw the guard into the concrete wall. Before the guard could
stand, Kris began kicking and pummelling the prone Zardon. Finally,
Kris dragged the guard to his feet and slammed him into the metal
bars. CLONG.
        "Thanks for the workout," Kris said as he cautiously stepped
out the door.  Amazingly, no alarms had gone off. He'd assumed there
were cameras, or sensors, or something, but apparently no one was 
looking. If he moved fast, he might actually get out in one piece. 
        Then he saw the guard's rifle. He'd set it by the cell door.
He couldn't have been THAT dumb... Kris considered who was on which
side of the bars, and thought, Oh yes he could. Grabbing the rifle, he 
took two running steps before he thought,  Maybe I should do
something about footwear. A few seconds' work with the guard provided
a set of too-large boots which Kris stuck his feet into and trotted
for the door.
        Incredibly, no one waited for Kris outside. Both security
doors were wide open, and where the security monitors should have been
hung stubby ends of wires. Apparently the prison was still under
construction; all the better.  Miracles happen, Kris thought quietly
as he checked the small security map on the guard's desk and located
the armory.
        Halfway to the armory, Kris heard the sirens wail.  Picking up
his pace, he began firing the blaster at random, watching as
gratifying bolts of electric death sprayed ahead of him. As he rounded
the final corner, Kris was greeted by six Zardon guards in blast armor
and helmets. Not the White Guards, but bad enough. 
        Kris quickly lowered his blaster and said, "Thank Zard you're
here! The Resistance is attacking! Save me!"
        The guards, poised to fire, stared blankly at their prisoner.
They'd expected him to shoot, not to ask for help.
        Kris's eyes widened, and he pointed behind the guards. "Oh,
no! They're behind you!!" As the guards turned in unison to look, Kris
set his blaster rifle to automatic and held down the trigger.
        A few seconds later, the rifle stopped firing. Kris opened his
eyes to see six thouroughly toasty guards sprawling on the prison
floor. Pulling the trigger of his rifle no longer did any good; the
power pack was dead. Great, he thought, as he grabbed one of the dead
guards' rifles and looked for the door to the armory. After a few
seconds, he located the security switch and keyed the door open.
Inside, beneath a rack of blast armor, lay his duffel, apparently
untouched.
        The sirens wailed as Kris considered carrying the bag or
destroying it. The equipment inside might be useful, but once outside
the compound it would attract attention and slow him down. So much for
that. After a second, he shouted over the cacophany, "RHO! ALPHA! TAU!
FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!"
        A faint voice inside the armory said, "Self- detonation in
thirty seconds." Kris turned and ran, imagining in his mind five
thermal detonators in the duffel cycling t