Gateway To Dawn Part One

Up from the Ashes.

"And so as this new day dawns on us all I invite you to join with me in wishing our friends the best of luck in this new Enterprise." Nabiki stood in front of an assembled mass of warriors. She was on the viewing deck of the new station and behind her the vast stardock was slowly coming into view. "As the Corsair launches for our renewed offensive I am sure that I speak for all present when I assure those who sail in her that they shall not be far from our thoughts, that their dedication is deeply respected and has already earned our gratitude." With that she turned back to the window, hiding the tear that gathered at the corner of her eye.

In front of her the Stardock could be seen to disgorge its companion. Its four great arms releasing the sleek black and red carrier that was soon to hurl itself deep into alien territory. It's form was unmistakably warlike, a blister of guns and launchers seemed to cover every spare bit of hull that wasn't thrusters or fighter bays. Clad around her sides were a dozen more craft, locked onto the side for transit, to be disgorged the moment she slowed to tactical speeds.

Aboard her were the cream of the Nemesis crews, drawn from every branch that the vessel would need in her incursion, scientists, engineers, marines and pilots. For Saotome Nabiki however this was all a side-effect. The one person that really mattered was the Ship's commanding officer, her husband Ranma, leaving her once more for an uncertain future that would be filled with violence and death. In her mind she could feel the sorrow of her eldest child and through her could feel the pain that her husband tried to hide. A part of her still screamed to call them and call him back, knowing that he would come if she but asked. The better part of her self knew she wouldn't, this was the way things needed to be.

"It still sucks though" she whispered to herself.

"Don't worry Commodore," replied a voice in her head, "Nobody's got him yet, and he has got more reason than ever to be careful."

"Gos" she whispered in reply to the disembodied psyker, "I know you mean well but… Piss off" She just didn't need to hear it just now.

Through the screen the Corsair's huge engines lit up with their bright blue glow, quickly carrying her charges towards their clouded fate.

Ooo

The Aftermath of the Battle at Tarterus had not been pretty. To say that things had looked really bad would have been a massive understatement. So many operatives lost, so much hardware slagged and no way to return, the only saving grace had been the cast amount of building materials available to the Dark angels.

So they had set to work. In the immediate aftermath of the battle everyone who wasn't in sickbay was pressed into the engineering branch. Like worker ants they had swarmed over the disabled vessels, salvaging, scrapping or pressing into service anything and everything. They knew only too well that their respite would not last, sooner rather than later the aliens would be back, and in force.

The era saw some strange bedfellows, not only were navigators and slushy-chefs suddenly working side by side on engineering problems but for the first time sectoids worked full time on the human cause. Gos, in his new 'lightweight' existence, pressed dozens of the weak minded aliens into their cause, wielding them like robots to provide limited but expendable extra hands.

Together the rag tag remains forged a new defensive screen. Made up of computer controlled drones that were little more than mobile mines and the space equivalent of fire-ships the forces created a patrolled dome around their position. It proved its use far too early for anyone's comfort. Within two weeks of the battle the aliens were back, stragglers aiming to join the armada turned up and had to be neutralised as fast as possible.

As the attacks increased more and more pilots were needed to back up the patrols and daily existence became one of harassed siege. The pilots took to sleeping in their ships, the drone 'comptrollers' at their terminals, and everyone else tried to give up sleeping all together.

The weeks turned into a month and then two, with the scale and timing of the attacks varying just wildly enough to keep everyone off balance. Morale and rest were replaced by repetitive motion and willpower. And amongst all this the Saotome's second child was born. They named him Christopher after a departed friend and went back to their stations as soon as their legs would carry them.

Then suddenly things changed, without even realising it the Angels had built a hardened position that could, and did, turn back or destroy the mighty battleships of the Dominion. When a small host of over a dozen arrived they were destroyed without loss, all the while the beachhead's alert status never topped yellow; it was a turning point. Suddenly the Angels breathed again. That night a truly massive party raged across the human beachhead. From the wrecked Nemesis, now pressed into service as a weapons platform to the new habitations aboard the previously enemy station, everywhere the tension broke in a hectic, chaotic mass of celebration.

The following day nothing got done, and it was good.

However reality soon dragged the humans back to the grindstone. As things stood they were jury-rigged; held together with duct tape and prayers where there should have been precision fusings and careful planning. There was still a vast amound of spare material placed around the station and in orbit of the nearby tiny gas planet. Scientists returned to neglected labs, kitchens were again manned and training flights became risk-free. The Saotome's even managed to spend some time together as a family.

Hope crept back into the hearts of the humans and with it came new energy to do things they had long put off. Which in turn led to one of the most controversial events of the war, Gos and Kodachi released some sectoids. Not just of the mental controls that had been bred into them but the conditioning and the chemical dependence that they relied on.

The two of them claimed it was just an experiment but its repercussions shook some very severe foundations. The problem was that they weren't assholes, sure they were still completely culturally alien but they also had personalities, emotions not caused by pain and even a somewhat warped sense of humour.

It didn't stop there the liberated beings almost immediately pledged their loyalty and their lives to the human cause. Suddenly free for the first time since their birth the creatures were able to relate the nasty details of their service, from the forced breeding to the way the overlords left just enough of you to be aware of your slavery, but consigned it to impotent screaming in the prison of your own mind. They sincerely wanted the chance to strike back against their oppressors, even at the cost of their own lives, and it was a problem.

The heart of the problem was simple, X-Com didn't negotiate with aliens, in fact they shot people who did. They were trained and conditioned to despise the aliens. Now however they were confronted with the fact that some might not deserve their hate. That some might actually share their cause. What amazed Nabiki wasn't those agents who threatened to kill any of the free-ones but those who didn't. A surprising number of agents were quickly able to differentiate these aliens from their enemies and bit by bit friendships began to form.

Nevertheless the divisions were there, lines were drawn and teams split by acrimony. Nabiki and her family struggled to stay apart from the arguments but others were not so professional. Kodachi openly paraded her new 'friend' and the good doctor spent a great deal of time with another former slave. On the other side were the hard-liners, mostly veterans of the earlier wars, and including many who had lost family to the menace. At the heart of them stood the Scots commando Ranma's oldest friend, Laura. She was far from the most vocal opponent of the aliens, but she hardly needed to be, ever since the battle for Tarterus where she led others followed without question. Few were unaware of her record and fewer still unaware of the singular trust that the mission leaders had in her. Ranma and others asked her to reign in her disapproval, she refused with customary stubbornness, rightly stating she had every goddamn right to think anything she damn well thought and that "nae scunner is gonna take that right without a fight!"

Nobody could argue that the drones hadn't been useful during the fortification, and even the hard-liners had to admit that the newly freed aliens were sincere in their desire to fight. The problems ran much deeper than that, like the fact there were literally hundreds of them still alive in sleep pods, waiting for the final order to be given. Naturally enough some of the more liberal agents called for these too to be 'de-programmed'.

This of course pushed the hard-liners up against a wall, one or two bugs was one thing but hundreds was a different story. The arguments raged, and it was only a matter of time before they turned bloody. Unfortunately the way things happened was far from ideal.

It was Laura. She was drinking but not yet drunk, however a certain anniversary was due and she was in a really foul mood; when one of the free-ones made a mistake, it asked the wrong question at the wrong time.

Oooo

"Surely you humans have killed more of your own kind than we," the sectoid argued at a table behind the Marine, "yet you do not loathe your own as a species."

"That is different" his companion replied, "and we still have a fair deal of sectarianism on earth."

"Yet you claim betrayal is a greater sin" the stunted alien replied. Turning to Laura without thinking of the implications the alien asked, "Your mate was killed by a human wasn't it? So how is it that you can hate-" The alien was cut off by a strong right cross.

"Don't. Even. Dream Of Talking Of Him!" Laura commanded. "You dinnae know anything about it, you could'nae ken if ya tried!"

"I couldn't understand?" the alien argued from the floor, "of course not, my kind has not suffered at the hands of the dominion" it finished with irony dripping. "And as I understand it I am free to talk about-" Again t was silenced with violence, this time by a boot rigorously applied to its mid section.

"Fuck you!" she argued back, rage boiling, as she was held half-heartedly by some of her squad.

"This isn't the time" one asserted to her.

"Yes it is" objected the alien, "This is the perfect time." It finished rising labouriously. "Tell me now why I should bow down to your command, why I have to obey your orders!" Laura just fumed.

"The truth is that you are no better than the brains" the alien argued, "you want my labour and that of my race but you'd rather see us dead than helping."

"So what?" she demanded, "I've earned that right!"

"You have" the alien replied, causing a sudden confusion. "I know what you have done, and I know what it has cost you" it added, "and I know that it was at the hands of my people that that price was exacted."

"Damn right" Laura growled.
"Wait there" interjected the alien's companion, only to be cut off by the alien.

"So I offer you the only apology I have that means anything," it continued and stepped forwards. "Let her go" he said to the marines holding her. "If she wants my life its hers."

"Damn right" Laura growled and bashed the alien back into the floor. He made no attempt to fight back as she furiously battered him. Several times others tried to stop things but the alien always cut them off before they had any effect. Others tried to physically stop Laura but she shrugged them off, often painfully.

Laura saw only red. In her mind her husband died again, her friends, all the pain and anguish of the years of war was coming out and it was breaking like a tidal wave.

Then suddenly she found herself over the unresisting alien, splattered with his blood, and holding a bloodied fist upraised for the killing blow.

The alien for his part looked up with more than a little fear but also something far to close to understanding.

"Damn!" she swore and punched through a table instead.

O

O

O

Laura was jailed for assault and grievous bodily harm. It did not look good. They had her bang to rights, even if he was an alien the guy had been under their protection and as an officer she should have been setting the example not breaking faith. In a final irony her cell was right next to that of Everett, the fallen hero and the traitor, one condemned by untractable law the other saved by it. Just as the legal code demanded Laura stand trial for her assault, despite the victim's apparent willingness so did it demand higher officers than were available to try Everett.

The court-martial had little choice, by law the alien was a entitled to protection and she had to suffer for her actions. A tribunal of officers read the manual and came to a verdict within minutes. She was stripped of her rank and by naval law ordered to serve a time in the brig. For X-com this was surprisingly generous, their legal code was somewhat more severe, taking an extremely hard line over crippling people who were aiding the war effort.

Laura was stuck somewhere between repentance and outrage, made worse by Everett's crowing 'I told you she was no good.' She went quietly to her cell and left only tension in her wake.

Nabiki and Ranma had argued long and hard about the trial and its outcome. Ranma firmly believed that the trial should never have been allowed to happen in the first place, and Nabiki insisted that the Crew needed rules now more than ever, needed to see that there was a uniform justice code. For Ranma it smacked of abandoning his friend, to Nabiki it felt no less like a betrayal but she at least could see the real need for it. If letting their friend be jailed was painful, the disagreement between the two of them was far more so. Even baby Kimi could feel it and the hurt cut all three deeply.

It was into this that the Corsair was thrown. Strategic analysts, and tacticians, not least of which was the nominal 2i/c, Misato, came up with a new plan. On the face of it the plan was simple enough, strike at the enemy to prevent them from gathering their forces, operate a strategic deep strike to buy more time for the humans and gain more intel on the alien menace. There were very few drawbacks, the deep striker would have to be beyond contact for large periods of time, but this was handle-able, they would need to prey on enemy shipping for supplies, again, not a rela problem, and they would need their own repair bays to keep the fight going for as long as possible. From the outset the plan was accepted to be hugely risky, the Corsair would be beyond help and deep in enemy territory, but as one person said it would be the same sort of thing that Nemesis was designed for, just on a different scale.

So the idea became plans and that became prototypes and in turn the strike force started to materialise. Details were hammered out in long meetings, setting everything from crewing to bunk size. The ship itself was deliberately fast to make, being mostly retrofitted alien vessel parts designed into a more efficient whole.

However one thing was left unsaid, in the middle of the frosty feelings, Ranma and Nabiki never actually vocalised the thoughts that lay behind the plans; as long as things stood the way they were both knew that Ranma would be going on the mission, knew that he would leave and both hoped that it wouldn't come to that. Even as the crew started to train for the mission neither of the couple broke the silence and said what they knew they should. Day by day a wall built up, driving them further apart.

So the day came for final flight checks and the two of them stood on either side of a doorway, unable to bridge the invisible divide, and hurting like hell as a result. Kimi, stuck in the middle, completely failed to understand, and was left shedding the tears that her parents felt. She knew that the two of them still loved each other, knew that they wanted to be together and knew that neither wanted the distance that had formed, but the rest just didn't make sense, so she cried instead. When she realised how much that was hurting her parents she took to doing it where they wouldn't see. Even with its new centre slowly the family Saotome was spiralling out.

Ranma paid one last visit to the brig before he left.

"Hiya Nutter" he said, taking a seat opposite Laura, "How ya doing?"

"Hit Everett again today" Laura replied grumpily, "Added another week to my sentence."

"Laura!" Ranma chided, "At least tell me he won't be talking for a while."
"Two weeks with regen tech" Laura replied with a quiet smirk, "busted him up good and proper."

"So why only-"

"Two weeks?" Laura interrupted, "guard saw him 'provoking' me," she explained, "basically said the scunner deserved it."

"Laura" Ranma said in a suddenly serious tone.
"Uh-huh" she replied in a drawn out prompt.
"I'm going away for a while" he explained, she just looked confused. "They won't have told you down here but we've got a new project on and-"

"You're gonna go kick some alien tail?" she guessed. He nodded his reply. "Good for you, so what's the…" she prompted.

"Nabs" he offered quietly.

"Don't tell me the two of you still haven't patched things up!" Laura demanded, Ranma avoided her gaze, which was admission enough. "Damn you Saotome" she said softly, with real care in her voice, "don't leave like this."

"I won't" he replied unconvincingly. "But I still need you to look after her and the kids."

"You didn't need to ask" Laura assured him, "Of course I'll look after them. But there's more to this than that isn't there."

"Uh huh" Ranma agreed and silence stretched. "I just got a really bad feeling about this one" he finished.

"Whoa" Laura said, not used to seeing him so down, it certainly wasn't the attitude to fight with. "Ran-man you can't –" she began, preparing a serious dressing down.

"Just look after them okay" Ranma interrupted. He stared at her and she nodded her reply. He smiled once, patted her on the shoulder and left.

Needless to say he never had the conversation he promised, and after saying a solitary farewell to his kids Saotome Ranma went to the flight deck carrying a heart heavier than all he moons of Mars.

O

O

O

On the viewing deck Nabiki's tears flowed unabated, suddenly she didn't care about showing weakness to the crew, didn't care about examples to be set or morale issues, she just wanted her husband back and for him to wrap his arms around her and make everything alright again.