Private Bet #10 ver. 1.00

~~~~~~~~~~~~
1b: Some things never change
~~~~~~~~~~~~

3 Years later...

"Good of you to come on such quick notice Commodore,
I've been meaning to talk to you about that officer of yours."

"You mean Commander Saotome?"

"That's the one. Bit of a loose cannon so I've heard."

"He gets the job done sir, that maverick streak of his has
saved our bacon on more then one occasion."

"I take it you're talking about that incident with that alien intelligence
infiltration. Messy business that."

"We'd never have found it without him, he's got to be the most damn
lucky person I have ever met."

"Luck is all well and good but it seems he's fighting with our
troops almost as much as he does with the Kreeghor. There's also
the matter of the complaints from our provision department.
Saotome eats enough supplies to feed two whole divisions and
that's just breakfast! I'd swear that he was a transformed dragon
if the tests hadn't come back negative."

"Well he does work hard, if I had a hundred like him we'd whip the Empire in no time."

"If we had a hundred more like him we'd all starve to death."

"...Sir, exactly what is the real problem?"

"...*Sigh*...Sit down."

"General?"

"I won't argue that Saotome hasn't proven himself a fine and loyal officer,
because he has. However his continued presence here is becoming
detrimental to both morale and property values."

"I'm aware of the commander's tendency to put his foot in his mouth,
but isn't that going a bit far?"

"Commodore, half of the troops love him, the other half would love to kill him."

"So what are you suggesting I do about it? I wish I
knew what it was that attracted women to Commander Ranma.
Its unnatural how they just seem to fall for him, almost as
mysterious as how the heck he manages to get on the bad
side of every male soldier he meets within five seconds of
running into them."

"We've recently acquired a new experimental corvette from some
friends on Phase World. The Free Worlds could use another privateer,
don't you agree Commodore?"

"Ah, I see. But what about the crew?"

"Entirely female of course. It simply wouldn't do for
the captain of the ship to be lynched by his own people."

"Somehow I doubt Saotome will be grateful for that.
I suspect a lynching would have been kinder."

~~~~~~~

Ranma relaxed in his quarters, one of the few
remaining places he could find any privacy anymore.

He didn't understand women at all.

Ranma doubted that he ever would.

It had been bad enough back home when it was just human girls.
Even though he hadn't had much contact with them he had still
wondered about the looks they would give him more and more
often as he'd gotten older.

Here he had to deal with Dragons, Elves, Nymphs, and females
from half a dozen other races that all wanted one thing...

Ranma blushed bright red. Even after a crash course in reproduction
six months ago he still got embarrassed thinking about IT.

{Me and my big mouth. I should never have accepted
that challenge. But I thought she was talking about Martial
Arts, not Marital Arts!}

On the bright side after a month of intense studying and training he
had won the match. Of course that victory had brought him a whole
new set of problems. Not the least of which had been the discovery
that the match had been recorded and broadcast on a minor
interstellar network.

His women troubles had increased tenfold after that incident.

Right now he was off duty, which was good since it
would give the bruises he'd gotten from this morning's
brawl some time to heal. Just why had that chef attacked him anyway?
All Ranma had been doing was asking for his 3,273rd helping of breakfast.
It wasn't his fault that the portions were so small.

He sighed, life had been so much simpler when he was just a martial artist back home.
No legions of amorous women after him, no bounties on his head and various
other choice portions of his anatomy, no bizarre advanced technology,
a place where giant interstellar battles between Rebellions and the Empires
were just movies and psychotic tentacle aliens from another dimension just
the product of quickly forgotten nightmares.

Absently Ranma checked the date as he relaxed in his bed. This precious
freedom from the "command bunnies" was worth its weight in credits. He
fully intended to take advantage of it to the fullest.

Had it really only been three years since he had arrived in this strange dimension?

Even as his eyes closed Ranma's mind wandered back to
those hectic weeks and months earlier.

Ranma Saotome had found himself stranded on a strange and
very hostile alien world in the middle of a very brutal and bloody war.
The Rebellion forces were outnumbered, outgunned and outclassed on
almost every military level. The Kreeghor Empire had been playing for keeps,
even now Ranma could only wonder how he had survived through those
first couple of months of sheer hell.

A daring strike had cut off the ground forces from the fleet,
stranding thousands of Rebel troops on the surface of the
planet as the Kreeghor blockade bombarded the planet
on an hourly basis.

Left with no other alternative he'd hooked up with the
remnants of the Rebel army. It had been weeks of
running and guerrilla combat along with endless lessons
that crammed the basics of survival in this universe into his thick head.

He hadn't wanted to learn at first. Always the confident
martial artist, contemptuous of the "crutches" of advanced
weaponry. Getting most of his shoulder vaporized by an enemy
plasma bolt made him change his mind very fast.

Ranma flexed his right hand again, the reassuring feel telling
him that his arm was still there. Thank the Gods that Livia had
been nearby and that she'd known the spell of Restoration.

After that nearly fatal battle he'd lost a lot of his cockiness and soaked up
everything he was taught eagerly, there's nothing quite like confronting your
own mortality to get you motivated. Ranma had quickly become the
proud inventor of Anything Goes Speed Reading, Anything Goes
Computer Hacking, Anything Goes Power Armor Combat and
dozens of other new side branches to the Anything Goes School
of Martial Arts. Nor did Ranma ignore his original training either,
his style of martial arts was unknown in this universe and it gave him a
crucial advantage over most of his opponents who tended to underestimate a
"mere human".

By the time the Rebel fleet broke the blockade Ranma had already
reached the rank of master sergeant via battlefield promotions.
And he'd earned each and every one of them.

After escaping from the planet (who's name he had learned later was Ristmoth)
Ranma had intended to just leave and look for a way back home. As luck would
have it things didn't turn out that way. Instead Ranma found himself in the middle
of a conspiracy to assassinate the leader of the Free Worlds. Along the way he had
also literally stumbled across an undercover Kreeghor agent, one that turned to be
part of an unknown alien intelligence. For his role in thwarting the assassins they had
promoted him to officer status and he'd known at that moment that for better
or worse he was stuck here.

There were worse fates he figured.

His last promotion had been only four months ago to his current rank of commander.
He had been ashamed to receive it, in his opinion he didn't deserve it.
It had been a fluke and an embarrassing one at that.

Ranma and a small group of fellow Rebellion officers had been betrayed and
captured at Phaseworld by the Imperial Fleet. They were taken onboard
the Dreadnought that served as the Flagship to serve as "examples" to worlds that
resisted the might of the Empire. Somehow a cat had got on board the ship during
docking and when their captors had discovered that Ranma was scared to death
of it they decided to have a little fun before they killed him.

The last coherent image he could remember had been the
tawny fur ball clutching to his face in feline aggravation.

When he woke up later he was being congratulated for singlehandly
capturing the Dreadnought virtually intact, a major coup for the Rebellion.

It wasn't until he reviewed the records that Ranma learned of what he
had done. The cat triggered the Neko-ken, Neko-Ranma found himself
in an enclosed space full of many enemies and few friends.

The feral beast cut loose. By the time the alarms sounded every Imperial troop
within 100 feet had been shredded into unrecognizable kitty litter.
The Kreeghor found out the hard way that Neko-Ranma could SWIPE
their blasts aside with absolutely no difficulty.

A surprise attack by local Rebellion forces increased the confusion,
by the time the Kreeghor finally figured out what had happened their
forces were crippled and every one of their personnel on the Dreadnought
was dead.

Things had rather quiet since then. Besides the normal battles going
on in contested territory there was no new fighting between the Rebellion
and the Kreeghor. It was almost...boring.

Well, besides the legion of WARS (Women After Ranma Saotome).

Sleep descended on the weary officer.

But this time his dreams were different.

[Greetings Ranma Saotome]

{Who are you?}

[Transcendence, Connection, Life, Light, Hope.]

{Which one?}

[All and none...I am the Cosmic Forge.]

{What do you want with me?}

[I will show you.]

And so a hero was born...