Saotome sighed as he stared at the darkened lounge. Before him, a plate of food, barely touched.
"Can't sleep?" Saotome looked up to see Ryoko standing in the lounge doorway.
"Jus thinkin," Saotome replied.
"Ah," Ryoko pulled a drink from one of the cupboards and sat down on the other side of the lounge table. "What's her name?"
Saotome stared at her. "How?" Ryoko said nothing, but simply stared at him. "Kodachi," Saotome replied. "Her name is Kodachi."
"Miss her, huh?"
"Sort of...I dunno. We never got along as kids, but once we left Mandatory--I mean, had the education the law says we hafta have, she seemed to change. We went ta different schools, but her older brother and I had a blood fued goin since we was in Primer--uh, kid's school."
"I take it you won?"
Saotome shrugged. "He's such a deranged git that I can't bring myself to kill him. So I just knock him out with a kick to the head. You would think that he would get the idea after a while, but he just keeps coming."
"Are you sure that's the only reason?"
"What do you mean?"
Ryoko laughed. "You're a lot like he was." She stood up. "You have his eyes," she said sadly and left the lounge.
"What the hell?" Saotome asked.
No one answered.
****
The Devo Bazar was a huge asteroid two Sol units from a double star. The only planet was a gas giant with several moons, none of which were habitable. At some point, the asteroid had been gutted and filled with huge decks which in turn were packed with vendor stands. It never closed, it never stopped. Merchants came from all over the TerJurai Empire and beyond to sell and buy.
Wrapped in plain cloaks that concealed lightweight body armor, Ryoko, Saotome, Shidou and Utena exited the hanger, Ryo-Oki perched on Shidou's shoulder and looked weary. The frieghter had been left at the very edge of the system, concealed admist the ice comets and dust that made up the Devo system's oort cloud.
"Stay alert," Ryoko cautioned them. "You have the list?"
"Yeah, yeah. Relax. We've done this before." Shidou said and she and Utena vanished into the crowd.
"Come on," Ryoko said to Saotome and led him in another direction. "Nabiki is a cyber hive mind," she said. "Its made up of several hundred plus induviduals conncected by subspace. Their personalities are submerged into the group mind and every one of them knows what the others know and they all have access to one of the most extensive libraries in the Local Cluster."
"Promethueus?" Even on Japan, Saotome had heard of Prometheus, the legendary computer that supposedly contained the sum of all knowledge in the known universe. But only a select few were ever able to acess it in all of the TerJurai Empire's nearly forty thousand year history. However, Prometheus had dissappeared thousands of years ago. How and why was a mystery.
Ryoko shook her head. "No, it's something it came up with. Anyways, about seven thousand years ago or so, the Chruch decided that Nabiki was an offense and directed that it be eliminated. That war is what sparked the Accords of Seperation which protects the merchant class from direct interference by the Church. But there's always fanatics and the Church never withdrew its directive, just quit talking about it. So Nabiki went underground and conceals its activities in places like this." Ryoko stopped before one aisle.
"The food qaurter?"
Ryoko shrugged. "It does have a sense of humor, you know."
"But food?"
Ryoko shrugged again. "Every species uses food for money at some point in their history and Nabiki is very interested in money. So in a place like Devo, finding it in the food qaurter makes sense."
"Weird," Saotome muttered and then had to pull himself up short as Ryoko stopped. "What's wrong?"
"What do you see?" Ryoko asked, pointing ahead of them. Saotome looked where she was pointing, but only saw several closed stands, one with empty display racks still out.
"Nothin, just..." then it hit him. "The display racks." Under his cloak, his hand found Nerima's hilt. "The Nabiki?"
"Yeah." She grabbed his shoulder. "Stay alert."
What happened next Saotome couldn't quite say. One moment, they were standing on the street, there was a sensation of being everywhere yet nowhere and then he was in a darkened room. Shelves were cleared, debris on the floor. From behind him, he could hear the sounds of the bazar. In front of him was a dim light shineing through heavy curtains and his nose wrinkled at the smell of death.
Without saying a word, Ryoko shed her cloak and ignited her sword, gesturing for him to do the same. Then she grasped the curtain and jerked her head to the right as she pointed her sword at him. Saotome nodded and set himself, Nerima humming to life.
Ryoko tore aside the curtain and Saotome lunged in, sweeping his sword up, aware of Ryoko doing the same to his left.
"Most impressive," croaked a voice. Seated on a cushion was a wrinkled...something. It took Saotome a minute to realize that it was TerJurai. It wore a voluminious blue colored robe, a red cap sat upon long bluish-white hair and a thick cable ran out of the side of its neck, down the side of its body and into a black box. Two dead Dernans in the robes of Church Acolytes lay on the floor in pools of purple blood. The Nabiki itself had one hand pressed to its side and Saotome could see blood pooling on the floor. He heard Ryoko gasp.
Ryoko gurgled some name and then took a deep breath. "Hello, Nabiki," she said again, her voice far too level.
"Do not concern yourself with this Node, her time was drawing near already," Nabiki said. Red eyes, bereft of warmth and emotion, shifted to look at Saotome. "Satisfactory," it said and looked back at Ryoko. "Why did you seek me out?"
"Kagato's asking questions about something called Helios." Ryoko handed the data link to Nabiki. Smoothly, Nabiki pulled a cord from the black box and connected to the link and after a moment, almost seemed to smile.
"Your memory is slipping, Ryoko. Surely you remember that known as Washu's folly."
"Folly? Of course!" Ryoko looked jublient for a moment and then her jaw dropped. "Aw hell. I was promised more time!"
"Promises are made to be broken, Ryoko, we both know that very well. I suggest you hurry, for some reason, some Chruch Soldiers seemed to have decided to investigate one of the disposal chutes personally."
"Aw cripes."
"You must go to Chas to find the one who holds the map, Demon Caller. Seek out the Builder. Goodbye." The black box exploded in a shower of sparks and the Nabkiki's eyes suddenly gained warmth. "Ryoko?"
"Yeah, its me, kiddo."
"Its good to see you again, Ryoko. It's been a while."
"Yeah..." Ryoko trailed off, staring at the floor and then she went to her hands and knees. "I'm sorry, I-I couldn't--I never meant..." Tears flowed down her cheeks.
"I know, Ryoko, and I was wrong to blame you for her death...I forgive you...I think she does too. Don't blame yourself for what happened to us. You had a choice to make is all. We all make choices." A hand, wrinkled with age, stroked the ruined black box. "I made mine a long time ago. Go, Ryoko, give us back the moonlight. I will stay here and...rest for a while." She looked at Saotme. "He has his eyes," she said, as though awed. "Goodnight, Ryoko."
"Goodnight, Sasami," Ryoko said, voice thick with emotion. Sasami's eyes closed and then she faded from sight in a stream of golden and blue sparkles. Ryoko took a deep breath through clenched teeth and dashed her tears away with one swipe of her hand. "Grab the cloaks."
****
"Miya!" Ryo-oki cried as it flew out of Devo and steamed towards the Oort cloud.
Inside, Saotome slowly uncovered his ears, only to cover them as Ryoko blasted Utena and Shidou with another stream of profanity. Finally, the blue haired woman seemed to run out of obscenities, or at least needed to pause for breath.
"At least we disposed of the bodies," Shidou ventured and then cringed as Ryoko cut loose again.
"That's not the point, Breaker take you both!" Ryoko shouted when she was done screaming. "I said it repeatedly! Steath! Unobtrusiveness! Stay away from the farkin Church! Buy the damn supplies and get back to the damn rendezvous point. Not go find a sqaud and amuse yourselves!"
"The disposal chute needed testing," Utena said in a flat voice and then she drew back as Ryoko turned the full force of her anger on her.
"YOU'RE NOT MAITENENCE! EITHER ONE OF YOU!" Ryoko screamed and then shouted obscenities for several minutes before falling silent, breathing heavily. "At least, at the very least. Please, please, please, tell me that nobody saw you two morons." Both women shook their heads. "At least that's something."
"And we got the supplies." Shidou chirped.
"Shut up," Ryoko growled.
****
"Chas?" Shidou asked as the frieghter leapt into hyperspace. "What the hell is on Chas? Where is Chas?"
"A few galaxies over," Ryoko said absently, and turned to the console to the left of the controls, fingers dancing over the keys. "At the edge of the cluster. There's something there we need."
"And that would be?"
"A map."
"A treasure map?"
"To a weapon. Its almost as old as the empire itself, but it should be able to take on Churchworld. It was a silly idea to begin with but its not like the builder ever stopped to think about consequences. She just went ahead and did it."
"I hate it when you do that," Shidou grumbled.
"Do what?"
"Talk about ancient history like you were actually there. Gives me the creeps."
Ryoko stopped typing and turned to look at Shidou, her expression one of amusment. "What if I was?"
"Ha!" Shidou barked. "Funny, Ryoko. Reeeeallll funny. Why don't you just admit you're a history buff?"
"I'm not a history buff," Ryoko chuckled and assumed an expression of mock superiority. "I just paid attention in school."
Shidou roared with laughter.
*****
That night, Saotome was appointed cook and using the supplies Shidou and Utena had picked up on Devo, cooked up some stew.
"Stew?" Shidou asked as Saotome set the pan on the lounge table but nevertheless took a large helping. "Damn! This is delicious!"
"Pops and I spent a lot of time on the road training," Saotome said as he took his own place. "Stew's the easiest thing to make so we ate it a lot."
"Training?" Utena asked.
Saotome nodded. "Pop's side of the family practices something called "Anything goes. Strictly unarmed hand to hand but there's a technique for everything. Every summer, Pops and I walked all over Japan and once even we went over to China."
"How'd you do that?" Shidou asked. "Swim?"
"Don't be silly. China's fifteen light years from Japan. We took a ship, like normal people."
"Fifteen light-years is a bit of a long swim," Utena noted dryly, her wit earning her an elbow in the ribs from Shidou which caused her to knock over a water glass and Saotome's world jerked as he lost a few inches in height. "Sorry," Utena said as Saotome loosened his tunic so it didn't constrict his chest and his pants so they would stop cutting into his hips. "I forgot about the curse."
"Its not a curse, its a virus," Saotome said. "I'll deal with it."
"Its like looking into a damn mirror," Shidou grumbled.
"So you picked up the virus on China?" Ryoko asked.
Saotome nodded. "China has about a dozen moons and they're all habitable. We were on Jusenkyo looking at some old scrolls and this jusenkyoin just steps out of nowhere and dumps it on me. Mom and dad thought it was hilarious. All my schoolmates just stared and one of 'em convinced himself that the female me was somehow my prisioner. That I held her soul in bondage or somethin. Almost every day he attacked me, proclaiming that he would free her. Bad enough we already had a blood fued going, but now this?"
"So when did you kill him?" Shidou asked. Saotome shrugged. "You haven't killed him yet? Well why the hell not? Enemies are for killing. That's why we have them."
"He's so deranged, I can't bring myself to do it." Saotome addmitted.
"Stretching out a blood fued because of pity," Utena noted. "Worthy on some level I suppose."
"Pity, shmitty," Shidou said and pointed her spoon at Saotome. "If he's that nuts, killing him will be doing him a favor. Do it, Saotome. Take that sword of yours and jab it into his brain. You'll be better off for it."
Later, when the table had been cleared, Saotome sat and watched as Utena and Ryoko played some bizzare board game called chess. Shidou sat on the far side of the lounge, bottle in hand. She had done that on Japan too. She always seemed to prefer to drink alone and by now, Saotome's curiousity was getting the better of him.
"Why's she always drinking by herself?" Saotome asked Utena.
Utena picked up a piece shaped like some kind of building and moved it four spaces. "Hikaru takes her drinking very seriously," she said.
Saotome considered this and then got it up and crossed the lounge and sat oppisite Shidou, who stared at him.
"You cook pretty damn good," the redhead said, her voice rusty and coarse. "I wonder how well you can drink?" She tossed a fresh bottle at him which Saotome caught and opened. "We should drink to something I suppose. What should we drink to?"
"How about dreams?" Saotome suggested.
"Dreams," Shidou said sardonically, staring at something only she could see. "I'll tell you about dreams, Saotome. I knew a young lady once, a Cephiroan Pillar." Saotome blinked. His mother had told him that though their planet had been destroyed, some Cepheroians had the power to link to planets, and could command them completly. Even terraforming them by strength of pure will. They were known as Pillars, for it was upon them that the world rested and many were worshipped as Higher Beings. "This Pillar had one dream. To find love. She did."
"That's good, right?"
"Not really." Shidou's lips twisted in a bizzare, bitter smile. "The bastard betrayed her. Started banging her best friend. The Pillar lost all faith and abandoned the planet, which self-destructed without her. Four billion people. Dead. All because the idiot trusted somebody. She vanished into the depths of the empire to wait to die."
"Checkmate!" Ryoko exclaimed.
****
Chas was a moon orbiting a medium size planet. At one point, something had left behind a deep crater one qaurter the size of the planet, giving it the appearance of a crescent moon, or maybe a wide open mouth. The red sun blazed merrily in the distance and few stars were visible. They were in the halo of a galaxy, high above the disk where the only stars were the either the ones dying or already dead.
"Dead planet, one barely livable moon, no usuable minerals or strategic value," Shidou said. "In fact, the only thing keeping this rathole alive is that it sits on the inbound vectors from Cirrus, and with Gateways coming online more and more, hyperdrive is a dying technology."
"I didn't know you paid attention to socioecnomical politics," Utena said.
"I don't," Shidou replied. "But whoever wrote the last census for this place did. It's in the navcomp."
"Naturally," Utena responded with subtle sarcasam, earning her a glare from Shidou.
Saotome leaned on the back of Ryoko's chair, watching as she manipulted the frieghter's controls with the grace of a musican. "We're not gonna take Ryo-Oki in?" He asked as Ryoko kicked in the asmotspheric controls.
"Nope. No need." The thrum of the main engine died away to be replaced by the howl of gravitic scramjets. "Besides, no place in the system to hide in. "This is a vector station, all the places to hide have been cleared out to fight smugglers."
"Not that there's anything around here to smuggle to," Shidou added as Ryoko landed at the edge of the settlement.
"Saotome's with me," Ryoko said. "You two stay here and com us if anything arrives."
"We know the drill," Shidou said in a bored tone.
"You said that on Devo too," Saotome said before he could stop himself. To his surprise, all three Senshi laughed.
"You're learning," Ryoko said. "Good." And she led the way off the bridge.
The Chas settlement was a small collection of stone houses built with local stone and pseudo wood. It was night time and a torch burned fitfully at the few cross streets. Not many people were about and the few that were regarded them incuriously.
Side by side, Ryoko and Saotome made their way down the street. Both wore long cloaks, and the gravel crunched under their heavy boots. Their breath steamed in the empty air and he could almost feel ice forming in his hair.
"Where are we going?"
"There." Ryoko pointed at a rude artisians lean-to at the end of the street. "Nabiki said to find the Builder. Artists create, but its close enough."
"But wouldn't the port engineer be a better choice? I mean, they build stuff."
"Too obvious."
Saotome suddenly began to understand. "Its like riddles, isn't it? Nabki's into money, so it hid the node in the food qaurter of Devo which lives on money, and food has been used as money, which helps to move goods, services, and messeges."
"A little convoluted," Ryoko said. "But close enough. The answers aren't in the words, but who they refer to. If you know who they refer to, then solving the riddles is easy. We're following a trail laid down thousands of years ago on the off chance that we might need Helios someday."
"But how do we know who they refer too?" Saotome had the feeling he wasn't being told everything.
"The Church doesn't write all the history books, Saotome," Ryoko said as they approached the lean-to. "Some still remember the truth."
The owner of the lean-to sold pottery, but there was something odd about them and it took him a minute to pin it down. The pottery was good enough, but there was no heart in them, as though the sculpter didn't quite understand the nature of art. The sculptor herself was an older woman with green eyes that blazed with harsh bitterness and they glared at Ryoko with undisguised hatred. She probably had been beautiful at one point, but time and harsh conditions had marred her skin. Dirty gray hair hung limply down her back and her clothing showed signs of use.
"Come to gloat some more, Ryoko?" the woman asked from between clenched teeth.
"Hardly. You have something of mine. I want it back."
"Oh. That. I sold it."
"You what?" In a flash, Ryoko had the sculptor by the front of her robe. "I'm not in the mood for games, Mother." The Senshi's eyes seem to blaze with an inner light as she hoisted the sculptor from the ground. "I didn't wait all this time to be thwarted because you've decided that us lesser beings need to be reminded of your 'great intellect'."
"I've paid for Fowler's Star ten times over, Ryoko," Washu shot back. "Look at me. Stuck in the backwater, most of my power gone, my lovely machines destroyed--"
"Lovely machines?" Ryoko repeated and tightened her grip, causing Washu to gasp. "Can your lovely machines bring them back? Bring anyone back?"
"Careful, Ryoko, he'll learn before he's ready."
"Shut up," Ryoko snarled. "And give me the damn segment."
Washu held up a onyx black piece some kind of material and Ryoko snatched it from her, letting her drop. "Burn in the Breaker's Furnace," she said and stalked out of the lean-to.
"Goodbye," Saotome said and hurried after Ryoko.
Green eyes watched them go and then Washu's lips curved upwards in a smile that could only be described as insane.
Then the greatest scientific genius in the universe began to laugh.
****
"Left hand," Ryoko said shortly when they reached the spaceport. Off to the left, the frieghter sat, steam issuing from the exhaust vents. Ahead of them, the planet cleared the horizon of Chas, the great crater seeming to almost frame the stars.
Sotome held out his left hand and Ryoko slapped the onyx piece onto his hand right below his index finger. Swirling lights appeared in its depths as Ryoko grabbed his arm by the wrist and held it up to the planet, twisting so his thumb and forefinger were aligned with the lower curve. A thin, silvery line appeared to run from the tip of his forefinger to the tip of his thumb and then from the center of that line, a second one ran down diagonally to the segment...the two lines met over one of the dimmer stars visible through the crater and then some holographic numbers appeared in the shapes that the lines formed.
"Shidou," Ryoko said into the com. "Fire up the nav comp and enter these cords. " She read off the numbers.
"It comes up as some system named Great Wave," Shidou replied. "One planet, mostly ocean. No native sentient life. Heavy on the tourists though, apparently the storms are something to behold. Massively huge waves."
"Too obvious," Ryoko said her tone that of someone talking to themself. "Try different charts."
"Hang on...huh. Feed me to the Furnace. Something popped on a set of charts from some race called Gee Pee or something. It's another ocean world listed as New Atlantis in the Curry system. "
"Doesn't matter. That's where we're headed. Get ready for takeoff," Ryoko said and walked towards the ship.
Saotome followed her, his mind whirling. It was now very apparenent that Ryoko knew more then she was telling and whatever was going on was centered directly on him. When they got back on board he was going to sit down with the library console and find some things out.
'What's the point?' whispered a woman's voice at the edge of his hearing.
Well, the point was...was...
'You're just being paranoid.'
Now that he thought about it, it did seem kind of egotistical to assume that this was all about him.
'Just forget about the whole thing.'
And he did.
"Can't sleep?" Saotome looked up to see Ryoko standing in the lounge doorway.
"Jus thinkin," Saotome replied.
"Ah," Ryoko pulled a drink from one of the cupboards and sat down on the other side of the lounge table. "What's her name?"
Saotome stared at her. "How?" Ryoko said nothing, but simply stared at him. "Kodachi," Saotome replied. "Her name is Kodachi."
"Miss her, huh?"
"Sort of...I dunno. We never got along as kids, but once we left Mandatory--I mean, had the education the law says we hafta have, she seemed to change. We went ta different schools, but her older brother and I had a blood fued goin since we was in Primer--uh, kid's school."
"I take it you won?"
Saotome shrugged. "He's such a deranged git that I can't bring myself to kill him. So I just knock him out with a kick to the head. You would think that he would get the idea after a while, but he just keeps coming."
"Are you sure that's the only reason?"
"What do you mean?"
Ryoko laughed. "You're a lot like he was." She stood up. "You have his eyes," she said sadly and left the lounge.
"What the hell?" Saotome asked.
No one answered.
****
The Devo Bazar was a huge asteroid two Sol units from a double star. The only planet was a gas giant with several moons, none of which were habitable. At some point, the asteroid had been gutted and filled with huge decks which in turn were packed with vendor stands. It never closed, it never stopped. Merchants came from all over the TerJurai Empire and beyond to sell and buy.
Wrapped in plain cloaks that concealed lightweight body armor, Ryoko, Saotome, Shidou and Utena exited the hanger, Ryo-Oki perched on Shidou's shoulder and looked weary. The frieghter had been left at the very edge of the system, concealed admist the ice comets and dust that made up the Devo system's oort cloud.
"Stay alert," Ryoko cautioned them. "You have the list?"
"Yeah, yeah. Relax. We've done this before." Shidou said and she and Utena vanished into the crowd.
"Come on," Ryoko said to Saotome and led him in another direction. "Nabiki is a cyber hive mind," she said. "Its made up of several hundred plus induviduals conncected by subspace. Their personalities are submerged into the group mind and every one of them knows what the others know and they all have access to one of the most extensive libraries in the Local Cluster."
"Promethueus?" Even on Japan, Saotome had heard of Prometheus, the legendary computer that supposedly contained the sum of all knowledge in the known universe. But only a select few were ever able to acess it in all of the TerJurai Empire's nearly forty thousand year history. However, Prometheus had dissappeared thousands of years ago. How and why was a mystery.
Ryoko shook her head. "No, it's something it came up with. Anyways, about seven thousand years ago or so, the Chruch decided that Nabiki was an offense and directed that it be eliminated. That war is what sparked the Accords of Seperation which protects the merchant class from direct interference by the Church. But there's always fanatics and the Church never withdrew its directive, just quit talking about it. So Nabiki went underground and conceals its activities in places like this." Ryoko stopped before one aisle.
"The food qaurter?"
Ryoko shrugged. "It does have a sense of humor, you know."
"But food?"
Ryoko shrugged again. "Every species uses food for money at some point in their history and Nabiki is very interested in money. So in a place like Devo, finding it in the food qaurter makes sense."
"Weird," Saotome muttered and then had to pull himself up short as Ryoko stopped. "What's wrong?"
"What do you see?" Ryoko asked, pointing ahead of them. Saotome looked where she was pointing, but only saw several closed stands, one with empty display racks still out.
"Nothin, just..." then it hit him. "The display racks." Under his cloak, his hand found Nerima's hilt. "The Nabiki?"
"Yeah." She grabbed his shoulder. "Stay alert."
What happened next Saotome couldn't quite say. One moment, they were standing on the street, there was a sensation of being everywhere yet nowhere and then he was in a darkened room. Shelves were cleared, debris on the floor. From behind him, he could hear the sounds of the bazar. In front of him was a dim light shineing through heavy curtains and his nose wrinkled at the smell of death.
Without saying a word, Ryoko shed her cloak and ignited her sword, gesturing for him to do the same. Then she grasped the curtain and jerked her head to the right as she pointed her sword at him. Saotome nodded and set himself, Nerima humming to life.
Ryoko tore aside the curtain and Saotome lunged in, sweeping his sword up, aware of Ryoko doing the same to his left.
"Most impressive," croaked a voice. Seated on a cushion was a wrinkled...something. It took Saotome a minute to realize that it was TerJurai. It wore a voluminious blue colored robe, a red cap sat upon long bluish-white hair and a thick cable ran out of the side of its neck, down the side of its body and into a black box. Two dead Dernans in the robes of Church Acolytes lay on the floor in pools of purple blood. The Nabiki itself had one hand pressed to its side and Saotome could see blood pooling on the floor. He heard Ryoko gasp.
Ryoko gurgled some name and then took a deep breath. "Hello, Nabiki," she said again, her voice far too level.
"Do not concern yourself with this Node, her time was drawing near already," Nabiki said. Red eyes, bereft of warmth and emotion, shifted to look at Saotome. "Satisfactory," it said and looked back at Ryoko. "Why did you seek me out?"
"Kagato's asking questions about something called Helios." Ryoko handed the data link to Nabiki. Smoothly, Nabiki pulled a cord from the black box and connected to the link and after a moment, almost seemed to smile.
"Your memory is slipping, Ryoko. Surely you remember that known as Washu's folly."
"Folly? Of course!" Ryoko looked jublient for a moment and then her jaw dropped. "Aw hell. I was promised more time!"
"Promises are made to be broken, Ryoko, we both know that very well. I suggest you hurry, for some reason, some Chruch Soldiers seemed to have decided to investigate one of the disposal chutes personally."
"Aw cripes."
"You must go to Chas to find the one who holds the map, Demon Caller. Seek out the Builder. Goodbye." The black box exploded in a shower of sparks and the Nabkiki's eyes suddenly gained warmth. "Ryoko?"
"Yeah, its me, kiddo."
"Its good to see you again, Ryoko. It's been a while."
"Yeah..." Ryoko trailed off, staring at the floor and then she went to her hands and knees. "I'm sorry, I-I couldn't--I never meant..." Tears flowed down her cheeks.
"I know, Ryoko, and I was wrong to blame you for her death...I forgive you...I think she does too. Don't blame yourself for what happened to us. You had a choice to make is all. We all make choices." A hand, wrinkled with age, stroked the ruined black box. "I made mine a long time ago. Go, Ryoko, give us back the moonlight. I will stay here and...rest for a while." She looked at Saotme. "He has his eyes," she said, as though awed. "Goodnight, Ryoko."
"Goodnight, Sasami," Ryoko said, voice thick with emotion. Sasami's eyes closed and then she faded from sight in a stream of golden and blue sparkles. Ryoko took a deep breath through clenched teeth and dashed her tears away with one swipe of her hand. "Grab the cloaks."
****
"Miya!" Ryo-oki cried as it flew out of Devo and steamed towards the Oort cloud.
Inside, Saotome slowly uncovered his ears, only to cover them as Ryoko blasted Utena and Shidou with another stream of profanity. Finally, the blue haired woman seemed to run out of obscenities, or at least needed to pause for breath.
"At least we disposed of the bodies," Shidou ventured and then cringed as Ryoko cut loose again.
"That's not the point, Breaker take you both!" Ryoko shouted when she was done screaming. "I said it repeatedly! Steath! Unobtrusiveness! Stay away from the farkin Church! Buy the damn supplies and get back to the damn rendezvous point. Not go find a sqaud and amuse yourselves!"
"The disposal chute needed testing," Utena said in a flat voice and then she drew back as Ryoko turned the full force of her anger on her.
"YOU'RE NOT MAITENENCE! EITHER ONE OF YOU!" Ryoko screamed and then shouted obscenities for several minutes before falling silent, breathing heavily. "At least, at the very least. Please, please, please, tell me that nobody saw you two morons." Both women shook their heads. "At least that's something."
"And we got the supplies." Shidou chirped.
"Shut up," Ryoko growled.
****
"Chas?" Shidou asked as the frieghter leapt into hyperspace. "What the hell is on Chas? Where is Chas?"
"A few galaxies over," Ryoko said absently, and turned to the console to the left of the controls, fingers dancing over the keys. "At the edge of the cluster. There's something there we need."
"And that would be?"
"A map."
"A treasure map?"
"To a weapon. Its almost as old as the empire itself, but it should be able to take on Churchworld. It was a silly idea to begin with but its not like the builder ever stopped to think about consequences. She just went ahead and did it."
"I hate it when you do that," Shidou grumbled.
"Do what?"
"Talk about ancient history like you were actually there. Gives me the creeps."
Ryoko stopped typing and turned to look at Shidou, her expression one of amusment. "What if I was?"
"Ha!" Shidou barked. "Funny, Ryoko. Reeeeallll funny. Why don't you just admit you're a history buff?"
"I'm not a history buff," Ryoko chuckled and assumed an expression of mock superiority. "I just paid attention in school."
Shidou roared with laughter.
*****
That night, Saotome was appointed cook and using the supplies Shidou and Utena had picked up on Devo, cooked up some stew.
"Stew?" Shidou asked as Saotome set the pan on the lounge table but nevertheless took a large helping. "Damn! This is delicious!"
"Pops and I spent a lot of time on the road training," Saotome said as he took his own place. "Stew's the easiest thing to make so we ate it a lot."
"Training?" Utena asked.
Saotome nodded. "Pop's side of the family practices something called "Anything goes. Strictly unarmed hand to hand but there's a technique for everything. Every summer, Pops and I walked all over Japan and once even we went over to China."
"How'd you do that?" Shidou asked. "Swim?"
"Don't be silly. China's fifteen light years from Japan. We took a ship, like normal people."
"Fifteen light-years is a bit of a long swim," Utena noted dryly, her wit earning her an elbow in the ribs from Shidou which caused her to knock over a water glass and Saotome's world jerked as he lost a few inches in height. "Sorry," Utena said as Saotome loosened his tunic so it didn't constrict his chest and his pants so they would stop cutting into his hips. "I forgot about the curse."
"Its not a curse, its a virus," Saotome said. "I'll deal with it."
"Its like looking into a damn mirror," Shidou grumbled.
"So you picked up the virus on China?" Ryoko asked.
Saotome nodded. "China has about a dozen moons and they're all habitable. We were on Jusenkyo looking at some old scrolls and this jusenkyoin just steps out of nowhere and dumps it on me. Mom and dad thought it was hilarious. All my schoolmates just stared and one of 'em convinced himself that the female me was somehow my prisioner. That I held her soul in bondage or somethin. Almost every day he attacked me, proclaiming that he would free her. Bad enough we already had a blood fued going, but now this?"
"So when did you kill him?" Shidou asked. Saotome shrugged. "You haven't killed him yet? Well why the hell not? Enemies are for killing. That's why we have them."
"He's so deranged, I can't bring myself to do it." Saotome addmitted.
"Stretching out a blood fued because of pity," Utena noted. "Worthy on some level I suppose."
"Pity, shmitty," Shidou said and pointed her spoon at Saotome. "If he's that nuts, killing him will be doing him a favor. Do it, Saotome. Take that sword of yours and jab it into his brain. You'll be better off for it."
Later, when the table had been cleared, Saotome sat and watched as Utena and Ryoko played some bizzare board game called chess. Shidou sat on the far side of the lounge, bottle in hand. She had done that on Japan too. She always seemed to prefer to drink alone and by now, Saotome's curiousity was getting the better of him.
"Why's she always drinking by herself?" Saotome asked Utena.
Utena picked up a piece shaped like some kind of building and moved it four spaces. "Hikaru takes her drinking very seriously," she said.
Saotome considered this and then got it up and crossed the lounge and sat oppisite Shidou, who stared at him.
"You cook pretty damn good," the redhead said, her voice rusty and coarse. "I wonder how well you can drink?" She tossed a fresh bottle at him which Saotome caught and opened. "We should drink to something I suppose. What should we drink to?"
"How about dreams?" Saotome suggested.
"Dreams," Shidou said sardonically, staring at something only she could see. "I'll tell you about dreams, Saotome. I knew a young lady once, a Cephiroan Pillar." Saotome blinked. His mother had told him that though their planet had been destroyed, some Cepheroians had the power to link to planets, and could command them completly. Even terraforming them by strength of pure will. They were known as Pillars, for it was upon them that the world rested and many were worshipped as Higher Beings. "This Pillar had one dream. To find love. She did."
"That's good, right?"
"Not really." Shidou's lips twisted in a bizzare, bitter smile. "The bastard betrayed her. Started banging her best friend. The Pillar lost all faith and abandoned the planet, which self-destructed without her. Four billion people. Dead. All because the idiot trusted somebody. She vanished into the depths of the empire to wait to die."
"Checkmate!" Ryoko exclaimed.
****
Chas was a moon orbiting a medium size planet. At one point, something had left behind a deep crater one qaurter the size of the planet, giving it the appearance of a crescent moon, or maybe a wide open mouth. The red sun blazed merrily in the distance and few stars were visible. They were in the halo of a galaxy, high above the disk where the only stars were the either the ones dying or already dead.
"Dead planet, one barely livable moon, no usuable minerals or strategic value," Shidou said. "In fact, the only thing keeping this rathole alive is that it sits on the inbound vectors from Cirrus, and with Gateways coming online more and more, hyperdrive is a dying technology."
"I didn't know you paid attention to socioecnomical politics," Utena said.
"I don't," Shidou replied. "But whoever wrote the last census for this place did. It's in the navcomp."
"Naturally," Utena responded with subtle sarcasam, earning her a glare from Shidou.
Saotome leaned on the back of Ryoko's chair, watching as she manipulted the frieghter's controls with the grace of a musican. "We're not gonna take Ryo-Oki in?" He asked as Ryoko kicked in the asmotspheric controls.
"Nope. No need." The thrum of the main engine died away to be replaced by the howl of gravitic scramjets. "Besides, no place in the system to hide in. "This is a vector station, all the places to hide have been cleared out to fight smugglers."
"Not that there's anything around here to smuggle to," Shidou added as Ryoko landed at the edge of the settlement.
"Saotome's with me," Ryoko said. "You two stay here and com us if anything arrives."
"We know the drill," Shidou said in a bored tone.
"You said that on Devo too," Saotome said before he could stop himself. To his surprise, all three Senshi laughed.
"You're learning," Ryoko said. "Good." And she led the way off the bridge.
The Chas settlement was a small collection of stone houses built with local stone and pseudo wood. It was night time and a torch burned fitfully at the few cross streets. Not many people were about and the few that were regarded them incuriously.
Side by side, Ryoko and Saotome made their way down the street. Both wore long cloaks, and the gravel crunched under their heavy boots. Their breath steamed in the empty air and he could almost feel ice forming in his hair.
"Where are we going?"
"There." Ryoko pointed at a rude artisians lean-to at the end of the street. "Nabiki said to find the Builder. Artists create, but its close enough."
"But wouldn't the port engineer be a better choice? I mean, they build stuff."
"Too obvious."
Saotome suddenly began to understand. "Its like riddles, isn't it? Nabki's into money, so it hid the node in the food qaurter of Devo which lives on money, and food has been used as money, which helps to move goods, services, and messeges."
"A little convoluted," Ryoko said. "But close enough. The answers aren't in the words, but who they refer to. If you know who they refer to, then solving the riddles is easy. We're following a trail laid down thousands of years ago on the off chance that we might need Helios someday."
"But how do we know who they refer too?" Saotome had the feeling he wasn't being told everything.
"The Church doesn't write all the history books, Saotome," Ryoko said as they approached the lean-to. "Some still remember the truth."
The owner of the lean-to sold pottery, but there was something odd about them and it took him a minute to pin it down. The pottery was good enough, but there was no heart in them, as though the sculpter didn't quite understand the nature of art. The sculptor herself was an older woman with green eyes that blazed with harsh bitterness and they glared at Ryoko with undisguised hatred. She probably had been beautiful at one point, but time and harsh conditions had marred her skin. Dirty gray hair hung limply down her back and her clothing showed signs of use.
"Come to gloat some more, Ryoko?" the woman asked from between clenched teeth.
"Hardly. You have something of mine. I want it back."
"Oh. That. I sold it."
"You what?" In a flash, Ryoko had the sculptor by the front of her robe. "I'm not in the mood for games, Mother." The Senshi's eyes seem to blaze with an inner light as she hoisted the sculptor from the ground. "I didn't wait all this time to be thwarted because you've decided that us lesser beings need to be reminded of your 'great intellect'."
"I've paid for Fowler's Star ten times over, Ryoko," Washu shot back. "Look at me. Stuck in the backwater, most of my power gone, my lovely machines destroyed--"
"Lovely machines?" Ryoko repeated and tightened her grip, causing Washu to gasp. "Can your lovely machines bring them back? Bring anyone back?"
"Careful, Ryoko, he'll learn before he's ready."
"Shut up," Ryoko snarled. "And give me the damn segment."
Washu held up a onyx black piece some kind of material and Ryoko snatched it from her, letting her drop. "Burn in the Breaker's Furnace," she said and stalked out of the lean-to.
"Goodbye," Saotome said and hurried after Ryoko.
Green eyes watched them go and then Washu's lips curved upwards in a smile that could only be described as insane.
Then the greatest scientific genius in the universe began to laugh.
****
"Left hand," Ryoko said shortly when they reached the spaceport. Off to the left, the frieghter sat, steam issuing from the exhaust vents. Ahead of them, the planet cleared the horizon of Chas, the great crater seeming to almost frame the stars.
Sotome held out his left hand and Ryoko slapped the onyx piece onto his hand right below his index finger. Swirling lights appeared in its depths as Ryoko grabbed his arm by the wrist and held it up to the planet, twisting so his thumb and forefinger were aligned with the lower curve. A thin, silvery line appeared to run from the tip of his forefinger to the tip of his thumb and then from the center of that line, a second one ran down diagonally to the segment...the two lines met over one of the dimmer stars visible through the crater and then some holographic numbers appeared in the shapes that the lines formed.
"Shidou," Ryoko said into the com. "Fire up the nav comp and enter these cords. " She read off the numbers.
"It comes up as some system named Great Wave," Shidou replied. "One planet, mostly ocean. No native sentient life. Heavy on the tourists though, apparently the storms are something to behold. Massively huge waves."
"Too obvious," Ryoko said her tone that of someone talking to themself. "Try different charts."
"Hang on...huh. Feed me to the Furnace. Something popped on a set of charts from some race called Gee Pee or something. It's another ocean world listed as New Atlantis in the Curry system. "
"Doesn't matter. That's where we're headed. Get ready for takeoff," Ryoko said and walked towards the ship.
Saotome followed her, his mind whirling. It was now very apparenent that Ryoko knew more then she was telling and whatever was going on was centered directly on him. When they got back on board he was going to sit down with the library console and find some things out.
'What's the point?' whispered a woman's voice at the edge of his hearing.
Well, the point was...was...
'You're just being paranoid.'
Now that he thought about it, it did seem kind of egotistical to assume that this was all about him.
'Just forget about the whole thing.'
And he did.