Bubble Gum Crisis
An Alternate Story of the Knight Sabers
2034 Year of the Tiger
Neo No Armour Against Fate (Section 5 of 5)
No Armour Against Fate (9 of 10)
by Shawn Hagen(2000;2005)

Based on situations and characters created by Suzuki Toshimichi.

Rafael was just able to put his feet flat on the floor with only a little discomfort to his shoulders. His hands were tied together over his head. A piece of cord running up to a hook in the ceiling kept them there.

"Where is Kirk Richards?" the man standing in front of him asked.

Rafael said nothing.

His questioner slammed a punch into his side causing breath to explode from Rafael's mouth. "Where is Richards?" he asked once more

"This is pointless," Sylia said from where she stood nearby, leaning against the wall. She was wearing a baseball cap, a half mask that covered her lower face and a pair of dark sunglasses.

"I'm sorry," the man said, turning to look at Sylia. "We did not think we would have to interrogate them right away."

"He's not going to talk, not in the time frame we have," she told him. A distortion device in the mask disguised her voice.

"Well you'll just have to excuse me while I try."

Sylia shook her head, turned, and walked from the room.

The Genom team had arrived several minutes after Marcelle's escape ship had crashed into the side of the colony. They had managed to calm things down a little, and were keeping the station authorities away from her and the other Knight Sabers.

She could not blame the authorities for being angry and wanting to know what had happened. Explosions within the colony, a satellite weapon had fired near the station and a ship had crashed into it.

The population was in a bit of a panic.

"So, what's the news?" Priss asked as Sylia came into the room.

"Nothing new. They won't say anything." Sylia removed the cap and the sunglasses then pulled the half mask down about her neck.

"He's not on the moon?" Linna asked.

Sylia shook her head. "An attempt was made to seize control of one of the catapult sites but they never had a chance. It was likely a diversionary action."

"What about the particle beam satellites? That's what they tried last time, and it makes sense."

"Genom is watching them. They will 'remove' that threat if it becomes necessary."

"Maybe they will try to drop some other orbital construct," Linna suggested.

"I've been assured that they will be watched."

Priss shook her head. "I though for sure that the bastard would go for the moon catapults. They are the biggest guns around."

"Perhaps not so surprising. It would not be too difficult to stop any rocks launched from the moon, or at least break them up so the fragments would burn up on re-entry," Sylia told her.

"I guess."

Nene was working at her computer. They had found a number of disks and personal computers amongst Alice's and the others' possessions. She was looking through the files hoping to find something of use. She was only half-listening to the conversation between the others. "What did you say?" Nene looked over at Priss.

Priss was a little confused by the question. "About what?"

"The catapult sites."

"They are the biggest guns around?"

"Yes." Nene nodded. "They're not."

"What?" Priss asked.

Nene looked over to Sylia. "Genom's launch platform."

Sylia nodded. "Yes."

"Launch platform?" Linna asked.

"It is an orbital facility that Genom launches all their missions from. It is, basically, the largest weapon ever constructed."

"I've heard about it," Priss said. "Don't they take it apart after every use and put it back together just in time for the launch?"

Nene nodded. "They do that to keep anyone from getting nervous about it being misused."

"Yes, but there was a launch recently, Genom's second Jupiter mission. The Venus mission is being launched in three days," Sylia said.

"So this could be the thing that Richards is working on?" Linna asked.

"It is very possible." Sylia thought for a moment. "Get the equipment packed up and ready to move. I'm going to talk to the Genom commander." Sylia pulled the half-mask back up and reached for the sunglasses.


Thomas Tran had a lot of work to do in China. The Middle Kingdom had caused him no small amount of trouble, but he was close to getting everything wrapped up. It annoyed him to be called away from his work. It annoyed him even more that it had happened twice and it involved the same problem.

He had his duties though, and if Genom wanted him to put his operations in China on hold so he could take over a mission in space, he did so.

"Colonel Tran," Sylia said as she came into the room.

"What is it Miss X?" He did not turn to face her.

"The launch platform."

He turned and looked at her. "Yes. That would make sense, given what we know." He turned towards one of his sub-commanders. "Tengu, get me a picture of the platform and try to raise them. Don't do anything to alarm anyone who might get alarmed. November." He shifted his attention to a young woman close by. "How fast can we get there?"

"Let's see." She flipped open her NAVI. "We're sitting happily in Lagrange point 4, the platform is riding on the outside of point 1 at this time. Right now that is two hundred and fifty six thousand, nine hundred and sixty kilometres away." She entered the data into her NAVI as she spoke. "We burn reaction mass at an obscene rate, pull some massive Gs when we start," she said as she continued to enter the data. "I can get you there in seven hours, twenty three minutes and thirty five seconds, plus or minus forty seconds, after we leave here. Of course when we reach the platform the ship will be out of fuel and we won't be able to stop."

"Use the last fuel to divert the ship so its does not hit anything of importance. We'll ditch the ship on the way in."

"Yes sir. I'll get right on it." Saede November said as she turned and headed out of the command centre.

"Miss-X, I would like to request your help in this."

"You'll have it," Sylia told him.

"Get your team ready. We leave in thirty minutes."

Sylia nodded, then turned and left. She had work to do.


April 19th, Wednesday, 3:05am, GMT

The 'Merry Widow' was 'officially' a commercial freighter that carried cargo between the orbital platforms and the moon. In fact it was a Genom special operations base. While it had the lines of a 'Lucas' class freighter, it had little in common with its civilian counterpart. Armour and hidden weapons were coupled with a thrust to weight ratio that would better suit a fighter. It was quite the ship.

Within the ship, standing on a deck that was perpendicular to the thrust, Thomas Tran was briefing the assault team.

"The launcher is basically a rail cannon, thirty five kilometres long, with a barrel diameter of one hundred and twenty metres. The delivery vehicle being used this time is seven hundred and thirty meters long with diameter of eighty metres.

"As the launcher is designed to accelerate the vehicle to speeds that ensure that it will arrive in as short a time as possible, I'm sure you can appreciate how fast the vehicle will be travelling as it leaves the launcher. To put it simply, this thing should not be allowed to hit Earth. That is what we will stop," Thomas said, looking at the people around him.

"As far as telemetry from the launcher is concerned everything is fine. We've spoken to the launcher's crew and they tell us everything is fine. Direct visual feeds from several observation posts tell a different story. The launcher has altered its orientation radically and is now pointed at the Earth. It also appears that the construction time has been pushed ahead.

"This has become a threat."

"So why not just shoot it down with the satellites or something?" Priss asked.

Thomas gave her a displeased look. He was not used to being interrupted in such a matter. Priss met his stare evenly. "We are working on that right now. The USSD is being convinced to do this as we speak."

"Why not just seize control of one and do it yourself?"

"Where possible we try not to step on the USSD's toes to much, and we don't like to remind them how out of control they actually are. They might do something unfortunate."

"Oh," Priss said.

"While the weapon systems are to be used, I am not sure that they will work. If Kirk Richards is as weapon savvy as we have been led to believe then I would expect him to have considered the possibility and planned for it.

"I strongly suspect that we are the last and best hope, as hard as that might be to accept," he looked over all the people around him.

"The security of the sight, ironically, has been recently updated, including a force of twelve Flecks, space superiority boomers. While I am aware that some of you have faced Flecks before, you must realise that those were pale copies of the originals. These ones will have suffered some loss in function due to the fact they have had their AI chips altered, but not that much. We have eight Flecks boomers in the hold of this ship that will be going with us. Let them directly engage the enemy units. Our job will be to disable the launcher."

He reached down and tapped a control on the holo-projector. The projection of the launcher faded to be replaced with an image of Kirk Richards. "This is our primary target. We are to capture him, alive if possible. Miss X, I think that you should handle that part of the operation."

Sylia nodded. She suspected that Thomas knew who she was, but he had never used her real name, even when no one else might hear it. She was certain no one else on the team knew the true identities of the Knight Sabers.

"I suspect that Richards will be found in the cargo ship that is currently moored to the launcher. It is possible that he will be in the platform's control centre, but I doubt it. I suspect that he wants to move as soon as he can once this is over. Being in the ship makes sense.

"Miss X, my people will do their best to open a path for you so you can board that ship. Once you are in I suspect that you will find nothing there that you cannot deal with."

"I understand," Sylia said.

"Good. Now let's get down to details."

Thomas spent the next hour explaining exactly how they were going to accomplish their job. Leaving the ship just before it altered its course. How his people would react once they arrived. He left the Knight Sabers actions to Sylia, simply pointing out what he would like to see done, if possible.

When he finally finished he opened the meeting up to questions. His people wanted more information on the timings and about the locations they were to hit. Nene wanted to know more about the computer system that controlled the platform and the one in the ship. Priss asked questions about the delivery vehicle and then asked for more information on it. Thomas directed her to the computer.

Sylia wanted to know about back up. Thomas told her that they could not expect any support for six hours, at least, after they arrived on site.

"Sir," Saede's voice came over the intercom, "the satellite is about to fire."

"Well, perhaps we won't be needed," he said, though he did not sound as if he believed it.

All of them waited, quietly counting off the seconds. Both Thomas and Sylia looked calm, as if they knew exactly what would happen.

"It did not work," Saede's voice came over the intercom once more. "The satellite exploded before it could fire."

"I suspect that he mined the satellites, hooked them up to the targeting system," Sylia said.

Thomas nodded. "It's what I would have tried to do, in his place. Well, it looks like we are not going to get to do this the easy way. We've got about three hours to prepare. Get to work."

Everyone got to their feet, having to work at it a little as the ship was accelerating at one and half Gs.


Sylia had allowed for the possibility that the motoslaves and hardsuits might be used in space, though she had never really thought she would ever have a chance to put her work to test. She had spent a few hours altering the thruster units of both the suits and the motoslaves, then installing the new software that was needed to control the modified thrusters.
She looked over at Priss who was already cocooned in the Typhoon II. The motoslaves silhouette had been completely altered by an additional thruster unitfor braking purposes as they neared the platformextra reaction mass and air tanks. Most of it would be blown free of the motoslave before they entered combat.

She looked over at Thomas. He was climbing into his own powersuit. It looked similar to the suit that Mason had been wearing when she had last faced him. It, like the motoslaves, had a set of braking thrusters on it, as well as the reaction mass and air tanks.

The tanks made her wonder about what might happen if they were forced to destroy the launcher. She did not like the thought of being left out in space, waiting for the back up to show up. Six hours, at least. Would they be able to survive that long? Only if they could find some air tanks in the wreckage.

She shook her head as she pushed those thoughts away. No time to think about them now. There was nothing she could do about it. Reaching down, she picked up her helmet and put it on, making sure that it was on correctly, taking a little more time than usual. Once she had it on she over-pressurised her armour, just to make sure it was completely sealed.

Satisfied that the suit was as ready as it could be she walked to her Hurricane II and climbed into it. The motoslave closed around her, sealing her into itself. Information began to scroll across her inner visor, feed from the motoslave's computer. Everything was ready to go.

"Okay people, you know the drill," Thomas' voice came over the com system. "Don't screw up, this is the wrong place to do it. Prepare to de-pressurise the bay."

Several red lights began to flash, warning of the upcoming de-pressurisation. After several seconds the air began to be pumped out of the bay. It took two minutes for the bay to completely de-pressurise. There was some nervous chatter between the people in the bay. Mostly black humour about blown seals and messed up air mixes.

Thomas eventually told them to shut up, but whether because he did not want to hear it or he was giving the Knight Saberswho had never done such a thing beforea break, Sylia did not know.

When de-pressurisation was completed the cargo door slid open onto space. Thomas's people moved quickly, taking rods from the wall clamps, snapping them together, and feeding the long pole out the hatch. One end was bolted into a bracket on one of the bulkheads. Braces were put under it.

When finished, a pole one hundred meters in length stretched out into space.

"Out we go, by the numbers," Thomas said.

One of his people was the first to go out, grabbing the pole and, almost looking like he was climbing it, headed out into space. Two more powersuited, Genom special-op operatives went out next, then it was Priss' turn.

Sylia watched as Priss hesitated for a moment, then she went, the Typhoon II copying the actions of the powersuits.

It took a few minutes to get everyone out on the pole, but soon the entire group was out in space, clinging to the pole.

"Okay, cut loose, we're on our own."

Sylia knew what she was supposed to do. She just had to let go. It was difficult to do. She could not shake the feeling that she was hanging over an immense void and only the pole she was holding onto kept her from falling. After taking several deep breaths she had the Hurricane II release its grip.

She did not fall. In fact she felt like she had not released the pole for nothing changed. The ship was still beside them, as it had been before. Sylia, though she knew she was in space, could not help being affected by how things worked on Earth. She felt that once she released her hold the ship should have pulled ahead. It was going to take some time to get use to being is space.

"Ship's about to move away," Thomas said.

The ship suddenly began to move forward, giving Sylia the first sense of movement she had since she had climbed out on the pole. It began to alter its course, moving off, away from them, moving onto a course that would send it hurtling towards the Sun.

To their right were the Flecks boomers. They had exited the other side of the ship.

In a few minutes they were alone, hurtling through space towards the launch platform. They were going to be spending two hours in flight, as it were. Furthermore Thomas wanted radio silence. It was going to be a very lonely journey.


April 19th, Wednesday, 5:19am, GMT, Genom Orbital Launch Platform

When the sexaroid AE36A had been completed some of the techs had joked about her being one of the special 'P' models. She looked young, maybe in her mid teens, though perhaps on the small side. It was the closest Genom would ever approach to the darker sides of sexual desire.

She had long, black hair and deep brown eyes; her face was elfin. A beautiful, young woman.

She had been removed from stasis and had been given to a man named Kirk Richards. He had called her Dawn.

At first he had been uncomfortable about the young woman, treating her more like a daughter than a lover. That had changed as they had grown closer. In time, as he had slid deeper into a madness of his own, he had begun to find a greater attraction to her youthful appearance. He had done what he could to emphasise it.

He had her put her hair into pigtails; he made her wear juvenile clothing. She even carried a teddy bear with herthough inside of it was a 'plastic' handgun.

At first Dawn had enjoyed her life with Kirk, but as time went on she was becoming more and more worried about what Kirk might do. He kept coming up with plans of how to create, or use things all ready in existence as, weapons of great destruction.

As if their relationship had opened some door, Kirk had begun to be interested in actual children.

She no longer knew who Kirk Richards was, and yet she could not leave him.

It left her miserable. She wrapped her arms around her knees, pulling herself into a tight ball. She looked at the teddy bear that floated just in front of her. "What should I do Maku-kun?" she asked softly. The toy of course did not answer.

At the time she was wearing a dark grey ship suitit could also do duty as a short-term vacc-suit in an emergency. Her hair was gathered up at the back of her head in a bun in order to allow her to wear a helmet. It the most mature clothing she had worn in a few months.

What was she going to do about Kirk? What could she do about Kirk? She was certain she loved him.

Dawn's thoughts were broken by a beeping sound that came from the sensor station. She shifted about from where she was curled up in the corner of the bridge's ceilingin so much as there was a ceiling in Zero-Gand pushed herself gently towards the station, leaving the teddy bear behind.

When she got to the station she brought herself to a halt and looked down at the sensor readouts. She keyed her headset. "Kirk, that ship that was coming in just changed course."

"Has it?' Kirk responded. He was out on the launch platform, disabling some of the safety features. "Where is it going now?"

"In system."

"That's weird. Be a good girl and send a couple of more Dobermans out."

"Right," Dawn said, moving towards another of the ship's stations. They had wired everything into the ship's controls.

"I'll be in in about an hour. Let me know if anything else comes up." He cut the connection.

Dawn entered the commands that activated the boomers, and then put them on patrol.


Priss' biggest difficulty during the approach was keeping her urge to be sick under control. She did not care that they were floating in space, nor that they were going into battle in one of the most dangerous environments. What she did care about was not throwing up in her helmet. That would be messy.

She was also a little too warm. The modified innersuit she was wearing was keeping her temperature constant and within a comfort range. She did not know if it was too warm because that's just the way it was or if Sylia preferred the warmer temperature herself.

As annoying as both the nausea and the warmth were, at least she did not have to go to the bathroom.

Up ahead of her she could see the lights of the launch platform. According to her computer they were still over one hundred kilometres away. She felt she was much closer. She knewthanks to the briefing from Thomasthat the effect was caused by the lack of atmosphere. There was none of the atmospheric hazing that one used to judge distance on Earth.

All in all Priss was getting sick of space and all the different rules she had to remember. She would be happy to get back Earth where she just knew all the rules and did not have to think about them.

She watched the counters being projected on the faceplate of her helmet. The distance between her and the target was decreasing; the countdown time until they were to start braking was nearing zero.

Off to the side, below her, she saw a flash of light, then several more. The Flecks were braking. Priss watched as her own counter hit zero several seconds later. The braking thrusters fired and Priss felt the force of the rapid deceleration. They were about fifty kilometres away from the platform and travelling at almost six hundred metres a second. They would reach the platform in about two minutes.

The speed they were travelling at was incredible.

The platform grew in size ahead of them, Priss could make out details, see some of the boomers in the area and they were still ten kilometres away.

Then they were flying over the platform, or under it, Priss was not sure, moving at 90 metres per second. The boomers that were guarding the platform tried to move to intercept, but the incoming force was moving too fast.

The Flecks on their side came in behind the diversion force, slamming into the boomers that had set off to chase after Priss and the others.

At the time when the enemy Flecks were entering the fray Sylia gave the order to break away from the Genom forces. Priss took over from the computer and fired a long burst from the braking unit, eventually brining her suit to a complete stop. It was like slamming the brakes on in a car and being thrown against the restraint belts.

She cut the braking unit free; several now empty tanks were released at the same time. One of the effects was to free up the Typhoon II's arms which allowed it to pull the heavy laser cannons from where they had been stowed on its back.

Priss spun the motosalve about and opened fire on a rapidly approaching Doberman, tracking it as best as she could. As the same time she began dodging its incoming fire.

The effect was a little disorientating at first, but Priss forced her self to define up and down by her own orientation. It made the actions of the incoming Doberman look a little more confusing but helped Priss keep her head. She caught the Doberman in the chest with a sustained blast that cut right through it, destroying its main thruster array.

Crippled as it was, Priss had little trouble finishing it off. As she looked around for a new target she realised that she was still moving. She had forgotten the laws of space combat it seemed. She swung the motoslave around, found a new target, and rocketed off towards it.


Linna had read a number of papers and articles concerning manoeuvring in micro-gravity. It had always interested her as a martial artist. As she moved she considered inertia and how it would affect her, and the fact that every action had an equal, opposite reaction. When she reached out, with the Tornado's hand and grabbed a boomer, she knew how it would affect her, or at least she had a pretty good idea.

Using the boomer's energy to change her course brought her into a position where she could provide fire support for one the Flecks units that was on her side. She crushed the head of the boomeran armed, space construction modelthat had provided her with the course correction, and then opened up on the enemy Flecks with the Tornado's rocket pack.

That action sent the motoslave flying back, but Linna had expected that. She waited a few seconds then ejected the spent rocket pack, letting that force also alter her course.

If she had planned things right she would be in position to engage a Doberman.

As it was she ended up some distance off course, but was still able to fire on the Doberman, driving it away from Nene.

Linna looked around for Sylia, making sure that she was still clear. Priss was moving up to support Sylia so Linna stopped worrying about her.

"Ready to go?" she transmitted to Nene.

"Yes," Nene replied.

"Follow me then," Linna called as she burnt reaction mass and started rocketing towards the platform.


Sylia spun the Hurricane II about to avoid the fire of the Flecks unit that was coming at her. A blast of the thrusters sent her up, above it. She set the Hurricane II to spinning so its forward surface remained lined up on the Flecks. Throughout her suit the gravity emitters were charging. Just a few more seconds, she thought, judiciously using the thrusters to maintain her target lock.

A soft chime indicated her that she had full charge. She triggered the weapon system.

There were no tell-tale signs of the gravity wave, as there had been on earth. Maybe a very slight distortion in the light, but that was it. When it hit the Flecks it was made obvious, however. The huge boomer twisted about, one of the thruster units ripped from its lower body.

Unfortunately the unit was not destroyed, but then again it was no longer her concern. One of Thomas' operatives was engaging the unit.

Her continuing climb, relative to the platform, allowed her to see the cargo ship that had probably brought Kirk to the launch site. She was going to check out the ship while Nene would examine the platform's control centre.

"Watch your back," she heard Priss call out.

Sylia spun the motoslave about, bringing one of the Hurricane II's laser cannons to bear on an approaching Doberman. She and Priss caught the boomer in a crossfire of laser fire, quickly destroying it.

"Sorry I'm late," Priss transmitted.

"Not too late," Sylia said. "Ready?"

"We'll see," Priss said, taking to lead as she dove towards the ship.


Thomas was pleased with the initial attack. He had not lost any of his people, yet, nor had his Flecks taken any appreciable damage; the enemy had taken some loses as well. He had expected that in the initial attack. Things were going to get much harder.

"Red one and two, link up with Monster two and start your run on primary target. Red five and three, hold position. Monster six, break off that attack and start a running attack on target two." While his people and boomers were reporting that they understood he swung his armour's cannon about, brining it around to track an incoming boomer.

The weapon systems they used combined a large bore laser cannon with a 40mm gauss cannon underneath it. It was an effective space weapon, if used properly. A blast from the rail cannon sent him flying back, but he had wanted that. His armour spun about, bring him around to face another boomer that had over flown him earlier. A second blast that cancelled out the inertia of the first also ripped the boomer apart.

"Red four, move to my position. Monster four, move to soften up target three, we'll be with you soon."

He spun his suit so he was facing the launch platform again, almost five kilometres away. If Richards was as smart as he had been led to believe, then the fight was going to get much harder. Richards would have done his best to ensure that the vulnerable parts of the launcher system were well defended.

Yes, it was going to get harder.


Nene followed Linna into the command, control and habitation section of the platform. It was built in a gravity wheel that almost looked like one of the carriage wheels on a cannon. There were some boomers, mostly hastily armed space construction types, but between Nene's jamming and Linna's fire they were not much of a threat.

Nene matched the speed that the gravity wheel was spinning at and then latched onto it.

"Will you be all right on your own?" Linna asked from where she was floating, to Nene's perspective, near-by.

"Hai," Nene said as she began working towards one of the airlocks.

Linna remained where she had been for a moment. "Call me if you need me," she said, then moved off.

When Nene arrived at the airlock she found the outer door had been torn open, probably by an explosive. The inner door was also open. She did not want to enter the gravity wheel for fear of what she might find, but she steeled herself and moved through the airlock.

Once inside the chest hatch of the motoslave opened up and she stepped out onto the deck.

The lights were still on and there looked to be very little damage to the interior. "Wait here," she told the Tempest. "Monitor the situation and tell me if anything changes."

"Is that a wise course of action?" the motoslave asked.

"We'll see," Nene said, turning and walking down the hall. A short time late she found an entrance to one of the spokes. The control centre was in the main hub.

The hatch was locked. The fingers on Nene's powerarm folded back and the universal connector slid from the arm. Nene jacked it into the door controls and looked at what she had to deal with. It was an emergency airlock and someone had locked it down. Perhaps Richards had set up in the platform's control station after all.

It took her a few seconds to make the lock behave as she wanted. The lock de-pressurised and the door slid open above her. Nene reached up and pulled herself up, into the lock. The controls within the lock worked as normal. Nene sealed the hatch below her then re-pressurised the lock.

When the inner door opened a few seconds later she found herself looking down the barrel of a shotgun.

"That's not a boomer," someone said from behind the shotgun's owner.

"Well what is it?" the woman with the shotgun said.

"I'm a Knight Saber," Nene said, her helmet distorting her voice.

"A Knight Saber?" the woman with the shotgun said, sounding even more alarmed.

"I'm here to help!" Nene said, not really blaming the woman. In the past the Knight Sabers had been responsible for damaging a lot of Genom property.

"Why should I believe that?"

"I don't know," Nene admitted. "You don't have any choice when you get right down to it."

"Why do you think that?" the woman demanded, giving the weapon in her hands a jerk.

"Because if that weapon doesn't have the power to breech the walls of this place it is never going to get through my armour."

There was a deep laughter from above them; it rolled down the spoke like some palpable force and the woman with the shotgun seemed to relax slightly. "Let her up Jenny, I like this one."

The woman with the shotgun moved to the side. Nene looked up the spoke. There was one other woman and three more men clinging to the sides of the spoke. The one who had spoken was a large, middle aged man wearing a vacc-suit, though he had the helmet off. He was near the top of the spoke and was almost floating in the micro-gravity. "Come up here Knight Saber," he said. "My name is Ishmael. Let's talk."

Nene moved past the first woman, pulling herself up the spoke as she went. It got easier the higher she climbed. Soon she was even with Ishmael.

"You said you are here to help us?" he asked.

Nene nodded. "That and to stop the launcher from being used as a weapon. Can you tell me what happened?"

"It was the supply ship. After they dropped off their cargo we were told that there was a problem with the ship and they needed time to fix it. It was no big deal. It happens all the time. Then our security chief was killed in what looked like an accident. We didn't know there was a problem until the inner airlock doors all opened at the same time. Only a few of us managed to make it to the spokes before the outer doors were all breached. About the same time all of the security boomers and almost all of the construction boomers stopped responding to our commands."

"Do you still have control of the launcher?"

He shook his head. "The connections between our control system and the launcher systems were cut. We can't do anything."

"Can't you reconnect them?"

"Reconnect them?" one of the men below called. "We'd have to go out on the surface to do that. "We'd be killed by the god-dammed boomers if we did that. We aren't fucking stupid."

"That's enough Julius," Ishmael said. He looked back to Nene. "We can't do much, even if all of us were willing. It was the boomers that handled most of the EVA work. It would take us hours to find all the cuts and repair them. Do we have that much time?"

"I don't know," Nene said, though she doubted it.

"And it would be dangerous out there. I think either no one knows that we are in here or they just don't care because we are not a threat."

Nene nodded. "Okay."

"You said you were here to help us?"

"Yes. Do you think you'll be safe here?"

"We have a few hours before we start running into air problems. As long as the spoke is not breached we'll be all right."

"I'll let our side know to avoid it," Nene told him. "Once we have the area secured we can move you to someplace safer."

"Fair enough," Ishmael said, though he did not sound wholly convinced.

"Can I exit out of the control hub?"

He nodded. "There were airlocks there as well. They are all open.

"Thank you," Nene said as she began pulling herself up towards the upper lock. There were a few things she was going to have to check.


Priss stayed close by while Sylia overrode the locks on the ship's airlock. She kept scanning the area, looking for threats. There had been two C-class boomers in the area, but they had been quickly taken out. She had seen others but it did not look like those ones would be an immediate threat.

It took Sylia nearly a minute to override the lock controls. She and the Hurricane II moved into the lock and the outer door closed.

Priss waited a few more seconds then spun the Typhoon II about, brought it to a halt and then moved off at speed. There was a lot of fighting going on around the launcher, but Priss was in the clear. Thomas had most of his people trying to take out the primary systems of the launcher. The generators, and the capacitors for the most part. It was around those areas that most of the fighting was happening.

Priss had an easy run to the front of the launcher, ten kilometres up from where the ship had been docked. When she got there she spun about the forward end, punched her thrusters up, and flew directly into the barrel.

There were three boomers within the barrel, two C-class boomerssomehow affixed to the inner surface of the barreland a Doberman. They were stationed equally about the interior circumference of the barrel.

Priss put the Typhoon II into a roll and began to fire, strafing each of the boomers with a burst of laser fire. The two C-class did not have a chance, but the Doberman was able to evade most of the attack and come after her.

Priss intended to circle about and head back to engage the following boomer, but she was still thinking in terrestrial terms. The Typhoon II interpreted Priss' commands in a different way than Priss had intended. The Typhoon II spun about so it was facing the Doberman, but it continued moving in the same direction it had been.

While a little surprised by what had just happened, Priss did not let it slow her reaction time. She opened up on the Doberman, both of the laser cannons tracking the boomer. She cut its right leg off first, then took off its head. Finally both beams converged on the torso of the unit, finishing it off.

The explosion of the boomer, and some of Priss' fire, had damaged the interior of the launcher, but not greatly. The launcher system was very hardy and it would take more firepower than the Knight Sabers and Thomas' team commanded to harm the barrel itself.

Priss spun the Typhoon II about once more and continued down the launcher. There were more boomers on guard duty, but Priss had little problem dealing with them. She did use a lot of reaction mass doing so. She knew she could not stay in the fight for long if she kept wasting her fuel.

She finally arrived at her target. The huge form of the delivery vehicle filled the barrel. It was a large cylinder, built to make planet fall on Venus. Trying to destroy it would be more futile than trying to destroy the launcher.

When Priss had looked at the image of the vehicle during the briefing on the Merry Widow she had noted something odd. On the very front of the vehicle was what looked like an engine. It was an engine, as it turned out. The vehicle carried very little reaction mass. The little it carried was for the attitude thrusters and the large braking thruster on the front of the craft.

It had been Priss' idea to use the braking thruster to stop the vehicle, or at least slow it, if it was launched. Thomas has seen the value in the idea, but did not have the people to spare. That was how Priss ended up in charge of the mission.

The motoslave opened up its chest hatch and Priss moved free of the unit. "Watch my back," Priss ordered as she floated towards the braking thruster, carrying a small tool kit in her use hand.


"You better take a look at this Kirk," Dawn said.

"What?" he asked as he pushed himself towards the 33-S.

"Our attackers, the Knight Sabers are amongst them."

"That can't be," Kirk said. He moved to look over her shoulder. "Show me."

Dawn moved back through the records until she found the image of a blue and grey motoslave, the blue and red hardsuit of the operator just visible.

"How long till we are ready to go?" Kirk asked, his voice flat.

"The final connections should be ready in ten minutes. We can activate the launcher then."

"We fire then. We'll try to find some target of importance. Hopefully we can drop it on Japan."

"Don't we have to make our demands first?" Dawn asked.

Kirk smiled as he shook his head. "It is all over. The Knight Sabers weren't killed or captured, there is no hunt on for Sylia Stingray. It was a set up. The others are either dead or captured."

"But, we can't do this," Dawn said. "It will kill millions."

"Yes, at least. It will be interesting to see if this works."

Dawn's eyes widened.

He looked at her. "We can't escape, not now, not if the others have been captured. We might as well go out on a high note."

"But..."

"Just do as I say!" Kirk screamed at her.

Dawn recoiled back from him.

"Do it!"

She nodded and moved towards the main controls to enter the commands.

"And lock the controls down afterwards."

"I will," she said.

Kirk remained where he was, breathing heavily. "I wonder if Sylia is still alive?" he asked softly.


Getting into the ship through the airlock had been relatively easy. Airlocks were ultimately designed to make it easy to enter a ship. All Sylia really had to do was make the airlock behave in the way it was designed to.

She had entered an airlock that led into the ship's cargo bay. Moving through the cargo bay was simple enough. It was a large, open space and most of the cargo had been removed, transferred to the platform.

Entering the habitat section, where the bridge was located, proved to be rather difficult. The hatch was not an airlock and not designed to be easily opened. It separated compartments in order to minimise the danger if there were hull breach.

The door had been locked in emergency mode. As far as the lock's simple computer was concerned there was hard vacuum in the cargo hold. She checked the other large hatches and discovered that they too had been locked down. There were still the smaller hatches, but Sylia knew she would not be able to get the motoslave through them.

There was the possibility of forcing the larger hatches but that would alert anyone on the ship she was there, if they did not already know. Also, forcing the door might cause similar emergency doors to seal within the habitat sectionif they were not already sealed.

The fastest way would be to go through the smaller hatches.

As she had expected the smaller hatches, which also doubled as emergency airlocks, did open for her with only a little work. Leaving the Hurricane II behind she pulled herself into the small lock and sealed the exterior door, and then moved into the habitat section.

The bridge was near the bow of the ship. Sylia began pulling herself along the corridor that ran port to starboard, looking for a way forward. Not far from where she entered she found a hatch. It was not emergency locked so she had little trouble entering.

She found herself in a commons room. About her were the doors that led into the crew cabins. She gave herself a push and floated up to the entrance to the next deck. The habitat section was built like a skyscraper with each deck set up like a floor of a building, perpendicular to the thrust.

As she opened the hatch to the next deck she was presented with a rather gruesome sight. It was another common room like the one below, but it was filled with bodies: The crew. Their lifeless forms floated amongst globules of congealed blood and other things. Sylia was glad her hardsuit was sealed and she did not have to smell what was in there.

She pushed herself into the room, brushing by bodies and blood globules. With a clinical detachment she examined the bodies. Entry wounds but the lack of exit wounds spoke of low velocity rounds, made so they would not breach the bulkheads of a spacecraft. It was doubtful that any of the crew would have been killed instantly by such rounds. They would have had plenty of time to bleed to death, which explained all the blood.

As she made her way to the next hatch she wondered how they had all been herded into the room so they could be executed.

If Kirk Richards had allies on board Sylia had no doubt she would find out soon enough.


Whoever was using the ship as the control centreNene was fairly certain it was Kirk Richardswas using the ship's antenna array to communicate with the launcher's systems. It was not difficult for Nene to hook into the system, and the antenna array gave her plenty of places to hide.

The Tempest was near by, using the docking clamps between the ship and the platform as cover. It was watching Nene's back, as it were, letting her work in peace.

Nene discovered that the transmitting dish was protected by a one way gate and an impressive firewall. The antenna that received information from the array was not connected directly to the ship's computer system and sent data through in highly compressed squirt packages. Given time Nene would have worked her way through the later system as it would be easier. She did not have time though, which meant jamming the gate open and hacking the firewall.

As she set to work she thought that she'd rather be sitting at home than clinging to a spacecraft with battle going on about her.


Priss wished, not for the first time, that someone else was doing her job.

Being able to do some preventive maintenance on her motorcycles, or wiring together an amplifier system did not qualify her to be working on the engine of a spacecraft. Yet there she was.

First she had had to tear the armour platingprotection against micro-meteoritesfrom the unit. After that she had to get the reaction mass from the craft into the engines. That she had accomplished by short-circuiting the fuel pumps. That had been followed up by her tearing a number of safety systems from the assembly.

All that had been easy compared to wiring the remote switch into the ignition controls. She was hampered greatly by the fact that the fingers on her powerarm were not the perfect tools for such work.

Finally she had it in, and it looked good, mostly. All she had to do was check the connections and then bond everything into place so nothing shook loose as it was firing out of the launcher.

"In coming enemy," the Typhoon II's voice came over her com. "Identified as Flecks boomer. Arrival time in thirty seconds."

Priss looked at her still incomplete work. If she stayed and that boomer fired on her it was very likely that the thruster unit would be damaged. If she did not finish the work up though, it might not work.

Given her options Priss did the only thing she could. "Let's go," she called to the Typhoon II as she pushed away from the delivery vehicle. All she could do was hope that it worked when the time came.

She and the Typhoon II sped down the barrel towards the approaching Flecks. It opened up fire on them as it came with near deadly accuracy. As a laser beam scorched the top of her helmet Priss knew that the Flecks she had faced in MegaTokyo were nothing compared to the real units.

"Go in fast," she ordered the Typhoon II. "Draw its fire."

The Typhoon II did just that, flying an erratic pattern as it fired both of its laser cannons at the Flecks, forcing it to go on the defensive for a few seconds. Just as it was closing into grappling range with the Flecks the Typhoon II fired both of its under-barrel missile launchers. The recoil halted the motoslave and the force of the explosion as the missiles detonated drove the Typhoon II backwhich is what it had expected.

The Flecks was left spinning, out of control, for a few seconds.

Priss used those few seconds, moving in close and grabbing onto the boomer's rear carapace. She laid all three of her S-mines on the boomer in rapid succession before launching a rocket assisted kick, detonating all of the leg bombers on her right leg.

The manoeuvre and the explosion sent Priss tumbling away from the Flecks, completely out of control. It was mostly what she had expected and it got her clear of the Flecks just before the S-mines went off.

The Flecks had just taken a huge amount of damage, but was still ready to continue the fight.

Just as it was getting its tumble back under control the Tornado came speeding inpiloted by Linnaand opened up on the large boomer with its 35mm rail guns, the thrusters firing to offset the recoil as it moved forward.

The Typhoon II added its firepower to the attack as well.

Under two such powerful and sudden attacks the Flecks was quickly ripped apart. Priss, who had managed to stop herselfby slamming into the wall of the launcher and grabbing onwatched the impressive display.

"Can't you take care of yourself?" Linna chided as the Tornado came to a stop near Priss.

"I was doing all right," Priss told her. "What's it like out there?"

"It's getting messy. Are you finished up here?"

Priss looked back towards the launch vehicle. "I just need another minute or two. Then we'll go show those Genom bastards that when it comes to fighting boomers there is no one better than us."


Sylia kicked up to the next deck, passing through the open hatch. She was close to the bridge. A short time before she had taken down a 99C that had been intent on stopping her from continuing. It had not slowed her down much.

As she passed into the next deck she found she had at least one more guard to deal with.

A white and red hyperboomer floated off of the side, its glowing eyes staring at Sylia. Sylia stared back, wondering if the red on it might be blood.

Along the boomers right arm was a long, slightly curved blade, a perfect weapon for use within ships. Sylia slid her own blades free of the housings in her powerarms. She did not want to chance decompression at that point, and they were close to the hull.

The hyperboomer's sword swung down, locking into position. Using its foot it turned itself slightly so its right side was presented to Sylia.

Sylia shifted position slightly, dropping her right arm, preparing the blade.

For several seconds she and the boomer floated, unmoving, simply staring at each other. Sizing each other up, Sylia thought.

Then the boomer's thrust units fired off and it came right at her. Sylia launched herself at it, bringing her blade up, ready to attack.

There was a flash of weapons, and the pure, high ring of metal on metal when they met and then passed each other by.

Light flashing from it, Sylia's Kotetu blade, sliced off almost at its base, spun off.

Sylia hit the far wall with her feet, absorbing the impact, then twisting about, launching herself at the hyperboomer.

The hyperboomer had performed almost the same manoeuvre and was flying back towards Sylia, its deadly blade leading.

Under her helmet Sylia smiled slightly as she raised her right arm, the stump of her broken sword lifted in attack.

When they hit each other both Sylia and the boomer came to a halt, cancelling out the other's forward momentum. Sylia felt it, like the time that fusion boomer had hurled her into that wall. She did not give that much thought. She was watching the boomer's sword, watching the small crack that she had seen appear in it when it had severed her Kotetu.

The crack widened, snapping the blade that should have cut Sylia's powerarm, and her actual arm, in half.

The hyperboomer, momentarily confused by what had happened, was unable to stop the sword in Sylia's left powerarm, her Muramasa, from lashing out, taking its head cleanly from its shoulders.

She followed up the attack by driving her right hand forward, jamming her powerarm's beam cannon up against the boomer's chest. Trusting that the boomer's armour would help to contain the attack and protect the hull, she fired, ending the fight.

She used the lifeless boomer to push off of as she made her way to the hatch that led up to the bridge. It was emergency locked, but Sylia no longer cared about being obvious. Kirk had to know that someone was coming by now.


"The hyperboomer has been killed," Dawn said.

"Deactivated," Kirk corrected her. "Deactivated. How long till we can fire?"

"Three more minutes, but..."

"No buts. How much damage have we suffered?"

"We've lost power capacitors three and five, but both generators are still at full power output."

"Good, good. Our forces should be able to protect at least one of the generators. We may not get maximum acceleration and final velocity, but it will still work well enough. Say we'll only kill two million instead of five. Will we be able to hit MegaTokyo?"

"I don't think so," Dawn told him. "We've lost a quarter of our station keeping thrusters. It will probably hit somewhere in the northern part of Honshuu."

"Pity," Kirk said softly.

Dawn was about to ask him to stop it once again, though she knew it would be useless, when they heard a loud banging and muffled explosions.

Kirk looked down at the floor, towards the stern. "That's the security door," he said. "Raw power, and a beam weapon are being used for cutting." He listened for a few more seconds. "Two beam weapons, very powerful. They better be careful or they might beach the hull."

"What should we do?" Dawn asked.

He looked over at her. "The computer is locked down, ready to fire?"

She nodded.

"Then all we have to do is greet our guest," he told her, reaching over to grab a large taser from where it floated nearby. "Hardsuit or not, they are going to feel this."

He squeezed the trigger to its first stage, activating the sighing laser. The second stage would fire a low powered laser, just enough to ionise the air. Third stage sent a large amount of electricity down that tunnel of ionised air. He did not expect that armour would make a difference.

The booming stopped a moment later. "Through the security door. Now its just a simple hatch." He swung the weapon down so it was pointing at the hatch in the floor.

A screeching sound of metal on metal set his teeth on edge, but he kept the weapon pointed down. Just open that hatch, he thought, gently squeezing the trigger to near its second stage.

That was when the entire hatch, cut free from its frame, went flying up.

Kirk fired, the electrical charge arced between the barrel of his rifle and the hatch, filling the air with the ozone.

But the figure in the blue and white hardsuit was not near the hatch and came into the bridge so fast Kirk was hardly able to begin shifting his weapon to the new target when it was knocked from his hands.


Sylia had expected some sort of attack when she entered the bridge and was not, as it were, disappointed.

She slapped the taser from Kirk's hands before giving him a hard push, sending him to bounce off one of the bulkheads.

There was a flash of movement. Sylia turned to find Dawn facing her, holding up a, teddy bear? She discovered there was actually a threat there as Dawn began firing at her. Fortunately the low velocity rounds were no real threat to Sylia, though they ripped the teddy bear apart. Stuffing and bear-fur floated about the bridge.

Sylia pulled the weapon from the sexaroid and then pushed her away, hard.

Before either Kirk or Dawn could think of doing anything else, Sylia had the beam guns in her powerarms pointed at them. "It's over," she said, her voice amplified by the helmet's speakers. "I'm the only one who can survive decompression if it happens so don't force me to fire."

Kirk was holding his right hand in his left, cradling the two broken fingers on his hand. He had hit the bulkhead hard, and might have broken some ribs. Still, he began to laugh. "It's not over. You can't stop it. It will happen, no matter what!" he finished shouting.

Sylia moved closer to him, lining her beam gun up with his head. "You better stop it."

He laughed again. "I'm already dead Sylia! At least this way I get to take some people out with me."

Sylia looked at him and could see the madness in his eyes, the same madness that had been in Douglas Meren's eyes when he had stupidly attacked her.

"Four, this is one, status," Sylia sent.

"I'm still working on it," Nene replied. "It is going to take a few minutes more."

"Keep on it. Two, three, status."

"We are trying to get at the generators but they are too well protected," Linna sent. "The Genom force are down to half now. I don't think we can do it."

"I got the engines rigged," Priss told her. "We won't know if I did it right until we try to fire them."

Sylia wanted to curse. She looked between Kirk, who was still laughing, and Dawn, who was staring at Kirk, a worried look on her face.

Sylia pushed herself so she floated beside Kirk, her Muramasa blade sliding free. When she put it to Kirk's throat he stopped laughing.

"If you want him to live, shut it down," Sylia ordered Dawn.

"Please don't," Dawn cried.

"Don't listen to her!" Kirk shouted. "I'm already dead."

"It doesn't have to be now," Sylia said, twisting the blade slightly, cutting the skin. Blood began to run down the side of the blade. "He'll have a chance," Sylia lied.

Dawn pushed herself from where she had been and began floating towards the sensor station.

"Don't do it Dawn," Kirk began to cry. "It doesn't matter if I die. Don't make my death pointless. Please, don't do this."

Dawn stopped over the sensor station, staring at Kirk.

"If you let this happen then his name will be reviled for hundreds of years. No one will remember the good man he was, just the monster her became," Sylia told the sexaroid.

"I don't care Dawn. I don't want to die alone."

"I won't let that happen," Dawn said, then reached down and began tapping in codes. After several seconds she looked at Sylia. "It's over, and I've stood down the boomers."

"No!" Kirk screamed, surging to his feet. He might have cut his head off on Sylia's sword had she not taken away form his neck. As it was his rapid movement sent him banging into the ceiling.

As he wrapped his hands around his hurt head and began to cry Dawn moved to his side. When she started to put her arms around him he pushed her way. "Don't touch me!" he screamed at her. "Don't touch me," he sobbed, and then completely broke down. When Dawn moved to embrace him again he did not push her away.

Sylia moved away from them and keyed her com system to the Genom frequency. "Red Prime, this is Saber Prime, what is the situation?"

"Enemy units have all stood down. We're moving in to disable all targets, just in case."

"Understood. I have secured this ship, so we have a place to wait."

"Good work Saber Prime. See you soon."

Sylia cut the connection and looked up at the sobbing Kirk and the boomer that was holding him tight, trying to comfort him. She was suddenly reminded of Gibson and Naomi. She remembered what she had said about them, about them being victimised because those in power did nothing.

She wondered just how much Quincy had known all along. How much Quincy had let happen because he was interested in seeing how it might unfold?

Sylia shook her head. Soon she was going to be one of those in power. She wondered if she would do a better job.

At least it was finally over.


Tech Notes: The Genom Orbital Launcher is, as said, a very large rail cannon. This huge device, while very hardy, would be crushed under its own weight, were it in gravity.

The launcher imparts acceleration on the delivery vehicle of such a magnitude that a human would be killed. It is a little rough on the boomers as well. Still, such acceleration ensures that the vehicle will arrive at its target in a reasonable time frame.

So far Genom has launched thirty-eight separate missions since the launcher has been in operation. That not a single one has been lost is something Genom is rather proud of. Critics point out that some of those missions are still in transit and that problems may arise when the delivery vehicle arrives on target. Whether this is a valid concern or just a case of sour grapes, only time will tell.

Genom's first mission used the GOL to launch fourteen small probes (sixty meters long, fifteen meters in diameter) towards each of the planets (minus Earth), the Sun, two into the asteroid belt, and three into the space beyond Pluto.

The information still being transmitted back to Earth from the probes has been of immense scientific value.

That the launcher could be used as an incredibly powerful weapon was lost on few. To alleviate that fear Genom ensured a policy that had the GOL disassembled immediately after a launch and then reassembled just in time for the next launch. This, as well as other safety features made the GOL seem harmless.

Since the recent affair Genom has increased the security around the GOL as well as adding new protocols that will ensure that such an incident can never happen again. It should be noted that Genom though such a thing could never happen in the first place.

The GOL takes a month to completely disassemble and a month to completely reassemble. The cost of the system is prohibitive and if used as a weapon it would make nuclear weapon's look tame.

GOL Delivery Vehicles: The vehicles are simply cylinders, built mostly with ceramics, however enough ferrous materials are used to allow the magnetic fields of the launcher to effect it. The simplest are simply housings for equipment, much like the probes used in the first mission. The most complex are space ships, containing a large number of systems to make sure it gets to exactly where it is going.

Where Genom saves in cost and mass is the ability to do away with a large amount of reaction mass that would have to be used were it not for the launcher. To further decrease the amount of reaction mass required for braking and changing their vectors a number of these vehicles have been equipped with scoops. These scoops gather what hydrogen, and other particles they can, which are given a charge, and then fired out of the thruster ports by means of electromagnetic fields.

Still, any vehicle that has to come to a stop is given enough reaction mass to do so.

The Venus mission Delivery Vehicle, as it could not use any other planetary bodies for a gravity brake, and would in fact be falling in towards the system, carried quite a large amount of reaction mass to slow the vehicle before it would make contact with Venus' atmosphere.

Furthermore it was structurally reinforced to take the stress of planetfall. While Genom had already performed such a mission on Mars, there was some worry that putting down on Venus, even on the cooler poles, would add complications that the designers could never envision.

It should be noted that if the launcher had fired, Priss' modifications would not have stopped it from hitting Earth. It would have slowed it down to the point where it would have only impacted at a speed of 10kps. Also it would have impacted somewhere in central China.

Whether Genom could have benefited from such an occurrence will now never be known.

The Venus mission launched two weeks behind schedule.

"Even if it seems certain that you will lose, retaliate. Neither wisdom nor technique has a place in this.
"A real man does not think of victory or defeat. He plunges recklessly towards an irrational death. By doing this, you will awaken from you dreams"
"When pressed with the choice of life or death, it is not necessary to gain one's aim. But not having attained one's aim and continuing to live is cowardice"
-Yamamoto Tsunetomo