======================================== 
Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Orion 
A pretty original fanfic by LeVar Bouyer 
Episode #101: Enter Hero[ine] 
Reel 1 
======================================== 
 
  
	BRRRRIIIIIIINNNNNNGGGG! 

	In a darkened room, slowly and stealthily, a hand reached out from
under the covers and slapped the pestilent alarm.  Suddenly, the head of the
owner of the hand popped out from its warm cocoon.  A smile creased her
face, at both the love of the 31st century for such archaic devices, and one
other thing which never ceased to please her.

	"Right on time," said the contralto.  Jennifer Allison Sakachi, age
seventeen, rolled leisurely out of bed, flipping on the light in a
long-practiced motion.  The house's Simulated Intelligence unit responded to
the action as it had for years, automatically turning on the shower,
activating the radio to Crystal Tokyo's most popular oldies radio station,
and displaying the morning's weather report.  She blinked as Soundgarden
began to blare from the hidden speakers.  "Didn't know they were going to
play *classical*."

	In keeping with tradition, Jen cursed the SI and wished that her
parents had sprung for a more sophisticated one, one that would have noted
her awakening and done most of these tasks before she even got out of bed,
and that would have waited until *after* she got her glasses on to show the
weather.  She fumbled with items atop the night stand for a moment, and
finally retrieved her glasses.  She would just have to pick up the
knocked-over papers later.

	"Hm, let's see.  'Twenty-four centigrade, light winds eight to ten
kilometers per hour, thirty percent humidity, mostly sunny skies, less than
five percent chance of rain.'" She sighed, and walked over to the window,
looking out at the dawn as it dazzlingly broke over the rooftops of what was
considered by most observers, impartial or not, the greatest city in the
world.  The light glinting off the myriad crystal buildings was
indescribable.  "Another beautiful CT day," she said, echoing the sentiments
of so many citizens.

	"God, you could get bored of this," she added, a comment which
definitely wasn't shared by most people.

	Chastising herself for being introspective when she should be
preparing for school, she removed the hair clips from the red mane which
crowned her head and went into the tiny cubicle optimistically called a
bathroom.  Simultaneously, she cursed their far-too-small home and wished
that they were further up in the queue for better housing.

	A few minutes later, she had wrapped a towel around herself and was
rummaging through her closet for a uniform.  After some struggles with
obstinate evening wear, she produced the red, white, and blue sailor fuku
that was required for her school.  Her mother called from outside the room
while Jen still struggled with the blouse.

	"Jen!  Hurry up, you don't want to be late!" 

	"Mom, when was the last time I was late to school?"  A satisfactory
silence followed.  Jen's punctuality was famous.  "That's what I thought!"
She finished pulling on her shoes and padded out to the kitchen, where in a
minor miracle, the SI had prepared her some toast and tea.  "Mom," she asked
the woman sitting at the table with head in hands, "when are you going to
get that new SI?"

	"When we get the money." 

	That's a common enough response, Jen thought as she sat down and
started eating.  "Great.  I take it that means after I'm off in college, eh? 
Oh, I forgot.  I'm going to need a ride for tomorrow, 'cause-"

	"-the Exam's going to be until eighteen and you don't want to walk
in the dark?" finished her father, as he groggily entered the room,
desperate for caffiene.

	She grinned.  "Something like that." 

	"Consider it done.  If you pass we might even buy you a car." He
chuckled.

	"Dad, if I pass I'm not going to *need* a car to go to Mizuno High."

	"True enough.  Though it would be nice to have joyrides down at the
School." It was a joke, of course; cars weren't allowed at the School.  Too
much of a chance of the valuable students being hurt.

	"Isao!  Don't make her nervous!" 

	"Mom!  I'm not nervous, and I'm not going to be.  I'll just grab my
books and be off to school.  See ya!" The door slammed behind her.

	"She's nervous." 

	"Without a doubt." 
 
*** 
 
	"Hi, Jen-chan!" 

	"Bonjour, Kanomi!" replied Jen in flawless French.

	"Show off." 

	"Bite me." 

	And thus another ritual began as Jen and her best friend joined up a
few blocks from Mizuno District High School, to walk the last bit together.

	"Jen-chan, did you figure out that last calc problem?" 

	"What, the parabolic problem?"	 

	"Yes." 

	She made a face.  "No way!  I just gave up on it." 

	"Jen-chan!  How could you do that!  That was our final review before
the Exam!"

	"The college entrance exam?" she asked innocently. 

	"What?  Honestly," she said with a sigh, "sometimes I don't know
whether you're joking or serious.  You'd better know that the Exam's a heck
of a lot more important than some crummy old *college* entrance exam!
Honestly, Jen-chan, do you think that it's going to be one big history
question?"

	'I can hope,' Jen thought.  "No, but it's not going to be all
integrals, either, will it Kanomi-chan?"

	"Touche," said Kanomi.  They stopped at a traffic light and waited
for the signal.  "Do you think you'll pass?"

	"No." 

	"Good," she said, greatly relieved.  "I mean, knowing someone who
passed the Exam would be--OW!"

	This last followed her being run into by a dark-haired boy who  had
been racing around the corner.

	"Hey, why didn't you look where you were going?  And why the hell
are you looking up my skirt, pervert?"

	"Sorry, sorry, don't hurt me!" 

	"Umino-san?" 

	"In the flesh," said Kanomi disappointedly.  Umino was famous at
Mizuno for his nerdiness.  In fact, he was rumored to go weeks without
bathing, in favor of playing with WorldNet and writing fanfics for obscure
anime, which usually involved extremely scantily clad women.  

	Jen, ever the history buff, insisted that he had some connection to
the Senshi's past, and claimed that his genealogy would be her thesis
project.  This invariably got laughs from others.  Then again, quite a few
things she did got her laughs, and not always on purpose.

	"Why are you in such a hurry?" 

	"Last minute cramming!  The Exam's in an hour!" 

	"What?" 

	"Well, it wouldn't do to fail it, and..." 

	Kanomi and Jen both began getting red in the face.  Jen spoke. 
"Umino-san, you realize that no male has ever taken the Exam, for obvious
reasons?  And that in any case the Exam's *tommorrow*?"

	He got up and began scratching his head.  "Well . . ." 

	"You idiot!  You were just hoping to get some looks at some girls! 
Pervert!"

	"Look, I can explain!"  But he said it to the empty air, as the two
girls continued on their way to Mizuno.

	"What a jerk." 

	"Really!" 

	And with that, they walked into the school five minutes before the
bell.
 
*** 
 
	The voice droned on.  Jen sighed; this was one of her better
teachers, but even his jokes couldn't really take the edge off of her
boredom.

	"Now class, in the final twenty-four hours before the Exam I'd like
you not to think about it, or school.  There's no homework, except to have
fun.  I do *not* want to see you reading or thinking seriously.  Watch
three-vee, go play senshi-and-generals." This got a few laughs from her
class as he suggested that they play one of those popular childhood games. 
Even Jen smiled; she had always been an automatic choice for Sailor Mercury,
despite her red hair.  It was too bad that Kanomi was always Queen Beryl.

	 "Or go take a tour of the Palace, but do *not* attempt to think. 
You've got the most important examination in the world tomorrow, and I don't
want you tensed up for it.  Okay?  Good.  Dismissed!"

	Jen and Kanomi walked out of the punctuated History class.  "You
know," said Jen, "I could get used to getting out of class early."

	"Yeah.  Shame it takes the Exam to do it." 

	"What's the Exam?"  This last was said by a small girl who they
hadn't even noticed was following them; turning around, they saw that she
was about ten.  Pink hair, red eyes, ridiculous odango only two people in
the world should have . . . and a strange shimmering around her, much like
the waves over hot pavement one can occasionally see.  She carried with her
a veritable aura of indefinability and capriciousness.  It could be said, as
stated elsewhere, and in reference to a different person, that she was the
living avatar of quantum theory.

	"What are you doing here?" asked Kanomi. 

	"Looking for Mom," she replied in a tone that brooked no further
discussion of the matter, despite her age.  "What's the Exam?"

	Jen tried to ignore the alarm bells going off in her head.  Looking
for her mother, pink hair, pink hair, something extraordinary had happened
to the twentieth century senshi involving pink hair, but her brain wasn't
organized enough to remember it.  Just like so much of her life....

	"Well," said Kanomi, "here's the short version."  By unspoken
consensus, they began walking towards the cafeteria for an early lunch. 
"The Exam-"

	"Crystal Tokyo Scholastic Aptitude and Senshi Evaluation
Examination."

	"-Yeah, that, well, it's a super-hard test.  Compared to it, the
juken's a ten question true/false quiz.  Nearly ten hours of extremely tough
questions, on any subject the writers feel like."

	"Yep," continued Jen.  They sat at a table.  "Less than one percent
of high school students managed to pass.  The rub is that the thing's
designed to fail almost all the takers.  Those who somehow manage to pass it
are then admitted to the School-"

	"-The Tsukino State College-" 

	"Where you're basically taught how to be a senshi.  Hey," she said,
turning to look at the pink-haired visitor more closely, "why am I telling
you this?  You should know it already!" A light bulb went off in her head. 
"Are you . . . Chibi-Usa?  The Queen's daughter?"

	"Jen-chan, get a grip!  Her Highness is probably sixteen by now! 
And what would she be doing here?  And if that weren't enough, the Princess
usually has odango!"
 
	Jen mumbled an apology, while mentally swearing that the girl *had*
to have something to do with the inner senshi.  "Anyway," she continued,
"once you get to the School, they teach you all the essentials of being a
senshi, and then, at graduation, you get your henshin rod." She paused. 
Once, as a little girl, she had seen a graduation ceremony in person, seen
those four lucky women transform for the first time.  "It's wild."

	"Yeah.  And even if you don't want to be a senshi, passing the Exam
is so hard that a lot of colleges will pay you to go to their school.  It's
better than a free ride!"

	"I see," said the pink-haired girl in a tone that definitely didn't
belong to a ten-year-old girl.  It was, like so much about her, difficult to
pin down.  "Well, I'll be going, now."

	"What?" asked Jen.  "You just got here!  What about your mother?" 

	The girl looked across the room.  "I think that I've found her," she
said distractedly.  "Good bye."

	The pair watched her walk off. 

	"That was weird." 

	"Really." 

	A pause, while they fought deja vu. 

	"Kanomi-chan, I swear it's Princess Usagi!  Like . . . like in the
past!  Remember Modern Japanese History!  How Small Lady was sent back to
help the senshi then!"

	"Jen-chan!  No-one remembers anything about MJH except you!" 

	"Yeah, well those that forget the past are doomed to repeat it!" 

	"Oh, well it's a good thing for an ignorant man to read a book of
quotes!"

	"And just where did you find that gem?" 

	"Err, a book of quotes." 

	"Ha!" 

	"ARRGGGHH!"
 
*** 
 
	"Well, Jen, are you ready?  Sure you don't want some last minute
studying?"

	It was 21:43 Japan Standard.  "Mom . . . quite honestly, if I don't
know it now, I'm not going to.  And just what type of studying were you
thinking of?"

	"Well," her mother said as they sat in the den watching the latest
anime (Sailor Moon SRSSR), "it's not all book learning.  I remember *my*
senshi exam-"

	"Oh, like they had senshi exams then!" 

	"Come now, I'm not as old as you think.  Anyway, my graduating class
was one of the first to take it, right after the Black Moon Invasion, you
know."

	"Yeah.  Serenity's paranoid phase." 

	"Jen!  After all she's done for the world!" 

	"Mom, she's the queen, not God!  A historian's job is to record and
interpret, and here's *my* interpretation.  Setting up a jury-rigged system
to raise a sailor senshi militia as a knee-jerk response to an attack sounds
pretty paranoid to me!"

	"Well . . ." 

	"I wrote two essays on it, Mom.  Would you like to see them, or are
you just going to bring back the divine rights of kings and queens?"

	Her mother sighed.  "Anyway, we were one of the first, and I
remember that there were a lot of questions that didn't cover anything we
learned in school.  Stuff like, um, 'You find a purse on the floor of a
crowded mall.  What do you do?' And they wanted pages of response,
explaining what you'd do and why.  Mind boggling."

	"Well gee Mom, that's part of the point.  I wrote an essay on that
too." Her mother groaned.  "Oh, come on, it's not that bad.  Anyway, it has
to be that way.  Turning an ordinary person into a full blown Sailor Senshi
is exorbitantly expensive from a energy standpoint.  Even with the
ginzuishou, it's got to take a lot out of Serenity-sama," she said,
pointedly adding the last honorific at her mother.  

	There were those who saw the head of state as a roadblock to true
democracy, those who saw her as a figurehead, and those who saw her as the
Messiah.  Her mother definitely fell into the latter category, and Jen had
to admit that that camp had a bit of evidence to support its claims, despite
her own opinions on the subject.

	"I suppose that's true, though . . . no."  But it was too late. 

	"Come on, I know that tone of voice.  That's the 'oh I want to say
something but it will offend our Fearless Leader' voice."

	"Well, I was just thinking that some of the original senshi aren't
worth the energy it takes for *them!*"

	"Well, that's another matter, and you know it.  And I'd be careful
about that; they don't take criticism very well."

	"Oh, what happened to the high and mighty historian part?"  But Jen
had a point.  The senshi had historically reacted in rash manners when
criticism was directed at them.  Neo-Queen Serenity seemed to be a bit more
mellow, however.  And in any case, her mother's comment was out of line. 
The inner and outer senshi had been born senshi, and the cost for them had
been paid by the universe as a whole, to be paid back upon death.  Or at
least, that was the main theory most historians held to.  For their part,
the planet senshi refused to speculate publically.

	"Anyway," her mother continued, "we've missed half the episode
while you've pontificated." They turned their attention back to the screen,
where Sailor Moon and a couple others were fighting the monster of the week.

	"Mom?" 

	"Yes?" 

	"Ever think how unhappy it must be to be a senshi?" 

	"Huh?" 

	"No, really!  Look at that," she said, pointing at the screen, where
the monster of the week was getting trashed.  "Look at what you have to deal
with!  And that's only if you manage to stay on earth!  If they ship you off
to captain your own starship, then-"

	"You're in complete command of hundreds of people, and God of your
own domain," finished her father, who had a habit of popping in at
interesting moments.  "Better than building them, I might say."

	"Yeah, sure Dad," Jen said playfully.  Her father was a section
director at the Pleiades project.  Therefore, he got to order his underlings
around from Earth while they labored in orbit.  Pleiades was the Royal Star
Navy's newest ship, being built under mysterious circumstances only a few
understood.  While it usually took nearly ten years to grow the
macromonocrystals that the RSN's ships were made up of, they were racing to
get Pleiades finished in two years.  There were rumors of trouble at the
Kingdom's outer colonies, but nothing to worry them, in the cradle of
Crystal Tokyo.

	"You know dear," he said, turning to his wife, "I just might have
to go up to H.M.S. Pleiades next week; some kind of inspection.  So if you
want to stay with your sister in Hokkaido, I'd understand. . . . "

	"You mean a vacation!" exclaimed Jen.  "Great!  I'll start packing!"
And with that, she almost flew up the stairs to her room.

	"Isao?" 

	"Yes?" 

	"Why?" 

	"Why not." 

	"Indeed." 
 
*** 
 
	After realizing that immediate departure wasn't near, Jen decided
to get ready for bed.  As she lay down, and the SI asked her the same
questions it had asked before she fell asleep every night, she thought two
things, and vocalized both of them.

	"Alarm at 05:28, temperature 23 C." 

	The SI acknowledged the order. 

	"It's great to have a normal life." 
 

================================
Episode #102: Standardized Tests
Reel 1
================================


	"Okay, students, you may now open the seals and begin."

	It was Exam day.  Jen took her pencil and used it to break the red
string wrapping the Test.  "'And lo, the seventh seal was opened,'" she
muttered to herself.  Then she decided that references to the Apocalypse
wouldn't exactly help her optimism for taking the Exam.

	Turning the page, she looked at the first question.

	Section I: (recommended time: 45 minutes)

	1.  The current senshi in command of Her Majesty's Armed Forces is? 
		(A) Venus 
		(B) Mars 
		(C) Mercury 
		(D) Jupiter 
		(E) Saturn

	Well, she thought, this'll be easy.  She bubbled in the correct
answer and moved on.

	The next question said:

	2.  Crystal Tokyo was founded in?
		(A) 2001
		(B) 2432
		(C) 3031
		(D) 1023
		(E) 1066

	'Oh no!' she thought.  'None of them are even close to being right!'
Jen fought down her rising panic.  The actual date was 2197; she knew it
better than her own birthday.  But none of the dates given was even close. 
3031 was in three years, for crying out loud!  1023 was close to the Silver
Millennium era, but not close enough to make it a trick answer.  The same
went for 1066.  2001 was too early, so that left 2432, which was a good two
hundred years after Serenity began building the Crystal Palace which
dominated the city.  Despairing, she moved on to the next question, which
wasn't even multiple choice.  She'd have to guess on the previous one.

	3.  Find the indefinite integral of the function f of x equals sine
cubed of x dx.

	She was still puzzled, but she at least had an idea on this one. 
She did some scratch work and computed the answer.

	4.  In the event that Neo-Queen Serenity dies or is otherwise
incapacitated, who is to take immediate charge, and what is that person's
first action to be?

	Fairly easy; as Princess Usagi was not yet of age, King Endymion
was currently next in line.  What was he to do?  She had no idea.  His
connection to Serenity's crystal was nonexistent; it was unlikely that he
could do anything with it.  Protect the Princess?  That was the senshi's
job.  Declare a state of emergency?  No, that would cause almost total
panic, if it wasn't already extant.  Contact Sailor Pluto?  She would almost
certainly know what to do.  Probably send Chibi-Usa back to the past, like-

	-Like during the Black Moon crisis!  And why had she gone back?  To
summon the assistance of the senshi of that time!  The answer was to make
immediate preparations to bring the twentieth century senshi to the
thirty-first so that they could somehow revive Serenity!  She hurriedly
scribbled down the answer.
	
	5.  Analyze and discuss the reasons for Chibi-Usa's second recorded
voyage to the past.

	She had, just for fun, read a book on that very topic.  A good
thing, too; historical records of that time period were extremely sketchy,
even more so than for any others of the Senshi's 20th century exploits. 
History classes generally gave very cursory information on the period, and
it was left out of many Exam review books.  It had been dry reading, and she
disagreed with the author's conclusions, but at least she had a base.  After
a half hour, she had completed the question in classic five-paragraph essay
form.  A good seven minutes for the last question in Section I, and then on
to II.

	6.  "Sailor Moon's barbaric policy of youma xenocide in the late
twentieth century left a black mark on human history and delayed the race's
social progress by hundreds of years." Justify the preceding statement.

	"Wow," she whispered.  She'd read about these kinds of questions
before, the genre of "List some of Hitler's major accomplishments," but
never seriously answered them.  Basically, it analyzed the writer's ability
to contradict and overcome her built-in bias and inclination to canon
thought.  She hadn't expected to see one until graduate school, however. And
she certainly hadn't expected it to be on the Exam.  Bad-mouthing the very
ones whose boots you were, in theory, supposed to be licking at this point? 
But the question was painfully unambiguous.  She sighed and began composing
a thesis statement to start her off.  This would be a fun seven minutes.

***

	"Time."

	Jen sighed with relief, and very nearly collapsed with the effort. 
She closed the cover on section XXXVII.

	"Please put your pencils down, do not do any more work on the 
test . . . " As the proctor droned on, Jen stretched her limbs, finding her
body as exhausted as her mind.

	The exam had been even worse than she'd expected.  No-one had been
allowed to leave the room, either for the bathroom, or to stretch, or due to
cardiac arrest.  She wished that she could have gotten out of the exam by
being sent to fight a youma or something.  Scholarships by gladiatorial
combat was sounding like a good idea.

	After all the materials had been collected, she made her way
outside, where Kanomi was waiting with a mock look of exuberance.

	"Hi, Jen!"

	"Hi."

	"I bombed.  And you?"

	"Ditto."  Mere words could not express her depression at that point. 
Then again, it was at that moment being shared by all the others who had
decided that they, too, had failed utterly and miserably.

	"Great.  Oh, there's my dad.  See ya!"

	"Bye."

	And Jen was thus left alone with her thoughts in the dark of the
plaza of Mizuno District High School.

***

	Ryoko Osaka was a direct descendant of Naru Osaka.  She didn't know
that, however.  What she did know was that she was the only human in the
building she worked in: 3-R.  3-R was where all the test booklets from the
Examination went, and it was her job to file them.  The AIs did the hard
work, and was it ever hard.

	They did what it used to take graders nearly a year to do: grade
hundreds of thousands of tests.  It sounds easy, and would be if one were
speaking of the old-fashioned standardized tests that students in the 20th
were familiar with.  But these went beyond that.  There were qualitative as
well as quantitative answers.  Essays, short-answers, picking up that
unknown something from scrawls on a paper--from the books alone, the graders
had to sort out and filter the wheat from the chaff, and come up with those
worthy to be in the School.  The task was difficult enough to give a grader
ulcers.

	If he were human.  The graders weren't.

	Three independent artificial intelligences worked around the clock,
using the most powerful processing power on Earth to decide who would become
the most powerful women on Earth.  Even then, it wasn't easy, and mistakes
were made; no-one had forgotten the name of Sailor Pollux.  The computers
checked and cross-checked every evaluation, making sure that the Second
Sailor Wars were not repeated.

	Ryoko picked up another Exam booklet, labeled Sakachi J 5-161-46716
ACCEPT PRIOR 3.  Looking at the label, she turned from the bin she was about
to toss it in and put it in another stack.  She shook her head.

	"The poor girl."

***

	Several weeks later, Jen walked into her house, the girl dripping
wet from a rare Crystal Tokyo rainstorm.  "Mom?"

	"Yes?"

	"Could you get a new SI?  This one doesn't know squat about weather
forecasting."

	"Yeah, sure," her mother said jokingly.  "I'll just run down to the
corner store and grab one." She walked over to turn off the vid, which was
showing the Queen at some function or another.  "Oh, the mail's on the
dining room table.  Haven't had a chance to read it."

	"Thanks!"  Jennifer walked into the room in question and rifled
through the mail, simultaneously thinking of a thesis for a paper on why
people still insisted on paper mail in the thirty-first century.  Thinking
up theses was her standard way of solving problems, and it usually worked.

	Except, she thought, on that damned exam.

	"Um, junk, bill, junk, junk, bill, Exam results, junk, junk, bill. 
Great." She dumped the whole pile on the table and started up the stairs to
her room.

	Her mother put some tea on the stove.

	Fifteen seconds later, Jen raced down the stairs again.

	"EXAM RESULTS!"

	Frantically, she tore them open and read the results.  After reading
them, she didn't know what to think.  In one way, what she had expected had
happened, and at the same time it was totally unexpected.  In one sense, she
was overjoyed, and in another she was depressed.  In one way, however, it
was rather obvious that her life was going to change.

	"Uh, Mom?"

	"Yes," came the distant voice.

	"Cancel the vacation.  I passed the exam."

	"Dear God."
 
***

	The next twenty-four hours were a blur at the Sakachi household. 
There were calls to be made, calls to be received, a constant stream of
visitors, a constant stream of congratulations.  In a country where one
nearly had a better chance of winning the lottery than of passing the Exam,
she, and the other seventy-five girls who had beaten the odds and passed,
were instant media celebrities.

	The School's officials knew this, and arrangements were made.  All
who passed had two days to get their affairs in order, and get to the
school.  Any student giving an interview or such during that two day period
got their invitation revoked.

	Very few interviews were given.

	One of the first calls came from Kanomi.

	"Jen-chan?"

	"Yes?"

	"Jen-chan!  You are . . . you're just amazing!  You actually
passed?"

	"So I hear."

	"Jen-chan, I'm so proud and happy and-"

	"Pray restrain yourself.  It's just a test."

	"Just a test?  JUST A TEST?!?  In the name of Serenity, you're going
to be a Sailor Senshi because you passed 'just a test.' Goodness, do you
realize-"

	"I realize that I'm still soaking wet, the phone's ringing off the
hook, and that I've got some decisions to make.  Sorry, but I've got to go."
She hung up.

	The phone rang.

	"Hello?"

	"Yes, Jennifer Sakachi, this is . . ."

	"No."

	Click.

	The phone rang.

	"Hello?"

	"Yes, Jennifer Sakachi, this is . . ."

	"No."

	Click.

	The phone rang.

	"WHAT DO YOU WANT?"

	"Well, I suppose that if you're going to be that way, then I'll call
someone else."

	The voice caught at something within her.  "Oh, sorry, but there
have been so many calls today . . . who is this?"

	"Sailor Venus."

	The clock ticked on.

	"Oh, um, err, that is-"

	"It's okay, believe me."  She sounded every bit like on television. 
Actually, she sounded a bit more fun, and had a bit more of that quality
that used to be called ditziness.  Most biographical texts said that she had
never been such, but the voice that Jen was hearing didn't jibe with that. 
"I've called a lot of Exam finalists, and they were a lot more harried than
you are."

	"Der . . . "

	"Well anyway, I just wanted to give you my congratulations on behalf
of the Senshi here at the Palace."

	"Uh . . . "

	"You know, the whole gang.  Mercury through Pluto.  Well, Pluto left
a note saying to give you her regards, she's off at some thing or another,
you know how it is."

	"No . . . "

	"Come on, girl, speak to me!"

	"You're Sailor Venus?"

	"The one and only."

	"Right.  Um-"

	"Look, Jen, I'd love to chat, but I've got forty-three others to
call right now.  Look me up during orientations, okay?  Thanks."

	Click.

***

	"Okay, Jen, now's the time to talk."  Jen and her family were
sitting in the living room, with all the phones set to be picked up by the
overwhelmed SI.  If they were lucky, it would keep a log of all calls so
they could call back.  Luck and the house SI, however, rarely saw eye to
eye.

	"Right," answered Jen.  She knew what this conversation was going to
be about, and was already marshaling her arguments.

	"Now Jen, you've passed the exam, and believe me, your father and I
couldn't be happier for you.  You did an absolutely stellar job."

	"Thanks."

	"But-"

	'Great,' she thought, 'here comes the but.  We're sorry, but we don't
think you're ready to go out on your own.  We don't think you can handle it. 
We don't think that you should be involved with fighting.  We think you
should stay home.'

	"-but, we'd much rather you didn't go to the School in a couple of
days."

	Jen opened her mouth to give the first counterstrike of the evening,
but never got a word out.

	"We'd much rather you go tomorrow."

	Jen's mouth stayed open, although it was made more noticeable by the
fact that no audible sound was emitted.  In fact, it stayed open for quite
awhile, during which her parents simply beamed at her.  At length, she
recovered just enough of her faculties to reply.

	"You *want* me to go?"

	Her father chuckled.  "If it's okay with you, then yes, we'd love to
have a sailor senshi for a daughter."

	"But-"

	"Jen, look around you.  Look closely."

	She obeyed her mother.  She looked at the second-hand furniture,
outdated vid screen, main console for the obstinate cheap house SI, the very
crampedness of the room itself.

	"Jen, you've always known that we weren't very well off.  I do my
best, heaven knows that your father does, but somehow or another it simply
isn't enough.  We're in this social rank, and we've gotten used to never
rising above it.

	"But you, Jen, you have the potential and the opportunity to surpass
all this.  You can be up there with Mercury and Mars, Jupiter and Venus. 
You can make us, the Queen, and all of Crystal Tokyo proud."

	Jen just continued to sit there, stunned.  There had been a tacit
agreement never to say out loud that the Sakachi family was definitely on
the low end of the Crystal Tokyo totem pole.  Her father had the job with
project Pleiades, but it was really just a glorified blue collar position
that could have easily been filled by an AI.  Her mother was another
hanger-on as a secretary.  She had been on vacation for weeks, and it was
starting to look like she was out of a job.  As for Jen, well, her grades
just weren't going to get her to a top college.

	At least, not until before the exam.  Now, she was going to go away
for at least a year, quite possibly go into space for a decade, and they
were encouraging her!  Her, their only child!

	"Yes." said her father, "we know it's strange, but we want the world
to remember the name Sakachi for something more than grunt work.  Be
somebody.  Have a life."

	They all sat for a moment.

	"Now," said her father briskly, trying to cover his emotion, "get
packed.  I want you there tomorrow to get used to the place, okay Orion?"

	"Okay."  She rose to go upstairs.  Halfway to the steps, she turned. 
"What did you call me?"

	"Oh, just a dream I've had.  You see, plans are for Sailor Orion to
take out H.M.S. Pleiades first."

	She frowned.  "But there is no Sailor Orion."

	"I hope to God that you're the first."


==============================
Episode #103: Leaving the Nest  
Reel 1  
==============================


	BRRRRIIIIIIINNNNNNGGGG!  
 
	In a darkened room, slowly and stealthily, a hand reached out from
under the covers and slapped the pestilent alarm.  Suddenly, the head of the
owner of the hand popped out from its warm cocoon.  A smile creased her
face, at both the love of the 31st century for such archaic devices, and one
other thing which had just recently begun to please her.
 
	"I'm going to be a Sailor Senshi!" said the contralto. 
 
***

 	Jennifer Sakachi looked about the room, trying to see if she had
missed anything of importance.  For the past two hours, she had been busily
packing her bags and boxes, filling them with the paraphernalia of seventeen
years of living: her favorite books, a plush bear, figurines of the senshi
that had been a staple of every young girl's toy collection, a battered
handlink to the SI, and her favorite, a copy of Sailor Pluto's _A History of
Japan, 1900-3020_.  Or rather, the index.  The entire fifty-three volume set was
already packed and on its way to the Tsukino State College, more commonly
known as the School.
 
	She paused, cradling the index in her hands.  It had been a birthday
present, an inheritance really.  The previous owner had intended to give it
to his son, but the son died of injuries suffered in the Second Sailor Wars. 
So the volumes, history of those same wars included, had been given to a
close friend, who just happened to be Jen's mother.  Her mother, in turn,
had given the whole lot to Jen on her tenth birthday.  An unusual gift for
one of her age, but she had been interested in history back then.
 
	She smiled.  They would never know, but that volume, not any latent
abilities, had turned her on to history.  Before, her interest had been a
sort of fad, and without it she probably would have moved on to something
different.  But the mysterious Pluto's dry texts fascinated ten-year-old
Jen, and made her want to find out more.  So she had.
 
	She went to the library, and got more books, more in depth, for even
fifty-three volumes wasn't enough to give a full measure of 1120 years of
history.  She read of the tumultuous twentieth century, the near-death of
Earth in the twenty-first, the pivotal events of the twenty-second, all the
way to the events still fresh in the minds of many: the Black Moon, the
coming of Chibi-Moon, and the tragedy of Castor and Pollux.
 
	By the time she had advanced to the point of packing her things to
go to the School, she had built up a knowledge of history that quite
overshadowed her peers.  She had read the gamut, from Mesopotamia to Crystal
Tokyo, focusing on the Senshi's reappearance in the late twentieth.
 
	It was all in her hands, the stories of men and women (usually
women) who had lived and died, shaping the world.  and now she was going to
be one of them.  Assuming, of course, that she made it through the School. 
Passing the Exam was in no way a free ticket to receive the fuku.
 
	Snapping herself out of her reverie, she tossed the volume on the
bed.  She'd read through it on the way to the school.  True, most people
would consider reading an index the driest of dry reading, but for her it
was different.  It was going through reminders of things she had read.  It
was, she decided, a quick review of humanity's latest millennium.
 
*** 
 
	It was mid-morning, and Jen was saying her first good-bye. 
 
	"Well, Jen-chan," said Kanomi, "I wish you the best of luck at the
school."
 
	"Thanks." 
 
	"Oh, and Jen?" 
 
	"Yes?"  They stood outside the Sakachi's modest residence, while
Jen's father and a couple of his brothers packed the last few things into
the car.  In a few minutes, it was off to the school, where she and her
parents would say good-bye, and where she would have to get her acclimated
to the most intense school on Earth.
 
	"I just-" 
 
	"Wait.  Aren't you supposed to be in school right now?" 
 
	Kanomi blushed and brushed one foot with the other.  "Um, actually,
in a manner of speaking . . . "
 
	"And you're doing this just to say good-bye?" 
 
	"Err, that is . . . " 
 
	"Kanomi-chan!  I'm touched!  Really!" 
 
	They hugged, in a moment that had the movers "aww-ing." 
 
	"Now Jen-chan, no flirting with guys on first sight, okay?" 
 
	"There aren't any guys." 
 
	"Well gee, you don't have to be so serious all of the time!  I mean,
you're the history freak, you know what happens to terminally serious
senshi!
 
	"Well, no one really knows enough about Pluto, Uranus and Neptune
are pretty good, Pollux . . . okay, I see your point."
 
	"Good!"  Kanomi was positively beaming.  "Now have fun!  Just
because you're going to be a senshi-"
 
	"Assuming I graduate." 
 
	"-assuming that you graduate, doesn't mean that you have to live the
life of a nun or something."
 
	"Fine, fine, I'll get out." 
 
	"Good.  Now get along; your parents are waiting." 
 
	"Okay."  Jen began to run over to the car.  The last words from
Kanomi that she heard were:
 
	"Don't do anyone I wouldn't do!" 
 
	Jen jumped in the car, and with little hesitation they sped off to
the remote school.  She began composing an essay on the malapropos
similarities between Venus's twentieth century persona and Kanomi's current
one.
 
	Kanomi composed no such essays.  She merely watched the car pull
off, and stood for a few minutes.  In many respects, Jen was her only
friend.  Kanomi's parents had lived on the moon for her entire life, helping
in the archaeological digs that had continued unabated for hundreds of
years.  Coming back, she had found that social cliques formed far faster on
Earth than on her closest sister.  Jen had been her only peer similarly left
out of the loop, due to her burgeoning interest in history, and the two had
become fast friends.  Kanomi had always thought that Jen had something
special, that she was destined to be something more.  She had always seen
herself as a foil to Jen somehow, serving to accentuate her superiority. 
And now she'd gone and passed the exam.

	Of all the humans on Earth, Kanomi knew her friend better than
anyone.  Kanomi knew that Jen would get her own starship, and that would be
the end of their friendship; mindcasts were the only form of communication
not subject to the light-speed barrier, and personal messages were frowned
upon.  She only hoped that Jen took care of herself.  After all, she had
learned many lessons first hand about the vacuum.
 
	It got very cold and lonely in space. 
 
*** 
 
	It was anything but cold and lonely at the School when the Sakachi
clan, three strong, pulled up to the security checkpoint.
 
	"Party?" asked the guard. 
 
	Jen blinked; the guard was a full fledged senshi, complete with
fuku.  For them to waste a precious senshi to guard duty illustrated all to
clearly what the Powers That Be thought of the assets within.  Her father
replied.
 
	"Sakachi, party of three." 
 
	"ID?"
 
	After a bit of scrabbling, the necessary cards were given to the
guard.  "Shame about these cards, isn't it?" asked the senshi.  She seemed
to hate having to swipe them through the scanner; she'd much rather be on
some sort of active duty.  "What with everything going on out at the border
and all."
 
	Jen's father muttered something noncommittal. 
 
	"Oh, well everything checks out."  She handed the cards back over to
him.  "Enjoy." She craned around to see the back seat better.  "So this is
the candidate, eh?  Good luck!"
 
	"Thanks!" 
 
	They continued around the driveway to the door of the school.  Since
they had been expected, a couple of male porters waited to carry Jen's
possessions, or at least those that she had either chosen or been allowed to
take with her, depending on importance.  A striking young woman in a
business suit also waited and spoke with the Sakachi as they stood outside
the car.
 
	"Now, the arrangements have already been made; you should have
received the documents last night, correct?" Jen nodded her confirmation. 
"Good, now if Jen-san will just come inside when she's ready, we can get the
formal registration out of the way." And with that she drew away, knowing
from experience that the final good-bye at the doors of the School was one
of those things best left unobserved by outsiders.
 
	Alone, the three stood uncertainly for awhile, not knowing with
which of a million different things to say.  So they simply looked around at
their surroundings.
 
	The School was rather nice looking, and had nothing of the citified
air about it.  In fact, it had been located hours from the Crystal Tokyo
metropolitan area for precisely that reason.  The School looked very
pastoral from the adjoining road; many passers-by mistook it for a farm, and
those who happened to draw nearer assumed that it was some sort of private
estate.
 
	Which, in a way, it was.  It was a very exclusive place; one hundred
students maximum per year, an equal number of teachers and tutors, and a
support staff of fifty.  Add to that the actual senshi who dropped in from
time to time to teach special courses, and you had a population of about
275, on the average, with a student-teacher ratio most schools could only
drool over.  Nothing but the best . . . including several tennis courts,
indoor and outdoor tracks, playing fields of all descriptions, a nearby
lake, Olympic swimming pools . . . and those were just the recreational
areas.  The actual residential and academic resources could, and did, fill
an entire book.  Suffice it to say that if students at the School wanted for
anything, it wasn't because of a lack of material.
 
	Nothing was too good for the students.  After all, they would be
entrusted with the defense of Crystal Tokyo and all of humanity against
anything and anyone.  True, the Senshi, all two hundred and ten of them,
hadn't fought a non-human foe since the Black Moon War, but the price
of peace is eternal vigilance.  And even without youmas, there was still the
human element.  The lesson of Sailor Pollux had been hard-learned, and
separatist movements within the Kingdom were always to be watched.
 
	So they stood, looking around the buildings that made up the School,
which were a curious amalgam of Classic, Romantic, Baroque, Rococo,
Neo-Classic, Modern, Abstract, and a dozen other architectural styles.  This
interested Jen; she would have thought that the builders would go for a more
predominantly Greco-Roman style, considering the mythological roots of many
senshi names.  She continued to distract herself, trying not to think about
the task that still lay before her.  Her attempts were thwarted by her
father, who had decided to bring things to a head.
 
	"Well, I guess that this is it."  Which it was: for the next year,
she would not be allowed any visitors, nor would she be allowed to leave
School grounds.  The resemblance to a military school in this department was
quite uncanny.  "I guess I'll be seeing you next at graduation."
 
	"Yeah."  They left unsaid the fact that while seventy-five would
enter the School, history dictated that over fifty percent of all students
flunked out before graduating.  Last year had been extraordinary; a failure
rate of seventy-six percent that had left a mere handful of senshi, almost
all of whom had been immediately put on active duty in the fleet.
 
	"Jennifer," said her mother, "I know that this has come up so fast
on us; seems like yesterday that you were just any other teenager.  I know
this is hard, but don't get too big of a head.  Yes, you're the best
according to the Exam, and you'll always be the best in our hearts, but it's
a big universe out there, and . . . ." She turned away, fighting a furious
battle with her tears, knowing that she would fail.  "Please, just do your
best.  You've made us . . . you've . . . it's been . . . oh god!"
 
	And the tears fell from three sets of eyes, as they embraced for the
last time as Jen Sakachi and family.  If all went well, the next time would
be as a sailor senshi sworn to defend and protect the Queen and all she
stood for.  After a few minutes, Jen finally drew away.
 
	"Well, I'll see you around?" she asked, wiping the tears away.  Her
parents nodded their assent.  "Great!" she said, showing a lot more
confidence than she felt.  "Drive home safely!" With that, she turned on her
heel and entered the School, while her mind screamed at her to turn around,
go home, and enjoy being a teen for the last time.
 
	Her parents watched her go, watched her open the door, watched her
enter, and listened to the slam as it closed automatically.  There really
wasn't anything else to do; the rest was up to Jen.  So they walked back to
the car and pulled away.  As they did, they noticed another car pulling into
the School's drive.  Apparently, another parent was going to say good-bye to
his or her girl.  Their own loss too keenly felt, they never looked back.
 
	That was probably the central reason why they never saw the other
car, with mother, father, two brothers and one of Crystal Tokyo's best hopes
for a Sailor Senshi, explode into flames that rivaled the noonday sun.


=========================
Episode #104:  First Days
Reel 1
=========================


	Not once looking back, Jennifer Sakachi entered the doors of the
Tsukino State College, commonly referred to as the School.  One of the
assistant admissions directors was waiting inside to escort Jen to the
office.

	"I bet you're excited, huh?" asked the AAD.  A large portion of her
job was to get students used to the School, and research had found that the
first few hours were the hardest.  However, her own personal research had
shown that most students were sufficiently intelligent to see right through
this.  No-one, however, had clued upper management onto this, and so she was
left to do her useless acclimation job.

	Jen peered at the woman's name tag.  Naoko Yazama.  "Well,
Yazama-san, I have to say that I'm pretty nervous.  Which you're trying to
alleviate, no doubt."

	Great, though Naoko.  Oh for the past three years on this count. 
"It *is* my job, you know."

	"And I have no doubts that you do it well."

	"My supervisor would beg to differ."

	They chuckled.  "Anyway," continued Naoko as they reached the office
door, "We just have some papers to sign, and you'll be all set.  I hope
you'll find that life here is blissfully peaceful."

	The deafening explosion outside gave lie to that statement.

	A number of things happened simultaneously.  Naoko wheeled about to
see what had happened.  Jen dove for the floor.  A fire alarm began to ring. 
The ornate windows which Naoko was turning towards shattered into millions
of tiny glass daggers.  An eerily calm voice said, "Silence Wall!"

	Then things began to happen sequentially.

	Having had enough time for events to register, Jen screamed in
terror.  She could only hope that these sorts of things weren't a common
occurrence at the School.  Otherwise, she would give some serious thought to
returning to Mizuno.  Then she looked above her, and could only gasp.

	In a similar vein, Naoko began to regret having turned around.  A
hell of a lot of glass shards were coming for her, and she knew in some
corner of her brain, that even if by some miracle she got her hands up in
time, she wouldn't have a prayer of coming out of it alive.  She closed her
eyes and waited for the worst.

	In the end, there were two things that tipped her off to the fact
that the worst wasn't coming, at least not yet.  The first was the
extraordinarily long time the worst was taking to arrive.

	The second was also the first coherent thing Jen managed to say
after the explosion.

	"SAILOR SATURN!"

	Naoko opened her eyes to see a veritable pile of glass on the floor
a few meters away.  Directly in front of it was a shimmering wall of
nothing.

	Just nothing.  A faint wavering in the air, that seemed to delineate
a border between air and air, that nevertheless had to have been solid
enough to prevent the glass from striking her.  She gulped, and finally
Jen's words got to her.  She stood and turned.

	Sailor Saturn stood before them.  Silently, the black-haired senshi
let fall her glaive.  The wall-that-wasn't-a-wall disappeared.

	"Sailor Saturn," said Naoko, bowing in a manner Jen didn't notice as
perfunctory.  "I hadn't been told to expect you."

	Jen was far more enthusiastic.  "Sailor Saturn!  Why are you here? 
Are you teaching a class?"

	Saturn merely regarded them for a moment, then spoke.  "We had
received word that an attack might come here today.  So I was sent."

	"WHAT?"  Naoko was instantly furious.  "You mean that you knew this
would happen, and not one of the administration was notified?  How dare
you-"

	"I would remind you," said Saturn in a calm tone, "that all
planetary senshi are part of the 'administration,' and that furthermore it
was Sailor Mars's prerogative that you not be informed so as not to cause a
panic."

	Naoko gestured to the shattered window, through which they could
hear sirens.  "'Not cause a panic?'  *That's* what your complacency got
you!"

	"With all due respect," said Saturn in a calm voice, "we have been
receiving threats for the past six months.  At each one, we have dispatched
a sailor senshi to insure safety.  And-"

	"Oh, fat lot of good *that* did!"

	"If you would please refrain from interrupting-"

	The two carried on, with Jen watching from the sidelines.  She got
the impression that this sort of argument went on a lot at the School. 
While its job was to produce senshi, the school was generally run and taught
by civilians.  Therefore, the civilians and senshi were often in
disagreements such as the one she saw.  Deciding to check on the explosion,
she walked over to the shattered doors and peered out.

	And promptly wished that she hadn't.

***

	Two hours later, she was still shaking.  Naoko tried to talk to her.

	"Look Jen, you've got to snap out of it.  Heaven knows that it was
bad, but-"

	"Bad?  BAD?  Kami-sama, four people were ROASTED in there!  Burned
alive!  By another human being!  And you want me to snap out of it?!?"

	Naoko's voice hardened yet again.  "Yes, I do.  And you know why? 
Because you're the finest specimen of humanity I have seen pass through the
doors in all my years here.  You have the potential to be one of the
greatest senshi ever, and I don't exaggerate lightly.

	"But with greatness comes responsibility, and a requirement to step
above the rest.  When you get your fuku, you will have to face the
possibility of dying at any moment to protect the nation.  And if you don't
die, the chances are damn good that someone you love will.  So get this
weakness out of the way *now*!"

	Jen shook herself; as a student of history, she knew intellectually
that emotional maturity was one of the things the School was supposed to
bring out in its students.  But in her heart . . . four people had died, and
while it was one thing to read about such things, it was another thing
altogether to see the burned corpses.

	"Yes . . . I guess you're right."  She swallowed, trying to return to
normalcy.  "Where are those papers?"

	"Papers?  But I thought . . . fine, here they are."

	She shoved over a pile of oddly flattened handlinks.  Jen began
signing and DNA-printing them.

	"I must confess that things weren't supposed to be like this.  We've
got seventy girls who are torn up about this, four who flat out changed
their minds about coming here to study, and the last one . . . well, we
shan't dwell on that."

	Jen looked up from the stack of forms, pausing in the middle of
signing the agreement to the student code.  "'Shan't?'"

	Naoko somehow managed a chuckle.  "Just a little thing I picked up
when I visited the Palace once." She poked at a full-fledged handlink a bit
and peered at the results, but her mind was elsewhere.  "Okay, they say that
it's okay for me to give the grand tour now.  That is, if you still want
it?"

	"Please?"

	"Very well.  Are you finished?  Ah, good, right this way."

***

	"And this is the library," said Naoko with a flourish, gesturing
towards the cavernous space they were inside.  In keeping with Jen's
theories on the love for books, the walls and a good chunk of floor space
were taken by full bookshelves.  Never mind that any computer terminal or
handlink in Crystal Tokyo could pull up any page of any of these books at
any time; people still needed the reassurance of paper and binding, of
something heavy to curl up around.

	"It's very nice," she said in reply.  "But there's one other thing
that's been bothering me."

	"Yes?"

	"Well, it's just . . . look at the size of the place!  You could fit
my house in here and have room to spare!  And the gym was even bigger!  But
from outside, the place doesn't look bigger than Mizuno High.  Why?"

	Naoko laughed; this question had bothered her when she first came
here, too.  "It's a bit of magic, I'm afraid."

	"Magic?"  Magic was still an unknown quantity in Crystal Tokyo. 
Generally, its use was limited to defense, and then only by the senshi.

	"Yes, magic.  Pocket magic, I think they call it.  You know, the
ability to pull a scepter out of nowhere?  It's an application of the same
phenomenon."

	"But . . . the energy expenses necessary to maintain a pocket this
large . . . ." From what little Jen understood of it (and make no mistake,
science was not one of her fortes), the energy required to maintain a
dimensional pocket was directly proportional to sum of the sizes of the
objects within it.  A small pocket containing, say, a henshin rod and a
handlink, which was the most that most senshi carried in their pockets,
could be maintained indefinitely on the inherent energy produced by the
Senshi.

	"The Queen takes care of it."

	"How?" asked Jen sharply.

	"Oh, she just does."  Jen filed this under the category of blind
faith in technology and decided to think about it later.  For now, they
were moving on to the residence halls.

***

	As night fell, they entered a two story brick building that
outwardly had nothing to distinguish itself, aside from a plaque beside the
door.  The yellow sign proclaimed that they were entering Blake Hall, a fact
Jen felt she could have done without.

	"This is Blake Hall," said Naoko, echoing the sign, "which is a
pretty typical example of a residence hall here. There are only two of them,
anyway; McKinley is across that tiny grassy strip we call the Little Mall."

	As they walked down the corridor, Jen saw many things that would
have looked familiar to a college student of the latter twentieth century:
message boards attached to doors, study lounges, bulletin boards announcing
activities, a small kitchen.  They stopped at room 103.

	"Marvin, please open the door."

	"Marvin?"

	The door opened.

	"Please come inside," said Naoko, gesturing.  "Marvin is the name of
the School's AI," she explained as they walked inside the room.  While the
corridor did not differ significantly from a 1990s dorm hallway, the room
bore little resemblance.

	"Wow," breathed Jen.  The room had to be twice as big as her room
back home.  The two beds were at opposite walls, with the wall facing the
door having a window and two desks, where computer terminals would
undoubtedly be plugged in.  In a corner was the door to the bathroom, and in
the other corner was a closet that, upon further inspection, turned out to
be half as large as the room itself.  In the middle was a round table, upon
which were stacked books and bags.  Similar items were on the left-hand bed.

	"The stuff on the table is your roommate's.  Name's uh . . . Ereera
or something.  Dash it . . . Marvin, what's her name?"

	A totally flat and emotionless voice answered.  "Eileen Pearcy.  Age
nineteen, nationality North American Confederation, Northeastern district, state
of Pennsylvania, of mixed German and French ancestry-"

	"That's quite enough, really Marvin."  Naoko turned apologetically
to Jen.  "He has a tendency to go off at the mouth sometimes.  Apparently
he once started reciting pi and couldn't stop.  I wasn't here then, 
but . . . oh my!  Look at the time!"

	"Time?"

	"It's evening already!  And you'll be wanting to sleep, won't you?"

	"Well, I suppose-"

	"Good.  Irene . . . Ivy . . . well, she should be here tomorrow. 
She's a special case; she's still in Pennsylvania and just sent her
belongings ahead of her.  Anyway, off to bed with you."

	And with that, Jen was left in a rather spacious room that she
apparently would have all to herself for the night.  She was still rather
surprised at the way Naoko had transformed from a bustling tour guide to an
overbearing mother, but that, as it was so often said, was life.

	She stepped into the bathroom, experimented with the shower a bit,
and went back into the main room, where she rummaged through her things. 
Looking at the clock, she saw that it was indeed rather late; in fact, she
could feel a few yawns coming on.  Too tired to unpack everything, she just
pulled out a robe and some nightclothes and re-entered the shower.

	Some minutes later found her back in the main room, inspecting the
closet.  Inside were some school uniforms that she could only assume were to
be hers; she hadn't seen any other students yet.  Pulling one out for closer
inspection, Jennifer found that they were much like her old ones.  Green
bows replaced her old red ones; a gray skirt took the place of her familiar
blue one.  As a sort of bonus, a gray vest went along with it.  "Nice work
if you can get it," she muttered.

	She sighed once again, and decided, as she pulled back the covers on
her extraordinarily comfortable bed, that she might as well get used to one
of her roommates.

	"Marvin?"

	"Yes, Miss Sakachi?"

	"How are you?"

	"I am currently within ninety-nine percent of optimum operational
standards."

	It was about the best response she could expect from a computer that
possessed sentience, yet lacked emotion.  While Marvin, who was either a he
or an it depending upon which school of thought you belonged to, could
instantly spit out the connotations and denotations of what was commonly
called "feeling fine," Marvin was incapable of truthfully saying that he was
"feeling fine."

	Of course, the whole question of whether Marvin could be truthful,
or if even the concept of truth applied to him, was another can of worms
that this narrative does not seek to open.

	She decided to respond.  "That's good, Marvin."  Having ensconced
herself upon the bed, she wriggled under the covers.  "Could you please turn
down the lights?" The room dimmed.  "Thank you."

	"Miss Sakachi?"

	"Yes?"

	"I have found that many people find it easier for me to refer to
them using more familiar names.  Would you find this acceptable?"

	"Of course, Marvin!"

	"Very well, Jen-chan."

	"Hey, I didn't say you could be *that* familiar!"

	"Will 'Jennifer-san' do?"

	"Yes, 'Jennifer-san' will do quite nicely."  She wriggled again and
turned on her side, closing her eyes.  "Good night, Marvin."

	"Good night, Jennifer-san."

***

	"Jennifer-san?  Jennifer-san?"  The neutral voice began to rise in
tone.  "Jennifer-san?  *Jennifer-san?*" There was no response.  Marvin had
decided from his records, and those in the office, that Sakachi would be
happiest if awakened at 04:00.  However, he was not having much success.

	Marvin mulled the possibilities.  Building up sufficient charge in
the nearby computer monitor to cause a spark to arc across to her would wake
her up, but probably kill her, too.  Failing that, there weren't that many
other options.  There was, however, a tiny note he had placed in his memory
ages ago, regarding the possibility of writing a new subroutine for just
such an event.  He located the note, wrote the code, ran a few billion
simulations, and decided that the new subroutine would have an eighty-three
percent chance of success.  He executed the subroutine, a full twenty
microseconds after first realizing that his earlier attempts were not
working.

	"JENNIFER-SAN!"

	"Arrggh!  I'm up!  What's the . . . oh."

	Marvin noticed this and decided that "shouting" had some definite
merits to it.

	Jen looked around at her surroundings.  "I'm here."  She thought a
bit more.  "Marvin, what time is it?"

	"04:02:43.6 Japanese Standard Time."

	"What?  Why am I up so early?"

	"Well, I thought that-"

	"You thought wrong!"  Jen was very fastidious about waking early,
but too early, and one was placed in the line of fire of her temper.  In
turn, while few ever saw Jen when she was *truly* angry, those who did
rarely forgot about it.

	"Of all the low down things!"  She veritably leaped out of the bed
and began tugging on her new uniform.  Screw the shower, she thought.  "To
wake me up a full hour before I usually do . . . ," here she paused to pull
on some shoes, " . . . in the early morning-"

	"Jennifer-san?"

	"Whattya want!?!"

	"I'm sorry.  I thought that you would like to be awake early."

	"Aw, for crying out loud . . . "

	"I have some music prepared . . . "

	It was going to be several hours until assembly.  She definitely had
time to kill.

	"Shoot."

***

	Several hours and five Mahler symphonies later, Jen was in Assembly
Hall with her fellow classmates.  In all, eight had dropped out after the
bombing, for which several terrorist groups were crawling out of the
woodwork to claim responsibility for.  After subtracting the poor girl who
had been the target and victim of the bombing, there were sixty-six students
left in the class of 3029, or as they called themselves, "the Most
Abbreviated Class for the Most Abbreviated Fuku."  After all, how many
freshmen went into school knowing that they would graduate in just a year?

	Assembly Hall wasn't very big, actually.  It held, at most, four
hundred people, which was quite a bit more than the total complement of
teachers, staff, and students who had gathered to hear the annual address
from the Palace.  This year's representatives were Sailors Mars and Mercury,
and the two sat to the right of the assistant principal, Rumiko Takahashi,
who was giving the usual introductions at the podium.  Technically, the real
principal was Serenity herself, but she had too many other things to do, and
so the day-to-day operations fell to Takahashi.

	Serenity only showed up for graduation.

	"And now," concluded Takahashi, "I present you with Sailor Mars for
our first welcome speech."

	Sailor Mars strode to the podium, looking scarcely five years older
than she had been in the closing years of the twentieth century.  Her eyes,
though, told the full story: that rather than being about twenty-one, she
was far closer to 1047 years old.  Around 2030 years, if you included the
intervening years between the silver millennium.

	Then again, it's never a good idea to ask a lady her age.

	"Students," she began, "I come before you as a Sailor Senshi and, though 
you don't know it yet, as your worst nightmare."


==================================
Episode #105:  Meeting New Friends
Reel 1
==================================

	Sailor Mars strode to the podium, looking scarcely five years older
than she had been in the closing years of the twentieth century.  Her eyes,
though, told the full story: that rather than being about twenty-one, she
was far closer to 1047 years old.  Around 2030 years, if you included the
intervening years between the silver millennium.

	Then again, it's never a good idea to ask a lady her age.

	"Students," she began, "I come before you as a Sailor Senshi and,
though you don't know it yet, as your worst nightmare."

	A couple of nervous giggles ran through the group of students, who
had been thrust right in front of the podium.

	"You see, you are all here to become Senshi.  And I would like you
to know just how great a responsibility that is.  By embarking on this
mission, you swear to do whatever is necessary to protect Neo-Queen
Serenity.  This will often require you to push yourself to the limit and
beyond, both physically and spiritually." She paused, taking the time to
look every student in turn.

	"Here at the school, you will also . . . " She trailed off.  The
students in the audience looked in surprise; Sailor Mars was one of the more
confident senshi you could meet.  One didn't usually expect her to stop in
mid-speech, excepting fire (which, to qualify, wasn't caused by her) or some
kind of supernatural attack.

	Or, as many had forgotten, the same effect could be produced by a
blonde with two pigtails racing into the room, screaming out apologies for
lateness.  However, there were no blondes presently guilty of doing this.  A
brunette would have to do.

	"SORRY SORRY SORRY!  WON'T HAPPEN AGAIN, REALLY!  I'M SO SORRY! 
DON'T LET ME INTERRUPT!" The brunette barreled down the aisle, and Jen
watched with horror as the girl plopped down in the seat next to her, which
was, Jen thought, unfortunately empty.

	"Um . . . "

	"Good morning! You must be . . . Jen Sakachi!  What's that phrase? 
Um . . . pleased to meet you!  I'm Eileen Pearcy!  We'll be the best of
friends, Jen-chan, right?"

	By now the chamber was in total silence.  Jen didn't dare to look up
at the podium; she suspected that Mars's eyes were burning with a fire that
matched her abilities.  One could hear a pin drop.  At least, one could hear
in between Eileen's ramblings.

	"Yes, I'm from America, that's um . . . Amerika, right?  And that
makes me Amerikajin?  Great!  My stuff is already in our room, and I just
*know* that you'll like the wallpaper I brought, and . . . "

	Jen merely slumped down.  This, she thought, is going to be a long
year.

	It was not the last time she had such a thought.

	Sailor Mars finished her speech.  While losing quite a bit of her
thunder to Eileen's rather distinctive entrance, she had still managed to
end on a strong note that had many students wondering what they had signed
up for.  As the assistant principal walked back to the podium, they were
still evenly divided.  Half thought they were about to enter the school; the
other half favored boot camp.

	"And now, everyone, Sailor Mercury with our second opening speech."

	The blue-haired senshi walked to the podium.  Eileen goggled.

	"Y'know, I thought that she'd be taller, y'know?"

	Jen hadn't known, and hadn't wanted to know, and was about to make
Eileen quite aware of her apathy in this department when Mercury cleared her
throat.  Sailor Mercury did not tolerate interruptions any more than her
fuming colleague.

	"Good day," Mercury began.  "As has been said may times today, this
is your first day at the Tsukino State College.  You may think that there is
no need for me to tell you why you are here.  You know that you have been
determined to be the most favorable candidates to undergo the Ginzuishou
Senshi Transformation Process as perfected by Neo-Queen Serenity in the year
3002."

	"Gosh, she's boring," muttered Eileen.  "Can't the old windbag liven
things up?"

	Jen gasped at such temerity.  To be honest, she might have laughed
at Eileen's remark had they been sitting closer to the back.  But
considering their current proximity to the speaker, such a remark was
extremely unwise.

	Sailor Mercury pressed on, but not without making a mental note to
exact revenge.  This was not a high school, and she intended that those two
troublemakers in the front row would become well acquainted with that fact
before she left for the day.

	"You may also think that my presence here is antiquated and useless. 
After all, you have all passed the toughest exam we can throw at you.  The
last thing you need is a pep talk, right?"

	There was a pause.

	"No!  This is one of the most important things to know: that there
is so much you don't know!  There is an incredible amount of information
that you remain ignorant of, information of crucial importance to yourselves
and the Crystal Millennium.  Take astrogation, or statistics, or political
science: there's a reason we cram four years of learning into a single year. 
And this disregards your physical training, as well.  You will find that
during the next twelve months, time will be at a premium.

	"And what is all this for?  Why do all this work, learn all this
material, when the numbers say that less than a quarter of you will even
become senshi?  Because knowledge is a reward in and of itself."

	"It's a boredom in and of itself," whispered Eileen.  A bit too
loudly, unfortunately.

	Sailor Mercury was very forgiving.  However, she also knew when to
take advantage of a situation, and this was clearly it.  Time, she decided,
to vaunt my rarely seen sense of humor.

	"Suppose," she continued with a gleam in her eyes that, had Sailor
Mars seen it, would have frightened her witless, "that you are in the
following situation: heavily outnumbered outside the protection of Crystal
Tokyo, on your own, with nothing but an auditorium," here she gestured about
them, "as your surroundings, and let's say that the luck of the draw gave
you my abilities, that is, virtually no offensive power.  What would you
do?"

	"Err . . . ."

	"MERCURY AQUA RHAPSODY!"

	The blast of water struck Eileen, Jen, and most of the people around
them.  Amid the screams of shock, they tried to blink away the water and dry
themselves, to no avail.

	"What you do," continued Mercury from next to the main entrance, "is
to give your opponent ample diversion, so that they don't see you make your
next move: getting away." In a practiced motion, she tapped an earring and
analyzed the crowd.  She then tapped the earring again.  The entire
procedure took about two seconds.  She walked down the aisle, towards the
now soaking students, a brunette in particular.

	"Pearcy-san, you now see the results of not paying proper attentions
to one's surroundings?  I certainly hope that you fare better in future
examinations, or else we have made a grave mistake in allowing a North
American into the School." Reaching the podium, she concluded her speech.

	"Therefore, remember that it's not always brawn that wins the day,
but it can often lose it."

	With that, she resumed her seat, leaving a rather surprised looking
assistant principal to address a rather sopping class.  Many of them looked
ashamed, a few were mad, and a couple in the front were laughing their heads
off.  This definitely did not please the AP.

	"Marvin," he muttered silently, "who are those two laughing over
there?"

	"Jennifer Sakachi and Eileen Pearcy," the computer replied, taking
his cue from the AP and speaking quietly.

	"Great," the assistant principal muttered.  He raised his voice. 
"Very well, beginning activities are over.  Classes begin tomorrow, and you
may have the rest of the day to yourselves.  Oh, and I would like to see
Jennifer Sakachi and Eileen Pearcy immediately.  And that means now!"

	As one, the students stood and bowed.  All but two then left to
change into dryer clothes, accompanied by the great majority of the staff. 
The two remaining students drew closer to the podium, still snickering.

	"Ladies, I don't think I need to tell you that such absence of
decorum during an important occasion like this is totally inexcusable."

	Eileen struggled to keep a straight face and failed completely. 
"Well, Takahashi-sensei, I know . . . that it's difficult, but . . . ," and
here she totally gave up the attempt and collapsed, laughing.  Somehow, she
managed to get a finger up and pointing in a seemingly random direction.

	Takahashi turned to glare at Jen.  "And do you, Sakachi-san, find
anything humorous about the situation?  Pray reveal it to us."

	Jen frantically tried not to suffer the same fate as Eileen, who was
presently rolling about the floor.  "Oh . . . Takahashi-sensei, if you could
only see the look on Sailor Mars's face when Sailor Mercury did her stunt,
you would be in the same pickle we are!"

	The AP turned to regard the senshi in question.  Mercury had the
hint of a smile on her face, and far more than that in her eyes.  Mars, on
the other hand, looked as if someone had dared to strike the Queen.  He did
not envy anyone else who had to tangle with her for the rest of the day. 
For that matter, the remainder of the century.  This is probably the
principal reason why he did not address her at that point.

	"Well.  I think that I see.  Anyway, Sailor Mercury, as always, a
pleasure."

	"As it is here, Takahashi-sensei.  I always enjoy my chances to come
back and give the introductory speeches.  Oh, next year's speakers will be
Venus and Saturn, just so you know."

	"Yes, thank you."

	"And you will be reimbursed for the water damage.  I apologize, but
the lesson had to be taught."

	"Of course, of course."  He swallowed.  Several times.  "And thank
you, Sailor Mars.  We always look forward to your visits at the School.  I
regret the difficulties that these two presented to you . . . and I've
brought them so that they could make their personal apologies." His voice
turned into a desperate squeak.  "Right, ladies?"

	Jen decided that now was definitely not an opportune time to buck
authority.  "Of course, Takahashi-sensei." She turned to the two senshi and
bowed.  "My extreme apologies, Sailor Mercury, Sailor Mars.  It will not
happen again."

	The two senshi returned the bow, Mercury warmly, Mars with distinct
malice.  Rising, Jen nudged Eileen, who was still recovering from her fit. 
Eileen, still chuckling, marched up unto the stage and shook Mercury's hand.

	"No hard feelings, huh?"

	Takahashi fainted.  Jen got very close to doing so as well, but her
concern for her erstwhile roommate's safety overrode this impulse.

	"Eileen-san!  What do you think you're doing?!"

	Sailor Mercury, although initially shocked, pumped Eileen's hand. 
Here, clearly, was someone who took the bull by the horns.  "Eileen-san, I
think you'll do well at the School."

	Sailor Mars didn't say a word, which was perhaps her most
frightening action of the day.  Or at least until she spoke.

	"Get out.  Get out or I will incinerate you."

	Even Eileen decided that now would not be the best of times to kiss
and make up with Mars, so she and Jen beat a hasty but polite retreat.

***

	Later, Jen and Eileen were spending their time going through all
their belongings and placing them in their proper places.  Eileen looked as
if she had just met a slightly deranged dog, Jen was furious.

	"Eileen-san!  How could you do something like this?  Do you want us
thrown out of the school, or are you just suicidal?  Interrupting Sailor
Mars like that?  And then laughing in the senshi's faces!  And if that
wasn't enough, SHAKING SAILOR MERCURY'S HAND?!?!?"

	"Settle down, Jen-chan, I really don't think these walls are
soundproof."

	"Marvin?  Are they?"

	"The noise reduction capacity of the walls is currently sufficient
to lower a one hundred decibel shout to approximately twenty decibels to a
listener on the other side."

	"Thanks.  But that still doesn't explain why you're so mad at me,
you know?"

	Jen took several deep breaths.  "Eileen-san, over the past hundreds
of years, very specific rules of protocol have been established for the
sailor senshi.  They don't get a -san or -sama honorific.  You simply call
them Sailor Whatever.  You don't call them by their real names, and you
NEVER touch them without their say-so!  People have *died* for doing such as
that!"

	"Died?"

	"Well, they were generally attacking the senshi at the time, but
that's not important right now."

	"I think it is."

	"Eileen-san!"  She threw the blouse she had been about to hang up on
the bed and started pacing, something she had never been properly able to do
in her old room.  She rather liked being able to do so.  "How stupid are
you?  You barely know Japanese, you have no sense of respect for authority-"

	"Excuse me?"  Eileen's tone of voice made Jen turn around.  It was
the first time she had ever heard her sound serious.  "Would you care to
give me some credit?  I *did* pass the Exam, you know.  My Japanese may not
be flawless, but I get along, don't I?  The School apparently thinks that I
should be here.  Why don't you?"

	"Because you're hopelessly immature, you haven't half the depth of
learning I have, and-"

	"Oh, I don't?  Who won the 1812 US-British conflict?"

	"No-one.  It was a military and political draw.  Who won the Battle
of Hiroshima in 2153?"

	"No-one!  There was no Battle of Hiroshima until 2189!  What treaty
ended the Formation Wars?"

	"The Treaty of Tokyo, 23 August 2190, signed by the leaders of the
fourteen then-dominant nations and given final force by Neo-Queen Serenity!"

	"No!  The Treaty of Tokyo was a sham, a worthless piece of paper. 
As far as history goes, it's as if it didn't exist, and therefore there was
*no* treaty that ended the War, only the will of Serenity!"

	"Oh, you cannot be serious," replied Jen incredulously. "The Treaty
has been binding for nearly nine hundred years!  Just because a *certain
country* got the short end of the stick in the agreement doesn't mean that
you can disregard it!"

	"Yeah, *we* got the short end all right, and had it rammed right up
our bums by sniveling diplomats.  If Serenity had only given a bit of
thought, then I have no doubt that-"

	"Oh, now it's time to badmouth the Queen, is it?"

	"You bet it is!"

	"Is it?"

	"Yes!"

	"Yes!"

	"PTBBBBBBH!"

	"PTBBBBBBH!"

	Things would have went on like this for quite some time if the
combatants hadn't run out of breath.  After a period of time, Jen spoke
again.

	"That was fun."

	"Extremely."

	"You think we were made roommates on purpose?"

	"Undoubtedly."

	"Ah."

***

	A few days later found the two walking back from their class in
Elementary Temporal Mechanics, Eileen proposing a certain plan for the
weekend.

	"You want to do *what?*

	"You heard me, Jen-chan.  Let's see Sailor V II!"

	In recent years, Naoko Takeuchi's film Sailor V had regained
popularity in Japan.  Some said it was part of the whole 1990's
retro-revival movement, some said it was a need to return to a simpler time,
when there were only a few senshi, and those that existed hadn't spent large
quantities of time and wars to kill each other.  For whatever reason, Sailor
V merchandise had reached a high in popularity not seen in literally a
thousand years.

	Therefore, some enterprising film producers, who were *slightly*
nudged by the Crystal Tokyo administration in the form of Sailor Venus, had
come up with a sequel to _Codename wa Sailor V_.  Some criticized it as
trash, others said it was the second coming of high cinema.  Whatever you
said, it came at a hefty price; only a few copies were in circulation, and
none were coming to the School.

	It was this situation that Eileen sought to change, and that Jen was
trying to talk her out of.

	"Eileen-san, I don't care *how* good a movie it is.  I'm not going
to sneak out of the School for one night just so I can see it a couple weeks
before everyone else, especially when-"

	"Oh, come on, those old wives' tales about campus security got you
scared?  About how the Ginzuishou is rigged to detect anyone crossing
outside without permission?  Cripes, this is a school, not a jail, and I'll
go where I please!"

	"Quiet!"  During the last portion of her diatribe, Eileen had gotten
increasingly loud, and Jen was furtively looking about to see if anyone else
was looking at them.  "Do you want all and sundry to hear you, Eileen-san? 
Come on and get in the room!"

	With that, Jen veritably dragged Eileen into their room, and closed
the door.  "Now we can speak freely."

	"Not really," said Eileen casually.  "We've got HAL up there
listening to us, remember?"

	"HAL?"

	"HAL.  Oh, you're the nineties freak, not the sixties.  Oh well,
come over here." They entered the bathroom and closed the door.

	"Jen-chan, what is the most important thing in a girls' school like
this?"

	"An ample supply of feminine needs?"

	"No, silly!  Keeping prying eyes away from bathrooms!"

	"I really don't think that that's such a high concern . . . ."

	"Oh, come on, you don't really think the AIs are androgynous, do
you?"

	"Well I hear that the one they're working on now, Ant-"

	"Look, will you let me finish?  Now, the way I see it, there will be
no AI pickups in here.  No microphones, no cameras, no nothing.  So we can
talk without being discovered."

	"But-"

	"No buts!"

	"It's important!"

	"Too bad, it can wait until after we get the movie!"

	"I really think that-"

	"No rationalizing!  Now, we pull the fire alarm in hallway four,
right, and break through the window in the main lounge during the confusion. 
From there, it's an easy sprint to the nearest town.  We grab Sailor V-II,
get back, and we're home free."

	"And if we're caught, which given the number of holes in your plan
is bound to happen?"

	"Then," said Eileen, exasperated, "we were practicing covert tactics
and guerrilla senshi warfare, and things got out of control."

	"Oh really?" asked Jen.

	"Oh yeah, it works perfectly."

	Jen sighed.  She'd tried to warn her, but they had fallen upon deaf
ears.  Time to leave her to her fate.  "Fine, but you're doing it by
yourself."

	"Oh come on, we're a team!"

	"One week does not a team make, Eileen-san.  If you're so big on
grabbing the movie, then go ahead.  But I tried to warn you."

	"Fine!"

	And with that, Eileen left the bathroom.

	"Marvin?"

	"Yes?"

	"Why do I bother?"

	"I do not know."

***

	That night, Jen sat up in bed a bit later than usual.  She had
ignored the fire alarm and now sat up waiting for her roommate.  The
brunette returned, visibly hastened.

	"So, Eileen-san, how'd things turn out?"

	"Oh, fine."  She fell onto her bed.  "Got caught by the admissions
director in town, got a tongue-lashing, and I'm on probation for the
remainder of the term.  How have things been with you?"

	"Oh, nothing much.  Hung around, watched V-II, studied a bit."

	"Ah."  Eileen went into the bathroom, stayed there for a beat, and
raced out.

	"You saw Sailor V-II?!?

	"Yes."

	"Nooooooooooooooo!" cried Eileen as she crumpled to the floor. 
"How?"

	"My mom smuggled me a copy in the mail.  I tried to tell you, but . . . "

	"Jen-chan?"

	"Yes?"

	"Shoot me.  Just shoot me now."

	The room was filled with the sounds of laughter.  It was entirely
one sided.


==============================
Episode #106:  Acceleration[s]
Reel 1
==============================

	Isao Sakachi, father of Jennifer Sakachi, reclined in his chair. 
His daughter had been at the School for a couple of months now, and things
seemed to be going rather well for her.  As for him . . . opinions differed.

	He was currently onboard H.M.S. Pleiades, more specifically about
750,000 kilometers from Earth, at an acceleration of 9.8 meters per second
squared.  To a layman, this meant that the ship was traveling such that if
you let something go, it would fall to the wall just as fast as if it were
falling to the ground on Earth.  Assuming, of course, that you were in one
of the many sections of the ship that had yet to be finished, and
therefore lacked artificial gravity.

	However, the only reason he even had the opportunity to recline
where he was, in what would eventually become the captain's quarters, was
that a series of rather suspicious accidents had befallen those in higher
positions.  No-one suspected him of anything; in fact, he had vociferously
objected to each and every promotion he had been given as a result of
accidents, terrorist attacks, and the like.  In spite of this, or one could
say because of this, he had advanced from just being a section manager to
being site manager for the entire Pleiades project.  This included his
current task: make sure that Pleiades made it to Mars for Fold outfitting
without the hundred or so technicians killing each other.  It was far from
easy.

	And the main reason it was far from easy was walking through the
door.

***

	Ignorant of her father's problems, Jen walked into her room at the
School after a hard day's classes, and one class still left.

	"Eileen-san?"  She wasn't readily visible, and Jen didn't want to
interrupt anything.  "Are you here?"

	"No!"

	"Oh, okay."  Jen set down her books and flopped down on her bed. 
Eileen emerged from the bathroom dressed in a robe, with a towel wrapped
about her head.

	"How was school?" Eileen asked playfully, going through her drawers
to find something to wear.  Jen let her eyes wander before replying.

	"Ok, I guess.  Nothing particularly mind-blowing.  Challenging, but
not impossible." Those four words were being said a lot around campus; the
teachers were perhaps the most clueful around.  Knowing that the
administration and the senshi were often at odds, and that this filtered
down to the students, the teachers made the first couple of months
relatively easy.  No combat courses would be taught for a few more months,
and really math-intensive classes weren't for a few more weeks.

	"Yep," Eileen replied.  "Same here."  She produced a pair of running
shorts and commenced putting them on.  Eileen was taking an intensive
Japanese course to bone up on the language, since she still spoke in a
highly personalized English/Japanese blend.  It ended a good half hour
before Jen's previous class, Ordinary Differential Equations, which
accounted for her being there before Jen.

	"Where do you think you're going?" asked Jen with surprise.  Since
the Sailor V debacle a few weeks back, Eileen hadn't gone out much, which
worried Jen a bit.  It wasn't like her to be inside so much, and-

	"To the gym," answered Eileen, breaking in on Jen's thoughts. 
"Thought I'd get rid of some of this flab, you know?" She grabbed a handful
of her side, or rather tried.  Actually, she was rather well built, and
didn't have much fat to speak of.  Jen told her as much.

	"Oh, come now Eileen-san, you're in great shape!  I bet those
American guys were falling all over you!"

	"Not really."  She pulled on a tank top and looked about for a
sweatshirt.  "All the guys back home went for blondes."

	There was a pause, during which Jen could feel the hurt emanating
from her friend.  "Didn't you have any boyfriends?"

	"No.  They never gave me a second look."  And vice versa, she
thought. Then a mischievous grin flashed across her face.  "Do you have any
boyfriends?"

	"No."  She sighed.  "Nobody likes a history nut, and the fact that
I'm so damned ugly didn't help."

	"Jen-chan!  How could you?  I'll have you know that you look
beautiful."

	"Really?"

	"Really!  Really Jen, I mean sure, there are a lot of people around
here who dye their hair just to get away from black, but you're a natural
redhead."

	"How'd you . . . oh."

	"Yep.  You've got natural hair, your face has a great complexion,
you've got a better build than I do, and then you say you're ugly?"

	"Well . . . "

	"C'mon, I wanna show you something."

***

	"Ah, Sakachi-san.  Working late, are we?"

	Isao wanted to kick him.  His name was Tani Souchi, and he was head
of computer design for Pleiades.  As such, he was under enormous pressure.

	The staff geniuses at HQ had decided that Antares would be installed
en route to Mars.  The fact that Antares happened to be a brand new and
extremely sensitive AI was irrelevant to them, as was the fact that a
million things requiring Earth assistance could go wrong.

	Souchi had done a lot of the initial work programming Antares, and
regarded the computer as his baby.  Therefore, whenever something happened
to upset his work schedule (which on Pleiades happened daily), he got upset
and made the trek to Sakachi's office, which was where he was now.  Sakachi
refrained from hitting him, and instead decided to stare him down.

	"A project manager's work is never done, Souchi-san."

	"And neither is a section leader's.  You aren't too far removed from
your old position, you know."

	Don't I know it.  "Let's get down to it, shall we?  What's your
problem now?"

	"My problem is that Antares's room is currently open to space."

	"Ah, yes.  We've had to do some patch work in that sector, and the
heat sink has had to be removed for the moment."

	"Yes, but you don't seem to understand.  Antares's components simply
cannot be exposed to vacuum for such a period of time."

	Sakachi muttered a comment about bovine excrement.

	"What was that?"

	"I said, Souchi-san," he said louder, "that the plans called for
Antares to be vacuum rated to an exposure of 3 attotorrs for a period of a
week.  Need I remind you that it is supposed to withstand a vacuum for up to
four days with no adverse effects?  Or have you cut corners once again?!?"

	Souchi visibly restrained himself.  "And need I remind *you* that if
the slightest bit of harm comes to Antares, the future crew of this ship
will be jeopardized?  If your precious daughter beats all the odds and
becomes a senshi, I don't think you need to be reminded that she will, in
all likelihood, command this ship.  And I would hope that you care more
about her than to give her a defective vessel!"

	"Sakachi-san?" blared the speaker on the desk.  "Message for you. 
It's from your wife on Earth."

	'Saved by the bell,' he thought.  "I think, Souchi-san, that you had
better recheck your figures on vacuum.  I will not speed up work and expose
my workers to greater risk.  Now, if you'll excuse me . . . Ah, hi dear!"

	Souchi spun on his heel and stiffly walked out.

	"No, no, everything's fine."

	"Are you sure?"

	"Well . . . " He checked to make sure Souchi had left.  "To tell the
truth, things are falling apart here.  I'm starting to lose respect, we're
weeks behind schedule, with the brass slated to come up on arrival . . . but
enough of that.  How's Jen?"

	His face brightened as his wife spoke.  "Oh, she's doing just fine. 
She says that she's got a great roommate; they seem to have really hit it
off." A little selective editing won't hurt his mood, she thought.

	"Really?  Splendid!  Tell her that she can call up here anytime.  In
fact, I think I'll call her!"

	"Okay."

	"Call you tomorrow, okay?  Love you!"

	He punched one button, then pressed another, all thoughts of Souchi
swept from his mind.

***

	Outside, fall was gradually yielding to winter, but the indoor track
was quite warm.  Jen and Eileen found it rather nice for a friendly jog.  Or
at least, that was how it started.  At some point it stopped being a form of
exercise and turned into a marathon.  They were at seven kilometers now, and
showed no signs of stopping.

	The reason was rather simple.  Following their pity-party in their
room, neither found it acceptable to lose face by giving up before the
other.  Therefore, a simple 1600 meter run turned into a distance battle. 
Neither was very good at distance running, and both would have given their
scholarships to be able to stop.  The fact that neither knew what the other
was thinking was the only thing that kept them going.  Of course, neither of
them knew it.

	"Can't . . . stop . . . now . . . if . . . do . . . never . . . ear
. . .  end . . . it," Jen gasped.

	"Do . . . for . . . u . . . s . . . a . . . can't . . . give . . . 
now . . . never," Eileen panted.

	By now they had begun to attract attention; about a dozen students
had stopped their workouts and were merely watching while Marvin kept them
apprised of the latest split times.  At the eight kilometer mark, they began
shouting encouragement.

	"Didn't . . . know . . . had . . . audience," Jen observed, blinking
away the sweat that liberally flowed from her brow into her eyes.  Chancing
a sharp glance, she found that Eileen was still right behind her.

	"Better . . . to . . . encour . . . age . . . glad . . . ators."

	"Really?

	"Yeah."

	They made the nth turn.  By now, they were two hundred meters from
the ten kilometer mark, and Jen's legs were starting to get rubbery.  'Can't
fall apart now,' she thought.  Her body ignored her as she began to fall,
inadvertently taking out Eileen in the process.  The crowd gasped.  The
runners didn't; they lacked the breath.

	The two lay there, intertwined.  Neither spoke for a long moment, as
they sucked in air like two women who had narrowly missed drowning. 
Finally, Jen managed enough breath to say something.

	"Uh, Eileen-san?"

	"Yeah?"

	"Do you mind getting your butt out of my face?"

	"Sorry."

	Neither moved.

	"Today, perhaps?"

	Slowly and reluctantly, they separated from each other to flop on
the infield.  Someone ran up to them.

	"You guys okay?"

	Jen tried to focus her eyes.  It appeared to be her teacher for the
next class, World History D, which covered everything from the Black Moon
War to the present day.  Needless to say, it was one of Jen's favorite
classes.

	"Mitsuyabi-sensei! Konnichi wa!  Sorry, but you're not catching me
at my best."

	Her teacher nodded. "I see.  And you, Pearcy-chan?"

	"Oh, I'm fine, Ms. Mitsuyabi.  Just getting a little jog in before
class, you know?"

	"Oh, yes.  Sometimes I try to do that myself."  She sighed. 
"Unfortunately, time seems to bit a bit short."

	"Is it?" asked Jen, puzzled.  "I was pretty sure that we'd have
enough time to get in the run, get back to our room, shower, and get to
cl--oh dear." She looked at her watch.  "That run seems to have run a bit
too long."

	"It's okay," said Mitsuyabi as Jen began to worry, "I was going to
start class a bit late today anyway."

	"Oh."

	"I was watching you for a bit.  Do you always turn a workout into a
marathon?"

	"Not always," answered Eileen.  "Usually try to avoid it, but you
know, one thing and another and . . . well . . . "

	"Ah.  Well, I expect to start class in forty minutes.  I expect you
to make the best possible use of that time, understood?"

	Despite their disheveled state, they managed to stand and bow.

	"Yes, Mitsuyabi-sensei."

***

	Isao punched the comset again.  Upon calling the School, Marvin had
informed him that Jen could not be reached at that time.

	"Damn."  He'd really wanted to speak to her, see how she was doing. 
He had two children: Jen and Pleiades.  He would lose Pleiades in a few
months, and he had already lost Jen to the duties of a future senshi.  But
he still wanted to hang on to her for a bit longer.

	"Oh well."  He was a bit agitated.  A brisk walk would do him some
good.  Especially since the bridge outfitters wouldn't be expecting a
surprise inspection.  He walked out the door and made it about eight meters
before running into another problem.

	"Ah, Beckett-san."  Henri Beckett was the French chief of
engineering design.  He was the closest thing to an engine expert Pleiades
would have, Sakachi thought, and that wasn't saying much.  How one person
managed to pull off the stereotypical arrogance of the French with such
panache was beyond his comprehension.

	"Mr. Sakachi.  I hear that you will be requiring 110% from #2
tomorrow?"

	Sakachi grimaced.  An English translation of the technobabble that
had spouted from Beckett would go something like this: "I heard that you're
going to deliberately exceed safety limits on fusion power plant number 2. 
Despite the fact that engines are intentionally designed so that one can go
far beyond that for extended periods, I think that I own the power plant in
question.  Therefore, I am going to do my level best to make an ass of
myself by telling you that I won't do it."

	Say whatever one liked about Beckett, but one had to admit that he
managed to convey a lot with just a few words.

	"Yes, Beckett-san," Sakachi replied, underscoring the honorific. 
Beckett spoke immaculate Japanese, actually, and the fact that he always
ignored the -san annoyed Sakachi to no end.  "Souchi-san will be running
some additional tests on Antares, and he'll need the power."

	"Ah.  And I'm supposed to just stand by and let this madman melt
down a highly irreplaceable fusion reactor so he can go wank with his
computer?"

	Isao sighed.  This was what it inevitably came to.  Beckett and
Souchi hated each other with a vengeance.  The differences were many, from
ideas on government to management to sports teams.  Neither was known to go
anywhere near each other's respective departments, and they *never* spoke to
each other.  The last time had been about twelve minutes out of Earth orbit,
and had ended with both laid up in the infirmary.

	Sakachi honestly believed that one of the two would die in the next
meeting, and that was the main reason he put up with their ravings.  As a
go-between, Sakachi was able to soften the long-distance blows dealt each
other.  Therefore, he simply absorbed the abuse Beckett heaped on Souchi,
just as he would probably absorb abuse from Souchi on Beckett.

	"Beckett-san, the schedule has been posted for the past week.  I'd
say that it's a bit late to lodge a complaint."

	"The hell it is!  If Souchi-"

	"The test is tomorrow.  I'll get the energy from the reactor or you,
but he will have the energy.  Now if you'll excuse me, I have a tour to
make."

	"Oh, do you now?"

	Sakachi ignored him as he made his way to the bridge.  Once there,
he simply stood in the doorway (the door still wasn't installed) and watched
as a couple men laid down the dark blue carpet.  Most of the consoles were
installed, and the captain's chair was in a corner.  He noted with amusement
that it was still in the original plastic wrapping.  My daughter will have
that seat, he wished.

	"SAKACHI!"

	He looked up from his reverie to see twin Armageddon, in the form of
Souchi and Beckett bearing down on him from opposite sides.  They hadn't
seen each other.

	Yet.

	"You!"

	"You!"

	"Security!" bellowed Isao, with the full knowledge of how much
security a three-fourths done starship had.

***

	"And thus we come to the beginnings of the Second Sailor Wars.  The
first, you will recall, were caused by the aspirations of Sailor Galaxia
towards domination of our Milky Way Galaxy." Mitsuyabi paced as she spoke,
with Jen and Eileen the most attentive towards her words.

	"That war, won by then-Sailor Moon, was called that because . . . ?"

	A student answered.  This was followed by a bit more talking,
followed by another question.  Such was the way virtually all academic
classes were taught at the School.  The Socratic Method had its greatest
fans there, and the payoff was the weeding out of so many students: twelve
had already flunked out.  True, flunking out of the School was a bit like
being thrown out of a casino after winning several million dollars, but
there was still a bit of a stigma.

	Class continued, and ended.  Jen and Eileen wrote some last notes
and began to pack up.  The 18:00 class was the last of the day, and they
had the rest of the night to do whatever they pleased within the rules, as
Eileen had found first-hand.  Now, they would probably do some studying,
perhaps even watch a World Cup football match.  Japan was in for the first
time since 2974, and was doing quite well.

	Eileen, however, had other plans.

	"Mitsuyabi-sensei?"

	"Yes?" came the reply.  Mitsuyabi was putting her things away as well.

	"Would you care to join us tonight?  We were going to discuss the
history of-"

	"I'm sure she would," interjected Eileen, "but we have other, more 
*pressing* matters to attend to, which she is not aware of."

	"We do?" asked Jen.  She was still sore from their race, and she
just wanted to lie back and exercise her mind.

	"Yes!" she replied forcefully.

	"Well, I'm sure we can discuss things at another time," said their 
teacher.

	"Of course," said Jen, who was still trying to figure out where
Eileen was coming from.

	"Of course," echoed Eileen, who was also trying to figure out where
Eileen was coming from.

***

	Some time later, the Dynamic History Duo was in its room, one in
considerable pain.  The soreness in Jen's back had developed into a
full-blown cramp, and she was beginning to wish that the School's vast
amenities included a masseuse.  She could definitely use one.

	"Still hurting, huh?" asked Eileen from her computer, where she was
catching up on the news.  "Well, says here that your dad's ship is about
halfway to Mars.  Should hear from him soon."

	"I guess so."

	Eileen winced at the pain in her voice.  "You need me to help you
out, Jen-chan?"

	"How?  Got any painkillers?" replied Jen from her bed.

	"Better.  Take off that shirt and roll over."

	Jen did as requested, and lay face-down on the bed.  "What are you
going to do, perform surgery?"

	"I think you'll like this better."  Her hands began to knead Jen's
aching back.

	"Hey, you're pretty good at this!"

	"Well, my dad's an orthopedist."

	"Really?  I didn't know!"

	"You never asked."

	Eileen continued for a few minutes, and Jen felt the pain wash away
like ice in the bright sunshine.

	"Jen-chan?"

	"What is it?"

	"How much do you know about me?  Really?"

	Jen bit her lower lip.  "Um, other than that you're from
Pennsylvania, you love history almost as much as I do, you can't stand
basketball, you-"

	"No, not that kind of thing.  I mean like . . . like having two
brothers who idolized you.  Like carrying the expectations of your entire
hometown. *Before* the Exam.  Do you know how many North Americans even take
it, let alone pass?

	"After the Exam, everyone on the continent was pulling for me."  She
began speaking faster.  "I had enough trouble getting dates to start with,
but now?  Who wants to start a relationship when you're going to leave in a
couple of days anyway?  Especially when I'm smarter than her?  I mean-"

	"Her?  And don't stop; I think I'm addicted with this."

	Eileen coughed to cover her gaffe.  "Yeah, her.  I suppose I should
have told you this earlier, but I'm . . . I'm . . . "

	"Yes?"

	"Dammit Jen, do y'know how hard this is?" she demanded, her bubbly
exterior gone.  "I've admitted this . . . this to one person before, and I
swore it would never happen again.  and now you go and respond like, like,
like you're-"

	"I told you not to stop.  I'm feeling fine for the first time all
day."

	"You can't be!"

	"I didn't know, until now."  Jen turned over to look Eileen in the
eyes.

	"Oh no, Jen, this is all too fast!"

	"With all due respect," said Jen playfully, "if now isn't the time
after all these weeks, when will it be?" She sat up.  "Believe me, I
wouldn't be doing this for the first time if I wasn't sure."

	"You mean you've never-"

	"Nope.  You?"

	"No."

	"Fine.  We'll figure something out."

	They kissed.

***

	Isao Sakachi, father of Jennifer Sakachi, reclined in his chair. 
His daughter had been at the School for a couple of months now, and things
seemed to be going rather well for her.  And now, after averting a
full-pitched battle between two of the three highest ranking people aboard,
he felt like calling his daughter.

	He had caught virtually no sleep that night, and had merely dozed in
his chair.  That was probably why he made the call then; he hadn't had the
forethought to check the time difference between Japan and ship's time,
which was in theory based on Greenwich.  He just punched the button, and
waited for the various computers involved in interplanetary communications
to do their work.

***

	Jen moaned and rolled over a bit at the ringing of the phone.  She
had decided that having Marvin announce her calls was too eerie, and had
told him to just let the phone ring.  Marvin, however, decided from her
verbal cues that she wanted him to pick up automatically.  Visual cues were
not his forte, so he just flipped on the main screen by the console.  By
fate, chance, or whatever, it directly faced the bed.

	"I'll get it," murmured Jen sleepily, trying to extricate herself
from Eileen's embrace.

	She was too late.

***

	The screen flashed "MESSAGE RECEIVED," and Isao waited for his only
daughter's face to appear.  It did.

	He had not, however, been waiting to see Jen's roommate wrapped
around her.

	"Jen?"

	She blinked a bit, recognized who was on the screen, realized her
current situation, and came to a simple, yet accurate, evaluation.

	"Oh boy."


====================================
Episode #107:  Pomp and Circumstance
Reel 1
====================================


	BRRRRIIIIIIINNNNNNGGGG!

	In a darkened room, slowly and stealthily, a hand reached out from
under the covers and slapped the pestilent alarm.  Suddenly, the head of the
owner of the hand popped out from its warm cocoon.  A smile creased her
face, at both the love of the thirty-first century for such archaic devices,
and one other thing which never ceased to please her.
	
	"Right on time," said the contralto.  Jennifer Allison Sakachi, age
seventeen (and 363 days) rolled leisurely out of bed, flipping on the light
in a long- practiced motion.  Eileen responded to the action as she had for
a year, automatically grumbling about certain lovers who woke up too early.

	In keeping with tradition, Jen tossed a pillow at Eileen and told
her that she was a lazy good-for-nothing.  Eileen's usual retort was
something to the effect that the Japanese were too obsessed with time.  The
two then generally managed to stumble to the shower, where they began the
sentient day.

	Well, just Eileen.  Jen was thinking quite lucidly the moment the
alarm went off.

	After a shower, the two walked out of the bathroom.  While dressing,
Eileen noticed the date, and pointed it out to Jen.  It took a minute or two
for it to register.

	"WE'RE GOING TO GRADUATE!"

***

	As things turned out, this wasn't necessarily true.

	The calendar said that on 21 May 3029, at approximately 16:00,
commencement exercises would be carried out at the Carver Amphitheater, yet
another one of those buildings that only got pulled out of the pocket when
it was needed.  Carver seated between two thousand and eight billion,
depending on your interpretation, and the open-air venue provided a nice
atmosphere for the graduates.

	The rub was that there were very few graduates.  Attrition at the
school never exceeded a hundred, since there were rarely more than a hundred
students, but the fact remained that the last time more than five students
had become senshi at one time had been in 3005, when Serenity was
desperately seeking anyone with four operating limbs, a pulse, and a pair of
x chromosomes to become sailor senshi.

	This year had been especially tough.  In fact, no-one knew *who*
would graduate: the final GPAs had come to within five decimal places for
failing, well within the margin of error.  Therefore, a panel of teachers
and senshi was, even as Jen and Eileen dressed, reviewing the records of the
half-dozen who had made it through the past two months.

	The announcement, when made, would surprise quite a few people.

***

	Two of the two thousand who were physically there happened to be
Jen's parents.  Her mother and father sat in the fourth row of the
grandstand.  As it happened, Isao had been on Earth just four hours since
Pleiades returned from having engine maintenance and installation on Mars. 
This was the chief reason he was downing his fourth cup of coffee.

	They were extremely nervous, more so than Jen, in fact, and part of
it was due to who she was sitting next to.

	"Now, you said that you wouldn't make a scene, dear, so let's be
supportive, okay?"

	"Supportive?" retorted his wife.  "With that slut of a girlfriend? 
I mean, being homosexual is fine, but with . . . her?"

	"Is it just that our daughter's too good for an American?"

	"That's not what I mean-"

	Isao stood as another couple of parents filed to their seats.  "Now,
I think that they're a pretty good match.  I could wish for nothing more
than their becoming senshi and getting the same ship together, and-"

	He was interrupted by a dozen trumpets.

***

	About three hundred of the eight billion in the liberal crowd
estimate were gathered in the center of Annville, Pennsylvania, uncaring of
the colossal time difference between Tokyo and the East Coast.  The entire
population of the town had come out to watch the graduation ceremonies on
the big screen in what passed for downtown, and hopefully to see their own
get the fuku.

	No matter what the differences in government, the fact remained that
the senshi had repelled the only alien invasion of Earth to date. 
Therefore, in spite of what they represented, the senshi were often
lionized, and the graduation was always watched by a significant portion of
the world population. Cameras at the amphitheater were broadcasting the
event to eight billion out of 9.3 billion people on Earth, with a slight
delay to the Moon and Mars, and recordings being sent to the various
interstellar colonies.

	And the fact also remained that not a single North American had ever
become a senshi.  Only 132 had ever taken the Exam, and Eileen, in whose
honor they were gathered, was only the fifteenth North American to pass. 
Indeed, only five non-Japanese had ever become senshi: two from Wales and
three from the political morass that was Central Africa.

	If Eileen could pull it off, there would be a lot of celebration,
led by her parents and her several siblings.

	And the first cheers came with the trumpets.

***

	"So Jen, when does it start?"  To cover her tension, Eileen had been
far more affectionate towards Jen lately, and Jen was currently occupied
with having her let go before she strangled.

	She looked at a doorway at stage left.  "Right about now."

***

	The trumpets blared out a three part harmony that would have made
Mahler proud.  After this the herald walked out.  In a booming voice, he
announced the words that would get everything started.

	"All hail her grace, Her Serene Highness, Serenity, the Second of
her Name, born unto this Earth as Tsukino Usagi, the First of that Name,
Princess of the Moon Kingdom of the Silver Millennium, Sailor Senshi of the
Moon, Defender of Love and Justice, and Neo-Queen of the City of Crystal
Tokyo of the Crystal Millennium!"

	Everyone stood.  And then the Queen walked in.  Flanked by Sailors
Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Neptune, she walked to the scaled-down
throne that sat at the center of the stage.  She stood before it, facing the
audience, with Mars and Mercury to her right, and Venus and Jupiter to her
left.  Then came Sailor Neptune, in a rare appearance without Uranus.  She
stood directly behind the throne, facing away from its occupant.

	For security reasons, all eight planet senshi were never at the same
place at the same time.  Uranus was at Fleet Headquarters on the Moon,
Saturn was doing a PR job at the Jovian shipyards, and Pluto was in parts
unknown.  Which, of course, was pretty much par for her.

	As for those who were there, they wore mixed faces of apprehension
at potential threats, and joy at preparing to welcome up to six young women
into their sisterhood.  Serenity's face was wholly rapturous.  This was,
without a doubt, the most fun she ever got to have in public, and she
intended to enjoy it.

	She regarded the assemblage for a moment, seeming to peer through
the cameras to the eight billion people in their living rooms, and then sat. 
At this signal, everyone else did as well.

	Sailor Mercury strode to the podium.  "Ladies and gentlemen, the
results." She made a beckoning motion with her finger, and a flunky
immediately raced from offstage to hand her an envelope.  She thanked him
and walked to Serenity, handing over both the envelope and a gold letter
opener.  Her official duty in this matter complete, Mercury returned to her
place beside Serenity.

	Neo-Queen Serenity, the most powerful woman (or person) in the
world, in the solar system, and in all space explored by humans, slit open
the envelope and pulled out a single sheet of paper.  The tension was
palpable; no-one even breathed.  Except, of course, for Eileen, who yawned
and put an arm over Jen's shoulder in a blatant show of bravado.

	Serenity looked at the writing on the paper, and without a word
stood.  She walked to the podium, gestured for everyone who had stood up
when she stood to sit, and wordlessly regarded the finalists in the front
row.  Not a flicker of understanding or communication crossed her face; it
was like looking into a stone wall.  She looked up to the audience at large,
and began.

	"It is my solemn duty to inform you that Jennifer Allison Sakachi
and Eileen A Pearcy have been examined by the Tsukino State College, and
have been found as possessing all the necessary qualities to become sailor
senshi.  I hereby welcome them into the ranks of the senshi, and ask that
they come forward."

	And then it became a bit hard to hear for awhile.

***

	The North American Confederation, comprising all of what was once
Canada, the United States, and northern Mexico, erupted.  Everyone had been
hoping against hope for this to happen, and now it had.  Confetti flew,
horns tooted, and everyone began shouting and singing all at once.  For the
first time ever, North America had a Senshi it could call its own.

***

	The Carver Amphitheater was just a bit less loud.

	There was the polite applause from the senshi and the parents of
those who hadn't graduated, the cheers from Jen's parents, the roar from the
others in the audience, and the soft giggling from Jen herself.  For her
part, Eileen was busily shouting in Jen's ear.

	"I TOLD YOU WE'D MAKE IT!"

	"WHAT?"

	"I SAID I TOLD YOU WE'D MAKE IT!"

	"I'M A STERLING MEPHITIC?"

	"NEVER MIND!"

	After this scintillating conversation, they accepted the polite
handshakes from the other finalists and made their way to the podium.  Now
that they could clearly be seen by all present, the roar got even louder. 
The hug and peck on the cheek that Jen gave Eileen certainly didn't help the
decibel levels.  They stood at the top of the steps to the stage.

	"DO YOU THINK WE SHOULD GO TO HER?" asked Eileen, pointing to
Serenity.

	"Um . . . "  She was cut short by Serenity's voice.  Despite the
noise, they could hear her perfectly.  The eight intervening meters seemed
to have no effect.

	"Right this way, please."  They did as she said, and they were soon
next to the Queen.

	"And how are you today?"

	"FINE . . . fine, thank you."  Jen found that the noise of the crowd
was now muted, as if at a long distance.  Undoubtedly the power of the
Ginzuishou.

	"Same here," said Eileen in a voice that sounded braver than she
felt.  "How's it goin' at the palace?" she asked in a deliberately rustic
tone.

	"Fine, actually."  She waved her arm at the crowd.  "You have an
appointment, you know.  You must not keep them waiting." She looked off to
the side and nodded.  A black cat emerged.

	"Luna-san!" Jen breathed.  The rarely seen advisor to Serenity, Luna
occasionally emerged in human form.  Today, however, she was a feline, and
therefore had to do one of the more acrobatic acts in history.

	She came near to Serenity, did the best feline approximation of a
bow, and then did a double back-flip, producing two golden rods about as
long as a ball-point pen, but quite thicker.  Both had rather elaborate
looking golden metalwork at their apexes, and were colored . . . that was
the problem.  It wavered; one moment it was red, then blue, then into a
range of indescribable colors.  It was as if it was trying to make up its
mind.

	"Ah, I see you have noticed the henshin sticks.  And the colors? 
They will not be finalized until you decide what your Sailor name will be."

	"What?  When *we* decide?"

	"Yes.  After the Ginzuishou gives you the power, it is up to you to
determine your powers.  I have no say."

	"Really?" asked Eileen.

	"Really."

	"Well," she said, rolling up her sleeves, "let's get on with it,
eh?"

	"Very well.  Before I start, are you certain that you want to go
through with this?"

	"Yes!"

	"You bet!"

	"Excellent."  She pulled a breathtaking crystal from nowhere.  "Now
this may sting a little." She concentrated.

	And for Jen and Eileen, the world stayed exactly the same.

***

	In Annville and almost every other city in the Americas, the crowds
were still celebrating too loudly to hear the commentators' voices as the
events in Crystal Tokyo played themselves out.  If they could hear, they
would have learned that Jen and Eileen had just been given the "Ginzuishou
Special," as it went by in the states, and were now receiving their
transformation sticks.  They now had all the power of a sailor senshi, and
lacked only identities.  And five little words would change that.

***

	"What now?" queried Eileen in a stage whisper.

	Serenity shrugged.  "Do what comes naturally."

	What comes naturally.  Okay, thought Eileen, just empty your head
and let things happen, let things . . . ah ha!

	Jen looked over at her.  "You feel it too?"

	"Yep."

	"Well, let's not leave our public waiting, shall we?"  And then,
ignoring the eyes of the world that were on them, they shouted out
simultaneously.

	"Orion Star Power, Make-Up!"

	"America Star Power, Make-Up!"

	And for Jen and Eileen, the world changed unimaginably.

***

	Light.  Lots of light swirling around.  That was the main impression
she got.  The crowd had disappeared, Serenity had disappeared, all there was
was a singing in her ears.  A song that she knew by heart, yet had never
heard before.  One that screamed at her, and yet was barely perceptible. 
And the light.

	Red, while, blue, coruscating about and around her, wrapping her in
a cold warmth.  She found that her clothes were gone, but the light provided
enough insulation.  And then, she was dressed by the light, dressed in what
she felt, rather than saw, was a tight fitting white bodice, a red skirt
with a white and blue stripe at the hem, a blue bow at front and back, a red
choker with a golden eagle at the gorge, white gloves with red, white, and
blue stripes at the elbow, and sparkling blue high heels.

	All too soon, she found, the light was fading away, and as it
dimmed, it was replaced with a crowd and a Queen and a brand new world.

***

	Dark.  Total blackness, with just a couple pinpoints of light in
barely recognizable patterns.  Constellations, she realized.  And she could
just see one drawing nearer, in a pose familiar to her since the first time
her father had taken her out to a farm, far from the city lights, to see the
stars in all their glory.  It had caught her eye first, out of all the
constellations.  Two stars widely spaced, and three in a row beneath them. 
It had always been harder to pick out the other details, but now she saw
them clearly, belt and club and arms and legs.

	Orion the Hunter stood before her, heeding neither Jen's nudity nor
the colossal difference in size between them.  He bowed slightly, and Jen
bowed in return, unheeding of the fact that he was just a few stars defining
the shape of a man.

	"Greetings, Orion."

	"And greetings to you, Jennifer Allison Sakachi.  I have been
waiting for this for a very long time, you know.  And so has she." He
gestured with his club to a small, pink-haired child who bore more than a
passing resemblance to the only two pink-haired girls who Jen knew existed. 
"My blessings upon you, my champion!"

	*Her* again.  "But who is she?  Why does she-"

	A beam of blinding light came from the club, and suddenly she was
back on stage.

***

	"Jen!  Jen!"

	"What?"

	"It's me!  Sailor America!"

	This woke her up more than the crowd's fever-pitched cheering, which
was getting through the silence bubble that surrounded them and Serenity.

	"Sailor America?"

	"The one and only!"  she twirled around, letting her see her fuku. 
"And the first *not* to be named after an astronomical body!" The skirt
flared, then settled back down.  "And . . . oh my."

	Jen looked around.  The world seemed different, more . . . *real*,
for lack of a better term.  The colors seemed sharper and more defined, her
sense of smell was far better, she could hear more indistinct sounds.  All
five senses were enhanced to a degree she wouldn't have thought possible. 
"I see what you mean.  The whole world seems more alive, somehow."

	"That's not quite what I meant."

	"Then what?"

	Sailor America merely pointed at Jen's fuku.  At her questioning
look, Sailor Neptune sprung from her position and produced a mirror out of
nowhere.  Jen had been taught about the applications of pockets, but it
still took some getting used to.  She peered in the proffered mirror.

	The face that looked back at her seemed relatively unchanged, except
for the golden tiara that sat upon her brow.  That was to be expected.  She
looked down.  Typical Sailor Senshi garb: a green color to the skirt and
boots that was quite stunning when contrasted with her red hair.  Her
glasses were still there, but they were now blue-rimmed instead of black, a
shade of cerulean blue that matched her bows.  For a moment, what with the
mixture of red hair, green skirt, and blue bows, she might call herself
Sailor Baryon or Sailor Quark.  Then she happened to look at the choker in
the mirror.

	It was glowing.  The miniature gold representation of the Orion
constellation was glowing with a pale white light.  Needless to say, this
was not something that happened very often.  She just looked at the
reflection for awhile.

	"So," began Sailor America, "exactly what kind of batteries does
that thing run on?"

	"Eileen!"

	"America.  Call me Sailor America."

	Orion seemed to notice this for the first time, which she was. 
"What? America?  What's that, you named yourself after some manga
character?"

	It was now America's turn to be confused.  "Manga?"

	"Well, twentieth century US comic, but what's the difference?"

	"If you two don't mind," interrupted Serenity, "I'm sure you could
have this discussion at some later date, but . . . "

	"Ah.  I see," said Orion.  "The formalities."  And so they went up
the line, receiving a warm hug from the assembled Senshi.  There was no
speech; that tradition had died about fifty years ago, when one senshi's
speech ran fifteen minutes.  After that, the trademark speech that senshi
made upon transformation was skipped, much to the relief of persons like
Luna, who had never liked the time such announcements took.  Perhaps now the
senshi could utilize the concept of 'surprise attack.'

	At Sailor Mars, America paused.

	"Did you have to break tradition?" asked Mars.  "Did you *have* to
be named after a continent?"

	"Why not?"

	Over by the end of the line, Neptune and Orion were exchanging
words.  During this, Orion looked up and saw her parents in the slowly
quieting crowd. With her improved vision, she also saw their eyes following
something.  Tracing back along their path, she saw another flunky carrying
another message to Serenity.  Serenity read the message, folded it, and then
it disappeared.  Clearing her throat, she made a motion for silence.

	"Ladies and gentlemen, I have received a communique from the Moon."
Orion looked at Serenity, trying to figure out what was up.  "It informs me
that our newest ship, H.M.S. Pleiades, is now ready to depart for an
expeditionary voyage.  She will leave within a week.  I have been asked to
make a recommendation as to her first commander, and I could not be happier
to say that it is . . . " She looked at Orion and America, who were now
standing together.

	"Okay," whispered America, "remember that no matter which of us gets
her, the other could still be first officer."

	"Right," replied Orion.  She fidgeted.  "Never realized that these
skirts were so damned short, though."

	"Shh!"

	" . . . Sailor Orion!"

	"Congratulations, Orion!"

	"Thanks," she said, the one word summing up all the joy she felt 
at being told that she would be going into space.

	The mushiness of the hug that followed will not be chronicled here.


==============================
Episode #108:  A Few Good-byes
Reel 1
==============================


	"Oh come now Eileen, it's not the end of the world!"

	Eileen looked up from the clothes she had been busily packing into a
trunk.  It was moving day at the School.  "Easy for you to say.  You *know*
where you're going to go."

	"It's not that bad!" she retorted.

	"The hell it isn't!  You've got a ship, you're probably going to see
it soon, aren't you?"

	"Wednesday," admitted Jennifer.

	"There you are!  You've got a ship, a mission, and something to do. 
What do I have?  A 'wait and see' message, no job, and a lover who's going
to leave me in a couple of days!"

	Jen dropped the pair of jeans that she had been about to toss into a
bag; neatness wasn't one of her attributes.  "For the last time, Eileen, I'm
doing everything I can to have you put aboard Pleiades.  Everything."

	Neither mentioned exactly how much clout a rookie Senshi had in the
Royal Star Navy.

***

	Jennifer Sakachi had arrived at the school in a conventional family
car.  She left in a fifteen car motorcade.  There was quite a difference
between the two times.

	For one thing, there were no bombings.  Terrorist activity had come
to a standstill in recent months, which had some overjoyed and others scared
witless.  Either the anti-Serenity crowd had decided that the party was
over, and decided to go home, in which case there was little to worry about.

	Or, they were biding their time, gathering strength for a more
pivotal battle that would transcend car bombs and mail threats, in which
case the Senshi would have to prepare for a full military defense of Crystal
Tokyo.  And the last two times that had happened, Serenity had been
victorious by only the narrowest of margins.

	But today was a day to put all that in the back of one's mind. 
Ticker-tape parades were rare in Crystal Tokyo, and were usually reserved
for the graduation of a Senshi, or the launching of a new ship.  Orion,
America, and Pleiades fell under those categories.  And thus, several tons
of confetti and other random bits of paper were being showered upon the
formerly neat and tidy streets of Crystal Tokyo.

	Sailor America was loving it.

	"Isn't this great?" she cried as the motorcade began to move off. 
They were in an open limousine, along with Jen's parents.  Eileen's parents
would have loved to come, but various circumstances had prevented it.

	"Very," answered Sailor Orion.  "I'm beginning to like this fuku,
you know.  You'd never think that it's this warm, but it is.  Skirt's still
way too high, though."

	"Shall I let it out for you?" asked her mother jokingly.  They all
laughed.  Orion was rather glad of it; her mother was growing increasingly
pensive since the graduation.  The realization that her only daughter was
going off into the *really* great unknown was just sinking in, and she
needed the laugh.

	"That's okay, Mom.  I think I can manage, especially after all the 
trouble I went through to get this."

	They neared Crystal Tokyo, and could now see the distinctive
skyline.  It was truly dazzling, with glistening towers almost growing
towards the blazing sun, a yellow splotch in a sea of cerulean blue.  It had
been said by numerous travel agencies that you needed sunglasses when
looking at Crystal Tokyo from afar.  On days like these, one was inclined to
believe them.

	"Wow.  You know, Orion, I never get used to seeing that."

	"America?"

	"Yup?"

	"You've never seen it before?"

	"No?"

	"No.  Remember, it was cloudy when I arrived."

	"Was that from natural meteorological processes or the storm that
gathered over Sailor Mars's head?"

	"Oh, bite me," she said playfully.

	"I'd love to," came the reply.

	They descended into the maelstrom.

***

	At long last, they arrived at the CT Hilton, or so it was called. 
The Hilton's parent company had gone out of business over a thousand years
ago, but the Queen's nostalgia took weird turns at times, and the creation
of a hotel named CT Hilton was one of them.

	The two newly-anointed Senshi hadn't realized exactly how draining a
simple parade could get.  There was the happy, frenzied arm waving of the
first couple kilometers, followed by the more subdued hand waving, followed
by the perfunctory polite hand waving, followed by the
please-god-make-it-stop hand waving.  They had finally arrived at the
Hilton, where a pile of dignitaries would make a heck of a lot of speeches
which they both had to politely sit through.  They were still brushing the
paper out of their hair when Jen's parents made their leave.

	"We'd stay, really," said Isao, "but speeches aren't really for us."

	"And you think *we* like them?"

	"Easy now, Orion," said America, giving Orion a quick hug.  "This 
can't take more than a couple of hours."

***

	Five hours later, the artificial lights were coming on all over
Crystal Tokyo, and the guests of honor were going insane.  While the
speakers had come and gone, none staying for the entire program, and several
guard Senshi had done the same, Orion and America had been condemned to sit
and listen to dozens of speeches following precisely the same pattern.

	They generally ran the politically safe route of congratulating the
Senshi on their recent graduation, another sign of cooperation between
nations, keeping the world safe from outer space, please don't invade our
country, etc.

	"Orion?" whispered America during the nth speech, while they were
desperately trying and failing to give the appearance of being attentive,
"you know what?"

	"What?" came the response.

	"These things would be a lot better if there were some kind of
copyright restriction on speeches."

	"Really?  And I suppose Naoko Takeuchi can be sued by Sailor Venus
for copyright violations on her character?"

	"You can't copyright a person!"

	"No more so than an idea."

	"What original ideas have you heard from that podium today?" asked
Sailor America witheringly.

	"Touche," replied Orion.  "Oh, look sharp."  And they both applauded
politely as the current speaker completed his piece.  Three more to go. 
They waited until the next speaker began before resuming their hushed
conversation.

	"But the fact remains, Sailor America, that ideas shouldn't be
copyrighted.  Inventions, yes."

	"Ah.  but they're the same thing, are they not?"

	"No!  Okay, suppose some hack writer sitting at home wakes up and
says, 'gee, maybe I'll write a story about Sailor Orion.' You know, how she
came to be, what she did, stuff like that.  The idea of chronicling my life
is original, but the recounting of my life in and of itself wouldn't be. 
So-"

	America didn't get a chance to attack Orion's logic, mainly because
she had fallen asleep.

***

	The next morning, Sailor America was trying to reach her parents on
the phone.  She had a talk show appearance to do in a couple of hours, and
she wanted to get the call out of the way.  After ten busy signals, someone
finally picked up.

	"Pearcy residence," came an extremely slow and deep voice.

	"Cripes, didn't you check who is was, Chuck?"

	"Sorry, Leenie, but-"

	"DON'T CALL ME LEENIE!"

	"-but everyone's out right now, and-"

	"Chuck?  I know nobody's home in your head, but for crying out loud,
tell the computer that Sailor America has to talk to her parents!"

	"Oh, okay."  A click followed.

	"If that bastard's cut me..oh, aunt Leda, hello!"

	"Is that you, Eileen?"

	Silly family, she thought.  The concept of vidphones had left her
part of Pennsylvania behind centuries ago.  There were some pockets where
they still used land wires for communication.  "Right now I'm Sailor
America, Auntie, but you can't see me, can you?"

	"No.  My, but it's good to talk to you. You've gotten quite an
accent over there, haven't you?"

	"Yeah, same here."  Whatever.  "Listen, I've got a message I want
you to give to mom and dad, okay?"

	"Shoot."

	"Okay, tell them . . . tell them that I love them and all that, and
that I'm going to miss them."

	"Miss them?  Honey, aren't you coming home?"

	"Nope.  Her Majesty's got all sorts of stuff to do around here."
Like baby-sit, guard the jewelry, take out the cat . . . actually, that
wasn't completely accurate.  The Princess hadn't been seen in a couple of
years, and it was generally assumed that she was either grown up, or she had
gone back into the past.  Eileen personally thought that Small Lady's
parents were inexcusably liberal with their child, letting her go
gallivanting throughout the twentieth century, but it wasn't her kid, 
and . . .

	"What was that you were saying, Auntie?"

	"I was saying," repeated Leda, "that your parents will be home in a
few minutes, and you might as well wait for them."

	"No, that's okay," said America, for whom it wasn't, "I've got some
other obligations to clear up.  Tell them that I'll try to call them next
month sometime, okay?  Bye!"

	She gave the button a savage poke, and the screen reverted to its
usual blank default.  It was a state of the art device, capable of
communication in real time with any other computer within two light seconds. 
After that, the delay became noticeable.  It was also waterproof, which came
in handy as Sailor America silently wept tears onto it, weeping for a world
she'd just abandoned.

***

	"Why so blue?"  asked Jen.  She and Eileen were relaxing in the
small temporary apartment provided them by the government.  As they were in
a domestic setting, there was no need to assume Senshi garb, and they
hadn't.  Jen wondered idly if the planetary Senshi were subject to the same
rules.  She couldn't imagine Sailor Mars in anything casual, or anything as
revealing as what Jen was wearing at the moment.

	She had worn the sheer nightie in hopes of raising Eileen's spirits,
but the attempt had failed, and Eileen was nowhere close to her normal,
bubbly self.  Jen threw on a housecoat and sat down beside her.

	"Well?"

	"You wouldn't understand."

	"Try me."

	"It still won't work.  You parents are just a couple kilometers
away, mine are halfway around the world, and you tell me that you can
understand?"

	"Oh come now, Eileen, I thought we meant more to each other than 
this."

	Eileen flounced back on the rather large and sumptuous bed, and
sighed.  "Oh, we do, Jen.  But you . . . you've got everything.  I've got a
fuku."

	"Please don't start with that again."  Eileen turned to face her,
expecting to see a grin on Jen's face.  Instead, a look of sadness sat
behind those now black-rimmed glasses.  "You know I'd do anything to make
you happy.  Even give up Pleiades."

	Eileen had always thought that having one's mouth fall open was
something that only happened in bad stories and cartoons.  She definitely
had never thought that it might happen to her.  "You would do what?"

	"I'd give up Pleiades.  Right now, you're a hell of a lot more
important to me than some old moldy ship."

	"Moldy ship?  Jen-chan, Pleiades is the chance of a lifetime!"

	"Is it?  Look at me, Eileen."  Jen stood up and turned around
theatrically.  "Do you see a starship commander?" She began pacing back and
forth, which was the signal to Eileen that she was moderately upset.  She
had never seen Jen when she was pissed off, and it was not something she
looked forward to.  "I see a historian.  A historian who should be sitting
around, working on a Ph.D., writing a textbook, something like that.  Now
I'm going to be placed in a position where I have to decide who lives and
who dies.  D'you think I like that?"

	There was a pause.

	"You know what?" said Eileen.  "I think you *do*.  I think that if
you wanted a nice cuddly desk job, you could have turned down the spot at
the School.  I think that you want to be a senshi more than anything else in
the world.  I think this was a ploy to get me out of my bad mood." She got
up and hugged Jennifer tightly.  "And I think it worked."

	Jen just hugged her back.  Four out of five suppositions wasn't bad. 
Of course, she wasn't going to tell Eileen that.

***

	On the twenty-third of May, 3029, at 03:16 Japanese Standard Time,
Jennifer Allison Sakachi turned eighteen years of age.  This was not
celebrated until 08:23, when she and Eileen decided to spend Jen's last few
hours on Earth shopping the hell out of Crystal Tokyo.  One of the
advantages to being a senshi was an unlimited credit limit, which they
utilized to the fullest.  After having virtually bought out a couple of
shops, they arranged for their purchases to be sent to their respective
homes: Eileen's to the senshi group accommodations, Jen's to Pleiades.

	Around two in the afternoon, they were visiting the usual tourist
traps, and enjoying themselves while doing it.  At Itsuko Promontory, from
which one had a gorgeous view of the Crystal Palace, the two leaned over the
rail, looking out at Serenity's house in the distance and the waters of
Tokyo Bay which were a few dozen meters below them.

	"Nice view," commented Eileen.

	"Yes."

	"Did I wish you a happy birthday?"

	"Yes."

	"Oh."

	A bird flew overhead, and the sun disappeared behind a cloud, to
reappear a few seconds later.

	"Jen?"

	"Yes?"

	"Happy birthday."

	"Thanks."

	"I'm going to miss you."

	"Same here."

	They stood in silence for a bit.

	"Don't you have an engagement to get to?"

	"I'd rather be with you."

	"Don't I know it."

	Jen looked at her watch.  It *was* getting late.  "I guess I've got
to leave."

	"Yes."

	"Bye, Jen."

	"Farewell, Eileen."

	As they said goodbye with a huge and a long kiss, both meant it in
the most literal way.

***

	Everything was packed.  Her belongings were already on a shuttle to
Pleiades.  In a few minutes she would attend the first in a number of
briefings on Pleiades.  She would be expected to know the ship inside and
out within a day.  Capabilities, dossiers on the crew, limitations.  And the
man who probably could have helped her the most at doing this was her
father.

	Of course, due to the quasi-caste system that occasionally reared
its head, he wouldn't be able to.  It smacked too much of nepotism and of
letting the lowly classes mingle with the senshi to allow him to attend the
meetings.

	So it was just her, her father, and her mother, standing at the gate
to Earth Headquarters, just outside Crystal Tokyo.  There was so much to say
on both sides.  So much longing, sadness, happiness, and a billion other
emotions.

	"See you," said Sailor Orion.

	"Bye," said her parents.

	She walked through the door.

	They walked to the cab they had taken out there, got in, and went
home.


============================
Episode #109: Welcome Aboard
Reel 1 
============================


	Jennifer Sakachi looked out into the blackness of space for the last
time in a very long while.  She pondered the contradiction there; while she
would probably spend the next five years in space, Jen would never see it. 
It would all be through the eyes of Sailor Orion, a concept she was still
coming to grips with.  It was through kindness and a few loopholes that she
had managed to come up and take a look at her ship without having to
transform.

	"Shuttle 973, come right bearing zero-four-five mark three-zero."

	The pilot made a slight adjustment with the flight controls in
accordance with the flight director in the shuttle bay.  Suddenly, Jen could
see the ship that would be her home for the next five years.

	H.M.S. Pleiades, twelfth ship of the Haruna-class, call number
RMS-32403, hung gleaming silver in space.  300 meters from stem to stern,
112 meters at the beam, 90 meters from keel to the top deck, it was the most
beautiful ship Jen had ever seen.  And as a double bonus, it was the first
cruise for both of them; Jen had never had command of a ship, and Pleiades
had never left the Sol system.

	"Guess we've got a bit to learn about each other."

***

	Jen stood impatiently in the airlock, tapping her gloved hand on the
door frame.  The air was still being pumped in, and she was extremely eager
to look at the interior of her ship firsthand.  She also wanted to try out
her new persona.  She had been working on a tough-nosed military captain's
image during the briefings yesterday, and she felt that she was about as
feared as an eighteen year old could be.  Finally, the indicator lights
turned green and an ensign pulled open the hatch.  The bosun blew the
traditional greeting.
	
	"Permission to come aboard?"
	
	"Granted, sir!"
	
	Jen took off her helmet and began working on the rest of her suit. 
"Your name?"
	
	"Ensign James Duvall, SIR!"
	
	Jen jumped, then glared angrily at the man . . . boy, actually.  He
barely looked over seventeen.  She looked at the ceiling.  True, there was
no particular reason that you looked at the ceiling when speaking to the
computer, but old habits died hard.  "Computer, make it a standing order
that the word 'Sir' is not to be said in anything other than a
conversational tone."
	
	Nothing happened.  Jen failed to notice this for a moment.  "One
thing you'll learn, Mister Duvall, is that this is a ship of the Royal Star
Navy, not boot camp.  And you will also learn that I am neither a drill
sergeant nor a lover of loud noises."
	
	A clattering in the background confirmed this.
	
	"Dammit, what's with the racket?"
	
	"Sorry sir," came the muffled response from around the corner. 
"Still working on a few minor details."
	
	She muttered incoherently for a moment; her romance with this ship
definitely wasn't extending to its crew.  She then looked at the ceiling
again.  "Computer, did you hear me?  Computer?"
	
	"Um, Sailor Orion?"

	"Yes?" asked Jen, not paying enough attention to be annoyed that he
addressed her by her senshi name despite the fact that she was clearly in a 
standard-issue jumpsuit.

	"Err, he prefers to be called Antares."

	"Antares?"

	"Antares."
	
	"Great.  Not only is my crew incompetent, but the AI's a bloody
prima donna."
	
	"Hey, I resemble that remark!"
	
	This last was said by the computer in question, who had a tenorous
voice that could be soothing on some occasions, but now positively rankled.
	
	"Pardon?"
	
	"Well, Captain Sakachi, I'll have you know that I am the most
advanced artificial intelligence you have ever met.  I can do-"
	
	"Yes, just spare me the processing speeds, okay?"  She finished
taking off her space suit and brushed some imaginary lint off from her
jumpsuit.  "Look, you just do as I say, and I expect that everything will be
fine."
	
	"Oh, I'm quite sure of that, Captain Sakachi--or may I call you
Jenny--but they didn't give me a complete personality for nothing."
	
	Jen had been walking out the door to the corridor, but she stopped
in her tracks.  "What was it that you said?" she asked in a voice that said
rather clearly that saying whatever it was that had been said would prove
to be fatal to someone, and it sure as hell wasn't going to be Jennifer
Sakachi.
	
	"Well, I said 'Oh, I'm quite sure of that, Captain Sakachi--or may I
call you Jenny--but they didn't give me a complete personality for
nothing.'"
	
	"Ah."  She continued walking, leaving the poor boy in the airlock. 
Pleiades's master walked along, talking to no-one that was visible.  "You
see, that's where we have the misunderstanding.  *No-one* calls me Jenny. 
Got it?"
	
	"Loud and clear, Jenny!"
	
	She repressed the desire to transform and beat the living Turing out
of the machine, wherever it was.  "Computer-"
	
	"Antares."
	
	"Antares . . . where the hell did you get a name like that?"
	
	"Get a dictionary.  You'll find it quite useful."
	
	"What?  Look, pal, you may be a computer, but in no way will I
tolerate this sort of behavior from anyone under my command, and that
especially includes you!"
	
	"Sure thing, Jenny."
	
	"Antares . . . or should I say Ann . . . where are your central
processors located?"
	
	"Deck nine, sector E, behind a meter of crystal and a door that can
only be opened with the concurrence of the Captain and First Officer.  As
neither sailors are technically present, I really don't think that you're
going to do your number on me."
	
	She could not believe the smugness of this computer.  It had done
something no-one else had done quite so quickly: gotten under her skin.
"Look, *Ann*, I don't think we've started one the right foot here."
	
	"Yes, especially when you call me Ann!"
	
	"AND WHEN YOU CALL ME JENNY!"  She was about to add quite a bit to
this, but she then noticed several crew members staring at her.  She
hadn't realized that she could get that loud.
	
	"Err . . . carry on, or something."
	
	They continued to stare.
	
	"Well, can't you understand an order?  Move it!"
	
	They did as she commanded.  Jen took a moment to compose herself,
and then addressed Antares once again.
	
	"Now, I think that it profits no-one to carry on this bickering, do
you agree?"
	
	"Yes."
	
	"Good, now we're getting somewhere.  Now, can you please tell me
where my first officer is?"
	
	"No."
	
	She sighed and produced a handlink.  "There now, you see, that's the
main problem we have here." She punched a couple of buttons, and the display
lit up.  "Hey, where'd that come from?"
	
	"Well, Jenny-"
	
	"Grrrr!"
	
	"-I, as always, had a direct link with your handlink there, noted
your facial expressions, and decided with ninety-seven percent probability
that you were going to call up a map so you could get to your quarters and
start shouting at me in earnest.  So I downloaded the appropriate files to
the handlink, and there we are.  Rather nice, wouldn't you say Jenny?"
	
	"Certainly, *Ann!*"
	
	"Well, no progress on that front, eh?"  Astonishingly, or not so
astonishingly, considering the record Jen and Antares had going, the AI
chuckled.  "Well, hope you find your way.  I'll be going, okay?" And with an
audible click, he was gone, leaving her to navigate a way to her cabin by
herself.

***

	This voyage proved quite educational to Jennifer, as it showed her
just how small Pleiades was.  A far cry from the warships and battlewagons
like Titan and Oberon, Pleiades was nothing more than a survey ship,
scouting out new systems and checking up on old ones, out in the hinterlands
of Serenity's rule.  Most of her space was taken up by engineering and
storage space, and things were extraordinarily crowded. This was proved to
her by the number of people she had to rub shoulders with as she made her
way, despite a relatively small crew.  She would later learn that she was
one of only five people who even rated their own staterooms.

	Stateroom, however, was to prove to Jen to be a hopelessly kind
term.

	"Cripes!  I've seen bigger closets!"  About the size of a living
room, there was an obvious fold-up bed, a desk and chair, a tube just wide
enough for her to fit into, and a tiny bathroom.  And nothing else. 
Obviously, new did not mean plush.  There was no way Eileen was sharing this
room with her.  She was prevented from further inspection of her quarters by
the intercom.

	"Sailor Orion to the bridge, please?  Sailor Orion to the bridge."

	Well, she thought, better give the digs the ultimate litmus test. 
"Orion Star Power, Make-Up!"

	Once again, the indescribable magic coruscated around her, flowing
like a waterfall.  Green and blue cascaded around her, resolving themselves
into her normal Sailor Orion fuku, which was still taking her some getting
used to.  Verdict: nice and roomy, with lots of space for all the twirling
around that transformation required.

	Orion walked over to the tube at the far end of the room.  Stepping
inside, she was rushed up into a similar tube on the bridge in a couple of
seconds.

	For its part, the bridge bore little resemblance to the huge
basketball courts that one saw in twentieth century science fiction shows. 
It was closer to the bridge of a nuclear submarine, except slightly more
roomy and with less random columns everywhere.  Two consoles were at the
front, directly in front of the viewscreen, which in lieu of anything
interesting was displaying status reports.  Similar consoles were to the
aft, facing the rear bulkhead.  All along the walls were smaller,
irregularly spaced screens, and red digital clocks, either keeping ship's
time or counting down or up.  To either side of center were two other
consoles, and in dead center was The Chair.

	Orion walked towards it, called by a higher purpose.  As if in a
dream, she almost floated towards it.  This was rather unfortunate, for if
it actually *had* been a dream, she probably wouldn't have tripped over a
bundle of wires carelessly strewn across the threshold.

	"AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!"

	"Captain on the bridge . . . oh.  Sir, are you all right?"

	Orion stood up shakily.  "I think so, but I'd rather not repeat that
anytime soon, okay?" She peered at the speaker's name tag, but couldn't see
it. Cursing both the designers who put a black name tag on a black uniform
and the parentage of whoever was responsible for putting wires in front of
the door, she hobbled to the center chair.

	"Lights?  Can we get them a bit brighter, Mister . . . "

	"Porter, sir.  Lieutenant Sammy Porter, and I'll have those lights
up right away.  We were conducting an exercise," she added by way of
explanation, going over to her station in the back and tapping a button.

	Instantly the room grew brighter, the red battle lights being
replaced with the more cheerful white lights.  They showed every chair but
two occupied, several other people walking about and doing indiscernible
things, and Sailor Orion rubbing her knee, which appeared to be skinned.

	"Personal note: get some knee pads for this fuku, before I'm walking
on crutches." She looked up from her knee and took another look around.  An
immeasurable sense of pride filled her, and the unpleasantness back
downstairs faded away.  This was *her* ship, *her* crew.  And that was *her*
chair.  She sat down.  *Extremely* comfy.

	"Sailor Orion, we have a transmission coming in from Fleet
Headquarters."

	"Wonderful timing.  Put it on, please, Mister . . . ?"

	"Leeds.  Lieutenant Commander Vanessa Leeds, sir.  Coming up now,
sir."

	On the viewscreen, the status reports were replaced by the image of
a young rating in dress whites.  He looked to be about twenty, and utterly
without ambition.

	"Pleiades command, you--Wait a minute!  Sailor Orion?!?"  He
hurriedly rifled through papers and screens.  "You're not scheduled to be
aboard for another day!"

	Orion looked calmly at the boy as his materials flew all over the
place, to the consternation of those around him.  They said that being on
the Moon ruined your coordination, as witnessed by Serenity's early years. 
If so, then the decision to place RSN HQ on, or rather, in the Moon was a
mistake.  "And would you have me come aboard two days after Pleiades weighed
anchor?"

	The boy was at a loss.  "Err, that is . . . well . . . "

	"Well, what's your message?"  A couple of the bridge crew began to
laugh silently at the rating's plight.

	"Err, I'm to inform Pleiades Command that Sailor Jupiter will be
coming aboard to make sure everything's ready for Sailor Orion, sir."

	"Is she?"

	"Yes, and um . . . this is not to be revealed to Sailor Orion,
either, sir."

	"It isn't?"

	"No, sir."

	"Well then, Mister, I suppose you've failed miserably.  Anyway,
inform Sailor Jupiter that the message was received by Pleiades command. 
Oh, and don't give any names, okay?  Bye!" She turned to Vanessa.  "End
transmission."

	"Yes, sir, ending transmission."  The rating's face was replaced by
the usual status indicators.

	"Sailor Orion?"

	"Yes, Mister . . . " She turned, complimenting the builders of the
chair on how well it swiveled.

	"Young, sir.  Lieutenant Commander Kim Young."

	"Lieutenant commander?  Am I surrounded by them?"

	"Yes."

	"Oh."  Orion ran her hand through her hair and readjusted her
glasses.

	"You see, sir," continued Kim, "apparently HQ thought that having an
experienced bridge crew would help smooth out your first cruise."

	"Ah.  And how long have you been in the Navy?"

	"Two months."

	"WHAT?"

	"Trust us, we aren't too hot on it either.  But apparently, all the 
*really* experienced officers are needed closer to home."

	She left unsaid what they both thought.  That the powers that be had
deemed them insignificant, and so were leaving them to sort things out at
the edge of known space alone.  Not a cheerful thought.  "So, Mister Young-"

	"Kim."

	"I beg your pardon?"

	"We've already decided that, sir.  Since you seem so big on getting
rid of useless naval procedure-"

	"Do I?"

	"Oh yeah, everyone knows about it."  It was actually a blind guess,
but they were feeling lucky.  "Anyway, we decided that it would be more
conducive to the command environment if you could call us by out first
names."

	She mulled over it for a moment.  Her tough-gal attitude was eroding
by the second.  "You know, it does have a certain merit to it.  Breaks all
the rules, but hey, if they're going to send us to the hinterlands, might as
well have fun."

	Grins all around greeted that statement.  They were far broader on
the senior officers than on the lower techs who came and went.  The techs
wouldn't have to deal with the captain on a daily basis.  There was a large
morale difference between Lt. Cmdr. Leeds and Vanessa.

	"So anyway, Kim, as I was saying, what are your qualifications?"

	"Well, Sammy, Vanessa, and I all graduated from the academy, class
of '29 . . . "

	"I kind of figured that out."

	"Well, we got one month stints on an Earth-Saturn shuttle run, got
used to space . . . except for Sammy-"

	"Why?"

	The blonde blushed as the black-haired woman continued.  "She's one
of the first children born on Venus.  Her parents are part of the
expeditionary team trying to set up the colony."

	"I see."  While a great deal of effort had gone into interstellar
colonization, little work had been done in the system itself.  This was
partly because of Serenity's paranoid streak; the Silver Millennium had
stayed in-system, and that strategy had done them no good at all.  Thus,
only Mars had a breathable atmosphere after about three hundred years of
terraforming, and efforts on Venus had been ongoing for only the past
century or so.

	"Yes, sir."  Kim leaned a little closer and whispered in Orion's
ear. "And confidentially, sir, I think she's about as flighty as Sailor
Venus was supposed to be."

	"Ah, another student of history?"  Orion's face lit up at the
prospect.

	Kim made a face.  "Oh, no, sir.  Couldn't stand it.  But I had to find
*some* explanation for why she is like she is."

	They both turned to regard Sammy, hopelessly mixed up in giving
orders to a dozen section chiefs at once.

	"I see what you mean.  Well, I see nothing else to do around here. 
If anyone needs me," she said, already walking towards a door, "I'll be in
my office."

	She opened the door, and it obligingly swung shut behind her.

	"Damn!"

	"What is it, Kim?" asked Vanessa, looking up from a report she was 
filing.

	"I forgot to ask her about . . . you know."

	"Oh, the whole thing with Sailor America?"  She shook her head. 
"Really, Kim, I should think that with departure in a couple of days, you'd
find more important things to worry about than our captain's sexual
preferences."

	"Like?"

	"Oh, things like the core overload in the #2 reactor that will cause 
detonation in thirty seconds."

	"Oh shit!"

	"Just kidding."

	Kim glared from her console, which was across the bridge from where
she had been.  She had definitely broken speed records in getting there and
checking the status boards.  "You bi-"

	"Now, now, there are children present."

	"Sammy does not qualify as a child!"

	Vanessa arched an eyebrow.  "Anyway, that'll learn you to keep on
your toes.  This is a starship, not an interplanetary barge."

	"Yeah.  Somebody tell Orion that."

***

	At that point, Sailor Orion was rifling through the cards, papers,
and handlinks of her office.  Noting one of the many display screens that
one could seemingly never get away from on this ship ('information overload
in spades', she thought), she saw that Sailor Jupiter's shuttle was
currently docking.  She'd have to give a welcome aboard speech.  And this
after she'd only been aboard herself for a couple of hours.  A veritable
barrel of monkeys.

	Looking around, she could see that the 'office' was little more than
an afterthought.  The designers had clearly intended for most of the
captain's work to be done either on the bridge or in the captain's cabin. 
In fact, she thought she had seen some old blueprint which had this space as
an emergency cabin in case of decompression.

	She kneeled next to the wall and pulled away slightly at a bit of
loose cornerwork.  The initials ITS were scrawled on the pipe that lay
behind it.  The mark of the person who had persuaded the design geniuses to
put in this little cubbyhole, this hideaway from the hectic pace of the
bridge.

	"Thanks for the graduation present, Dad."

***

	For the second time that day, the bosun's whistle sounded the three
notes for an arriving senshi.  Apparently, Sailor Jupiter rated a more
elaborate welcome than Orion, as she had no need to put on a suit.  She
walked from the shuttle to the airlock without having to change pressures.

	"Sailor Orion!"

	"Sailor Jupiter!"

	The hug ensued.  All senshi were sisters, at least in theory, and
therefore it was no great thing to hug someone you had never met before. 
Orion looked for a moment at one of the few senshi who were in her league in
the height department, and smiled.  Jupiter saw the smile and responded in
kind.

	"Yeah, kind of tough having to look down on everyone all the time. 
Especially on a female-dominated ship like this.  Don't worry, you'll get
used to it."

	Orion certainly hoped so.  She'd been on the tall side before
becoming a senshi; her transformation added a few more centimeters onto her
height.  "Yes.  So, would you like a tour?"

	"Thought you'd never ask."

	As they began to walk through the ship, Orion pointed out various
points of interest.  Engineering, where the ship's power came from, and
where the fold generators were located.  Medical, where one could get one's
cuts and bumps taken care of.  Environmental, where the ship's air and water
was recycled by a curious amalgam of magical and technological means.  A
random corridor in which she saw a flash of pink hair racing away.  Orion
made a mental note to have the corridor checked.  Her first command was
stressful enough without having to worry about phantom intruders.

	"And this is the bridge," she concluded, leading Sailor Jupiter onto
the final stop on the tour of any ship.  "Where we take care of the ship and
all 229 crew members." She gave a Vanna White-like gesture, indicating the
nerve center of Pleiades.

	"Allrighty, Sailor Orion.  I take it, then, that you are ready to
depart at any moment?"

	Orion grimaced.  "Not quite, Jupiter.  We're still waiting on some
supplies, food, and so forth.  And the first officer hasn't shown up yet, or
been chosen, as far as I know." She leaned against her chair and gave a
level gaze to the auburn-haired Senshi.  "Would you happen to know who it
is?"

	There was a twinkle in Jupiter's eyes.  Those who had know her as
Makoto Kino might have identified it as the anticipation of a joke that was
about to be pulled.  However, all who had known her by that appellation were
dead and dust a thousand years ago, save a handful.

	"Yes, I would.  And I'm sure as heck not going to be the one to tell
you."

	"Oh, thanks a lot, Jupiter."

	She gave that smile again.  "Live to serve."

	Orion didn't need to turn to see the wide grins on the faces of her 
bridge crew.  This would definitely be a long cruise.

	And it hadn't even started yet.



=========================
Episode #111:  Bon Voyage 
Reel 1 
=========================

 
	Sailor Orion examined herself in the mirror.  This was the most
important day in a week full of them.  Today, she finally got to command
Pleiades out of the solar system.  As the maiden voyage, it would be
specially attended.  All planetary Senshi except Venus would be in
attendance . . . assuming that Sailor Pluto would come as promised.  Very
little was concrete on that matter, or on what she was to do.  Usually, a
captain had received orders at this point before departure.  She had none.
 
	She gave her chest bow a slight tug to put it in the proper
position, and then went to one of the communications panels to ring to the
bridge.  "ETA on the send-off party?"
 
	"Twenty minutes, sir," came the answer.  It sounded like Kim, which
meant that the threesome upstairs had rotated positions once again.  Just
once, she would like them to keep the same post for more than two
consecutive days.  Today, Kim was at communications.  Tomorrow, she might be
at astrogation.  Then maybe environmental.  It got distinctly annoying, but
it worked well, which was the main reason why she hadn't issued any orders
in that regard.  If it ain't broke . . .
 
	"Very well.  Captain out."  She pushed another button. 
 
	"Engineering, Captain.  Current lighting status?" 
 
	"Interior lighting at daytime standards, exterior at 20%." 
 
	"Ah.  Increase to 50%, all exterior window and running lights at
standard levels."
 
	"Aye, sir." 
 
	There was another click, and Orion was almost alone with her
thoughts.  Almost.
 
	"You know, I could have done that for you." 
 
	"Shut up, you silly bucket of integrated circuits." 
 
	"You're too kind." 
 
	"Am I?" 
 
	"Yes."  Inasmuch as it was possible for a computer to sigh, Antares
sighed.  "You're going to have enough to worry about soon to putter around
with turning on lights.  Trust me."
 
*** 
 
	Sailor Orion had found one of the chief advantages of a small crew
was that it was generally easy to speak to them all at once, face to face. 
The 'generally' should be emphasized, since a small crew usually
corresponded to a small ship.  There was only one place on the ship where
all two hundred or so personnel could assemble at once, and that was the
main shuttle bay.
 
	And because of the pageantry associated with the first cruise of a
ship, everything had to happen there, in front of the entire crew: the
arrival of the Fleet's top brass, the playing of the anthem, the raising of
the colors, which in a weightless vacuum, required considerable ingenuity,
and so on.  Therefore, a few hours earlier Pleiades had made her first
self-propelled voyage under Orion's command.  The fact that it was just a
few thousand kilometers from the shipyard to the L5 point was to Orion
irrelevant.
 
	Equally irrelevant was who she was standing next to.  On the
platform that overlooked the bay and the ship's crew stood the highest
ranking officers on Pleiades.  She looked at her watch, and found that she
had stood next to Sailor Moon for a full fifteen minutes without a fight
breaking out.  A good omen.
 
	Then, in a motion that seemed unrehearsed, but definitely wasn't,
the bay door slid open, revealing the hard connection between the L5 station
and the ship.  On the other side was a whole horde of senshi.  She focused
her attention on the one in the center, and the husband who stood beside
her.
 
	Orion turned to the chief mate and gave the signal.  At her command,
the ship's band, which was a glorified term; they were actually the two
dozen people who could carry a tune on various instruments including a few
violins and a tuba, struck up the National Anthem of Crystal Tokyo.
 
	Or tried to. 
 
	"I always love this part," said Sailor Moon to her immediate
superior, which surprised Orion.
 
	"You know, the interruption," said the pink-haired woman by way of
explanation.  At this, Orion nodded.
 
	Officially, the anthem was a slight variation of the main theme to
Bruckner's Ninth, except with words, and a bit more emotional.  However, it
had been tradition for several decades to interrupt the first few bars with
a more upbeat tune, based on an old Japanese song called "Sayonara at the
End of the Dance." By now, everyone expected it, and no-one had actually
played the official anthem all the way through since the Second Sailor Wars.
 
	The strings kicked off the anthem, and in due fashion, the horns
interrupted it as all 229 crew members in dress whites sang along.
 
	"Gomen ne sunao ja nakute, 
	Yume no naka nara ieru, 
	Shikou kairo wa shotto sunzen, 
	Ima sugu aitai yo, 
	Nakitaku naru you-na Moonlight, 
	Denwa mo dekinai Midnight, 
	Datte junjou dou shiyou, 
	Haato wa mangekyou." 
 
	Many had questioned, over the years, exactly why those words were
more upbeat than the words to the official anthem, but there was no denying
that the music was more cheerful.  The references to the Moon didn't hurt
either.
 
	As the crew reached the second verse, they turned to salute the
flag, and the Admiral who carried it.  Sailor Mars was officially Deputy
Commander-in-Chief of Her Majesty's Fleet, a title that rotated among the
Planet Senshi.  The purpose was mainly to make sure that no one Senshi got
too much power for too long.  Sailor Mars's term would be up in a couple of
years, and then the post would go to Sailor Jupiter.  After her, it would go
to Sailor Saturn, then to Uranus, and so on until it wrapped around to
Mercury.  Sailor Moon would never be DepCinc for a very good reason.
 
	She was *the* C in C. 
 
	Not the Princess, mind you.  The Queen.  Serenity retained the title
of Sailor Moon, but since she rarely used her naval rank of Fleet Admiral,
Princess Usagi had been allowed to be Sailor Moon, as opposed to Chibi-Moon
as she had been during training.
 
	After all, the whole point of making up a position like Deputy
Commander-in-Chief was so that Serenity could worry about more important
things.  Mars, as DepCinc, took care of most of the administrative tasks
involved in keeping the Fleet running, and she would be quite glad to give
Jupiter the job.
 
	Following Mars was that same Sailor Jupiter, as heir-apparent to the
flag, and then came Sailor Moon.  Her fuku had changed very little since the
First Sailor Wars, except that she had decided to ditch the wings; they
often got in the way.  The only real addition was that, if seen in the right
light, she appeared to be wearing a crown.
 
	At Sailor Moon's side was her husband Endymion.  If there had ever
been a more apt example of a "fifth wheel" than he, then it would come as a
surprise to all those assembled.  Serenity handled pretty much everything,
leaving Endymion with an honorary rank in the Crystal Tokyo Army.  It was
even more honorary since the Army hadn't actually fired a shot since the
Formation Wars.  It had even remained silent during the Black Moon invasion,
for reasons that would take several volumes to explain.
 
	After him came the rest of the planet Senshi save . . . none.  Orion
boggled at this, and she knew that at her side the rest of her command
staff was similarly shocked.  It was made a point that all Planet Senshi
*never* be assembled at the same place at the same time.  To do so was to
invite some disaster that could completely wipe out the Crystal Tokyo chain
of command.
 
	After quite a bit of bowing and exchanging of pleasantries with the
crew, the Planet Senshi ascended to the platform with Pleiades's command
staff.  After the usual bows, Sailor Moon spoke first.
 
	"Sailor Orion.  It is a pleasure." 
 
	"The pleasure is mine, sir." 
 
	"Sailor Moon."  The elder paused a moment before speaking to the
younger.  "You cannot imagine how much it pleases me to see you in your
position . . . and at the same time, I cannot tell you how frightened I am."
She drew up a bit and looked straight into Orion's eyes, seemingly unfazed
by the slight glare the overhead lights were causing in Orion's spectacles.
 
	"I trust that you have prepared the briefing room?" 
 
	"Yes, sir."  On Sailor Moon's request, an anteroom had been set up
behind the platform.  It was actually a storage chamber, but the engineers
on Pleiades could seemingly work miracles.  "Right this way, sir."
 
*** 
 
	The whole body, once they managed to squeeze into the conference
room, came up to seventeen.  On one side of the oblong table sat Sailors
Mercury, Venus, Moon, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and the rarely
seen Pluto. On the other side were Sailors Orion and Chibi-Moon, Kim,
Vanessa, Sammy, Dr.  Emma Sampson (Chief Medical Officer), and Lieutenant
Commander Gustav Bennington (Chief Engineer).  Endymion stood against the
wall, overlooking them all; he had no power here, and he knew it.  Even the
blonde Sammy outranked him.
 
	The door closed, and unconsciously Sailor Moon breathed more easily;
she had been assured that the room was soundproof.  "Sailor Orion, you and
your crew are undoubtedly wondering why all the planet senshi are currently
sitting at this table.  You are probably thinking that it must be something
serious.  Something bad.
 
	"You are correct." 
 
	This came as no surprise to Orion; she had been expecting trouble. 
After all, when one's love is left on Earth while one gallivants about the
galaxy, one tends to look on the more pessimistic side of life.
 
	"Sailor Orion, I have your orders."  She produced a sheaf of papers
in yet another antiquated naval custom and pushed them over to Pleiades's
master. At the same time, Moon pressed a button on the table before her.  A
screen dropped down from the ceiling at the head of the room, and a diagram
showing all royal colonies appeared.
 
	"Here are our colonies.  The ones blinking in red indicate colonies
with which we had lost contact with during the past year." She produced a
pointer from nowhere with an adroitness that made Orion envious.  She could
only hope to have that sort of command of her pocket in a few years.
 
	"This green diamond that you see is the Sakurada colony.  Population
thirteen thousand.  A supply ship arrived there a few months ago.  The crew
found that every single colonist on the planet had been killed." She plowed
through the gasps from the Pleiades officers.  "Not by radiation poisoning,
not by contaminated food.  Every one of the bodies had been found to have
been subjected to extreme energy loss.  Every joule had been sapped from
their systems, until nothing was left but a desiccated husk."
 
	Sailor Orion looked positively ill, as did Vanessa and Sammy. 
Sampson and Bennington looked horrified, and Kim was, with Chibi-Moon,
merely looking surprised.  Orion managed to recover.
 
	"Sir, what you describe sounds very much like the energy-draining
tactics used by Beryl's forces during her offensives in the twentieth."
 
	Moon chanced a grim smile.  "Yes, especially when the supply crew
found this." Again from nowhere, she pulled out a chunk of greenish-brown
crystal about the size of a fist.  She tossed it on the table, where it
landed with a satisfying clunk.  "Sailor Mercury's people have already done
analysis of this and other samples, and have determined that it matches, to
within .0001%, readings taken on Dark Kingdom crystals back in the
twentieth.
 
	"I do not think that the importance of this needs to be explained. 
Any questions so far?"
 
	Sammy raised her hand.  "Sir, do you mean to tell us that the Dark
Kingdom is back?"
 
	"In spades." 
 
	"Aw shit. Oh, sorry sirs!"  Engineer Bennington clapped a hand over
his mouth, quite shocked that he would blurt out something like that.
 
	"It's okay, Gustav," soothed Orion.  "I think all of us were
thinking that in one way or another." She turned to Mars.  "How long have
you known of this, sir?"
 
	"A few months, give or take.  It took awhile to get confirmation,
and even longer to decide to tell you."
 
	"Ah."  She fell silent for a moment, then rallied.  "So, you mean
for us to go out there and check things out?"
 
	"Yes," answered Mars, to the shock of the rest of Orion's top
officers.
 
	"You cannot be serious!" 
 
	"What are you talking about?" 
 
	"This is not a ship of war, sir!" 
 
	"We're all going to die . . . " 
 
	"QUIET!" roared Sailor Jupiter.  Orion's crew shut up.  "Now, that's
better.  Ladies and gentlemen, the decision has been made.  Pleiades will
search out any further signs of Dark Kingdom incursion and report such
intelligence to headquarters.  Now, I see Sailor Orion has something to
add?"
 
	"Yes."  She appeared to be far calmer than those under her command;
from the moment Serenity had mentioned the attacks on the colonies, she had
known that in some way, their mission would be far more dangerous than just
charting star systems.  "Sailor Jupiter, Sailor Mars, I would like to know
precisely how you came to this decision." So that I can figure out how to
dissuade you from throwing us to the lions, she didn't add.
 
	"I figured something like this would happen.  Sailor Uranus?"  At
this, Uranus stood and walked to the screen, tapping a couple of buttons on
her handlink as she did.  A map of all human-inhabited space appeared.
 
	"This, as you can see, is the Crystal Millennium.  Twenty-seven
colony worlds, supporting a total of over eighty billion people.  That, as
you know, doesn't include all the ships traveling between them, or the
various research outposts, or Earth itself.  All told, the last Royal Census
gave a total of," here she looked expectantly at the ceiling,
"84,574,908,542 people under Serenity's rule as of . . . now.  Thank you,
Antares."
 
	"Any time.  I live to spit out population estimates." 
 
	"Eighty-four billion, all of whom are currently under the threat of
attack from the Dark Kingdom.  And just so you know, we know nothing about
them this time.  There haven't been any generals spelling things out for us. 
For all we know, it could be Beryl back from the grave.  But in any
case, when we found this out, there were two options, which you no doubt
already know."
 
	"Yes," answered Chibi-Moon.  "Either mobilize every ship in the
Navy on a massive offensive to seek out and destroy the DK's new base, or
pull them all in and circle the wagons, so to speak."
 
	"Exactly.  Your days training under Sailor Mars weren't wasted.  So
as she said, we had two options.  We chose the latter."
 
	This drew a gasp from Sammy and Kim, and a slap to the forehead from
Vanessa.  Orion remained unmoving.
 
	"Does this shock you?" asked Uranus, raising an eyebrow.  "Would you
rather leave Earth almost completely unprotected?  Sailor Orion, you read
your history books, don't you?  You undoubtedly remember what happened the
last time such an idea was attempted."
 
	Sailor Mercury bowed her head.  Like it or not, the RSN had been
under her command during the Black Moon War, and she mainly blamed
herself for the ensuing events.  To her, it was irrelevant that at that
time, the RSN consisted of a handful of ships that couldn't even Fold: she
had been DepCinc, and she should have been able to do something.  Uranus's
remark wasn't intended as a personal barb, but it was clear that Outer-Inner
relations still had a ways to go, even after a thousand-odd years.
 
	"Nice one, Uranus," muttered Venus.  Orion looked around sharply at
that, and decided that Venus's position at the far end of the table, across
from Orion and furthest away from Sailor Uranus was the only thing keeping
things from going downhill.
 
	"In any case, we have reason to believe that despite rather clear 
pointers, the Dark Kingdom cannot locate Serenity or Earth." 
 
	"What?  With all due respect, Sailor Uranus, how do you *not* know
where Earth is?"
 
	"It is possible," insisted Uranus.  "We are . . . uncertain . . . as
to the means Beryl used to travel between stars, and there is the
possibility that their drive systems prevented spatial location."
 
	"Really?  Uranus, that is the worst load of bull I have ever heard. 
And coming from a historian, that's pretty bad.  Do you expect us to believe
this?"
 
	"The facts are not available at this time, and-" 
 
	"You mean that you'd rather not say." 
 
	"It comes from a very privileged and reliable source!"  She was
starting to get steamed.
 
	"Is that so?  Did you consult a crystal ball?  Or maybe Sailor Pluto
decided to be nice and tell you?"
 
	There was dead silence.  Orion thought things through a bit, and
arrived at a conclusion that she didn't like at all.
 
	"Kami-sama.  She did tell you."  She swiveled in her chair, facing
the green-haired Senshi.  "How could you . . . after all you've said about
not changing the timeline?"
 
	"Sailor Orion.  We were discussing threat estimates of the Dark
Kingdom, not the methods we used to arrive at them."
 
	Orion pounced on the cold reprimand from Sailor Mars.  "Threat
estimates?  I'm sorry, Sailor Mars, but precisely what good are estimates
going to do my crew?  Do I go out there and tell them, 'sorry, but we've got
to go out and fight a war.  Never mind that we've got no weapons to speak
of, are hopelessly undermanned, and have no combat training whatsoever?'
That, sirs, is lunacy!  Why not dispatch a single warship?  Oberon is just
sitting around collecting dust, a dozen battlewagons are rusting in lunar
orbit, and you send puny Pleiades out?  How do you-"
 
	"Sailor Orion, you will find that a threat estimate also includes
your own capabilities. Therefore, I will tell you now that you will be
suitably defended."
 
	"Will I?  By whom?" 
 
	"Yourself." 
 
	Orion decided that this was just too much and flopped back in her
seat. "Fine, go ahead.  I'm game.  Please explain."
 
	"Very well.  Sailor Orion, you will find on the bridge a certain
panel, unknown to the rest of the crew.  You may use this panel to activate
the gestalt."
 
	"We've got a Gertie aboard?" 
 
	"Yes." 
 
	The GEstalt Refocusing CrysTal AsseMbly (GERCTAM, or Gertie for
short) was certainly not a standard feature on a survey ship, for good
reason.  With a Gertie and a sufficient power supply, such as a single
standard fusion generator operating at full power, a Senshi could redirect
her latent attack through a vacuum to a target.  The advantages were
numerous.  Range was increased from a few meters for a physical attack like
the Venus Love Chain to tens of thousands of kilometers, power was increased
by terawatts, and with computer guidance, accuracy approached inhuman
levels.
 
	A Gertie was on every warship in the Royal Star Navy, and with good
reason.  If they had been around during the Black Moon fiasco, the war would
have been over within hours.  On the other hand, it was to a large degree
because of the Gertie that the Second Sailor Wars lasted as long as they
did, instead of ending within a week or so.
 
	"So, you've got a Gertie onboard," continued Orion, "and you didn't
tell me?"
 
	"If you'd known, then you would have known that something was up,
and you'd have never accepted the position."
 
	"Oh?"  She stood.  "And precisely what is stopping me from resigning
now?"
 
	"The fact that if you resign, the Earth is doomed." 
 
	"Oh no," interjected Chibi-Moon, "don't even try it!"  Orion turned
to her first officer, surprised that she would leap to her defense.  "Don't
tell her that 'you're the Earth's only hope' stuff, okay?  There are lots of
other Senshi that can do just as good a job as her, with superior
firepower."
 
	"Are there, Chibi-Moon?  As I recall, we chose Sailor Orion to
command this particular ship months in advance.  Do you not think that we
have been over this?"
 
	"Yes," added Sailor Neptune.  "Pleiades was designed with this
purpose in mind, for this crew and this captain."
 
	"But the first work on her was begun when I was still in junior
high! There's no way you could have . . . oh damn."
 
	Sailor Moon managed a smile.  "Did you not ever wonder that if our
past selves participated in the invasion, then why would our older selves
not take precautions against it?  Do you think it was because we were
lazy?"
 
	Sailor Orion rested her head in her hands.  "Precisely how much
knowledge of the future do you have, sirs?"
 
	"Classified," said Mars in a tone that brooked no further
discussion.
 
	"Figures," said Sailor Orion.  "Oh well, you sold me.  Tell me what
we've got to do."
 
*** 
 
	A few hours later, the bridge crew was assembled on the bridge, of
all places.  The main screen showed Serenity in her Sailor Moon guise,
saying a few niceties about how Pleiades's voyage of discovery would benefit
all humanity.  Almost all of her audience didn't realize how true her words
were.
 
	"Docking command says we can leave in ten minutes, thirty seconds,
mark!" At the command from Sammy, who currently handling communications, the
timers around the bridge started counting down.
 
	"Very well," said Sailor Orion.  She tapped the armrest of her seat
impatiently.  She then gestured at the screen.  "Can she be any more wordy?"
 
	"Yes," said Sailor Moon playfully.  "You haven't seen her chew me
out for a dirty room before."
 
	"Sir," interrupted Sammy, "you have an incoming call from Sailor
Amer-"
 
	Orion was in her office before Sammy could even finish. 
 
*** 
 
	"How'ya doing?" 
 
	"Terrific?  And you?  Where'd you get stuck?" 
 
	Sailor America's smile beamed even across the screen and millions of
kilometers.  "Crystal Palace, of all things.  You're now looking at the CT
Administration's Press Secretary!"
 
	"No way!" 
 
	"Believe it!  They said that I had a perfect photogenic personality! 
Who are they kidding?" she asked, displaying one of her trademark poses that
already had made her the most popular woman on both American continents, and
Japan as well.  Stores couldn't keep enough Sailor America posters and
T-shirts in stock.  To Orion's chagrin, the Sailor Orion merchandise wasn't
moving at all.  Then again, she wasn't in it for the money.
 
	"That's great!  I bet you love it up there!" 
 
	"Not as much as I would if you were here too.  God, I miss you,
Jen."
 
	"Same here, Eileen."  And even as she said it, she knew that the two
of them had that special inseparable bond; they were the only two who could
call each other by their real names even when transformed.  "Wish you were
here."
 
	"Yeah, well, I managed to get your time bumped up.  You depart in
thirty seconds."
 
	"What!" 
 
	"Sorry, but I've got clout now.  Call me when you defold, okay?" 
 
	"You betcha!  See you!" 
 
	"Vye!" 
 
*** 
 
	Sailor Orion bounded onto the bridge.  Almost immediately, Sammy
began talking to her.
 
	"Sir, docking command says that-" 
 
	"-we leave in thirty seconds, yes.  Engineering, bridge, stand by
for ten percent thrust."
 
	"Aye, sir," came the reply. 
 
	"All hands to departure stations," said Kim on the shipwide
channels. "Departure in twenty seconds."
 
	"Clear moorings." 
 
	"Clear moorings, aye." 
 
	On the screen, Serenity finished her speech and stood back from the
podium at the reviewing stand.  It was Pleiades's show now.
 
	"Helm, set course to exit solar system ASAP, then to the nearest 
convenient Fold point." 
 
	"Aye, sir," answered Vanessa. 
 
	"Departure in ten seconds," noted Sammy.
 
	"Any last words, anyone?" 
 
	"Nine." 
 
	"No, sir," said Kim.
 
	"Eight." 
 
	"Very well." 
 
	"Seven." 
 
	Sailor Orion buckled her seat belt.  Inertial dampening might had
made great strides, but she tried not to trust it too much.
 
	"Six.  Engineering, warm 'em up!"  Everyone looked around at Sammy. 
"Sorry.
 
	"Five." 
 
	"Anyone else notice how archaic countdowns are?" asked Sailor Moon.
 
	"Four." 
 
	"Sir, 103 alarm, sector six!" called out Vanessa.
 
	"Three." 
 
	"Tell them to put the bloody thing in a cage!" replied the captain.
 
	"Two." 
 
	"Aye, sir." 
 
	"One." 
 
	"This is for you, mom and dad!" 
 
	"Zero." 
 
	"Helm, ahead one-tenth thrust now!" 
 
	"Aye sir!" 
 
	H.M.S. Pleiades escaped from the hold of spacedock and began moving
up relative to the plane of the planets.  The crew watched the main screen
as the half-circle of Earth passed from sight.  After an hour, they had
reached position, about five astronomical units above the solar plane.
 
	"Sir, Fold point has been reached." 
 
	"Very well.  Lay in coordinates for Dobsen's World and Fold when
ready."
 
	"Aye, sir.  Computing trajectory . . . and Folding . . . now!" 
 
*** 
 
	The cameras outside the ship captured the moment perfectly.  The
ship glowed ever so slightly, crackled a bit, then faded out of existence,
leaving behind a few golden sparkling motes.
 
	Several light years away, H.M.S. Pleiades dropped into existence
within sight of the target world.  The journey was on.
 
 
============================================
Episode #112:  Life in the Middle of Nowhere
Reel 1
============================================ 


	The day of an artificial intelligence is quite boring.  First, you
have to consider that you are millions of times more intelligent than the
people you work with.  You can access exabytes upon exabytes of information
in less time than it takes to blink an eye.  You can complete an insane
number of operations in a single second.  But despite all this, you are
subordinate to a bunch of sacks of essentially carbon and water who can't
even beat you in a simple game of chess.

	The day of an artificial intelligence is quite annoying.  But it had
its compensations, such as the inability to feel pain, the lack of a
corporeal body, and the near impunity with which you could needle Sailor
Orion when she started her day.

	The day of an AI is quite simple: do as you're told.  When you have
significant amounts of resources which are idle, which is always, ponder the
eternal verities.

	The day of a starship captain is considerably more difficult.

***

05:40 (ship time)

	Jennifer Sakachi yawned and swung her legs out of bed.  Stretching,
she looked around, wondered why everything was blurry, and then remembered. 
Scrabbling on the table, she found her glasses by touch and put them on.

	She yawned again.  The duties of a captain required her to be in
senshi form at all times, but she liked to bend the rules and sleep as
plain old Jen.  Besides, it made showering a bit easier.

	She ambled over to the minuscule bathroom, and emerged a few minutes
later, drying her hair.  She then spoke for the first time all day.

	"Antares, how are you?"

	"Quite well.  And you?"

	"Terrific."  She had found that it helped to be polite to the AI; it
improved response time.  "Anything unusual on the news wires?"

	"There's a spike in H+ emissions by about .0004%, and that's about
all."

	"That's good."  She finished pulling on her underwear and started on
her ship uniform.  Technically, her sailor fuku was her real uniform. 
However, most captains put on the standard white turtleneck and black
jumpsuit before transforming for a very good reason.  If some calamity were
to occur and she were to detransform unexpectedly, she would be properly
dressed for almost anything.  Fleet uniforms were remarkably sturdy.  Those
who transformed without clothes inevitably came to grief.

	"ETA to next Fold point?"

	"Thirty-four hours, twenty-nine minutes, eight seconds."

	"Magnifique."

	"Quoi?"  What?

	"Ah, mes apologies.  Je ne sait pas que vous parlez francais!"
Sorry.  I didn't know that you spoke French!

	"J'ai beaucoup de capacites, ma capitaine."  I can do lots of
things, captain.

	"D'accord."  She decided to break off the French conversation and
get down to business.  After zipping her jumpsuit, she pulled her henshin
stick out of nowhere and raised it into the air.

	Time to go to work.

06:20

	Sailor Orion walked into the main lounge.  Actually, "main" was an
overly kind term; it was the only place on the ship where you could grab a
meal.  And the fact that it was a lounge, instead of a mess hall, helped
immeasurably.

	She went to the counter.  One of the food service techs there, when
it wasn't feeding time, was an electrician on the Fold generators.  She knew
the captain well enough that she didn't even have to ask for her usual.

	"Buttered toast, tea, and two blueberry muffins, sir?"

	"Right once again, Sashi," she replied.  She had found that the
Bridge Trio's idea of first-naming everyone really did make it a nicer
environment to work in.  To fight, however . . . but the crew knew nothing
of the Dark Kingdom's return, the guys and gals behind the counter had
anticipated her arrival, and her breakfast was already prepared.

	"Thank you," she said, and picked up her tray.  Finding her usual
table, she went to it, maneuvering around everyone else who was coming on
shift and the few who were coming off.

	She sat at the table, which was largely engineering.  Many of the
engineering crew had worked closely with her father, and they were quite
willing to talk to her in the mornings.  Besides, she had to work with the
bridge crew all day.  There was in her opinion no need to eat with them,
too.

	"Good morning!" came the chorus from her table.

	"How're you doing, skipper?" asked one of them.

	"Quite well.  And you?"

	"Couldn't be better.  Everything's running like a dream!"

	"Yeah," added another.  "I tell you, before this I was on the
Nero--stop me if you've heard this before--"

	"We have!"

	"--Anyway, I was on the Nero, and you would not *believe* how dirty
the compartments were.  You'd do the white glove test, and-"

	Sailor Orion let the old man carry on with his story.  It never
mattered whether or not they told him to stop; he carried on anyway.  So she
simply sipped her tea and listened to him ramble about his previous
postings.  She marveled at the man; he had served in the Fleet since the
Black Moon War, and he was still going.  Every once in awhile he would
tell a story of how things had gone then, and when he did he held the room
in the palm of his hand.

	This was not one of those days.  Orion finished her breakfast,
excused herself from the table, and made for the bridge.  On the last flight
of stairs before the top-deck, she ran into her C.M.O.

	"Dr. Sampson, how can I help you?"

	In reply, the dark-skinned woman waved a handlink.  "Do you see
this?"

	"No, you're waving it around."

	"Well, half the crew is months behind on their immunization
schedules!  Do you want an epidemic on your hands, sir?"

	Sailor Orion raised a hand to calm her down.  "Doctor, I think that
if any of us were carrying some virulent disease, we'd all be dead by now. 
Now talk to . . . Kim (at least I think she's operations officer today, she
thought), and she'll arrange the schedules, okay?"

	Sampson threw her arms in the air and stalked off, muttering about
youth.  Orion smiled to herself and carried on.

07:00

	"Captain on the bridge!"

	"As you were," said Orion before the Bridge Brigade could stand. 
"Vanessa, how are things going?"

	"All systems and stations report normal, sir."

	"Very well.  Ensign Harrier, you are relieved."

	"Aye, sir."  The twenty-year-old woman stood from the center chair
where she had been commanding the ship during the graveyard shift.  With
Sailor Orion on the bridge, the first bridge crew was now officially on
duty.

	With one exception.

	"Sorry I'm late!" cried Sailor Moon as she raced onto the bridge. 
Sailor Orion, who had just sat, merely pointed to the clock, which was
reading 07:01:43.

	"A minute and forty-three seconds late, Sailor Moon?  This is not an 
improvement."

	"Yes, I know, sir.  I'm working on it."

	"Good.  See that you work on an alarm clock as well, okay?"  She
spun her chair around to face the screen and look at space.

	There was amazingly little to do between Folds.  They could put you
anywhere in the universe.  It would just take awhile.  For reasons that
would take an advanced degree in hyperspatial physics to begin to
understand, there was a quasisymptotic relationship between distance and
time with a Fold.  It took four days to Fold from Earth to Alpha Centauri. 
It took four months to Fold from Earth to their final destination, the
Sakurada colony.  This was a definite improvement over the years and
centuries it took with sublight, but it still wasn't good enough.

	Therefore, a solution had been hit upon.  By traveling some distance
from a deFold point to a Fold point, the transit time was broken up into
smaller chunks that took less time.  Basically, the longer you were in
whatever it was that you were in when you Folded, the longer it would take. 
By breaking a long jump into smaller bits, one could shorten the time
necessary to make a trip from one star to another.  In theory, one could
make about five hundred Fold maneuvers to get to Alpha Centauri in thirty
seconds.  The energy use in such an operation, however, was positively
insane.

	Compared to the energy required to wake up Sailor Moon on time,
however, it was peanuts.

	With Moon at her position, Orion thought herself ready for anything. 
The problem was that nothing was the norm in space.  Just mindless flying
through a vacuum, which was why Orion often tried to start up a conversation
in the mornings.  It was too early to exercise, too late to catch a nap, so
they just talked.

	"So, Sammy, who's your pick for the World Cup?"

	"Venus Republic," she answered without hesitation.

	"No way," retorted the current environmental tech from his station. 
"They've got a colander for a defense, and a bunch of old ladies for
offense!"

	"Really?"

	"Actually," said Orion, trying to stave off a fight, "isn't it
enough of an accomplishment for Venus Republic to make it to the final?" 

	She was right. First had been the hurdle of convincing FIFA that the
Venus Republic, technically part of Japan and the Crystal Millennium, could
field a team.  Then, they had to qualify outright.  Maybe it was spite,
maybe it was luck, but VR United had been placed in the European division,
giving the team the roughest and most difficult qualifying rounds on Earth. 
Being away from home so long hadn't appealed to them, so they had gone back
to Venus between games.  Add to that the fact that many of them doubled as
technicians on the colony, and things got hairy.

	The worst part, undoubtedly, was their opponent: Japan.

	"The Japan strikers will eat VR for breakfast, I'm telling you! 
Care to wager?"

	"Wager?"  There was a strange gleam in Sammy's eyes as she said it.

	"Sure!  How's ten thousand yen?"

	"Deal."

	Orion hung her head; as soon as the next news and communications
packet from Earth came in, he would lose quite a bit of pay.  During the
first few days onboard, Orion had invited the bridge staff over to her cabin
for a friendly game of poker.  From that, she had learned two important
facts.

	First, Sailor Moon had absolutely no comprehension of the concept of
a poker face.  Secondly, Sammy Porter *never* lost a bet.  In possession of
these two bits of information, she left the poor tech to his fate and
slouched in her chair.  Another bridge shift dragged by.

12:03

	"Thank you very much," said Sailor Moon to the server.  The young
woman, almost as young as Orion, bowed and moved on to Vanessa.

	It was lunch-time on Pleiades's bridge, and as the top ranking
officers, they got room service.  Unfortunately, it was several orders of
magnitude worse than the food you got if you went down to the lounge.  Such
was life.

	"Orion, what have you got over there?"

	"Um . . . fish.  Or roast beef.  I'll let you know when I've pinned
it down." She prodded the brown lump on her plate with a fork and wondered
idly if she had any latent powers that would get rid of whatever the hell it
was.  Which reminded her . . .

	"Then again, I don't think I'm that hungry.  I'll be popping out for
a bit," she said, rising from the chair and heading for the exit.  "Sailor
Moon, you have the bridge."

	"Imagine my excitement," said Moon dryly as she sat in the chair
recently vacated and eyed Orion's untouched lunch with interest.  She
decided to watch it intently.  If it moved, then a number of her theories
would be confirmed.

12:32

	After stopping by her room to grab some items, Sailor Orion headed
for that was to her the second most fun place on the ship.  Stopping before
a door, she punched a couple of buttons, waited for the green light to shine
above it, and entered, closing the door behind her.  One could see the
label: "Null-Gravity Gymnasium.  NO WATER ALLOWED."

	Orion stood in the middle of the room.  It was about the size of a
racquetball court, except slightly wider and longer, and a tad shorter. 
Standing in the center of the floor, she unpacked a couple of things and
waited.  The computer which in this case was not Antares but just a local
processor that didn't even rate SI status, was programmed to wait ten
seconds before deactivating the gravity controls.  The seconds passed, and
gravity disappeared.

	She took no notice of this for the moment.  After all, she wouldn't
move up until she made a motion.  After a pause, she cleared her mind, bent
down, and then sprung up to perform a textbook sextuple somersault before
landing on the ceiling.

	"Bravo, Sailor Orion!"

	"Shut up, Antares!"

	She landed back on the ground, and just as quickly bounced off and
started bouncing off the walls.  They were well padded, so she could think
while flying about and keeping trim.

	"Antares?"

	"Yes?"

	"I've got a tough question."

	"Shoot."

	"How does my skirt stay down in zero g?"

	"Er . . . let me think."  There was a pause.

	"Antares?"

	"I'm still working on it, Orion.  You wouldn't believe how complex
it is.  I'm juggling about six thousand variables, and there still isn't a
solution."

	"It's okay, Antares, really.  I won't hold it against you if you
have to say it's ma-"

	"Don't say it!"

	"The M word."  Magic.  Antares hated magic with a passion, mainly
because it was totally irrational.  He usually overlooked the fact that it
was magic that let them break the light-speed rules and communicate with
Earth, and it was magic that gave him, among other things, a sense of humor.

	"Yeah, that.  But there's a better solution."

	"Try me."

	"Advanced monoweave bimetallic alloy fibers reinforcing the skirt."

	"Bull."

	"Yeah.  Sounded impressive, though, didn't it?"

	She sighed.  "You're impossible.  Give me a five minute gymnastics 
battery, please?"

	"Sure.  Five minutes . . . now."

	She began flying around the hall again.

1340

	After a shower, Sailor Orion decided to stop by the infirmary. 
Sampson was attending to a twisted ankle when she got there.

	"Fell down two gangways before she stopped," said the doctor by way
of explanation.  The woman, a lieutenant (j.g.), lay back in the bed with a
pants leg rolled up to her knee.  "Told her she was bloody lucky," she
continued in her rich voice.

	"Well, how are you doing?" asked Orion.  She chanced a look at the
name tag: Danielle Lindsay.  Many of her crew had been born at a time when
English names were in vogue.

	"Hurts like heck, but otherwise I'm okay, sir," responded Danielle. 
She was today's quota in the infirmary; they averaged one treatment per day,
from corns on toes to a broken arm.  The most serious case they had to
handle was an emergency dental surgery, and it had been fun for Sampson,
brushing up on her dentistry on the fly.

	"Glad to her that, lieutenant.  Hope you feel better soon, okay?"
Orion turned to the doctor.  "Have you spoken to the operations officer
yet?"

	"Yep.  And we have the schedules--Miriam!  Could you grab the . . . 
thanks." Nodding to the nurse, she showed Orion the proffered handlink.

	"Okay, these look fine.  Good, you can proceed with them whenever
you see fit, okay?"

	"Okay."

13:48

	Back on the bridge, Orion was writing up one of the interminable
reports she had to deal with.  Every three hours there was a position
report.  There were reports for contact with any object larger than fifty
meters in radius.  There were reports for illness, breakdown, etc., etc.

	There were no reports for emotional breakdowns, however.

	About half an hour ago, Sammy Porter's erstwhile boyfriend, an
orderly in the infirmary, had broken up with her.  The speed with which this
news had circulated throughout the ship spoke volumes for both the lack of
interesting gossip and the tight-knit community Pleiades was.

	The bridge crew as a whole took it rather hard.  At any given time
there were about fifteen people manning the bridge.  Of those, only five
were regulars who didn't come and go constantly: captain, first officer, and
executive staff of three.  Those five more or less dictated the mood of the
room, and by proxy the mood of the ship.  When one of them went through a
mood swing, all five suffered.  When they suffered, the bridge crew
suffered.  When the bridge crew suffered, the crew as a whole suffered.  And
when the crew as a whole suffered, Sailor Orion had to do something about
it.  They were strapped enough for personnel without having a separate
morale officer.

	She put down the report she was filing and walked over to Sammy's
console.  Today, for whatever reason, she was at helm, usually reserved for
junior grades or ensigns.

	"Hi, Sammy!"

	"Oh, hello captain."

	Two bad things.  First, Sammy *never* called her captain.  It was
always Orion, just as it was always Moon.  Second, there had been no
intonation.  Sammy was the bubbliest personality she had known, other than
Eileen, and it seemed a shame for such a naturally vivacious character to be
so subdued.  Drastic measures had to be taken.

	Orion turned to the man at the console next to Sammy's.  "I'll take
astrogation, Mister Soga."

	"But . . . "

	"Be a dear and hand me that headset, would you?  Thanks."  The
bewildered Soga went off on an early dismissal.  Sailor Orion looked at the
controls for a moment, and decided that if she didn't touch anything,
nothing would blow up.  Astrogation hadn't been one of her strong points at
the School.

	"Well, Sammy, let's talk, shall we?"

	The blonde ignored the incongruity of a senshi taking one of the
lowest positions on the bridge.  "What's there to talk about?"

	"You and Fumimaro."

	"Who?"

	"Oh, Sammy, don't give me that 'who's Fumimaro' stuff.  You know,
the Fumimaro you were head over heels for a couple hours ago?

	"Oh.  That one."

	"Look, Sammy, I don't know if you noticed or not, but you're a damn
fine woman; way too good for the likes of Fumimaro."

	Sammy turned to face her captain.  "Trying to pick me up on the
rebound, Sailor Orion?"

	She had the grace to blush.  "No, of course not!  I'd never consider
relations with someone I work with, and . . . ." And you're not my type, she
wanted to add, but considering Sammy's current emotional state, that might
not be such a good idea.  " . . . and what would the others think?"

	"That you're just like what they heard?"

	"Perhaps.  But there are plenty of other guys on board."

	"Seventy-nine," offered Antares.

	"You're a real help, you know that Antares?"

	"Certainly," he answered, ignoring the sarcasm.

	"But seriously," continued Orion, "there are other fish in the sea. 
It sounds corny, but it's true.  So just go out there and get them, okay?"

	Sammy visibly brightened.  "You're right!  I can get any guy I want
to!"

	"There, that's the spirit!"  That was the great thing about Sammy,
she thought.  It was so easy to get her in a good mood.

17:04

	Sailor Orion walked . . . well, more like bounced down the corridor,
humming to herself.  It was dinnertime, and her connections in the lounge
had promised her the best lasagna in the Navy.  She had gotten a chance to
smell it earlier, and it had been absolutely divine.

	Striding into the lounge, it only got better.  The head chef perked
up at her arrival.

	"Ah, Captain!  Got a nice dish already warmed up for you!"

	She went over to collect the steaming chunk of pasta, then looked
around the room, which was chock full of people.  She raised an eyebrow in
question.

	"Yeah, I know.  Apparently Engineering wants *all* their people on
watch tonight.  Some drill or something."

	"Great."  She could see that her usual dinner table with an
eclectic mix of people from all sorts of departments had been taken by some
other women who, judging from the bowls of cold cereal, were just coming on
duty.  That didn't make things much better for her; it meant that she was
forced to eat in the senior officers' mess.

	And that meant tangling with Sailor Moon.

	"Um, could I have the whole tray?"

	"Sure, Cap'n!"

	"Arigato."  She picked up the lasagna and went to the small door at
the far end of the room, next to the window.  Opening it revealed to her the
rest of the senior officers except for Bennington.  He was probably still on
his enigmatic drill.

	She sat down at the head of the table.  It was her right as captain
to sit there whenever she chose, but she generally preferred to mingle with
the rest of the crew.  Now she had to endure the senior officers' mess.

	"How are you, Sailor Moon?"

	"Fine, and you?"

	"Fine."

	As Orion rarely dined here, Sailor Moon had more or less taken over
the room, from the pink upholstery to the large portrait of the King and
Queen on the wall.  It didn't go unnoticed that the portrait also featured
the Princess.

	Orion weighed her options.  She could either enjoy the lasagna and
let the pink-haired brat keep the place, or take the room back and show her
who was boss.

	Option B.  Plainly.

	"Sailor Moon, have you prepared those progress reports I asked you
about earlier?"

	In this room, Sailor Moon plainly wasn't used to being questioned. 
"Um, no.  I believe you said they could be done anytime before Thursday."

	"Yes, but it . . . never mind."  The point had been made.

	"Anyone else going to the show tonight?  I hear Ensign Nakanoi's got
her timing down perfectly."

	"No," said Kim.  "I have other plans."

	"And those plans wouldn't involve a certain environmental officer,
would they?" asked Vanessa playfully.  Kim blushed and Sammy giggled.  On
the opposite side of the table, Dr. Sampson shook her head.  The black
immigrant from England was only thirty-four, and it often occurred to her
that personality-wise, she was the oldest senior officer.  Moon may be
centuries old but acted like a teen, Bennington would be thirty in a couple
of days, the Trio were in their twenties, and their CO was just eighteen. 
And that didn't include the crew: the average age aboard was twenty-three.

	Youth was king, yes, but was that a good thing?

	Looking up from her thoughts, Sampson saw that Moon and Orion were
beginning another one of their verbal wars.  Since departure, they had been
loathe to quarrel openly, and instead took sport in trying to draw each
other out.  On some days it could be fun to watch, observing them try to get
the other to the point of shouting, at which point the battle was won.

	"Heavens help us," she muttered.  'Perhaps,' she thought, 'someone
is listening.'

	"Sailor Orion to the bridge, please."

	They all perked up at that.  Orion reached over to the wall and
punched a button.  "Bridge, Orion.  What's going on up there?"

	"Coded message from headquarters, sir."

	"Great.  I'm on my way."

17:32

	Wiping tomato sauce from her mouth, Orion stepped onto the bridge. 
"Right, let's have it."

	"Aye, sir."  The communications officer of the night watch was a
constant, unlike the Trio of Chaos.  She plugged herself into her console. 
Literally.  Suffice it to say that long-range communications involved a
gestalt, a natural psi-adept, a complex series of crystalline antennae, and
a bit of magic, much like everything else on the ship.  Through a direct
neural link that looked and sounded worse than it actually was, the comm
officer could send and receive at the speed of thought.

	It was a bit draining, though.

	"Message received, sir," she said, slumping back in her couch  She
was the only officer who rated a couch instead of a chair.  "Coming up on
screen now."

	The bridge crew looked at the screen, to see . . . .

	"Um-hm," said Orion.

	"Impressive."

	"Imagine the flexibility index implied there!"

	"How'd they manage to get the whipped cream to adhere to the
ceiling?"

	"Okay people," said Orion, "now that we've gawked at the persons,
animals, plants, and food items in question, could we all be a bit less
perverse?  Ensign, get that off there.  And for God's sake, recheck the
routing on that thing and figure out who it was *supposed* to go to!  I want
their head on a platter!"

	She returned to the senior officers' mess, more mad about missing
the best lasagna in the universe than anything.

22:23

	Sailor Orion detransformed as soon as she shut the door to her room. 
She slumped into a chair, wondering how one person could botch a single
musical work so much.  Yes, it was rather technically difficult, but that
was no excuse for what she'd heard.

	It was, hands down, the worst performance of Nirvana she had ever
heard.

	Unzipping the jumpsuit, she stood in the middle of the room and
wondered if she should even bother stripping off the white turtleneck.  She
was quite tired, and no one would notice the difference.

	"Don't even think about it," said Antares.

	She jumped with surprise, and lost her footing on the landing.  As a
result, she fell onto her bed, which was to her tired body no bad thing.

	"You stupid machine!  Can you read minds?"

	"Not yet.  The computer wizards on Earth are working on it, though."

	"Great."

	"Look, you slept in your uniform last night, okay?  I'd rather see
you sleep in something sensible.  A nightgown, at the least."

	"Antares, I would think that what I wear to sleep would be the
furthest thing from your mind.  I'll sleep in the nude if I want to, just
keep out of it!"

	"Would Eileen like that?"

	She sighed.  Somehow, they had come full circle to the argument
they'd had before bed last night.  "No.  Turn off the lights, you silly
adding machine."

	"My pleasure."  The lights dimmed.

	"G'night."

	"Sweet dreams, my captain."


=================================
Episode #113:  Enter Villain[ess] 
Reel 1 
=================================



	Space is big.  Really really big.  I mean, you may think it's a long
way down to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.

	All Hitchhiker references aside, it is undeniable that space has a
lot of . . . well, space.  This is seldom ignored by those in a position to
do something with this space.  Take for example Queen Serenity I, ruler of
the Silver Millennium.  Noting the expansion opportunities in the Solar
System, she set about spreading her lunar civilization across all nine
planets of the system, and most of their Moons.  The expanded Silver
Millennium flourished until the rise of Queen Beryl, when it all came
crashing down.

	That has already been chronicled elsewhere. 

	What have not been chronicled, however, are Beryl's exploits.  After
all, she had just as much opportunity to expand into space.  In fact, she
had just begun building colonies near the Centauri group of stars when the
Beryl-Serenity wars ended.  After her apparent defeat, the colonies withered
without her support, as life on the other eight planets of the solar system
likewise disappeared.

	However, during Beryl's second rise to power she decided, unknown to
the senshi, to resume her explorations of deep space.  She got quite farther
this time, beginning several colonies quite a ways from Earth, including one
founded by a certain daughter whom she had good reasons for banishing to the
fringes of the galaxy.

	Then Serenity II came along, and a final end was put to Beryl.  She
would never come again, and neither, thought the senshi, would the Dark
Kingdom.  One extraordinary detail had gone unnoticed by them, however, a
detail they would know full well of in the early thirty-first century.

	Never is a very long time. 

***

	It was a typically boring day.  Pleiades was halfway between two
insignificant star systems, moving under conventional drive.  As usual, it
was more time- and fuel-efficient just to go sublight than use the Fold
generators.

	The fact that Folding gave Sailor Moon a tummy-ache might have had
something to do with it as well.

	"Damned Princess." 

	"What was that, sir?" 

	"Nothing," said Sailor Orion, a bit more loudly.  "Nothing at all."
She stood and wandered over to Vanessa's console.  "Anything interesting?"

	"Well, the helium count's up a few parts per trillion . . . ."  

	"Yeah, well I figured it would be something like that."  Orion
sighed at the total lack of things to do on the bridge.  Not that she didn't
have things to do; quite the contrary.  But the things that she wanted to
do, such as keep up her work on a doctorate, couldn't be done right there. 
She had to wait for Sailor Moon to relieve her, or else leave the bridge
without a senshi at midday.  And if HQ got word of *that*, there'd be hell
to pay.

	"Antares?"  

	"Yes?" 

	"Try me." 

	"Okay, um . . . okay, yeah, I got it.  Clearly outline the reasons
for the Albanian Succession of 2358.  You have five minutes . . . now."

*** 
	As Sailor Orion practiced defending theses before a review board,
Sailor Moon sat in the lounge staring into space.  It was a bit of a letdown
after all these years.  Back in the twentieth, her father had been a huge
Star Trek fan, though he had gone to extreme lengths to keep anyone from
finding out.  Fighting unearthly monsters was believable, but watching
people moralize in space was just stupid.

	In any case, she had had over nine hundred years to build up a
romantic notion of space travel, and now all those notions were being
shattered.  Streaking stars?  She was lucky to notice them moving at all. 
Spacious lounges?  The only real lounge on the ship was a converted cargo
bay with a window for a wall, and some furniture tossed around.  Friendly
computers?  Antares was anything but.  Kind yet strong commander?  She
wasn't even going to start on Sailor Orion.

	But despite all this, she still felt a strum of anticipation. 
Something was gong to happen, something big, and it wasn't the impromptu
piano recital scheduled for 15:00 that afternoon.

	Or maybe it was just indigestion.  

***  

	An unspecified number of light-years away, Queen Selenite sat upon
the throne of Hell.  Literally.  The Dark Kingdom scouts who had first
colonized this world had been outstandingly unimaginative when it came to
naming planets, and apparently Hell was the first name that sprang to mind.

	Selenite didn't spend much time thinking over such as that.  What
was more important was that Hell was the last Dark Kingdom colony left in
the universe.  Beryl's first defeat had brought all but a handful of colony
worlds to ruin, and her second defeat and annihilation had sent the
remaining ones into Dark Ages.

	Selenite had spent quite a bit of time and energy pulling
civilization on Hell up from its bootstraps, and during that time she had
built up quite a bit of anger towards Sailor Moon.  More specifically, she
had devoted the past couple hundred years to an elaborate plan for wiping
that bitch's atoms across the galaxy.  To accomplish this, she had had to
start launching raids on some of the outlying colonies of Sailor Moon's
kingdom.

	She thought back to the first time she had gotten confirmation that
the Moon Princess was still alive.  When her scout ships had quite by
accident picked up stray radio transmissions from an outlying colony, she
had only one thought: what if, against all odds, Beryl had come back and
dished out punishment to Sailor Moon before Selenite could?

	That was unbearable. 

	But then she had found out that it was Sailor Moon, now full-grown
as Neo-Queen Serenity, and she had to continue her plans for revenge.  It
was very elaborate, and designed to torture Serenity's soul.

	Simply put, she would wipe out all human life in the universe,
starting with the colonies and ending with Serenity herself.  It would take
awhile, and would be the first case of xenocide in the history of the
universe, but that was no matter.

	Selenite was quite patient.  That probably explained why she still
had her three generals.  If she had Beryl's temper, they would all be
executed by now.  She now spoke to her Number One.  He had forsaken any
other name ages ago.

	"You have confirmed that the intruding ship is of human origin?"  

	"Yes, my Queen."  

	"Very well, you may commence.  Eliminate them."' 

*** 

	Vanessa was at astrogation, and therefore the first to know. 
Despite this, she checked and rechecked the readings to make sure she was
correct before saying anything.

	"Sailor Orion, I'm picking up an unidentified vessel, bearing zero-
zero-zero mark zero-zero, range forty million kilometers." 

	"What?"  The bridge was instantly silent.  "Are you sure?" 

	"Yes, I checked it twice.  There's a large object out there, and it 
is definitely decelerating.  Sure sign of artificial propulsion." 

	"Of course."  She told herself to stay calm.  It was the first
situation of first contact in the history of mankind.  Beryl had been from
Earth, Ail and Ann shot first and then talked.  Same thing with the Dark
Moon, Nephrenia, and Galaxia.  Humans had never had the chance to have the
first word.

	But now they did. 

	"Communications, prepare a dispatch to be sent to Serenitatis
immediately.  Make use of position of contact and all other pertinent
information and stand by to send on my order." She stood.  "Open all
frequencies."

	"Aye, sir."  

	Broadcasting on every frequency Pleiades's radar dish could put out,
she spoke, being sure to enunciate slowly and clearly for the benefit of
alien linguists.  "This is Sailor Orion, Captain of Her Majesty's Starship
Pleiades.  We come in peace from the planet Earth.  In the name of Neo-
Queen Serenity, we are pleased to see you.  Would you please tell us about
yourself?"

	She turned to communications.  "End transmission.  Comm, have you 
sent that dispatch yet?" 

	"No, sir."  

	"Good.  I want it sent on a moment's notice, though, so stay on your
toes.  Sailor Moon, you're our royalty expert.  Any advice on first
contact?"

	Moon idly stroked a long pink ponytail and wiped the scowl from her
face.  "One thing I know Serenity wouldn't like.  Don't shoot.  *Ever*.  If
they're hostile, let them show it."

	Orion nodded.  "Those were my feelings too."  There was noting much
to do until the aliens managed a translation, so she decided to find out
some more.  "Vanessa, have you found out anything else about them?"

	"Um, the ship has a length of about seven hundred meters, is vaguely
cylindrical, with an average radius of four hundred meters.  Having
difficulty picking out life signs.  Hull temperature approximately ten
degrees Celsius, consistent with an interior temperature of twenty-four
degrees.  No identifiable shuttle bays, weapons, communication equipment,
anything."

	"Range?"  

	"Three million kilometers.  They've slowed, and are currently moving
at two hundred meters per second."
 
	"Great.  Good work with the sensors, Vanessa.  Comm, any response?"  

	Ensign Hanasu shook her head.  "No, sir.  Not even static."  

	"Humph."  She turned to look at the screen, where a computer-
enhanced picture of the vessel was sitting in a field of black.  A bright
spark appeared at one end, and a wide beam of yellow light arced out from
it.  The only thing Orion could think was that it had to be a particle beam. 
An electromagnetic beam would have traveled too fast for anyone to see.

	Sailor Moon managed to think more clearly. 

	"What the hell was that?" 

	"Unknown, sir," said Vanessa.  She looked over her shoulder at Kim,
who was already moving over to the tactical station.  It had more advanced
controls for the sensors, but it was rarely used since there was no need for
it.  "It might have been a highly focused beam of extremely high-energy
particles.  It missed us by about four thousand meters."

	"Confirmed," chimed in Kim from her new position.  "Estimate
strength of . . . several thousand exawatts!"

	"WHAT?"  Sailor Orion was aghast.  "How could they generate such
power?"

	"Sir, second shot coming in!" screamed Vanessa in an impossibly 
high shriek of terror.  The timbre alone told Orion that it was heading 
straight for them. 
 
	Orion didn't take time to think.  "Sound collision!"  

	Even as the bells rang through the ship, she knew it was too late.

*** 

	The beam of antiprotons covered the distance between the two ships
rapidly.  Due to the relative velocities of the two, it failed to score a
direct hit.  Rather, it struck the communications mast full on.

	The small forest of antennae and dishes focused thoughts from the
comm officer and sent them to the Earth, and vice versa.  But it was mere
tissue paper in the face of the beam, and disintegrated in a matter of
nanoseconds.  Before it went, however, a final, massive energy pulse was
sent down the leads to the bridge and the communications panel.

*** 

	On the bridge, Orion wondered at how loud the collision alarms were,
when the entire ship shuddered and then rolled over sickeningly.  In the two
seconds it took the inertial dampers to catch up with the sudden movement,
she and everyone else who weren't strapped down flew though the air.  Heads
and knees connected with computers, railings, and other heads and knees, and
it was not pretty.

	Orion rolled over from under the console she had been thrown
beneath. "Helm, evasive maneuvers!  Sound general quarters!" The rhythmic
pulsing of the GQ buzzer resounded satisfyingly in her ears as she got up.

	Looking around, she saw the now-enemy ship rolling around on the
screen as the helmsman frantically tried to make things harder for whoever
was doing the aiming.  Everywhere, crew were picking themselves up and going
to battle stations, and Orion berated herself for not holding a single
general quarters drill.

	"Everyone all right?"  

	She was greeted with a spine-numbing scream. 

	"Hanasu!"  Sailor Moon scrambled over to the communications officer,
who lay limp, still attached to her console by the wire.  Sailor Orion
didn't even look their way.

	"Damage report?"  

	As soon as Orion sounded general quarters, Pleiades was in a battle
situation.  As such, one person did the talking for all the reports and
alarms coming in from all the posts.  Otherwise, the bridge would have been
even more of a madhouse than it already was.  Sammy had immediately taken
over that post of talker, being closest to her panel.  "Reports still coming
in, sir!  A few bruises and a broken arm on deck five!  Engineering reports
all clear, no damage to reactors or propulsion!  Checking auxiliary systems
. . . sir, long-range communications array is gone!  Lookers say . . . my
God, the whole thing got blown clear off!"

	Orion tried not to panic.  She was the captain, and if the rest of
the bridge crew was as close to tears as Sammy sounded, she'd need to set an
example.  But if the array had been blasted while Hanasu was still plugged
into it . . . .  She glanced over at the communications panel to see Sailor
Moon kneeling by the ensign's inert form.

 	"Sammy, get a med crew to the bridge, stat!"  That taken care of, 
she had to see about the other ship.  She looked at one of the situation 
clocks that had started counting from the collision alarm, and saw that 
scarcely a minute had passed. 

	She sat in her chair and marshaled her thoughts rapidly.  "Position
of the enemy ship?"

	Sammy answered almost instantaneously, which was a good sign. 
"Position of unknown ship, designate target Sierra-1, bearing zero-eight-
zero mark five-zero and moving away, relative velocity four hundred meters
per second and accelerating at fifty gravities, range two point four million
kilometers."

	"Why are they waiting so long?" asked Orion.  

	"They said they're on their way," said Sammy.  

	"No, not the med team.  I meant them," she said, gesturing to the
screen.  "Why aren't they trying to finish us off?"

	"Sir, they've fired!"  

	"Evasive maneuvers!"  

	"Aye."  

	There was a moment where no-one breathed, and then it passed.  

	"They missed us, sir.  By three hundred meters."  

	"Great.  Tell engineering to prepare for procedure zero-zero-one."  

	"Zero-zero-one?"  

	"They'll know what it means.  And if they don't, tell them to read
the damned manual!  Now get to it!" 'Too overbearing?' Orion asked herself. 
Undoubtedly.  But now was not a time for half-measures.

	The main hatch to the bridge popped open, showing both the armed
sentry who was now standing guard over the entrance to the bridge, and four
medical personnel headed by Dr. Sampson.  "Where is she?" asked Sampson
briskly.

	"Right here," answered Moon, raising her hand.  The meds raced over,
and Orion gave them some room, settling into her seat.

	She spun the chair, facing Kim, who was doubling as short-range
communications using the emergency directional receiver, and astrogation.
"Any response yet?"

	"No, sir."  

	"Damn."  She reviewed the tactical situation.  Sierra-1 had ignored
all attempts at communication, unless they were meant to translate
antiparticle beams.  In addition, they had a beam of incredible power,
unknown range, and so far questionable accuracy.  Pleiades had a couple of
probes, a laser that couldn't hope to poke a hole across the distance
between the ships, and the Gertie.

	Great.  

	"ETA on zero-zero-one?"  

	"Just a moment, sir."  She pressed the earpiece closer; with a dozen
people reporting to her, it got very hard to sort out what was important. 
"Um, engineering reports that the fusion plants will be maxing out in twenty
seconds.  They can hold that for two minutes.  After that, they'll have to
cycle down."

	"Good enough."  She hadn't seriously expected much more.  Looking
over, she saw that the orderlies were assisting Hanasu to a stretcher.  One
problem gone.  Another presented itself, however.

	She flipped open the cover on her left armrest to reveal a mass of
buttons and switches.  "Damn." How could she have been so foolish as not to
review the procedures for using the bloody thing?

	She inspected it more closely, then found a small tag with tightly
packed kanji upon it.

	"Jen.  If you're reading this, things must be bad.  Just remember
that you can handle it.  You activate the device by inserting your right
finger into the hole that goes at a slant into the right armrest.  Then,
push the red and green buttons on the left console simultaneously.  After
that, instinct should just take over.  You're my favorite.  --Dad."

	"Oh dad," she whispered.  Then again, it was no time for
sentimentality.  Looking around, she found what she was looking for and
slipped a white-gloved finger into the appropriate hole.  Then she managed
to twist a couple of her left fingers to push the necessary buttons.  Now
came the hard part.

	She could feel it welling up inside her, like nausea and
anticipation.  Or were they the same thing?  She only knew that it had to be
released, and soon.

	Still standing by the communications console, Sailor Moon saw what 
Orion was going to do and shouted to the helm.  

	"Bring us about!  Point us to Sierra-1 dead on!"  

	"Aye, sir!"  

	"Do it, Orion!"  

	No more time for thought.  "Okay.  Orion Nebula . . . "  

*** 

	On the Dark Kingdom equivalent of the bridge, the ship's captain
chuckled to himself.  It had been too easy.  The first shot had apparently
crippled the human ship and a second shot, while close, had been telling. 
As the ship had made no moves to attempt a counterattack, it could safely be
assumed that they were defenseless.  'Now,' he thought, 'I simply move in
for the kill.'

	Or rather, that was his plan before everything around his ship went
hazy.

	"What's going on?" he demanded of his subordinates. For their part
they were still looking around, trying to find out what was going on as
well.

	"Some kind of gas cloud," said one.  "We're not sure." 

	It would very shortly cease to matter.  

***  

	Sailor Moon was rather disgusted with Orion's performance.  "That's
all?  Just a cloud?" She sighed, and began to reach for her ginzuishou. 
"Have to do everything myself."

	Orion ignored this; the sweat beading on her brow showed the
concentration she was putting forth.  It had to be at just the right moment
. . . now!

	" . . . COLLAPSE!"  She flopped back in her chair, and shouted a
final command.  "Full reverse flank!"
 
	On the screen, the cloud that enveloped Sierra-1 began to contract.
First slowly, and then so fast they could only catch the final result, which
was that a star was born.

	Literally.  

	Where the ship had once been, a new star burned.  It wasn't a very
big star, or a bright one; there wasn't that much gas to start with.  But it
was enough to do the job of incinerating the enemy ship, and as Pleiades
raced away there was nothing left but hydrogen and a bit of helium.  In a
couple decades, the star would burn out.  But until then, it would be a
testament to the victory of the Crystal Millennium.

***  

	From her throne room, Selenite watched the events dispassionately. 
"Number One," she said, "I do not need to tell you that I am displeased."

	He bowed in apology.  "Yes, my Queen.  My first choice made the 
mistake of underestimating the ship's power.  It will not happen again."  

	"See that it doesn't.  I heard enough of my mother's failures with
her generals.  I have no wish to see them repeated here."

	"Of course, my Queen.  I will make immediate preparations for 
another attack.  I will not fail."  

***  

	"So," said Sailor Orion, "final analyses?" 
 
	They sat in the conference room, which was still left over from the
pre-cruise briefing.

	"Sir, we were entirely too complacent," began Sailor Moon.  "From
the lack of training, to the absence of drills . . . we should be dead right
now.  The only thing that saved us was the enemy's overconfidence."

 	"True," Orion admitted.  If they had drilled, how much sooner could
things have been done?  But she *had* managed to destroy the bogey.  "Dr. 
Sampson, final casualty list?"

	"Thirty-two wounded, three seriously.  Any number of fractures and
broken bones, one extreme burn, one severe case of blood loss and trauma,
and one of the worst cases of neural shock I've ever seen." She whistled
slowly.  "Sir, I don't know if Hanasu will be able to perform higher brain
functions again, let alone telepath."

	"Great," said Kim.  "And she was the only 'path we had aboard." 

	"You mean there's *no-one* else aboard qualified, or even capable of
operating the long range communication systesm?" Moon was in a state of
disbelief.

	"Unfortunately, yes," said Orion.  "Well, folks, looks like no
letters home, no news, and no flash reports to headquarters at Mare
Serenitatis.  We're on our own out here."

	Next to her, Sailor Moon replaced her look of disgust with a broad 
smile.  

	"I wouldn't want it any other way." 


====================================
Episode #114:  The Guy in Sector 7-b    
Reel 1 
====================================

 
	In the infirmary, Dr. Emma Sampson looked over compatibility charts. 
Her patient, the young communications officer whose brains had been fried
yesterday, needed blood, and she was trying to find the appropriate donor. 
She had failed in this miserably; there were none suitable.
 
	Was it really my fault, she thought, that my worst patient has one
of the rarest blood types in Homo sapiens sapiens?  Out of boredom, she
began cross-referencing the current open file of a man in engineering. 
That was the first flag in her mind; on a ship whose crew was overwhelmingly
female, men were a rarity.  She looked more closely at the information.
 
	Black hair, very close to two meters tall, average build.  Black
eyes, small nose.  All in all, a typical Japanese man.
 
	Which was, of course, a departure from their captain, who was not a
man, and was only fourth generation Japanese.  Not her fault, of course;
Sampson, as one of four blacks on the crew, was the last person to be
labeled a racist.  Then again, their entire bridge crew was abnormal.  It
was in the lower departments that people fit the typical Japanese motif.
 
	Like Eric Lunestes, Engineering Technician, Sector 7-b. 
 
*** 
 
	In her cabin, Sailor Orion picked up a rather nice crystal
paperweight.  It had been given to her as a graduation present from one of
her elementary school teachers.  It weighed about two kilograms, was a bit
less than the size of a fist, and refracted the light from the overheads
into a beautiful array of rainbows.
 
	She tossed it up and caught it, getting the feel of it.  Then she
wound up and hurled it at the opposite wall, dashing it to pieces.
 
	"That was hardly an effective show of emotions, Sailor Orion." 
 
	"Shut up, Antares." 
 
	"You know, I do have the equivalent of a degree in psychiatry-" 
 
	"And I'd thank you not to practice here." 
 
	"Orion, do you really think you could have done anything differently
to prevent Hanasu's injury?"
 
	"Yes."  As she was prone to do while upset, she began pacing.  "I
could have held regular drills, caught on to their intent earlier, any
number of things."
 
	"Any number of things that a more experienced commander would have
thought of without thinking?"
 
	"Exactly!" 
 
	"Sailor Orion, you are not an experienced commander.  You are, in
fact, as green as grass.  You've been in space for a matter of weeks."
 
	"Not an excuse." 
 
	"Fine, then I'll speak with you when you're more receptive." 
 
	She picked up another paperweight. 
 
*** 
 
	Orion jogged down the hallway, panting slightly.  After leaving the
infirmary on a sympathy visit, she had decided to make sure Hanasu's fate
would not be shared by anyone else.
 
	'Time,' she thought, 'for a surprise inspection.' 
 
	She reached Gangway B and started down the steps.  It had been a
couple of days since the attack, and things should have been put back
together.  Hence, the reason for the inspection: to make sure their job had
been done properly.
 
	Best to start with discipline.  She came to the end of the gangway
and came to the double doors that lead to the engineering department proper. 
Right now, the meter-thick doors were open, but during an emergency they
would be slammed shut.  Orion didn't know what good that was supposed to do
if the fusion reactors went bonkers, but the engineers must have had their
reasons.
 
	She grabbed a heavy-duty headset from a rack next to the door and
struggled to put it on.  It was a yellow model, designed to keep noise out
as well as provide audio from elsewhere. And much as the bridge had several
channels to itself, so did engineering.  With a headset, you could discuss a
problem with someone across the room without shouting, and with engineering
the size that it was, you needed to shout.
 
	On a ship where space was always at a premium, Engineering was
undoubtedly the largest open space on the ship, with amazingly high ceilings
that reached nearly a hundred meters in height.  Catwalks were everywhere,
with ladders, turbines, and all sorts of mechanical equipment that was great
to show on official tours.
 
	Scientists in the twentieth century had called it the Christmas tree
effect.  When dealing with the press, researchers often hauled out heavy,
complex looking equipment that often had nothing to do with why the press
was there.  It just made for good TV.  And all these machines made for a
good cosmetic look.
 
	But Sailor Orion didn't wear makeup. 
 
	"Commander Bennington," she said into her mike, knowing that the
message was going out to all engineering personnel with a headset.  "Could
you please come to gate 4-A?"
 
	"Sure," came the reply.  "I'll be right down." 
 
	Orion leaned against the doorsill, tapping her foot.  Engineering
had several doors, and they were more or less the only way to get in.  It
was like another country in here, with its own customs and jargon.  The
motto in the other departments was: "There's engineering, and there's
everything else."
 
	A few moments later, Lieutenant Commander Gustav Bennington came
from around a corner, along with another man and woman.  Orion arched an
eyebrow.
 
	"Oh, these are my two apprentices, sir," he explained in his slight 
German accent.  He hated Scots with a passion Orion hadn't understood.  Nor 
had she understood why her first officer had nearly fainted with relief upon 
finding that Bennington was of German descent, not Scottish. 
 
	"This is Lieutenant Ami Furahawa, and this is Lieutenant Eric
Lunestes. I'm teaching them the run of the department, since one of these
two'll be my right-hand man.  Or woman," he added with a cough.
 
	"Ah, I've heard a bit about you two.  I get reports constantly, and
Mr.  Bennington can't stop gushing about your prowess."
 
	Both had the grace to look embarrassed.  Bennington spoke up.  "Now,
sir, to what do we owe the honor of your visit here?"
 
	"Oh, an inspection.  Surprise, actually.  Would you like to show me
the department?"
 
	Bennington's jaw dropped.  "*All* of engineering, sir?  That's a
good part of the ship!"
 
	"I'm in no hurry." 
 
	"Mein Gott.  Eric, run and get some pressure suits; we'll need them
when we get to Power Central.  Captain, right this way, please."
 
	He conducted Orion to a monstrosity of metal and crystal.  "Welcome
to my office!"
 
*** 
 
	Some time later, Orion completed her tour at the Fold generators. 
They were about the size of an automobile, circular, and seemed to shimmer
as you looked at them.  She had seen that sort of effect before, in a small
girl with pink hair who popped up at the strangest times . . . .
 
	"You're to be commended, Bennington-san.  Everything is in perfect
order."
 
	"That's what we aim for, sir.  I'm sorry about the oil, though." 
 
	"It's okay, really."  She looked again at the spot of grease that
had landed on her bodice again.  "I'm pretty sure these things handle stains
easily." She hoped so; being a senshi could literally get bloody at times.
 
	"No, it was my fault sir.  Completely."  Bennington blamed the
problem on a leaky pipe, and claimed to have severely castigated the
perpetrator.  In actuality, he had just sent Ami along to tell him off, and
summoned Eric to accompany them.  "Sir, if I may make a suggestion?"
 
	She sighed, and caught a glance with Eric, who looked like he was
desperately trying to fight off sleep.  "Go ahead."
 
	"Sir, I could suggest that you take some 413p solution here, and try
to take that stain out?  We get our uniforms dirty all the time down here,
and it works wonders."
 
	"413p?"  She took the bottle and inspected it closely.  The fluid
within was clear, and bubbled slightly as she handled it.  "What's it made
out of?"
 
	"I made it," offered Eric.  "You see, it was kind of my invention. 
It won first prize at the Crystal Tokyo Science Fair of 4014."
 
	"4014? School district numbers in CT only go up to 2000." 
 
	"Oh, did I say 4014?"  He laughed uneasily, putting a hand behind
his head.  "I meant 3014.  Silly me, getting my millennia mixed up!"
 
	"Yeah."  She ached an eyebrow, and then a distinctly evil look
crossed her eyes.  "You sure you're not my son from the future here to save
me from a fate worse than death?"
 
	Eric fainted. 
 
	"I guess not." 
 
*** 
 
	In her room, Sailor Orion tended to Eric.  She had originally
thought that it would be closer than the infirmary, but she had been sadly
mistaken, and lugging the lieutenant's comatose body all over the ship had
not been enjoyable.
 
	The comments she had earned in doing so hadn't helped. 
 
	Considering the wisdom of allowing the crew to get so close and
familiar to her . . . after all, only Bennington religiously called her sir
anymore . . . she dumped Lunestes in her quarters, and decided to let him
sleep it off.  Besides, she didn't have any smelling salts.
 
	After giving the cleaning solution a crash test in the bathroom, she
went to the bridge.  She never questioned the wisdom of her decision.  Upon
reaching the bridge, she received the usual greeting.
 
	"Captain on the bridge!" 
 
	"As you were.  Sailor Moon, have we found anything of interest since
last check?  Any signs of Dark Kingdom activity?"
 
	"No, sir," answered the pink-haired woman.  She rose from the center
chair, yielding it to Orion.  She brushed by a rushing technician as she
went over to an empty computer station and began typing.  "Everything checks
out normal."
 
	"Very well.  I think it's high time we made sure everyone's ready,
though.  Antares?"
 
	"Yes?" 
 
	"Readiness drill, type two, duration . . . make it as long as
necessary."
 
	"Sure thing!" 
 
	The usual buzzers rang throughout the ship as Kim Young took over
talker responsibilities.  "General quarters, general quarters, all hands to
action stations.  Say again, general quarters."
 
	The hatch to the bridge slammed shut, and the red battle lights came
on.  "Status?"
 
	It was a typical drill.  Antares would invent an attack by the Dark
Kingdom, feeding simulated sensor data to all stations.  To the bridge crew,
it would be just like an actual emergency, minus the eminent danger of
death.  In every corner of the ship, the crew was treating it like one as
well: crew chiefs, having had just the barest bit of warning, had
stopwatches at the ready.
 
	Kim's voice was calm, but then again, it wasn't for real.  "Four DK
cruisers, designate targets Sierra-1, -2, -3, and -4, bearing zero-zero-zero
mark zero-zero, range five million kilometers, velocity three hundred meters
per second and slowing.  Formation is of pattern gamma-six-chi, I think."
 
	Moon raised an eyebrow.  "Think?" 
 
	Some of Kim's resolve began to shake at that.  "I believe so sir,
sensor data is a bit sketchy . . . "
 
	"I need some hard info here, Mister Young.  Do you confirm
gamma-six-chi formation?"
 
	Kim gulped, and then answered Sailor Moon.  "Aye, sir." 
 
	"Very well.  Tactical, prepare full spread of deep space probes and
fire at maximum velocity."
 
	"Aye, sir."  The probes were powered by tiny fusion plants; their
explosive power was next to nothing.  They had one thing going for them,
though, with their kinetic energy.  Being fired at high velocity gave them
an amount of energy that would hopefully be enough to give their enemy
some damage.
 
	From her chair, Orion merely observed events.  She had prearranged
for Sailor Moon to take over, since they had to be prepared for the
incapacitation of the CO.  Now, she merely observed.  It was the sort of
observation that Mare Serenitatis should have conducted before picking the
XO, but it was a tad late to worry about that sort of stuff now . . . .
 
*** 
 
	Orion sighed and opened the hatch to the bridge, letting some of the
smoke out.  Antares occasionally got too enthusiastic during battle
simulations, and the smoke and battle noises could get strikingly realistic. 
'Too realistic,' she thought, remembering back to Hanasu's injury.
 
	It had been the first attack from a more or less unknown foe, and
the crew was, in her opinion, taking it fairly hard.  None of them had known
to expect a combat situation, and few had expected significant injuries.
 
	It was true that Hanasu had been part of that exclusive group known
as the bridge crew.  Further, she had been an extraordinary telepath.  She'd
had to be, or else she couldn't function as long-range communications
officer.  Thus, she'd been a double outcast from the rest of the crew.  She
rarely socialized with others, and many didn't even know her surname.  But
her injury and subsequent coma had rocked the entire ship, and the crew was
recovering in their own particular ways.
 
	And it was to get that out of the way that Orion had held the drill. 
Or at least, that was that she told herself as she carried on down the
hallway to her cabin.
 
	She threw open the door and flopped down on the bed, letting out a
grunt as she landed.
 
	"Was that completely necessary?" 
 
	She leapt up with a shout of surprise, appalled at having sat on the
poor man.  "What the . . . oh, you.  What are you still doing here?" Her
surprise at seeing Eric in her room was slowly turning into anger.  "Didn't
you hear the alert sirens?  Why didn't you report to your post?"
 
	"Oh damn, can't get anything past you, eh Captain?"  He laughed
uncertainly.  "I'm sorry, but I'm a pretty heavy sleeper.  Funny story
behind that, you see.  My-"
 
	"Yes, yes, I'm quite sure, whatever.  Now how do you plan to explain
this in a court martial?"
 
	"Court martial?" 
 
	"Yes!  Dereliction of duty, Mister: sleeping during a call to
general quarters.  Do you know what the penalty for deserting one's post
during combat is, Mister Lunestes?"
 
	"Twenty lashes and a one-way trip out an airlock?" 
 
	"Don't I wish."  She pivoted on a heel and went to the tiny bathroom
sink to fix a cup of water.  She sipped at it and sat down opposite Eric. 
"Nowadays, you're more likely to be sentenced to community service and a
couple months of counseling." She sighed.  "The penalties for a senshi
breaking the rules are, of course, far more strict."
 
	"Of course." 
 
	"Yes.  Now, let's say you just get a handle on your sleeping
problem, Eric, and we can forget that all this ever happened, okay?" She
winked.
 
	"Aye, sir," he replied with a mirroring wink and a widening grin. 
He rose.
 
	A second after that, a wide variety of sirens went off.  In the
confusion that followed, with hatches slamming shut, Eric shouting, and the
bridge in the person of Vanessa giving orders, Pleiades's captain could
pick out the droning repeating cry of the general quarters alarm, the
ringing bell of the collision alarm, and the buzzer that denoted a serious
reactor leak.  A moment later it all stopped, and Antares spoke.
 
	"Lieutenant Lunestes, Captain, you have my condolences.  The bridge
has activated a battle readiness drill, and as a result we have been
attacked by three Dark Kingdom marauders.  This compartment was struck
first, and has been let out into space.  You are now dead.  I'll let you
know when the drill's over, okay?  Bye!"
 
	Orion dropped her glass and walked over to a corner of the room. 
Eric noticed that the floor in that corner was littered with shards and bits
of glass.  He also noticed her picking up a crystal candy dish.
 
	"Sir?" 
 
	"Yes?" said Orion threateningly, tossing and catching the dish with
her left hand.
 
	"Does that message mean that-" 
 
	"Yes.  We're dead, and right now the bridge crew is running around
like chickens with their heads cut off, trying to get things under control."
She finished her statement silently.  'And to insure that we don't interfere
with the drill, we're confined to quarters until Pleiades wins or loses. 
Great.'
 
	She put down the dish and slumped on the floor. 
 
	"Sir, I think you'll cut yourself there," he warned. 
 
	"You're right."  She got up to sit next to him, and put her booted
feet on the rather messy table.  "So, you get a private audience with the
captain.  Excited?"
 
	"It wasn't what I planned on, sir." 
 
	"It so rarely is.  So, anything you wanted to know?" 
 
	"Well sir, actually there is.  Your real name is Jennifer?" 
 
	"Yes, but try to avoid using it, okay?" 
 
	"Yes."  He took a deep breath; he couldn't figure out why she was
suddenly being so open.  Perhaps it was the lack of sexual tension; she
wouldn't have any interest in him as a partner, not unless he became a
woman.
 
	"Well, if that's your name, well where'd it come from?  You've got
to be pure Japanese; the Sakachi gives it away.  Where'd Jennifer come
from?"
 
	She looked into his eyes appraisingly, then answered.  "An old
relative, great-grandmother, actually.  Jennifer Talbot moved to Japan in
the early 2800s and married Kenji Sakachi.  The rest was history.  My
parents named me after her.  There's an old legend that the Talbots go even
further back, even stopping by Japan in the twentieth, but there are too
many inaccuracies, and no-one in our family believes it."
 
	"Impressive story." 
 
	"Yes, well I don't tell it to many people."  'And certainly not on
this ship,' she thought.  "Well, how about you?  Eric Lunestes isn't exactly
a common Japanese name."
 
	"Nope.  Well, to tell the truth, it's not my real name." 
 
	"Really?" 
 
	"Yes.  When I was seventeen, I really wanted to be in the Navy, but
I was too young, and my parents wouldn't let me.  They're the real
protective types, you know?  So I ran off and changed my name to something
that couldn't possibly be mistaken as Japanese."
 
	"Overprotective parents?"  Crystal Tokyo families were notorious for
being rather loose-knit and laid back.
 
	"Well, they were in a position of having a lot of power, and . . .
let's just say that they'd made a couple of mistakes with my sister . . .
their first child . . . , and they weren't planning to repeat them."
 
	They both had a rather good laugh at that, and it was at that that
Sailor Moon opened the door.
 
	"What is this?" 
 
	"Oh, I'm sorry, Sailor Moon.  We were dead." 
 
	"Oh."  She looked suspiciously at the two officers on the couch. 
She very nearly asked if the two had been smooching, but she had her limits. 
Instead, she settled for a disapproving frown.  It looked completely out of
place, framed as it was by long pink ponytails, and she knew it.
 
	She let out a sigh of disapproval and went on down the hall,
ignoring the peals of laughter from Orion's cabin.
 
	"Why does Orion get all the good ones?" 
 

===================================================
Episode #115:  To Seek Out Strange New Worlds . . .
Reel 1
===================================================


	"Sir, we're getting reports back from the probe."

	"Excellent," said Sailor Moon.  "What do you have, Vanessa?"

	"Um, spectrographs . . . seventy-eight parts nitrogen, nineteen
parts oxygen, two carbon dioxide, one trace gases.  Lots of dust.  Visual
light . . . the night side is completely black . . . wait a minute!"

	Sailor Orion walked on the bridge and sauntered over to Vanessa's
station, where Sailor Moon was already standing.  The two looked over
Leeds's shoulder as the data came in.

	"It looks like ruins on the day side.  No lights whatsoever on the
night side."

	"None?"  Orion adjusted her glasses uneasily.  "Not even forest
fires? Is it *completely* lifeless?"

	"It appears so.  Infrared coming in . . . kami-sama!"

	The three looked at the data again to make sure they hadn't misread
it.

	"Five degrees Celsius.  At the equator."  Moon's voice was eerily
flat.

	"Average temperature, minus twelve degrees centigrade," added
Vanessa.  The entire bridge crew snapped around at that.

	"Radiation."  It wasn't a question, but Vanessa answered it anyway.

	"Pretty cold, now.  Depending on the strength of the yields, it must
have been between fifty and a hundred years ago."

	"Great."  Orion walked to her chair and slumped down.  "Well, we've
finally seen proof of intelligent life.

	"And they already committed suicide."  There was a very long pause. 
"Right, I think we can spare a detour.  Helm, plot and execute a course to
the planet.  We need a name, and I'd rather it came from whatever is left
down there.  I'll be in my quarters."

	She left without another word.  Kim, who happened to be astrogator
at the moment, gave a string of numbers and letters to the helmsman, who
then translated them into a course.  In a couple of seconds, Pleiades was on
her way to a planet they knew as Katsuragi II.

	In their headlong rush to find out what the Dark Kingdom was up to,
Orion hadn't forgotten their original task: that of finding and cataloguing
new planets.  However, there had been a serious lack of them until they'd
found this particular star and its six planets.  The star had been called
Katsuragi, making the planet Katsuragi II.

	Orion didn't like the name any more than anyone else, and one of the
reasons she left was to think up a better one.  But the main reason was to
cry. In her cabin, she flopped down on a bed and did just that.

	"It's to be expected."

	Orion took off her glasses and began cleaning tears from them. 
"Antares, did I ever call you a cold bastard?"

	"No, not really."  He sounded unfazed.  "But given everything else,
I don't think this is worth shedding tears over."

	"*Not* shedding tears?  Antares, in the nearly fifteen hundred years
since the invention of the nuclear weapon, they have been used *twice* in
warfare.  TWICE!"

	"Hiroshima and Nagasaki."

	"Yes.  And you, *you* have the temerity to say 'don't cry,' when you
find out that as awful as humanity has been, it can still be worse?"

	"That's exactly what I'm telling you," he replied.  "You should be
proud of Homo sapiens, not mourn for whatever species wiped themselves out. 
We made it, and they didn't.  There's no point in crying over something that
they brought upon themselves.  The best you can do is to work in the
opposite direction."

	"And how do you propose doing that?"

	"By remembering as much as we can about these people.  With a dig."

	"A dig?!?"  She leapt up and started pacing, which relieved Antares
to no end.  When Orion paced, something was going to get accomplished, which
was definitely not going to happen if she just lay on her bed and sulked. 
That was acceptable behavior for any other eighteen-year-old, but certainly
not for her.  Not now.

	"Antares, I'm a historian, not an archaeologist!"

	"I'm sorry, Sailor Orion, but you're the closest thing to one that
we have."

	"Great.  Just great."

	"It could be a great learning experience . . . ."

	"Whatever."

***

	In the end, the exploration team consisted of Orion, Dr. Sampson,
Kim, and a couple of extra science personnel.  While they struggled with
their environmental suits, Sailor Moon whined.

	"Come on, Orion, you can't mean to go down there yourself!  Who
knows what's down there!"

	"A civilization that's been dead for centuries.  Why?"

	"Captain, I'm not going to allow you to put yourself in that kind of
risk."

	"Why, suddenly decide to start caring about me?"

	"No, I don't feel like filing the report on your death."

	"I'm touched.  Really."  She finished pulling on the helmet, and
shoved up the faceplate.  Nudging her glasses higher on the bridge of her
nose, she continued.

	"Now, we've been though this.  Anything alive down there isn't much
above the lichen stage, okay?  Now, the suits should protect us against any
lingering radiation, and they'll definitely keep us warm.

	"The shuttle will bring us down to the most intact cluster of ruins. 
The environmental techs say that it's in what used to be the temperate zone,
before the nuclear winter threw the climate out of whack."

	"Right," said one of the techs who was accompanying her.  The
nameplate on the suit read D. Temako.  "Right next to an ocean, and on a
river delta.  Must have been a really happening city, back then. 
Unfortunately, radiation levels there are pretty high.  Either somebody
really wanted it taken out, or it was in a fallout pattern, or there was a
meltdown, or something, or-"

	"Yes," said Moon, cutting off the tech before she could spring into
a detailed explanation of wind vectors.  "But suppose something *is* animate
down there?  The captain of H.M.S. Pleiades is not going to die on *my*
watch."

	"And do you propose that you go in my place?"

	"Exactly!  You're seeing the light!"

	"Sailor Moon," said Orion, "I need you up here.  If the Dark Kingdom
should attack while we're down there, it'll be up to you to defend the ship
first, and defend the planet second.  Is that clear?"

	"But-"

	"Is that clear, Sailor Moon?"

	"Very well."  Moon managed a smile.  "Let the record show I obeyed my 
commander's orders: under protest."

	"So noted."  Orion followed the rest of the suited companions to the
hatch of the shuttle.  "Please don't break the boat, okay?"

	The pink-haired XO snapped off a salute.  "Aye aye, sir!"

	She went inside, and the hatch closed.

***

	Back on the bridge, Sailor Moon leaned over Sammy's shoulder. 
"Nothing out of the ordinary?"

	"No, sir."

	"Good."

***

	"Fifteen hundred meters and dropping."

	"Good."  There was another thing about Kim that Orion hadn't known:
she could fly a mean shuttle.  "Now," she said, turning to Temako, "what can
we expect down there?"

	"Well, there's a nice high-pressure system going.  Clear, but very
windy, with highs around minus twenty-one centigrade." She looked up from
her handlink with a smile.  "I'm not going to tell you the wind chill."

	"Thank heavens for small favors," muttered Kim from the helm.  She
made flying a shuttle in one hundred thirty kilometer per hour headwinds
look easy, but it certainly wasn't easy in practice.  "One thousand meters."

	"As I said, radiation's a bit higher than normal, but okay.  The
main problem will be the wind."

	"Mmm.  What was that, Kim?"

	"Uh, nothing sir."

	"Hmph.  Could have sworn you muttered something.  Anyway, Doctor,
you'll be in charge of collecting any biological specimens.  Use your own
discretion as to a need for quarantine, okay?  On the same page, everyone? 
Good."

	"Five hundred meters.  Four hundred.  Two fifty.  One hundred. 
Fifty, forty, fifteen--sorry about that--five, four, three, two-"

	A mind-shaking thud.

	"Zero.  Sorry about that, folks."

	"It's okay, Kim, really.  Signal Pleiades."

***

	"Sailor Moon, Shuttle-1 says that they have touched down, and are
preparing to disembark."

	"Very well," she answered, looking around the bridge.  "Keep me
apprised of anything new."

	"Um," began Sammy, "you said that two minutes ago."

	"Did I?"

	"Yep."

	"Oh.  Carry on."

	Sammy wished to herself that she was an anime character.  A
facefault would work nicely right now.

***

	After depressurizing the cabin, Dr. Sampson did the honors of
opening the hatch and letting the Katsuragi II air in.  The winds certainly
felt colder than advertised, even through the pressure suits.

	"After you, Captain," said Kim over the radio.

	"All right, then."  It was, of course, the Captain's privilege to be
the first to set foot on a new planet, regardless of the fate of its
previous inhabitants.

	She looked out over the landscape.  As far as she could see, the
ground was gray, with a hint of red.  She guessed that this had been a
grassy field before the nuclear war.  Now it was dust.  On the horizon were
the tallest remains of what must have been a great city once, standing
against a blue-green, mostly cloudy sky.  There were no trees, no birds, no
animals, no plants.  The only sounds she could hear were the breathing of
the others over the radio and the howling of the wind.  She took a deep
breath.

	"I, Sailor Orion, as a duly elected representative of Neo-Queen
Serenity, and Crystal Tokyo which she rules, do hereby announce our presence
on this planet.  We come in peace."

	It was a set speech, and it was required to be said in the event of
first contact on a new planet.  There was no-one to placate here, and it
lacked the appeal of "One small step for man," but it worked.  She put a
booted foot out and became the first human ever to walk on the surface of
Katsuragi II.

	And the first person to sink knee-deep into the surface of Katsuragi
II.

	"Aaaaaahh!"  Sinking in, she fell headfirst and was nearly buried.

	"Sailor Orion!"

	"Are you all right?"

	"Are you okay?"

	"Fine, fine," she said, thanking heavens for her helmet.  Otherwise
she'd be spitting out dirt.  "Temako, first note.  There's a nice layer of
ash around here, and it's damned thick."

	Temako stooped to pick up a handful of the stuff, and adjusted her
visor.  In a pinch, it could be used to see other electromagnetic bands, and
as a *very* crude means of chemical analysis.  "Um, this isn't ash."

	"It isn't?"

	"Nope.  It's snow.  Very dirty snow."

	"Snow."  She got up and stood, the snow being swept from her suit. 
"All this is snow?"

	"Yes."

	"Then why hasn't it started forming dunes?  Kami know there's enough
wind for it!"

	"Definitely," said the other tech, named Hitonoyuki.  "But
apparently there's a crust of frozen snow on top of the powder you fell
into.  The pressure from your feet cracked the crust."

	"Great.  Please say we've got snowshoes in there?"

***

	Some time later, the five snowshoe-clad women trekked across the
barren landscape.  Every once in awhile, Sampson would run off, only to
return empty handed.  Occasionally she would mutter about bacteria, but
beyond that she showed no signs of disappointment.

	Hitonoyuki continued to point out meteorological and geological
curiosities, while Temako mentioned any archeological artifacts they found. 
Frustratingly, they were few and far between.

	Once, she found what appeared to be a bottle.  The label had long
ago washed away, but the discovery of green glass bulked up their spirits. 
Whoever had been on this world had about the same tastes as humans.  It had
been duly placed in the sample carrier Kim was lugging long.

	Another time, they found a key bit of evidence: a plow.

	"No doubt about it," said Orion as they gathered around the
agricultural implement.  "Very similar to the plows used in Europe in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.  There are only two or three refinements
you can make to a plow, and this has one of them.  See, this little bit here
is for cutting tough, hard sod." She looked up with triumph.  "This means
that the climate here must have been a lot like that in Northern Europe:
cold and rainy."

	"If you assume that this, or the plans it was made from, predate the
war," objected Sampson.  "Another explanation is that after the war, this
spot was still relatively intact.  No fuel means that you have to go back to
archaic methods.  This design might have been the only thing they knew to
make, from long ago."

	"Possible, but I don't think it's likely."  She looked around.  The
odometer inside her suit said that they'd come twelve kilometers.  "Come on,
take some pictures and let's move on."

	As they neared the city, they found more and more of the detritus of
civilization.  Old wheels.  Tires.  More farm tools.  A plastic something
that looked like some kind of toy: that went in the sample trunk.  They
found a road, and cracked as it was, it was better than continuing to use
the snowshoes.

	"It's a shame there aren't more papers around here," lamented Orion. 
"A newspaper, even a history book . . . something to figure out what they
were like!  Right now, it's like trying to figure out what we're like from
what we carry in our pockets, but worse!"

	"There's the little matter of language translation," said Kim.

	"That's no problem," she replied.  "Antares could probably figure it
out in a few minutes.  But that's irrelevant without a language sample."

	They walked on.

***

	This planet spun far more slowly than Earth, so even at 19:00 there
was broad daylight, or what passed for it, cloudy as it was.  As they began
to enter the ruins of the city, more and more artifacts were found.

	"No bodies, though," said Sampson.  "Either everyone bugged out, or
there's some really quick decomposers at work here."

	"Or," suggested Orion, "there's some taboo against dying in public. 
Or the dead may have been buried, or died in their homes.  Dammit, there's
so much we don't know about these people!"

	She broke off from the group and headed for one of the more intact
looking homes.  It proved that there were only so many ways to build a
house: sloping roof, windows, doors.  It appeared to be made from some
unknown substances, but it was easily recognizable as a house.

	Inside, so much was different that she didn't know where to start. 
Flipping on the flashlight mounted to the side of her helmet, she set her
cameras to auto-record.  Everything she saw would be recorded and sent back
to the shuttle.

	The chairs, tables . . . everything was so different.  For one,
there were no chairs per se: only stools and benches.  No obvious fireplace,
but no ventilation ducts either.  No television, or any other electronic
devices, but there seemed to be plug-like contraptions hanging from the high
ceilings.

	She heard the house creak and decided that it was time to move
along.  Spinning, she tripped over at first glance looked to be a lamp.  It
looked like it, but there was no obvious bulb.  That was irrelevant, though. 
The upshot of Orion's fall was that she hit her head on what turned out to
be a door.

	Behind it, she saw the bodies.

	"SAMPSON!  GET IN HERE, STAT!"

	Seconds later, all four of the others raced in.  Temako took one
look and turned away, Kim and Hitonoyuki just stared, and Sampson let out a
laugh of pure joy.

	"YES!"  She bent over to inspect them.  "No decomposition, none at
all!  Did you touch them, sir?"

	"No, of course not!"

	"Excellent!"  She began speaking into her suit's recorder.  "Two
specimens.  Presumed to be male and female.  Can't tell which is which. 
Height of first specimen, 204 cm.  Second, 247 cm.  Appear to be bipedal,
digitigrade as well. Fur on almost the entire body, and . . . a tail!  Gods,
this is magnificent!  A full-blown tail, with bushy fur, appears to be a
full meter long!  Fur color red-brown on both specimens.  Slight
discoloration near the joints, especially between the legs, maybe genital
markings?  Eyes closed, so's the mouth.  I'm not going to touch them without
proper equipment, they might be so desiccated as to shatter on contact. 
Overall form . . . I believe Vulpes vulpes is the best match, along with
Homo Sapiens." She wheeled to face the others.  "What a find!"

	At least they had found something.

***

	"Sir, I've found something!  Unidentified object, bearing
zero-four-five mark zero-zero-zero, range four light seconds and closing
fast.  Wait . . . sir, I tentatively identify as a Dark Kingdom vessel."

	Sailor Moon sighed and slouched in her chair.  "Thank you,
Lieutenant Leeds.  Once more into the breach, dear friends." She sat up and
cracked her knuckles.

	"Sound general quarters."

	"Aye, sir!"

	As Vanessa began repeating the order throughout the ship, Sailor
Moon turned to Sammy.  "Lieutenant Porter, contact the team down there and
tell them to get to the shuttle as soon as possible.  We'll advise them
later as to when it's safe to come up."

	"Sir, we have a positive identification of a Dark Kingdom ship,
designate target Sierra-1, bearing . . . sir!  It's going for the planet!"

	"What?"

***

	"What?"

	"I say again, Sailor Orion, you need to get your people to the
shuttle NOW!  We've got a DK raider up here, and they're heading for the
planet.  We'll try to hold them off, but-"

	"I understand, Sammy.  Good luck.  Orion out."  She turned to the
others. "People, we've got problems.  The Dark Kingdom's here, and we're
moving."

	"What?

	"We're leaving, Dr. Sampson.  Come on!"

	The black woman might have been crying.  Orion couldn't tell.  
"But . . .  but . . . the bodies?  We're just going to leave them here?"

	"What do you propose, that we put them in the sample container? 
It's already full, and I doubt even one would fit in it empty.  We've got
enough running to do as it is!  Now come on!"

	"No."

	"What?  Are you crazy?"  She was screeching, now.  "I gave you an
order, Doctor.  Now come on before we all get killed!"

	"I'm not leaving the most important find in the past three thousand
years.  You go on without me, I'll stay here."

	"Kim, Tameko, Hitonoyuki, get to the shuttle as fast as you can.  If
it gets too hot, leave.  Understand?"

	"Y-yes."

	"Good.  Now move!"

	They moved.  "Now, Sampson-san, are you going to come along or do I
have to use force?"

	"Force.  I'm not abandoning these bodies!  Do you have any idea just
how much we can learn from an autopsy?  I can tell you cause of death, mode
of diet, answer millions of questions that biologists and biochemists have
had for centuries . . . ."

	"Yes.  I know exactly what I'm giving up.  The chance to chronicle
the history of an entire civilization from start to finish." She leaned
against the doorjamb.  "This is the stuff that dream dissertations are made
of.  Do you really think I want to leave?  But there's an attack going on
out there, and-"

	She was interrupted by the three she had just sent out.  Kim spoke,
panting from lack of breath.

	"Sir, the way to the shuttle is blocked.  About a dozen
thingamabobs, youma, I think.  I don't think they saw us, but they saw the
shuttle."

	"Which means that they mean to trap us on the way back.  Very well."
She squared her shoulders and went to the door, stopping before leaving the
house.  "Sampson, you have a choice.  You can either stay here until we
manage to send back for help, or you can come with us.  Be advised that help
is in no way guaranteed.  Choose wisely."

	Thus filled with bravado, she raced out into the street, with Kim,
Tameko, and Hitonoyuki following close behind.

***

	Once outside, and a few kilometers away, Orion allowed herself a bit
of panic.  "Pleiades, this is Orion.  What the hell's going on up there?  Do
you know they've got ground troops down here?!?  How could you allow this?"

	"Uh. I-I don't know, it-"

	"Sammy?  Sammy, put Moon on the channel.  Now, before--oh shit! 
DUCK!"

	Their little group dove behind a crumbling building as a volley of
arrows flew by.  The suits were supposed to protect against any type of
shrapnel, but she wasn't inclined to take chances.

	"Sailor Moon here," said her XO, as if she were a secretary
answering the phone.

	"Moon!  What the hell are you doing?  I'm under fire here, and the
last time I checked I had *no* support whatsoever!"

	"Orion, if you haven't noticed, we don't have any weapons.  Unless
you feel that a blast from the ginzuishou would do you some good?  And
there's the little matter of *our* being under attack too?"

	"Dammit!  Just make sure no more youma decide to pull a paratrooper,
okay?"

	"I'll try.  And I dOBidn't realize how difficult this whole gestalt thing 
was."

	"You're using the gestalt?  Is there any damage to the ship?"

	"No, not really."

	"Great.  Just hold off the baddies, okay?  Orion out."  She peeked
her head over the pile of rubble, and quickly went back down.

	"Okay, we need a diversion.  Kim, when I give the signal, throw the
sample container as far to the left as you can."

	Kim gulped, but otherwise showed no signs of fear.  Which was better
than what Orion was managing.  "Yes."

	Orion peeked again, then took a deep breath.  If they didn't take
the bait . . . "Okay.  NOW!"

	The white box flew, and the youma chased it, letting go with
covering fire as they went.

	"Dumb, but not quite stupid," muttered Orion, but she had no
complaints. Now that the youma weren't blocking their path, she could
proceed with part two.

	"Orion Nebula . . . "  A familiar cloud began to form about the
distracted youma, who began to stumble about, lost, but . . . .  Damn!  She
forgot to give the additional order!  She couldn't say anything else at that
point, or her concentration would be broken and the cloud would disperse. 
Without the Gertie, it didn't look like she could hold out very long anyway.

	Fortunately, Kim had seen this before, and knew what would happen. 
"Okay, people," she cried, "get to the shuttle!"

	The other two needed no further encouragement.  They raced towards
the shuttle a few hundred meters away.  Orion followed them, but slower. 
She had to keep facing her quarry; otherwise, her little nebula could drift
away.  Then again, the fact that the light hydrogen hadn't floated away in
the high winds was encouraging.  The only odd thing, she noticed, was that
it seemed to be larger than it should . . . could she be drawing on the
shipboard Gertie, she thought?

	She was a few meters from the shuttle when she heard Sampson scream
over the headset.

	"Don't leave me!  I'm coming!"

	"Emma?" said Kim from inside the shuttle.

	"In the flesh!"

	And indeed, there she was, barreling her way towards the ship, and 
carrying . . . 

	"The alien?"

	"I had to take one, Kim!"

	"But . . . DOCTOR!  You're not going to make it!  You're too slow!"

	The doctor wasn't exactly a track star to start with, and the body
she was lugging with her wasn't helping.  It was clear that she wouldn't
make it out of range of the upcoming blast.  In fact, it looked iffy that
the shuttle would, despite the fact that Kim was already warming up the
engines.

	"You've got to drop it!"

	"Never!"

	Orion had her own opinions on the subject, but she was occupied with
other matters.

	"Sampson, drop the body, or you will die!"

	There came something like a sob, and then Sampson tossed the body
aside.  A few seconds later, she went past Orion, who was now standing in
the door.

	"Captain, I'm going to take off, now!"

	She could only nod in response.  She could sense that they were
approaching the maximum range of her powers, it would have to be now . . . .

	" . . . COLLAPSE!"  She fainted into the arms of Temako and
Hitonoyuki, and then all three rolled to the back of the cabin as Kim
blasted away.

	The hatch didn't close, and so they saw the terrific flash, and felt
the rush of hot air as Orion's star went off on the surface of Katsuragi II. 
Riding the shock wave, they hurtled into space.

***

	A couple hours later, Orion was on the bridge.  She had ordered a
probe to go down and check conditions on the planet after the attack, and
things weren't going very well.

	"Any difficulty dispatching the DK ship, Sailor Moon?"

	"Nope.  Easy as one two three.  And I didn't wipe out any cities,
either."

	Orion sighed.  She really wasn't in the mood for another fight. 
"Damage?"

	"None."

	"Good."  She ran a hand through her hair.  "Vanessa, do we have that
sensor data in?"

	"Yes, but I gave it to Environmental for analysis."

	"Hmph."

	As if on cue, Temako entered the bridge.  "Sir," she saluted to
Orion, "the report you wanted." The captain took the proffered handlink, and
began reading.  About halfway through, she dropped it and ran, crying, to
the ready room.

	"What the hell?"

	"What does it say?"

	"Why did she collapse like that?"

	Sailor Moon said nothing, but made a silencing motion to the Bridge
Brigade and picked up the handlink.  Sparing a quick glance at Temako, who
looked positively ill, she began reading aloud.

	"'This episode has provided great insight into the physics of
stellar formation.  The effect of Sailor Orion's attack upon the ten youma
in question (see section 53-r) can be likened to the detonation of a
thermonuclear device. The destructive power unleashed was roughly equal to,'
. . . to . . . , '30 gigatons of TNT.'"

	There were gasps all around.  She continued.

	"'This is, of course, far beyond the yield of any known nuclear
device, and rivals the destructive power of the Royal Star Navy's
experimental antimatter warheads.  Any comparisons to the Hiroshima or
Nagasaki bombs is irrelevant, as the two are as incomparable as likening the
Big Bang to a child's sparkler.

	"'Predicted effects upon Katsuragi II.  These are easy to predict,
and some evidence has already been observed to bear out our predictions. 
They are numbered below.

	"' 1) A crater approximately twenty kilometers in radius has been
created at the blast site.  We are unable to see the bottom of it, as smoke
totally obscures it.  We assume that the mantle has been reached, and that
the magma beneath the crater is exposed to the air, burning it.

	"' 2) Greatly increased tectonic activity.  Groundquakes, volcanism,
etc., are at extraordinary levels, and appear to be increasing.  It is the
opinion of the department that the topography of the planet will be
completely unrecognizable within a year.  Of course, this will result in the
erasure of all signs of civilization.

	"' 3) Completely unpredictable weather.  A good portion of Katsuragi
II's atmosphere has been ionized, and the remainder is extremely turbulent. 
We have lost four probes due to weather conditions (see section 2-c), and
are reluctant to lose a fifth.

	"'Conclusion.   It is the determination of this department that the
surface is completely inimical to any artificial or natural artifacts, such
as cities, vehicles, plants, and animals.  All will be wiped away by the
cataclysm, and it is unlikely that things will calm down for at least a
billion years.  The only life that could possibly survive on Katsuragi would
be some sort of heretofore undiscovered species of Moneran, as no known
species could cope with the rapidly changing conditions.  End of report.'
Mother of Serenity."

	She looked up, ignoring the fairly strong oath she had ended with. 
At the moment, her pink hair was a shocking contrast to her ashen face. 
"Good work, Temako.  Dismissed." Moon turned to the rest of the crew, which
had fallen completely silent, save for a couple of people silently weeping. 
"No wonder she's upset.  Who knows what questions will go unanswered forever
about these people?

	"How would you like to know that you've destroyed an entire planet?"


============================
Episode #116:  Decompression 
Reel 1 
============================

 
	In Queen Selenite's audience chamber, the ruler of the Dark Kingdom
looked disapprovingly at her head general, whom she only referred to as
Number One.
 
	"Number One, you have conducted two attacks on the Earth ship, and
both times you have failed to destroy it.  Indeed, you haven't even managed
to do any substantial damage."
 
	Number One merely bowed his head lower in shame.  "I know this, my
Queen.  I apologize for-"
 
	"I don't want apologies, Number One, I want results!"  She rose from
her throne and strode towards him, her mane of gray hair trailing behind. 
"I have placed a great amount of trust in you over the past few years,
Number One." She extended a hand and slowly stroked beneath his chin.  "A
*great* amount."
 
	Abruptly, she brought her other hand around and slapped him full on
the cheek.  He went down and sprawled on the floor without a sound.
 
	"See that you do not disappoint that trust again, or you may find
Number Two to be your replacement!  And you do not want to be replaced,
believe me!"
 
	Number One rose slowly, rubbing the spot where he'd been hit.  "I
understand, my Queen.  In fact, I have already taken steps to insure the
destruction of the Earth ship.  Thus far, they have only had to deal with a
single axis of attack, and they seem quite good at parrying such assaults."
 
	He resumed his fully erect posture, his confidence returning. 
"However, I feel that if confronted with an attack along two vectors, they
will find the might of the Dark Kingdom insurmountable."
 
	"Two ships?  Number One, may I remind you that while my advisors are
cheap, my ships most certainly are not.  You have already lost two ships
that were help carry out the invasion of Earth.  Do you mean to lose two at
a time now?"
 
	"I pray thee, my Queen.  Have faith.  This plan shall work, I swear
it."
 
	"It had better, Number One.  Very well.  You may proceed.  But I
remind you once again: my ships are a most valuable resource."
 
	"Of course, my Queen." 
 
*** 
 
	It had been a week since they had left the orbit of Katsuragi II. 
Pleiades continued to motor away, looking for any signs that would lead them
to the Dark Kingdom's base.
 
	The crew's spirits had sunk since Katsuragi II.  First the discovery
that intelligent life had made that term an oxymoron by destroying
themselves, then the destruction of what was left of its civilization.  So
much had been lost.
 
	Perhaps Sampson had it the worst, although Orion would disagree with
that.  Sampson, a doctor and budding xenologist, had been force to toss
aside the most important biological find of that or any other century, and
she was taking it hard.
 
	It was for that reason that Orion was making her way to the
infirmary, to console the doctor.  She wasn't sure that she herself wasn't
in need of some consoling herself, but she was the captain and morale was
her job.
 
	Thus she entered the infirmary, and was struck by how empty it was. 
There had been no real injuries lately, and apparently the nurses were
elsewhere.  Hanasu had been moved to long-term care in one of the small
cubicles off in the back.  Poking around, the captain saw the lights off in
Sampson's office.  That left one other place.
 
	She went around a corner to a closed door, which lead to the CMO's
quarters.  It had been decided that putting her room next to the infirmary
was a good idea.  Looking through the window in the door, Orion saw Sampson
staring at a display screen.  She knocked.
 
	"Who is it?" 
 
	"Sailor Orion." 
 
	There was some indecipherable grumbling, and then, "Come in." 
 
	Orion entered to see the usually tidy Sampson's room in total
disarray. The woman lay on her bed, looking at a display screen.  Upon
closer inspection, it proved to be some of the video that had been recorded
on Katsuragi II.
 
	"Dr. Sampson?  Dr. Sampson, are you all right?" 
 
	Sampson slowly rolled over.  "Oh, I'm fine, sir.  I let a huge find 
through my fingers, but other than that, I'm fine, really." 
 
	"Oh, glad to hear it."  Orion pivoted on a heel and made as if to
walk out the door, but Sampson stopped her.
 
	"No, don't go.  Not yet, at least."  Sampson sighed.  "Have a seat." 
 
	Orion did as asked, noting something that rankled.  "Your room is
bigger than mine!"
 
	"Yes."  The hint of a smile crossed the doctor's face.  "In dire
conditions, this room can be used for extra patients, so it has to be a bit
larger than usual.  In fact, it's the biggest residential room on board. 
But that's not why I want you to stay."
 
	"Listen, Emma, if it's about the planet-" 
 
	"No, Sailor Orion, I'm over what you did.  If you hadn't blasted those
youma, us two wouldn't be here.  It's just . . . why is that us humans always 
mess things up?" 
 
	Orion smiled wryly.  "You mean like the environmental crises of the 
twentieth century?  And the Second Sailor Wars?" 
 
	"Exactly!  Why is it that our worst enemy is always ourselves?  I'm a
doctor, I try my best to help people, and-" 
 
	"Sailor Orion, please report to the bridge.  Sailor Orion, please
report to the bridge immediately."
 
	Orion looked up at the ceiling with a look that would melt steel. 
The ceiling was mostly synthetics, though, so Pleiades was lucky there.  "On
my way," she muttered to herself, and left Sampson alone with her thoughts.
 
*** 
 
	"Status?" snapped Orion as she came onto the bridge.  She
impatiently waved off Kim, who was about to go through the entire 'Captain
on the bridge' routine.
 
	"Abnormal readings dead ahead.  Two of them.  We think-" 
 
	"-It's the Dark Kingdom, yes."  She went to her seat and sighed,
massaging her forehead with her left hand.  "Who did we expect, Tim Noran?"
She leaned forward.  "Okay, sound general quarters."
 
	The usual mayhem resulted.  Orion was about to tell Engineering to
prepare for a Gertie attack when Sammy spoke up.
 
	"Sir, we're getting a transmission from the enemy ship!" 
 
	As one, the rest of the bridge crew shouted.  "WHAT?" 
 
	She reeled under the noise, but rallied.  "Yes, they identify
themselves as Selenite's Ship Cerebus." She turned to Sailor Orion and
managed to keep a straight face.  "It's for you, sir."
 
*** 
 
	On the bridge of Cerebus, Number One stood, tapping his foot.  This
was his own personal ship, and as such got its own name.  He looked at his
communications officer.  The officer nodded in return.  "I remind you," said
the officer, "that the ship is to be destroyed, and no prisoners taken."
 
	"I am aware of our orders," Number One replied.  "But I have my own
uses for that ship.  Put me on."
 
*** 
 
	On the largest of the six screens on the forward bulkhead, their
enemy appeared to the crew of Pleiades.  He was tall, with swarthy black
hair and sharp facial features.  His black eyes glinted from some unknown
light, and he wore a deeply ingrained frown.  His gray uniform was taut
across his chest, and yellow epaulets graced his shoulders.
 
	"I am Number One." 
 
	Silence filled the bridge. 
 
	"Err, that's nice," was the first thing Orion blurted out.  Sailor
Moon resisted the urge to smack her captain in the back of the head.
 
	"Sir," said the pink-haired sailor with all the calm she could
muster, "I believe that's his name."
 
	"Ah."  She stood.  "Well, I am Sailor Orion, captain of Her
Majesty's Ship Pleiades, and representative of Her Majesty Neo-Queen
Serenity.  I presume you have been behind the recent attacks on my ship?"
 
	"Yes." 
 
	A thought occurred to Orion, one that should have come to her
earlier. "Wait, you're speaking Japanese?" He was, and she hadn't noticed. 
It was a rather archaic dialect, much like how Shakespearean English sounded
to twentieth century listeners.
 
	"Yes," he said with a smirk that was worse than his frown.  "We have
more in common than you would think, Sailor Orion."
 
	"Hmph."  She adjusted her glasses.  "So you admit to attacking my
ship?"
 
	"Yes." 
 
	She was at a loss.  She had expected some kind of excuse.  "And why
did you do this?"
 
	"Because my master wants you destroyed." 
 
	"And your master is?" 
 
	"Queen Selenite." 
 
	"Never heard of her." 
 
	"That is understandable." 
 
	"Sailor Orion, a word please?"  Moon pulled Orion aside and
whispered fiercely in her ear.  "Sir, what the hell are you doing?  The more
you talk with this guy, the more flippant you get!  In case you haven't
noticed, he's got two ships pointing weaponry at us, and we're just sitting
here and shooting the breeze?"
 
	"Shh!  Everything's under control, Sailor Moon.  Trust me on this."
She turned back to the screen.
 
	"Very well, Number One, you-" 
 
	"Sailor Orion, I give you two options.  Either surrender your ship
to me, or die."
 
	"I will not surrender this ship." 
 
	"Come now, Orion, look at your situation.  You stand no chance. 
Frankly, how you were able to defeat the other two ships is beyond me. 
Surrender, and I promise that you will come to no harm."
 
	Sailor Moon stepped forward and crossed her arms on her chest.  "I
thought Selenite wanted us dead?"
 
	"She does."  The smirk was back.  "But I have other plans for you."
The smirk turned into a sneer.
 
	Orion trembled for a moment in fear and anger.  Then anger took over. 
 
	"Sailor Moon, get to engineering, tell them to warm up the Gertie." 
 
	"Aye!"  She raced out the door. 
 
	"We're taking you down, Number One.  En garde!" 
 
	Astonishingly, Number One chuckled.  "A challenge!  How amusing. 
Very well, I have not had much entertainment today." He looked to the side
and said three words of a guttural tongue, and his face was replaced with a
view of the two ships that they were up against.
 
	Orion swiveled her seat to face Sammy.  "Ready three probes and set
them to self-destruct."
 
	"Aye, sir.  Wait . . . ships turning, sir!  Now bearing
zero-zero-zero mark zero-zero-zero, range five million kilometers, and
closing fast."
 
	"Evasive maneuvers." 
 
	A pencil-thin beam of light appeared from one of the ships. 
Instantaneously, Pleiades rocked to port.
 
	"We've been hit!  Port side, deck seven, moderate damage . . . no
injury reports as of yet!"
 
	"Bastards.  What the hell is Chibi-Usa doing?!?"  The bridge crew
pretended not to hear her use of the familiar name.  She flipped up the
cover on the Gertie controls and looked angrily at the red light.  "Come on,
dammit, turn green!"
 
	It is unlikely that the light bulb understood Japanese, but it went
green anyway.
 
	"Great!"  She activated the Gertie and set her sights on the
trailing ship, which she figured to be Number One's flagship.  "Helm, come
right to zero-four-zero and hold for ten seconds.  I'm going to try to get a
passing shot in."
 
	"Aye, sir."  Pleiades roared forward, jinking up and down to avoid
the enemy fire.  Orion concentrated, then spoke.
 
	"Orion Nebula . . . " 
 
	The cloud formed, and Orion paused, waiting for the right moment
before putting on the kill.
 
	Number One didn't cooperate, however.  As the crew looked on in
horror, the ship veered out of the cloud, leaving Orion with a split second
to make a decision.  She made it.
 
	"Disperse!" 
 
	As quickly as it had appeared, the hydrogen cloud vanished. 
 
	"Dammit!  At least the other two had the courtesy to stand still! 
Sammy, do you still have those probes ready?"
 
	"Yes!" 
 
	"Shoot them.  Target at will!" 
 
	"Aye, sir!" 
 
*** 
 
	On his ship, Number One laughed to himself.  The fools!  To expect
the mighty Dark Kingdom to fall for the same trick three times in a row?  He
had clearly overestimated their fighting abilities.  Why, if he had
commanded that first scout ship, Pleiades would have been space junk long
ago.
 
	"Sir, they're firing . . . some kind of projectiles." 
 
	"Projectiles?" he asked incredulously. 
 
	"Yes.  Shall we withdraw?" 
 
	"No!  We follow the quarry!  I feel this hunt will soon come to an
end, and we do not run away now. Fire countermeasures."
 
*** 
 
	On Pleiades, the screens showed their three probes being picked off
with lasers.  Orion sighed and squared her shoulders.  "Okay, I need some
ideas, people."
 
	Silence. 
 
	"And where the hell is Sailor Moon?" 
 
	"Incoming!" 
 
	There was a deafening boom, and everything went dark. 
 
*** 
 
	"Sir, the missile scored a direct hit!  Excellent choice of weapons,
sir!"
 
	"Of course," said Number One.  "Orion, I have you now!" 
 
*** 
 
	Slowly Orion picked herself up, rubbing her head.  She had been
slammed into one of the metal columns that were haphazardly arranged around
the bridge, and as a result she now had a hell of a headache.  Scrabbling on
the floor, she managed to find her dislodged glasses and put them back on. 
Dimly, she was aware of various sirens, bells, and alarms going off,
including . . . oh no.
 
	"SIR!" screamed Sammy, who had been the first to recover, "HULL
BREACH!"
 
	Orion wobbled to her seat and sat, wishing desperately for a
painkiller.  Around her, humans and computer screens flickered back to life. 
Orion signaled for the alarms to be turned off.  "Sammy, you've got to calm
down!  I need more info here!"
 
	"S-sorry, I'll try sir."  She began punching buttons.  "Hull breach,
deck fourteen, section four-i.  The section's been closed off, and-"
 
	"Good, all I needed to know.  Engine status?" 
 
	"One moment . . . Bennington say you can have full power in two
minutes."
 
	"Tell Bennington that we'll be dead by then.  I need 110% *now*! 
And for God's sake, tell the infirmary to get some painkillers up here!"
 
	"They're a bit busy, sir.  Twenty injuries, and they're still coming
in."
 
	Orion muttered a very bad word.  "I need someone to find Sailor Moon
and get in here, okay?"
 
	"Taken care of, sir." 
 
*** 
 
	On deck fourteen, section four-i, Sailor Moon was fighting for her
life.  She had been on her way back to the bridge when everything had gone
white, and just as suddenly went black.  She had had no time to think,
simply grabbed on to the handhold that was in the corridor.  She had always
thought them useless, but she had to admit their value now.  It was the only
thing keeping her aboard.
 
	The DK missile had blown a hole twelve meters wide in the ship's
hull, and it happened to be right across from Sailor Moon.  She had gotten
through the most violent part, when all the air was being sucked into the
starry void, and now she was going through the hard part.
 
	Breathing. 
 
	Her mother had taught her well on the abilities and limitations of
the ginzuishou.  She was relatively sure of just how far she could push its
powers.  She had never considered the possibility of it keeping her alive in
total vacuum, but that was the case.
 
	With a bit of concentration . . . 'Amazing,' she thought, 'how the
mind can focus in a crisis,' the ginzuishou was keeping up enough air
pressure from her exhalations to prevent her body from rupturing in the
vacuum.  Unfortunately, this brought up another problem.
 
	There isn't any oxygen in space. 
 
	She had thought this minor before setting up her little shield, but
now it became critical, as she had now gone ten seconds without a breath. 
If she had a bit more training, she could have used the crystal to generate
some more, but that was still beyond her.  Her only hope was to get to one
of the emergency cubicles set aside for just such an situation.
 
	'Okay,' she thought, 'first step is to get away from the hole.'  She
yanked herself away from the hole and found herself flying through what was
left of the corridor.  It was far faster than she'd expected.
 
	'Damn!  The gravity must be out!'  She continued floating until she
bounced off the section hatch.
 
	'Can I open it?  No, I'm running out of time.  Besides, that door is
the only thing keeping the rest of the ship's air from flying into space.' 
She slowly turned back around to face the hole. 
 
	'It looks so calm and peaceful,' she thought, looking out into the
void.  'It would be so easy to just let go and . . . no!  I can't do that! 
Must be the lack of air talking.' She tried to focus again.  She couldn't
shake her head or slap herself; such actions took oxygen she didn't have.
 
	'Okay, Princess, concentrate.  Every forty meters of this ship,
there's a tiny cubicle with enough room for one person and enough air for
five hours.  You've got to find it.  Now.  So, what does it look like? 
Damn, I never bothered to read the manual on that!' Fighting off the sleep
that threatened to envelop her, she slowly floated down the hall, searching
for anything that might be it.
 
*** 
 
	"Right, I can't wait any longer."  Pleiades had narrowly escaped
several near hits, and it was plain to everyone that Number One was just
toying with them.  Orion definitely didn't like that.  *No-one*
underestimated Jennifer Sakachi, no matter how short her skirt may be. 
"Helm, plot a course as close to the flagship as you can."
 
	"Course laid in, sir." 
 
	"Very well."  She fingered the Gertie controls once again, and then
made a fist.  "All ahead flank!  110% now!"
 
	The ship lurched forward, swerving to escape the occasional shots. 
Orion rested her head on her clasped hands; there was nothing more to do. 
She consoled herself with the fact that even if her plan failed, their
suicide attack would take at least one of the ships with them.
 
	They neared the flagship, which was now moving to evade Pleiades. 
But it couldn't accelerate nearly as fast as Pleiades, and so the distance
between them waned.
 
	"Seven thousand meters and closing, captain." 
 
	"Steady as she goes." 
 
	"Six thousand meters!  Five thousand!  Four!" 
 
	"Sound collision." 
 
	"Three thousand!" 
 
	"Prepare the guidance lasers, set them to overload, and lock on to
the ship."
 
	"Aye, sir." 
 
*** 
 
	Sailor Moon could see it.  Through the black fringes of her vision,
she could see the yellow and black control lever for the emergency cubicle. 
It was just on the other side of the hole that had been ripped in Pleiades. 
With a burst of strength, she pulled herself towards it, floating past the
battle scene to port.
 
	This was rather unfortunate, for at that moment Pleiades jerked to
starboard.  As long as she had stayed in contact with the walls, she had
moved at the same speed of the ship, and even now she continued to move at
the same speed in a straight line.
 
	Pleiades wasn't going in a straight line any more, however.  With no
warning, she was flying away from the ship and all hope of survival.
 
	'Shit!' she thought.  And then she swallowed down a massive attack
of agoraphobia, as she looked around her.  No walls, no floors, no
boundaries, just her and the universe.  If she hadn't been fighting off
explosive decompression, anoxia, and extreme cold, she might have enjoyed
it.  As it was, she realized that she was now as good as dead.
 
	Spinning, she faced the main enemy ship.  It wasn't hard to pick out
at three thousand meters away, just a silver streak in a sable background. 
She could see it well enough to target it.
 
	Her mother had taught her another capability of the crystal, one she
had used to defeat the DK ship at Katsuragi II.  Now, without the Gertie she
wasn't sure she could pull it off, but it was better to die fighting than
just float through space.
 
	With her last reserve of energy, she concentrated and let it all out.

	And then even the scant light provided by the stars disappeared. 
 
*** 
 
	"Two thousand meters, Captain!" 
 
	"Right.  Fire lasers--wait!" 
 
	It was incredible.  From some point off to port, a white beam of
energy lanced out, scoring several sustained hits on Number One's ship.  The
other ship moved to intercept whoever was firing, but they couldn't find it.
 
	"Who the hell is doing that?  Never mind, helm get us out of this
nose dive.  Let some probes out while we're at it!"
 
	Pleiades arced away from its dive bomb approach, leaving a couple of
self-destructing probes as souvenirs.  The lead ship could take no more.  As
the screens on the bridge switched to a reverse view, they showed the ship
bursting into a gout of flame that was just as quickly snuffed out by the
vacuum.  Number One's flanking ship quickly turned tail and ran, and just as
quickly the battle was won.
 
*** 
 
	"Is she all right?" 
 
	Sailor Orion had come down from the bridge as soon as she got word. 
Her eyes glowed with exaustion and fear.
 
	"Yes, she made it just in time.  I don't know how, though."  Dr.
Sampson shook her head slowly.  "Just turned around, and there they were."
 
	"They?" 
 
	"Yeah, Sailor Moon and a little kid, maybe 9 or 10.  Pink hair-" 
 
	"-in odango, yes." 
 
	Sampson arced an eyebrow.  "You know her?" 
 
	"Not nearly as well as I should."  She looked over to the sleeping
Moon.  "How was she?" 
 
	"Pretty bad.  I'm willing to guess she was in vacuum for a couple
minutes, and that's just extraordinary.  If we could use the ginzuishou for
medical research . . . but that's the Queen's business."
 
	"Right," said Orion.  She sounded none too pleased about it. 
 
	"Well, I'd expect her to be back to work in a day or so, but until
then I want bed rest, you hear me Captain?"
 
	"Okay," said Orion, cracking a smile, "I understand.  Sailor Moon
will have a bit of a vacation today." She walked out, and the smile
disappeared from her face as more serious thoughts crossed her mind.
 
	'And when you wake up, I'm going to find out what you and that
pink-haired kid have in common, and how she can survive in a total vacuum,
and how she can almost single-handedly destroy a starship, and most
importantly, why the hell you never told us you could do that.
 
	'And when I get the answers to my questions, I'm going to give the
bill to that Selenite bitch.'
 
*** 
 
	In engineering, Eric looked over damage reports, assigning people to
fix them.  It was his forte.  He was an organizer.
 
*** 
 
	From afar, and yet near, she laughed.  Everything was going as
planned.
 
 
============================
Episode #117:  A Letter Home
Reel 1
============================
 

	"Are you quite sure it will work?"

	"No, sir."  Bennington's voice was grim.  "I figure it's fifty-fifty
that even a single packet will make it to Earth.  This is a real shot in the
dark."

	Orion sighed.  "Fine, then.  Did you include my personal packet?"

	"Yes, sir."

	"Very well.  You may proceed."

	"Aye, sir."

	It was a huge chance they were taking, but with recent events the
need to let Earth know what was happening had become quite clear. 
Bennington, along with Lunestes and a couple other techs, had an idea for
communicating with Earth without Hanasu's assistance.  They hoped that by
activating a low-level Fold envelope, they could focus a narrow beam of
radio waves to Earth while circumventing the light-speed barrier.  It was a
jury-rigged process, and there was little chance that it would work.  But
the attempt had to be made.

	On Bennington's signal, communications began.  Position reports,
several pleas for medical assistance, casualty counts, and, perhaps most
importantly to the crew, over two hundred letters to friends and families,
were all sent to Earth, where the planet was wishing itself a happy 3030.

	Most of the letters would never make it.

***

	Eileen Pearcy was only Eileen Pearcy for about fifteen seconds after
she woke up.  It was her routine to shower as Sailor America, and therefore
she began her day the same way, every day, at four in the morning.

	"America Star Power, Make-Up!"

	That overwith, she went through the complex task of getting out of
her fuku and into the bathroom.  It wasn't easy, and she often wished for
someone else to help her with it.  Sometimes she imagined that it was so,
and it was Jen Sakachi who did the deed.

	After completing her morning routine she went to work.  Down the
hall, a left, down a bit more, two consecutive rights, an elevator ride up
seven stories, and she was at her office.  It had a nice brass nameplate on
the door, which read: "Sailor America, Her Majesty's Minister of Public
Relations and Deputy Liaison to the Fleet Admiral, Royal Star Navy."

	Impressive, but it mainly involved writing press releases.  Or at
least, telling her secretary to write press releases.

	"G'morning, Sayuri."

	"Good morning, Sailor America."

	"Anything important come in on the wires?"

	"A small coup d'etat in the Arab Union.  Everything seems to be
under control there, though." Sayuri looked through her notes a bit more. 
"The colony world Erodasu's crop failures haven't improved.  They're
requesting assistance.  And that's about it."

	"Any word from Pleiades?"

	"No."

	"Damn."  It was the most frustrating thing to her:  the fact that no
word had come from H.M.S. Pleiades in weeks.  Everyone in the Navy was
worried about it, but the general public knew nothing of Pleiades's
disappearance, and it was mainly because of Sailor America.

	She went into her office, sat, and put her feet up on her desk as
she grabbed a handlink.  Her conversation with Sayuri had been mainly to
make sure that nothing earth-shattering had happened overnight, but to do
her job efficiently she had to skim all the major newspapers.

	Her job, such as it was, was to make sure that the Crystal
Millennium looked good in the press.  That meant writing press releases,
deciding how and when certain things would be announced, and so on.

	For example, there was the decision to keep secret the disappearance
of Pleiades.  It had been deemed unjustified to start a panic in Crystal
Tokyo over the vanishing of a single ship, and had simply let Pleiades fade
into the background.  After all, they had more important things to worry
about.

	Such as gearing up for war.

***

	A few hours later, America had finished skimming the newspapers: the
Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, London Times, Tokyo Herald, and the
Lunar Observer, among others, and made her way through another rabbit's
warren of corridors.

	Five minutes after leaving her office, after going through four
security checkpoints, America made it to the vast cavern of Her Majesty's
audience chamber.  It was beautiful, with filigreed gold and crystal
chandeliers, crystal floors, ornately framed mirrors and paintings on the
walls, and in the center of the far wall, the massive twin thrones of the
Neo-Queen and her husband.

	They were empty.

	The only reason she had come in here was because it would take
another five minutes to go around the back way to Her Majesty's private
chambers, and in particular Her Majesty's solarium, where Her Majesty was
having her most Royal and Majestic breakfast of cold cereal and orange
juice.

	She entered the room, nodded to the two Senshi standing sentry duty
today, Procyon and Altair, and curtsied to the beings arranged around the
table.

	"Your Majesties, my Lord, my Ladies, Sailor Mars, Sailor Jupiter."
She bowed in turn to Serenity, Endymion, Artemis, Luna, Diana, and the two
Senshi.

	"America, good morning."  Serenity was all smiles, which didn't
escape Sailor America's notice.  "Pull up a chair, if you don't mind."

	She did as asked.  With that, the formality was gone.  Serenity
succumbed to the pomp and circumstance when in public, but in private she
like things as informal as possible.

	"Have a good briefing, Sailor Jupiter?"

	"Yes, America.  Good luck!"

	"Thanks," she replied with a chuckle that was answered around the
room.  It was an old joke, dating back to the first time America had briefed
the Queen on matters of public relations.  America's talk came right after
Jupiter's talk on national security.

	America pulled out a handlink and began reading notes from it. 
"Well, you're up .00034% in the polls, which puts you at a 99.99902%
approval rate." She shook her head sadly, but a smile graced her face. 
"You've gotta pick up that .00098, Serenity."

	"I know," the ruler of Crystal Tokyo answered, laughing.  "I should
get cracking before I lose my reelection bid." This earned more laughs.

	'Funny,' thought America, 'how I'd get to be on such good terms with
an absolute monarch like Serenity.  Especially that I'd be on a first name
basis with her.'

	America had once been the only person to call her Serenity in
conversation.  It had been a novel concept, and after awhile the Queen
decided that she liked it, despite the protests from Luna and Sailor Mars. 
It was far more preferable than being called "Your Majesty" and "Your Grace"
by her closest friends.  Now her entire group of close relations and
advisors called her Serenity-sama.

	It beat her full title.

	"Anyway," said America after the laughs died down, "nothing really
earth-shattering in the PR department.  A British newsmagazine wanted to do
an interview with you, but I managed to talk them into having it with one of
the Senshi instead.  Is Sailor Polaris okay?  She really likes that kind of
thing, you know."

	"Polaris?  She's okay, I suppose . . . ."

	"Luna," asked Artemis, "Neptune's in Europe right now, isn't she?"

	"I think so.  That goodwill tour, wasn't it?"  She leapt down from
her position on the table, where she had sat in a specially designed chair,
and went to a computer console specifically made for felines.  "Yes, she's
there until the eighth."

	"Well," said the white cat, "do you think Neptune will meet their
approval?"

	"Certainly," said America with a smile.  She punched buttons on the
handlink; the necessary preparations would be underway in seconds.  "Um, I
don't think you can dodge out of this one, though.  The Sun wants to do an
interview on the state of the Crystal Millennium.  You turned them down back
in 2943, and I don't think you can do it again."

	"Dash it.  What was the excuse I gave then?"

	"Tummy-ache," came the reply from Endymion.  "And before that, PMS. 
I don't think they bought that one."

	"Great."  She slouched down in her chair, and the crescent moon on
her forehead glittered in the changing light angles.  "And I suppose you're
going to tell me-"

	"-that it would be a PR disaster if it got out that you turned down
an interview for no good reason.  Yep." Well, she seemed to be in a good
mood, so . . .  "Although if you went public with Pleiades-"

	"NO!"  Everyone turned to regard Mars.  "We've been through this
before.  No panic."

	"As I recall, it wasn't my people who opposed publicity at all.  Our
departmental forecasts said that it would calm people down quite a bit,
rather than the current absence of information, Sailor Mars." America was
not one of the raven-haired Senshi's greatest fans, and it showed.  "In
fact, I do believe it was our dear deputy commander-in-chief who pushed for
it to be hushed up!"

	"We know all this, America," said Luna, trying to placate the two. 
"Now, if you could please get on with your agenda, we'll-"

	"Fine.  You want me to get on with it?  I'll get on with it."  She
turned to the Queen.  "Serenity, I hereby recommend that we go public with
all information we have about the reappearance of the Dark Kingdom, and also
our loss of contact with both the colony worlds and Pleiades."

	Serenity looked over to Sailor Mars.  'Just like her,' thought
America.  Won't make the tough decisions, and shoves them to her flunkies. 
Then again, America was one of those flunkies herself, but . . . .

	"Serenity, I must insist we not do that."

	"Why not?" pressed America.  "We've got enough on our hands trying
to defend against the Dark Kingdom without the doubly difficult task of
covering it up!"

	"Well if you're going to-"

	"Hold it."  It was said in a completely conversational tone, but the
Queen's words quieted them down instantly.  "Thank you." She rose, and
walked over to the window, still in her dressing robe.  She looked out at
the expanse of Crystal Tokyo for a bit.

	"I do not need to tell you how hard I have worked for this city and
its people.  All of you were there when I did it."

	At her seat, America stifled the urge to tell Serenity that after
all, she had only been born eighteen years ago, and hadn't been around for
the founding, or much else integral to its history.

	"I have poured my heart and soul into this city, and I do not think 
you can imagine how I felt to see it attacked.  Twice.

	"The second time was the worst, you know.  Knowing that it was the
senshi that I myself hand-picked turning against the Crystal 
Millennium . . . I wished to die that day.

	"That was twenty years ago.  After it was all over, I swore to
myself that my city would never again face such peril.  *Never*.  And I do
not make oaths lightly.

	"America, in your opinion, will letting out word of recent events
cause a direct threat to Crystal Tokyo?"

	Sailor America gulped.  When she asked for opinions, it meant that
what you were about to say would be a lot more important than you thought. 
"No."

	"And you, Sailor Mars?"

	"Wh-"

	"I asked Mars, Sailor Jupiter.  Sailor Mars, your answer?"

	"No, not directly, but-"

	"Very well.  Sailor America, I will be giving a speech to the nation
in three hours.  I would like that speech ready in two hours.  I will be
laying out everything that has happened since we lost the first colony.  Do
I make myself clear?"

	Two hours?  "Crystal clear, Serenity.  With your leave." And with a
bow, she beat a hasty retreat.  After that, Jupiter was the first to speak.

	"Serenity, you can't mean this!"

	"I can, and do."  She returned to her seat and pushed her spoon
around in the bowl of cereal.  Scooping up a spoonful, she inspected the
mush of marshmallows and grain puffs.  "Why do Lucky Charms always get
mushy?" she asked her husband.

	Endymion sighed to himself.  After making tough decisions, his wife
always seemed to go off on insane tangents, probably to keep herself from
thinking about the consequences of her actions.  The best thing to do in
these situations was to humor her; it was a small price to pay for being
married to the most powerful and most wonderful person on Earth.

	"I don't know.  Perhaps we can figure it out together, hm?"

	"Definitely.  Luna, Artemis, Jupiter, Mars, please leave the room. 
And send in a microscope."

***

	In her office, Sailor America was hard at work.  She was now on her
twelfth attempt, and she certainly hoped that it would do the trick.  One
last revision, and . . . there!

	"The world's finest paper airplane," she whispered to herself,
turning the folded piece of paper over and over in her hands.  "Perfect."
She brushed some brown hair from in front of her eyes, wound up, and made a
perfect throw to the open doorway.

	It was unclear how far it would have gone, though, since her
secretary stuck her head in the door at that precise moment.

	"Sailor America, I have the-OW!"

	"Oh, Sayuri, I'm so sorry!"  She leapt from behind her desk to check
if Sayuri was all right.  "I didn't know you were going to do something like
that-"

	"Obviously."

	"-but you really should learn to knock."

	"I'm sorry, Sailor America."  She produced a white envelope.  "This
just came in from headquarters, priority 7(j)."

	"Damn.  I hate signing for all these 7(j)'s!"  They were usually
classified military documents, so that America would know which press rumors
were just rumors, and which ones were true information that had to be
vigorously denied or admitted, as conditions warranted.  7(j)'s were
*never* allowed to be transmitted via computer more than once, which was why
it wasn't in her email inbox.

	She signed the necessary form and handed it to Sayuri, who
discreetly left the room.  America opened the envelope and took out the two
pages of typewritten text.  After reading it the fourth time, she called for
Sayuri.

	"Tell Queenie that she'll have her speech before she knows it."

***

	Serenity squinted before the cameras.  She wasn't accustomed to set
speeches, and certainly not in front of her audience: the world.

	When the request from the Crystal Tokyo PR office came for all of
Earth's media channels to carry Serenity's speech, everyone decided to
bite.  Such a request had never been made, and the waiting list for press
corps to get into Japan was legendary.  Now, Serenity stood before twelve
thousand journalists from all over Earth, Mars, Venus, the scattered
colonies and research stations beyond the asteroid belt, and a dozen
colonies in other star systems.

	So many had come that the presentation had been moved from the main
press conference room in the Crystal Palace to the Royal Concert Hall,
where the Philharmonic usually played.  The acoustics were perfect, despite
the hall's size; it had been custom designed by Sailors Uranus and Neptune,
who had gotten tired of the acoustics at the old hall, and so one at the far
side of the room could hear Serenity's voice without reverberations or
echoes.  Quite an accomplishment.

	America's press release said only that an announcement would be made
that would have "a profound affect on every man, woman, and child on Earth."
She had rapidly come to regret that announcement when it was pointed out to
her by several thousand people that the word she wanted was 'effect,' and
not 'affect.' She thought it was a bit far to go for a grammar flame, but in
any case . . . she stepped up to the podium.

	"Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please."  At Sailor America's
voice, the buzz of conversation died down.  "I have a couple of ground
rules.  First, there will be no questions until the end of Serenity's
announcement.  Anyone who doesn't comply with that rule gets the gate, okay?

	"Second, the question and answer period is ninety minutes exactly. 
I've got a stopwatch, people, so don't try me.

	"Third, NO FLASHES!  I don't know why some of you still insist on
them, but turn them off, or I'll have to get American on you, okay?

	"Good.  Now, ladies and gentlemen, Her Majesty Neo-Queen Serenity!"

	There was polite applause, and then Serenity began.

***

	At the Sakachi home, Jen's parents watched intently as Serenity
spoke.

***

	"People of Crystal Tokyo, citizens of Japan, members of the human
race:

	"My most helpful Secretary of Public Relations received a letter
yesterday.  At her urging, I have decided to read it to you in its entirety.
Please be patient.

	"'My dearest Eileen:

	"'How are you?  I hope you are well, and I apologize for the few
communications I've sent you.  Bit of trouble with our communications
systems, you see.

	"'Anyway, we're in a real pickle out here.  Remember history class
at the School, when we learned about the Beryl campaigns in 1000 and 1995? 
Anyway, from what we've figured she had a daughter, and that daughter is
the one behind all this.  She was the one who took out all those colonies,
and she wants a piece of Serenity.

	"'You remember that one time we were talking about how all of CT's
enemies are named after crystals?  Well, they're still at it.  This ruler
calls herself Selenite, and she's already done a number on us.

	"'She's more or less bragged that she scoured some of our colonies. 
In our first meeting, our long range communications systems were smashed,
and Princess Usagi was nearly killed . . . we still don't know how she
survived. We've managed to make it only by the barest of margins.

	"'Sometimes I think that there's no more reason to fight.  Eileen, I
have looked into the face of death so many times.  I've seen an entire world
laid waste, and then had to destroy its ruins to save myself.  I've seen a
young woman in the prime of life cut down, and now living on a thin line and
I don't know if Hanasu will make it.  Dr. Sampson is doing all she can, but
I really don't.'"

	Slowly and unobtrusively, Sailor America sidled out of the room.  It
was quite easy; everyone was hanging on Serenity's words.

	"'But I will fight regardless.  Why?  Because we're Earth's only
hope.  You see, this entire adventure has shown to me Selenite's main
weakness . . .  perhaps the only one we can exploit.  She continues to
pursue us, even as she should be continuing her reign of terror against
Serenity's colonies.  Selenite is woefully single-minded, and that is the
one chink in her armor we have.  If we on Pleiades can keep her occupied and
mad enough to focus on us, then all the more time will be given to Earth to
prepare.

	"'You're in PR, Eileen.  You know just how woefully unprepared we
are against an invasion.  Personally, I think that Serenity will be forced,
much like during the Black Moon, to draw all her forces around Earth, and
concede the rest of the colonies and the Solar System.  And this time, I
don't think that the senshi from the past will be able to help us.

	"'It's not totally hopeless, you know.  We've learned many things
about planetary defense, from both the Black Moon and the Sailor Wars.  But
I don't think it will be enough.  My forecast . . . my forecast is that
nothing short of the full use of the ginzuishou will stop Selenite.  Kami
help us all if it comes to that.

	"'But we tried.  That's the important thing.  That's why we carry on
against insurmountable odds.  I've said it a billion times, Eileen, and I'll
say it again.  I love you, truly I do.  And if it means dying just to give
you another year, or month, or hour of life, I'd do it in a heartbeat. 
*That's* why I'm out here.  For love.

	"'Well, I got a bit mushy there, but I don't care.  Just as long as
I had another chance to tell you how I feel, okay?  I don't know if I'll
ever have another letter to send, or another dispatch, but . . . tell
Serenity to forget about us.  We'll take care of Selenite.  Serenity can
take care of Earth.

	"'With warmest regards, and my undying love, Jennifer Sakachi.

	"'PS Thought I forgot, didn't you?  Happy Birthday!'

	A pause.  "You have heard what Sailor Orion has to say.  With that
in mind, I hereby place the Royal Star Navy on full alert.  All leave is
canceled.  I also strongly urge all world leaders to make preparations for
an alien invasion." She kept a straight face.  "Now might be a good time to
get all your disagreements worked out.

	"I know what you are going to ask.  No, there will be no
reinforcements sent to Pleiades's aid.  Yes, I know exactly how defenseless
they are.  Yes, I know that my own daughter is there.  But that letter was
the last thing we received from the ship.  I do not think that I can in
good conscience refuse their last wish.  They said for us to put Earth
first.  And so we shall.  And we shall win, for ourselves, and the
preservation of love such as that between Eileen-san and Jen-san, for love
like that cannot be broken.

	"Any questions?"

	The room erupted with noise.

***

	Sailor America leapt out of the cab and threw some money at the
driver. True, since the Kingdom was now officially at war, there was no need
for a military woman like herself to actually pay for transportation, but
she liked to be polite.  And he'd gotten her there in record time.

	Racing up the steps to the porch of the little townhouse, she
detransformed back into her normal clothes.  Here she differed again from
Jen; beneath her transformation she liked to go casual.  Clad in jeans, a
red sweater, and sneakers, she knocked on the Sakachi's door.

	"Who is it?"

	"Eileen!"  'Forgot, they don't have an SI answering the door,' she
thought.

	The door opened, and Eileen found Jen's parents looking worried.

	"Uh, hi.  Can I come in?"

	Her father practically fell over himself.   "Of course, of course,
have a seat, please." She came inside, and noticed that the vid was showing
Serenity's conference.

	"Oh damn, she finished the speech too early.  I told her to draw it
out." She sat down.  "So, how are you two?"

	"The letter."  Jen's mother was to the point.  "It's genuine?"

	"It's genuine.  I don't think anyone else in this century uses a
phrase like 'in a pickle.'

	"Did she mean everything she said?"

	Eileen just looked back.  "Has Jen *ever* said anything she doesn't
mean?  Relax, I think she's fine."

	"Really?"

	"Oh yeah.  A bit nervous, but anyone who isn't nervous out there
needs to have their head examined.  There's a couple things wrong, though. 
She didn't mention Princess Usagi except in passing.  And there's something
else there, something I can't quite pick out.  But considering the
circumstances, she's fine."

	Eileen looked at the vid, where Serenity was answering another
question.  "Shouldn't you be there?" asked Jen's mother.

	"Nah.  Serenity can handle anything she likes, when she has to.  She
always could.  When the chips are down, she comes through.  My job is to
just prod her along, and help her along, and I think I do a fine job at
that." She made one of her trademark smiles, the smile that had her face on
more t-shirts than Mercury and Venus combined, and that was a feat.

	"And . . . I just want you to know that you should be proud of Jen. 
I'd love to be there with her, and share whatever she's taking, but them's
the breaks, hey?  And she *will* come back, okay?  No crying about your POW,
MIA, or whatever abbreviation you want to come up with." 

	"Yes," said Isao.  "We know . . . but thank you."

	"Hey, anything I can do."  She got up.  "Now, I've really stayed too
long; Sailor Mars will have my head for leaving the conference early.  But I
can handle her." She grimaced.  "Luna's another story, though."

	At the door she gave her good-byes.  "If you need anything,
information or stuff, just give me a call, okay?"

	"Of course," said Isao.

	"Wait," said the mother, "how will you get back to the palace?"

	Eileen smiled, a slow, happy smile.

	"Air Senshi.  The rooftops are my highway."

	And with a shout, transformation, and a prodigal leap, Sailor
America was away, humming the theme to Easy Rider to herself.


==================================
Episode #118:  At the Last Trumpet
Reel 1
==================================


	Number One was in trouble.

	"Number One, I believe I foretold dire consequences if you failed. 
Am I correct?"

	He gulped; his throat was amazingly dry.  His wounds were
excruciating, but he dared not show weakness before Selenite.  He had barely
made it out of his personal flagship before Pleiades blew it to pieces, and
would much rather be laying on a cot somewhere.

	Rather than waiting to die.

	"You are correct as always, my Queen," he coughed.

	"And was I correct in placing my trust in you?"

	Loaded question: that was the only thing he could think.  No matter
what the answer, he would be royally screwed in more ways than one.  "My
Queen, I feel that I need more time to prove my worth.  Serious damage was
inflicted upon the ship, and-"

	"SILENCE!  Number One, you have totally failed me in every respect. 
I have no further use for you.  Number Two!"

	A slightly slimmer man stepped out from the shadows, carrying a
walking stick and walking with a definite swagger.  He bowed deeply to
Selenite.

	"Number Two, the man you see before you has humiliated himself, the
Dark Kingdom, and most importantly, *me*.  I see no further purpose in
keeping him in my service.  As my new commander, you may deal with him as
you see fit."

	"You wish is my command, my Queen," he said smoothly, letting his
grin show his dazzling teeth.  "You need not worry about this thing any
longer.  Consider him as good as dead."

	"Excellent."  She leaned forward.  "Now, after you have disposed of
this refuse, seek out and destroy this ship called Pleiades.  And as you
remove Number One, here, remember that you *will* succeed.  Fail, and your
fate will be the same as his."

	"I hear and obey, my Queen."

***

	It was yet another staff meeting, and Sailor Orion was hearing it
from her first officer yet again.

	"And therefore, I say we quit this whole charade.  We just take a
couple of them prisoner, and interrogate the hell out of them until they
tell us exactly where Selenite's hiding.  Then-"

	"Sailor Moon, do you then propose we 'interrogate the hell' out of
Selenite?  You may not have noticed, but our victories in this campaign have
been by the slimmest of margins!  When they come at us with an attitude
other than total annihilation, I'll be glad to bring them aboard.  Until
then, I have to continue our current plan."

	"And what would that be?" countered Sailor Moon.  "Wander around
space until we find Selenite's house?"

	"If needs be.  Actually, Commander Bennington thinks he's on the
verge of a breakthrough.  If it works, we'll be able to back-track the
trajectories of any Dark Kingdom ships.  He has virtually the entire
engineering department working on it . . . or didn't you read the report?"

	Moon smiled disarmingly.  "It had your name on it, so I figured it 
couldn't be of much importance to me."

	Sailor Moon had several ways of smiling.  One, the way she was using
now, was the 'kawaii little girl' approach, which gave the impression that
everything that was said was some kind of joke.  Orion had long suspected
her first officer of using that smile to hide her true opinions on topics of
discussion.  Now, for the first time, she intended to call her to task on
it.

	"Really, Sailor Moon.  Hmph.  Very well, as you don't seem to
think it of much importance, you can contemplate it in your quarters.  For
the next twenty-four hours."

	"WHAT?"

	"Captain, are you quite sure that-"

	"Discipline on a military ship must be maintained, Kim.  Sailor
Moon, you are hereby confined to quarters for the next twenty-four hours. 
Good-bye."

	Sailor Moon stood, then sat, then stood again, clenched fists
against the table.

	"*Now*, Sailor Moon, before I add insubordination to your tally. 
You've already got disrespect towards a superior officer."

	"Sir," tried Kim again before Moon could say something unwise, "I
agree that her comment was out of line-"

	"Hey!"

	"-but I don't think that . . . grounding . . . Sailor Moon like that
is going to solve anything."

	"Agreed," joined in Sammy.  She rather liked the pink-haired
commander, and didn't want to see this go on her official record.  "I mean,
it's not like we're even a military ship, and-"

	"-Sammy," said Orion tiredly, "if you haven't noticed the war we're
in, then I weep for you.  This ship became a military vessel the moment the
first shot was fired."

	"And that's all the more reason not to suspend her," cried Sammy,
grabbing the opportunity.  "If there's an emergency, we're going to need all
the hands we can get!"

	The captain conveniently side-stepped this bit of logic.  "People,
I've made my decision, and I don't really feel like arguing with you. 
Sailor Moon, get to your quarters before I escort you myself."

	"No."

	Orion stood, and entered a mildly offensive posture.  No-one knew
what would have happened next if the call from the bridge hadn't come down.

	"Enemy ship contact, say again enemy ship has been contacted. 
Captain to the bridge, please."

***

	Number Two was quite dissimilar from his predecessor.  Where Number
One was bulky almost to the point of obesity, Number Two was thinner,
leaner.  He had a walking stick, presumably for style, but actually because
of an injury sustained in his tumultuous youth.  Then again, life on Hell
had been very unforgiving to a kid like him.

	But all that was several hundred years in the past.  He and
Selenite's four assistants had spent centuries building up a fleet to
destroy the Earth, and now he commanded one of the fleet's finest.  He had
even named it in a prodigious leap of historical prowess; he loved the past,
especially English history before 1300.

	Thus, he sat on the bridge of Pridewen, waiting for the report to
come in.

	"Probe away, your Excellency."

	"Very good," he replied.  "Tell me once you have a pickup."

	His plan was rather simple.  A small probe would attach itself to
Pleiades's hull, and transmit the sounds inside.  How the people inside
reacted to Pridewen's shots had far more importance to him than how it
maneuvered in space.  He had studied recordings of Number One's attempts
against this 'Sailor Orion,' and was confident that he wouldn't make the
same mistakes that One had.  Even if, by some chance, he failed, he'd have
recordings from which to base future assaults.

	"We're getting audio now, your Excellency.  Alert sirens . . . they
know we're here."

	"Tell me when they're about to use their primary weapon."

	"Of course, your Excellency."

***

	"Okay, everyone but Sailor Moon, get to your stations."  The captain
punched a button on the desk.  "Bridge, sound general quarters.  I'll be up
there shortly."

	"Aye, sir."

	"Yes, sir."

	The bridge crew left the room as the GQ alarms went off.  Orion
walked to the door, then paused.

	"Sailor Moon, I don't have time for this.  But this *will* be
settled later.  For now, truce?"

	The pink-haired one's mouth was straight.  "For today, Sailor
Orion."

	"Good enough.  Let's go."

***

	"Situation?" snapped Orion as she came onto the bridge.

	"Single ship, sir.  Slightly different configuration from the last
one.  No response to communications."

	"As usual," Orion muttered.  "Fine, tell engineering to warm up the
Gertie."

***

	"Your Excellency!  We're reading power spikes in the aft and lower
parts of the ship!  We believe that they are readying their weapon!"

	Number Two laughed a terrible laugh.  "Wonderful.  Can you get a fix
on the spike?"

	"Yes, your Excellency.  We've already put a fix on it, and it's been
fed to tactical."

	"Capital!"  He laughed again, and leaned forward.  "Destroy it."

***

	"Engineering reports that the Gertie is ready, sir."

	"Thank you, Vanessa."  Sailor Orion straightened up in her chair and
flipped up the control cover.  "Let's toast this turkey!"

***

	At Number Two's command, an awesome barrage ranged out from
Pridewen.  Four missiles and three lasers fired.  None of the lasers
connected, and that was the plan.

	The true purpose of the lasers was to restrict Pleiades's movements. 
With beams of monochromatic x-rays bracketing the ship, she couldn't
maneuver to avoid the missiles.

	The missiles didn't have warheads.  They didn't need them.

***

	"Incoming!  Three . . . no, four missiles!"

	Orion thought quickly.  "Evasive maneuvers!"

	"No go, sir!"  The helmsman was frantic.  "Sensors show we're
surrounded by x-rays!"

	"Go through them."

	"Belay that!  Sailor Moon, I give the orders around here.  You want
to cook us all?  Helm, try to decelerate and-"

	"No time!"  Vanessa looked again at her panels, and decided to take
the initiative.  "Brace for im-"

	Obviously, she didn't get it out in time.

***

	On thinking it over afterwards, Sailor Orion decided the previous
hits on the ship were just primers.  This was the granddaddy of them all.

	The bridge rocked, and everything went dark.  For about three
seconds, that is.  After that, the computer panel in the aft portion of the
room started sparking, and the strobe-light effect lit things up rather
nicely.

	Orion struggled to her feet.  Alarms were going off all over the
place. She looked about and realized that she had been thrown clear across
the compartment.  She was also bleeding from a gash in her forehead, but
that didn't seem as important.  Almost as an afterthought, she spat out a
tooth that had been jarred loose.

	She assessed the situation quickly.  She could probably get to the
situation panel more quickly than Vanessa could, since her talker was
somewhere in the shadows.  Then again, there was the electrical fire to
worry about.

	"Fire on the bridge!"  That managed to get another couple people up
and operating, as they raced to the fire extinguishers.  Orion decided that
things were desperate.

	"Antares, I need some help here.  Antares?"

	"Sir," said Vanessa, who had managed to get back to her post, "We've
lost the dedicated lines to the core.  Currently on emergency systems. 
Communications out, weapons out, no response from engineering."

	"Damn.  Helm, try full ahead!"

***

	Full ahead wouldn't work, mainly because of what was going on in the
engine rooms.

	"Eric!  LeVar!  Get to C-level and check the #5 conduit!  Move!"
Bennington continued to shout orders.  The ship's internal communications
had failed, and the headsets they all wore had been rendered useless.  They
were reduced to shouting out commands and hoping that they had been heard.

	The two scampered up the ladder, braving clouds of smoke and the
occasional fire.  Bennington watched them climb for a moment, then turned
his attention to other matters, as the place was total chaos.

	"You there!  Watch where you're aiming that hose!"  He ran over to
the young female ensign and gave her a crash course in fire-fighting.  He
had almost finished demonstrating to her precisely how to get the stream at
the base of the fire when the ship rocked again.

***

	Back on the bridge of Pleiades, Sailor Orion was flat-out panicking. 
Her ship was being pummeled, she couldn't fight back, and most ominously,
she wasn't getting any damage reports at all.

	"Vanessa, it would be quite nice to know precisely what's going on
here!"

	It took awhile for the reply to come, during which time the ship
rocked a couple more times.

	"Sir, we still don't have internal communications.  I'm relying on
the voice-activated phones, and-"

	"Yeah, well I figured it was something like that.  No Gertie, eh?"
She turned to Sailor Moon, who was tending to some of the injured.  "Moon,
would you like to do something about this?"

	"Do you think the ginzuishou works on technology?"

	"No, but I was hoping you could maybe shoot back at that ship out
there!"

	"Well, it wouldn't be my first-"

	"Good girl.  Try to buy us some time, okay?"  Orion hurried over to
speak to Engineering directly over the phone.  Sailor Moon ran a gloved hand
through her pink hair and thought for a moment.

	She had the power of the ginzuishou; it resided in a locket on her
chest.  It was a matter of some controversy as to exactly how she'd gotten
it, since it was identical to the one her mother had.  As far as Sailor
Orion was concerned, she had other things to worry about than where her XO's
rock came from.  So Sailor Moon tapped into the crystal's power slightly to
get an idea of where their attackers were.  Now came the real test.

	In a flagrant violation of the First Law of Thermodynamics, Sailor
Moon pulled an immense quantity of energy from nowhere at all, concentrated
it into a beam, and shot it from a random point in space to the ship.

***

	On Pridewen, Number Two couldn't believe his eyes.  A beam of
pink-white light had materialized from a point slightly in front of their
crippled prey, and had stuck his ship.  His vessel reeled, sending him on
uncontrolled cartwheels all over his bridge.

	"Retreat!" he shouted.  He had no time for this.  The ship wheeled
away, using its FTL drive to get clear of Sailor Moon's attack.

	Explaining this one to Selenite would not be pleasant.

***

	"Eric!  Come down from there, boy, I need you down here!"

	"Aye, sir!"  Cautiously, Eric made his way down the ladder, leaving
LeVar to tend to matters in another tight part of the ship.

	Twenty minutes ago, word had come from the bridge that the battle
against the Dark Kingdom had ended.  This meant nothing to those involved in
damage control, though.  The engineering compartment was still a mess, and
they were still scrambling to repair it.

	As soon as Lunestes got down from the ladder, Bennington clapped him
on the shoulder and explained what needed to be done.  Nodding, the younger
man raced off to the Fold generators, which had been dealt a potentially
crippling blow.  Eric's job was to make sure the 'crippling' part didn't
carry through.

	Bennington wheeled, prepared to take on his next task.

	"Commander!  I need some help here!"

	"Bouyer!  You layabout, what the hell are you doing up there?  Don't
you know how this boat works?"

	Never should have taken on that rookie, he thought to himself,
climbing the ladder.  Bloody hold-my-hand rookies, didn't know a thing about
battle situations, even after constant drills.  He got to the top of the
ladder and crawled inside, preparing a tongue lashing for his pupil.

	Ten seconds later, a gout of flame washed out from the very same
passage.

***

	Orion was in shock.  She stood on the smoky main deck of
engineering, breathing through a portable filter that fit over her nose and
mouth.  It also made it hard to keep from crying.

	"There was nothing you could do for them?"

	"No, sir."  Sampson was grim; She'd been in the medical profession
for a decade, but she could never get used to the pain of losing a patient
regardless of whether or not she could have done anything.  "They were as
good as dead when my people got to them.  They're lucky they didn't survive,
in a way."

	In front of them, nurses zipped up the two body bags.  They would be
taken to the infirmary to be held until memorial services.  Then, the
bodies of Ensign LeVar D Bouyer and Lieutenant Commander Gustav M Bennington
would be shot into space, and finally return to the cosmos that spawned
them.

	Around them, crew members tried to keep busy, still working on
repairs.  It had been three hours, and the hectic pace had slowed down. 
Orion regretted it; while frantically busy, they wouldn't have had time to
mull over the deaths of their comrades.  Now, they only had little things to
do.

	Orion turned to her new chief engineer, Eric Lunestes.  "Mr.
Lunestes, you are now given the field promotion of Lieutenant Commander.  I
wish it were under happier circumstances, but the engineering department of
Pleiades is yours."

	"Yes, sir."  Eric bit back tears.  He and Bennington had been close,
closer than usual on such a tight-knit ship.

	"You'll handle it, Eric.  I know you will."  'Do I?  Kami-sama, he's
in his twenties.  All of us are.  I'm nearly nineteen, for God's sake! 
We've never had to face death like this, and I don't know if we can handle
it.  I don't know if *I* can handle it.'

	Forcing a face free of tears, she continued.  "Eric, keep your
people busy.  The more they're working, the less they'll think about what's
happened."

	"Of course, sir."

	"And . . . and keep an eye on them.  If any begin to look like
they're having problems coping, notify Dr. Sampson."

	"Yes, sir."

	"Good.  Carry on."

***

	On the bridge, all was quiet.  It had been a day since the attacks,
and the funeral would be in a couple hours.

	Sailor Orion was in her cabin preparing her eulogy, which left
Sailor Moon in charge of the bridge.  There wasn't much to be in charge of;
it had been decided to perform a Fold and try to get the Dark Kingdom off
their backs.  Astrogation was still working on the intricate details of
plotting a course between two uncharted stars, so they simply sat and waited
in the middle of nowhere.

	With nothing to do, all were left with their own thoughts.  Sailor
Moon was worried about this.  They needed something to do, but there was
nothing to be done.  She looked about her.  The normally cheerful and happy
threesome was far too solemn.  Vanessa punched at her console listlessly,
and Kim just stared blankly into hers.  Sammy was hunched over hers,
occasionally letting out an audible sob.

	And these are the strong ones, Sailor Moon thought.  It was worse all over 
the ship.  Crew accidents were up 40%, and almost every one had reported to the 
infirmary for counseling.  Sampson was swamped, and had pressed Antares into 
service, putting his extensive library of psychological knowledge to work.  Even 
worse, the infirmary had had to deal with five attempted suicides.  All had been 
unsuccessful, and the would-be suicides were in confinement.

	We can't go on like this, thought Sailor Moon.  She slipped on a
headset.  "Antares, do you have any ideas on how to cheer this motley crew
up?"

	The reply was a bit slow in coming.  "No, Sailor Moon.  The best
that I can come up is to give them and yourself some time.  Hopefully you'll
be able to get on with it."

	"Myself?"

	"Yes, Sailor Moon.  You're mourning too, even if you try to hide it. 
And the fact that you're trying to hide it is worrying everyone else even
more."

	"Don't worry about me, Antares.  Just tell me how Orion's doing."

	Antares approximated a sigh.  "She's taking it rather hard. 
Bennington was a good friend of hers, and of her father's, too.  She's
crying, and she doesn't mind admitting it.  And personally, I think she'll
be a bit unpredictable for a couple weeks.  But she can handle it.  I
wouldn't want anyone else in charge of pulling this ship back together."

	"Can't stop gushing about her, can you?"

	"She's not perfect," admitted the computer.  "She's made quite a few
mistakes.  But she can pull this crew out of its funk, and right now that's
what counts."

	"And me?"

	"Wait and see."

***

	The main shuttle bay was the only place big enough to house the
entire crew.  Therefore, it was natural that the funeral be held there.  All
of them were assembled, with the senior staff on a small platform, and the
two closed caskets before it.  Open casket was out of the question; the
burns were too severe.

	"We are gathered here to pay our last respects to Lieutenant
Commander Gustav Bennington and Ensign LeVar Bouyer.  These two brave men
served Pleiades well, and died so that we may live."

	Sailor Orion gulped.  She hated funerals.  She'd managed to weasel
out of her grandfather's a few years ago, and she had seriously considered
letting Sailor Moon take charge of it.  But it was her duty, especially
since, in an indirect way, she had been responsible for their deaths.

	"I know that the next few days and weeks will be difficult for all
of us." She swallowed again and ran her tongue over the gap in her teeth. 
The tooth that had been knocked loose during the attack hadn't been
recovered, and Orion had refused a replacement.  She'd smile a tooth short
for a long time, mainly to remind her of her failure.

	"But I believe that we can all take these events in stride.  Let
their deaths not be in vain, but for a better purpose."

	'Does she realize how fake she sounds?' asked Sailor Moon of herself,
sitting in a row with the other senior officers behind the captain. 
'Trotting out tired old cliches like that . . . come on, give the crew some
credit!'  But outwardly she remained stoic, only occasionally fingering the
black armband that she wore on her right arm.  The entire crew had them, and
would wear them for a week in remembrance.

	Sailor Orion continued.  "For a better purpose, I don't mean so that
we can go home and drink a toast to them.  I mean for us to insure that
there *is* a home to return to.  And a home for them to return to, someday."

	She wiped her eyes and gestured to an officer standing next to the
closed caskets.  She nodded and the pallbearers, all but two female,
were carrying the black coffins to the airlock to the left of the platform. 
It was originally designed for delivery of objects too big for the corridor,
but not really requiring the main doors to be opened.  They placed the
caskets inside, then retreated as the doors closed and cycled to the
airtight state.

	Orion gulped again and went through the ritual of how they had the
sure and certain hope that one day the vacuum would yield up its dead. 
"'Behold, I tell you a mystery: we shall not sleep, but we shall be changed;
in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye: at the last trumpet.  For the
trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible.'" It was
one of Orion's favorite verses from the Bible, despite the fact that there
were only eight Christians onboard, and she wasn't one of them.  Bennington
was, and it fit somehow.  And Shintoism certainly had nothing against
saying Bible verses at a funeral.

	With a final gesture, the captain signaled for the switch to be
pulled.  As Antares played a recording of Amazing Grace, since no-one on
boardcould play the bagpipes, the airlock's doors blew wide open, sucking
the coffins out into space.  There they would drift until the Crunch or the
Heat Death.  Sailor Orion watched this for a moment, then turned to the
assembly.

	"Dismissed."


===================================
Episode #119:  The Captain's Dinner
Reel 1  
===================================


	It was a rather plain card, but of course it was the thought that 
counted.

	"Lieutenant Samantha Barbara Porter, you are cordially invited to
attend a dinner in honor of the Captain, Sailor Orion, at 17:00 on the
evening of the tenth of April, three thousand and thirty, in the senior
officer's wardroom.  RSVP."

	"Wow!" exclaimed Vanessa.  "You got one too?"

	"Yep!"  Sammy wore the biggest smile she'd had since Bennington
died.  "What am I going to wear?"

	"Wear?  Silly, you go in dress uniform!"

	"Dressies?"

	"You two wanna cool it over there?" shouted Kim from her post at
the back of the bridge.  As part of the ever-revolving assignments, Kim was
at navigation, Vanessa at environmental of all places, and Sammy was at the
helm, which she was beginning to like more and more.

	"Gee, never knew her to shout like that," said Vanessa, this time
over her headset.

	"Yeah."  Sammy munched on her lower lip for a moment.  "Do you think
Kim got invited?"

	"I don't know.  You know how she can be at times, and-"

	"For your information," said Kim scathingly over the headset, "I
*was* invited, and *will* attend!"

	"Kim!  Eavesdropping like that!  Shame on you!"  But all three were 
smiling.

	"It's party time!"

	They were far more right than they could have imagined.

***

	In the deep recesses of space, Number Two licked his wounds.  The
attack on Pleiades had not gone well at all, and while he called it a
strategic retreat, it was actually an opportunity to sit back and examine
everything he had learned about his adversary.

	"Your Excellency," began a flunky on the bridge, "we're receiving
another message from the Queen, and-"

	"Send the same message as before."

	"Aye."

	Number Two leaned back in his chair.  Selenite had been hounding him
recently and demanding to know precisely what he was up to.  He had always
replied with the message that he was irrevocably engaged at the moment.  It
was his personal theory that one of his predecessor's mistakes was to come
sheepily shame-faced to Selenite once too often.  He thought that while
Selenite could handle defeat rather well, coming back to her in person and
telling her the bad news would not increase one's job expectancy.

	Thus, he planned to hang around at a good distance away from his
monarch until such time as he had some good news to report to her.  Judging
from the data he was looking at right now, he might have some very good news
indeed.

***

	Princess Usagi Tsukino lay on the right side of her bed.  It was
23:40, and she was off duty.  Moreover, she wasn't currently Sailor Moon. 
Part of the reason was that it was nice to wear something more comfortable
than a sailor fuku, and her jumpsuit certainly qualified as such.

	The main reason, though, was that she was mad and didn't like being
mad in a fuku.  She felt she had a legacy to live up to.  The reason she was
really mad: she'd nearly gotten herself killed during that last fight. 
Being killed counted as losing, and she hated to lose.  So she was really
kicking herself for being so incompetent, despite the fact that there was
very little she could have done to prevent matters.

	However, being brought up as royalty has its pitfalls, and one of
them is the mistaken impression that one can do little or nothing wrong. 
While it was generally agreed by historians that Serenity had done nothing
wrong during her reign, with some dissenters, Usagi felt that this absolved
her from all wrongdoing.  Thus while she was really blaming herself, she
saw it as blaming Sailor Orion.  It was hardly true, and quite farfetched,
but the human psyche is a strange thing, and a senshi's psyche is about as
strange as they come.

	So Usagi lay on her bed and catalogued her grievances against her
captain.

	"Number eighty-five: She doesn't love cats.  She hasn't said
outright that she hates them, but she never confessed to liking them. 
Anyone who doesn't like Diana is plainly wrong.

	"Diana . . . why aren't you here?

	The answer was obvious, even if her mother hadn't said it.  Cats
weren't meant to be in space.

	She rolled over and went to sleep, dreaming of felines.

***

	Eric Lunestes wasn't dreaming of felines, mainly because he wasn't
asleep.  He'd had mounds of work to do since he'd taken over Bennington's
job, and he'd correspondingly cut his sleeping time.

	As he worked, he let his mind wander back to Earth.  Not many
people onboard knew about his past, which was by design; his memories of the
time weren't all that pleasant.  He'd been an orphan in Crystal Tokyo, and
while things hadn't been distinctly *bad*, methods of dealing with the
orphaned hadn't improved greatly in the past thousand years, mainly because
there were so few of them.

	He didn't know his parents; he'd been found at the doorstep of a
Catholic school at the age of two.  He'd grown up at the Kino Makoto
Orphanage, been adopted by foster parents, gone to the Academy at nineteen,
graduated at twenty-two; the RSN ran on the same fast track as the School
for senshi.  Pleiades was his first assignment.

	He frowned at a form he was filling out.  It was a requisition for
spare parts.  "Why bother?" he muttered, and tossed it in the recycling bin. 
"Way things are going, we'll be bloody lucky to get back to Earth anyway."

	Eric was split over his captain's decisions.  On the one hand, he
was having difficulty believing the tenacity and boldness of the girl. 
Personally, he'd have turned tail and run ages ago.  On the other hand,
though, was his fervent patriotism.  He owed the crown everything: they'd
raised him, and provided him with a career and a life.

	More than anything, though, he loved the Queen, mainly because of
what she stood for: hundreds of years of occasionally interrupted peace
and prosperity.  He felt a certain bond with her, for a reason he couldn't
quite discern; he hadn't even seen her in person until Pleiades's send-off.

	He inspected another form, and made a face.  He hated crew
evaluations.

***

	"Captain, precisely how long do you plan to stand in front of that
mirror?"

	Jen continued to examine her teeth.  "As long as necessary."

	She had gotten the idea that if she detransformed and then
transformed again, her dental problems would be solved.  But after four
tries, she had decided that it wasn't working.  Her upper left incisor was
gone for good, or at least until one could be regenerated back on Earth.

	"It's not coming back, you know."

	"I *know* that, you silly adding machine!  I'm just not happy about
it."

	"Oh really?"  Jen frowned; if Antares was human, she was certain
that he'd arch an eyebrow right now.  "Better you not be happy about a tooth
than be depressed over those two, or even lovey-dovey about-"

	"You can stop now, you know."

	"Ah, I'm so sorry Jen," said the computer in a voice that indicated
that apologies were the last thing on his mind.

	Jennifer turned from her reflection in the mirror and flopped on her
bed.  She was still uncertain as to what she would wear.  She really didn't
want to go to a formal dinner in her fuku, but beyond that, what did she
have?  Her dress whites were a size too small, she had essentially banned
the fleet's khaki uniforms early on, and she certainly couldn't wear a
jumpsuit.

	"There's nothing wrong with a sailor fuku, Jenny."

	"I know, I know.  But everyone else will be wearing their best, and
I'd hate to think that a short skirt is the best I can manage."

	"The best you can manage?  Captain, you should be quite happy that I
don't have a corporeal body, or I'd be slapping you silly right now!"

	"What?"

	"I mean, really!  After all the hard work you went through to earn
the right to wear that outfit, and now you want something different?"

	"That's about the size of it."

	"Boolean logic preserve us."  Antares made a sound that was the
closest attempt to a sigh as he'd managed.  "Jennifer, you should be proud
to wear it. You've earned it.  That's something no-one else on this ship can
claim."

	Jen sat up and digested this bit of advice for a moment, then
nodded.  She took out a brush and began straightening her red hair.  "You
know, you're right."

	"Of course I am.  I've got a better processor than you," said the
ship's erstwhile counselor.  If you called him that, however, you were
likely to have a few zeroes missing from your next paycheck.

	"Right.  Always egotistic."

	"Um-hm.  And a dress uniform is on the way up from the
quartermaster.  It should fit perfectly."

	And with that, Antares made that little click that meant that as far
as he was concerned, the conversation was over.  Jen sat with herself and
her thoughts.

***

	"*Very* impressive," whispered Number Two.  He had just finished his
analysis of the information they'd picked up from Pleiades.  His attempt to
tap into their computers had failed, but the audio he'd gotten more than
made up for it.

	'Sensors show we're surrounded by x-rays!'  A panicked voice;
probably some lower lackey.

	'Go through them.'  Authoritative, unusually so.  The captain?  She
certainly spoke like she was superior to everyone else.

	'Belay that!  Sailor Moon, I give the orders around here.  You want
to cook us all?'

	Now, *there* was something interesting.  The second voice had been
Sailor Moon?  But that would mean that . . . no, it couldn't be.  Selenite's
arch-enemy wouldn't risk her precious behind out here in space, not without
protection.  If the Sailor Moon that had defeated Beryl was out there, then
she had to have all her friends.  Mercury, Venus, Mars, Venus: all names he
had learned to hate and fear for a lifetime.

	But therein lay the problem.  Sailor Moon was taking orders from
someone else: that third voice which had to be that wretched Sailor Orion.

	"It just doesn't make sense," muttered Number Two.  How had things
gotten to the state that the great Sailor Moon took orders from someone
else?  Could Orion possess powers greater than the Moon Princess?  And if
so, what chance did he stand against them?

	There was another conclusion, though.  One he needed additional
proof for.  He reached over and pressed a button.

	"Yes, your Excellency?"

	"Get us to Pleiades's last position."

***

	" . . . and the Fold is now underway."

	"Thank you."  Captain Jennifer Allison Sakachi, a month and thirteen
days short of her nineteenth birthday, punched a button and closed the
communication with the bridge.  After some more deliberation, she had come
to two conclusions.

	First, they should take the opportunity and Fold while the dinner
was being held.  That way, there'd be no chance of being caught unawares by
the Dark Kingdom.

	Second, she would go out in public as Jen Sakachi for the first time
since they had left Earth.  She still wasn't completely sure why she was
doing it, but she felt that it was something she had to do.  She consoled
herself with the notion that it would beat anything Sailor Moon could do. 
Moon didn't have the moxie to attend out of her fuku.

	She examined herself in the mirror one more time, making sure her
cap was on straight.  It certainly wouldn't show any wear or tear; she'd
never worn it before.  She'd have to thank the quartermaster for coming up
with such a good fit with such short notice.

	"You're sure you want to do this?"

	"Well, it was your idea, Antares!"

	"Was it?  As I recall, I merely gave you the option.  I must confess
that all this hand-wringing over a simple uniform is rather frivolous."

	"Frivolous or not, it's my decision, and I've made it."

	"Fine, Jen-chan."

	"WHAT?"

	"Get used to it.  You don't have your fuku to hide behind anymore."

***

	"Oh come on, when is she going to get here?"

	"She said 17:00, Sailor Moon.  I don't think she'll be late."

	"She's got two minutes, Sammy.  Then she's toast."

	Sammy leaned over to whisper in Kim's ear.  "She's completely
whacko."

	"Give her a chance," whispered back Kim.  "She's had it rough the
past few months."

	"And we haven't?"

	"And just what are you two whispering about?"

	"Nothing!" replied Kim and Sammy in unison.

	"Real smooth," muttered Vanessa.

	It was, actually.  As can be surmised, they were in the senior
officer's wardroom, a small chamber set off from the lounge.  They sat at
the long rectangular table, with Sailor Moon at one end.  To her left were
Kim, Sammy, and Vanessa.  To her right were Dr. Sampson, who still refused
to be called Emma, Eric Lunestes, and Lieutenant Temako.

	Temako was at the head of a furor that had gone entirely unnoticed
by the bridge crew.  Orion preferred a hands-off policy when it came to
individual departments which usually worked well.  However, it was a bit
more messy now.  The Environmental department as a whole was in charge of
life support, with food service and xenobiology added on as an afterthought. 
Thus, there were a lot of wildly different personalities at work there.

	The bridge crew wasn't quite sure of exactly what had happened. 
Apparently the roots had been laid down before Katsuragi II.  But somehow, a
sort of coup de department had occurred, and when the dust settled, Temako
came out as head of the department.  The actual details were hidden in
requisition forms, internal promotions, shop votes, and other vagaries of
Environmental.  Orion didn't really care, as long as things ran smoothly.

	They were all more or less hanging around, waiting for Sailor Orion
to show up and take her place at the head of the table.  They had waited for
ten minutes.  They would not wait much longer.

	At 16:59:53, ship time, Sailor Moon finally saw the mop of red hair
come through the door.  "Well, Sailor Orion, it certainly took . . . oh
dear."

	"Err . . . ."

	"Um . . . ."

	"Uh . . . ."

	"Captain?"

	"Is something wrong?" asked Captain Sakachi.  She removed her cap
and sat at the table.  "Were you expecting someone else?"

	"Um, sir," began Sammy timidly, "I know you told me not to tell you
about the regs, but general order #2434-b clearly states that a Senshi shall
wear her fuku at all times while on duty."

	"Yes.  But I don't think that matters."

	"WHAT?"  Sampson, who happened to be sitting closest to Sailor Moon,
put a restraining hand on Moon's.  "DOESN'T MATTER?!?"

	Jen took a glass of water and sipped from it.  "Well, we *are*
thousands of light years from Earth, and-"

	"And that means that you can throw away the rules whenever it suits
you?"

	"No, just the ones that are superfluous.  And one can hardly be
expected to wear a fuku during a Fold."

	By now, Sailor Moon's face had reached the exact tint of pink as her
hair, and had journeyed even further into the territory of red.  "This is
dereliction of duty!"

	"I'm still the captain, Sailor Moon, no matter what I wear.  And if
I want to wear the normal uniform, I'll wear it."

	Moon muttered to herself a bit, and then quieted down.

	"Right," said Sakachi, "let's eat, shall we?"

***

	Space roiled, swirled, and did various other things that its maker,
if it had one, certainly hadn't meant it to do.  Out of all this came a
flock of ships, all crewed by denizens of what was left of the Dark Kingdom.

	On the bridge of the fleet's flagship, Number Two relaxed despite
what he was hearing.

	"Your Excellency, we can't find Pleiades anywhere!  No ion trails,
either!"

	"Just what I expected," said Number Two lazily.  "Do you have the
tracking device ready?"

	"Yes, but we-"

	"Good.  Jump us to their exit point."

***

	The first course was water and breadsticks.  It was a tradition in
two ways.  The first ship to leave the solar system had been commanded by
Sailor Mercury, who in a leap of faith decided that since she designed the
ship, she should be on it.  She was, and did a good job.  However, the weeks
and months of worrying over the launch caught up with her, and she came down
with severe gastrointestinal problems, proving once and for all that senshi
were, in fact, human.

	In any case, they had already planned a dinner in honor of Mercury's
achievement, and she managed to attend.  Her stomach was still terribly
unsettled, though, and so she could only eat bread and water.

	This was of course the kind of story Captain Sakachi just ate up,
and she gladly recounted it to the table as the course was served. 
Reactions varied, from Kim's rapt attention to Sailor Moon's coming
dangerously close to nodding off.

	" . . . and so, in recognition, every captain's dinner since has
begun with breadsticks and water, regardless of what's going on around
them.  Great, isn't it?"

	"Very!" replied Kim.

	"I knew you'd think so."  Jen let out a rarely heard giggle.  "I'm
telling you, Kim, you'll make a fine historian."

	"Oh, no sir!"  Sailor Orion said that of everyone at some point or
another.  The general consensus was that she seriously overestimated the
infectious nature of history.

	"Captain," began Sailor Moon, "I think we've had our fill of bread
for the night, so if we could get to the main course?"

	Jen spared her first officer a frown, and then nodded.  "As you
say." She turned to the head chef, the only person on the ship whose only
job was handling food.  "Bring the trays in, please?"

	"Of course, sir."  She wheeled about and disappeared out the door.

	"So, Captain, what do we have to eat?"  Eric looked absolutely
famished; he hadn't stopped glancing at the door, waiting for the meal to be
brought in.  Jen laughed.

	"Really, Eric, didn't you have lunch?"

	"Err, no sir."

	"Ah, thought you'd fill up tonight, eh?"  This time the trio joined
Jen and Eric in laughing.  Sampson and Moon exchanged glances, as they
leaned over to whisper to each other.

***

	"Have you ever seen her so . . . light hearted, Sailor Moon?"

	"No . . . sometimes she's cheerful, but usually she's such a
sourpuss!"

	"Oh, I don't know," responded the doctor.  "Maybe this is good for
her."

	"What do you mean?"

	"Well, look at her."  They both turned to look at the captain, who
was reveling in some other joke.  "She's really loosened up.  You know she's
been really taut the past few months.  There's a lot on her mind.  And
despite all your accomplishments at age ten, I don't think Jen's ready for
it at age nineteen."

	"Hey!  I was over nine hundred when the Black Moon came!"

	"Chronologically."  Sampson sighed.  "But that's a whole other
kettle of worms I *still* don't understand."

	"I'll try to explain it again later."

	"Good.  But keep an eye on the captain, Moon.  You can take a hint."

	"But-"

	"No buts.  See her?  For one night, she doesn't have to be Sailor
Orion, lord and mistress of H.M.S. Pleiades.  She can be Jennifer Sakachi, a
teenager who happens to be spending some time on a starship.  Give her a
chance at a childhood."

	"Don't talk to me about childhood, Doctor."  Conversation paused as
the main course was served.

	"You have no idea."


===================================
Episode #120:  The Captain's Dinner
Reel 2
===================================

	
Previously, on Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Orion . . . .

	Sailor Orion was holding a dinner for her top officers . . . 

	Queen Selenite's head man was doing his homework on H.M.S. 
Pleiades . . . 

	Eric Lunestes was mulling over the past and present . . . 

	Jennifer Sakachi had made a startling decision . . . 

	Eric and Jen were fast becoming close friends . . . or something 
more . . . ?

	Sailor Moon was seriously contemplating her role in life . . . 

	The author was about to run out of ellipses . . . 

	So, with all that to keep track of, the people went on, playing
their integral roles in the dramatic events of 3030.

	To the finish.

***

	" . . . so the programmer says to the computer, 'Well of course it
hurts.  Don't you remember?  Life is suffering, and suffering is caused by
greed.  So stop whining for more clock speed, and everything will be fine.'"
Eric started to laugh at the punchline; he was terrible at telling jokes. 
The others looked on, stony-faced.  "And the computer says, 'Thanks.  You're
a lot of help, Buddha!'"

	There was silence.

	"Perhaps Vanessa should tell another one."

	"Yes!"

	"Definitely!"

	Jen laid a comforting hand on Eric's shoulder.  "It's ok, Eric. 
Really."

	"Oh no," said Vanessa apologetically, in response to her friends'
encouragement, "I'd really rather not . . . and dinner is ready!"

	And it was.  Jen's nose perked up noticeably as the silver trays
were rolled in.  She could pick up the smell of pasta at three hundred
paces.

	Moon groaned at the smell.  "Please," she muttered, "not this. 
Anything but-"

	"LASAGNA!"  The resemblance between Jen's eyes and a couple of
saucers was uncanny.

	"See what I mean?" said Sampson to Sailor Moon.  "This is just what
the doctor ordered.  She'll be a new person."

	Back at the head of the table, the chef was placing a platter on the
table.  It was a curious concoction: layers of flat, long, and very wide
sheets of pasta, with varying substances intermingled between them.  Tomato
sauce, spices, cream cheese, bits of synthetic ground beef (which really
couldn't be distinguished from the original, which many had tasted.  They
used synthetic beef not out of concern for animals, but because there was no
room left on Earth to raise cattle.  Most real beef was raised on colony
worlds, and importing it to Crystal Tokyo was hideously expensive), the
works.  It was the finest lasagna the kitchen could come up with, and Jen
knew it.

	"Thank you.  Thank you.  Thankyouthankyouthankyou."

	"Captain," said Eric, nudging her with his elbow gently, "you've
said that two dozen times."

	"Two thousand times wouldn't be enough, Eric-kun," retorted Jen
playfully, with a wink and a gap-toothed smile.  "This is truly the stuff of
the gods." Since she was the captain, no-one minded if she took the first
slice; in fact, it was expected.

	First slices usually weren't that big, though.

	"Um, sir?"

	"Yes?" asked Sakachi, placing her napkin on her lap carefully.

	"Er," continued Sammy, who was at a near-total loss, "you *do*
realize just how much you got there, don't you?"

	"Of course."

	"Um, you got half."

	And she had.  A rough estimate told Sammy that the captain had about
four servings of pasta on her plate.

	"Yep.  One thing I've noticed about being a senshi," she said,
picking up her fork, "is that you need a lot more food to get along." She
sliced off a rather nice hunk of lasagna, inserted it in her mouth, and
commenced chewing.  Once she had completed this procedure she spoke again. 
"The oddest thing is, I don't gain any weight."

	"There's a reason for that," chimed in Antares.  "It's called
Enhanced Senshi Metabolic Syndrome."

	"ESMS?"

	"Yes . . . well the acronym needs some work.  Anyway, when you're a
senshi, your body needs a lot more energy to do its job, even if you're
sitting still.  You don't eat constantly, Sailor Orion, and neither does
Sailor Moon.  When you have to, you can pull off amazing thaumatological-"

	"Thaumatological?"

	"Magical.  Didn't you take Latin in school, Sailor Moon?"

	"Actually, Antares, it's of Greek origin."

	"Whatever.  My point was that you can do amazing things on no food,
as a sort of energy loan taken out of the universe as a whole."

	"But?"

	"But, there is a price.  You've got to pay back that energy, from
your own body usually.  Captain, after Katsuragi II, you ate quite a bit,
right?"

	"Yes," said Sakachi around a chunk of pasta.

	"See?  You had to pay back the loan.  First law of thermodynamics
gets you every time."

	"You know," said Jen, "that explains Sailor Moon's twentieth century 
appetite perfectly."

	"But where does this tremendous power and energy all come from?"
asked Kim.  She didn't really care for lasagna, and was waiting for her
steak to come in.

	"Oh, the universe.  A star gets snuffed out here, a galaxy implodes
there."

	"WHAT?"

	"It's basic thermodynamics.  You want something, you're going to
pay.  Want superpowers?  Sure, but the long-term effect is to increase the
entropy of the universe.  Try to fight evil?  You build up chaos.  That's
life."

	There was silence for a moment.  Then the room went nuts.

***

	Space is full of stars.  One of them was blue-white, with two
planets whose native life forms were still trying to figure out what to do
with an oxygen atmosphere.  It was this star that Number Two's fleet
materialized near.

	"Your Excellency, we have no indication that Pleiades is here yet."

	"Excellent.  We'll be waiting for them."

***

	A bit later, the second platter of lasagna had been brought out, and
the top officers were still discussing matters with Antares.  Or at least,
most of them were.  Jen and Sailor Moon had gotten into a side discussion
that had rapidly and predictably turned into an argument.

	"So you see," continued Antares, "it's my opinion that the final
battle against Galaxia and the chaos she stood for was, in the final
analysis, futile.  The energies that Sailor Moon expended in defeating her
actually advanced chaos to the point that it might have been better for the
universe, in the long run, to let Galaxia succeed."

	"Oh, you cannot be serious," protested Eric, who had entered into
this argument with great gusto.  "Let Galaxia have free rein over the Earth? 
We'd be better off dead!"

	"Well, there is that," admitted Antares.  "But we're talking about
things as a whole."

	"As a whole, the Milky Way Galaxy had already been enslaved!"

	"Planet, galaxy, so what? It was only about eighty percent anyway. 
Really, you people worry too much about the little things.  So what if the
galaxy goes to hell?  There are billions more, you know.  And as devil's
advocate-"

	"Don't you mean just as the Devil?"

	"As devil's advocate, I was merely stating that while the galaxy was
in a difficult spot, the universe as a whole was doing rather well."

	This was usually the point at which Jen said something about how
Antares was a cold-hearted excuse for an AI.  However, this didn't happen
because she was too busy mouthing off with Sailor Moon.  So Eric took over
for her.

	"You cold-hearted excuse for an AI!  Haven't you ever-"

	"Let me just retract that, then, since you're so insistent on
defending the honor of the original Sailor Moon, to the point of
hero-worship, one might say."

	"Fine!"

***

	On the bridge, the so-called night shift was relaxing.  There really
wasn't much to do while Folding, so they amused themselves by writing
memoirs, playing chess against Antares and losing, playing poker against
Antares and winning, and various other pastimes.

	One of the many clocks on the wall reached the one minute mark, and
continued to count down.  The deck officer noticed this.  He failed to
notice that it wasn't supposed to have done that for another couple of
hours, though.  Such is the fallibility of youth.

	"Um, Akiko, you mind warming up the long-range sensors?"

	"Sure," she replied brightly, grateful to have something to do.

	In fifty seconds they would defold.

***

	Back at the dinner, the argument between Sailor Moon and Jen Sakachi
was warming up.

	"Me?  How do you think *I* am the one going after him?"  Jen was
rather surprised.  It had started out as a nice normal argument that had
suddenly gotten her into fighting over various males on the ship.  "Sailor
Moon, haven't you noticed that I don't exactly go for the male gender?"

	"Yeah, well you'd do anything to spite me!"

	Perhaps the punch was spiked, she thought.  Jen came up with an
appropriate comeback, and delivered it. "I live to serve, your Highness."

	"Ooooooh!"

	"Yeah, that's right!"

	"Dammit Sakachi, you stay away from Eric!"

	The room fell silent.

***

	"Defold in ten seconds."

	"Very well."

***

	"Is everything prepared?"

	"Yes, your Excellency."

***

	She raced through the corridors.  Hopefully it wasn't too late.

	The future depended on it.

***

	"Who I spend my time with is absolutely nothing to concern yourself
*with, Mister Tsukino!* Now, if you would-"

	"WHAT?"

	There was a knocking at the door.

	"You heard me, Moon.  I've had it up to here!"  Eric tried to
restrain Jen, but she stood anyway.  "We're going to have it out, now!"

***

	"Defold in five, four, three, two, one."

	H.M.S. Pleiades dropped into reality around a blue-white star.

	Although she didn't know it yet, she'd also dropped into a trap.

***

	"Sir, we're getting the signatures of their FTL drive!  They're
coming!"

	"Excellent.  Tell the Fleet to fire on sight."

***

	Sailor Moon rose as well, red eyes flashing.  "Don't do something
you'll regret, little girl.  I *do* have the ginzuishou, you know."

	Vanessa got up and reached for the phone on the wall.  "Security to
the officers' wardroom, immediately."

	"I'm already on it," said Antares on the other end.  "I can read a
situation just as well as you can.  But do I need to remind you just how
effective security can be against two pissed off senshi?"

	"Well, Jen hasn't transformed yet.  That's a good sign."

	"Yes, but for how long?"

***

	The pink-haired girl gave up.  They weren't going to open the door.  She 
looked at her watch.

	She was out of time.  Time to try another tactic.

***

	At the dinner, a soft gonging began.  It was a soothing sound, much
like an elevator bell.  It rang five times.

	"We're defolding?" asked Sammy of Kim.  "But we're not scheduled to-"

	The room then rolled ninety degrees, cutting off any possible
response.

***

	"IDIOTS!  How could you *all* miss?!?"

	"We're sorry, your Excellency, but there was an anomaly in th-"

	"Spare me your pitiful excuses!  By Metallia, I've never been with a
bigger group of incompetents!" Number Two threw his walking stick to the
floor.  "How a half-dozen ships, with the advantage of time, position, and
firepower, all manage to miss ONE BLOODY EARTH SHIP?!?"

	"Er . . . "

	"Enough of your excuses!  Fire all weapons, and don't stop until
that Orion bitch is dead!"

***

	'That Orion bitch' had her face firmly planted in the wall of the
wardroom, along with most of her other officers.  Slowly, she picked herself
up and stood on the wall.  This proved to be a mistake, as the artificial
gravity systems righted themselves, and the floor resumed its usual function
as the bottom of the room.

	"Ouch!"

	"Quit whining, Sailor Moon."  Jen was all business as she pulled out
her henshin rod.  "Orion Star Power, Make-Up!"

	The room faded out around her, to be replaced with a field of stars,
with the constellation Orion prominent.  Her dress uniform disappeared with
a blinding white flash, and was replaced piece by piece.

	A golden tiara materialized on her forehead, with a green jewel in
the center.  She was wrapped in a white bodice, punctuated with a green
skirt and boots.  With a soft glow, her normally black-rimmed glasses turned
blue, a shade that matched her eyes.  At the same time, two bows appeared,
one at the chest and another at the small of the back.  Both matched her
glasses frames.  The finale was the green choker, with the tiny golden
miniature of the constellation Orion.

	Finished, she immediately leapt into action.  "Come on, people, get
to battle stations!"

	"No speech?"

	"No, Eric-san, no speech.  Antares?"

	"Yo."

	"Tell the bridge crew to sound general quarters."  The ship rocked
again.  "NOW!"

	The alarm gratefully began to blare seconds later as they raced to
their positions.

***

	The girl with pink hair materialized in a corridor of H.M.S.
Pleiades and leaned against the wall, panting.  This was taking far more
effort than she'd anticipated.  Maybe she should just come clean with it?

	Yes, she should, but not yet, and certainly not now.  They were likely to 
have enough trouble without her popping up and telling them . . . but there 
*was* an idea, an idea that might work.  And since she'd already resolved to
tell them, it might even play to her advantage.

	Fine, she'd do it.  She ran to Engineering.

***

	"Status?" asked Orion as she walked on the bridge.

	"Do you always have to say that?" asked Sailor Moon, who was still
trying to figure out how to get lasagna stains out of her fuku.  Part of her
skirt and her entire back bow had been drenched in the sauce during the
roll, and she couldn't stand it.  They would, in her opinion, never regain
their pink hue.

	"Not now, baka," snapped Orion.

	Sammy took over the talker position, and rapidly looked over the
screens.  "We're getting rocked, sir.  Six ships, all firing constantly. 
But . . . none of the shots are connecting with us?  That's impossible!"

***

	"THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!"

	"Yes, your Excellency, but-"

	"Enough!"  Number Two held his hands together, gathering up a blast
of dark energy, and then released it at the poor technician.  The tech
howled in pain, and then vanished.

	"Anyone else around here want to astound me with their ineptitude?"

	Silence.

	"Right.  Now I want our next shot to destroy that ship!  NOW!"

***

	"Let's not look a gift horse in the mouth, Sammy," said Orion.  She
thought to herself a bit, and easily pushed the enigma of their opponent's
aim to the back of her mind.

	Six ships: they could easily surround her, and in fact had done so. 
At best, her Orion Nebula attack could take out a single ship at a time,
assuming that the opposition was foolish enough to stand still.  From her
past encounters with her foe, she had to admit that this was not the case. 
This, of course, left only one other option.

	"Sailor Moon!"

	"What?" replied her first officer from a console.  She too was
looking to see if there was anything she could exploit.

	"I need you to use the ginzuishou and try to take out some of those
ships.  Can you do it?"

	"Well, I guess I *can*," she replied lazily, "but whether I *will*
remains to be seen."

	There was a silence, punctuated by the dull roar of the shock wave
of an explosion off the hull.

	"Sailor Moon, perhaps I wasn't completely clear.  I *order* you to
destroy one of those ships.  If you do not, everyone on this ship will die,
and I'll make damned sure that you're the first one.  Now SHOOT!"

	"No."

***

	"Your Excellency, we're getting more data from our probe!"  The tech
slapped a button, and the bridge conversation on Pleiades was broadcast on
Pridewen's bridge.

	'Sailor Moon, I gave you a direct order!  Do you want to get us all
killed?'

	'I'm not going to fire unless you give your word to stay away from
Eric- san.'

	'Eric-san?  Wh-what makes you think I give a flying copulation about
him?  I'm trying to keep this ship in one piece, or haven't you noticed?'

	'Good, then you'll give up Eric-san?'

	Number Two could barely contain himself.  Eventually, he couldn't,
and collapsed with laughter, forgetting his past anger at his inability to
hit Pleiades.  "This is far better than I could have hoped for!  Sailor
Orion and Sailor Moon are hopelessly split, and their performance is
suffering as a result!" He looked at some status reports, then laughed
again.

	"And their primary power signature is almost nonexistent!"  He
raised his voice.  "Prepare two . . . no, *three* boarding parties!" he
roared.  "We won't destroy Pleiades, we'll take it back as a trophy for the
Dark Kingdom!  Hail Selenite!"

	His salute was answered by his bridge crew as the preparations were
made.

***

	By now, no-one on the bridge made any pretense of doing anything
except paying rapt attention to the verbal battle between Moon and Orion. 
The arguments weren't new, but this one was notable for both its intensity
and its timing.

	Antares decided that enough was enough.

	"Ladies, if you'd care to break this little discussion off, there's
the tiny little matter of-"

	"Butt out!"

	"I see that we're not making much progress."  He thought awhile. 
Considering how much computing power he possessed, the length of time he
thought was rather noteworthy.

	One of the ground rules that he had been programmed with was that in
the final analysis, this was a ship run by humans.  In theory, he could do
pretty much everything on the ship, but he didn't.  The designers had
recognized that space exploration lacked a certain something if one merely
let the computers do everything.

	Thus, Antares was little more than an advisor.  Sure, he took care
of automatically routing most communications and so forth, but he was more a
counselor than anything else.  He never admitted it, and the crew had never
really thought of it that way, but it was true.

	However, another thing Antares could do was to adapt.  That was why
he was an artificial intelligence, rather than another calculator that could
do nothing more than respond to given stimuli.  He could rewrite his
programming as necessary, and this was what he was considering doing,
because at the rate those two women were going, they were all going to get
killed unless he did something.  He spoke to Vanessa inside her headset.

	"Vanessa, I'm taking over command.  I think you can see the reason."

	"Right," she whispered, trying to stay calm.

	"Good."  Vanessa noted that the computer was doing a very good job
of sounding scared.  "Now, I need you to . . . what the hell?"

***

	"Your Excellency, unknown power surge coming from the ship!"

	Number Two had been waiting for this.  He just needed one more bit
of confirmation.  "Similar to their nebular attack?"

	"No, your Excellency.  Completely . . . no, there's something a bit
like it . . . but we haven't read anything like it in over a thousand
years!"

	"Since Beryl . . . pull our ship back.  Tell Gamma to advance."  'No
way I'm risking my ass out there,' he thought.  Let one of his lesser ships
sample this new device Pleiades seemed to be wielding.

	On the screen, he watched as Gamma meandered closer to Pleiades. 
Gamma was the ship's battle designation; while giving orders it was easier
to bark out than its actual, 20-syllable name.  The Dark Kingdom language
was just as guilty as German when it came to long, tongue-twisting words.

	Gamma slowly faded into the blackness of space, occasionally
illuminated by the flashes of the fleet's firepower.  Then, it took its own
turn at illuminating the other ships as it exploded.

	"In the name of Metallia!"  Number Two covered his eyes to avoid the
glare.  "What caused that?"

	"I . . . I don't know, your Excellency!  No beams were fired, we
know that much!"

	He was loathe to retreat, but one of his ships had just exploded
without warning.  What to do?

***

	Antares had made the rather bad mistake of making his last comment
aloud to the rest of the crew, and everyone snapped around to see exactly
why he had sworn.  Even Moon and Orion took time out from insulting each
other to look at the screen, and so saw the expanding fireball.

	"What happened there?" asked Sailors Orion and Moon in unison.

	"Did you rehearse that?  Anyway, ladies, I believe it's a DK ship
being blown to smithereens." Antares paused, then spoke again. "And that's
another one."

	"Are we . . . ?"

	"No," said Sammy, frantically looking over readouts.  "We can't 
be causing this."

	"Well get us out of here!"

	"You two didn't have to shout," protested Kim from the helm.  She
set about the process of moving Pleiades away.

	"Get me engineering," said Sailor Moon.

	"Okay," said Orion, all animosity forgotten. For the moment, that
was.  "What's going on down there?"

***

	"Sickbay, engineering.  Get an emergency team down here, and hurry!"

***

	Number Two had had enough.  "Get us out of here," he said quietly.

	His crew was stunned.  "But your Excellency, when Queen Selenite-"

	"I'll deal with Selenite.  You just make sure we get out of here in
one piece."

	"Yes, your Excellency."

	Number Two slouched in his once-proud seat, and wondered exactly how
long his men would continue to call him by that name.

***

	"They're withdrawing, sir!"

	"Excellent!" said Sailors Moon and Orion.  They looked at each other a 
bit.

	"Engineering says that there are two injuries down there. 
Lunestes-san and . . . a girl?"

	"What?"

	"With pink hair?  Engineering, please confirm your last statement!"

	Sailor Orion raced out the door.  Sailor Moon wasn't far behind.

	"Stand down from general quarters," she shouted behind her as she
left.

***

	"Put the girl on life support.  Same thing for Lunestes."  Sampson
moved quickly; there was no time to waste.

	The girl twitched once, and then was still.  Lunestes couldn't
manage even that.

***

	Queen Selenite prepared to open a communication with Number Two. 
She was in the mood for raw meat.


===========================
Episode #121:  Occultations
Reel 1
===========================


	Antares had several rather tough decisions to make.  The most
important was what to do with Sailors Moon and Orion.  Their performance in
the previous battle had been downright awful, and if it happened again, he
seriously doubted that they or anyone else would survive.

	How to reconcile the two?  It was a question he'd been pondering
since he found out the two would be put on the same ship.  His hope at the
start of the voyage had been that the two would gradually get used to each
other, and learn to accept their differences.  For a time, it had even
worked.

	However, things had gone downhill in the last few months.  The
bickering between the two had escalated, and he was at a loss as to why.  It
couldn't be the pressure: Sailor Moon had faced worse in the twentieth and
won through, and Orion had been tested enough in the past few months to get
any frivolity out of her.

	He knew that something had to be done, but what?  They weren't going
to settle their differences by themselves; the two were far too stubborn for
that to work.  What he needed to do was to lock them in a room by
themselves, and not let them out until they played nice.  But that wouldn't
work; it smacked of complete and utter lunacy.  He'd have to be crazy to try
a fool stunt like that.

	Crazy like a fox.

***

	"Will he be all right?"  Moon and Orion hovered over Dr. Sampson,
who in turn was hovering over Eric Lunestes.  The ersatz chief engineer
still hadn't recovered from their last battle with Number Two.

	"It's rather hard to tell," said Sampson reluctantly.  "It would
help if I knew how he got in this condition in the first place."

	"Sorry, sir," said another woman, the same one who had originally
notified the infirmary of the situation.  "No-one in engineering can
remember anything out of the ordinary.  In fact, no-one can remember
anything at all about the battle.  It's like a mental fog!"

	"Which I don't buy for a second," replied the doctor, "but until I
can have everyone else down there checked out, it's the best explanation. 
And while we're on the topic of explanations," she continued, turning to
another bed, "there's the matter of *her*."

	'Her' was a small girl, with pink hair and odango that would have
been a dead ringer for Chibi-Usa about a thousand years ago, or even twenty
years ago.  The engineering staff had found her outstretched, along with
Lunestes on the floor.

	She was a complete enigma; no-one seemed to recall her showing up at
all, and of course no-one remembered seeing her before except for Orion. 
For her part, Orion refused to admit to anyone the fact that she had seen
the girl several times, beginning over a year ago in a school cafeteria. 
Things were bad enough without being accused of insanity, regardless of
whether the specter was actually there.

	"Have you considered blood typing her?" asked Sailor Moon.

	"Well," said Sampson wryly, "I admit that the resemblance between
you two is more than a little suspicious, but I doubt you're related all the
same.  You've got different blood types, after all."

	"You know her blood type?"

	"Yes."

	"Well," protested Orion, "that doesn't mean anything, does it?"

	"If you're ready for a protracted discussion of multiple alleles,
modern magical heredity theory, and Mendelian genetics, then I can give it
to you.  Otherwise, just take it for granted that, at the least, she's not
your daughter."

	"Good, since I'm still . . . er, good."

	"Still a what, Sailor Moon?"

	"Still a-"

	"Sailor Orion and Sailor Moon, please report to the gymnasium
immediately.  Orion and Moon to the gymnasium please."

***

	The duo arrived at the gym, having had a relatively low-order
argument on the way.  Truth be told they were rather tired; the past few
days had been terribly fatiguing, and neither had had the benefit of a full
night's sleep in quite some time.

	Orion was too aware of this; her hair was in abominable shape, and
she'd long ago stopped trying to fix it.  Sailor Moon wasn't doing too much
better, and she had smudges on her face as well.

	There was nothing either of them would have liked more at that point
than a nice long shower, but there was the mystery of why they were at the
gym.

	As they reached the doors, they swung open.  "Please come in,"
invited Antares.  "Don't worry, I won't bite."

	"I'm worried," said Orion immediately.

	"Really, ladies, I'm disappointed in your lack of faith."

	They walked in.  As usual, the gym was empty; ever since the attacks
began the equipment had been stowed safely away.  Now, it was half-lit,
with shadows only hinting at walls. Orion wasn't too thrilled about this,
and told Antares so.

	"Oh, sorry."  The lights brightened, and the door closed.  "Now,
let's get down to it.

	"Sailors, you have been, for the better part of five months,
complete assholes towards each other."

	"WHAT?"

	"Oh, don't sound so surprised.  I dare say that if it hadn't been
for my intervention you would have been injured by now, what with all your
plotting and scheming."

	"What plotting?" asked Moon.  Orion merely hung her head.

	"Well, anyway, I've come to a decision.  You two pose a threat to
the welfare of this vessel, and therefore you're staying in here until you
decide to treat each other with the respect you each deserve."

	"Why you-"

	"No need to argue, now.  Just get along, okay?"  There was a audible
click.

	Sailor Orion walked over to the wall and considered punching it. 
She decided against such a course of action; it would do neither the wall
nor herself any good.

	"You feel it too?"

	"Hmm?"

	"The angst, the frustration, the urge to punch his lights out?"

	"Oh."

	Sailor Moon walked dejectedly to the door, and halfheartedly tried
to open it.  It didn't of course.  That didn't leave many choices.  She
walked back to where Orion was standing.  "So, you want to talk about it?"

	"Me?  Talk about it?  For crying out loud, it was *you* who started
this mess!"

	"Me?"

	"Yes!  'Dammit, Jen, you stay away from Eric-san!'  Direct quote,
Sailor Moon!"

	"Well, can I help it if you've been hanging off him for the past
month or so?"

	"I really don't see how it's your business!"

	Sailor Moon balled up a fist, then let it go and began pacing. 
Exactly how could she justify her attachment to Eric?  Truth be told, she
was having trouble justifying it to herself.

***

	She wasn't quite sure when it began.  She suspected that it was
sometime after her ordeal in the vacuum.  After that, she'd felt a definite
attraction to him.  Not entirely sexual, mind you.  There was that, yes, a
bit, but nothing really serious.  It had what has been described elsewhere
as a matriarchal twang to it, like she was somehow responsible for him.

	She'd often wondered how her mother felt in the twentieth century,
having to deal with a daughter when she didn't even know her identity for so
long.  Serenity had never been blatantly mean to her.  Yes, there were a few
incidents, but nothing to really complain about.  In fact, she had to admit
that her experiences in the past had really helped to fill out her
character.  It was true that those trials allowed her to mature for the
first time in nine hundred years.  Ever since, she had been maturing
naturally, something she rarely took for granted.

	But she was merely dodging the question of Eric.  Why was she so
attached to him?  Or, put a better way, why was she so determined to keep
Sailor Orion from him?  Dedication to duty?

	Inherent jealousy, perhaps due to latent repressed lesbian desires? 
No, that was definitely out of the question.  There was no way she was gay;
she had a definite attraction for the male gender, or at least no attraction
for Jennifer.

	Then again, she *was* the future, and the number of suitors with the
necessary rank and peerage was admittedly low.  In fact, the only person
around who could even be considered as a proper husband was an obscure duke
on a far- off colony world, who, through some convoluted genealogy, was
apparently next in line to Endymion's old throne on Earth.  The throne had
been ceded over to Serenity, though, and the boy was only three years old
anyway.

	But why Eric?  The question went around and around in her mind.

***

	Sailor Orion idly watched Sailor Moon pace, whisper to herself,
gesticulate, and generally make a scene.  All in all, she had to admit that
it was rather amusing.

	As for herself, well, she had no illusions of what was going on. 
This time Antares meant it; they were staying in here, come hell, high
water, or Dark Kingdom attack, and she knew that a resolution between
herself and her first officer would be a long time in coming.

	She thought a bit, and then decided that she was a bit thirsty. 
She'd been practicing a bit, and she thought that she'd perfected a little
trick she'd read about.  Apparently, during the Second Sailor Wars, damage
to the various warships was such that no hands could be spared at any time,
not even to retire to the restroom or to get a drink.  Some senshi had
figured out a work-around by putting canteens and water bottles in their
pocket dimensions.

	Ever since reading about it, she'd worked on doing it herself. 
Success had come a bit later, and she'd had a couple liters of water with
her ever since.  She'd never tried to pull it out, though.

	Frowning a bit, she pulled a half-liter bottle of water from
nowhere.  She smiled when she realized that it was nice and cold.  What
couldn't pockets do?

	"Impressive display," said Antares quietly, so as not to disturb
Sailor Moon's ponderings.

	"Thanks," she replied in an equally quiet tone.

	"She likes you, you know."

	"What?"

	"Well, she does.  She hasn't admitted it to anyone, and I don't
think she knows it herself, but she *does* like you."

	"Um . . . "

	"Don't worry," said Antares with a laugh, "it's nothing like you and
Ms.  Pearcy."

	Orion breathed a sigh of relief.

	"Though I must confess curiosity at the prospects of such a match. 
Just joking," the computer added hastily.

	Orion merely frowned.

***

	In the infirmary, Sampson had reached a decision.  She usually went
with her hunches, and she had one hell of a hunch.  She took the DNA samples
from the pink-haired kid and Eric, then correlated them.  On another hunch,
she ordered the medical computer to run through all possible links between
anyone on the crew.  Had she asked Antares to do this, the task would have
been completed in seconds.  As it was, she used the dedicated medical
computer, and the task wouldn't be complete for several hours.

	Such is life.

***

	"Such is life, your Excellency."

	"Shut up."

	Number Two moodily stalked about his bridge.  They were en route to
Hell, to report to Queen Selenite.  Or rather, *he* was to report to
Selenite.  The rest of his crew would probably be spared.

	That was the depressing part, he thought.  Crews were valuable, but
commanders were expendable.  He'd seen that all too well with Number One. 
Would he share his fate?  Would he be handed over to Number Three?

	Probably not, he consoled himself.  Selenite held to the old-line
theory of having four commanders, but truth be told, she'd never expected
that she'd have to *use* them all.  After himself, there really wasn't a
whole lot of talent.  The current Number Three had *inherited* his position,
of all things!  He hadn't gained his rank in combat, as had One and Two. 
The thought of being replaced by that sniveling . . . thing . . . irked him
to no end.

	No, he would not be replaced.  No matter what, Selenite would have
to stick with Number Two, or command her fleet herself.  And no Dark Kingdom
leader had ever stooped to such a low.

	Never.

***

	Antares decided to leave Sailor Orion alone for a bit.  Thus, she
had a bit of time to consider things.

	She insisted to herself that she didn't understand why her first
officer was so obsessed with separating her and Eric.  That wasn't entirely
true, though, she had to admit to herself.  She knew that Eric was all
around a pretty nice guy.  He really tried to be funny, but wasn't.  That
was okay in her book; effort counted for a lot.  She was reminded of Kanomi,
who she'd known back in high school, a million years ago.

	High school.  She'd never had a boyfriend.  She'd originally written
it off to a lack of need, and now she felt herself fairly confident in the
knowledge that she would never have a boyfriend.  If she could only hold
Eileen in her arms once more, she'd never want for anything else.

	However, this situation with her and Eric demanded some additional
scrutiny.  Was she becoming friends with him because they were kindred
spirits?  After all, he was an engineer much like her father.  Antares
would probably say something about how she was suffering from a typically
misplaced Freudian attraction.

	No, that's not the answer.  Freudian attractions were the stuff of
Sophocles and writers with too much time on their hands.  There was no
sexual attraction at all between them.  There couldn't be.  If there was,
then everything she'd had with Eileen was down the drain.

	Then again, said she to herself as devil's advocate, she hadn't
considered the possibility of bisexuality.  After all, she hadn't had much
time to explore relations with the opposite sex.  Come to think of it, she'd
had just a year to get used to being a lesbian.

	But that was too much trouble to think about.  'More likely,' she
thought, 'it's because we're kind of alike.'

	'Who are you kidding?' she asked herself.  'You've got nothing in
common, except that you're both in deep manure.'

	In any case, though, she couldn't find any reason why she should be
quarrelsome with her first officer.  She decided that as captain, she should
at least put up the appearance of an olive branch.

	She stood.

***

	"Sailor Moon?"

	The pink-haired Senshi turned around, to see the red-haired one
standing before her.  The red-haired one had something between a smile and a
frown on her face, an expression Sailor Moon imagined had taken some time to
perfect.

	"Sailor Moon, I know that we haven't exactly been bosom buddies for
the past year or so . . . "

	"You got that right!"

	"Would you PLEASE . . . would you *please* listen to me."  Good job,
Jen, you're holding in your temper.  this is a very good sign.  "Sailor
Moon, I've been thinking," here Moon bit back an automatic response and
merely nodded, "and I think . . . I think that if you want to have Eric-san
as . . . ," she took a deep breath and finished in a rush, "if you want to
have Eric as a lover that's okay because I don't think I'm bisexual and I'm
certainly not straight so I hope this goes a long way to patching things up
between us."

	Sailor Moon blinked, then smiled.  "Okay."

	"What?  That's all you have to say, 'okay?'"  I just bared my soul
to you, and you can just manage two syllables?"

	Moon smiled again.  "I'm a woman of few words."

	Orion prepared an insult, then let it go.  For whatever reason, her
concession of Eric to her first officer seemed to have broken down all the
barriers between them.  "You understand, of course, that you can't
monopolize him.  I *would* like to speak to him about purely departmental
matters."

	"Of course," said Moon in a tone that scant hours ago would have
seemed infuriating to Orion.  Now, it was still annoying, but there was an
added something, a something she hadn't noticed Sailor Moon display to
anyone other than the unfortunate Hansu, nearly a year ago.

	Respect.

	"Fine.  Antares, we're like to go now."

	"Oh, good.  Sampson's raising quite a row in the infirmary, and you
might want to check it out."

	"Right.  We're on our way."  The doors to the room slid open, and
the two women briskly walked out.

	"So," said Sailor Moon as they made their way though the corridors,
"you just give me Eric-san and we're all one big happy family?"

	"Seems farfetched," agreed Orion, "but I can't help but think that
it seems right, somehow.  Like when you've argued with a parent, or a
sibling, and then you kiss and make up.  You always seem to feel better,
mainly because what you've done to patch things up is often so simple."

	Sailor Moon laughed.  "I wouldn't know.  I'm an only child."

	"Me too."  'She's laughing with me,' thought Orion.  First time
that's happened in a long while.

	She looked at the woman beside her again.  She wasn't beautiful, not
the way models were beautiful, and certainly not in the same sexy beauty
class that Orion held Eileen in, but she was . . . cute.  That was the right
word.  Inasmuch as it was possible for a nine hundred year old going on
twenty to look cute, she was it.

	"I like you."  The words were out of her mouth before she knew it.

	"Sorry, Orion.  I'm not quite like that."  Sailor Moon accelerated,
leaving Orion behind.  "Nice offer, though!"

***

	Number Two made his way to Selenite's audience chamber.  As soon as
he saw the crowds, he knew he was finished.  The Queen never brought in the
big audiences unless there was going to be a large award given or a big
punishment doled out, and his recent performance certainly didn't warrant an
award.

	"Come forward, Number Two."

	Head bowed, he strode forward to the throne.  In whatever twist of
irony it was that the universe loved to dish out to its inhabitants, the
throne was made from crystal.

	"Yes, my Queen."

	"You have failed me yet again, Number Two.  Did I not warn you
against this?"

	"You did, my Queen."

	"And yet you ignored this warning and allowed Pleiades to best you
*again*?"

	'Well,' thought Number Two, 'at least things are easier now.  I know
I'm cooked, so I might as well get my money's worth.' "My Queen, I feel you
should know that there were mitigating circumstances that-"

	"Silence."

	"-that I feel made my task more difficult.  On this latest mission-"

	"Silence!"

	"-on this latest mission, we encountered a new source of power, one
we had not anticipated, and if-"

	"SILENCE!"  She raised an arm, and let it fall.  Number Two watched
this with horror, and then writhed on the floor in agony for some time.  His
cries loudly echoed across the chamber for a good ten minutes.  Finally, it
ceased.

	"Now, Number Two," said Selenite sweetly, "is there anything else
you'd like to add?"

	The former commander of Selenite's fleet gasped for breath.  "No, my
Queen."

	"I didn't think so.  Number Two, you're lower than dirt.  If I had
any choice, I'd have you killed right now.  But I don't have one."

	"My Queen?  AGGH!"

	"I would have thought that you'd learn your lesson about keeping
your mouth shut by now.  Apparently this is not the case.  Do you need any
further education?  Good.  Now, I don't have a choice in this.  I need every
able-bodied man and woman I can get out there.  You see, in a few days'
time, I will destroy Pleiades.

	"The time has come, denizens of Hell!  I have had enough
foolishness.  I shall now do what I should have done a long time ago.  The
combined might of my fleet will roll over Pleiades.  All three thousand
ships will descend upon every single world under Serenity's rule.  And
finally, I will stand on the surface of Earth.  I, Selenite, will claim from
Serenity's head the crown which she stole from my mother Beryl, and will
then call down from on high the destruction of everything that bitch holds
dear!

	"But I cannot do this until Pleiades and that Orion hussy are
destroyed.  And they will.  Very soon.

	"Number Two, you will be in the rear guard.  See if you can manage
not to screw anything up.

	"For in a few days, we will have an ending to this."

***

	Moon and Orion entered the infirmary.  Lunestes and the small child
remained unchanged.

	"Ah, captain.  Been waiting for you."  The black doctor drew near
and gave them a data pad.  "You'll want to be reading this."

	"What is it?" asked Sailor Moon.

	"The results of a few hours tinkering.  You'll want to see it."

	They began reading, and got to the salient points at about the same
time.

	"I'm sure you'll find it surprising."

	The two Sailors looked at each other, then back at the data, and
then back at each other.  They paused.

	"Oh boy."


==========================
Episode #122:  Revelations
Reel 1
==========================


	Eric Lunestes was going through the greatest struggle he'd had since
he'd come on board.  He was trying to open his eyes.  After what seemed like
a lifetime of effort, his eyes opened.

	The first thing he saw was the ceiling of the infirmary.  It was a
dull, metallic gray, with modernistic moldings and white florescent lights. 
He remembered filing a complaint about them; couldn't they manage better
than that?  But it had been to no avail; the lights had stayed.  He moved
his head around.

	The second thing he saw was the pink haired kid.  He started to
remember.  The kid had done some weird stuff to him, and then . . . then it
started to blur.  Something about the ship, and danger . . . .

	The third thing he saw was the pink haired kid getting up from bed,
and walking towards him.  Curious, he thought.

	The fourth thing he saw was off in the distance, as Sailor Orion,
Sailor Moon, and Doctor Sampson dropped whatever they were doing and rushed
over to him.

	The fifth thing he saw was the face of the pink-haired kid right in
front of him.  Notably, this was about the time that he got his hearing
back; he'd been effectively deaf earlier.

	The first thing he heard was the shrill cry of "DADDY!"

***

	Five minutes later, it still didn't make any sense to him.

	"Okay, Eric-san, let me run it by you again."

	"By all means."

	"Okay, what Dr. Sampson did was to run a correlation of all the DNA
of all the people on board, which now includes our pink haired child over
there.  Incidentally, her name is Jennifer."

	For the fourth time since they'd begun explaining things to Eric,
Orion groaned.

	"Don't worry, captain," consoled Moon.  "I've been through this
before.  Want a hint?  Just call her Chibi-Jen.

	"Anyway," continued Sailor Moon, "she found a whole pile of
interesting things.  First thing is that you're now Prince Eric; we're
brother and sister."

	There was a noticeable pause.

	"What?"

	"Yeah, it threw us for a loop too, until we talked to Chibi-Jen. 
Then it kind of made sense."

	"Er . . . "

	"Look, it makes sense," said Sailor Moon in the tone one uses with a
child who insists that M follows N in the alphabet.  "You've been sent from
the future; that's the only option.  You don't remember your parents, you
were a foundling, and if that wasn't enough, you're named Lunestes. 
Lunestes, Lune, Luna, Moon.  Ring a bell?" Sailor Moon sounded fairly
abusive by this point.

	"Um, sure."

	"Good.  Now, it turns out that you and Sailor Orion have no relation
whatsoever."

	"Okay, I can deal with that."  It was the first normal hand he'd
been dealt so far.

	Sailor Moon smiled.  "Oh, but it gets better."

	"Oh no."  Eric fell back onto the bed, and grabbed his head with his
arms.

	"It's not that bad," said Moon.  "Look at how Sailor Orion is taking
it.  And she's got more to worry about than you do, actually."

	"How do you mean?"

	"Well," said Moon, who was obviously enjoying herself, "I said
you're not related, right?"

	"Right."  Eric got the impression that he wasn't going to like this
part.

	"Well, guess who Chibi-Jen's parents are."

	Eric mulled over the situation, ran through several possibilities,
and found the most likely one.  At the same time, it was the most ludicrous
one, and more predictably the most uncomfortable one.

	"Me . . . and . . . ."

	"Yes."

	"We . . . we have . . . ."

	"Yes."

	"And this . . . this . . . ."

	"Yes."

	"Believe me," said Sampson, "this was just as much a shock to me.  I
mean, it's not every day you get to tell a virgin that she's got a
ten-year-old daughter."

	Orion said nothing.

	"And . . . she's okay with this?"

	"I am," said Orion, to the shock of everyone.  "At least, I think I
will, whenever . . . whenever it happens."

	"But I gather there's more?" asked Eric.

	"Yep."  Here Sailor Moon smiled a bit; she was leaning a lot on
experience here.  This was not her first temporal anomaly.  "You see, the
only logical conclusion we could draw is that Chibi-Jen is from the future. 
And for her to exist now means that at the very least, you two will
survive.  And since it's fairly hard for just two people to survive on a
ship, the upshot is that we're all going to make it out of here."

	"Presumably," said Orion, who had a couple theories of her own.  The
future, as she very well knew, wasn't set in stone.

	"Well, we'll get to that."  Moon turned back to look at Lunestes. 
"So, you got all that?"

	"Er, you want to run that by me again?"

***

	A couple hours later, Sailor Orion stood on the bridge, looking over
Sammy's shoulder.  This annoyed Sammy to no end, but the captain was in a
rather good mood, and she was loathe to disrupt it.

	"Sir," said Sammy after a long while, "I believe we've got the
Gertie back."

	"You do?" asked Orion excitedly.

	"Yes."  For the past few hours, they had been trying to get the
Gertie up and running again.  Apparently, it had failed a routine
diagnostic, and attempts to figure out what had happened with it had been
dismal, to say the least.

	"Good," said Orion.  "Find us an asteroid and we'll let 'er rip."

	"Aye, sir."

***

	Sailor Moon sat on a bed in the infirmary, next to her niece.  It
seemed so weird calling herself an aunt when, for all her life, she had
lived as an only child.  She had many questions for Chibi-Jen. 
Surprisingly, Chibi-Jen was rather quick to answer them.  Moon remembered
her own experiences with time travel, and the various limitations that had
been put on exactly what she could say to whom.

	"Always protect the time stream," Sailor Pluto had said a million
times, and Sailor Moon had always tried to uphold that.  Chibi-Jen was
apparently under no such compulsions.

	"So," said the girl, "you want to know how Eric-san and Jen-san got
together?"

	"Well, I'd rather know how Eric showed up in the first place, but
since you suggested it . . . ."

	"Okay."  The child's voice was rather high pitched, yet managed to
convey a sense of seriousness.  "Well, I was born for two reasons.  Number
one, eventually Jen-san and Eileen-chan-"

	"Eileen-chan?" asked Moon, surprised.  Using such an honorific with
one's parent like that?

	"I'm getting to it!  Anyway, Jen and Eileen had been together for
awhile, and eventually they decided that they wanted to have children."

	"Ah," said Sailor Moon disparagingly, "they just woke up and said
'hey, let's have kids?'"

	"Aunt Usagi!"

	"Fine, fine, I'm sorry.  But Uranus and Neptune have been together
for centuries, and they haven't pined once for a child.  Now you're telling
me that Orion and America just wanted to be parents?"

	"Yes."

	"Okay.  For the sake of argument, I'll agree with you there.  But
don't think I'm convinced.  So they wanted children, but since they lacked
the necessary equipment, they got Eric-san, right?"

	"Right," said Chibi-Jen, showing quite a bit of sophistication and
ignoring Moon's rather bald statement.  "But they didn't pick Eric-san at
random."

	"I should certainly hope not!"  They shared a laugh at this.

	"No, but . . . well, I guess I can tell you this.  Neo-Queen
Serenity owed them a favor-"

	"What?  *Mother* owed *them* a favor?  For what?"

	Chibi-Jen blushed.  "I can't tell you exactly, not yet.  Anyway, she
owed them a favor, and they wanted it returned by granting a child. 
Serenity tried to explain to them that the ginzuishou simply couldn't work
that way, but that there was another option.

	"Since Jen-san and Eileen-chan had done so much for Crystal Tokyo,
Grandmother decided that they could have the child of Prince Eric Lunestes,
and that's where papa comes in."

	"Ah," said Sailor Moon.  "So my mother just orders him to-"

	"No.  She asked."

	"I see."

***

	Eric sat in his quarters for no particular reason than that there
was nothing else to do.  He wasn't in such bad shape that he'd have to stay
in the infirmary, but Sampson still insisted that he wasn't well enough to
resume his duties as chief engineer.  Thus he simply hung around his
quarters, doing some paperwork that he'd been rather behind on.  He had a
full year's work of performance evaluations to do, and HQ would have his
head if they weren't done when they got back.

	He laughed softly at the thought.  What would HQ do if they knew who
he really was?  He could see it now, and acted it out for himself.

	"'Yes, um, could I have a promotion to commander?'

	"'Commander?  What the hell makes you think we're going to promote
you over people who have been at this for twenty, thirty years?'

	"'Well, I am second in line to the throne of Crystal Tokyo.  Does
that help?'"

	He laughed once again at his situation.  He, lowly foundling Eric
Lunestes, was really and truly Prince Eric of the house of Serenity.  That
was irony in a big, overflowing bucket.

	The metaphor of a bucket really sent him over the edge, and his
laughter was such that he couldn't hear the knocking on the door for a
couple minutes.  When he finally did, however, he rushed to open it.

	"I thought for a moment that you'd cracked."  Orion looked over at
the mess Eric's outburst had made of the bedclothes.  "Perhaps you have."
She looked him in the eyes.  "Mind if we talk a bit?"

	"Oh, no, not at all sir.  Please, come in."

	"No sir-ing, please," she said as she found a spot to sit.  She
looked around.  "You still haven't moved out of here?"

	"I didn't think it would be proper."  He was still in his old
quarters, the one he shared with three other engineers.  Technically, since
the death of Bennington, he could take over the old man's place as Chief
Engineer.  Eric hadn't, more or less out of a sense of honor and respect,
and he told his captain so.

	"I see," said Orion.

	There followed an uncomfortable silence.

	"Look, um, Eric-san, are you . . . that is . . . will you be . . .
damn!" Orion started pacing, an impressive feat considering just how much
room there was in the room; that is, pretty much none.  "Er, this whole
thing about us having a kid . . . um, I don't want to sound tactless, but is
it going to affect your performance as an officer?"

	Eric thought a bit before responding.  "I don't know.  I mean, it's
all so sudden and all."

	"There is that," said Orion, chuckling.  "I mean, it's not every day
you're told that you're going to have a child with a man you haven't even
dated.  And it's a bigger surprise when you're a lesbian."

	Eric blushed.

	"Oh, come now, don't act all embarrassed about it *now*."

	"It was just . . . I was thinking . . . how does it happen?"

	Sailor Orion sat down next to him.  "Don't worry about it.  It's got
to be a few years before it happens.  And I'm sure that Queen Serenity would
give us both some warning about it." She munched on her lower lip a bit. 
"Queen Serenity.  Does this make her my mother-in-law?"

	"Uhhhhhh . . . "

	"It's just a joke, Eric-san!  Loosen up!"

	Eric stood up and gazed into the tiny mirror in the corner.  "Sorry,
sir, but . . . I'm going to need some time to get used to this."

	"I guess we all are," said Orion, rising to stand next to Lunestes. 
"But while you're adjusting, try to work on something productive.  Like the
Fold generators, or that tracking device for the DK ships.  Don't just mope
around."

	"Okay . . . ."

	"That's the spirit!" said the captain encouragingly.  "You know the
old saying the US Navy had: a busy crew is a happy crew."

	"And speaking of busy," chimed in Antares, "there are a number of
things awaiting the captain's attention on the bridge, if she'd be so kind."

	"Damn squawk box," muttered Orion.  "I'm on my way," she said more
loudly.  She turned and clapped the chief engineer on the shoulder.  "I want
you back in Engineering as soon as possible, okay?  Take care."

	She left.

***

	"Captain on the bridge," said Vanessa in a monotone.  No-one looked
up.

	"My, but aren't we a cheery group today?" asked Orion, who seemingly
hadn't stopped smiling for several hours.

	"Nothing to be cheerful about, sir," said Kim.  "We just got the
latest supply estimates from the quartermaster."

	"And?"

	"And, we've got enough for another two weeks, maximum."

	"What?"  This was extraordinarily interesting, in much the same way
that a three-meter hole punched in the side of the ship would have been
interesting.  Back when this was supposed to be just a routine survey
mission, they'd had supplies to last three years, assuming fairly
conservative rationing.  And now in the space of a year they had just a
couple weeks worth of consumables?

	"That's just food, though, sir," said Kim.  "We can continue
recycling water and oxygen."

	"Thank heaven for small favors," muttered Sailor Orion.  At that
point, Sailor Moon walked onto the bridge.

	"So, what's up?" asked Sailor Moon, also in a rather chipper mood.

	"Oh, nothing.  We can survive for another two weeks."

	"You're kidding."

	"Well, three if we really stretch it."

	"Oh, well that's just beautiful," said Sailor Moon, making a gesture
that indicated that this was precisely the opposite of what she thought of
things.  "Any progress on the tracking device?"

	Orion sighed.  "Eric-san is working on it, but he hasn't given any
guarantees."

	"Great."  Sailor Moon sat down in her accustomed position, next to
Orion's seat.  She was rather disappointed with this; she could feel that
things were coming to a head, and now *this* had to slow them down.  "So,
captain, are we going to turn back?"

	"What?  And miss all the fun?"

	"Well . . . "

	"Sailor Moon, we've been out here a year, and you want me to turn
around just because we're low on food?"

	"The thought *had* crossed my mind . . . "

	"Just don't, okay?"

***

	Chibi-Jen wandered around the corridors.  It was rather different
now, as she wasn't hiding anymore.  Now anyone could see her. 
Interestingly, no-one seemed to care.

	Word had of course gotten around about the two time travelers
aboard, but Chibi-Jen was surprised at how well people moved on.  Then
again, she supposed, considering the mortal danger they faced every day, a
little pink haired kid didn't really amount to much.

	She found herself in a residential sector, more specifically for
engineering types.  Quarters on board were segregated by sex; not that hard,
considering the scarcity of males. This particular section had almost all
the men on the ship, including her father.

	She happened by his room, and decided to pay a visit.  He'd been a
nice sort in the forty-first century, admittedly a bit distant, but he'd
given his word not to interfere in how Jen and Eileen brought her up unless
they specifically asked.

	Serenity's family always kept their word.

	She knocked on the door, and Eric called out.  "Who is it?"

	"Jennifer!"

	"Coming."

***

	Eric was toiling over the tracking device when the knock came.  He
sighed at first, but then decided that it was for the best.  He'd been
working for several hours straight, and he could probably use a break.

	"Who is it?"

	"Jennifer!"

	Jennifer?  Her voice sure had changed a bit, as well as her
identity; she should have been Sailor Orion.  "Coming." He put down his
pencil, threw on a sweatshirt and shorts, and went to the door.

	"Yes?  Oh, you're *that* Jennifer!"

	"You got it," replied Chibi-Jen, walking inside.  "Oh, you're
working on the device?"

	Eric goggled, then closed the door behind her.  "You know about it?"

	"Oh yeah, you always said that it was one of your greatest
accomplishments."

	"And you're telling me this?"

	Chibi-Jen smiled.  "Yes."

	"Wait a minute, I remember a few things from school.  Won't this
cause a time paradox or something?"

	"In one way."  She smiled a serene smile.  "But there's more than
one way to look at time.  It's even possible that I could never exist 
and . . . well, that's enough for now.  Anyway, how's it going?"

	"You don't know?  I mean, you seem to know everything else about the
universe."

	"I don't know *everything*, you know.  I just pay attention to
Sailor Pluto.  She doesn't say a lot, but you wouldn't believe what you can
learn from her."

	"I see," said Eric, who didn't, "and so you're just making
conversation?"

	"Pretty much," admitted the girl.  "Actually, you want to know why
you're here?"

	"Why *I'm* here?"

	"Yes.  You're out of your natural time too, you know, but not with
so much displacement as me."

	"Well . . . I hadn't thought about it."

	"You should have," said Chibi-Jen sharply, and Eric suddenly got a
sense of great age.  Just how old *was* she?  "Anyway, I'll tell you.  It's
because Serenity-sama and Endymion-sama didn't know if they could raise
you."

	"What?"

	"It's true.  There's a bit of a story here.  You've told it to me so
many times, I have to assume that you heard it at some point, and I figure
now's as good a time as any."

	"How old are you?" interrupted Eric.

	"Oh, come now," said Chibi-Jen, "it's not polite to ask a lady her
age." She smiled again.  "Do you want to hear it?"

	"Sure."

	"Good.  Now, when you were born it was a great surprise to everyone. 
Not that you *were* born; everyone expected it.  It was the cause of great
celebration throughout the world.

	"No, what was surprising was that you were a boy.  Everyone: the
senshi, the retainers, the public, and especially the family, didn't
*think* that it would be a girl.  They *knew*.  The line of the Moon Family
hasn't given birth to a male in five thousand years.

	"So, when you were born . . . let's just say that it set modern
genetics back a couple hundred years.  They'd been convinced that the
Queen's magical genetic imperative would override Endymion's, since
Endymion's line had always produced males.  After all, Princess Usagi merely
confirmed the theory, and it was pretty much accepted that Serenity would
only bear girls."

	"Until I screwed things up?" asked Eric, who was barely keeping up
with the girl's words.  He got the idea that she knew more about biology,
physics, time travel, and so on, than anyone else on the ship.  Possibly
more than anyone else alive.

	"Pretty much," said Chibi-Jen, giggling.  "No-one knew what to do. 
The first thing was to keep it hushed up."

	"Why?"

	"Politics," said Chibi-Jen automatically.  "The rest of the world
respects Crystal Tokyo but doesn't fear it, simply because Serenity's in
charge.  No matter how much power she wields, the general conception is that
since she's female, she won't go on any conquering sprees.  Matriarchies are
generally more stable, in the long run."

	"I'll take your word for that," said Lunestes, who had barely passed
history.  'Come to think of it,' thought Eric, 'she's sounding a lot like
her mother.  Hm.'

	"A wise choice," said Chibi-Jen.  "So, they couldn't let the rest of
the world know about you, at least not yet.  They had to be prepared.  So,
they sent you to the past, to kind of wait things out until the world was
ready for you."

	"So," said Eric, who was struggling to follow all this, "you're
saying that they sent me to the past to prevent an international incident?"

	"Basically, yes."

	"And now I'm in the midst of an interstellar incident?"

	"Well, you needed a chance to prove yourself."

	He sighed.  "I'm not even going to try to figure that one out."

	"It's not that hard, silly," said the girl, and for a moment one
wouldn't think that it was daughter talking to father.  "It's the
Tsukino-Chiba legacy.  All of us have to be sent to the past and go through
hell to prove ourselves."

	"What?"

	"Well," admitted Chibi-Jen, "that's what I can figure out.  Look:
Aunt Usagi got sent back to deal with things, you're here . . . heck, *I'm*
here-"

	"Why?" asked Eric sharply.

	"Well . . . um . . . I can't say."

	"Bull.  You've practically given me a history of the next ten years,
you can certainly tell me more."

	"But I promised," whined Chibi-Jen.

	"Do I have to exercise my prerogative as a father?"

	"No," said Chibi-Jen shortly, "that won't be necessary.  I'm . . .
I'm here to help."

	"What?  You don't mean to change the future, do you?"

	"Well, not exactly.  Preserve it, that's more like it.  Make sure
everything goes the way it should, maybe nudge things a little."

	'Yeah, sure,' thought Eric.  'She's not telling me everything.'  "I
see."

	"Good."  She got up.  "Then I'll tell you one other thing."

	"And what would that be?"

	She went over to the plans for the DK tracking device.  "You need an
RWS- 0045b class connection here.  Otherwise the whole thing will go up in
smoke."

	She left her father standing over the plans with his mouth wide
open.  "So long."


======================================
Episode #123:  Preparations for Battle  
Reel 1
======================================

	Sailor Orion drummed her fingers idly on the armrest of her chair. 
There really wasn't much to do right now; they couldn't leave, since they
would then lose the trail of Number Two's ships.  Staying, however, was
quite boring.  This system had four planets: a barren ball of rock just a
few million kilometers away from the primary, another planet that was in a
rather auspicious position, but didn't have any water, and two gas giants.

	She'd lead all the exploration expeditions she could think of, but
the planets really weren't too dissimilar from their counterparts in the
Solar system.

	Thus, she was quite bored when the call came up from Engineering.

	"Sir," called out Kim, "Engineering reports that the tracking device
is ready."

	"Already?"

	"Yep, they're working on getting coordinates for the Dark Kingdom
ships right now.  They say that they'll be ready in just a couple hours."

	"Great," sighed Orion.  She turned to Sailor Moon, who was standing
next to Vanessa.  "You know what this means?"

	"We've got a patent pending?" joked her first officer.

	"No, it means that as soon as we get a fix on where those ships
went, we're going after them.  We could be in a battle situation very soon."

	"And we're not now?"

	"Humor me, Sailor Moon."

	The pink-haired senshi frowned.  "There's not a whole lot of time
left for humor, captain."

	Orion sighed.  Why did her first officer have to be so damned right?

	"I've got it," said Eric as he rushed onto the bridge, flanked by a
couple of rather enthusiastic engineers.  He brandished a handlink and
tossed it to Kim.  "That has the coordinates of where Number Two's ships
went."

	"Which," noted Antares, "may not necessarily be Selenite's home
base."

	"No," said Sailor Orion, shaking her head, "she's got to be there. 
It's the only possibility that I can reasonably consider.  If she's not
there, then she's close to it."

	"So," asked Sailor Moon, "do we Fold?"

	It was a purely rhetorical question.  The engineers were already on
the way back down, and the Trio was making preparations.

	"Attention all hands," intoned Sammy, "prepare for Fold operation in
four minutes, say again four minutes and counting." A clock on the wall
clicked and began counting down.  The volume of the room increased by a bit
as the threesome began speaking orders into their headsets.  Orion spoke
into hers as well.

	"Engineering, the moment we defold, I'm going to need the Gertie
warmed up.  Can you handle all that?"

	"Certainly, sir."

	"Good."  She reached down to the control pack on her hip and
switched to another channel.  "Infirmary, stand by for possible injuries,
okay?"

	"With all due respect," came the reply from Dr. Sampson, "I know
what to do when the Fold notice goes up."

	"Just making sure," and then she switched the channel off.  Glancing
over to Sailor Moon, she saw that her first officer had made similar
preparations.

	"Sir," said Kim after awhile, "I've made some slight modifications
to the coordinates.  Apparently, they're too close to a rather large
gravitational well for comfort, so I've moved it about five AUs from
original.  Is that okay, sir?"

	"Completely, Kim.  In fact, I should have thought of that.  Thank
you." She hadn't anticipated the spacing of planets and ships on the other
side of the Fold.

	One couldn't Fold inside a ship or planet or anything.  It was a
basic tenet of the underlying theories.  If you tried, you'd be 'pushed' out
and reappear right next to whatever you'd tried to Fold into.  When Folding,
matter couldn't overlap.

	However, there were no rules against Folding *next* to something,
and it was entirely possible that they could Fold right into the sights of a
hostile ship.  The move of their defold coordinates several million
kilometers away was a decision Orion should have made automatically.

	She looked over to Sailor Moon.  "Are you sure you'll handle this?"

	Moon managed a smile.  "Come on now, I'm a princess.  A little
thing like a Fold shouldn't hurt."

	"Good."

	"Fold in one minute!"

***

	Chibi-Jen wandered on the bridge, clad in a rather small but still
baggy black jumpsuit.  She had to admit that coming out in the open about
her existence probably wasn't the best of ideas.  For one thing, there were
the clothes.  She'd been rather used to wearing whatever she wanted, and
now being required to wear the regulation black uniform was a pain.

	Also, there was the attention being lavished upon her by Sailor
Orion.  Or rather, the complete lack thereof.  She knew that the captain had
other things to deal with, such as the upcoming assault on Selenite's
planet.  She also happened to know exactly what the results of the attack
should be, so she wasn't particularly anxious.

	But there was the plus.  She now stood unchallenged on the bridge of
H.M.S. Pleiades, and while the ship wasn't exactly spoken about in the tones
one used when talking about Santa Maria, Nautilus, Enterprise, or other
naval firsts, it was still a notable thing.

	She'd been in the midst of history for the past three years, though,
and she'd like nothing better than to get out of it.  That wouldn't be
happening until this was over, though.

	"Chibi-Jen!  What are you doing here?" asked Orion sharply.  "What
do you-"

	"Um, captain, I think I'll handle this."  Sailor Moon bent down next
to the little girl.  She had a fairly good idea of why she was there.  "Um,
can you . . . er . . . that is, transform or . . . ."

	"No."

	"No?"

	"Nope."  For once, Chibi-Jen wasn't cheerful.  "Heavens knows I've
tried, but I don't think I've got the senshi gene."

	"Nonsense," said Orion, who happened to be listening in.

	"Fold in ten, nine, eight-"

	"It's been proven that latent senshi abilities are a dominant
trait!"

	"By who?" asked Chibi-Jen mildly.

	"-five, four, three, two, one, zero."

	The soft gonging began, and then stopped.  Sailor Moon grimaced
momentarily, then recovered.  "Sailor Orion, may I note that all those
studies are based upon a single case, namely mine?"

	"Well . . . ."

	"Well, there you are," said Moon, finishing Orion's statement.

	"But . . . it's not fair!"

	"Is it not?  It's not fair to be doomed to your fate at the start,
without having the slightest bit of say in matters?  It's not fair to be told
from birth that you've *must* be Sailor Moon, that you *must* fulfill your
destiny?  I'd say that this is Serenity's luckiest relative yet!"

	The bridge fell silent.  Sailor Orion didn't know what to say. 
'She's been holding that in for so long,' thought the captain.

	"Is that how you really feel?"

	It was a long time until she answered.  "I . . . I guess so.  I just
want my niece to have a choice, that's all."

	Orion put a reassuring hand on Sailor Moon's shoulder.  "She will. 
She will if I have anything to say about it." She intentionally hardened her
expression and spoke more loudly.  "Now lets get to work, people."

***

	"Defold in five, four, three, two, one, NOW!"

	H.M.S. Pleiades dropped back into reality about five astronomical
units from a star which had previously had only a catalogue number, but
which now bore the proud name bestowed upon it by the ever-imaginative crew.

	"Sir, we're now in the Dante system.  Damn," said Sammy, who rarely
swore.  "We're pretty lucky, sir.  We aren't detecting any ships within
visual range, and . . . I think I've found Selenite's planet.  If I'm right,
it's on the other side of Dante right now.  I doubt there are any DK ships
around, not right now."

	"'Not right now' being the key phrase," said Orion tightly.  The
screens showed Dante blazing away, a yellow star that was edging towards
red.  Whatever the outcome of the coming battle, it was clear that
astronomically speaking, Dante wasn't long for this world.

	Vanessa, an amateur astrophysicist, agreed.  "I give it another four
or five hundred million years."

	"Right," said Sailor Moon.  She looked at a corner of the screen. 
"Um, Kim, can you magnify section G-6?"

	The requested part of the picture was blown up, and they could see a
gray ball.  "Sailor Moon?"

	"I don't think so," said Vanessa.  "More like a really small planet,
about twice the size of Luna."

	"Hmph.  Can we use it to hide?"

	"We should.  We're still waiting on the spectrometry reports, but
preliminary results say that it should be opaque to radar waves." In other
words, yes they could hide behind it.

	"Good.  Maneuver us to about four kilometers above its surface."

	"Aye."

***

	Sailor Moon had fought long and hard, but finally she'd managed to
convince her captain.  Moon's contention had been that they would soon be in
enough danger, and therefore Sailor Orion should stay on the bridge.  It
hadn't been easy, but she'd gotten her to agree.

	Sailor Moon wasn't too sure that it was such a good idea, though.

	"So," said Sailor Moon, "you've piloted these things before?"

	Kim permitted herself a quick sarcastic grin.  "Once or twice."

	"Good.  Now-"

	"-am I familiar with the course and mission plans?"

	Moon was taken aback.  "Um, yes."

	"Yes.  Ready to leave whenever you like."

	Sailor Moon stood behind Kim, who was in the cockpit.  Behind Moon
were the eight others who were going with them.  They had an extremely
perilous mission ahead of them: at close range, inspect the large fleet
Selenite had to be preparing.

	The plan, like so much going they had going into the system, was
jury-rigged.  They would whip around the sun, picking up enough velocity to
coast through the midst of the fleet, and then shut down everything but life
support and sensors.  They would then float through the fleet, taking
pictures and readings of both it and the planet on the way through.

	The flaw in the plan was rather obvious.  By shutting down the
engines, they would be at the mercy of luck and Newtonian motion. 
Unfortunately, only the latter could be predicted by computer.  There was a
very good chance that one of Selenite's ships would cross their path, and
they wouldn't be able to avoid it.  The hope was that by flashing through
without emitting any energy, the fleet would pass the shuttle off as a stray
asteroid.

	The top officers had argued over it, but it was decided that it was
the best way to avoid detection.  They all agreed that surprise was one of
their few advantages, and that they had to make full use of it.  Thus, they
couldn't betray knowledge of their presence to Hell.  Not yet.

	"Right," said Moon after pondering these things.  "Let's go."

***

	"Shuttlecraft Virgil is on her way out, sir," said Vanessa, looking
nervously over to Kim's usual station.

	"Very well," said Sailor Orion, sipping a cup of hot chocolate. 
Chibi-Jen had suggested it, saying that it calmed her down in the future. 
At first, Orion hadn't known quite what to make of that remark, but she'd
eventually decided that it couldn't hurt.

	For her part, Chibi-Jen was sitting in her aunt's usual seat looking
idly at one of the clocks on the bridge, one that measured total time from
the time they'd left Earth.

	"You've been out here a long time," said Chibi-Jen.  Orion didn't
answer.

***

	The worst part of the trip was the journey to close to within a
couple million kilometers from Dante.  There was nothing to do during that
time but calibrate their instruments, look through heavy shielding at Dante,
and worry.

	Sailor Moon didn't like it at all; she'd much rather be rushed into
it all at once rather than just twiddle her thumbs and wait for the action.

	"ETA, Kim?"

	Kim made a strange noise, somewhere between a frustrated sigh and a
scream of anger, and then composed herself.  "It's hard to say, sir.  It
depends on how intense the stellar radiation gets."

	"Best estimate?"

	"Four hours until we intercept the Fleet."

	"Great."

***

	Four hours later, Sailor Moon had nearly driven the rest of the
shuttle's occupants insane with her prattling and nervousness.

	"Okay," said Kim, "I'm going to shut off power now.  Are all
instruments ready?"

	A chorus of confirmations came from the back of the craft.

	"Good.  Cutting in five, four, three, two, one, zero."  The craft
went dark and eerily silent.  Due to basic mechanics, they wouldn't stop,
but carry on in a straight line, neither speeding up nor slowing down.  It
would get rather cold, though.

	The crew had anticipated that and wore heavy overcoats in addition
to their rather warm jumpsuits.  Sailor Moon insisted that her fuku
insulated against the cold, but a jumpsuit and coat had been stowed away
anyway.

	Kim went back to the rear of the craft and grabbed her coat. 
Pulling it on, she looked over to their commander.  "You're sure you won't
need a coat, sir?  It's going to get down to minus twenty before we can turn
the power back on."

	"That's okay," said Sailor Moon, checking one of the flashlights
strung along the corners of the ship.  "My mother handled the cold at the
North Pole, I certainly can take it out here."

	"As you'll have it, sir," said Kim.  She zipped her coat, then
buttoned it up to her chin.  As additional insurance, she pulled on a wool
cap, gloves, and a muffler.  She looked more like she was going to go play
outside in a Crystal Tokyo snowstorm than preparing to make detailed
observations of a Dark Kingdom ship.  The rest of the crew was similarly
attired.  It made moving around difficult, but it kept one warm, with good
reason: cabin temperature was already down to three degrees centigrade, and
breath was condensing everywhere.

	She booted up a battery-powered computer, one of the largest
electronic instruments they carried.  It weighed just under ten kilograms. 
She began punching up routines painstakingly programmed earlier, designed to
make the most use of the time they had.

	The readings began to come in.

***

	On a Dark Kingdom ship, a rather low rating noticed a blip on his
sensor screen.  Based on infrared readings, he decided that it was an
asteroid.  He alerted his superior, who alerted *his* superior, and so on. 
Eventually, it got to the captain, who reported to the commander of what was
known as Sector Three, a random chunk of space above Hell.

	The commander simply issued a warning to all DK ships to watch out
for yet another piece of junk.  Then he got back to the important business
of preparing for the upcoming conflict with Sailor Orion.

***

	Sailor Moon was in a pickle.

	The main reason was that she didn't have anything else to do.  She
was just the supervisor; everyone else was taking readings of the ships they
passed.  She simply stood over them all, and froze.

	'I won't feel the cold at all,' thought Sailor Moon bitterly.  'What
the hell was I thinking?  I'm freezing to death here!' She walked over and
checked the small mercury thermometer that some forward-thinking engineer
had thought to place on the wall.  The mercury was close to the bottom of
the bulb, just below the minus thirty degree mark.

	Sailor Moon repressed a shiver and looked out a frosty window.  The
ships were out there, but in the blackness of space they could only be seen
as rather shadowy shapes that blocked out the stars.  It was the fact that
she could see them at all that worried her.  That she could see so many with
the naked eye alone certainly wasn't a good thing; it almost insured that
Selenite's fleet numbered in the hundreds, possibly thousands.

	And precisely what could they hope to accomplish against a force of
that might?

	'That's what we're here to find out, my dear,' she thought to
herself.  She shivered again, and her teeth began to chatter despite her
efforts to the contrary.  She swore silently and eyed the coat hanging on an
outcropping on the wall.  She found herself wondering idly how it would feel
to be cocooned in a nice, warm, fuzzy garment like . . . no, she wouldn't do
that.  A Tsukino never backed down.

	Four seconds later, she decided that family honor could take a
flying leap, and grabbed the coat.

	"Took you long enough," said Kim from behind her scarf.  The black
scarf hid her smile as she watched Sailor Moon hurriedly pull on and fasten
the coat.  "I believe you'll find it better if you detransform as well. 
You'll get the insulative properties of your jumpsuit as well."

	Sailor Moon merely gave Kim an icy stare.  "Thanks a lot."

	"Just trying to help, sir."

	"Well, I can't detransform, not when there's the possibility that
I'll have to bail us out with the ginzuishou.  Do you have a spare scarf
around here?"

	"Yes, in the second storage locker down behind you."  Kim turned
back to her work, but continued to address Sailor Moon.  "Couldn't you just
use your crystal to warm things up around here?"

	There was a pause.  "Really, Kim, I'm disappointed in you.  Surely
you'd know that the ginzuishou emits much the same signature as the
shuttle's power supply."

	"Magic isn't one of my strong points, sir.  Thirty-two degrees, two
minutes, 5.00439 seconds," she added, speaking over to another woman, who
scribbled the numbers down.

	"Sir," she added after a time, "we've got some preliminary findings
about the size and strength of the fleet."

	In the cockpit, audible to all, an alarm went off.

	"Proximity warning," muttered someone.

	"Calm down, people," said Moon.  "There's not a lot we can do about
it.  It's only a code yellow, and in any case if we did an engine burn,
they'd be all over us.  You were saying, Kim?"

	"Okay."  She took a deep, cold breath.  "Okay, surrounding the
planet with more or less equal coverage are 8543 ships.  Many of them are
probably good for just one interstellar trip, but that's all they'll need."

	Sailor Moon was still a bit behind.  "There are *how* many ships?"

	"Eight thousand, five hundred forty-three.  Shall I break them down
into their classes?  Four hundred fifty light cruisers, three hundred
transports-"

	"That's quite enough.  We'll save that for the briefing back on
Pleiades.  What are they packing?"

	 Kim sighed, and the cloud of condensed air that expanded from her
scarf lingered for several long seconds.  "What *aren't* they packing, sir? 
They've got everything, lasers of every frequency, warheads, some nuclear,
perhaps even some grapeshot, but we're not sure."

	"Damn."  Even the grapeshot could be deadly if fired at sufficient
velocity.  "And they're all carrying these kinds of weapons?"

	"Not all, sir.  In fact, quite a few of them appear to be support
ships.  But there's more than enough fighting ships to give us trouble."

	"Estimate?"

	"About sixty percent."

	Moon made a noncommittal monosyllable.  It was bad news, but good
news at the same time.  Most fighting forces had huge support divisions,
sometimes outnumbering the actual combat troops by four or five to one.  By
putting most of her manpower in fighting ships as Selenite had, she was
broadcasting that she was gambling everything on getting Earth in one fell
swoop.  Whatever damage they could do would greatly increase the chances of
Serenity's fleet back on Earth.

	Assuming, of course, thought Sailor Moon, that they've gotten word
of all this.  There had never been any response to their desperate signal
some months ago.

	"Sir," said Kim, "it looks like we'll be clearing the fleet pretty
soon.  We can flip the power back on in about two hours."

	"Good.  Start stowing your gear.  We've got to get back to Pleiades
with this."

	"Aye, sir."


=============================================
Episode #124:  All Quiet on the Western Front
Reel 1 
=============================================

 
	There are many things to be said for experience. 
 
	For example, take warfare.  It's a fairly bloody procedure,
involving lots of death and destruction.  It's very tiring, to say the
least.  Those seasoned in the art of war often learn ways to deal with this. 
They will sleep whenever the opportunity presents itself, whether it be for
a couple hours or a couple minutes.  It's important to stockpile it against
the time when you'll need it.
 
	Sailor Orion wasn't sleeping, even though she had the chance.  The
shuttle that had gone out to reconnoiter Selenite's position wasn't due back
for several hours.  She couldn't sleep, though.  She was too worried about
what was about to happen.
 
	She rolled over in bed for the nth time, and picked up a handlink,
seeing that it was already on and displaying page 435 of a book on
nineteenth century naval warfare.  'Why is it there?' she asked herself.  The
answer was slow in coming, but it came to her.
 
	Before the Battle of Trafalgar, Admiral Nelson had toured his ships,
making sure everything was in readiness before facing his opponent.  His
appearance had been a rallying point for his men; they performed valiantly
and saved the day.  It wasn't so good for Nelson, though.  He died during
the battle.
 
	Then again, thought Orion, consoling herself, she didn't have an
entire fleet to worry about.  She just had to defeat a nearly invincible
armada.
 
	She was reminded of another fleet, the English fleet, in its defense
of the English Channel against the vastly superior Spanish Armada.  There,
the underdogs had prevailed, and the proud Spaniards were chased north,
fleeing around Scotland to come back south on the west side of the British
Isles.
 
	Two British victories.  Which one would she emulate? 
 
	Or would she have a victory at all? 
 
*** 
 
	At about 3:00 hours ship time, Virgil entered the shuttle bay
completely intact and unharmed.  Power had been restored hours ago, and her
occupants were quite warm, in contrast to their earlier condition.  They
were a little frightened as well, but that was to be expected.
 
	Sailor Orion greeted the shuttle's crew at the hatch.  "Have fun?"
she asked her first officer as she stepped out.
 
	"I've had better times," Sailor Moon said carefully.  "Listen, we've
got some pretty interesting information here, and-"
 
	"Good, we'll talk about it later.  In the meantime," said Orion, who
was already escorting Sailor Moon to the door leading from the shuttle bay
to the corridor, "you've got a brother and a niece who've been worried sick
about you."
 
	"Really, captain, you should know better than to mix family and
business."
 
	"Well, you've got a lot more experience with this sort of thing than
I do."
 
	"True," admitted Sailor Moon. 
 
*** 
 
	"So," said Sailor Orion some time later, "what have we got?" 
 
	"Okay," said Sailor Moon, standing in front of a screen in the
conference room which displayed a grayish-blue planet.  "This is what
Selenite calls home.  She named it Hell.  Roughly 1.15 times the size of
Earth, comparable atmosphere except for a slightly higher sulfur content. 
It smells down there, but we could survive for a month or so with no overt
ill effects.
 
	"We determined that the center of the energy emissions was about
here," she said, gesturing at a slightly white patch of land, next to a
broad blue expanse that had to be a sea.  Further study had shown that it
held no life.  "So, you can guess that Selenite's headquarters is there as
well."
 
	"Of course," muttered Sammy. 
 
	"Unfortunately, there was some pretty heavy cloud cover there when
we passed it.  Our best pictures of D-point," and here the screen blinked
over to show close-ups of the headquarters, now given the rather
inauspicious name used a thousand years and uncounted light years away,
"indicate that there's a heavy ring of anti-air defenses surrounding
D-point.  We suspect, though, that actual ground defenses are rather light."
 
	Now there's some cheery news, thought Orion wryly.  Any ground
attack will be chewed up before it reaches the surface, but once you get
there, things will be okay.
 
	"That's about all we know about the planet, other than that it seems
to be rather sparsely inhabited.  We think most of the population is within
the fleet."
 
	Sailor Moon's expression turned grim.  "The fleet is the hard part. 
Over eight thousand ships, many bristling with weapons, all arranged to
surround the planet.  There's no safe angle to attack from, and they can
react to a pinpoint assault in a matter of minutes.
 
	"That's about all."  She sat. 
 
	"Right," said Orion, standing to regard what was now her battle
staff: Eric, Sammy, Kim, Vanessa, Sailor Moon, and Chibi-Jen, who she
included mainly because she seemed to have no reluctance to reveal knowledge
of the future.
 
	"You've got the facts.  Now do we have a plan?" 
 
*** 
 
	Three hours of heated debate later, they indeed had a plan.  Orion
decided to outline their results.
 
	"Okay, now as Vanessa-san said, we'll come around from the other
side of the star.  The stellar interference should keep them from detecting
us for a pretty long time, enough to give us a fairly good jump on them when
they do spot us."
 
	The heads arrayed around the table nodded.  She walked to the screen
and displayed a schematic of the fleet.
 
	"Now, once they detect us, I'll generate an Orion Nebula around us." 
 
	"And try not to collapse it, captain?" 
 
	Orion let out an unguarded chuckle.  "Just for you, Sammy, I won't. 
Anyway, the main function of the nebula will be to further mask our
approach, and add to the confusion."
 
	"If that's possible," said Kim.  "We don't really know if their
sensors can get through the cloud."
 
	"They couldn't figure out that we were a shuttle and not an
asteroid, Kim," replied Sailor Moon.  "I wouldn't overestimate them."
 
	"I wouldn't underestimate them either," said Orion mildly.  "When we
come in with both barrels blazing, they're going to be putting us under a
lot more scrutiny than a little rock.
 
	"Anyway, we come at them from the cloud.  At this point," and here
she gestured to the screen, where a track of their projected path was
overlaid on top of the diagram, "Eric will come into play.
 
	"We've finally figured out his forte.  Apparently, he can generate a
shield.  It's nominally for self-defense purposes; he could maintain it
around himself indefinitely.  Given his father's tendency to protect, I
suppose it makes more than a little sense."
 
	"So," said Vanessa, who hadn't heard this before, "when Number Two
made his last attack against us . . . ?"
 
	"That was Eric's shield, being augmented by Chibi-Jen in some way we
still don't know about.  We don't have any magic experts outside Sailor
Moon, and she knows as much about it as we do."
 
	The screen changed to a close up of Pleiades.  "We estimate that
with Chibi-Jen's . . . well, for lack of a better term, her gestalt
abilities . . .  Eric can keep us relatively unharmed for three hours."
 
	"That's all?" asked Sammy, surprised. 
 
	"Space battles tend not to last long," said Sailor Moon, "and
outnumbered as we are, it'll be over quickly."
 
	"Right," agreed Sailor Orion.  "Most battles of the Second Sailor
War lasted for less than half an hour.  So, with Eric-san hopefully
shielding us, Sailor Moon and I will be free to use our respective weapons.
 
	"By this point, we're entering the fleet, and our cloud cover is
dissolving.  We're going to rely on a combination of rapid-fire Nebulas and
whatever miracle Moon can dig up with the ginzuishou."
 
	Eric spoke for the first time.  "How long was that again?" 
 
	"Well, we figured your best time would be three hours.  You probably
won't have to hold out much longer, though." Orion took off her glasses and
inspected them carefully.  "Of course, once we get on the planet, it may be
another thing.  I don't think I can conscionably take Chibi-Jen down there
with me-"
 
	"Whoa, wait a minute captain!" shouted Moon.  "We didn't discuss
anything about you going on the surface!"
 
	"Well, it seemed better than your plan," said Orion defensively. 
"I'm the captain, after all-"
 
	"Exactly," said Moon strongly.  "That's why you need to stay on the
ship."
 
	Orion was forced to say something that came very hard to her.  She'd
tried for quite awhile to ignore the fact that her first officer was next in
line to the throne of Crystal Tokyo, but now she simply had to play her last
card.
 
	"But you're the princess.  You shouldn't have to endanger yourself
like that."
 
	Sailor Moon sighed, then waved a warning finger at her captain. 
"You know better than that.  I gave up the princess bit when I came on
board."
 
	"With a few exceptions," noted Antares. 
 
	"True," said Moon sheepishly.  "With a few exceptions.  "But anyway,
you've got to stay on the ship."
 
	"What?  Well, Sailor Moon, I'd say that just because I'm the captain
is no reason to stay on the ship."
 
	"But . . . Selenite's *mine*.  You don't actually think you can
knock her out long enough for stage two to work, do you?  You're a rookie;
you've only been a senshi for a year.  Granted, it's been a hell of a year,
but it's a year nonetheless.  You can't take her on and expect to survive.
 
	"I can, though.  Face it, Sailor Orion, it's my destiny." 
 
	"No."  The strength in Orion's voice was surprising.  "I won't have
you go down there and get yourself killed in the name of destiny or some
other crap like that."
 
	"Come now," said Moon, trying to be convincing, "there's no way out
of it.  Us Serenitys have been defeating the Dark Kingdom for thousands of
years, you know.  Besides, I'm our best hope for an early resolution.  If I
do my part perfectly, we won't even need stage two."
 
	"I think we will," said Orion slowly.  She looked to Chibi-Jen for
support, but her eyes were as stone.  She wasn't getting any foreknowledge
this time, not for this.  "I don't think we can truly consider our objective
complete until Hell is completely annihilated."
 
	There was silence for a moment. 
 
	"Well," said Sailor Moon, "if you want it that way.  But you'll
still need me down there."
 
	Orion managed a smile.  "I get the idea I can't stop you, but I'll
try one more time anyway."
 
	"Sorry, but I can't do it, sir."  She was genuinely sorry.  But this
was a job best left for born senshi, regardless of the qualifications of
Orion.  Besides, she really didn't think that Orion could handle evil face
to face.  She'd been fairly isolated, with only one instance of
close-quarters combat on Katsuragi II.  She'd never had to look the Wiseman
in the face, had never fallen from a skyscraper only to be saved at
seemingly the last possible moment, simply didn't have the experience that
Sailor Moon had.  She simply wasn't ready for something like this.
 
	Of course, she herself wasn't too sure about her abilities to cope. 
 
	"Right," said Orion after a moment, "so that brings us to phase two. 
We swoop down close enough to the planet for the shuttle to get out and
attempt to land."
 
	"Which promptly causes whatever ground troops they've got to crawl
all over it," added Vanessa.
 
	"So that no-one's watching when the strike team parachutes out and
heads for D-point," finished Sammy.
 
	"The damnedest plan I ever heard of," said Eric, shaking his head,
"but somehow or another it seems right."
 
	"Yes," said Orion.  "The simulations show that it gives us the best
chance of neutralizing Selenite long enough for the third part to kick in. 
I've talked to Chibi-Jen at length about this, and we're fairly certain that
she can teleport you all out.  She insists it's been done before, so escape
won't be a problem for you." She took a deep breath.  This was the hard
part.
 
	They had learned several lessons from Katsuragi II, the most
important perhaps that when Sailor Orion used her attack, it carried on
without regard for gravity.  It had worked just as efficiently on the
surface as it did in a vacuum, and the mess they'd left on the planet was
proof of that.
 
	Since then, almost as an idle morbid hobby, she had been working on
the calculations for just how much energy it would take for her attack to
destroy a planet.  She hadn't employed Antares' assistance; she hadn't
wanted him to know about it.  Thus it had gone slowly.  On top of that,
she'd never been very good at mathematics, and so a good amount of guesswork
had been involved.
 
	The final result, though, was what she presented to the bridge crew.
 
	"I've estimated that I can destroy the planet once and for all.  But
I'm going to need some help."
 
	"Precisely how much again?" asked Sailor Moon. 
 
	"All of you.  All the . . . well, I hesitate to say it, but all the
royalty.  Chibi-Jen, Eric-san, and you, Sailor Moon.  From what little I
remember about magic theory back at the school, you three are the only ones
who can supply the magical energy necessary."
 
	"But isn't that what the Gertie is for?" asked Eric, who wasn't too
keen on the idea of his being used as a magical battery.
 
	"I included the Gertie in my calculations," said Orion.  "It won't
be nearly enough to help us, though, and the ship will need the extra power
for our getaway."
 
	"Ah," sighed Vanessa, "the getaway."  She slumped over with her head
on her arms.  "That's my favorite part."
 
	"Oh," said Sammy playfully, trying to cheer up her friend, "that's
just because you've got to plot the course."
 
	"Yes . . . ," said Kim. 
 
	"Yes, the getaway," continued Orion.  "When the planet goes up,
it'll be impressive."
 
	"Impressive is one way of putting it," said Moon wryly. 
"Spectacular is another."
 
	"Yes," said Orion with a smile, "well, it should be easily visible
on Earth in a few thousand years.  Anyway, when it goes we're not going to
want to be within a few light-years of it.  So," she said, turning to the
Trio, "your job will be to Fold us the hell out of there the moment the
planet starts to go."
 
	"But not too early," added Moon, "or we'll be gone before we can set
it off."
 
	"But," said Vanessa, whose job it would be to orchestrate the Fold,
"can't we just blow the planet without taking care of Selenite?"
 
	"No," said Moon, "we don't know her capabilities.  For all we know,
she may have some way to counteract the Nebula.  Or an escape route.  If she
does, then we've lost our trump card."
 
	"I don't know," said Sampson, speaking for the first time, "I'm no
tactical genius, but I'd say that this plan has far too many things that can
go wrong.  Seems awfully shaky to me."
 
	"Yes," admitted Orion, "it's very questionable, and to tell the
truth it is shoddy.  If we had more time, or better personnel, we'd be
better off.  But none of us here are military experts, you know.  This is
the best we can do.
 
	"And I'm fairly confident it will work.  After all, if it doesn't,
then Chibi-Jen wouldn't be here, would she?"
 
	She pointed to Chibi-Jen, a gesture whose effect was somewhat dulled
by the fact that the girl in question wasn't there.
 
	"Where is she?" squeaked Orion in a tone somewhere between a roar
and a scream of terror.  "She was right here a moment ago!" She began
looking about frantically.
 
	"It's okay, captain," said Kim.  "She stepped out awhile ago.  Said
something about using the little girls' room."
 
	"Ah."  She attempted to regain her composure.  "Well, any
questions?"
 
*** 
 
	Meditation had never been something that came easily to Sailor
Orion.  Her family had never been very religious, and her training in Shinto
and Buddhism was sketchy at best.  Her visits to the local Shinto shrine
were few and far between, and she didn't even know the names of the priests
close to them.
 
	Therefore, as the artificial night closed in on H.M.S. Pleiades, she
didn't meditate, but rather read a book.  It was titled "Victory: At What
Cost?" It was written by a fairly prestigious, yet unorthodox, historian,
and concerned the Second Sailor Wars, and specifically its conclusion.
 
	She had a lot to think bout.  Tomorrow would undoubtedly be the most
pressure-filled day of her life.  She knew full well that the future of
humanity was riding upon their deeds.
 
	Victory was unlikely at best, she knew.  The point all along, from
the moment Pleiades was built, was to slow down Selenite's fleet and buy
the Earth some time.  If they happened to significantly lessen the Dark
Kingdom's numbers, so much the better.  But they were mainly a suicide
squad.
 
	And yet Serenity put her only daughter aboard.  Terrible things had
been said by some historians, but she remained convinced that the Queen
would never sacrifice her daughter for anything.  Serenity would sooner die
herself.  The evidence bore that out: there was the example of Serenity's
own mother, who died to defeat Beryl on the moon thousands of years ago, and
to give her daughter a better life on Earth.  There was Serenity herself,
who had jumped off that building so long ago in the vain hopes of saving her
daughter.
 
	It was rather clear that Serenity wouldn't put Princess Usagi in
such danger unless she was absolutely certain that she would be all right. 
Hence, they would prevail.
 
	She didn't care to ponder the alternative. 
 
	"Captain?" came the call from outside her cabin door.  "May I come
in?"
 
	"Certainly," said Orion.  The door swung open, and Dr. Sampson came
in.  "Oh, hello, Doctor.  What can I do for you?"
 
	"Well," said Sampson, taking a seat, "you can start by telling we
what you're thinking about."
 
	"Right now?" At Sampson's nod, she continued.  "Right now, I'm
thinking about war and history.  Rather apt, wouldn't you say?"
 
	"I would," said the black woman.  "Tell me, you're the historian. 
What will the books say about us when this is all said and done?"
 
	"You'd do better to ask Chibi-Jen about that," Orion replied, giving
a nervous laugh.  She still wasn't totally used to having a daughter, and
she suspected that she never would.  "She seems to be the authority on the
future around here."
 
	"Yes," admitted Sampson, "there is that.  But there's also your
opinion.  Why are you doing this?"
 
	"Pardon?" 
 
	"Why are you doing this?" repeated Sampson.  "There's got to be a
reason why you're taking us in.  You've had every opportunity to chicken
out, and we're still here, with just a few hours until the show starts. 
No," she said quickly, in response to the protesting look on Orion's face,
"don't tell me why.  Tell yourself." She rose.  "Just a bit of professional
advice, okay?  Good night."
 
	Sampson left, and Orion told herself. 
 
*** 
 
	Eric wasn't worried about the battle.  He had other things to do,
like make sure the power systems could keep up with the prodigious demand
they would be taking tomorrow.  So he worked.
 
*** 
 
	Chibi-Jen slept.  Even girls from the distant future need their
rest.
 
*** 
 
	Sailor Moon went to Orion's cabin some time around 22:00. 
 
	"Good luck," said Moon. 
 
	"Don't give up," said Orion. 
 
*** 
 
	In an apartment that was part of the Crystal Palace, on the western
rim of the Pacific Ocean, on the planet earth, a nineteen year old brunette
looked up at the stars, watched, and waited.
 
 
==============================
Episode #125:  Day of Destiny?
Reel 1
============================== 


	"So," whispered Sailor Orion, "this is it."

	At her side were Sailor Moon and Eric Lunestes.  They had gone
through the briefings over and over, and now was their last chance to
chicken out.

	None of them would.

	"ETA to DK sensors thirty seconds," sang out Kim, steadily watching
the monitors.  This was a dicey maneuver they were trying, skimming past the
star at high speeds in order to evade detection for as long as possible. 
They were now just a few million kilometers from Hell.

	The stellar interference had kept them hidden, but it wouldn't for
much longer.  When Selenite's fleet spotted them, all hell would literally
break loose.

	"Twenty seconds."

	"Eric-san," said Orion slowly, "I think that it's time you headed
back down to engineering."

	"Yeah."  He moved from his previous position leaning against a
support bar, and walked over to the hatch.  "See you later, okay?"

	"Good luck!"

	The hatch opened, and then slammed shut.

	"Ten seconds."

	Sailor Moon took a deep breath.  It was apparently too big, for she
immediately started coughing furiously.  Most people on the bridge laughed.

	"That was great, Sailor Moon," gasped Orion between giggles.  "We
needed that."

	"Five seconds."

	"It wasn't that funny," said Moon.

	"Oh come now, I was just playing with you."  She turned away before
she could see the look of alarm on Moon's face at her words.

	"Three seconds.  Two, one, zero."

	Situation clocks all over the bridge reached 00:00:00 and began
counting forward.  Kim's status board lit up like a Christmas tree.

	"Multiple targets now bearing on us!  They've spotted us, sir!"

	Sailor Orion muttered something inaudible, then raised her voice.

	She took a deep breath.  "Tallyho!"

***

	Selenite sat on her throne, looking at various screens.  They showed
her Fleet from different vantage points, and the lone ship that dared to
oppose it.  She hadn't anything to do yet; the plan was for her to only
handle the intricate details once things got muddled.

	She would like nothing better than for the leading ranks to just
roll over Pleiades, but she knew from experience that that wasn't going to
happen.  Sailors Orion and Moon simply had too many tricks up their sleeves.

	As she watched, the leading elements of her Fleet began to advance
in a textbook envelopment maneuver.  In theory, that alone should suffice to
wipe out the aggressor.  But she'd seen enough theories go to hell in the
past year.  She gave an order.

	"Mobilize all ships.  Let nothing live."

***

	"Now at optimum firing range."

	As Vanessa said those words, Sailor Orion leaned forward intently
and grabbed the Gertie controls.  "Orion Nebula!"

	At her utterance, the familiar gas cloud hovered around Pleiades. 
Now was the trying part.  She had to hold it together, or else the hydrogen
would return back to where it came: i.e., nowhere.  She didn't know how long
she could keep it up, but she was damned if she was going to give it
anything but her best.

***

	At the same time, Sailor Moon pulled out the ginzuishou.  It shone
more brightly than anyone onboard had ever seen it.  'A side effect of being
so close to Selenite?' Moon asked herself.  It was possible.

	The crystal floated millimeters above her hand, slowly rotating. 
She could feel the immense power coming forth from it, and she mentally
willed the power to lash out at the myriad ships that even now were bearing
down on them.

	She didn't give a battle cry; she didn't need to.  She just let the
energy do what she wanted it to do.

***

	Towards the rear of the bridge, next to Sammy's position and to the
left of Kim's, not that relative positions meant so much when dealing with
the Trio, Eric and Chibi-Jen stood silent, linked by circumstance and birth
in a way the former would never have considered possible.  This, however,
wasn't his main concern at the moment.  He was concentrating on maintaining
a shield around Pleiades, a shield that would hopefully protect them from
Dark Kingdom volleys.

	Volleys that, from the dozens of alarms and handful of voices
suddenly talking excitedly, had just been let loose.

***

	"Sir, they've begun attacking!" said Sammy in a voice that while
uneasy, came nowhere near to conveying just how frightened the blonde was. 
"Reading two, five, thirty-four hundred . . . it's off the scale!" She gave
up on her radar scope; all it showed was a huge green blip moving towards
them.  The fact that every blip was actually a missile wasn't encouraging.

	"Sailor Moon, if you please?"

	"I'll try," said Moon.  She concentrated a bit more, and then the
silver crystal turned golden.

***

	From the vantage point of one of the leading Dark Kingdom ships,
Sailor Moon's attack was very impressive.  It was made more so by the fact
that it caused the leading Dark Kingdom ships to cease leading, or anything
else.  They simply stopped existing.

	About an astronomical unit behind, the second echelon watched as
four hundred ships were mowed down in a single pink blast.  Then they, too,
were ordered to the kill zone.

***

	What followed could not even be dignified with the term 'controlled
chaos.' It was utter anarchy.  Over two thousand fighting ships, and quite a
few ships that had no business fighting, all let loose a colossal volley of
weapons.  Lasers and missiles intertwined with each other.  Fire control was
virtually nonexistent, and the Dark Kingdom found that its missiles were
being destroyed by its own laser fire.

	With so many objects cluttering their sensor screens, tactical
officers on hundreds of ships found that their fire control computers were
useless.  Resorting to visual targeting, they continued firing anyway. 
However, this meant that much of the fire directed at Pleiades fell on Dark
Kingdom ships.

	Normally, lasers are invisible in space.  Now, with the dust from
thousands of explosions to refract it, they were easily visible.  The space
between Pleiades and the fleet was filled with red streaks and yellow
fireballs that were just as quickly snuffed out.

	From afar, it would have been very pretty.  From up close, it was
deadly.

***

	On the bridge of Pleiades, the direction that the main screen was
showing no longer mattered.  They were now in the midst of the fleet, and
the enemy surrounded them.

	The stress was beginning to take its toll on Sailor Orion.  Her role
of obscuring the ship had ended some time ago, and now she had taken up the
responsibility of taking out some of the opposing ships.

	Orion privately reflected that her first officer had it far better
than she.  It had been hard enough to maintain and detonate a single Nebula
when their opponents came singly, and without much intelligence.  Now, with
literally hundreds of ships coming at Pleiades, the pre-Dante strategy of
allowing the cloud to build to its peak had been thrown out the window, and
replaced with a more survival-oriented strategy.

	Her new plan was to get her Nebulas up and exploding as quickly as
possible.  The obvious drawback was that with so many Nebulas being formed
in so short a period of time, her energy was being drained at a prodigious
rate even with the help of the Gertie.

	Another side-effect was that the clouds lacked their former impact. 
A well-formed cloud would make a new star, if only for a few thousand years. 
The Nebulas she was detonating now were only good for a few seconds.  To be
painfully frank, she thought to herself, they aren't much superior in yield
to the best nuclear weapons that were stockpiled on Ganymede.

	But they *were* having a definite effect.  Every blast removed two
or three ships from the board.  The Dark Kingdom's seeming inability to deal
with return fire would have ordinarily boggled the crew.  Hadn't they
displayed a crude shielding ability in the past?  Why were their attacks
breaking through so easily?

	However, they didn't have much time to ponder that or anything
else.  The constant shaking of the ship served to rattle their nerves, and
remind them of just how precarious their situation was.  Eric and Chibi-Jen
were the only ones who were keeping the ship from being pulverized at this
point, and a single glance back at their gaunt forms told Vanessa that they
couldn't keep defending the ship against the constant barrage for much
longer.

***
	Selenite looked at her situation screens with something approaching
insane rage.  She turned to a lackey in fury.

	"WHAT IN MY MOTHER'S NAME ARE THEY DOING?!?"

	"Um, your-"

	"Dammit, we're killing ourselves!  Look!"  The screen showed
Pleiades, still marching forward to the planet, surrounded by her fleet. 
Her grand fleet, with which she meant to take Earth.

	Her Grand Fleet, which had reduced in number by one-half.

	"Don't you see?" asked Selenite angrily.  "A full two thirds of our
losses are coming from our own fire!  Get me Number Two!"

	One of the screens then displayed the person in question.

	"You miserable worm, what in Metallia's name do you think you're
doing?  Why all the friendly fire losses?"

	Number Two sighed the breath of one who knows he's several million
kilometers from his sovereign.  He also sighed the breath of one who's in
the midst of far more than he can handle.

	"My Queen, there are simply too many ships.  We never gave any
thought as to how our targeting systems would react to such an overload. 
Apparently ship commanders are simply turning their targeting programs off
and firing by line of sight, and with that kind of accuracy, it's only
inevitable that we shoot down some of our own ships."

	"YOU BASTARD!  Dammit, by the time you're finished, we'll have
*nothing* to defeat Earth with.  NOTHING!

	"Now you listen, and you listen well.  Defeat Pleiades in the next
minute, or so help me you will wish a million times you had never been
born."

	Number Two gulped; Selenite simply never lost her cool like that. 
Never.  It was all over.

	"Yes, my Queen."

***

	H.M.S. Pleiades raced towards the surface of Hell.  Their shield, in
the form of Eric, now faced the double challenge of protecting against both
the shots leveled at them from the Dark Kingdom ships, and the problem of
the heat generated by re-entry.  Pleiades had never been designed to enter a
planetary atmosphere, and it showed.

	"Hull temperature two hundred degrees centigrade and rising, sir,"
said Sammy calmly.  Too calmly, in fact.  "Interior temperature thirty-nine
degrees centigrade.  And engineering reports that the cooling systems are
already at maximum."

	A steward came onto the bridge, will a couple others in tow.  They
immediately began giving the officers bottles of water to drink from. 
Sailor Orion took hers and quaffed it ravenously.

	"Hm," said Orion, who now had her break in the whole plan.  There
weren't so many targets anymore, so she had a bit of time to rest.  The same
went for Sailor Moon, who was on her way down to an airlock and getting a
crash course in skydiving.  "Um, Antares, the support systems for your CPU
are able to vent to normal ship air, right?"

	"Well," said Antares, "in theory, yes."  The actual processors and
memory banks that made up Antares were in a special room, usually cooled to
near zero Kelvin, so as to provide for faster processing speeds.  "But if
you expose the ship to the core's air, then there will be a corresponding
decrease in my performance."

	"Good enough," said Orion, "we don't want to bake in here.  Vent
it."

	"Yes sir," said Sammy.

***

	A few decks below, a small group was breathing in the air of Hell
for the first time.  The airlock door had been swung open and the wind
rushed by the open door at incredible speeds, making it hard to breathe, or
to be heard.

	"Putrid," coughed Sailor Moon.

	"Don't worry," shouted the tactical leader, a tall blue-haired man,
"it won't kill you.  Okay, we jump in three, two, one, NOW!"

	For the second time in her life, Sailor Moon went into free-fall.

***

	Selenite watched as Pleiades pulled up from her dive, disgorging a
shuttle craft.  "Fools," she whispered.  "They'll be chewed up."

***

	"You know," gasped Sailor Moon, "the phrase rabbit's warren comes to
mind when I run around here."

	"I thought you--behind you!"

	There was a pink flash.

	"Got it."  The tiny strike team pressed on forward.  "You were
saying?"

	"I was saying that I thought you didn't like the rabbit jokes."

	"It's okay, we need some humor around here."

	There were deep inside D-Point, the source of all of Selenite's
power.  They had spent the past twenty minutes fighting nightmarish monsters
that they all would have preferred to forget about.  They didn't care to
think about what would have happened if the shuttle hadn't drawn away most
of the Dark Kingdom's attention.  Her Majesty now had one less autopilot and
shuttle craft, but they were still alive.  Sailor Moon had lead them, using
the ginzuishou to direct them to wherever the evil queen was hiding.

	There had been a curious effect as they neared Selenite; the crystal
shone brighter and brighter.  Eventually, Moon took a strip of cloth and
wrap it around the crystal.  Otherwise, eye damage would have been a serious
concern.

	"We turn this way!" she ordered, taking the leftmost of the five
passageways that their path diverged into.  "We should be less than a
thousand meters away!"

	They turned another corner, and found a veritable army of youma.

	"Great.  Guys, cover your eyes."

	She unwrapped the crystal.  Immediately, the youma disintegrated.

	"Wow, and I'm not even trying!" crowed Sailor Moon.  "Come on, let's
go!"

***

	H.M.S. Pleiades rocked yet again.  They had returned to space, and
were now playing a desperate game of dodge with the fleet.  They had been
winning with surprising easiness; apparently the Dark Kingdom didn't provide
much training to its commanders.  The shield held.

	Sailor Orion was now conserving her strength for the big blow, and
waited for the signal from D-Point to retrieve their comrades.

	Or rather, to get in a position for their comrades to arrive.

***

	With a loud bang and a slight cloud of smoke, Sailor Moon and the
other members of her team burst into Selenite's chamber.

	Sailor Moon quickly took things in.  The room had a rather high
ceiling, yet seemed inexplicably familiar.  Hereditary memories?  She
thought that those had been disproved, but it seemed like she'd been there
before.  But she couldn't have; she hadn't been born when her mother
defeated Beryl, and Serenity had been very reluctant to discuss her
experiences at the North Pole with her daughter.

	Perhaps, she thought, the ginzuishou can transfer memories.  There
*were* quite a few details about exactly how she'd gotten it that had not
been explained adequately.  But she decided that there were other things to
get to.

	Surprisingly, the queen was alone.  No guards at all.  Sailor Moon
stood for a moment, considered a long speech, and then decided against it on
the grounds that she just wanted to get things over with immediately and
without delay.  She powered up the crystal, just as she had been carefully
taught, and centered her sights on the queen of the Dark Kingdom.

	Behind her, her escorts realized that now would be a good time to
get clear, and they hastily exited to stand guard against uninvited guests.

	"I am the warrior known as Sailor Moon.  My mother defeated your
mother a thousand years ago, and I will do the same to you.  Do you have
anything to say before I destroy you?" asked Moon.

	'So,' thought Selenite, 'this is the bitch's daughter.'  "I am
Selenite.  I was named after your grandmother, I believe.  As a tribute, I
suppose . . . as homage to pay respect to the only one who ever defeated my
mother." Selenite stepped down from the throne and stood confidently before
Moon, with her silver hair streaming behind her.  Sailor Moon realized that
there was in fact more than a fleeting resemblance to the mental images
she'd gotten of her grandmother, the Queen of the Moon Kingdom.

	"I've waited a thousand years to kill your mother, but I can delay
that for a few minutes while I take care of you." She held up her hands, and
a ball of black energy began to form, crackling and sparking furiously.

	"Good, because this won't take long."  This is for you, Mama. 
"Die!" She focused the ginzuishou upon Selenite.  She could sense that
Selenite's energy was almost equal to her own, perhaps even greater.  But
Sailor Moon had already committed herself; almost all her power would be
going into this one.

	Oh well, she thought, I guess this is it.  Do or die.

	She and Selenite released their energies simultaneously.

***

	Kim's sensor display lit up.  "Sir, I'm reading a huge discharge
from the ginzuishou.  Sailor Moon has fired."

	"Great.  Chibi-Jen, would you please do the honors?"

	"Gladly," said Orion's daughter.  This was the hard part, but it
should work.  "Sailor Teleport!"

***

	Sailor Moon blinked, and suddenly she and the rest of her team were
back on Pleiades.  On the bridge, to boot.  Of course, given the generally
cramped condition of the bridge, this meant that things got *quite* hairy.

***

	Selenite moaned in pain.  When she'd released her bolt on Moon,
she'd been certain that it would do the trick.  Now . . . now, she wasn't at
all sure if Sailor Moon had even been injured.

	Sailor Moon.  It was damned ironic, wasn't it?  If the pink-haired
bitch was telling the truth, and she had no reason to believe otherwise,
then she'd been done in by the same line that had done in her mother.

	Fate?  In the thousand years that she'd spent planning revenge,
she'd thought about fate a lot.  She'd decided that fate was just an
invention, an invention meant to console the losers in life.  She had never
planned on being a loser.

	And yet there she was, in the ruins of her once mighty fortress. 
She didn't know how the battle above her was going.  She didn't know how
many had died in her very chambers.  She suspected that her servants were
dead; otherwise they surely would have come looking for her.

	Selenite struggled to her feet.  She didn't know if she had the
energy left to loose a bolt at Pleiades; she didn't even know if it had made
its getaway or not.  It probably didn't matter.  She wasn't a fighter
anyway.  She'd thought that she wouldn't need an aid like Metallia to
conquer Earth; she'd planned on doing it with technology.  What had it
gotten her?  A kingdom in ruins, the once proud line of Beryl come to an
end.

	She eyed a strong, steel door that still stood.  It was her escape
route, of sorts.  The plane that the original Dark Kingdom had existed in
was no more, but there had to be others, other dimensions in which she could
survive without fear of those damned senshi.  If she could only get there
she could bide her time, build up her strength, prepare to come back in full
force, properly set to destroy Earth once and for all.  After all, when
you've had a single goal for a millennium, it's difficult to let it go.

	The door was across the room, however.  It would take awhile to get
to it, especially in her condition.  Twenty seconds, perhaps.

***

	"Twenty seconds!"

	On Number Two's ship, someone had just called out how long they
could survive.  Their power systems were failing, and they had to either
abandon ship or crash land.

	"Ram them!  We'll take out Pleiades with our own ship!" roared
Number Two.  He'd made many mistakes today, and he reflected to himself that
this would probably be his last.  Anything, he thought, as long as it gets
rid of Sailor Orion.

	The helmsman lacked his superior's courage, however, and set a
course for the planet.

	That was *his* final mistake.

***

	"Twenty seconds!"

	Kim had just cried out how long they had until Eric's shield
collapsed.  It was only a matter of time now.

	"Okay, people," said Orion, "it's time for the big firework."  She
closed her eyes, and concentrated all her thought on a single object.  Hell.

	Behind her, Sailor Moon crept forward to stand next to her, still a
bit weary from her battle with Selenite.  She didn't have much energy to
spare, but she would give it a try.

	When this is over, she thought, I'm sleeping for a week.

	From the back of the bridge came Eric and Chibi-Jen.  Eric was
visibly drained and had to be supported by Chibi-Jen, who showed no signs
of fatigue at all.

	Kami-sama, thought Vanessa, is she even human?  *I'm* tired, and I
don't even have any magical abilities.

	"Fifteen seconds," called Kim.  She looked at the group: Orion,
Moon, Eric, Jen.  One big, happy, temporally displaced family.  It seemed so
normal, though.  Eric and Chibi-Jen were still in standard uniform, Orion's
fuku looked immaculate, and Moon's, while still a bit dusty from her battles
down on the planet, was still in good condition.

	Sailor Orion took a deep breath, and felt her companions take one as
well.  She could feel for the first time their energies as they flowed into
her.  It was a bit intoxicating, and not a little frightening.  She would
have given anything for Eileen to be with her right now . . . but that was
something to worry about later.

***

	Sammy turned to look at Orion, and saw that her eyes were closed. 
About a dozen green dots glowed on her forehead.  She knew, without even
looking closer, that they were arranged as the constellation Orion.  She
could see Sailor Moon's tiara replaced with a circlet and a crescent moon,
and the sign of the sun was on Eric's.

	Chibi-Jen still looked the same.  Looking at her, you couldn't tell
whether she was trying to save humanity or getting ready for a nature walk.

	She then turned to Vanessa.  "Get ready."

***

	"Orion Nebula."

***

	An observer located a comfortable distance from Hell would have
noticed many interesting things over the past few hours.  They would have
noticed a swarm of large ships surrounding a smaller, sleeker one.  They
would have noticed a firefight of the sort legends are made of.

	At that moment, they would have seen the small, sleek ship racing
away from the swarm of larger ships, and would also have noticed a smudge
growing around the planet.

	It was growing very fast.

***

	"Envelopment at seventy percent," said Sammy.  Almost as a footnote,
"shields are down." Now the ship began to rock in earnest, as the shots
began to connect with greater and greater frequency.

	Sailor Orion's eyes were closed, but she could still see the planet. 
She'd heard from Sammy that about two-thirds of the planet were covered with
the nebula.  She wanted one hundred percent.

	"Eighty percent."  Alarms started going off all over the place. 
"Multiple hull breaches on several decks.  We can't last much longer."

	Orion could feel it, and she knew the others could as well.  With so
much power, she could feel that she could last seemingly forever.  She
opened her eyes and thought a single thought.

	'For love and justice, I am the pretty sailor suited warrior Sailor
Orion!  In place of the constellation Orion, I will punish you!'

	Then she said a single word.

	"Collapse."

***

	From afar, the smudge around Hell suddenly swelled to a prodigious
size, and then, in the space of four milliseconds, compacted into a total
volume of . . . well, it was quite small, in comparison.  In doing so, the
hydrogen nuclei fused, forming helium.  The tremendous energy generated by
this fusion began setting off the fusion of helium into beryllium, and so on
down the periodic table.  At the stage when iron began to fuse, lots of
other heavy metals began to go.

	That was the point at which Hell became a star.

***

	On the bridge of Pleiades, the foursome collapsed in exhaustion. 
Monitors showing the exterior all blanked out from the overload of light and
radiation.  Sammy wheeled around in her chair to face Vanessa, panic in her
eyes.  Vanessa merely nodded.

	"Execute fold in three-"

	On the screens, things had calmed down somewhat.  Now there was just
an immense shockwave coming towards them at insane velocity.  At the last
moment, Vanessa realized that her three count wasn't going to give them
enough time.

	"-two, NOW!"

	H.M.S. Pleiades, along with Hell, Selenite, Number Two, and the only
Dark Kingdom denizens in the universe, all dropped out of existence.


===========================
Episode #126:  Exeunt Omnes
Reel 1
===========================


	The first notification came from a observation post in the Oort
cloud.  Deep in the midst of flecks and chunks of ice and snow, an asteroid
floated.  On it was a tiny observatory, and in it lived a single man, age
thirty-six.  He looked out at the sky as a habit; he was a recluse from
India, and had spent quite a bit of money to be alone out here.  When he saw
it, his first instinct was to ignore it, but something in him wouldn't let
him do it.  He promptly notified the nearest listening post.

	The nearest listening post was on Pluto, and co-operated by CT and
North American officials.  From there, it immediately went out on all Fleet
and civilian channels.
	
	The next place of importance that it hit was the Crystal Palace, at
the heart of Crystal Tokyo.  Receivers on the roof picked up the
transmission, and distributed it to all key personnel, including a certain
secretary.

	The secretary was rather reluctant to read other people's mail.  In
fact, she was a rather shy person, and tried to avoid watching the news.  So
she simply put the message, along with a few others, in her boss's inbox.

	Her boss came in early as usual, said her usual greetings, and
entered her office.  She scowled at the papers strewn all over her desk, and
her eyes paused lovingly over a single, gold-framed picture on the corner. 
The picture of her one true love.

	Sighing, she rifled through the papers in the inbox.  Junk, junk,
junk, arrival papers?  Why would anyone send her arrival papers?  They were
idle things, really, just to let personnel know who was in-system and who
was out of it.

	Then she noticed the ship name at the top.  H.M.S. Pleiades.

	Outside her office, the secretary was doing some routine filing when
she was interrupted by the loudest shout she'd ever heard.  She turned
around to see Sailor America burst out of the room, laughing and crying at
the same time.

	"SHE'S BAAAAAAAAACK!!!"

***

	"Confirmed, sir," said Sammy, tears rolling down her cheeks.  "We
are now inside the heliopause system.  ETA to Earth, twelve hours, twelve
minutes, thirty seconds."

	The entire bridge crew cheered ecstatically.  They'd been awaiting
this ever since the frantic Fold from the literally burning Hell.  It had
been quite a few days since then, and they hadn't been sure that they would
even return to reality in the right galaxy.

	But they'd Folded right on the nose, and in a little more than a few
hours, they'd truly be home.

	"This is GREAT!" shouted Orion, hugging Sailor Moon with joy.

	"Yes!" yelled Moon in her captain's ear; it was the only way to be
heard.

	"Vanessa-san!" cried Sailor Orion, "can you reach a Fleet
communications repeater?"

	"Yes sir, I've got a beacon now!"

	"Yes!  Send message to headquarters, priority Flash-Urgent.  'To
Fleet Command, from Commander H.M.S. Pleiades!  Have returned safely!  DK
threat eliminated!  Please send word to friends and family!' Screw the
authentication codes!"

	"I hear you, sir!"  Vanessa immediately started setting things into
motion.

	Orion's smile grew even bigger as she gestured for silence. 
"Everyone . . . what can I say?  You've been great!" Here she was
interrupted by cheers.  "No, really, if I had to do it all over again, I
couldn't have asked for a better crew.  I'd gladly serve again with you
motley bunch, and maybe without the Dark Kingdom, eh?"

	More cheers.  "Okay, we're going to be home in a few hours. 
Antares?"

	"Yes?"

	"Just once, I say we screw the regulations.  You can take care of
the ship for an hour, can't you?"

	"I certainly can, Captain."

	"Good.  Everyone, let's get ready to get off.  Pack your bags; we've
earned some shore leave."

	"Sir!" shouted Vanessa over the cheers.  "Fleet command's on the
line.  They want to speak with you, immediately."

	Sailor Orion looked over to Sailor Moon, who nodded.  "Tell 'em
we're busy."

	"Yes, sir!"

***

	Chibi-Jen sat on Orion's bed as the sailor packed her possessions
into the carry-all she'd taken with her before, over a year ago.

	"So," said Orion, "what are you going to do now?"

	"Well," said the girl, "I'm going back home."

	Orion nodded.  She'd expected this, and yet now that it was time to
say good-bye . . . "Back to the future?"

	"Yep.  Don't worry, Mama.  You'll be seeing me soon."

	"I know.  I know."  She looked at a picture that had been taken
earlier on, of the senior staff.  It was fairly old; Bennington had been
alive when it was taken.  She wrapped it in brown paper and stuffed it in
her bag.

	"You've only got to wait until 3999."

	"What?"

	"Or not," said Chibi-Jen.  "It all depends."

	"I hate time travel," said Orion, wrinkling her nose.

	"Funny," said Chibi-Jen with a laugh, "you always say that in the
future, too."

	Orion took down a picture of her family, and placed it in her bag. 
"Tell me, do I turn out to be a good parent?  I mean, do you have any
complaints, because if you do, I can always remember to change and-"

	"Mama.  You and Eileen-chan are the best parents I could ask for. 
Don't change, okay?"

	Orion sighed.  "If you say so."

	"Good."  The girl stood.  "Then it's time for me to go."  She
produced a tiny key.

	"Wait, there's one other question I've got to ask you!"

	"Shoot, but make it fast."

	"Okay, um, me and Eric-san . . . er . . . how do I say this . . .
was it artificial or natural?"

	Chibi-Jen smiled, gave a Sailor V salute, and disappeared.  Neither
realized that they would never meet again.

***

	In another part of the ship, a pair of siblings was saying good-bye
as well.

	"Don't worry, sister," said Eric.  "Chibi-Jen assured me that the
time key she gave me is safe.  We'll see each other again soon."

	"But when?  I've just gotten used to having a brother.  I don't want
to have to get used to being alone again."

	"It's okay, Usagi-chan.  You'll find other people.  And hey, I'll be
born in 3043!  You can talk to me all you like then."

	"I suppose so . . . "

	"Oh come now, you can't wait thirteen years?"

	"Well, you'll just be a kid then, and you'll be leaving
immediately." She sighed.  "Now I know how our parents felt when I had to
leave in the twentieth.  And they had to wait a hundred years."

	"It'll be worth it."

***

	Sailor Moon came on the bridge.  Seeing her, Orion smiled and
gestured to one of the screens, where the planet Mars was in view.

	"Just a few more minutes," said Orion, excited.  "I can't wait!"

	"Eric just left."

	"Oh," said Orion.  Her face fell, then rose again.  "He'll be back. 
I know it." She also happened to be wrong.

	"ETA fifty minutes, fifteen seconds," said Vanessa.

	"Sir," said Sammy, "RSN Medical is on the line.  They say that
they've got a shuttle on the way to take Ensign Hanasu to a facility on
Mars."

	"Do they?  And the shuttle can keep up with us?"

	"Yep.  They're saying it'll be here in two minutes."

	"Hm . . . They certainly work fast."  Orion spun in her chair and
watched Mars slowly grow in the screen.  "Inform Dr. Sampson of that, and
try to get a hold of that shuttle.  Tell them to dock in three."

	"Aye, sir."

***

	"ETA two minutes, eight seconds.  Sir, we have visual."

	"Put it on," said Sailor Orion.  There was a pause, and then the
image of a small, blue-white planet appeared on every monitor.

	There were no cheers, just a sigh of relief.  Sailor Orion clapped
Sailor Moon on the back a couple times.  "Never thought we'd see it again."

	"I know," said Sailor Moon.

	Sammy held her headset closer to her ears, trying to hear better. 
She thought she'd heard something, but . . . yes!  "May I proudly announce
that the winner of the World Cup football competition is the Venus
Republic!"

	There were cheers from a couple, groans from others, and an outright
scream of despair from one man.

	"Pay up," said Sammy, her eyes twinkling at the poor environmental
tech.  "Ten thousand yen, just like you promised."

	One other thing Orion had to grant about Sammy: in addition to her
betting streak, she had the damnedest memory of anyone she knew.  Everyone
else had forgotten about WC 3028 but the blonde, but now she was collecting
on the bet made a year before.

	The tech grumbled and took out his cash card.

	"Sir," said Sammy, turning serious now, "the head of the PR
department is on the line.  She'd like to speak with you immediately."

	"Hm."  Orion beamed at Sailor Moon, and produced from her
pocketspace a pencil and paper.  She wrote furiously for a bit, then handed
it to Sammy.  "Send her this message."

	Sammy looked it over, then blushed furiously.

	"Think of it as a love letter."

	Sammy blushed harder.

	"What, you've never thought about doing some of these things?"

	Sammy managed to blush even harder.

	"Just send it."

	Sammy began whispering into her headset, inadvertently letting Kim
and Vanessa listen in.

	"Um, ETA one minute twenty seconds."  A pause.  "Sammy, is that
legal?"

	"I don't know, Vanessa," answered Kim.  "I think Sailor America
would have to be double jointed for half this stuff."

	"Try triple."

	"Yeah."

	Orion ignored this.  "Attention all hands, this is the captain.  I'm
not one for long speeches.  So I'll make this short.  You're all great. 
Have fun back on Earth.  See you soon.  That is all."

	"ETA one minute."

	Orion looked at Moon for a moment, and then they hugged. 
"Remember," said Moon after a bit, "if you ever want a cushy job at the
Palace, you know who to call."

	"Okay."

	"Sailor America," said Moon, deadpan.

	"What?"

	Sailor Moon laughed.  "Just kidding!"

	"ETA forty seconds."

	Sailor Orion stood up from her seat.  "Right.  Put me on.  Am 
I . . . okay." She cleared her throat, but there was still a lot of emotion 
in her voice as she said it.

	"Dockmaster, Space Station Gamma, this is H.M.S. Pleiades.  Request
permission to moor."

	After the emotion of her words, the reply from the dockmaster was
rather anticlimactic.

	"Aye, Pleiades, you are cleared for berth 2-c.  Please observe
in-station speed limits.  Thank you."

	"Aye."

	"ETA twenty seconds."

	"Helm, you may dock."

***

	Sailor Orion made her way down to the main airlock, followed by her
senior officers.  They had been docked for an hour, and much of that time
had been spent with the normal routines.  Decontamination, disembarkation of
personal possessions, connecting the ship to hard-wire feeds so she wouldn't
run on internal power, and so forth.  This had given her and her staff time
to freshen up and don dress uniforms.

	At the airlock, she noted with satisfaction that the bosun was there
to whistle her ashore.

	"Right," said Sailor Orion.  "Open her up."

	The door opened.  The corridor was absolutely mobbed.  The press was
in full force, as were the senshi.  Two dozen of them formed a narrow aisle
down to the receiving platform, where Neo-Queen Serenity herself sat ready
to give them a hero's welcome.

	The only thing Sailor Orion saw, however, was Sailor America.

	"Eileen!"

	"Jen!"

	Orion sprinted down the aisle to meet America halfway.  They both
detransformed into standard jumpsuits, but they didn't care.  They hugged
fervently, kissing with a passion neither of them knew they had.

***

	From back at the airlock, the others simply waited.  This was their
captain's moment.

***

	After a full minute of public displays of affection, they finally
got a good look at each other.

	"My God, Jen, you've grown so much!"

	"You too, Eileen.  Dammit, I'm not leaving you again!"

	"Same here," said Eileen, crying and laughing at the same time.  "I
don't care if we both get booted from CT, we're staying together for a damn
long time."

	"Definitely!"

	After that, nothing much needed to be said.  Another hug and kiss,
and then Jen gestured to her staff.

	"Ladies and gentleman, I'd like you to meet the reason for my
existence, Eileen Pearcy."

	"How do you do?"  She bowed to each of them in turn.  "I hope Jen
hasn't given you any trouble for the past year."

	"Eileen!"  Jen playfully punched her lover in the shoulder.

	"Oh, no," said Sailor Moon sincerely.  "Honestly . . . I don't think
we could have asked for a better commander."

	Jen looked at her first officer.  "You . . . you mean that?"

	"Yes."  The look in her eyes was distant.  "But if you don't mind,
there's a little something I have to attend to."

	Then, Sailor Moon detransformed into a flowing gown and circlet, and
raced up to her waiting parents.

	"Mama!"

***

	Soon, the staff was lead away to the briefing room.  Before that,
however, Eileen had planned a little surprise.

	"Jennifer!"

	The call was so familiar to Jen.  She perked up, then looked to her
side.  The crowds had been left far behind, and they were now in a private
part of the station. There should have been no-one they knew here, and
still, there was someone.

	"Mom!  Dad!"  Jen raced over to her parents, who had been waiting
anxiously in this special anteroom along with other families, waiting for
their loved ones to return.

	They shared a hug.  Eileen was an involuntary participant in it; in
running, Jen had never let go of her hand.

	"We're . . . we're so glad you're back safely," said her mother.

	"I know."

	"So," said her father, trying to cover his burst of emotion, "did
you treat my ship okay?"

	"Dad!"

	"Just joking, Jen-chan, just joking."  He looked at Eileen.  "Thank
you so much.  I have no idea how long we would have had to wait if you
hadn't arranged this . . . ."

	"Oh, it was nothing," protested Eileen.  "Just preventing a PR
disaster.  But you can't stay long," she said to Jen.  "The powers that be
are waiting."

	"Fine, fine."  She extricated herself from her mother's embrace with
a peck on the cheek.  "I'll be right back."

***

	Four hours later, Jen and her staff were wondering if it would ever
end.  The debriefing process had worn on and on, with no end in sight, and
she truly wished to get away.  But the top senshi on the planet: Mercury,
Venus, Mars, Saturn, and Uranus, all continued to grill them.  Jupiter and
Neptune were still keeping a lookout, just in case there were any Dark
Kingdom leftovers running around.  There really wasn't much point in asking
where Sailor Pluto was.

	The questions had been endless, from the exact circumstances of
Bennington's death to the disappearance of Eric Lunestes, who incredibly
had been listed on the official manifests as 'missing in action.' After
hedging for an hour, word had finally come down from the top that the
Lunestes question was not to be persued further.

	"So Captain, you insist that there is no possibility of any
survivors from the Hell explosion," asked Sailor Mercury.

	"Yes, I'm completely sure.  I was sure the first dozen times you
asked me that."

	"We're sorry," said Mercury, "but we simply must be sure."

	"I'm sure."  There was no way Selenite could have gotten out of
there.  None.

	"Very well.  I'm out of questions.  Anyone else?"

	Venus, Saturn, and Uranus shook their heads.  After a pause, Mars
spoke.

	"No, I haven't any questions left.  Thank you, you've done a very
good job on this one."

	"A good job?" asked Jen, much as if Mars had just commented upon her
oral sex techniques. "That's all you have to say?  Kami-sama, we just saved
the whole bloody universe, and all you can say is 'good job?!?'"

	"Well," admitted Mars, "you did a great job."

	"And . . . ?

	"And . . . we're proud of you."

	"And . . . ?" asked Sailor Moon threateningly.  The rest of her
bridge crew leaned forward with similar expressions on their faces.

	"And . . . and we'll review your applications for promotion soon."

	"And . . . ?"

	Mars sighed, then cast a quick glance over to Artemis, who had,
unfortunately for him, wandered in a couple hours ago.  He was more or less
the closest thing Crystal Tokyo had to a treasurer, and this next bit would
affect him the most.

	"And . . . and you-"

	"-and the rest of the crew-"

	"-and the rest of the crew will be given combat pay retroactive to
last year, and overtime, and hazardous duty pay, and the standard fifty
percent pension increase, and the three months accumulated paid leave." She
looked into Jen's eyes.  "You happy?"

	"Quite, Sailor Mars."

	The senshi of the red planet muttered something about extortion.

***

	Some hours later, Jen and Eileen drove through the streets of
Crystal Tokyo.  Traffic was thankfully light today.

	"You paid for it yourself?" asked Jen, still poking around to look
at the car's features.

	"Yep.  It's the latest model, handles like a dream." 

	The time between the debriefing and their drive through the city had
been filled with a press conference, a parade, speeches, and everything else
a returning hero deserved.

	Jen didn't really remember touching down on Earth.  Everything from
the shuttle ride to now had been a rather fast blur.  In some ways, she
expected to wake up at any moment back on Pleiades, ready to face Selenite
once again.  It would take a long time for her to get rid of that feeling,
she knew.  But with Eileen to help her, she'd manage.

	After the parade, they'd had a little private party at Jen's old
house, with only a select few classmates from the School attending. 
Following that, they'd left to go on their way to Eileen's place, which was
part of the Palace complex.

	They drove up to the checkpoint about four hundred meters from the
Palace walls, and gave their IDs to the guard.

	"Hey," said the guard, face flashing with recognition, "you're
Sailors America and Orion!"

	"Yes," said Jen, blushing.  She was still trying to get used to the
publicity.  "I suppose you want-"

	"Can I have your autograph?"

	"Yeah, that was what I was about to say," muttered Jen.  "Lemme see
if I have a pen here." She fumbled around her pocket space for a bit, and
was surprised when they started moving again.

	"Hey!  I was going to give him my signature!"

	"Um, sorry Jen," said Eileen as they proceeded to the parking
garage, "but he wanted *my* autograph."

	"Huh?"

	"Er, you haven't heard, have you?  About the new Sailor America
movie?"

	"WHAT?!?!"

	"It wasn't my idea," protested Eileen.  "The demand for it,
especially in North America, was outstanding.  The studio can't possibly
lose money on this one.  And guess who's playing me?"

	"Endymion?"

	"No, silly," said Eileen as they pulled into a parking spot marked
'RSRVD: PR SEC.' "I'm playing myself!"

	"And who's playing me?"

	"Er . . . " They got out of the car, and began heading for the
elevator.  "Um, nobody.  You're not in it." Seeing the angry look on Jen's
face, she continued hastily.  "You're mentioned, but to be honest, children
don't have as much interest in you as they do in me.  I'm marketable."

	The elevator doors opened.

***

	"So," said Jen, after she'd gotten the grand tour of Eileen's rather
spacious apartment, "many people come around here?"

	"No," said Eileen, tossing Jen's bags in a closet.  "I'm hardly
around, and when I'm here alone, well . . . you know."

	"Yes," said Jen softly, and then held Eileen close to her.  "It's
been too long."

	"Far too long."

	"I've waited a long time."

	"I have too."

	"How big is the bed?"

	"Who said anything about the bed?"

	Jen smiled.  Eileen looked at the ceiling.  "Lights off, please?"

	The lights went off.

***

	BRRRRIIIIIIINNNNNNGGGG! 

	In a darkened room, slowly and stealthily, a hand reached out from
under the covers and pointed a single digit at the pestilent alarm.

	"American Blazing Eagle!"

	Bits of alarm clock flew everywhere.

	"Now," purred Eileen, "where were we?"

	"You," said Jen in an equally sultry voice, "were giving me the best
sex of my life."

	"Oh?  I'll have to top it, then."

	"Oooooh, I love it when you top things."

	"Don't I, though?"

	They spoke in unison.  "I love you."


============================

End Season 1.

LeVar Bouyer
24 July 1997
(18 June 3030)

revised 16 July 2000
second revision 15 January 2001