She woke in a cold sweat. She didn't sit up or even open her eyes.
Instead she committed to memory the dream she'd just had. The ship was
there, its lines still the same despite hundreds of years of travel.
Its shiny hull was marred by the scarring blasts of energy which disabled
it, sending it on its fiery trek into oblivion. The stars were rendered
invisible by the actinic glow of the crystal drive, propelling the vessel
and its crew ever faster and faster. Setsuna had seen all this and more:
The ship hanging motionless, as if suspended in time. Her own feet on the
deck of a familiar ship. The feeling of power surging through her aged body.
This same scene she'd seen a dozen times.
It was what gave her hope.
Reflexively, Setsuna turned to look at her husband's side of the bed.
He wasn't there of course and hadn't been for a long time. But habits
centuries old were hard to break even after the death of a beloved.
The soft rays of dawn shone through the open window. Sweet scented air
wafted into the room. The cool tile felt refreshing beneath her feet as
she padded to the mirror. She brushed her green tresses and looked
reflectively at her countenance. There were new lines that hadn't been
there a century ago and she wasn't twenty anymore, or even a thousand.
Still, time had not been unkind to her. She smiled ruefully. Or perhaps
time had been the cruelest of all to her. Her hair properly behaved,
she stood and began to dress. It was the five hundred and twenty fifth
year of the reign of Crystal Tokyo, and Sailor Pluto had begun her day.
***
"Isn't it great news?" the young man said, his eyes shining with an
eager glow. His expression faltered slightly at Setsuna's expressionless
stare. "I mean," he continued, "We can go faster than light! With this
kind of drive we can go anywhere. Faster than Starlights." The pregnant
pause saw the smile completely disappear from his face. "Well," he coughed
embarassedly, "I just thought you'd want to know." He turned and briskly
walked down the path back out of the park. The milky globe of Pluto's moon,
Charon, filled half the clear, dark sky through the dome.
Setsuna's heart was still smarting from the event. So Ami's group had
finally done it. They had mastered the ability to move a ship faster than
light, something no human had ever managed to do. It was a shame that
the pretty scientist had not lived to see the project reach fruition.
But the pain was double. She's seen the same light as in the messenger's
eyes, not far away but ages ago. Cursedly clear memories replayed the moment
she'd learned of the first time mankind had tried to reach the stars harnessing
the limitless power of the Crystal Drive. And then her mind's eye saw the flash
of light which forever sealed her previous life from this one.
A high pitched scream shook her from her revery. Looking anxiously about,
the tall woman broke into a smile when she discovered the cause. Five little
children, bouncing around in the low gravity, were playing a game of tickle-tag,
and one of them had been quite thoroughly made It.
Setsuna shook her head, her hair billowing. *This is good news,* she reminded
herself. *It's what I've been waiting for, after all.*
Expertly she bounded across the park. Within minutes she was at the spaceport,
which bore her namesake, booking passage to Earth.
***
If there was anything the diverse group of Earthers constructing the largest
ship ever made had in common, it was the way they reacted towards her.
Truth be told, it was getting annoying. Every one of them had a sort of
fearful awe. Their faces all said the same thing: *The old Senshi's had a
prophecy* Setsuna had to admit it did keep them moving quickly and the cynic
in her also had to concede that she'd gotten used to deference, but this was
just ridiculous. Still, the only way to avoid it was to stop making
appearances at the construction site, high above the moon. *I'm becoming an
old lady* she chided herself. *I stare at the towers of the moon until I get
tired of them, and then I flutter about the Haruka and make them nervous.
Best I stay back and just act silently mysterious*
Three years had come and gone since Setsuna made this giant station her more
or less permanent home. Occasionally she flitted to the moon or to Crystal
Tokyo to make plans or simply to escape for a short while. Inevitably she
ended back in her castle in the sky, overseeing the construction of this
one of a kind vessel.
She sat at the edge of the couch and stared through the picture window at
the giant skeleton of a vessel, the stars still visible through empty
portions of the frame. Haruka was a fitting name. It meant distant in
Japanese, the tongue of the ruling family, and that of the country in which
she'd lived much of the more momentous times in her life. Even her own name,
adopted upon descending to Earth after thousands of years of self-imposed exile,
was Japanese. Of course the ship's name was far more than just a fitting
adjective. It was a memorial to one of her best friends.
Setsuna spent several minutes watching the tiny figures clamber over the hull
of the ship. *Her* ship. Finally she looked down into her lap at the
3528 Fall Fashion Catalog and leafed through its pages meditatively.
***
"You may enter."
The words echoed impressively as they always did. One would expect no less
from the Queen of the Solar System. Not for 30,000 years had one held that
title nor had the seat of power even been the world which had spawned humanity
and served as its land of rebirth.
The chamber was similarly impressive, resplendent in its austerity. The
irridescent crystal walls glistened with barely pent energy. The vaulted
ceilings were lost in an impenetrable mist. And there, out of sight here
in the giant reception room, but pulsing with the regularity of Suna's heart,
resided the other doorway--the one she'd passed through a thousand years ago,
chasing a laughing girl with pink tresses who was heedless of the dangers of
the corridors she trod.
"Rise, Setsuna."
The voice of the Queen was the same as it had been thousands of years ago.
Souls travelled a narrow path in the cyclic road of the Moon Kingdom. The
dress, too, was the same, as were the two rivers of hair flowing from the sides
of Her Majesty's head. She was beautiful after all of these years. But that
too was not surprising. Their's was a long lived breed.
Setsuna lifted herself from her knees to look almost eye to eye with the seated
monarch. "I thank you for granting me this audience." Self control kept her
from adding "final" to that statement.
Queen Serenity nodded, her face impassive.
"Your majesty, I wish to take leave of my duties." The chamber echoed hollowly
with her proclamation, snatching them from her throat as she uttered it.
The Queen cocked her head to the side, "This is a sudden move is it not?"
"It is something I have contemplated for a long time."
The seated woman was silent for a moment. Then, "Have you thoughts as to a
replacement?"
Setsuna swallowed. "I have not, but fate tends to take care of such things."
Queen Serenity stared into Setsuna, her eyes neither accusing nor sympathetic.
Finally she nodded. The silence extended, grew uncomfortable.
The green tressed woman bowed awkwardly and managed to say, "By your leave,"
before turning.
"Wait... please." The Queen's voice was soft now, almost a whisper. Setsuna
turned to face her monarch, vision blurred by tears. "It's him, isn't it? Well."
The woman who was soon to no longer be Sailor Pluto thought she heard the barest
quaver in her sovereign's voice. "Well, it has been long enough hasn't it?"
Setsuna nodded, her breath catching, tears sliding unheedingly down her cheeks.
Again silence stretched eternally in the vast chamber.
"Puu." Setsuna's eyes jerked to focus on Queen Serenity's at the vocalisation of
that old name. Her Queen was tearful too. "Puu, you know my mother would done
whatever she could to save him."
Setsuna quirked her lips in the barest smile, "She never would have survived."
Queen Serenity's deep red eyes held Setsuna fixed. "You never quite believed
in her, did you?" she said slowly. Setsuna looked down, unable to return the gaze.
The floor mirrored her face, flushed and wet.
"You have my leave," the iron was back in Her Majesty's voice. Setsuna turned
and did not look back, but felt the pink haired queen's accusing eyes on her back
the entire journey out of the palace.
***
The ship's officers gathered around the large table, attentive to their Captain. As
tradition demanded, he was bearded but the beard was short and his appearance young.
While that could have been an affectation--people could look as young as they wanted
these days, a ship's captain tended to cultivate an air of maturity. Odds were he
really was in the first flush of youth. Upon further reflection, Setsuna noted that
all of the ship's officers, with the exception of the Medical Officer were inordinately
young. *Or perhaps I'm gauging things relatively* she thought ruefully to herself.
The captain gave his First Officer a meaningful glance. From the looks they'd exchanged
in earlier encounters it was clear the two had a relationship. Nothing against regulations
of course, just another oddity on this far from usual vessel.
"I see we're all present. Let's begin," The Captain's voice was easy, affable. Behind
him a tri-dimensional display expanded. On it were the trajectories of two objects--
the Haruka and the Artemis.
"We've all done the drill, now we just need to get the timing right in practice. The
Haruka will jump out of hyperspace here, " A glowing graphic lit to indicate a piece of
space no different from any other. "Afterwards, we'll have a window of 60 seconds to
catch the Artemis. She's in a stable trajectory because her drive's been off for
millenia. Still, she's moving like a bat out of hell and we won't have a fraction of
her speed when we translate to normal space. Of course, that's where our esteemed guest
comes in." He smiled at Setsuna who returned the gesture with the barest nod of her head.
Unperturbed, the captain continued, "Dunnells, you'll need to keep us aligned just right
for docking. Burnett, you'll monitor and store all communications. For them it's been
just a few days. There will be some, I assure you. Suna, you'll have the biggest job
of all, of course."
Setsuna looked again at the woman who bore her old name. One could not tell if there
was a relation, so many generations had passed since she'd borne her only child. But
there was a familiar restiveness and eagerness to perform in the pert features beneath the
blue braided hair.
The Executive Officer was speaking now. A short woman, she spoke with curt authority,
"We drop out in five hours and thirty minutes. Take care of your food and other bodily
requirements now. Be back on duty at 23:00. Dismissed."
As the officers filed out of the briefing room's open door, the Captain stopped next to
Setsuna. He looked at her with what was perhaps a comforting expression. Setsuna
looked eye to eye at the young man. "Sailor Pluto," he said softly, "My ship and my crew
will get your Artemis back." Setsuna blinked. Surprisingly she felt reassured. There
was confidence in Captain Kereldin's green eyes. She nodded again and smiled slightly.
Satisfied, the Captain sidled out the door. Setsuna heard it close behind her as she
stared at the display, at the meeting points of the two brightly colored lines.
***
"Time to translation," the soft voice of the Second Officer called out.
"Five minutes, three seconds." called out the young Lieutenant with the flaming red hair
seated in front of the Captain.
Second Officer Lutz was in charge of the translation event and seemed to have circumstances
in hand with constant status reports from bridge crew and associated stations throughout
the ship. Setsuna smiled inwardly. The young man did *not* quite know how to deal with
thousand year old dignitaries. Alternately stiff and overly unctuous, the young man
managed to flush red at least five times to her counting--no easy feat on his brown
features.
The crew were all performing admirably considering what was coming. Still she could see
the tensed shoulders and nervous glances. The Morale Officer looked at her nervously
once, her face unsuited to frowns but weighed by one of the largest. The old Medical
Officer was conspicuously absent from the group.
The Captain nodded his head at her and Setsuna closed her eyes. The busy displays and
lights of the bridge disappeared leaving only her thoughts to distract her. One by one
she eliminated their tugging influence. Her fears, anxieties all fell away, leaving
a curiously pleasant void. The sensation of the heavy staff on her lap faded.
Last to disappear was her sensation of the ship's gravity, itself an odd pleasure so
different from the acceleration induced gravity of the other ships she'd ridden. At last
she was alone, floating undisturbed in her own space and time.
As if from light years away she heard the Mr. Lutz's voice counting down from twenty.
At three seconds she heard discordant klaxons sound and then a young man's voice shouting,
"Translation, sir!" Setsuna clutched the staff in her hand. The familiar bond between
the garnet at its head and the rose of her heart reforged in a moment.
Setuna's eyes opened. Coming to her feet amongs the shifting forces of the ship settling
into reality she stretched out her hands, her staff towering above her. From the depths of
her soul she called,
"TIME STOP!"
A thousand waves pummeled her at once. She was a strand of seaweed in a tempest holding
onto the staff for dear life. Heedless of the scrambling figures around her she
struggled to just to maintain conciousness. The displays all showed zero time passage
and the crew was quick to report the fact, but Sailor Pluto could pay them little mind.
Slowly, painfully she manipulated the forces of temporality into submission, creating a
stable eye in the midst of the vortex. She fell to her knees but it was not defeat but
simply the anchoring of a fisherman against the bucking of an unhappy catch.
The Captain stared frankly at her, waiting for some sort of signal. "Go," she hissed."
"Dock while we have time." She was too spent to appreciate the irony in her words.
As if turned on by a switch, Captain Kereldin was himself again, snapping out stacatto
orders and turning the ship into a blizzard of activity.
The other storm, the one she had created abated as quickly as it began, now rendered docile
by Sailor Pluto's steady hand. Setsuna lay back on the cool deck of the bridge, soft lights
glowing blue above her. The hardest part was done. Now all that was left was to stay alive
long enough for the crew of the Artemis to be saved.
Her green hair spilling out over the floor, the aged senshi thought sadly to herself
*All this time. All this waiting. And you'll never get to see who you've been
waiting for all of this time. But then it's not you who has been waiting.* For the
hundredth time on the journey she tried to summon Tiluri's face to mind. Again
she found she could not. Only memories of those she had left behind. Her husband,
long dead. The Senshi. Her dear friends Hotaru, Michiru, and Haruka. And of course
Chibi-Usa. Queen Serenity would always be a Small Lady in Setsuna's heart. She smiled
at that, though Setsuna could not tell if the smile actually made it to her lips.
Sailor Pluto felt the strength ebbing from her tired old/young flesh and wished
only that she could not be alone at this hour of departure.
***
"Hang on tight, boys." Suna deftly played the controls of the shuttle like an accordion
and grinned mischievously at the trio of space-sick crewmen in seats behind her. Jets
of flame shot from the oblong cargo carrier as the young Lieutenant maneuvered the ship to
a docking with the Artemis. A pale glow suffused the whole scene lending an odd ethereal
quality to the proceedings. It was easy to dock with something that didn't move, however.
The shuttle clanged softly with impact and the port screens were completely obscured by the
hull of the erstwhile Flying Dutchman.
"All right. Justin, John, get in there and get that crew into our hold." Her braid danced
lazily in weightlessness as she gestured. The two saluted and dogged their helmets. A
moment later they were out the airlock and in the Artemis, their suit cameras relaying their
progress.
Suna watched, fascinated. One by one the members of the Artemis crew were rounded up
and fed into the waiting shuttle. She fingered her braid nervously. Time was running out
and the Second Officer was sending increasingly insistent commands to the Away Team.
She breathed a sigh of relief when the last of them was gathered from what was left of the
bridge of the Artemis. Within minutes, what was left of the crew of the doomed ship had
been transferred to the hold of her little ship.
"That's all of them, ma'am," the polite voice of Spacer Johnston spoke from Suna's console.
Automatically, she released the grapples and fired a tongue of flame at the Artemis to
break contact. Punching in the course back to the Haruka, Suna saw the pale glow suddenly
disappear and the Artemis disappear in an instant. Unseen hands grabbed her heart and her
vision faded. Gasping for breath, she slowly clawed her way back to conciousness.
Suna opened her eyes to the glittering starfield, the Haruka a point of light slightly
brighter than the rest. *She's gone.* she thought, with a tinge of regret. Suna
activated the autopilot and stared at console.
A tapping at the cabin door brought her from her reverie. The door opened and Suna
saw two figures emerge into the room. One was Spacer Glass, the other was dressed
in the blue uniform of the Artemis. His brown hair was unruly and his blue eyes glittered
earnestly.
"Ma'am, Lieutenant Tiluri Sarteen, Helsman, Senior surviving officer of the Artemis."
Suna's eyes focused on his face, her heart thudding loudly in her ears.
*I know you* she thought.
FINIS
Instead she committed to memory the dream she'd just had. The ship was
there, its lines still the same despite hundreds of years of travel.
Its shiny hull was marred by the scarring blasts of energy which disabled
it, sending it on its fiery trek into oblivion. The stars were rendered
invisible by the actinic glow of the crystal drive, propelling the vessel
and its crew ever faster and faster. Setsuna had seen all this and more:
The ship hanging motionless, as if suspended in time. Her own feet on the
deck of a familiar ship. The feeling of power surging through her aged body.
This same scene she'd seen a dozen times.
It was what gave her hope.
Reflexively, Setsuna turned to look at her husband's side of the bed.
He wasn't there of course and hadn't been for a long time. But habits
centuries old were hard to break even after the death of a beloved.
The soft rays of dawn shone through the open window. Sweet scented air
wafted into the room. The cool tile felt refreshing beneath her feet as
she padded to the mirror. She brushed her green tresses and looked
reflectively at her countenance. There were new lines that hadn't been
there a century ago and she wasn't twenty anymore, or even a thousand.
Still, time had not been unkind to her. She smiled ruefully. Or perhaps
time had been the cruelest of all to her. Her hair properly behaved,
she stood and began to dress. It was the five hundred and twenty fifth
year of the reign of Crystal Tokyo, and Sailor Pluto had begun her day.
***
"Isn't it great news?" the young man said, his eyes shining with an
eager glow. His expression faltered slightly at Setsuna's expressionless
stare. "I mean," he continued, "We can go faster than light! With this
kind of drive we can go anywhere. Faster than Starlights." The pregnant
pause saw the smile completely disappear from his face. "Well," he coughed
embarassedly, "I just thought you'd want to know." He turned and briskly
walked down the path back out of the park. The milky globe of Pluto's moon,
Charon, filled half the clear, dark sky through the dome.
Setsuna's heart was still smarting from the event. So Ami's group had
finally done it. They had mastered the ability to move a ship faster than
light, something no human had ever managed to do. It was a shame that
the pretty scientist had not lived to see the project reach fruition.
But the pain was double. She's seen the same light as in the messenger's
eyes, not far away but ages ago. Cursedly clear memories replayed the moment
she'd learned of the first time mankind had tried to reach the stars harnessing
the limitless power of the Crystal Drive. And then her mind's eye saw the flash
of light which forever sealed her previous life from this one.
A high pitched scream shook her from her revery. Looking anxiously about,
the tall woman broke into a smile when she discovered the cause. Five little
children, bouncing around in the low gravity, were playing a game of tickle-tag,
and one of them had been quite thoroughly made It.
Setsuna shook her head, her hair billowing. *This is good news,* she reminded
herself. *It's what I've been waiting for, after all.*
Expertly she bounded across the park. Within minutes she was at the spaceport,
which bore her namesake, booking passage to Earth.
***
If there was anything the diverse group of Earthers constructing the largest
ship ever made had in common, it was the way they reacted towards her.
Truth be told, it was getting annoying. Every one of them had a sort of
fearful awe. Their faces all said the same thing: *The old Senshi's had a
prophecy* Setsuna had to admit it did keep them moving quickly and the cynic
in her also had to concede that she'd gotten used to deference, but this was
just ridiculous. Still, the only way to avoid it was to stop making
appearances at the construction site, high above the moon. *I'm becoming an
old lady* she chided herself. *I stare at the towers of the moon until I get
tired of them, and then I flutter about the Haruka and make them nervous.
Best I stay back and just act silently mysterious*
Three years had come and gone since Setsuna made this giant station her more
or less permanent home. Occasionally she flitted to the moon or to Crystal
Tokyo to make plans or simply to escape for a short while. Inevitably she
ended back in her castle in the sky, overseeing the construction of this
one of a kind vessel.
She sat at the edge of the couch and stared through the picture window at
the giant skeleton of a vessel, the stars still visible through empty
portions of the frame. Haruka was a fitting name. It meant distant in
Japanese, the tongue of the ruling family, and that of the country in which
she'd lived much of the more momentous times in her life. Even her own name,
adopted upon descending to Earth after thousands of years of self-imposed exile,
was Japanese. Of course the ship's name was far more than just a fitting
adjective. It was a memorial to one of her best friends.
Setsuna spent several minutes watching the tiny figures clamber over the hull
of the ship. *Her* ship. Finally she looked down into her lap at the
3528 Fall Fashion Catalog and leafed through its pages meditatively.
***
"You may enter."
The words echoed impressively as they always did. One would expect no less
from the Queen of the Solar System. Not for 30,000 years had one held that
title nor had the seat of power even been the world which had spawned humanity
and served as its land of rebirth.
The chamber was similarly impressive, resplendent in its austerity. The
irridescent crystal walls glistened with barely pent energy. The vaulted
ceilings were lost in an impenetrable mist. And there, out of sight here
in the giant reception room, but pulsing with the regularity of Suna's heart,
resided the other doorway--the one she'd passed through a thousand years ago,
chasing a laughing girl with pink tresses who was heedless of the dangers of
the corridors she trod.
"Rise, Setsuna."
The voice of the Queen was the same as it had been thousands of years ago.
Souls travelled a narrow path in the cyclic road of the Moon Kingdom. The
dress, too, was the same, as were the two rivers of hair flowing from the sides
of Her Majesty's head. She was beautiful after all of these years. But that
too was not surprising. Their's was a long lived breed.
Setsuna lifted herself from her knees to look almost eye to eye with the seated
monarch. "I thank you for granting me this audience." Self control kept her
from adding "final" to that statement.
Queen Serenity nodded, her face impassive.
"Your majesty, I wish to take leave of my duties." The chamber echoed hollowly
with her proclamation, snatching them from her throat as she uttered it.
The Queen cocked her head to the side, "This is a sudden move is it not?"
"It is something I have contemplated for a long time."
The seated woman was silent for a moment. Then, "Have you thoughts as to a
replacement?"
Setsuna swallowed. "I have not, but fate tends to take care of such things."
Queen Serenity stared into Setsuna, her eyes neither accusing nor sympathetic.
Finally she nodded. The silence extended, grew uncomfortable.
The green tressed woman bowed awkwardly and managed to say, "By your leave,"
before turning.
"Wait... please." The Queen's voice was soft now, almost a whisper. Setsuna
turned to face her monarch, vision blurred by tears. "It's him, isn't it? Well."
The woman who was soon to no longer be Sailor Pluto thought she heard the barest
quaver in her sovereign's voice. "Well, it has been long enough hasn't it?"
Setsuna nodded, her breath catching, tears sliding unheedingly down her cheeks.
Again silence stretched eternally in the vast chamber.
"Puu." Setsuna's eyes jerked to focus on Queen Serenity's at the vocalisation of
that old name. Her Queen was tearful too. "Puu, you know my mother would done
whatever she could to save him."
Setsuna quirked her lips in the barest smile, "She never would have survived."
Queen Serenity's deep red eyes held Setsuna fixed. "You never quite believed
in her, did you?" she said slowly. Setsuna looked down, unable to return the gaze.
The floor mirrored her face, flushed and wet.
"You have my leave," the iron was back in Her Majesty's voice. Setsuna turned
and did not look back, but felt the pink haired queen's accusing eyes on her back
the entire journey out of the palace.
***
The ship's officers gathered around the large table, attentive to their Captain. As
tradition demanded, he was bearded but the beard was short and his appearance young.
While that could have been an affectation--people could look as young as they wanted
these days, a ship's captain tended to cultivate an air of maturity. Odds were he
really was in the first flush of youth. Upon further reflection, Setsuna noted that
all of the ship's officers, with the exception of the Medical Officer were inordinately
young. *Or perhaps I'm gauging things relatively* she thought ruefully to herself.
The captain gave his First Officer a meaningful glance. From the looks they'd exchanged
in earlier encounters it was clear the two had a relationship. Nothing against regulations
of course, just another oddity on this far from usual vessel.
"I see we're all present. Let's begin," The Captain's voice was easy, affable. Behind
him a tri-dimensional display expanded. On it were the trajectories of two objects--
the Haruka and the Artemis.
"We've all done the drill, now we just need to get the timing right in practice. The
Haruka will jump out of hyperspace here, " A glowing graphic lit to indicate a piece of
space no different from any other. "Afterwards, we'll have a window of 60 seconds to
catch the Artemis. She's in a stable trajectory because her drive's been off for
millenia. Still, she's moving like a bat out of hell and we won't have a fraction of
her speed when we translate to normal space. Of course, that's where our esteemed guest
comes in." He smiled at Setsuna who returned the gesture with the barest nod of her head.
Unperturbed, the captain continued, "Dunnells, you'll need to keep us aligned just right
for docking. Burnett, you'll monitor and store all communications. For them it's been
just a few days. There will be some, I assure you. Suna, you'll have the biggest job
of all, of course."
Setsuna looked again at the woman who bore her old name. One could not tell if there
was a relation, so many generations had passed since she'd borne her only child. But
there was a familiar restiveness and eagerness to perform in the pert features beneath the
blue braided hair.
The Executive Officer was speaking now. A short woman, she spoke with curt authority,
"We drop out in five hours and thirty minutes. Take care of your food and other bodily
requirements now. Be back on duty at 23:00. Dismissed."
As the officers filed out of the briefing room's open door, the Captain stopped next to
Setsuna. He looked at her with what was perhaps a comforting expression. Setsuna
looked eye to eye at the young man. "Sailor Pluto," he said softly, "My ship and my crew
will get your Artemis back." Setsuna blinked. Surprisingly she felt reassured. There
was confidence in Captain Kereldin's green eyes. She nodded again and smiled slightly.
Satisfied, the Captain sidled out the door. Setsuna heard it close behind her as she
stared at the display, at the meeting points of the two brightly colored lines.
***
"Time to translation," the soft voice of the Second Officer called out.
"Five minutes, three seconds." called out the young Lieutenant with the flaming red hair
seated in front of the Captain.
Second Officer Lutz was in charge of the translation event and seemed to have circumstances
in hand with constant status reports from bridge crew and associated stations throughout
the ship. Setsuna smiled inwardly. The young man did *not* quite know how to deal with
thousand year old dignitaries. Alternately stiff and overly unctuous, the young man
managed to flush red at least five times to her counting--no easy feat on his brown
features.
The crew were all performing admirably considering what was coming. Still she could see
the tensed shoulders and nervous glances. The Morale Officer looked at her nervously
once, her face unsuited to frowns but weighed by one of the largest. The old Medical
Officer was conspicuously absent from the group.
The Captain nodded his head at her and Setsuna closed her eyes. The busy displays and
lights of the bridge disappeared leaving only her thoughts to distract her. One by one
she eliminated their tugging influence. Her fears, anxieties all fell away, leaving
a curiously pleasant void. The sensation of the heavy staff on her lap faded.
Last to disappear was her sensation of the ship's gravity, itself an odd pleasure so
different from the acceleration induced gravity of the other ships she'd ridden. At last
she was alone, floating undisturbed in her own space and time.
As if from light years away she heard the Mr. Lutz's voice counting down from twenty.
At three seconds she heard discordant klaxons sound and then a young man's voice shouting,
"Translation, sir!" Setsuna clutched the staff in her hand. The familiar bond between
the garnet at its head and the rose of her heart reforged in a moment.
Setuna's eyes opened. Coming to her feet amongs the shifting forces of the ship settling
into reality she stretched out her hands, her staff towering above her. From the depths of
her soul she called,
"TIME STOP!"
A thousand waves pummeled her at once. She was a strand of seaweed in a tempest holding
onto the staff for dear life. Heedless of the scrambling figures around her she
struggled to just to maintain conciousness. The displays all showed zero time passage
and the crew was quick to report the fact, but Sailor Pluto could pay them little mind.
Slowly, painfully she manipulated the forces of temporality into submission, creating a
stable eye in the midst of the vortex. She fell to her knees but it was not defeat but
simply the anchoring of a fisherman against the bucking of an unhappy catch.
The Captain stared frankly at her, waiting for some sort of signal. "Go," she hissed."
"Dock while we have time." She was too spent to appreciate the irony in her words.
As if turned on by a switch, Captain Kereldin was himself again, snapping out stacatto
orders and turning the ship into a blizzard of activity.
The other storm, the one she had created abated as quickly as it began, now rendered docile
by Sailor Pluto's steady hand. Setsuna lay back on the cool deck of the bridge, soft lights
glowing blue above her. The hardest part was done. Now all that was left was to stay alive
long enough for the crew of the Artemis to be saved.
Her green hair spilling out over the floor, the aged senshi thought sadly to herself
*All this time. All this waiting. And you'll never get to see who you've been
waiting for all of this time. But then it's not you who has been waiting.* For the
hundredth time on the journey she tried to summon Tiluri's face to mind. Again
she found she could not. Only memories of those she had left behind. Her husband,
long dead. The Senshi. Her dear friends Hotaru, Michiru, and Haruka. And of course
Chibi-Usa. Queen Serenity would always be a Small Lady in Setsuna's heart. She smiled
at that, though Setsuna could not tell if the smile actually made it to her lips.
Sailor Pluto felt the strength ebbing from her tired old/young flesh and wished
only that she could not be alone at this hour of departure.
***
"Hang on tight, boys." Suna deftly played the controls of the shuttle like an accordion
and grinned mischievously at the trio of space-sick crewmen in seats behind her. Jets
of flame shot from the oblong cargo carrier as the young Lieutenant maneuvered the ship to
a docking with the Artemis. A pale glow suffused the whole scene lending an odd ethereal
quality to the proceedings. It was easy to dock with something that didn't move, however.
The shuttle clanged softly with impact and the port screens were completely obscured by the
hull of the erstwhile Flying Dutchman.
"All right. Justin, John, get in there and get that crew into our hold." Her braid danced
lazily in weightlessness as she gestured. The two saluted and dogged their helmets. A
moment later they were out the airlock and in the Artemis, their suit cameras relaying their
progress.
Suna watched, fascinated. One by one the members of the Artemis crew were rounded up
and fed into the waiting shuttle. She fingered her braid nervously. Time was running out
and the Second Officer was sending increasingly insistent commands to the Away Team.
She breathed a sigh of relief when the last of them was gathered from what was left of the
bridge of the Artemis. Within minutes, what was left of the crew of the doomed ship had
been transferred to the hold of her little ship.
"That's all of them, ma'am," the polite voice of Spacer Johnston spoke from Suna's console.
Automatically, she released the grapples and fired a tongue of flame at the Artemis to
break contact. Punching in the course back to the Haruka, Suna saw the pale glow suddenly
disappear and the Artemis disappear in an instant. Unseen hands grabbed her heart and her
vision faded. Gasping for breath, she slowly clawed her way back to conciousness.
Suna opened her eyes to the glittering starfield, the Haruka a point of light slightly
brighter than the rest. *She's gone.* she thought, with a tinge of regret. Suna
activated the autopilot and stared at console.
A tapping at the cabin door brought her from her reverie. The door opened and Suna
saw two figures emerge into the room. One was Spacer Glass, the other was dressed
in the blue uniform of the Artemis. His brown hair was unruly and his blue eyes glittered
earnestly.
"Ma'am, Lieutenant Tiluri Sarteen, Helsman, Senior surviving officer of the Artemis."
Suna's eyes focused on his face, her heart thudding loudly in her ears.
*I know you* she thought.
FINIS