Sailor X #19 Infiltration
By: John Brengman
Edited by: Thomas Schell
The Luna Foundation
A group of shapes shimmered into existence in a storage room. Storage crates nearly filled the area and water dripped from a leaking pipe somewhere in the distance. The figures spared quick glances to ensure that the room was secure, then they gathered around their leader.
"So," Sailor Mars said. "What's the plan?"
"Well," Sailor Moon replied as she nudged the nearby metal open just enough to peek outside. Turning back into the darkness, she said, "Each of us is carrying two standard explosive charges. The object of this game is to get as close as we can to the Luna Foundation's fusion reactors and plant these charges on or near the coolant lines. The explosion…"
"Any explosion like that will overload the reactors…" Venus broke in. "And the moon will be blown…"
"Straight to Hell," Sailor Mercury finished.
"Yes," Sailor Moon said with a slight sigh.. "Jupiter, Mars, and Venus, you'll group up and head straight toward the nearest reactor. Mercury and I will take a more scenic route and try to draw whatever they have left to us."
"Danger, violence, and bloodshed," Mercury murmured. "Just the way I like it."
Sailor Moon glanced at her watch. "It's about time. Let's go."
With murmured approval, the Sailors quietly entered the hallway adjoining the room that had been their hiding place.
"I hope they'll be alright," Sailor Venus murmured worriedly as Sailor Moon and Sailor Mercury dashed down a different corridor than the one Jupiter had decided on taking.
"I'm sure they will," Jupiter replied simply. "We don't have time for that now. We have to get underground."
"Why?" Sailor Mars asked.
At that point, the lights flickered, then died as the hallway behind them exploded in flames.
== * SM
* ==
Aboard the Serena
"Electro-magnetic pulse in five seconds," Amy reported from the science station.
"Steady on the helm," Sailor Neptune said as she spared a glance at the man at the controls. She listened as Amy counted down the final seconds until the pulse's emission.
The second after Amy said, "one", the computer displays on the Bridge winked out. The only light in the room came from the metal-encrusted surface of the moon.
"What the Hell…" Neptune grumbled.
"I thought this thing was Y2K compliant," Uranus grumbled as she tapped controls in a vain attempt to get some response.
"Engineering to Bridge," came a voice over the comm system.
"Bridge here," Neptune said as she stabbed at the button. "Please say you have some good news."
"Well," the engineer replied, "the good news is that we're not dead in space and we do have access to some systems. The bad news is that we are not nearly as EMP-proof as we should be, and as a result, most of the ship's computer connections are disabled. "
"They won't have enough spare processor chips to get the entire ship running," Amy reported.
"She's right," the engineer agreed. "What do you want us to get to first?"
"Work on restoring engineering control and weapons," Neptune said. "We'll need those first."
"Actually ma'am," the engineer said. "You have torpedoes now. All you have to do is get to the forward torpedo room and manually launch the torpedoes."
Neptune glanced at Uranus. "Sounds like a job down your alley." Uranus nodded silently and headed toward the door.
A few minutes later, torpedoes began raining down on the surface of the moon.
== * SM
* ==
"That's why," Venus replied as she bolted down the corridor with her fellow Sailors, her face lit by the reddish glow from the emergency lights "Sailor Moon left orders with the ship to start bombing the surface."
"It's another way of tricking the cyborgs," Jupiter said as she ran.
Two guards rounded a corner ahead of the on-coming Sailors. Both raised pistols toward the women and one yelled, "Stop!"
"MARS FIRE IGNITE!" Both men were engulfed by the flames and dropped to the floor.
"Tell me two things," Mars demanded as the trio continued to run.
"And those are?" Jupiter asked.
"One: why do we have air to breathe here?"
"The same reason we can breathe on our own moon," Venus replied. "The shielding over the palace keeps an artificial atmosphere in place."
"What's your second question?" Jupiter asked.
"Why are there still guards here?"
"We apparently didn't get them all," Jupiter answered.
"Hold it!" Venus said as she skidded to a stop at an intersection.
"What is it?" Jupiter said as she stopped behind her friend.
"Look," Venus said as she pointed. Down the short corridor to the right was a large open area. In the center of this, what looked to be miniature coal cars proceeded past in a quiet and orderly manner, their silvery metal surfaces glinting in the glow of the emergency lights.
"The monorail?" Mars asked.
"Looks like it," Venus said. "And if this place is built like our palace is, we'll be able to take that all the way to the engineering section."
"I'm way ahead of you," Jupiter said as she ran toward the slowly-moving cars.
A blast of fire sheared away the cameras that were spaced out every so often above the narrow walkway in front of this section of the monorail. Jupiter spared a glance at Sailor Mars.
"You think they'll notice?" Mars asked.
A distant thunder could still be heard as a torpedo from the Serena slammed into the surface of the moon.
"Hopefully if Sailor Moon and the others are doing their jobs," Jupiter replied, "they either don't notice or think that the cameras were shorted out by the torpedoes."
Sailor Venus quietly studied the passing cars. Suddenly, she tensed, then leaped from the walkway into one of the cars. The other Sailors quickly followed suit.
"Get down!" Venus hissed as the cargo cars entered a dimly-lit tunnel. "There's probably more cameras along the way.
Hidden in this way, the three infiltrators crept into the heart of the Luna Foundation.
"What's the timer set for?" Venus asked as Sailor Jupiter placed the explosive charge in a spot where the coolant lines ran behind a wall conduit.
"Thirty minutes," Jupiter answered.
"Are you sure we'll be able to get out in time?" Mars asked. "It took us longer than that to get here."
"Yes," Jupiter answered, "but we're not leaving the same way we came." With that, she began to concentrate on the Bridge of the Serena.
A blast of lasers ripped through the hallway. Sailor Venus and Sailor Mars turned to face the soldiers who had attacked them. The remaining laser bolt had exploded against the ceiling near Sailor Jupiter. A torrent of metal crashed down on the warrior.
Three quick shots downed the guards and the two women turned back to help their friend. As they helped Sailor Jupiter to her feet, she winced.
"It's broken, I think," She said.
"Amy will fix it once we get back to the ship," Mars said, the fright of being shot at in her voice.
Jupiter had started concentrating again, but frustration crept across her face until with a sigh, she opened her eyes. "I can't do it," she said. "The pain is too much."
"Try again," Venus replied urgently. "Fight the pain."
"Okay," Jupiter said as she closed her eyes. Finally, the Sailors could feel a tingling in their hands and feet. "I've got it," Jupiter shouted. "JUPITER TELEPORTATION MAGIC!"
The three Sailors disappeared.
== * SM
* ==
They re-appeared next to the monorail as a convoy of cargo cars rumbled past. A stray laser shot above their heads told them they had again been detected.
"I thought you said you 'got it,'" Mars yelled as she returned fire.
"Oh," Jupiter shouted back. "Sue me! In case you hadn't noticed, I'm in pain!" None of that stopped her from blasting a guard with her pistol.
"This way!" Venus shouted, pointing to a nearby door. Mars took a final shot at the remaining guards, then leapt up and ran for the door, covering Sailor Jupiter as she too limped for the door.
As soon as Mars ducked through the door, it swished shut behind her.
What they saw stopped the Sailors in their tracks.
The room they were in was dimly-lit with large spouts which discharged a heavy fog that clouded the floor and kept the room at a cool temperature. Various machines emitted green lights from their control surfaces as they worked and this light mixed with the fog to create an almost otherworldly feel.
Metal tables that gleamed from the pale light were spaced out evenly along the edge of the room, arranged perpendicularly to the walls and in between the machines. Another table stood just off to the left of the Sailors. Around all of the tables, machines beeped and blinked as they processed information. Laying on the tables themselves, were to bodies of women all of the Sailors recognized.
"Queen Serenity!" They yelled in unison as they rushed to the side of their beloved ruler. The machine at the head of the table dutifully monitored the queen's vital signs. All of the indicators were safely in the green. Sailor Jupiter set about trying to figure out the controls, while Sailor Venus examined the brace-like device that covered the area from the abdomen to the upper thigh. Large tubes connected these devices to inverted pyramid-like machines which were attached to the ceiling.
Sailor Mars voiced the silent question within Sailor Venus' mind. "What is this place?"
Sailor Jupiter glanced at the nearby beds before she went back to studying the control panels in front of her. "It's probably the cloning facility," she replied quietly. "It's where they get the cyborg Sailors from."
Sailor Venus touched a button on a control panel nearby. A diagnostic display appeared. "Look," she said. "This thing extends inside Queen Serenity! It's harvesting her like a crop! Two hundred-thirty-seven eggs collected, two clones made, one clone active…"
"I found it," Jupiter said. "There's an emergency procedure. It purges the harvested eggs and cuts life support. At that point, we should be able to revive them. How much time do we have?"
Sailor Mars checked her watch. "Just under twenty minutes."
"Okay," Jupiter said. "Sailor Venus, the red button to the far right, tap it twice, then turn the knob left of that panel to zero. Start reviving the rest of them." Just then the brace that covered Queen Serenity began to pull away. It was pulled silently to the ceiling, slowly withdrawing from Serenity's body. The extraction tube glistened dimly with secreted fluids as it too was pulled out. Almost as soon as the alien device had pulled itself out of Queen Serenity's body, she awoke, her eyelids flickering momentarily before fixating on Sailor Jupiter.
"Where…"
"You are safe," Jupiter replied gently. "Just hold still for a second." The quiet whirring in the background told Jupiter that Venus was well on the way to reviving the rest of the women.
Mars stepped back as the door indicator flickered yellow for a brief moment. "I think someone is trying to come in," she said.
"How do we get out of here?" Venus asked as she rushed to the side of the table upon which Ten'ou Haruka's prone form was laying.
"We're going to try teleportation again," Jupiter replied. "Mars, blast the controls on the door."
"Will do," Mars replied, and soon the door controls were a smoldering ruin. "That should keep them out for a bit longer."
"Everyone, just gather around me," Jupiter said. Venus helped Kaiou Michiru to her feet and shepherded both her and Haruka toward Sailor Jupiter. Quiet questions of where they were and why were they naked were gently quieted. Again, Sailor Jupiter fixated on the Bridge of the Serena, and concentrated on keeping that image in her mind.
Finally: "JUPITER TELEPORTATION MAGIC!"
The Sailors and the rest of the group were vanishing just as the guards broke into the room.
Too late.
== * SM
* ==
"Well," Amy said as she entered onto the Bridge, "our guests are comfortably asleep. After a few hours of rest, they'll be ready for a few answers."
"I hate to ask," Sailor Venus said from the communications station, "but what do we tell them?"
The silence that answered her was almost deafening. Then Sailor Neptune straightened herself in the captain's chair and answered:
"We tell them the truth. They are this world's version of the Sailor soldiers. Warriors who fight for love and justice. They are heroes in a world that's going to need them very soon."
The slight smiles from those Sailors in the room told Sailor Neptune that they too thought that was the best course of action. For now however, there was more pressing matters to attend to.
"Time to detonation?" Neptune asked.
"I set the timers for thirty minutes," Jupiter replied. Neptune nodded.
"There are thirteen minutes left," Sailor Mars said.
"Noted," Neptune replied. "Continue orbital bombardment."
Silently, Neptune reached out to her comrades still within the recesses of the Luna Foundation. "Please come home soon."
Fanfic ã2000 – John Brengman and Artemis Publishing
Sailor X series inspired by Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon,
ã 1992 by Toei Animation Co Ltd. and based on Kodansha's
manga production of "Sailor Moon", written by Naoko Takeuchi
This fanfic is freely distributed. Release date: January 8, 2000
Release: 3rd Edition: February 11, 2001