In the shuttle on the way over, Arthur was reviewing the layout of the base in his mind. Heero and Kan were going over there first in a small shuttle. They'd land the shuttle and then send it away on autopilot for the Alliance to chase. Then they were going to hit the base's security center fast and hard. They were going to have to worm in through a rather small heat vent, wearing protective suits, and Herc had remarked that it was a good thing they were trying this now, or they would have had to find another way in. Even in the skin-tight heat-resistant suits it would be a tight squeeze. In another year, they would have been too big to get in. They knew that the basic security hadn't changed since Kan designed it over ten years ago. If they hit it fast enough, they should be able to capture the security center and disable most of the nasty traps that Kan had put in there, the gas, the hidden mines, the lasers, and the self-destruct system. Of course, there was security on the computer that controlled those systems, but Arthur had designed the system, and had given Kan a password that ought to skip through any security they'd put up. They were very lucky that so little had changed. Arthur thought critically.

Arthur was leading one of several main attack groups. Even if Heero and Kan succeeded in taking the security center, there were a base full of troops to worry about, and they couldn't be disabled with a switch. A lot of people were going to die today, and for once, Arthur wasn't worried about that. He was worried about not being one of them, and about seeing Rina again. Her attempt to kill herself hadn't worked, he knew that, but he'd been having lots of nightmares in the last few weeks, and the psychologist had said that they'd started torturing her again. She wasn't as used to torture as the boys were, hadn't been trained against it as well - had she survived with her mind intact?

"We're less than a minute from touch-down," he heard over his helmet radio. "Seal your suits."

--------------

Heero, who was slightly larger than Kan, just barely managed to squeeze through the heat vent in his specially designed suit. It fit him like a second skin, but still he barely fit. Herc had been right - if they'd waited another few years, they wouldn't have been able to come in this way. They slid through the vent down two stories and finally landed in a larger area where many different air vents connected. Heero looked at Kan, who mouthed the words, "When we get to the end of the tunnel, we have to kill the two men immediately. From then on we have a little more time, but it has to be absolutely silent until then."

"You're sure you can disable the self-destruct?" Heero mouthed in response.

"Sure, a little bit of extra energy directed through that system will fry all of the circuits. I found the flaw in my plans a few years after construction on this place ended. I tried to tell Mem, but he wouldn't listen to me." There was a sort of grim satisfaction on Kan's face now, but it disappeared as Heero started crawling down the next tube. Now there was only the mission, and they were on a schedule.

It took less than three minutes to crawl to the vent that fed into the security center. Once there, Heero used specially designed tools to cut through the bolts that held the grill in place, then to hold the grill as he silently slid it out of the way. He glanced at Kan, who nodded. They were ready. Heero took a deep breath and then launched himself silently out of the tunnel, Kan followed a moment later. Heero hit the man on the right in the back of the neck with both of his clenched fists. He heard bones crunch there, then caught the body before it could fall to the floor with a loud bump. He looked over and saw Kan silently laying his kill on the ground. Kan held up a finger to his lips to indicate that there was still a need for silence.

Then Kan stood up and his hands flew across the control panel. Several lights went out, and Kan said out loud, "I've deactivated the systems that keep watch on this room, and the ones that are supposed to watch the security system itself. I'm deactivating the rest of the security systems now," he said, keeping up a running commentary. That took several minutes, and Heero saw that they were cutting the timing very close. Kan knew it too. "Should I open the doors now, or take the time to disable the self-destruct first?" he asked.

"Self-destruct," Heero replied immediately. They couldn't chance that someone would hear about the attack and get to the self-destruct before it could be disabled. They had to disable it first, then signal the attack. But all this time the shuttles would be hanging around on the surface, where they would be very conspicuous. At least Kan had already shut down the weapons systems.

It seemed to take a very long time for Kan to complete his work, but in reality less than two minutes had passed when he said, "Done. Opening the doors now." They were on schedule, just barely, and Heero breathed an inaudible sigh of relief as he saw the doors open on a monitor. Immediately several people inside were sucked out because of the near-vacuum, and alarms started going off.

"Here," Heero said, handing Kan one of the guns he'd taken off the men they'd killed. "Let's see if we can get to the office of the Chancellor."


------------


"There's no anti-aircraft fire," reported the nervous voice of their pilot. "Those boys must have done it. Prepare for insertion."

Arthur carefully checked the seal on his space suit - they couldn't actually land in one of the shuttle bays, they were going to have to land outside and run inside, then move through the base. At some point, hopefully right after they entered the base, they were going to have to lose the suits. It was impossible to move in these things in narrow corridors. He felt the shuttle shift position slightly as the pilot maneuvered, then a felt a thud as the shuttle set down. He was already unbuckling his straps and moving towards the door when the order came for them to get off. He jumped through the door before anyone else, dropped the thirty feet to the ground, and hit the ground running. Behind him the shuttle hit the ground and the rest of the men (and women) streamed out. The huge slab of earth that had hidden the base had been raised out of the way, obviously Heero and Kan's work, and there was no resistance as they ran inside the bay - apparently they'd caught the people on the base by surprise. That wasn't much of a shock - the base had remained hidden for over fifty years, there was no reason to suspect that anything would happen now, much less an all-out assault.

Arthur waited impatiently for all of his group to get inside, then closed the main door and flooded the room with air. "Come on!" he shouted. They couldn't pause to take off the suits yet - they needed to use the surprise to their advantage. He burst into the hall and gunned down two soldiers who happened to be walking nearby. He checked the rest of the hall. It was empty. He frowned as he started stripping out of his suit, a process which took him less than thirty seconds. He'd expected more initial resistance.


-------------


Michael dispassionately surveyed what was left of the people who'd been working in this bay as it opened, then lead his team inside. Almost immediately they met with resistance, a number of guards behind a hastily erected barricade at the end of the hall. "Take cover!" Michael shouted as three of his people were hit. He quickly reviewed the plans of the base in his head, then shouted to one of his squad leaders, "Take your men back down that way!" he pointed down the hall. "Take the first door on your right, then the third right, then the second, you should be able to flank them. Call if you run into any problems." The squad leader nodded and ran off.

"Michael," Herc said, his voice just loud enough to be heard over the battle. "I'm going after Yirtz."

Michael nodded. They really only needed one of them here, and Michael also wanted to make sure that they caught Yirtz. "Go," he said. "I'll meet up with you later."

Herc nodded and ran off after the departing soldiers seeking to get around the Alliance soldiers, although not for the same reason.


----------


Everyone started following Arthur's lead when he took off his suit, and in less than a minute they were all ready to go again. They started a thorough search through the base, eliminating or stunning every Alliance soldier they ran into. They'd made it through perhaps an eighth of the base before they met any organized resistance at all. Ten minutes after the strike began there was more resistance, but by then the invaders greatly outnumbered the defenders, and they made progress quickly.

A half-hour after the invasion started, Arthur met up with Michael. "How's it going?" he asked.

"We don't have the whole base yet," Michael told him as he waved some of their men to continue. They weren't really needed to spearhead the attacks anymore. "But it's falling fast." He closed his eyes for a second, and Arthur could see him calculating. "Heero and Kan were going to try for the Chancellor's office after they got through with their business, and Herc went after Yirtz."

"Has anyone gotten to Rina yet?"

"Not yet," Michael replied in a low voice, but Arthur detected a hint of worry in it.

"According to the information we got, she should be only a few corridors from here."

"That's where the worst of the fighting is."

"Do you think they're defending her position?"

"Makes sense to me. Let's go."

They quickly agreed on the shortest way to Rina's room, then started in that direction. There were more Alliance soldiers there than anywhere else, but the boys were determined, and it appeared that a number of the soldiers knew who they were, because they were obviously terrified of the two cold-faced teenagers who led the attack against them. Again and again a single Alliance soldier would turn and run from the fighting, each time with devastating effects on the Alliance's defensive line. They were driven back and back, until finally they stood in front of what should be Rina's room. The two boys stopped after indicating for the rest of the men to continue on. Most of them still didn't know who Rina was, although the majority knew that a major Rebel leader had been captured. They didn't know it was the Phoenix. That would change soon.

Arthur wasn't sure if there was some sort of bomb trigger attached to the lock that would go off if they just shot it, so he took a few extremely long seconds to bypass the door's security (which was independent of base security), then forced the door open through sheer strength. Bright lights momentarily blinded him, and he recognized them as a common interrogation method to keep the subject awake. He stepped into the room. A bullet hit the wall directly to his right, just inches from his ear. "Stop where you are!" ordered a voice that made his heart jump.

"Rina?" As his eyes adjusted, Arthur saw Rina sitting on the floor against the wall. Around her legs were metal frames, just as the psychologist had said, and metal sheathed her arms from wrists to elbows, holding them close together, but in her right hand was a gun, aimed right at him. Six bodies lay on the floor around her, five with bullet holes visible in their foreheads, and the last had a crushed throat, and a long piece of white cloth wrapped around his arm.

"Stay where you are," she repeated in a cold voice.

"Rina," Arthur took a step closer, then froze as a bullet hit the ground right in front of his foot.

"I said freeze," she said again.

"Rina, it's me!" Arthur cried, wondering if indeed she had survived her imprisonment with her mind intact.

"Arthur, I can see you," she said in a cold voice. "But don't move. I don't think it's really you. I realize that I've been hallucinating a lot recently, and I know that the Alliance is still trying to get into my brain. This is just another trick to break me."

"It's not a trick," he said slowly. "We captured the psychologist, Scott Andrews, when he came to Alpha, and questioned him. He gave us the base's location, and we arranged an attack. Can't you hear it?"

"I've been hallucinating a lot of things," she said. "An attack like this is more normal than most of them." Then she frowned a little. "But you're alive." Now she sounded confused.

"We're alive, and so are Heero, Herc, and Kan. They're in another part of the base, but they're all fine," Michael said in that soft voice of his.

"In all the hallucinations, you're always dead," she said softly. "And you tell me things... I can't believe it. I never truly believe it, not long enough for them to break me, and then I wake up. But I'm not waking up now. That either means that they've finally gotten to me or that this isn't a hallucination."

"It's not a hallucination," Arthur said. They hadn't broken her, but they had driven her to the brink of insanity. Or perhaps she'd driven herself there, hoping they might not be able to get anything useful out of a raving lunatic.

"Arthur, come here."

"What?"

"Put down the gun and come here. And keep your hands where I can see them. Last time I saw you, you shot me to get revenge for your own death. You too, Michael."

Arthur exchanged a helpless glance with Michael, then they both dropped their guns and started to walk over. When he reached her, Arthur dropped to one knee. "Put your hand in mine," she instructed before he could say anything. He obediently reached out and touched her left hand, the one not holding the gun. It was pressed up close against her right hand, because of the cuffs, but she instantly focused on him. She started trembling violently, and the gun fell from limp fingers. "You're real," she whispered. "I can feel you." Suddenly she leaned forward as far as she could, pressing her face against Arthur's shoulder. "Oh my God," she sobbed. "I can't believe it's really you!"

Arthur immediately wrapped his arms around her and hugged her. It felt like the most natural thing in the world to do, and Michael also knelt beside her and put a hand on her shoulder. After a minute she stopped crying and wiped her eyes. "It's really you," she said, sounding amazed. "I never even dreamed... the only hope I had was that I'd buy you enough time to build a defense against the Alliance. What happened?" She suddenly sounded much more like herself.

"We were planning defenses, but we managed to capture the psychologist."

"Dr. Andrews?"

"Yes, you did a good job preparing him for us. He didn't resist at all. Let me see those cuffs." She obediently held out her arms towards him, and he examined the locking mechanism on the underside, where she couldn't get at it. He pulled off the panel and started poking at the jumble of wires underneath.

"I wasn't thinking about preparing him for interrogation, I was just trying to deny the Alliance one more soldier," she said, glancing at Michael. There was an edge of excitement to her voice. "This isn't just a rescue operation, this is a full-blown attack," she said, her voice full of wonder.

"We've almost taken the entire base," Michael informed her. "Heero and Kan should have already disabled the self-destruct and most of the security. And we've got the diplomats and politicians ready to make their announcements as soon as the way is clear, just the way you planned."

"You mean... it's actually going to be over?" she asked, tears forming in her eyes again.

"If we planned everything right, it should," Michael said. "If not, there's going to be one hell of an explosion, and it ought to take all of us with it."

At that moment Arthur managed to short-circuit the cuffs, and with a click, they came loose and fell to the floor. Rina immediately started rubbing her arms, which had shrunk slightly where the cuffs had been. Then she caught both boys by surprise by throwing her arms around their necks and pulling them in for a hug. Then she gave Arthur a kiss on the cheek. He stared at her in shock. "Just returning the favor," she said with a smile. "For the one you gave me while I was sick."

"You remembered that?" he asked, amazed.

"I've been hallucinating a lot of things," she said softly. "They started putting me in the chamber a couple weeks ago, that's when I really couldn't tell when I was hallucinating or not. Three hour spells, twice a day. I think I started hallucinating even without the drugs."

Arthur stared at her in horror, wondering what place she'd found inside herself to hide from the torture, the way he'd found a place. "It's all right," she said weakly. "It's behind me now, I guess, although it's going to give me some interesting nightmares." She went back to rubbing her arms. "I am so glad to have those damn things off." She smiled, a little stronger this time, then leaned forward and scratched her back. "I've had an itch I couldn't reach for the longest time..."

"It doesn't look like it made much of a difference," Michael commented, glancing around the room at the bodies.

"Oh. Them. They decided to come execute me when the fighting started. One of them got a little too close for his own good, and I used the gun on the rest."

Arthur grinned, glad at having her back. It had been like there was a piece missing from him, an ache in his heart all the time she'd been gone. "Help me up?" she asked, staring at her legs. "We've got to find the keys to these things." Arthur looked at Michael, then they both put Rina's arms over their shoulders and pulled her to her feet. Arthur could feel the weight of the frames. They weighed a ton. "Yeah, I know," Rina said when he turned his head to look at her. "The only good thing is that they didn't cut my legs off. But I want these things off now." The edge was back in her voice.

"They should have captured the Chancellor by now," Michael said. "I bet he'll know how to get those things off. From there we can also start transmitting the messages, once the way is clear."

"Yes, I want to see that," Rina said with a smile. "Let's go."


-----------


Chancellor Cambel sat silently, listening to the sound in the corridor outside his door and fingering the self-destruct button hidden in the armrest of his chair. He was waiting for the leaders of the invaders to come in, he wanted to see their faces just before he hit the self-destruct button. He listened to the sounds of battle for a long time, then they suddenly ceased. He took that to mean that the fighting was over, and that his side had lost. Now he was waiting for the leaders to arrive, that could be the only explanation for the delay. Laskin stood at his side, tense but ready to die.

They'd tried to send out a warning, or a distress call, to one of the other Alliance bases just before communications went down, but no one knew if it had gotten through or not. Cambel hoped it had, otherwise other bases could be caught off-guard just as this one had been. How had those filthy Rebels gotten past the security? And where had they gotten such intimate knowledge of the base?

Laskin seemed to read his mind and spoke. "It has to be the psychologist. I should have been more suspicious when he requested more time in the colony," he berated himself. "But it had all the proper codes and came through the correct channels. It has to be him - either he went over to the Rebels or they managed to capture him." He sounded very angry with himself.

"At least we'll know that the majority of the Rebels die here," Cambel said, but it didn't seem like much of a consolation, now. He hadn't entered the Alliance expecting to die for them, but what other choice did he have? At least he'd see the Rebel leaders before he killed them.

He didn't have long to wait. Less then five minutes passed, then the door opened and two large men carrying guns stepped inside. He smiled, this was what he had been expected. He got a shock, though as the two men stepped into positions at the sides of the door, obviously guards. They were followed by two boys, barely out of adolescence, both carrying guns in holsters under their shoulders. "Look, it's the real Chancellor," the first boy said to the other with a cruel smile. The other merely nodded, not taking his eyes off Cambel.

Laskin's swift intake of breath gave him the clue he needed to figure out the boys' identities. "You... you're from Project Titan!" Cambel said. Then he remembered the button in his chair. "No matter. I just wanted to see who orchestrated this event before I ended it." He smiled triumphantly, and pressed the button in his chair arm. The smile immediately died as nothing happened.

The boy who'd spoken smirked. "Here's a bit of advice for you, Chancellor. Next time someone designs a base and then becomes the enemy, it might be wise to change the security system."

"What?" Cambel leaned back in his seat as he realized what the boy was saying. "You..."

"I must admit," the boy said, glancing around, "You did do a good job turning my plan into reality. But it was *my* plan, so it wasn't too hard for me to bypass the security. The first thing we did was disable the self-destruct."

"Hey guys!" said another voice. A third boy came in, dragging a handcuffed Yirtz with him. He pulled hard at Yirtz' shirt as he crossed the threshold, sending Yirtz sprawling to the floor. "Look what I found! Wanna have some fun with him?"

Cambel saw real fear in Yirtz's eyes as he struggled to get back to his feet, but his attention was pulled away when the last boy, the one who hadn't spoken yet, finally deigned to speak. "Is Dr. Ethen still alive?"

"Yes," Cambel replied, seeing no options but to cooperate. He was aware of Laskin glaring silently at him, but he had nothing left, no way to complete his duty to the Alliance by destroying the base. If he didn't cooperate, they could (and would) force the answers out of him. He wasn't even sure whether to hope that the Rebels killed him or not.

"Where is he?"

"He was transferred to a prison on the moon months ago."

"One! Two! What do you think you're doing?!" Yirtz said shrilly, finally regaining his feet.

"Stay down," said the boy who'd brought Yirtz in. He gave Yirtz a kick that sent him sprawling to the floor again. "And the name is Herc, Yirtz," he said with a sneer.

"What happened to the hero of the Alliance?" Laskin asked softly, directing his comment at the lead boy.

"I've decided I'd rather be a hero of the people," the boy replied. "I've never met you before." There was a hint of question in his voice.

"That's Commander Laskin," the remaining boy said slowly. "He was the liaison to Earth Command. I saw his file. He's got enough power and respect for our needs. It looks like we've got everyone important all here together. Is the other shuttle coming in?"

"I've just signaled them. We've got a safe corridor for them to get here from the bay. There's still some fighting in the corridors, but it should be taken care of in a matter of minutes."

"What shuttle?" Yirtz demanded, but everyone in the room ignored him.

Suddenly all three boys turned to look at the door. Two more boys walked through the portal, supporting a third person between them. The girl's legs, encased in metal frames, dragged against the ground, but she held her head erect as she hung between the two boys. "Rina!" exclaimed the one who had called himself Herc, and they all turned to face her.

"Phoenix," Cambel acknowledged her with a nod, and he heard a surprised murmur out in the hall.

Her eyes rested on Laskin for a few seconds, then she turned to Cambel. "Chancellor, I'm only going to ask you this once. Where are the keys to get these things off my legs?" she demanded in a calm voice. She knew who was in control here.

Cambel accurately read the threat in her voice. "I don't know," he said honestly. "I left all business pertaining to you to Yirtz down there."

She stared at him silently for a moment, then transferred her gaze to Yirtz. Before she could say anything, the boy on her right growled, "Where is the key, Yirtz?"

"How dare you?!" he shouted, sounding truly pathetic. "I created you!" he got cut off when Herc kicked him again.

"Just answer the question!" he snapped.

"No," Yirtz said with a superior smile, and Cambel hoped that these kids would kill Yirtz right here, or at least kill him so that he didn't have to go on living, knowing that he'd allowed a fool like this to remain in his service for so long. He glanced at Laskin and saw he was grimacing.

Herc clenched his fists, but paused when the Phoenix spoke again. "Don't touch him, Herc. I think I have a better idea. In the past weeks I've become quite familiar with a toy of his. It's called the chamber. What do you say that we put him in it for a while and see if he'll tell us where the keys are then?"

"I think I like that idea," said the boy on her right with a predatory smile.

"I know I like it," Herc said, roughly jerking Yirtz to his feet. "What do you think, Kan?" He gave Yirtz a shove that sent him stumbling across the floor.

The boy who had spoken first also smiled. "Rather fitting, I would think."

The other two boys didn't speak, but they both smiled.

"No! You wouldn't dare!" Yirtz gasped. "Four! You can't let them do it!"

"And why can't I?" asked the boy on the girl's right. "Aren't you happy, Doctor? I'm finally just what you always wanted. I think I'm ready to enjoy torturing someone. Isn't that just perfect, how I'm going to make everyone happy? And my name is Arthur."

Yirtz turned dead white, but when Kan gripped his arm and started to pull him towards the door, he fumbled for a chain around his neck and pulled it free. A small cylinder of metal with several indentations was attached to the end of it. "Here it is!" he cried, thrusting it frantically at Kan. "Take it! Just don't hurt me!"

"Coward," Kan remarked disparagingly, then a strong push sent Yirtz back to the floor and Kan walked over to the Phoenix. He bent at her feet, fiddling with the key. There was a click, and one of the frames came off her left foot. In a few seconds, he had both of her legs free, and she was able to stand on her own. She rubbed her legs for a minute, then straightened up and smiled.

"It's great to see you all again," she said, and embraced the three boys who had been here when she arrived. "Are they on their way?"

"The shuttle just landed in the bay, they should be here in less than a minute," the leader replied.

"Who's coming here?" Cambel asked.

"We're going to do a transmission from here," the Phoenix said, looking around. "I think that we're going to need some more room, don't you?" she directed her comment at Arthur, who smiled. The other boys all smiled at almost the same time. She picked up Yirtz with one hand and lifted him off the ground by his collar with no hint of effort on her part. His face turned very red as he struggled for air, then she tossed him out the door. "Lock him up somewhere," she called outside.

"Yes, Phoenix," came the reply, and to Cambel's surprise, something akin to a wince passed over her face.

"You," Laskin suddenly muttered. "You lied. You aren't really the Phoenix."

Cambel frowned. "You mean the whole time she wasn't really the Phoenix?"

"No, she is the Phoenix, but that isn't who she really is. She's Rina Krace most of the time, not the Phoenix. The entire time we were pushing at her through interrogation the wrong way, because she told us that she viewed herself as the Phoenix. We were so stupid!"

She stared at Laskin thoughtfully. "Get him out of here," she ordered slowly. "And lock him up until I decide what to do with him. He's far too smart for our own good, and far too dangerous to remain free." Cambel noticed that she was tapping her fingers against her leg. When she saw him staring, she stopped. Laskin submitted to the hands of the guards without a fuss, but he continued to stare at the Phoenix over his shoulder for a long while. She waited silently as Laskin moved out of the room, then looked at Cambel. "How did you ever get the loyalty of one like that?"

"His parents were killed by Rebels on Earth when he was still a child."

"Was it really Rebels, or did you just frame them too?"

"To the best of my knowledge it was really Rebels," he said with a sigh. "What are you planning to do with me?"

"I say we just kill him," Herc suggested. He drew a gun from behind his back and aimed it at Cambel's head.

"No," the Phoenix said. "We're going to have a trial. A very public trial, where we expose everything that he's done, everything the Alliance has done, all of the minor colonies they've destroyed, the people they've had assassinated, we're going to lay the whole thing on his head for all of Earth to see, and the rest of the colonies, too."

"Then we kill him," Herc said excitedly.

"Nope. Then we send him back to Earth and let his superiors deal with him. Yirtz too."

Herc, who had begun to look disappointed at the beginning of her comment, brightened greatly at it's conclusion. "Sounds good to me," he said, putting away his weapon.

Cambel clenched his fists, and wondered if he attacked the Phoenix if the guards would shoot him and end it here, before he was publicly humiliated before the entire galaxy and then sent home, where the Alliance would surely execute him. His thoughts were interrupted when people started filing into the large office, over a dozen of them, all politicians and diplomats who had been forced out of office by the Alliance years earlier, and had been presumed dead. "What? How?" he asked.

"They're the people that are going to take over governing Alpha colony, at least until we can have some real elections," the Phoenix said, a satisfied smile on her face. "I've been planning for this for years. In some minor way, I should thank you. It could have been years before we were finally able to take Alpha colony from you, if you hadn't captured me." She trailed off as a young woman, her face flushed with excitement, walked into the room. "Julia? What are you doing here?"

"I'm here to make a public announcement, on behalf of my father," the young woman said.

"Julia was the one who helped us capture the psychologist," Arthur said quietly. "We told her the truth about you, and about ourselves, too."

"Julia, I..."

"It's all right. We're going to have a long talk when this is over, little girl," the woman said with a smile, and embraced the Phoenix. Then she turned and walked up to Cambel, who was still standing behind his desk, frozen in shock. She raised her right hand and slapped him, hard. He sagged back into his chair, one hand on his burning cheek. "Murderer," she murmured in a low voice, and her eyes were filled with tears.

"Get him out of here," Arthur ordered. "He'll just get in the way. Find out everything he knows, then lock him up. Make sure he can't hurt himself before the trial."

And with that, Chancellor Cambel, onetime ruler of Alpha colony, was handcuffed and dragged away like a common criminal.


----------


A few weeks later, after the craziness of the transfer of power had died down, the leaders among the Rebels had a celebration at Ambassador Krace's house. Most of the Alliance soldiers in the colony who survived the initial attack by the Rebels had shown signs of resisting until Gregor MacRall, acting as temporary President until a more solid government could be hashed out, made a public announcement that any Alliance soldiers who surrendered would be given passage back to Earth. After that, there was very little trouble, except with an occasional soldier taking it into his head to bring back the Alliance.

As for the Alliance itself, they immediately sent ships to Alpha colony, but after the first three attacks were repelled by the excellent military satellites Arthur had hijacked, they declared that they were cutting off supplies and trade to the colony, and that it would have to fend for itself. By then Emma Green's son had managed to get his father's system in operation on a massive scale, and the colony was in no danger of starving or running out of air. As for the trade blockade, the Alliance cut off all movement of people between Alpha and the other colonies, but they couldn't stop the trade between the colonies, which was mostly accomplished by drones, and they didn't stop the other colonies from trading with Earth, so the blockade was essentially meaningless.

There was an underground rumor in the colony that Rina Krace, the ambassador's daughter, was a bigger player in the Rebels than the Alliance had let anyone know, but so far those were just unconfirmed rumors. Those rumors would be confirmed as people from Refuge started mixing with the people who lived in Alpha colony. Already there was talk of expanding Refuge so that people wouldn't live in constant danger of dome collapse. Rina heartily approved.

They'd given Dr. Andrews the option of returning to Earth or staying on Alpha colony. He'd decided to stay, perhaps trying to make up for the years he'd spent working for the Alliance. He was working for Dr. Green, for now, learning all he could about the food system. It was about as far from psychology as he could get, and he seemed satisfied with that.

The one dark spot in all the celebration was the news that Commander Laskin had escaped from where the Rebels had been holding him, and couldn't be found anywhere in the colony. Somehow he'd managed to convince the guard that he was trying to commit suicide, and knocked out the man when he opened the door. They were assuming that he had snuck onto one of the transports to Earth with the common soldiers. The thought of him out there somewhere, working for the Alliance, made Rina very uneasy.


-----------


A few weeks later, as the sun was setting, Rina sat in the living room with her father, the five boys, Julia, and Mike. She decided it was time to broach a difficult topic. "Father, I think I'm going to have to leave."

He stared at her, then nodded. "I expected as much. You can't really live here anymore, can you?"

"People in the streets know my face. It's disturbing, and I'll never have any privacy or peace, especially once everyone knows that I'm the Phoenix. Besides, I've been a Rebel for so long, I don't know what I'd do with my free time."

"You can't leave now!" Mike exclaimed. "Not when we've finally won!"

"Where are you going to go?" Julia asked. She'd never become completely comfortable with the things that Rina and the boys had done, but she was slowly coming to terms with the idea.

"Well, all access to the other colonies from here is blocked right now. But we're still shipping loads of Alliance soldiers and agents back to Earth. The six of us," she glanced around. "...are either going to go down there to work with Rebels on the Earth, or we might hop a ride to one of the other colonies. We haven't decided yet." She snaked her arm around Arthur's waist. They'd become very close in the last few weeks, almost a couple. It was a very good feeling. Arthur hadn't gotten around to talking about it, yet, but she thought that he would, eventually.

"I can't believe you're just going to go!" Mike exclaimed.

"We can't stay," Heero said. "The way they designed us, we can't just be sitting around resting. We've got to be doing something. I don't know about the rest of you, but I've been going crazy with boredom in the last few weeks." He favored them with a rare smile. He still didn't show much emotion, but at least he admitted that he had them now. Rina was determined to get him to laugh sometime in the next five years. Now that might be more difficult than ousting the Alliance had been.

"Yeah, I know what you mean," Herc said. "Besides, there's so much to do on Earth! There's a lot to see!"

"If we have to fight, we might as well be doing it for a good cause," Arthur commented, and Kan and Michael nodded agreement.

"When do you leave?" her father asked.

"Two or three days. I'll find some way to stay in touch," Rina assured her father.

"I'm sure you will," he said, smiling at her. Rina smiled back and leaned into the corner of the couch she and Arthur were sitting on. A feeling of contentment spread over her, and she enjoyed it while it lasted, before the urge to continue started to push her forward again. She was happier now than she could ever remember being before, and now she had her entire life in front of her.


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TRANSCRIPT OF TRANSMISSION FROM BASE 001
STATUS: SECURITY LEVEL 1
DATE: 22.34.22
TOPIC: LAST TRANSMISSION FROM BASE 001


A: We're under attack! We're under attack from Rebel forces! I repeat, Alpha headquarters is falling... [transmission cut off]






Well, there's the end of that story. It clocks in at around 160 typed pages, around 130,000 words. I actually wrote the first draft of this in about two weeks -I didn't see my family for that time period, even though they tried to coax me away from the computer - and then edited it over several months, gaining about forty pages in the process.
Hope everyone enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!
Marika :)