The Saotome Gambit

by Shinji Ikari7

Not writen by me but thought it would be good to have the story on FF.N

3. Chapter 3

"I don't hear any more shooting," Ranma observed. He looked back to Doctor Tofu. "See anything, Doc?"

Tofu scanned the desert with a pair of magnigoggles.

"They've stopped shooting," he said. "There, they've turned around. It looks like they're coming back. I don't see Happousai anymore. He must have got away."

Two sets of fingers snapped in regret. Father and son looked at each other for a moment, then began to laugh at their unspoken show of solidarity.

"Better luck next time, I guess," Genma chuckled, looking behind to the desert in the east and the pall of smoke on the horizon that marked Capra City.

"You said it. You know what, Pop? I'm liking Ryouga more and more, even if he IS a blockhead."

It was at that point that Genma had to throw the truck into a hard swerve to avoid the towering battlemechs of Tatewaki Kuno and his guards. The truck sideswiped the sandstone cliff at the edge of the highway and bounced back into the center lane. Ranma, Genma, and Doctor Tofu were stunned by the impact with the cliff. The two mechwarriors in the front seats were secured by their lap belts, whereas the good doctor was thrown against the side of the bed with a yelp of pain.

The truck came to a shaky halt in front of Kuno's Thunderbolt as the engine stalled.

Ranma regained his senses as the dust cleared, just in time to face the razor sharp tip of an enormous katana pointed between his eyes. The sword was held in both hands of the Thunderbolt in the manner of a samurai from late in the Period of Warring States.

"So," an amplified voice declared from the Thunderbolt. "Thou art the Ranma Saotome I have been told of?"

Ranma edged away from the diamond-hard tip of the battlemech-sized katana. Tatewaki moved it close again, to the point where Ranma didn't have any further room to squirm away from it.

"Uh, yeah, that'd be me," he replied.

"Silence, wretch!" Tatewaki cried over the speakers. "Know thy place, callow cur, and speak only when spoken to!"

"But you just asked me a question!" Ranma protested.

"Simpleton!" Tatewaki thundered. "Even a child could have determined that my question was in fact rhetorical!"

Beads of sweat began to form on Ranma's brow as the tip of the sword moved ever closer to him, until it was just touching the end of his nose. He felt a tiny bead of blood well at the spot, to dribble down his lip and into his mouth.

"In truth thou art far more pathetic than I imagined," Tatewaki announced from on high. "To think that Akane Tendo should be shackled to such a low-born and as base a cretin as you. It wounds me to the quick."

"Come down outta that 'mech, and I'll wound you to the quick..." Ranma growled quietly.

Ryouga's BattleMaster stomped around the curve of the highway in that moment, to face an angry array of weapons from Tatewaki's guards. He came to an abrupt halt, his handheld PPC at the ready.

"What should I do?" Ryouga asked Akane. There were at least three heavy battlemechs that could shoot at him without hitting their peers, and another nine behind them waiting for their chance.

The only thing Akane saw was the huge sword of Tatewaki Kuno pointed right at Ranma's head. At their height and distance from the truck, she could not be sure if he wasn't already skewered.

"P-Put the gun down," she said, barely able to speak.

He let out a deep sigh, and lowered the PPC.

Tatewaki Kuno was a man well pleased with himself. Ranma Saotome and his detestable father were his prisoners. Akane Tendo, so fair and noble, was finally his. He had just received word that his sister was in the custody of his troops. All the failures and setbacks he had suffered in getting to this great moment were put well behind him.

For some peculiar reason, Akane Tendo had chosen to stand with the prisoners rather than take her rightful place by his side. It defied explanation, other than through some foul act of mind-control, or even sorcery, on the part of the cursed Saotomes. He was confident that once she was removed from their fell grip, she would come around to her better sense.

They had a good twenty minutes before a flight of helicopters from the Drop Zones could arrive to take the prisoners away to detention, and his lovely bride to the chambers aboard the Oda Nobunaga that had been prepared for her. Tatewaki saw this as an opportunity to lord his greatness over them.

He started with Ryouga, as Doctor Tofu had a broken ankle from the crash, and was unable to stand with the rest of the prisoners.

"It pains me to know that a mongrel mercenary such as yourself has been placed in a position to look after the fair Akane Tendo in these troubled times."

Ryouga's face twisted into an angry snarl, but he held his tongue. Tatewaki sneered at him and turned to Ranma, his enemy of enemies. The fool would indeed make for a splendid trophy when mounted upon the prow of the Imperator. After he had been suitably broken, of course...

"Tell me, O hated foe; what brings thee to this wretched place?" he asked Ranma.

The pig-tailed mechwarrior, securely bound with nylon ropes and facing certain death under the guns of battlemechs if he tried anything uppity, stared straight ahead, ignoring him.

Tatewaki snorted his contempt and moved on to Genma.

"And you, O corpulent one. Didst thou believe that the Blue Thunder wouldst allow thy roguish machinations to succeed? For it is written in the stars themselves that the bride of Tatewaki Kuno wouldst be none other than Akane Tendo, and together with their superior progeny, they wouldst rule with a firm yet benevolent hand over the Inner Sphere as First Lord and Lady of the Star League."

Genma said nothing at this bit of fantasy. Akane made a retching noise that pained Tatewaki considerably to hear from her.

He faced her next. She would not make eye contact with him.

"Ah, my fair and lovely flower, yet so like a tigress! It will please you to know that my twisted sister will never again bring woe to your people, for I have captured her this day, and shall put her away in a place where she can do no harm."

She looked up at him, her face tearstained and clouded with both despair and contempt. "You or Kodachi... What difference does it make?"

He flinched at her words.

"Speak not these things to the man who loves you," he begged her softly.

"What do you know about love?" she replied bitterly.

"I know that it drives me in all things," he said to her. His face became haughty again. "All that I do is for thee, my love. If I could not rule the Inner Sphere with thee at my side, then I would wish for none of it!"

She regarded him for a moment, an idea forming in her head.

"If you love me, Kuno, you'll let these people go."

Tatewaki'e eyes bulged.

"Akane Tendo! You ask the impossible of me!"

She turned on him. "What's so impossible about letting them go? You hold all the cards, Kuno! All you have to do is say to your men, 'release them,' and they'll do it."

"They are enemies of the Furinkan Combine," he declared. "I cannot."

She closed her eyes and looked away. "Then I can never love you," she told him. "You might as well kill me now, because if you won't, then I'll do it myself the first chance I get."

"Akane Tendo!" Tatewaki exclaimed in horror. "Say it not!"

"Stop telling me what to say and what not to say!" she cried. "I'm not some animal you can train to do tricks, and I won't let you dictate how I should feel!"

Tatewaki lurched away from her, his heart nearly shattered by her protestations. Ranma and the others looked on in uneasy silence.

"Of course. Thy words ring true," he said to her at length. "I could never hope to contain the burning flames of thy passion, nor would I, knowing that thy fiery spirit is at the crux of why I love thee so."

The chop of rotor blades echoed in the distance.

Tatewaki turned to one of his dismounted mechwarriors. "See her aboard the first helicopter. These others are to go in the second."

The mechwarrior saluted. "As you command, my lord Prince."

"Hey!" Ranma protested.

Tatewaki turned to strike him across the face.

"Did I not tell thee to know thy place?" he roared.

"There ain't no way I'm gonna let you take Akane away from here!" Ranma shot back. A trickle of blood ran down the corner of his mouth where Tatewaki had struck him.

"What makes thee believe that thou hast any right to make such bold and yet hollow ultimatums?" the Blue Thunder demanded of him.

Ranma's eyes darkened with animus.

"Let me spell it out for you, since you're such a moron," he began. "Akane Tendo is MY FIANCEE, got it?! If you lay one hand on her, I swear that I will hunt you down - even if I have to search the entire goddamned universe to find you - and then I'll kill you! Do you savvy me, you stupid dipshit?"

Tatewaki Kuno's blood pressure spiked a full forty points above normal.His face swelled red with anger, and his body tensed with such a wrath as he had never before felt in his life. Akane's gasp of surprise at Ranma's declaration went unnoticed in the passion of the moment.

"THY FATE IS SEALED!" Tatewaki bellowed, drawing his personal sword and preparing to cut Ranma down where he stood. Ranma looked on defiantly, knowing he was going to die and suddenly not caring. He was not going to end his life begging for mercy that Kuno would not give.

"Kuno, NO!" Akane screamed as he drew back the sword. "I'll marry you,I swear! Please don't kill Ranma!"

Even Ryouga started at her plea. Why was she doing this for him?

Tatewaki paused. This was music to his ears.

"You don't know what you're saying, you stupid tomboy!" Ranma said angrily. "You actually want to marry this creep?!"

"So that a thoughtless jerk like you won't die, yes!" Akane shouted, her eyes wet with unshed tears.

The Blue Thunder raised the sword again. "'Tis the last time thou'lt ever speak to the fair Akane Tendo with such disrespect!"

"KUNO!" Akane screamed once again.

He held his blade back a second time. The sound of the helicopter was closer now, giving him the opportunity to send her away first. If the cretinous Ranma Saotome should choose to insult him once more after that, there would be no plaintive cry to spare his life. O how the black sorcery of Ranma Saotome had enspelled poor Akane Tendo! Killing him could be the only possible release for her, Tatewaki was now certain of it.

Kodachi Kuno was adrift in an unnatural darkness.

She paled in fear with the knowledge that somewhere in that darkness was her brother. She could hear his voice, could hear his stern words of reproach for her. She could almost feel the sting of his hand, though he had not yet struck her. Intense pain knifed through her then; the anguish of imminent and unavoidable suffering.

Her cooling vest burst suddenly around her waist, drenching her legs not in icy water, but in her own hot blood.

As she looked down at her belly with a detached sense of horror, all she could think about was; what had she done wrong this time?

She drifted on, streaming blood from her belly through the darkness as images of their late mother filtered past. Kodachi had never known her mother, though numerous photos, stereographs, and paintings of the Kuno Matriarch existed in the palace. The face in the photos seemed kind and patient, and Kodachi missed her terribly.

Tachi was closer now. His voice was loud and imperious in the void.

Kodachi knew that no matter what she did wrong, Tachi would always hold her responsible for one crime: the death of their mother. When he beat her for breaking a favorite toy, or defeating him in a game of skill or chance, he was really punishing her for killing Mother.

Why was he so mean to her?

The blood that pulsed from her turned dark and lumpy with clots.

Where was father? He would protect her. In his arms - which always smelled faintly of pineapples, the coconut oil of sunscreen, and fresh surfboard wax - she would be safe from Tachi. He would play his ukelele for her and sing songs by the great bards Don Ho and Willie K., and Tachi would flee from them while clutching his ears in pain.

Where was father? Why wasn't he around anymore? Was he tired of always protecting her?

Tachi's voice was even louder now, even closer. She cringed in anticipation of his wrath, for she remembered why he was mad at her this time. She had murdered Akane Tendo, and now Tachi was going to punish her forever for killing both Mother and the Tendo girl.

This one time she had done something for which she was truly guilty. Would that make the blows of his hand sting any more? She was afraid that it would, and began to tremble at the sound of Tachi's approaching footsteps. Her wound ached, and she could feel a white hot spear of pain under her ribcage, making it hard for her to breathe.

He appeared before her, wooden bokken in hand, and a cold and wrathful fire lit in his eyes. When she was old enough to defend herself against his hands, he had switched to the bokken. On those rare days when Father was home, Tachi would wrap it in a towel first so that it would not leave any lingering bruises on her skin.

She tried to run, but she was backed into a corner now, with nowhere to go. Tachi loomed over her, bokken poised to strike. He would hit her high first, on the crown of her head usually, to make her double over in pain so that he could continue unopposed against her thighs and buttocks, where it would really hurt. Even if he didn't connect with her head the first time, the threat of it was enough to make her do as he wished and double over, arms cradled protectively around her head.

Fresh spurts of arterial blood began to flow as she waited with dread.Before he could land the blow, a flash of red and black appeared between them. She looked up through teary eyes to see Ranma Saotome standing over her, his arms spread wide to protect her from Tachi's bokken, his eyes flashing with contempt for her brother.

It was foolish of him, for Tachi would merely beat him senseless and then cast him aside, but Ranma stayed firm, and Tachi stayed his hand.

Her brother demanded that he step away from her, but Ranma refused, saying that he would rather die than see her hurt once more. Her heart began to burst for this brave angel of mercy and kindness, and she begged him not to sacrifice himself. He turned to her then, taking her hands in his, and she looked up into his clear blue-grey eyes. In that moment she lost her soul to him. In that moment her wound closed, and the pain was gone.

Tachi sprang at them then, but Ranma stopped the bokken without turning away from her eyes. He wrenched the horrid thing out of Tachi's hands, then released her with a loving look and turned to face her now disarmed brother.

Tachi quailed in panic as Ranma came at him, lashing out with the bokken. Full many a blow landed upon her brother in the places that had hurt her so when the pain was hers to bear. Tachi did not bear his stripes nearly as well, wailing, and flailing his arms like a child. Ranma gave him a final blow to contemplate, then sent him on his miserable way with a kick to the rear.

Ranma let the bokken fall from his hand. He turned to her, eyes huge and bright with devotion, and she rose to him. His arms were strong, his embrace warm. The musk of his exertions thrilled her, and she kissed him passionately. He returned her kiss with boundless ardor, and for the first time in her adult life, Kodachi felt loved.

"...BLOOD PRESSURE NINE-ZERO OVER FOUR-ZERO AND DROPPING..."

The clatter of surgical steel echoed in the cramped operating theater of the Blue Thunder Regimental Mobile Army Surgical Hospital as the calm, reassuring voice of the medical computer advised the attending physician on the appropriate indications. The theater's real-time Functional-MRI display glowed a soft blue in his safety visor.

The grisly wound channel carved through Kodachi's flesh by Kima's bullet showed in false color on the display, stretching from a point just above and to the right of her navel, to the brightly glowing lump of metal lodged in the diaphragm, and disquietingly close to a weakly pulsing artery. The dark fibrous blotches of internal bleeding were numerous and widespread on the display.

"...PULSE RATE DROPPING...RESPIRATION RATE DROPPING..." the automated alarm declared. "...ABNORMAL SINUS RHYTHM... BLOOD PRESSURE EIGHT-FIVE OVER FOUR-ZERO...10CCs EPINEPHRINE INTRACARDIAL..."

"She's dropping out," the surgeon noted grimly. The nurse anticipated his request for the loaded syringe that he would need. "Prepare the table to flatten her for medevac spaceside."

"We're losing her!" his assistant cried. "There isn't time."

"We're not going to lose her," the surgeon barked. He was not going to face the wrath of Prince Kuno for failing to save his sister's life. If only the fools in her personal guard had surrendered sooner, he would have had a better chance of it. She had lost a lot of blood, and he had very little in the flavor she required on hand to replace it.

Rural East-West Highway 1

Twenty kilometers west of Capra City

Planet Capra, Capra System

the League of Five Nails

15 March 3025

The helicopters were arriving ahead of schedule, throbbing noisily in the dry desert air as they approached from the southwest. Tatewaki noted their approach, though he did not take his eyes from the wretched sorceror Ranma Saotome and his churlish companions. How he ached to cut them down, and end at last the charade of Akane Tendo's betrothal!

His heart was close to breaking at her rejection of him. Her promises to marry were predicated solely upon the welfare of Ranma Saotome. Only his unshakable belief that she was the victim of some arcane spellcraft had kept him from a nervous collapse. Though he was a man of technology, he was also a man of deep superstition - a sentiment fostered no doubt by his equally superstitious father.

Part of him wanted to grasp Ranma Saotome by the throat and demand that he release his hold upon Akane Tendo. He longed to entertain that notion, but tempered it in the knowledge that Saotome's continued defiance was assured. Better that it came out under the most exquisite torture, and though Tatewaki personally knew little of the procedures involved, he was in a position to retain the best breakers of body and mind in the Inner Sphere. The hardest part would be the wait, for he did not have them at hand.

If the fool knew what was in store for him, Tatewaki noted ruefully, he did an admirable job of not showing it. He had hoped for a bit of anxiety on Saotome's part, perhaps even a plea for clemency, but it seemed that the cretin was made of stronger stuff. No matter, he decided. Every man has his breaking point, and the stronger a man was, the more spectacular his final collapse would be.

Ranma Saotome could feel the hatred of Tatewaki Kuno burning into him with each glance in his direction. It pained him to think that he had the undying emnity of one of the most powerful men in the Inner Sphere, and he hadn't even done anything to deserve it. Of course, as far as Tatewaki Kuno was concerned, getting engaged to Akane was more than enough reason to hate him.

Way to go, Pop, he sighed silently to himself. You've done it again...

What Kuno felt for him, he now reciprocated. It was nothing personal, he would feel the same way about anyone who came twice within an instant's pause of chopping him up into ground round. If not for Akane's stupid plea bargain, Kuno would certainly have done it.

What was she thinking, anyway? he wondered. Who would possibly want to marry a stuck-up idiot like Tatewaki Kuno? She had said it was for his sake, but why?

He stole a glance in her direction. She stood face forward, with the kind of military stoicism he had seen on many a young mechwarrior cadet - himself included, he supposed. Her eyes were wet, however, shattering the brave facade she meant to project for her captors. He could see that much from the glint of the early morning sun shining on her tear-stained cheeks.

The sight of her in tears pained him even more than the thought of being a doomed captive of the heir to the Furinkan Combine. Why was she crying?

It didn't make any sense. Akane didn't care about him at all beyond the sense of obligation their engagement had fostered. She definitely didn't like him. So what was the big deal?

It came to him then. She was worried that without him and Pop, there would be no chance of finding Ryuugenzawa. Her tears were reserved for the fate of her people, not him.

Fine! he thought moodily. His fists began to crackle behind his back, and the nylon ropes strained to contain him. If that's how you feel...

Tatewaki Kuno could see and hear the helicopters approaching, and knew that soon his time on this cursed planet would be at an end. There was but time to taunt his hated foes once more. He stepped up to Ranma Saotome, his face haughty and filled with triumph. He wanted the cur to remember that look, and to remember the face of the man who would break him.

As the lead helicopter flared-out west of them on the strip of battered highway, a cloud of dust blew over them, obscuring Saotome's face for a moment, and nearly drowning out the cackling voice that called down to them from the sandstone cliffs above.

It was a voice he had heard before, on the Drop Zones. It was the voice of that thrice-damned Locust pilot, the one who had made mockery of him!

"Heads up, Ranma m'boy!" the voice cried. The cold splatter of water misted Kuno's face and arms through the swirl of dust. "It's up to you now, Hot-Stuff; I'm outta here!"

When the dust cloud from the helicopter had passed, he was no longer facing the despicable Ranma Saotome, but a vision of beauty with hair of crimson red!

So lost in rapture at beholding this vibrant woman was he, that he did not realize that she was making a move for his throat.

Ranma felt the water splash on top of her head and the ensuing change before she even realized that the strange voice from above belonged to Happousai. The next thing that she realized was that the nylon ropes that once held her in check were now loose. She was much smaller physically in her girl-body, and Happousai must have known that when he splashed her.

As she leaped at Tatewaki Kuno's throat, she knew that she owed the little freak big-time for this.

Her hand locked around Kuno's throat, and she could feel his larynx in her grasp. It would be so easy to crush his windpipe, she realized, and an unnatural bloodlust came over her that was difficult to check. The bastard had been ready to fillet her in the middle of the road, so why shouldn't she return the favor?

The only thing that kept her from doing it was the fact that they would be turned into burnt hamburger by Kuno's mechwarrior guards a few seconds after their lord's corpse hit the pavement. Instead of killing him, she spun the idiot around, knocking his legs out from under him with a shot to the back of his knees, and putting him in a headlock that made it clear to the mounted guards just how easy it would be for her to snap his neck.

"Back off!" she cried to the battlemechs, and once more to the soldiers who jumped from the open door of the helicopter. "Any closer and your prince turns into a frog! A DEAD frog!"

Kuno squirmed half-heartedly in her grasp, but a few more grams of pressure on his creaking spinal column made him cease his struggles before it became necessary to make good on her implied threat.

"Unhand me!" he spluttered weakly.

"Shut your pie-hole, jerk!" Ranma growled.

Next, she turned to the dismounted mechwarrior who had been attending his liege. The man was clearly in shock at this sudden and inexplicable change in their pig-tailed prisoner.

"You, cut my friends loose. Move it!"

The mechwarrior hesitated. Ranma jerked Kuno's body around like a rag doll, the Combine prince gagging and spluttering in her choke-hold.

"Do it!" she commanded once again.

He took a step forward with his dagger, headed for Genma.

"You be real careful now," Ranma advised the man coldly. "Not a scratch, or else..."

The man cut Genma's bonds, and was promptly body slammed face-first to the pavement by the elder Saotome. Genma relieved him of his dagger and began to free the others. The soldiers from the helicopter watched them carefully over the barrels of their weapons from a distance of forty meters, but none dared to come closer or to fire.

"Now what?" Genma asked Ranma as the remaining battlemechs with pilots tracked them with their anti-personnel guns.

"Get the truck going, Pop," Ranma growled. "We're taking this clown with us."

"See here, Pig-Tailed Girl!" Tatewaki said suddenly.

"What did you call me?" Ranma demanded.

Tatewaki was at a loss to explain why he had called her by such an unflattering name, but as they had not been formally introduced...

"Release me," he said to her. "The great Tatewaki Kuno is a generous man, and would see to it that thy life is spared in return. My quarrel is with the cursed Ranma Saotome, and not with thee."

Ranma blinked twice in surprise. The idiot didn't realize that she and her normal body belonged to the same person!

"Not interested," she returned, jerking him off his feet and dragging him towards the truck. As expected, the Combine soldiers were at a loss to do anything to free their liege. Genma had the truck started, and Ryouga and Akane had managed to lift the injured Doctor Tofu into the truck bed.

She looked to the fanged mechwarrior. His face was a blend of shock and relief at their sudden turn of fortune.

"Mount up," she called to him. He nodded once and started for his idle BattleMaster. Ranma looked up at the Combine battlemechs that stood over them, and wrenched Kuno painfully to his feet. "No one shoots at the truck or the 'mech - or else! Got it?"

There was no reply over any external speakers. They would either honor her demands or they'd open fire - probably against Ryouga - and the fire of so many heavy 'mechs at such a close range would probably do him in within moments. Ryouga had to know that when he agreed to mount up, so at least he'd be ready take a few of them with him if it came to that.

Akane had Kuno's sword now, and she held it to the prince's throat as he was hoisted up into the bed of the truck. Ranma eyed her for a moment, wondering if she had the nerve to slice him open if necessary, and decided that she did. Akane looked back with a grim nod, confirming her suspicions.

"Step on it, Pop!" she called to her father when they had Kuno secured face down in the bed of the truck.

Genma put the truck in gear and started forward hesistantly. The Combine battlemechs edged out of their way, keeping their guns trained on them in the unlikely event that Kuno should somehow escape the truck and give them a clear shot. Ryouga's BattleMaster began to thump behind them, and they parted for him as well.

Ranma watched with relief as Ryouga's 'mech advanced unhindered. The roar of aerospace fighters was high overhead now, and he knew they'd be under surveillance the whole way back to the Palomino. Would they be forced to keep Kuno as a hostage all the way to the Jump Point?

"What do you suppose we do with him?" Tofu asked, vocalizing the question that already burned within Ranma.

"We keep him," Akane declared coldly. She kept the katana pressed against the vulnerable flesh of Tatewaki's throat. "He's going to call off his war against the Confederation, and pay reparations for all of the death and destruction he and his sister have caused."

"That ain't a bad idea," Ranma agreed. She hadn't thought much farther ahead than getting to the DropShip.

"I agree," Tofu added. "Well done, Akane."

"Never," Tatewaki mumbled. It was difficult to hear him when his face was pressed down into the cracked plastic bed-liner. "Tatewaki Kuno doth not capitulate, even to the lovely Akane Tendo! If my fate is to die, then so be it, but never surrender!"

Akane's hands tensed on the hilt of the sword. "Don't tempt me, Kuno!"

"Easy, Akane," Ranma soothed. "We need him alive - at least for the moment."

She took a deep cleansing breath and let it out slowly. Anger still burned behind her reddened eyes, though her wrath was tempered for the moment. It was one more reminder for Ranma to stay on her good side.

Genma looked over his shoulder at them as they considered Tatewaki's fate. "Get on the radio to the Palomino and tell them to prepare for lift off."

Ranma nodded, and pulled the radio set into the bed of the truck.

"No problem, Pop," she replied.

"What about the key?" Akane asked worriedly.

"What about it?" Genma returned.

"We have to get the key before we go!" she protested. "We can't just leave it here!"

"It ain't going nowhere," Ranma countered. "Besides, we don't know for sure if it's even where we think it is. It might just be another clue, and we ain't got the time right now to go looking."

"The boy's right," Genma affirmed, drawing a puzzled look from Kuno as he lay with his nose pressed down into a depression in the bed-liner. "Our first concern is getting off this planet and safely back to our JumpShip. It's a stroke of luck that we have such an important hostage, but who knows what the Combine army will be capable of once they've had enough time to react to the situation?"

"Who knows when we'll be able to come back here!?" Akane returned. "We can't just leave without it!"

"That's crazy, Akane!" Ranma cried. "Pop's right. Every minute we spend on this rock is a minute that the Combine can use to come up with a way of stopping us - royal hostage or no royal hostage."

Akane shot Ranma a look of betrayal that wounded her more than any of her previous insults.

Ranma turned away, and spied a battered Locust approaching from their flank. It was Happousai, back inside his 'mech after freeing them. She set the radio to the frequency that Ryouga would be monitoring to tell him to hold his fire. They did not need a repeat of their previous encounter.

"Hey, Ryouga," she called to him. "Don't shoot, okay? This Locust is on our side."

"I know that," Ryouga replied, bitterness evident in his voice. "I already promised Akane that I wouldn't shoot him."

Ranma gave Akane a puzzled look, which she pointedly ignored.

"Whatever," Ranma said at length. "How are things looking from your end?"

"They're following us just out of weapon range," Ryouga answered. "And I can see at least a squadron of fighters at high altitude keeping an eye on us."

"No surprise there. I guess I better tell those jokers to leave the DropShip alone too. If I was going to stop us from escaping, that's how I'd do it."

She adjusted the radio to the Combine tac-net frequency and made her demands. Several moments of silence followed before a man identifying himself as a colonel acknowledged her, and asked for negotiations to be held at once. Ranma knew that stalling worked in favor of the Combine, and so ignored the officer's plea.

"You would do well to negotiate," Tatewaki muttered from the truck bed.

"And you would do well to shut your mouth," Ranma shot back. "Got it?"

"Aye..." Tatewaki replied, though by his tone it was clear that he was not agreeing with her. "Thy tongue is sharp, so like that of my lovely Akane Tendo, and yet so boisterous and unmaidenly."

Akane stifled a snicker at this.

"Yeah?" Ranma replied. "I'll show you unmaidenly..."

Genma slowed for the turn off the highway and onto the dirt road that would take them close to the wadi where the Palomino hopefully remained unmolested. The ride became rough and jarring, and Akane was forced to withdraw the sword from Tatewaki's throat before she accidentally slit him open.

They could see more fighters overhead. So far the Combine fighters remained out of range to attack. How the Palomino would get past them and into orbit, Ranma did not know. The Combine could reach the point of desperation at any time.

League of Five Nails DropShip Long Lance

In final descent towards the planet Capra,

Capra System, the League of Five Nails

15 March 3025

Hikaru Gosunkugi did not like combat drops. He did not like planning them, and he liked participating in them even less. Kuno had forced his hand however, and if he wished to have any chance at all of repelling his rival from the planet, this was the time to act.

His Intelligence staff had been collecting Combine signal intelligence for many hours now, and with the available data had painted a fascinating picture of betrayal on the part of the Black Rose. Tatewaki had obviously sent such a large force to Capra to deal with her. They were even now fighting a pitched battle against each other, with several of Kodachi's DropShips escaping into deep space.

Kodachi had lost this battle, it was clear, but she had left Tatewaki's forces vulnerable to a surprise counter-attack. Hikaru knew that he would not get the chance to bloody his Combine enemy again so soon, and felt compelled to act. His own forces numbered just over a regiment, but they would be facing a Combine army that had been weakened by fierce combat against one of the most feared and respected regiments in the Inner Sphere. Their numbers were hollow, the stars assured him.

"My lord," his adjutant addressed him over the command-channel. He was currently strapped into the cockpit of his Hermes II battlemech, yet another thing he strongly disliked, but it was safer on the ground than in low orbit with marauding Combine fighters on the prowl.

"What is it?" he asked him.

"We have effected penetration of the Combine orbital defenses," the adjutant declared. "Their fighters have been drawn away from a static defense of the battlefield to pursue the fleeing Black Rose Terror Regiment ships."

Hikaru smiled to himself. How thoughtful of Tatewaki Kuno to leave the door wide open behind him! He began rubbing gleefully on his prayer beads as the Long Lance bucked into denser atmosphere.

The Palomino was only half a kilometer away, and Ranma could see the crew folding and stowing the camouflage tarps as they approached. Combine aerofighters shot overhead, threatening the Confederation crew, and practicing gun attacks for the moment when they might get their chance.

Ranma watched the fighters peel off from their simulated low-angle gun attacks and streak skyward, engines blazing. Bolts of incandescent hell rained down moments later, pelting the desert with great plumes of rock and sand, and throwing up great clouds of dust and smoke around them. Lances of return fire from the horizon spoke of the Furinkan Combine's counterbattery at the unseen foe.

Genma swerved to avoid a freshly smoking crater that took out half of the dirt road they traveled upon. Clods of rock were still falling from the sky from the impact.

"What the hell...?" Ranma gasped.

"I'm painting numerous high altitude targets," Ryouga broke in over the radio. "They look like DropShips."

"More Black Rose ships?" Ranma asked him.

"The League?" Akane added to the speculation.

Another stray bolt screamed down at them from above like Jove's own lightning, and blasted the roadbed into a molten mass of gravel, sand, and virgin glass before them. There was no time to avoid the blast, and Genma drove right through it. The truck bucked savagely as it was torn apart by the swirling eddies of concussion and heat convection, to tumble end over end, and throw the occupants clear.

Ranma shook herself back to coherence after what seemed like hours, but could only have been seconds - judging by the bits of rock and dirt that rained down around her. The truck was a ragged mass of twisted metal, scorched and scored with shrapnel, and starting to burn. The front end in particular was gutted. No bodies were apparent within the wreckage as she watched it burn with ringing ears.

"Akane?" she called out to the burning wilderness. "Pop? Doctor Tofu?"

Ryouga's BattleMaster had stopped short of the wreck, and the canopy was coming up. Ranma painfully drew herself up and looked in the direction of the battlemech. Akane lay there motionless in the sand at its feet.

"AKANE!"

Despite suffering what were probably a few cracked ribs and numerous bruises and contusions, she beat Ryouga to the scene. The fanged mercenary had a small aid-kit with him, and he opened it as she knelt over the girl. More streaks of fire lashed the desert around them, and the thin scream of plasma drives filled the air.

Akane's eyes fluttered open as she mustered up the courage to try and rouse her.

"...What...?" she managed to the relief of both Ranma and Ryouga.

"Are you okay?" they both asked her.

"I... I think so," she replied.

"Can you walk?" Ranma asked.

Akane sat up, wincing with the pain of pinched nerves and pulled muscles in her neck and shoulders. Ryouga placed a steadying hand on her, and she smiled for him. "I think so."

Ranma ignored the look she had given Ryouga, and gazed up into the sky. League of Five Nails DropShips descended on their plasma drives as fighters wheeled and dove around them. The Combine, current masters of Capra, now faced a fresh enemy, and their forces recoilled with surprise and alarm. League battlemechs were already forming up for a drive on Kuno's Blue Thunder Regiment Drop Zones.

"Looks like this party has some gate crashers," she observed.

"It's our cue to leave," the ragged voice of Genma Saotome declared behind her. She spun around to see him supporting the wounded Doctor Tofu. Getting thrown from the truck had not done his broken ankle any favors, and his face was wracked with barely contained agony. Both bled rather freely from cuts on their heads.

"You okay, Pop?" she asked her father.

"Remind me to stop rolling our transportation all the time," Genma replied with the hint of a smile.

"I would," Ranma returned a grin. "But I don't think it'll help."

Happousai's Locust stomped up to them moments later, kicking up a cloud of dust as it slid to a halt. The wizened mechwarrior's head appeared from the top of the chassis as the dust settled.

"Everyone all right?" he asked. "Good, 'cause it's five hundred meters to the ship."

Ranma threw a rock at him, which bounced harmlessly off the armor plating. "Why don't ya go tell them to send us a truck or something?" she barked. "Can't you see we're all hurt?"

Happousai made a face at her. "No appreciation for all I've done for you," he groused. "This is going to come out of your hide later, Ranma m'boy."

"If there IS a later, ya old fart! Go get us some help!"

Happousai ducked down into his cockpit and sealed the hatch. The Locust stomped away from them and towards the exposed Palomino. Though a battle still raged in the air around the League's Drop Zones, enemy fighters had thus far left the ship alone.

Ranma turned to Ryouga. "Take Akane to the ship. She'll be safer up there than trying to walk back."

"I don't need your help, Ranma," Akane protested. "I think I can handle the risk."

Surprisingly, Genma nixed her protest. "The boy's right, Akane. It would be better if you were in the BattleMaster."

Akane turned to Ryouga. "No offense, Ryouga, but right now, your 'mech is a walking eighty-five ton target. I'll be safer on the ground." She started towards the Palomino on foot.

"Can't say we didn't try," Ranma observed. Ryouga nodded with no small amount of disappointment on his face, and turned back to the BattleMaster to mount up.

"Has anyone seen Kuno?" Doctor Tofu observed as they limped after Akane.

Ranma hadn't thought about the clown since the wreck. She looked around the piles of rock and scrub vegetation, but there was no sign of the Combine Heir.

"Beats me. Maybe he didn't make it." She snapped her fingers and shook her head. "Aw, shucks. Too bad for him, I guess."

"I can tell that you're really broken up about this, boy," Genma cracked.

"Heartbroken, Pop," she returned. "Absolutely heartbroken. It woulda been nice to have seen that jerk sign a peace treaty with the Confederation, though. Then we wouldn't need to continue this stupid wild goose chase."

Genma frowned. "Oh yes we would, Ranma. How long do you think someone like Tatewaki Kuno would keep his word?"

"About as long as it took him to find a nice legal way out of it," she admitted.

A truck appeared for them within ten minutes, its driver and an accompanying medic escort grimly aware of the firefight heating up only a few kilometers away from them. The rumble of weapons and explosions carried well in the desert air.

"Is the ship ready to go?" Genma asked the driver as they were helped into the truck.

"We were just waiting on you, Commander," she replied. "You don't know how relieved we were to finally hear from you."

"It was regrettable, but that's in the past."

The driver put the truck in gear, and turned around for the wadi. Waves of heat rolled up from the Palomino as the main drives prepared to lift the 1700 ton spacecraft into the air. The truck pulled up the ramp to the last open hatch on the ship, where one of Akari's techs was waiting to shut it behind them.

"We have to make room for Ryouga's BattleMaster," Akane said to the tech as they screeched to a halt within the hold.

"A B-BattleMaster?" the tech stammered. "We could probably squeeze it into Bay Four with the Locust, but we'll have no cocoon for it. He'll have to stay mounted to steady the thing until we can clear the atmosphere."

"Open Bay Four door then," she ordered him.

"Yes ma'am!" He reached for a bulkhead-mounted telephone. His request to the Captain to open the door went denied for just as long as it took Akane to take the phone from him.

They could hear the rumble of the Bay Door opening, though it was in a compartment well aft of the hold and could not be seen. The entire DropShip seemed to list to port as the BattleMaster stepped inside.

"I hope we can get off the ground," Ranma remarked.

"You wanted to bring him along," Akane returned.

"No, I just wanted to see a BattleMaster up close. You were the one who wanted to bring him along."

"Quit arguing and get up to your launch stations," Genma called to them.

Ranma and Akane both stared at each other for a moment, each waiting for the other to blink.

Finally, Akane gave way. "This is not how I wanted to leave this planet, Ranma. We don't have the key, and we lost Kuno. We still don't know if we can even get out of here alive."

"This ain't over yet, Akane," Ranma said to her quietly. A grim determination seemed to light across her face. "Not yet."

She turned and started for the elevator without Akane.

The Palomino rose from the shelter of the wadi on four columns of plasma flame. The pilot was a cool hand on the stick, and turned the huge spacecraft neatly on its axis before engaging the horizontal drive. The ship began to accelerate forward, keeping just a hundred meters off the ground to stay out of sight on hostile radar displays.

Ryouga's BattleMaster was less of a problem than anticipated, since it was berthed in the same bay as Happousai's Locust. The two 'mechs barely massed over a hundred tons, which still kept the total 'mech load under the maximum permissible four hundred tons. The real problem lay in the volume taken up by the assault 'mech. Bay Four was now a cramped space, with barely enough room for Ryouga to steady the huge 'mech against the swaying motion of the DropShip.

Genma watched from his seat on the Flight Deck as the pilot guided the Palomino over dunes and jutting slabs of sandstone and dark volcanic basalt. They were putting as much distance between themselves and the raging battle between the League and the Combine as practical. If everything went well, they would be able to ascend through the atmosphere from a point on the planet where they would not be detected until it was too late to pursue them.

The Flight Deck crew were a tight-lipped group, speaking only when it was necessary to give orders or to make note of something vital to the ship's welfare. The Captain himself was nearly silent. His pilot knew what needed to be done, and did not require much in the way of guidance.

It was going so smoothly that the sound of an alarm from the co-pilot's station nearly startled the wits out of the elder Saotome.

"Number Two 'Mech Bay Door indicates intermediate," the co-pilot declared, his hand sweeping over the annunciator panel to silence the alarm.

"Check it shut," the pilot ordered. The co-pilot watched his display as he reached for the sound-powered telephone to the lower decks.

"Number Two 'Mech Bay Door indicates open. I've got a local override light indication on the door."

Genma leaned forward in his acceleration chair as the Captain took interest in the situation.

"Ranma..." he muttered to himself.

"Shut Number Two 'Mech Bay Door," the Captain ordered. He picked up a microphone from his station. "All hands re-verify spaces for Condition-Alfa and the Rig-for-Space," he commanded over the 1MC intercom circuit.

The Palomino swayed from side to side as its load was lightened by about fifty tons.

"Number Two 'Mech Bay Door indicates intermediate," the co-pilot declared. "Number Two 'Mech Bay Door indicates shut."

"Radar paints new contact Romeo Three-One at close range, bearing two-four-five, and turning left at a high rate," the sensor operator followed. "Range to target is opening to three thousand meters... Romeo Three-One classified as a Phoenix Hawk LAM..."

"Captain," the co-pilot said, clutching the phone. "Technician Grijalva reports from 'Mech Bay Two that Ranma Saotome's Phoenix Hawk LAM has left the ship."

Genma closed his eyes and tried not to think about what a stupid thing his son was doing, and all for a woman. Upon realizing the deeper implications of this, he began to smile.

That's my son! he thought proudly.

ANAMAX Corporation Red Butte Mine

Planet Capra, Capra System

The League of Five Nails

15 March 3025

The Phoenix Hawk LAM raced over the hard stone mesa towards Red Butte Mine. Distant flashes of light and columns of black smoke filled the sky in the direction of Capra City, and Ranma knew the battle for the planet was not even close to being over. Warnings over the enemy tac-nets confirmed his worst fears: that the Combine and the League were taking their slugging match in his direction. He would not have much time to look for the key - and that was assuming their hunch about the nameplate was correct.

He and Akane had scouted the Red Butte Mine from the Boomerang the first day on the planet, and he remembered where the junkyard was located. That old bastard, Chance G. King, or whatever his name really was, must have hidden the fifth key on one of the stripped vehicles, as anywhere else would have put it in danger of loss or discovery when the thing was moved or stripped for parts.

He figured that at the current rate of the battle, the enemy 'mechs would be near the mine within thirty minutes - not a lot of time to search when he still had to get to the mine himself.

He could see it ahead in his HUD, a large open pit mine that had once made the people of Capra wealthy and proud, and was now an eyesore and a bitter reminder of a faded glory.

The Phoenix Hawk circled the place once to make sure there were no enemies about. The mine was as deserted this morning as it had been the last time he looked. His radar warning receiver chirped a few times as stray beams of hostile microwave energy from the battle played across his hull.

He was still wet from the change back into a man, and he hadn't had time to don a flight suit. Akane's angry voice was still ringing in his ears, reproaching him for being a fool for wanting to do this by himself. When was she going to get it through her head that doing it by himself was the way he preferred things?

The Phoenix Hawk LAM dove for the open pit copper mine, barrel-rolling into Airmech mode and settling down upon the loose gravel floor with a roiling cloud of dust. He raised the canopy and hopped out, noting ruefully that the wreck of the truck had hurt him more than he was willing to admit. He would have to get checked out just as soon as Doctor Tofu was done patching up his own injuries.

The earthmovers and massive excavators were stripped wrecks. The only reason they weren't rusty carcasses was because it hardly ever rained here. He paced up and down the rows of dead machines, searching for the tag number of the machine where the Scout had supposedly hidden his key.

The sounds of the battle were closer now. The air shook with random explosions and sonic booms from aerofighters. He would have to cut and run pretty soon if the stupid thing didn't turn up, but he was not going to blow this. If the damn key was here, he was going to find it. It was stupid and stubborn of him, but he was never the type of guy to let something like common sense stop him from doing what he thought needed to be done.

He almost walked past the wrecked earthmover while thinking about how close the battle sounded. The dirty yellow machine was stripped almost to its metal bones. How hard could it be to find something on that?

Harder than it looked, apparently.

The damn thing had more nooks and crannies than he had thought possible, and he resigned himself to climbing inside the giant maw of the excavation shovel to the material bin. It was dark inside, and he cursed his lack of light. All he had to work with were the tiny pinpricks of sunlight that shone through popped rivet holes.

He bumped against something in the darkness, and he set his hands upon a military surplus canister of small arms ammunition. The drab olive metal can rattled when he shook it. He worked feverishly at the catches, and opened the lid to reveal an ancient and tattered Star League Defense Force flag and a small velvet jeweler's box.

The flag was stuffed into his battered mandarin blouse. He took the velvet box and opened it.

"Sonofabitch..." he murmured softly.

The fifth crypto key, a small red plaque of indeterminate material, lay quietly upon the satin cushion of the box, as it had for years.

He closed the box carefully and stuffed it into his shirt with the flag. It was time to bag ass and hope he could catch up with the Palomino. He figured they wouldn't go far once they realized he was gone, and that probably wouldn't take long after Akane squealed on him.

He squeezed out of the earthmover's maw and stamped across the dry desert floor of the copper mine to his Phoenix Hawk. Tracer fire arced over the rim of the open pit, and he knew that his time had just about run out.

The Phoenix Hawk LAM surged aloft on twin columns of blue flame. Ranma cleared the rim of the pit with a mind to transform to fighter mode and tear out of there at full overthrust. The sight of a BattleMaster, a Warhammer, a Griffin, and even a battered Locust duking it out with a company of League battlemechs left him still and speechless in his cockpit.

Akane grit her teeth as a volley of missiles slammed into her 'mech. She had ducked most of the barrage, but enough had connected to rattle her in her cockpit for a moment. Her gunsight glowed red in her HUD, and she decided to pay the offending Shadow Hawk back in kind.

Twin blasts of PPC fire caught the 'mech in the torso, and she followed up with her six-rack SRM launcher. The missiles burst against the reeling Shadow Hawk in bright sprays of flaming metal, pitching the hapless League battlemech over in a plume of black smoke.

What was taking Ranma so long? she wondered impatiently.

Her Warhammer advanced into the center of the enemy company's line, firing its PPCs in alternating blasts to keep them from overheating. It felt good to be back in combat as a participant rather than as a hapless victim. She only wished they had not foregone bearing the proud purple and white fishcake device of the Confederation on their 'mechs. Wouldn't that make a few heads swim when the League realized that even the Nerima Confederation was fighting on Capra!

Mister Saotome's Griffin stayed at their backs, bombarding the League troops with Long Range Missile and PPC fire. It was in keeping with the nature of the battlemech's armament to act as a support unit, but there was something about the man that made her wonder if he actually preferred it that way. How he could be Ranma's father was difficult to imagine sometimes. At least when they were away from the meal table...

Ryouga, the dear, was holding up an entire lance on his end. He was taking fire, but his massive BattleMaster, already scarred from fighting in the city, was still unbreached. A single barrage from his weapons array was enough to give any mechwarrior pause.

Happousai, on the other hand, was more of an annoyance. About the only thing he was good for was acting as a distraction. She watched him prance about the enemy's lines of fire, daring them to shoot, but hardly bothering to return fire. His LCT-1S variant had far more firepower than the standard Locust, but he seemed reluctant to use it.

"Come on, Ranma," she muttered to herself. They were doing an excellent job of keeping back the League forces from the copper pit, but all this destruction of valuable League property was bound to attract more attention.

A sudden chill came over her, and it was not a temperature transient from her cooling vest. Had the League or the Combine managed to sneak up on him from the other side of the pit while they were occupied?

"Mister Saotome!" she called over the tac-net.

His fat face, pinched by his ill-fitting neurohelmet, appeared on her commo display

"What is it?"

"Can you see Ranma yet?" she asked him.

Genma looked away from the camera for a moment, apparently checking his sensors.

"No. His Phoenix Hawk is still down there, but I don't see him."

"What's taking him so long?"

"Patience," Genma assured her. "This was your idea to come back for him. The least you can do is have a little faith."

"If we hadn't come back, he would have been overrun and captured by now, maybe even killed! You saw how those League 'mechs were headed straight for this place!"

"True," Genma admitted. The arrival of the Palomino and its 'mech complement had probably saved his son's life. He'd be sure to remind the boy of that later, while he was busy chewing him out.

Akane was busy with a League Ostroc then, stifling their conversation. A timely bolt of charged particles from Mister Saotome, as well as her own considerable firepower, helped put an end to the distraction.

"I'm going down to see what's keeping him," she declared.

"Don't be an idiot!" Genma shot back. "Your Warhammer is too important up here on the ridge. Hold your position. The boy can take care of himself."

She switched him off and swore to herself.

"Hey, Macho Chick!"

It was Ranma's voice, and her radar confirmed an aerial target hovering above and behind her. She panned her periscope camera around to see his Phoenix Hawk LAM waving to her in airmech mode.

"Don't call me that!" she cried. It would figure that the first thing he said to her would be an insult!

"What if I call you 'Tomboy' instead?" he chirped.

"What if I break your nose?" she riposted.

"That's the spirit," he said to her, appearing on her display. "Guess what?"

"You're an idiot?" she asked him in a sweetly mocking tone.

"Close," he admitted. "You were right about the key."

"You've got it!?" she cried in amazement. "Oh, Ranma, you're absolutely wonderful!"

Ranma actually turned red on her display for a moment.

"Uh... I am?"

"Of course you are!" she said, beaming. "Any time when you're not being a total jerk, that is."

"Cut the chatter," Genma broke in. "Ranma, if you have what we came here, then there's no more reason to stay on Capra... Everyone fall back to the Palomino. Move it!"

The remaining League 'mechs were only too happy to see their enemies withdraw from the field, and let them go with only a little harrassing fire. The Palomino waited for them a kilometer away, hovering on its plasma drives for a speedy escape from the planet.

Akane noted a strange battlemech already waiting for them in the Number One Bay. It was a Hunchback, and it had seen better days.

"What gives?" she asked.

"It looks like Ryouga's pal was able to catch up with us after all," Ranma observed.

"Terrific," Ryouga groused over the tac-net.

"That wouldn't happen to be who I think it is, would it?" Happousai asked hesitantly.

"It would," Ryouga replied, his voice dripping with an unexpected dose of menace.

The Locust seemed to falter for a few steps before pressing on towards the Palomino.

"Hey, Tarou hates the old geezer too?" Ranma chirped. "Outstanding."

"I guess we could see our way towards getting this Tarou fellow off the planet," Genma agreed.

"It would be a very bad idea," Happousai disagreed. "Genma, I'm afraid I'm going to have to pull rank on you and order you to tell him to take a hike."

"B-But Master... You don't have any rank."

"I'll say," Ranma piped up. His Phoenix Hawk was in battlemech mode now. "No one invited you along on this mission in the first place."

"How dare you talk to your master that way?!"

"Enough!" Akane cried angrily. She pulled her 'mech up into the designated Bay. "If he's Ryouga's friend, then Tarou can come with us. The last thing we need is a riot."

Akane was waiting for the other mechwarriors as they stepped through the airtight door to the Palomino's staging area. The first to appear was Genma, who quickly doffed his cooling vest and helmet, and waited for Ranma.

When Ryouga stepped through, Akane leaned up on her tiptoes and kissed him gently on the cheek.

"Thank you for everything, Ryouga. We're in your debt," she said to him sweetly. He burbled something incoherent about dying a happy man, and staggered away without stowing any of his gear.

She watched him go, thinking about how thoughtful he was, before realizing that he was headed down the wrong passageway. She decided to let it go for the moment. It was a small ship, really, and he couldn't get too far.

When she turned back to the door, she saw Ranma standing halfway through, frozen in dismay.

He must have seen me kiss Ryouga, she realized. Was he actually jealous?

"Don't mind me," he said, coming to life, and brushing past her to drop his neurohelmet in its padded case. "Make a hole for the Dispossessed freeloader, coming through."

"Ranma...!" she called after him. Damn him for being such a childish jerk!

Genma stopped him at the airtight door on the opposite end of the compartment. Ranma seemed to tense up, as if expecting the two of them to come to blows over his treatment of her. Instead, the elder Saotome held out his hand.

She watched Ranma relax a bit, then fish inside his ripped shirt for a small velvet box, which he handed without comment to his father. Genma looked at the box for a moment, grunted with satisfaction, and proceeded to the Flight Deck. Ranma started to follow him.

"Ranma," she called to him again. "Wait."

He stopped short.

"Yeah?"

"I just wanted to say thank you," she said softly.

He turned around, his face taut with emotion. Was he angry, or hurt? She couldn't decide.

"That's it?" he asked her tersely.

Her fists clenched at her sides. Who did this guy think he was? "Yeah, Ranma," she replied. "That's it. Sorry to bother you."

"Whatever." He turned back to the door and stepped through it. The soft padding of his slippers on the ladder rungs beyond the door was the last thing she heard before a cold chill ran down her spine.

Happousai was there, clinging to her bosom.

"Poor Akane," he muttered from the depths of her cleavage. "Spurned by an insensitive clod like Ranma... Oh, the fool! He doesn't know what he's missing..." he looked up at her as she trembled with anger and disgust. "Don't you worry, my dear, I'm willing to see you through this painful moment. Forget Ranma, and think only of m -"

The sound of an old man being forcefully stuffed into the padded caddy of a neurohelmet locker echoed throughout the ship.

By pure chance, Ryouga stepped into the Palomino's Crew's Mess in time for a quick bite to eat before they lifted off for wherever it was that Akane and the others where going. They hadn't told him anything about why they were here, or where their next destination was, but he didn't care. They were leaving Capra, and they were taking him with them.

He took a few cookies from a plastic bin near the coffee mess by the door and munched on them. Pansuto Tarou sat at one of the tables, staring at a cup of tea. A shadow hung precipitously over his handsome features, and Ryouga stopped short of joining him at the table.

"Glad you made it," he offered to the bishonen mechwarrior. "How did you get aboard?"

Tarou looked up at him, a thin smirk of contempt fading from his lips as he replied. "It was luck that saw me to the ship in time to get aboard," he began. "I told them that I was your comrade, and that Ranma Saotome had promised me a way off the planet. That and the fact that I wasn't shooting at them when I had the chance was good enough for the crew."

Ryouga nodded.

"Did you do what you needed to do at the starport?"

Tarou's eyes flashed in the fluorescent light of the Crew's Mess. "No. Not exactly." He looked away as the sounds of the ship's drives increased, and the Captain ordered the ship's complement to their launch stations. "But it wasn't that important anyway."

He collected his teacup as he rose, and brushed past Ryouga to dump the contents in the scullery sink.

"It will be good to get off this stinking dustball," he remarked to the fanged mercenary.

Ryouga nodded. A voice in the back of his mind told him the trip would not be a pleasant one so long as Pansuto Tarou was aboard, and did not ask him of his future plans in the hope that he would simply walk off the ship at their destination, and never return.

"Yes it will."

He then followed Tarou to their launch station.

NCDS Palomino took its leave of Capra in a rush of superheated plasma. The ship was climbing at the maximum rate to avoid attack by patrols of aerofighters and GunShips, which were in abundance in low orbit. They had chosen their departure point wisely though, and were on the far side of the planet from the scenes of battle.

They achieved planetary escape velocity and began the long transit to the Jump Point. To avoid detection and pursuit, the Captain had opted for a much longer course, one that would keep their thrusters pointed away from Capra for most of the acceleration phase, and away from the Jump Point for the majority of the deceleration phase. As long as they could rendezvous with the Dragonfly without incident, they were home free.

Near the former hiding place of

NCDS Palomino, Planet Capra,

Capra System, the League of Five Nails

15 March 3025

Tatewaki Kuno awoke to find himself tangled in a mass of scrub sage and bleeding from numerous scratches and cuts. The sounds of battle had stirred him to wakefulness, and he pulled himself painfully from the brush to realize that he was within a stone's throw of the League of Five Nails outer perimeter. On top of this insult, the cretin Ranma Saotome and his demon familiar father were gone, and they had taken Akane Tendo and the mysterious Pig-Tailed Girl with them.

Oh, the Pig-Tailed Girl! he exclaimed in his heart. What beauty! What ferocity! How boisterous, vigorous, and unashamed in all her glory! How he wished he knew her name!

Where had she been hiding? he wondered to himself. Perhaps it was more of Saotome's sorcery, and he had conjured her in his moment of need. Damn him to the Nine Hells for enslaving not one, but two angels of light to his foul cause!

The thumping gait of a battlemech dispelled his conjecture on the origins of the Pig-Tailed Girl, and made him wary. It was a League of Five Nails Wolverine that began to investigate the wrecked truck, curse them all! The Gosunkugis had decided to strike him when he was unable to defend himself, and his blood began to boil at their inexhaustable supply of treachery.

He waited until the Wolverine had passed him by before taking his bearings and starting for the Furinkan Combine lines. Though his course would take him perilously close to the League Drop Zone, Tatewaki was unafraid. A spare battlemech awaited him aboard the Oda Nobunaga, and then he would mete out swift death to the hated League.

Things were going Hikaru Gosunkugi's way so far. His troops had driven within sight of the Combine Drop Zones, allowing him the luxury of staying well away from the battle. His Hermes II stood silent and still over him as he examined the latest maps of the action from a command car.

Whatever squabble had blown up between the Kuno siblings appeared to be over now, with Tatewaki the clear winner, as 'mechs and troops from the Blue Thunder and 5th Sword of Thunder regiments withdrew from the city and the former Drop Zone of the Black Rose Terror Regiment. They were pouring back towards his lines of attack against the Combine Drop Zones, and it was the League Army's task to intercept them in transit, before they could mass for a counterattack.

That part of the plan wasn't going as well. The Combine enjoyed a greater number of fighters to use against him, and they were returning from their pursuit of the Black Rose DropShips to attack him on the ground. He was having trouble ambushing the Combine 'mechs while they were around, and his own fighter assets were having some difficulty dealing with them.

There were also unsettling reports concerning the third regiment of Combine battlemechs. It was believed that the seasoned 9th Sword of Thunder was being held in reserve, and now that the League had stepped into the fray, they were to be dropped on top of his forces in much the same way as he had ambushed the Combine Drop Zone.

He was getting a sick feeling in his stomach that this time he had pushed his luck too far. The auguries he had cast prior to the drop had been unclear on this point, allowing him some leeway, he hoped, to avoid a disaster. If the 9th Sword of Thunder showed up, escape was the only option.

He looked around the busy command car, regretting that he had left his stock of pigeons aboard the DropShip. A quick sacrifice and divination of the birds' livers would tell him the best course to take. Until he could return to the ship, the data from the battle reports and the opinions of his staff were all he had to go on.

"My lord," his adjutant addressed him.

"What is it?" he asked, trying to sound imperious when he was really feeling ill from the drop and the persistant smell of cordite that permeated the car.

"We're getting reports of breakthroughs in our lines," the man said gravely. "From elements of the 5th Sword of Thunder and the Blue Thunder Regiments."

"How bad?"

"We will have to draw upon our reserves to plug the gaps, and that will delay our next push up the middle."

Hikaru understood. The 5th Sword of Thunder regiment was a crack unit, and thanks to Tatewaki Kuno, the Blue Thunder regiment was almost fanatical in its zeal. His own troops had neither the morale nor the experience to hold against such a superior breed of mechwarrior. It was one of the reasons he had despised direct confrontation...

The urge to vomit became compelling to him.

He realized his error at last, and it was one of pride. He had forsaken his own wise estimates of the League Army's fighting ability, and had assumed that because the League Navy was hungry for victory and had provided it, that the Army would do the same. He was a fool for falling into the trap of overconfidence!

"Order a full retreat to the Drop Zones," he said to the man. "Notify the DropShip Commanders and the Air Wing of our imminent withdrawal from the planet."

"My lord?"

Hikaru tried not to get sick all over the maps. His stomach was hurting even more. "Do it while we can still save the troops," he said to him. "We have chosen the wrong battle to fight."

"A-At once, my lord."

Hikaru stepped out of the command car and emptied his stomach upon the sandy ground of Capra. His parents were going to hear about this, and demand a full explanation for his retreat. If he allowed the battle to continue, the Combine troops would certainly rout his forces and massacre them, but it would justify the retreat in any event. While that would take some of the heat off him in the eyes of his parents, it would leave the League Army even weaker than it already was.

He needed them at their best, not beaten and demoralized by a massacre. An organized retreat now, while there was still order and discipline, would not hurt their morale as much as a desperate pell-mell dash for the DropShips with the Combine's forces nipping at their heels. He could even claim a moral victory in getting the Combine to withdraw completely from the city to deal with his attack.

He heaved once more, and nothing came up. The desire to continue heaving was strong in him though, and he leaned against the warm armor plating of the command car, wishing it were cool and soothing to the touch.

He should have known never to set foot on this miserable planet.

Tatewaki Kuno watched angrily as the DropShips of the League of Five Nails soared aloft on their plasma drives to escape his wrath. The heat of the desert sun was nothing compared to the fierce rage that burned in his heart. Like vipers the League had come, striking at his heels from hiding, and then fleeing before retaliation could come.

He shook his fist at the DropShips, cursing them one and all. Though they had left him victorious on the field of honor, he felt cheated of his rightful triumph. His hand was stayed, and others had assumed the task of driving out the enemy. It did not occur to him that the League's arrival had spared him from the ignoble fate of being brought before the Grand Duke of the Confederation as a hostage and a prisoner.

All he knew was that Akane Tendo had been in his grasp, and that the cretinous Saotomes had been his prisoners awaiting lingering deaths. Now they had escaped, and in the process had shamed and humiliated him. Though Capra was his, the only victory of this day was the capture of his traitorous sister.

Sweatdrops cascaded down his nose from his brow. The sweat was tinged pink with blood from his injuries, which, though minor, ached for attention. Misery swept over him, though he was a Kuno, and did not sink into the mire of self-pity.

NCDS Palomino

16 March 3025

Though he would never admit it, Happousai feared only one thing in his life, and that was Pansuto Tarou. The bishonen mechwarrior was a pansy in his human form, but in his monstrous Jusenkyo body he knew that Tarou was not to be trifled with. His keen senses had detected this from the very moment Tarou had revealed himself in his barracks room almost two months previous.

His instincts had never failed him before. That was why he had run rather than face him. It was why he was currently making every effort to avoid the man. It was just a matter of time before the psychopath learned of his presence on the ship, but Happousai intended to use that time to come up with an adequate countermeasure for him.

In a way, he hoped that the eventual confrontation would be very public. It would give him the moral support of the crew when he sent Tarou tumbling out of an airlock. No one would question his disposal of such a monster.

He climbed down the ladder into Number Four 'Mech Bay thinking happy thoughts of killing Tarou. As if to remind him that the odds of being discovered were completely stacked against him, at the bottom of the ladder was Ryouga Hibiki.

He didn't know what to make of Ryouga. The man seemed smitten with Akane, but who could blame him for it? While he was Tarou's companion, there seemed to be no love lost between the two. Would he tell the guy just to watch him explode?

The fanged mechwarrior took note of his arrival, and his face grew taut. His promise to Akane was known to Happousai, and he planned on using it for all it was worth.

"How's it going, Ryouga?" he asked spritely.

Ryouga ignored him.

"I said, how's it going?" he pressed.

Ryouga realized that Happousai would keep pestering him all day if he didn't respond, and relented.

"Everything was fine until you showed up," he grumbled.

"I just want you to know that there's no hard feelings between us," Happousai said magnanimously. "I've put that recent incident in the desert behind me."

"Terrific," Ryouga spat. "It's too bad that I have to live with what you did to me for the rest of my life."

Happousai frowned. "Still harping on that Commonwealth contract, eh? Don't waste your time. I didn't have anything to do with what happened to you."

"That's not what I've heard," Ryouga returned. "According to Tarou, you set us up."

Happousai snorted contempt. "And you believed him? That clown is three cans short of a six-pack. I'm sure even you have noticed that by now."

"Well..." Doubt formed in Ryouga's mind.

Happousai pressed on before Ryouga could think things through. "The fact is that all I did was to set you up with a sweet contract with the Commonwealth. Whatever happened to you after that was just dumb luck, not some crazy conspiracy."

Ryouga frowned. "What about all those tests they gave us?"

"They were testing you for compatibility for a little breeding project the Joketsuzoku Matriarch has going," Happousai supplied for him. "They wanted some outside talent to beef up their gene pool."

"Huh?"

"Did I stutter?" Happousai carped. "They wanted to know if a little Hibiki blood would be just the ticket towards creating a master race."

"And the Jusenkyo Labs? What were they, some kind of amusement park?"

"Calm yourself, Ryouga," Happousai replied. "That had nothing to do with it. If you were found to be a viable candidate, they would have used you in the traditional manner. The Jusenkyo Labs wouldn't even enter into the picture."

Ryouga's brow furrowed.

"What do you mean, 'the traditional manner'?"

Happousai affected a dreamy look. "Why, a week or so of heaven, Ryouga, m'boy... A new girl each night, and each one lab certified to be fertile soil, ripe for your mighty seed."

Ryouga flushed beet red. "W-What?" he stammered. "A-Are you s-s-saying that they would...? With me...?"

"You don't get laid much, do you, kid," Happousai observed. What was with this younger generation? If they didn't loosen up, and soon, there wouldn't be anyone around to replace them!

Ryouga ignored the slight, still reeling with the idea of what the Commonwealth had planned for him, and what he had apparently missed.

"B-But why me?" he asked.

Happousai looked him up and down. "What kind of question is that? A husky stud like you? They couldn't get enough. You'd have to beat those Amazon girls with a stick. Literally."

Ryouga took this appraisal of his manliness in stride. It was one of those issues that had never bothered him - mostly because he tried not to think about sex very often. It gave him nosebleeds.

"But what happens... you know... after?"

Happousai shrugged. "You become a daddy about six or seven times over, and when your contract expires, you go on about your merry way as if nothing happened."

Ryouga's nose was beginning to itch with an impending nosebleed at the prospect of impregnating six or seven different women.

"But I couldn't just leave them behind..." he said at length.

"You think those crazy Amazons will let you have anything to do with those kids of yours?" Happousai cackled. "Ha! When I said they'd use you, I meant that they'd use you. To them you were nothing but a tool for adjusting their breeding program. The only reason they don't collect your sperm in a more clinical manner is because getting it the other way is supposed to make you more amenable to and less suspicious of the process."

He left Ryouga with those thoughts for several minutes.

"But talking about your prospects as a ranch stud isn't why I'm here," he told him. "I'm here to talk about Tarou."

Ryouga blinked twice, coming back to reality. "Don't think for a moment that you can convince him of anything."

"I won't even bother," Happousai admitted. "All I want are assurances from you that you won't jump in on his side if anything happens between us."

"Why shouldn't I?" Ryouga challenged.

"Because I'd like to think that you're smarter than that," Happousai replied. He stroked at his wispy little moustache. "Tarou's a basket case. You know it now, and I knew it before he even left for Lightoller. Pretty soon, Akane and the others will figure it out as well." He watched Ryouga's eyes when he said her name, and the response was as he had hoped. "Now riddle me this, Ryouga, m'boy: whose side do you want to be on when everyone else is against Tarou?"

Ryouga closed his eyes.

"I see your point."

"Good," Happousai purred. "I knew I could count on you to make the right decision. Now where can I find him?"

"You don't know?"

"I've been staying out of sight so far on this trip. I'm sure you can imagine why."

Ryouga nodded. "I guess so. All the normal bunks are taken, so they put him in a cot in the forward storeroom. I haven't seen him since we left, so I guess he's just sulking there or something."

"Where did they put you? The same place?"

Ryouga gestured to a folding cot set up next to the foot of his BattleMaster. "They have me sleeping here for now."

Happousai nodded, at once spying Akari Unryuu. The young senior tech swept back her pink-streaked black hair from her shoulders and put it up into netting to keep it out of her work. Ryouga followed his eyes over to her and blushed.

"I'll trade you," he offered Ryouga.

Ryouga shook his head slowly. Akari was preparing to weld something, presumably armor plate, onto Happousai's damaged Locust. Somehow she made the process of preheating the slabs of aligned crystal steel and preparing them for welding look graceful.

"Uh, that's okay. I'm comfortable here," he replied.

Happousai nudged his ribs. "Good luck," he cackled, knowing that Ryouga Hibiki would need a great deal of it concerning women. Like Ranma, he was his own worst enemy in that regard.

Furinkan Combine DropShip Oda Nobunaga

Transitting to the Capra System Zenith Jump Point

Capra System, the League of Five Nails

17 March 3025

The soft sigh and hiss of a respirator filled the small compartment; the sound was an audible reminder to Tatewaki Kuno of the fragile woman who clung to life by a thread. Kodachi had been unconscious since her capture - one of the reasons why she and her guards had offered little resistance once the Blue Thunder Regiment had cornered them. The ragged 10mm bullet which punctured her cooling vest had done her one better; entering her belly, perforating her intestines, bruising her liver, and lodging in her diaphragm dangerously close to a major artery.

The surgeons had been able to do little for her other than stabilize her deteriorating condition. Kodachi had expressed a recessive gene that ran through the Kuno Family lineage, and as such possessed the rare B-Negative blood type. What little of the stock that was on hand at the Regimental M.A.S.H. was just enough to make up for her internal hemorrhages and see her to the JumpShips. Of the synthetic blood that had once been the godsend of Star League medicine, there remained only rumors and legends. If she survived the trip, there would be sufficient reserves of the rare blood on board the flagship to perform the life-saving surgery she so desperately needed.

The Oda Nobunaga's acceleration towards the Zenith Point was only one-half gravity. Using any more thrust than that would run the risk of more internal damage - likely killing her. The main engines' usual roar was muted and distant in his ears, and felt more than heard.

Tatewaki regarded his sister in the darkness. Because of her, he was unable to continue the pursuit of the cursed Saotomes. It did not occur to him that he could have sent his sister to the Jump Point aboard another ship, nor would he have permitted it if the idea had been mentioned to him. Kodachi, though she was a traitoress and a mutineer, was still a Kuno. She would not spend what might prove to be her final moments in the company of the common born.

Another thought occurred to him as he watched over her. Kodachi was helpless before him. He studied the fine tracery of sensors that studded her naked and bandaged body, the tubes that drained the leaking blood and fluids from her abdominal cavity, the intravenous drips in the backs of her hands that fought to overcome those losses and maintain her blood pressure. The respirator hissed and sighed beside her bed, breathing for her, filling her with life-giving oxygen through the clear plastic hose, fogged with condensation, that snaked down her throat.

It would be a simple matter for him to switch the respirator off for a few moments. The proximity of the bullet to a major artery would prevent the doctors on board from resuscitating her with a violent procedure like CPR, and there wasn't enough of her rare blood on board for them to risk cracking her chest to perform a direct massage. They would be forced to watch, helpless, as she slipped away from them.

He leaned forward in his folding chair, eyeing the lamp that glowed behind the red plastic jewel of the power button. The nurse had carelessly left the master key in the unit's safety lock, allowing him to switch the respirator off with a touch. Though none would dare presume that he had murdered his sister in cold blood, he would claim to have brushed against the button by accident.

His finger hovered over the button as he watched the slow rise and fall of his sister's chest in time to the respirator's hiss. Her face was pale yet proud in the cold glow of starlight from the bulkhead window. How like a Kuno to carry herself with such a noble mien when so near to death, he thought absently.

The thought of ending her life did not warm him - as he believed it should have. Somewhere deep down within him, beyond the walls of jealousy and resentment he had raised between them over the years, he truly loved his sister. Though she had betrayed him and sought to murder his true love, he could not bring himself to kill her in this fashion. If it was his destiny to end Kodachi's life, then it would be upon the field of battle, or not at all.

His finger came away from the power button, and he sat back in his chair to contemplate matters. Her life was still in great peril, even if he had curbed his fratricidal urges. If she died in transit, or in surgery, then it was the will of the gods. He would mourn her in the proper manner, he would even avenge her if possible, but his plans for conquest would go forward without any more fear of her interference. If she survived, then he would have the perfect excuse in her need for quiet recuperation for sending her far away to a convent in the Periphery. That she would remain in the convent long after her recovery was a foregone conclusion.

He rose from his chair, feeling at last the weariness that came with leading the Capra campaign. Turning first to ensure that no one was there to see it, he removed the master key from the respirator's control lock - then leaned over his sister's pale form and tenderly kissed her brow.

He stepped out of the small room which served as the DropShip's Intensive Care unit. The lone nurse on duty bowed deferentially to him as he passed. He set the master key for Kodachi's life support loudly on her desk as he did so.

There was only one thing he could do now that the League was fleeing the system, and that was to continue with his plans to invade and conquer the Capella System. Once he had the Grand Duke under his thumb, a great many things became possible. Akane would be his, and the fates of the Saotomes would be sealed. The Confederation would become the springboard for his conquest of the League of Five Nails, and from there, the entire Inner Sphere would be his.

A new Star League would be born, rising up from the ashes of three centuries of nearly endless war. He and Akane would rule over hundreds of human worlds, and a golden age of rediscovery would take place. The lives of the peasants would no longer be short brutish affairs, allowing the stagnant arts to flourish. Tatewaki looked forward to that boon of conquest in particular, as he fancied himself a patron of the arts.

He felt the setbacks he had suffered on this ill-fortuned campaign against Capra were behind him now. His most potent enemy, his sister, was neutralized. The League had bloodied his nose with their cowardly attacks, but had fled the field as soon as he rose up to oppose them. The fools of Nerima would be expected to put up a fight, but Tatewaki was prepared for that. He had braved the trials and travails of his shining path to victory, and had not strayed.

There was only one final matter to attend to before he could focus all of his energies towards the Nerima campaign.

A military police lieutenant colonel snapped to attention as he entered his office near the bow of the giant Overlord Class DropShip. The colonel was in charge of the prisoners of war they had collected on Capra, most of whom were members of his sister's regiment. He saluted and presented a stack of dossiers for his lord.

"The dossiers you requested, your Highness."

Tatewaki frowned. "I requested no such thing," he said to the man, who paled. "My staff feels perhaps that I have time for such things. I would prefer to keep the matter simple."

"What are your orders then, my lord prince?"

Tatewaki sat behind his desk and steepled his fingers together.

"As I said, they are simple. Execute all of my sister's regimental staff officers, all surviving battalion commanders and their executive officers, and all company commanders and their executive officers. The rest shall be placed in correctional custody pending evaluation of their loyalty to the Furinkan Combine. Those who fail the evaluation shall be drummed out, those who pass shall be returned to service with no further sanctions against their careers."

"Execute them, my lord prince?" the Lieutenant Colonel asked in a quavering voice.

"Execute them," Tatewaki confirmed.

"I beg for your pardon, my lord prince, but are we to execute them with no trial?"

Tatewaki's patience for the man dwindled remarkably.

"Put them to death immediately," he told him coldly. "Their hand in my sister's treason is clear by their rank and by their failure to act against her. I would order the entire regiment liquidated were it not for my need for crack troops in the months ahead, and so I choose to hold nothing against the enlisted troops and junior officers who followed, in their ignorance, the treasonous orders of my sister and her staff. The Black Rose Regiment is formally dissolved." He paused to let this sink in. "Furthermore, I see no need to waste limited time and resources in preparing for lengthy trials and appeals... I commanded thee to execute them, Colonel. See that you do, and see that their bodies are made available for display as an example of the price of treason."

The military police officer snapped to attention.

"As you command, your Highness!"

"Dismissed."

He left the room with as much speed and grace as was possible in one-half gravity.

Tatewaki rubbed his chin thoughtfully as the man departed, deciding on a stiff drink to steady his nerves and help him relax. Ordering so many Combine officers, several of them aristocrats and one the son of a daimyo, put to death was nearly anathema to him. Treason however, was even more despised than the sin and waste of executing them without trial. He took comfort in the fact that even the Tokugawa Shogunate had been forced from time to time to execute ranking nobles and their retainers for the sake of the Empire.

He belted down a shot of sake from a warming bottle he kept in his desk, and poured himself another before punching a button on his desk.

"Send Sasuke in," he demanded.

"At once, my lord prince!" the voice of his secretary responded.

The door opened, and Sasuke walked in. The little ninja fell upon his face in supplication to his lord.

"Rise, Sasuke," he commanded him.

Sasuke stood before the desk, his eyes averted.

"You ponder why it is that thou art not put to death like thy fellows, nor that thou art set in chains?" Tatewaki asked him.

"If I am not put to death nor set in chains, it is only because my lord has some service that is required of me before my just punishment is handed down," Sasuke answered carefully.

"Indeed," Tatewaki replied solemnly. "Thy service to my sister is at an end. Henceforth thou shalt serve me until such time as the price of thy crimes against me must be paid in full."

Sasuke again fell upon his face.

"I shall."

"You may go, Sasuke," Tatewaki told him. "I have no immediate use for you."

"At once, my lord!"

Tatewaki watched him go as well, knowing that soon he would have to put the ninja to death. He was too beholden to Kodachi to be trusted while she lived. Only while she remained an invalid was he of any use to him.

JCDS Jade Lotus

in transit to the Capra System Nadir Jump Point

Capra System, the League of Five Nails

18 March 3025

Shampoo looked down at the crisp piece of hardcopy the Jade Lotus' Communications Section had just decrypted for her. It was an HPG message from Jusenkyo, in reply to her preliminary report concerning the debacle at Capra.

WE ACKNOWLEDGE THE DEATH OF COMMANDER KIMA IN ACTION ON THE PLANET

CAPRA IN THE CAPRA SYSTEM ON OR ABOUT THE 15TH OF MARCH, 3025.

COMMAND OF THE MISSION SHALL BE CONFERRED UPON MECHWARRIOR SHAMPOO,

WHO SHALL BE BREVETED TO THE RANK OF MECHWARRIOR MAJOR, EFFECTIVE

IMMEDIATELY UPON RECEIPT OF THIS MESSAGE.

She flushed with surprise at the news of her promotion. It was unexpected, as was her retention of command. She sensed her great-grandmother's hand in these affairs, and felt the weight of responsibility settle even heavier upon her shoulders. Command was something she aspired to, but this was too soon!

The rest of the message was for her specifically.

YOU ARE DIRECTED TO RENDEZVOUS VIA JUMPSHIP WITH COMMONWEALTH ASSETS

IN THE TAU CETI STAR SYSTEM AS SOON AS POSSIBLE FOR RESUPPLY, TRANSFER

OF COMMANDER KIMA'S REMAINS, AND FORMAL MISSION DEBRIEFING.

END MSG 2503171917Z,

MECHGEN. HERB SENDS

She didn't like the sound of the phrase 'formal mission debriefing.' It sounded like the Elders were already pulling the plug on the mission, and her command and brevet rank were merely formalities prior to the end. She knew a reckoning with the Elders would follow shortly, and that the outcome would not be in her favor. She liked the fact that it had been sent by General Herb even less.

Was Herb going to preside over the debriefing? If so, that sounded like the handiwork of Elder Peony or Oolong, who were both enemies of her great-grandmother, and then her career as mission commander really would be over.

She set the message down, knowing that the eyes of the compartment were upon her. Her assumption of command had not gone over well among her peers, and she had discovered enemies where she believed none had existed before. Chief among their complaints with her was her refusal to punish Mousse for his supposedly usurping command of the battlemech company in Kima's name.

The only possible witnesses to Kima's act of delegating the authority to Mousse were Mousse himself, Commander Kima, and her driver, Joyful Cloud. Unfortunately, both Kima and Joyful Cloud were dead, and so could not be questioned as to the validity of Mousse's claims. Shampoo had the authority as Commander of the Mission to confer non-judicial punishment upon her subordinates, but the truth of the matter was that she knew Kima, and she believed Mousse.

What her battle-sisters really wanted was a salve to their female pride. Mousse was a man, and though his authority had (allegedly) derived from a woman, he had treated the others in the company with what they considered disrespect. Shampoo saw no overt disrespect. As commander of the battlemech company, Mousse was not required to bow and scrape to them, and it was within his power as a commander during the heat of battle to administer on the spot discipline to subordinates who failed to follow his orders, up to and including a sentence of death.

Shampoo was no lawyer, but the arguments against Mousse seemed groundless. She was also beginning to realize that logic and rational thought had little sway over minds when emotion was at work. Mousse had wounded their pride, so Mousse must pay. Anyone who stood before that reckoning became an enemy. She thought it was particularly mortifying that the two most vocal of her battle-sisters howling for Mousse's head were the two Recon Lance mechwarriors who had shamefully abandoned him to die in the city.

As she looked around the compartment at the other women, she wondered how quickly they would sell her out to General Herb. They probably wouldn't take very long, she decided.

She cleared her throat to speak.

"Effective immediately, formal command of the mission has been conferred upon me," she told them. A copy of the first part of the message would be posted shortly where the crew could read it. "As has the brevet rank of Mechwarrior Major. Our orders are to rendezvous with the JumpShip and then proceed to the Tau Ceti system as soon as possible."

She waited for one of them to demand disciplinary action against Mousse. As an interim commander of dubious authority, she had enjoyed an excuse to avoid action against him. Now as formal commander, she could freely dispense the maximum justice permissable to her by clan law.

So far, none of them stepped forward. It might have meant something that Mousse was in the compartment with them, alone and silent. Her respect for her fellow mechwarriors was nearly gone if they were too cowardly to speak out against him in a place where he could defend himself.

She cast her eyes to the twins, Pink and Link. They were her only supporters, albeit lukewarm ones. The bonds of family were at least strong enough for them to refrain from stabbing her in the back. The two Recon Lance pilots remained silent, though she could see their hate smoldering behind their expressionless faces, waiting for the opportunity to burst into vengeful flame.

NCDS Palomino,

In transit to the Capra System Zenith Jump Point

Capra System, the League of Five Nails

18 March 3025

Akane Tendo looked at the small metal plaque that was the fifth crypto key to unlock the secrets of Ryuugenzawa. The metal was smooth and unmarred, and it was difficult for her to imagine it being several centuries old. She ran her fingers over it once more before handing it back to Mister Saotome, who slipped it into the chain he wore around his neck.

They needed just one more key to decrypt the data disc with the coordinates for Ryuugenzawa. Mister Saotome knew where the sixth key was to be found, or at least he claimed to know. He was being very tight-lipped about the whole affair, and would not discuss it with anyone.

His silence worried her. Was he just bluffing them about the sixth key? Not even Ranma knew the truth.

She looked around the crowded mess deck for him, but he was nowhere to be found. He had been avoiding her ever since their departure from the planet. He hadn't even showed up for regular meals, apparently preferring to filch something from the galley when no one was around.

"What is it, Akane?" Doctor Tofu asked her as she thought about it. He was managing well on crutches, and refused to let something like a broken ankle stop him from his rounds of the ship. "Are you looking for Ranma?"

She looked up at his handsome face and sighed. Why couldn't her life be a little less complicated, and a little more romantic with him?

"Have you seen him?" she asked in a quiet voice.

He almost didn't hear her over the sounds of conversation and the noise of the Palomino's main drives.

"I saw him heading aft about twenty minutes ago," Tofu replied. He gave her a wink. "He looked a little out of sorts. Perhaps you should go see him."

"Maybe," she replied. Tofu eased past her and took a seat near Genma, and the Palomino's captain.

She finished her tea in one gulp, and set the empty cup on the counter of the closet-sized scullery. Ryouga watched her go, his eyes warm and hopeful as they regarded her. She wondered how man as nice as him could nurse such a grudge for Ranma for so long, and then realized with a brief snort of laughter that this was Ranma she was talking about, after all.

On a Leopard Class DropShip like the Palomino, the term 'aft' meant only one thing: the engineering spaces. She couldn't imagine why he would want to go back there, other than for privacy's sake. Only one member of the crew spent any time back there during normal cruising, and that was only for about ten minutes of every hour to spot-check the spaces' mostly automated equipment.

She pulled herself through an airtight door that ran along the ship's centerline beneath the dorsal mounted weapons and sensor bays. It was a long, dimly lit passageway, marked only by the faded stencils of hull frame numbers on the bulkheads, and two additional airtight doors. There was a slight pressure differential between doors, so that each time one opened, a cool breeze would catch in her hair and whistle past her ears. The smells of old flaking paint and of the amine they used to scrub the carbon-dioxide out of the atmosphere were especially strong in the passageway.

The last airtight door led into the Engineering Spaces. A faded yellow and magenta sign over the portal warned her of the Radiation Area beyond, and that she was required to wear personal dosimetry to enter. She had been around nuclear reactors most of her life, and the Thermo-Luminescent Dosimeter she wore was an old companion. Her hand came down reflexively to the spot on her belt where it rested, and she felt the cool hard plastic tube right where it should have been.

Engine Room Upper Level was where the ship's Engineer stood his watch at Battlestations, and where the on-watch Rover went on his hourly rounds to check on the systems. There was a small control room set off to the side of the airtight door, and inside was dense bank of instrumentation. All of the dials, meters, and displays were repeated on the Flight Deck for redundency's sake.

There was no sign of Ranma in the Control Room.

The compartment was mostly full of electrical panels that controlled the distribution of the ship's powerplant output to the computers, sensors, life-support, hotel loads, and weapons that gave the Palomino its life. It was stark and clean, with everything painted haze grey or pastel green, and the linoleum floor squeaked beneath her feet.

He wasn't on this level, and knowing him, he was probably sulking below, where it was noisy and dark.

Akane had to search for the ladder down to Middle Level, as she spent little time aft on a Leopard Class, and didn't remember immediately where it could be found. She took the steeply sloping ladder facing outward, away from the rungs, the way the ship's crew often did.

Ranma was there, sitting between two large centrifugal pumps that circulated the ship's Air Conditioning Chilled Water. Condensed moisture on the cold pump casings glistened under the fluorescent lights. Because there was machinery here, the linoleum flooring had given way to rubberized diamond-deck, which masked her approach.

She paused, close enough to reach out and touch him. His back was turned to her, and his stillness made her wonder if he was asleep. Her heart began to pound, and she took a moment to convince herself why she was here.

She knew the reason, of course, but she wanted to hear the details of it from him. Had he really meant what he said to Kuno? Had he really meant what he said about being her fiance, and that he would hunt down anyone who harmed her to the ends of the universe? His voice had carried with it the timbre of a man who was deadly serious, but was that really how he felt about her?

By any other indication, Ranma could not have cared less about her. He was always insulting her and making her feel inferior to him. He was arrogant and thoughtless and rude - and yet, at the same time he had been ready on several occasions to die a horrible death for her sake. He had risked his neck getting the fifth key for her, when he had sworn up and down not thirty minutes before that it was suicide to make the attempt.

She watched him for a moment in troubled silence, trying desperately to understand him. He was such a tangled mess of contradictions that she wasn't sure she could ever find the crypto keys necessary to decipher his feelings for her. She wanted to slap him silly sometimes for being so aggravating, and at other times some half-realized part of her wanted to catch him up in her arms and never let him go.

Her hand reached out to touch him, stopping just short of his shoulder when her nerve failed her. She withdrew her hand, thinking to herself that she had just been spared a great deal of emotional damage in doing so. Ranma may have cared for her in his own bewildering way, but not in any way that meant something more between them. He was her protector, though perhaps a bit more than a formal bodyguard, and he was honor-bound to uphold the engagement, but beyond that he was nothing more. It was foolish of her to expect anything else from him.

She started quietly for the ladder.

"Hey, Akane," he said to her.

She nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of his voice.

"How did you know it was me?" she managed, turning around to look at him. He remained where he was, facing the air scrubbers, and not her.

"The rover's already been by this hour," he replied. "Who else would it be?"

"So you've been expecting me?" She wasn't fond of the idea of being so obvious to him.

"Not really. When I heard you coming down the ladder, I figured it was either you or Pop. When you didn't chew my ass for leaving the ship to go look for the crypto key, I knew it was you."

"Oh."

He turned around. "Have a seat."

She looked at him for a moment, then at her surroundings.

"Where?"

He waved his hand about. "Anywhere, I guess. The deck's cleaner than it looks, and that chilled water pipe is insulated."

She decided to sit on the chilled water pipe. For one thing it would put her slightly higher than him. The pipe's insulation was cool to the touch, and she could feel the water coursing through it from the nearby pump.

"You want to tell me what's bothering you?" she asked him.

"Something's bothering me?" he replied.

"Don't play dumb, Ranma. You've been like a ghost on this ship ever since we left. You never eat with the rest of us, and you don't even spar with your father like you used to."

She paused for a moment before she said what she felt was the problem. "Is it because I gave Ryouga a peck on the cheek the other day?"

He winced slightly at this, and she knew that if it wasn't the only reason why he was doing this, then it was a major one.

"No," he spat. "Why would I care about who you kiss?"

Her brow furrowed slightly at this. "So you weren't jealous?"

Ranma looked away. "What do I have to be jealous about?"

He was being even more impossible than she had expected! "Just forget I mentioned it then," she told him.

"I already have."

Neither of them spoke for several minutes. The whir of the pumps and the tinkling noises from the lithium bromide air conditioning plants were rough counterpoints to the distant roar of the main engines pushing them towards the jump point. Ranma seemed content to sit and stare off into space - forever if necessary, leaving her to finally concede. She reopened the conversation with, "I get the feeling you come here often."

He took the bait. "Pop and I used to stow away on ships a lot. The engineering spaces are the best places to hide. No one likes to spend a lot of time here." He looked around at the pumps and other machines for a moment. "I guess I'm just used to the noise."

She nodded patiently at his words, though she could not easily imagine the kind of life that he had led before coming to Nerima. Was she really that out of touch with the rest of the Inner Sphere, or was he really that different from her?

"I'm not sure what to say to that," she admitted to him.

"You don't have to say anything," he responded. "I can see why you don't understand where I come from most of the time."

"It's hard sometimes," she conceded. She looked closely at him then, and the brilliant colors of his eyes were oddly washed out by the abundance of pastel green paint that covered the bulkheads and the piping. "I know I didn't treat you very well when you first came to Nerima."

"That's an understatement," he snorted. "The only one who was worse to me was Nabiki."

His words stung, but she took them in stride. Kasumi would have been proud of her.

"I was upset about the engagement," she replied. "And I was scared."

He looked surprised by this.

"You? Scared?"

"Wouldn't you be?" she asked him. "Getting engaged to marry some strange guy you've never met, and who happens to turn into a girl whenever he gets wet? Wondering if he's going to take away the one thing you've worked for since you were little?"

Ranma thought about this for a moment. "I guess so."

"I'm over the Jusenkyo thing," she went on, feeling much better about everything between them now that she was actually talking to him about it. "It's still pretty weird, but I know that even as a girl you're still Ranma."

He nodded slowly. "What's the other thing?"

"Command of the 1st Nerima Guards. It's tradition that the Duke or his heir lead the regiment. Ever since Kasumi put away her neurohelmet, the duty has fallen to me." That was easy enough to say to him, she mused, but now comes the hard part. "I've always wanted it, and if I... Well... marry you... then you become the Grand Duke when Dad retires. The 1st Nerima becomes yours if you wanted it."

"I don't want it," he said to her. "I wouldn't keep it from you, either. I didn't want any of this marriage business, and I'm not after your family's money or any of that other junk."

She regarded him for a moment, and knew that what he had told was true. He would not keep something as important as that from her. He had already demonstrated his lack of avarice by his refusal to accept the Phoenix Hawk LAM as a gift, but rather as a loan to be returned as soon as he was finished with it.

"You know, I really do want to get to know you better, Ranma," she said to him at length. "But you make it so hard to get closer to you."

Her heart began to pound, and she steeled herself for what she had to say to him. If she said nothing else to him for the rest of the trip back to the JumpShip, this had to be it.

"Sometimes I don't know if you're just being defensive with your insults, or if you really do hate me... One minute you're risking your life for me, and the next you're calling me names and treating me like I'm useless."

He turned away, perhaps from shyness, or perhaps out of guilt - she could not tell.

"I don't hate you, Akane," he said quietly.

"Then what is it?"

He looked even more uncomfortable with the subject than her. "It's... Well... Aw hell, Akane, I don't know... It's kinda complicated... I just know that I don't hate you, I never have, and I never will, okay?"

"Okay," she hedged. "I think I understand."

"You don't understand!" he yelled suddenly, jumping to his feet. His reaction was more than a shock, it was frightening. "You can't understand because even I don't understand! Got it?"

She wanted to tell him that no, she didn't 'get it,' but held her tongue. He was getting back into his defensive mode again. The insults were just around the corner.

"I just want to ask you one more thing," she said calmly. Her subdued, almost passive demeanor calmed him slightly. "You don't have to answer it if you don't want to, and I'll leave you alone after this no matter what you choose or don't choose to say."

He settled back down on the deck, his nostrils flaring in agitation.

"Yeah?"

She focused her reserve of inner strength first.

"I just wanted to know if what you said to Kuno out there on the highway was true... About being my fiance and all..."

He looked away.

"According to your dad and mine, yeah, it's true."

"That's not what I meant!" she cried, her voice trembling between anger and misery. "I should have known better than to expect a real answer from you, Ranma Saotome, but I'm as good as my word."

She stood and jumped across the piping to the ladder, leaving a single teardrop lost among the many beads of condensation on the chilled water pump casing. The sounds of her racing up the ladder and out through the airtight door above melted away into the white noise of the compartment, leaving him as she had found him: alone.

Akane was long gone when Ranma finally realized what she had really been asking, and now it was too late to say anything to her.

Nerima Confederation JumpShip Dragonfly

Near the Capra System Zenith Jump Point

Capra System, the League of Five Nails

19 March 3025

"Captain Ninomiya?"

Captain Hinako Ninomiya of the Nerima Confederation Navy looked up from her station - where she was busy writing her Night Orders for the evening - to the Communications Section.

"What is it?" she asked the man on duty.

"I'm receiving a burst transmission from the Palomino," he replied.

"Finally," Hinako sighed with relief. Ever since the Furinkan Combine had landed troops on Capra, she had been reduced to a nervous wreck waiting to hear from Commander Saotome. She hopped from her seat and floated over

to the man. The condition of free fall on the Bridge allowed her to look over his shoulder even in her currently diminutive body. "Can you get a Direction Finder fix on them?"

"No, ma'am," he replied. "There was only one burst. I have a bearing estimate only."

"Good," she grunted in her childish voice. "That means the Combine can't either. Prepare to answer them with the details of our current position and orbit. Get the data from Astrogation and send it as a burst, repeating, oh, say, every ten minutes. Keep sending it until they acknowledge, then go silent."

"Aye aye, ma'am." He set to work preparing the transmission.

Hinako returned to her station, and resumed where she had left off, choosing an orange crayon this time for her Night Orders because it would look pretty next to the pictures of the rainbow and the pink unicorn she had drawn.

Federated Shiratori Battlemech Forces Mobile Command

Planet Tiber, Palatine System

The Federated Shiratori

19 March 3025

Brigadier Ukyou Kuonji of the Federated Shiratori Battlemech Forces could barely contain her anger. "How could that idiot Genma Saotome forget about his promise to my family!? How could that idiot son of his forget who he was supposed to marry!?"

She clenched her fists in fury at her despicable commanding officer. Because of General Mikado Sanzenin's skirt chasing, she was the one who had to come to Palatine and direct the Spring Maneuvers instead of him. She was supposed to have been on the planet Genevieve convincing the Empress to send her on the diplomatic envoy to the Confederation. Was it any surprise that without her prodding, no envoy at all had been sent?

If she had been successful with Azusa, she could have been on Nerima in time to stop Genma's machinations, perhaps even browbeaten him into making good on his promise. At the very least she could have seen her beloved Ran-chan again. The last time was when they were young children, and she had been in love with him ever since.

But no... Mikado found yet another conquest to woo, and so here she was, a mere Brigadier directing most of the Federated Shiratori's armed forces, while he ran off to get laid. Again.

As it stood, the chance of there even being a position available in the near future for diplomatic duty with the Confederation was slim. The Furinkan Combine's renewed offensive was pressing them hard, and there were rumors circulating that Tatewaki Kuno was ready to begin a seige of the Capella System directly.

She turned to her adjutant and sighed wearily.

"How does this always happen to me?"

Her adjutant, Major Konatsu, did not reply. The cross-dressing mechwarrior merely set his hands behind his uniform skirt and tried to look oblivious to Ukyou's distress. The issue of her supposed engagement to a man named Saotome had become a sore subject with him over the last month, as he had been experiencing a bit of romantic confusion regarding his lovely commanding officer, and he wasn't certain whether she would ever feel as attracted to him as he was with her.

He had yet to learn all the details of the arrangement that would have seen his adored commander married to this Saotome fellow, but it seemed to him that until the news had broken, she had all but forgotten about it. Or at least put it so far out of her mind that she never thought about it openly. This latest blow-up had come following yet another botched attack exercise by the troops. Though the two subjects were completely unrelated, it demonstrated how much of her attention she was devoting to the matter of Ranma Saotome.

Ukyou slammed her fists down on the map table.

"Have the 3rd Battalion run through it again," she muttered.

"Yes, sir," he replied quietly. As soon as the troops started running their exercises without error, his beloved commander would stop having tantrums. It promised to be a long spring...

"Konatsu?"

He started, knowing that Ukyou almost never called him by his name, and certainly not in public. The other staff officers in the mobile command center pretended not to notice.

"Yes, Brigadier?" he asked her timidly.

"Sorry about the shouting," she said to him. "I should save it all for that jackass, Sanzenin. If he doesn't get here soon, I'm resigning."

"Yes, sir," Konatsu replied, trying not to smile. Ukyou would not give the general the satisfaction of resigning. One of the reasons his beloved commander ended up with such trying assignments as this one was because she had rather publicly spurned one of General Sanzenin's amorous advances towards her. He would have cashiered her on the spot were it not for the small amount of favor she enjoyed with the Empress.

It was funny now that he thought about it, but the very system of Imperial nepotism that she despised for making the Army incompetent was the thing that had saved her own career.

He too enjoyed Imperial privilege, though he was no supporter of the Cult of Azusa. Their fanatical devotion to her had usurped the centuries-old and nominally democratic Federated Shiratori system of government, and turned it into a reckless cult of personality with young Azusa proclaimed Goddess-Empress. It was a Federation in name only, and her word was law. The Cult of Azusa had become the de facto enforcers of Her Imperial Divinity, and woe to any who openly defied the Word of Azusa...

An idle thought jumped into his head. Did his mother and sisters, all kunoichi as he had once been, belong to the cult? He decided against it. The Cult of Azusa's true followers were all young people like himself, the rest merely opportunists - or perhaps better thought of as survivors.

The appearance of General Mikado Sanzenin in the doorway to the command center dispelled any further reflection, as Konatsu called out "Attention on deck!"

Ukyo paused at the clear alto voice of Konatsu announcing Mikado's arrival. She smoothed her uniform jacket with her hands, and turned to level her best drop-dead look at him. The first thing she noticed about him was his tan, the second was his companion. It was not the lovely Captain Jane Curtiss, the paramour that had started this debacle, but a brunette. Well, almost a brunette. What did you call a woman whose hair was a deep unmistakable blue?

The Chief of Staff for the Federated Shiratori Armed Forces panned his gorgeous eyes about the command center until he spied her. A brief smile crossed his face, dazzling her with the sparkle of his brilliantly white and expensively polished teeth. He started towards her, with the blue-haired woman in tow.

She gave him her usual half-hearted salute, and he returned it in his usual sloppy manner. It was almost an unspoken ritual between them.

"General Sanzenin," she addressed him.

"Brigadier Kuonji," he returned with mock formality, and thinly veiled animosity.

"Did you enjoy your sabbatical?" she asked, knowing that his absence was technically a matter of military necessity - even though it was nothing more than an excuse for a tryst - and wanting him to know just what she thought of his brand of bullshit.

"Quite," Mikado returned, willing to give her at least that much. "I see things are just as hopeless here as they were before the exercises."

Ukyou grit her teeth. It didn't help that most of her subordinates wouldn't know the wrong end of a PPC if they got hit by one.

"They have improved, General," she retorted, as much for her benefit as theirs. "I have the reports from the last month's exercises."

Mikado waved her off. "No, no. You know how I hate wading through paperwork. I'm a hands-on type of man." His eyes darted towards the blue-haired woman, a major with the hunter green piping of one of the Federated Shiratori's few remaining noble houses. Most of the nobles had been stripped of their wealth and titles following the Cult of Azusa's rise to power, which made the major either a fanatic or a realist. Ukyou wasn't sure at a glance in which category she belonged.

"I've detailed Major Deladier with the task of bringing me up to date," he said to Ukyou. "You can forward all of the reports to her office."

Ukyou smirked. "What happened to Jane, I mean, Captain Curtiss?"

Deladier frowned at the mention of another woman. Ukyou decided that she was a realist. That was something in her favor, at least. Getting caught up with Mikado Sanzenin was big points against anyone.

"Captain Curtiss didn't work out," Mikado declared solemnly, which was his personal shorthand for someone who didn't put out. Ukyou found herself cheering for Curtiss, who was probably now a sadder, wiser girl, with a ruined career for all her troubles.

"Well I'm glad that you've managed to recover," Ukyou offered snidely. "After all, the entire Armed Forces depends on you."

Mikado looked to Deladier, who returned his look with one of affection. Ukyou recoiled inwardly with disgust. So much for being a smart one...

"Major Deladier has been a blessing in disguise," he declared, which was his personal shorthand for someone whom he thought wasn't going to put out, but had pleasantly surprised him.

Ukyou tried to contain her disgust. Deladier was either a sycophant, or a very dangerous woman with her own personal agenda. She resolved to stay well clear of her in either case.

"Well, now that you're here, I stand relieved," she told him.

Mikado chuckled smugly. "Sorry, dear. I'm afraid that I'm just too busy right now for that kind of bother."

"It's your duty to be here for the Spring Maneuvers!" Ukyou protested. "I'm commanding far above my rank here, dammit! This is a job for a Captain General at the least!"

Mikado smiled slyly. "Is that what this is all about?" he asked. "My dear Ukyou, if this is about being passed up for promotion, I can assure you that I can put in a good word for you with the Empress. You know how she can make things happen..."

Damn you all to hell, Mikado Sanzenin, she thought blackly. The last thing she wanted was to be associated with Azusa's fawning coterie of sycophants, and he knew it!

"That won't be necessary, General," she told him, preferring to address him by his rank rather than call him 'sir.' "What I recommend is that a flag grade officer of suitable rank be placed in charge of these maneuvers, and allow me to return to my previous responsibilities."

Mikado was smarter than that. "You were unattached to any unit pending your request for diplomatic duty prior to this assignment, my dear Ukyou." He looked her over. "I'm not giving you a free ticket to Genevieve just so you can go cry on Azusa's shoulder about how terribly underappreciated you are."

Ukyou turned red. Konatsu tensed nearby to spring in case his beloved commander decided to put her family weapon to use on the general's skull.

"Go to hell," she told him curtly. "General."

"Now, now, Brigadier Kuonji. That's no way to talk to your superior officer."

NCDS Palomino, 15 light-seconds from the

Capra System Zenith Jump Point,

Capra System, the League of Five Nails

20 March 3025

The sound of a privacy curtain in Berthing being whipped open was louder in the darkness than the sounds of snoring and the muted roar of the distant main engines.

"Wake up, boy."

Ranma squinted painfully at the flashlight his father was shining in his eyes. He had been enjoying a dreamless sleep in his coffin-sized rack in Berthing prior to this interruption.

"What gives, Pop?" he asked, shading his eyes with his hand.

"I'm tired of your moping around, Ranma," Genma explained. "It's time you learned a little discipline. Report to 'Mech Bay One for an attitude adjustment."

Ranma scowled. "You gotta be kidding me... We almost got killed on Capra - more than once - and now you want me to get up to train?"

Genma stared hard at his son. "That's right, boy."

"What about my ribs?" Ranma pressed. "They're still pretty beat up. What did Doctor Tofu say about exercise?"

"What the doctor doesn't know won't hurt him," Genma replied. "Now get up."

"Yeah, but it might hurt ME..." Ranma growled. Genma padded away out of Berthing as he said it. He was tempted to go back to sleep, but it would only make his father's eventual return that much more painful for him.

Cursing to himself, he rolled gingerly out of his rack and onto the cold linoleum of the deck. They had eaten all of the food that had once lined the narrow floor space between the sets of triple bunks, and the deck felt gritty from the cardboard that had formerly been laid down to protect the linoleum surface from the cans.

He stepped into the Head to take a leak. The tiny space was devoid of passengers and crew. Only the clunk and clatter of people moving around in the Crew's Mess above him gave any sign that the ship was inhabited at this late hour of the night-cycle.

When he was finished, he took the short ladder up to the Mid-Deck. The Crew's Mess was dark, and he could see a handful of heads silhouetted against the light of the television, watching a kung-fu movie that had been filmed within the last year on Nerima. The smell of hot tempura tickled his nose, and he drifted towards the sideboard to help himself.

Ships as small as the Palomino did not have dedicated cooks, and so meals were prepared on a rotating shift basis among the crew. Most of the food was pre-packaged, easy to fix, and bland, but it was possible for someone skilled in cooking to create dishes from the food on hand that made people look forward to the next meal. Palomino had one of these rare souls on board, in the form of a Gunner's Mate Second Class, and he had graced the off-going watch section with a selection of tempura dishes to go with the movie.

Ranma helped himself. The shrimp wasn't fresh, but after more than two weeks away from the fine chow from Azure Cloud Castle's kitchens, he wasn't going to complain. He popped another one into his mouth, savoring the taste, before taking his plate over to one of the bench-seated tables near the back of the room.

Doctor Tofu occupied the seat next to him, and smiled at Ranma's fresh plate of food. The pig-tailed mechwarrior sighed and offered him to help himself. Tofu wasted no time in doing so.

"So, how're the ribs?" the doctor asked in a whisper after he finished off one of the precious batter-fried shrimp and moved on to some vegetables. The flick was at a point where some obligatory plot was being offered, and his interest in it had waned.

"Okay," Ranma replied, wondering how long it would take his father to track him down. "How's the leg?"

"I'll live."

"Hey Doc," Ranma broached. "How long was I supposed to go before I could start sparring again?"

"Two weeks," Tofu replied. "You're a fast healer from what I've seen, but I wouldn't push it any sooner than two weeks."

"Just checking." What the doctor doesn't know won't hurt him, my ass!

The flick shifted back to action again, and the two fell silent as they critiqued the performance. It was something of a comfort to Ranma to note that Tofu quietly chuckled or scoffed at the same things he did. The guy may have taken up medicine, but he hadn't forgotten his martial arts roots.

His eyes wandered across the various heads silhouetted in the room. Most were members of the Palomino's crew or Akari's techs. The two who weren't part of either group made him spit out a silent curse.

Akane was sitting next to Ryouga near the front of the room. She was giggling, probably in response to a joke, and even in the darkness, Ranma could see the blush that was on Ryouga's face.

"'Scuse me, Doc," he said to the doctor. "I just remembered that I gotta be somewhere."

"Are you sure?" Tofu asked him. "It's pretty late."

"Positive. Pop will kill me if I'm any later than I already am."

He slid out of the bench seat and left the Crew's Mess, leaving his unfinished plate of tempura behind. Doctor Tofu watched him go, then helped himself to the remainder.

Ryouga Hibiki was in absolute bliss. He had wandered onto the Crew's Mess late for the meal, but just in time to watch a movie. He hadn't seen any new ones for awhile, and the tempura was excellent! Even better than the film or the food though, was when Akane sat down next to him.

She looked out-of-sorts at first, as she had for most of the trip to the jump point. She wouldn't say what the problem was, but Ryouga knew better. It was that idiot Ranma's fault she was like this!

Now she was happy, and even laughed at his lame attempts at humor. Her smile was brilliant in the light of the television screen, and her eyes were alive. His heart began to thump loudly in his chest to see her like this, and to know that he was the reason for it.

How Ranma had managed to become her fiance, he did not know, but it wounded him to think that it was true. Akane deserved far better than someone like that stupid jerk. If only he could...

He put it aside. Who was he to love a girl as wonderful as her? Living from hand to mouth as a nameless mercenary, wandering aimlessly across the Inner Sphere, cursed to become a pig! It was too painful to think about.

It was even more painful to think that despite what a jerk Ranma was to her, Akane seemed to have feelings for him. Her cry of anguish when Kuno threatened to kill Ranma was unmistakable to his ears. How? How could it be possible that she loved him?

Her hand brushed against his in the darkness, and he jumped in surprise. She coyly apologized to him, her eyes alight and her quiet voice breathy and shy. His heart turned somersaults in his throat.

She didn't love Ranma, he swore to himself. She couldn't! Who did she kiss when they were getting ready to leave Capra? Who was she sitting next to in the dark, watching a movie? Not Ranma... but him! Ryouga Hibiki!

He thought about what Happousai said to him earlier - about having no experience with women. It was painfully true, but he wasn't going to let that stop him. He'd whisper in her ear how much he loved her, how he had loved her from the moment he first saw her in the Capra City Jail, and how she should put Ranma aside and forget about him. She couldn't help but be swayed by him. It would be so simple!

He started to lean over when his nerve went out, and he froze up.

Dammit! This was supposed to be simple!

She took no notice of his inner struggle, instead laughing at the hero of the film, who pummeled his on-screen opponents with a much abused plate of spaghetti, a length of garden hose, and a whiffle-ball bat.

Ryouga swallowed hard and tried not to think about her beautiful shining eyes or the way her hair bounced when she laughed. He would do this, and she would fall into his arms for a pleasant kiss in the darkness. Right?

What if she didn't? some part of him asked. What if she said that her heart belonged to Ranma?

His will fell apart, and he slumped back against the bench seat. If she said that to him, his heart of glass would shatter into a thousand pieces. He couldn't take that chance. Not until he really knew how she felt.

The movie continued, though he drew less joy from it than he had before.

Akane laughed at the antics of the film's hero. The guy was good, a master of several styles of martial arts, including the famous 'Drunken Fist.' She had always admired his work, especially since she hadn't been able to repeat some of the moves.

It felt good to laugh, she realized. She hadn't done much of it in the last few days. Instead she had spent most of her time avoiding Ranma, which was depressing, though it wasn't very difficult considering he was doing the same to her. Time had passed with an agonizing gait, made even more nerve-wracking by the fact that the Combine was surely searching for them. The longer orbit they were using to rendezvous with the Dragonfly had to work, or else they were still done for in spite of their lucky escape.

She looked over at Ryouga. He was watching the film, though he seemed a bit more distant now than he had just a few moments ago. When she came into the Crew's Mess to watch the movie, he had seemed lost and out of place. It was only natural for her to keep him company. Aside from Tarou, who apparently kept to himself a lot, she and Ranma were the only people on the ship that he knew.

He was a really nice guy, she thought to herself. Thoughtful, polite, considerate. Everything that Ranma wasn't. He was also pretty handsome, she noted.

Unfortunately, that was where the attraction to him ended. He was cute and he was sweet, but there was nothing else for her there. It was just one of those quirks of fate, but she felt nothing more than friendship for him. If circumstances had been different from the way they were, she might have felt something more for him in time. In fact, she was sure of it.

"You took your sweet time getting here," Genma said to Ranma as he stepped through the airtight door into 'Mech Bay One. His Griffin, its chest scarred from a stray laser beam in the fight at the mine, towered over him. "I almost went to check on you."

"Yeah, well, I'm here. So now what?" Ranma scowled.

"Ranma..." his father intoned. "Why do you do these things to your father? Haven't I always tried to do right by you?"

Ranma's face screwed up into a grimace.

"What are you talking about, old man? You've done nothing but make my life miserable for as long as I can remember. Always moving from planet to planet and leaving any friends I happen to make behind, getting beat up by masters in the martial arts in the hope that I'll remember some of it when I regain consciousness, stealing food so we wouldn't starve to death, risking certain death by stowing away on ships instead of paying passage..."

"You can stop now, boy," Genma interrupted uncomfortably.

"I'm just gettin' warmed up, Pop," Ranma countered. "Where was I? Oh yeah, keeping me from Mom for the last seventeen years, losing the family battlemech because you couldn't keep the thing in repair, that... that... time with the cats..." Ranma shuddered in horror, and even Genma winced at the recollection. "...And now you've engaged me to a stupid tomboy who hates my guts and hits me all the time, not to mention the fact that frigging Tatewaki Kuno himself wants me dead because of it - just so you can live the good life in someone else's castle!"

His voice had grown to a shout, and when he ceased, he was left gulping for breath.

"Did I miss anything, Pop?" he managed after several moments.

Genma pawed at the deck with his foot.

"I think that about covers it," he replied solemnly.

"So why the hell am I standing here at one in the morning instead of lying asleep in my rack where I belong!?" Ranma demanded.

Genma cleared his throat. "I want to talk to you about Akane."

Ranma stomped his foot on the deck. "There ain't nothing to talk about!" He started for the airtight door.

"RANMA!" Genma barked.

The force of his shout stopped Ranma short of the door. The pig-tailed mechwarrior turned slowly, his lips curled in anger.

"It occurs to me that you've hurt her feelings," Genma continued quietly. "I won't stand for it. You're her fiance, and she deserves to be treated better than that."

"I've hurt HER feelings?" Ranma shot back. "Gimme a break!"

"I don't want to know the details, boy," Genma said, holding out his hands as if to push the issue away. "That's between you and her. What I want you to do is to apologize to her."

"A-APOLOGIZE!?" Ranma spluttered. "You gotta be shittin' me! I ain't apologizing to her! If anyone deserves an apology around here, it's me!"

Genma frowned. "What are you talking about, boy?"

Ranma felt his throat tighten. "In case you didn't know, my fiancee is up in the Crew's Mess watching a movie with Ryouga!"

Genma cocked his head. "So?"

"SO?!" Ranma shouted. "What do you think that means?"

His father shook his head sadly, and leaned over to fetch a pail of water he had staged for this moment. "Ranma, if you can't be a man about this, then be a woman!"

He threw the pail of water at his son, who dodged it, and charged straight at him. Before Ranma's fists could land, a second splash of water appeared from above, soaking him, and causing him to slip on the deck.

When she landed, coughing and spluttering at Genma's feet, the cackling laughter of Happousai echoed from the gantry above.

"Sweet-O!" the elderly mechwarrior cried. He set down the empty pail on the catwalk where he lurked. "You'd make an old man like me very happy, eh, Hot Stuff!"

"You old bastard!" Ranma called to him, shaking a fist to the overhead.

"Make me an offer, Genma," Happousai called back. "I'll take her off your hands, cheap. Hell, I'll take her for free!"

Genma gave his master an amused look, and started for the door.

"Come back here, old man!" Ranma called after him. "I ain't through with you yet."

"Aw come on, Genma," Happousai added. "I'd take good care of Ranma..."

Genma paused, turning his head to look over his shoulder at Ranma.

"Apologize, boy. Or else."

"Bite me!" Ranma returned, but the door had shut behind her father.

Happousai took the steps down from the gantry in great leaping bounds, homing on Ranma's bosom like a heat-seeking missile. She stopped him cold with her fist as he made the final leap, shouting in his excitement just before impact. He plopped to the deck, half-conscious.

"Asshole," she growled, though it was unclear whether she referred to the dazed lecher at her knees or her father.

"Is that any way to talk to your master?" Happousai replied, popping up cartoon-like from his stupor. He smiled for her greasily. "Can't I just cop a quick feel?"

"How about I blow you instead?" she asked coyly, while striking a cheesecake pose.

"R-Really?" Happousai stammered, his eyes huge and dewy. "It appears that I've misjudged you, Ranma. Can you forgive an old man?"

Her expression soured. "Yeah, how about I blow you right out an airlock."

Happousai screwed his eyes shut tight and pounded his tiny fists on the deck. "Damn you, Ranma, for getting me all worked up! You're nothing but a tease!"

She slammed him down into the hard steel deck with her fist.

"You better believe it, old fart," Ranma replied.

She left him there on the deck, deciding that a quick hot shower was in order before she went back to sleep. Genma was long gone when she stepped through the airtight door, having probably also retired for the evening. Thoughts of whipping his rack curtain open and shining a light in his eyes passed through her mind.

The Head was again quiet and still. She stripped off her wet clothes and stepped into the Ship's Laundry long enough to throw them in the dryer for a few minutes. At this hour it was unlikely that anyone would come in to do laundry.

She looked into one of the sink mirrors at herself. She didn't look half bad, she decided. There were bruises all over her, courtesy of the Furinkan Combine and the League of Five Nails, but those would clear up soon enough. Yup, she thought with some satisfaction, not bad at all...

A curious grunting sound behind her made her jump with surprise. She spun around to face a small black pig. His tiny hooves clicked on the terrazzo as he approached.

"Whose pet are you?" she asked him. He must have belonged to one of the crew, but she was surprised that she hadn't noticed him before.

The pig looked up at her, and immediately looked away, blushing.

"Pretty modest for a pig," Ranma remarked. She snatched him up before he could scamper away. A close inspection revealed that 1): he was in fact male, and 2): he had no collar or other identifying tag, only a vaguely familiar yellow and black bandanna around his neck.

"What are you doing with that pig?" a voice, Akane's, asked as she checked out the pig.

Ranma looked up at her, and realized that she was standing there naked, and holding someone's pet pig perhaps too close to her ample bosom. The pig, for its part, squealed miserably, and looked terribly embarrassed.

"Is it yours?" she asked Akane.

"Why would it be mine?" she returned. "Where did you get it?"

"Beats me," Ranma replied. "He just walked in here. Ewww... He's all sticky, too..."

"Sticky? That's disgusting."

Ranma grimaced at the implications of her statement. "Don't look at me, I didn't have anything to do with it."

"I'm sure."

"Now what's that supposed to mean?" Ranma challenged.

"Forget it," Akane clucked. "I was looking for Ryouga, not you."

"Oh," Ranma chirped. "You were looking for Ryouga. I should have known, the way you two were carrying on in the Crew's Mess..."

Akane turned red. "You were spying on us?"

"Who needed to spy? You were right there in public."

She crossed her arms over her chest, secretly pleased by this. "Big deal, Ranma. What do you care, anyway?"

"Who says I do?"

She narrowed her eyes at Ranma. "It's obvious, the way you're carrying on about it."

Ranma was silent.

"I'm going to bed," Akane said finally. "If you see Ryouga, tell him I was looking for him, but it can wait until the morning."

"Sure."

Akane's stern look softened slightly. "Good night, Ranma."

Ranma let her go before replying.

"Good night, Akane. Pleasant dreams."

Akane ducked her head back into the room. "Thank you, Ranma. I will." Then she was gone into Berthing, leaving Ranma red-faced.

Ranma turned back to the pig. "Now what am I gonna do with you?" she asked him. "I've heard of a Ship's Cat, but a Ship's Pig?"

The pig squealed angrily at her, pawing and trying to bite.

"Calm down, already!" she told him. "I was kidding. Geez, you're smarter than you look. And you're all sticky, too. What the heck did you get into?"

The pig again tried to protest this line of questioning. Ranma ignored him.

"Well, I don't want to turn you over to the Captain, because I don't know if you're allowed to be here or not. But I don't know who you belong to, either, and it's too late at night to start asking."

She eyed him dispassionately.

"It looks like you're stuck with me, at least for the moment."

The pig did not seem pleased with this at all.

"First things, first, though. You need to get cleaned up." She rubbed at his belly. "What is this stuff? It smells like fruit punch."

She started the hot water for the shower, and then stepped in. The pig began squealing and struggling with all its might, but to no avail.

The next thing Ranma knew, he was crushed up against the wall of the shower by a very angry, very naked, and uncomfortably close, Ryouga Hibiki.

"Um, Ryouga?" he asked in a tiny voice.

Ryouga scowled with an intense hatred, the close quarters of the shower stall making it impossible to punch Ranma in the face, as he so desperately wanted to do.

"...Raaaannnnmaaaa..."

Further words failed him, and he stood there glaring.

"So you went to the Jusenkyo Labs too?" he asked the fanged mercenary.

"I don't want to talk about it," Ryouga scowled. "I just want to know how you got there... Out on the highway I thought there was something wrong about you, but now there can be no doubt... And on top of that you know how this happened to me..."

"It's a long story, Ryouga," Ranma said uncomfortably. "Um, could you step out of the shower first?"

Ryouga closed his eyes in shame and opened the door of the stall. Ranma turned the water off and joined him outside.

"You go first, Ryouga. Tell me what happened to you," he said evenly. What were the odds that Ryouga, of all people, had been a victim of the Jusenkyo Labs?

"It started with Happousai," Ryouga began, and Ranma gave a snort of contempt for the elderly mechwarrior. "He got us a Commonwealth contract to serve as starport security on Lightoller. It was an easy job, and good money. But one night we followed two spies to the Labs and tried to stop them. We were joined by one of the Lab's security people in the fight. It was dark in there, and in the confusion we never got a chance to get a very good look at them. The next thing I know, I'm getting attacked by a girl and some huge black and white furry beast..." His voice trailed off. "That's when I fell in the pool... and changed..."

Ranma gave him a sympathetic look.

"We both fell in pools," Ryouga continued. "Tarou and I. We were so scared about what had happened that we ran from the Labs and took the first ship leaving Lightoller. We ended up getting stuck on Capra and joining the mercenary garrison there."

"That explains why those Amazons had you locked up when we got there," Ranma said, piecing it all together. Unfortunately, it made too much sense, and Ryouga was standing there, far too close for comfort all of a sudden.

"What's your story, Ranma?" Ryouga demanded. "How did you end up with this curse?"

"Oh, it's a long story, like I said..."

Ryouga cracked his knuckles. "I told you my story, Ranma, and now it's your turn."

Ranma began to sweat. "Um... can I get a rain check on that?"

Ryouga's eyes lit up with the truth.

"So... It was you..."

"W-What are you talking about?" Ranma asked, voice quavering.

"It was you who knocked me into the pool..." Ryouga growled. "You're the one who turned my life into a living hell..."

"Come on, Ryouga," Ranma returned weakly. "You said yourself that it was a girl and a furry black and white animal that knocked you into the pool, right?"

Ryouga cocked back a fist. "So?"

"So, do you see any big furry animals running around here?"

This gave Ryouga a second's pause, proving in Ranma's mind that he wasn't too bright. He backed slowly away from him.

Genma Saotome chose this moment to enter the Head. Ryouga turned and saw him. The elder Saotome stared at the two naked young men, and was about to leave, not wanting to know anything about it.

"Uh, p-pardon me..." he muttered to them.

"There's one way to find out," Ryouga snarled, and leaped past Ranma to the sink. He threw open the valve for the cold water and pressed his fingers against the spigot, spraying water everywhere. In the moment after he succumbed to his own transformation, he watched with grim satisfaction as a naked red-haired girl and a large black and white panda bear cried out in surprise.

"You stupid jerk!" Ranma squealed. "You want the truth? Yeah, it was me and Pop, but we didn't do it on purpose!" She snatched up the pig, who was shaking with rage. "You think we've got it any easier than you? Huh? Pop belongs in a zoo, and look at me! I belong on the centerfold of some pin-up magazine, for crying out loud!"

Ryouga clamped his jaws down on the webbing of her hand between her thumb and forefinger, causing her to shriek loud enough to wake up the people asleep in Berthing. She let go of him, and he scampered away past the panda, who watched him go with only a low growl.

"What are you doing, Pop?" Ranma cried at him. "You're letting the little bastard get away!"

Genma-panda reached into his pocket and withdrew a small touchpad he kept around for such situations. He scribbled something on it with his claw, and held it up for Ranma to read.

Go to bed. He's not going anywhere.

"This ain't the time for it!" Ranma returned. "Who knows what he'll do in this condition."

He's a pig. What can he do?

Ranma's mouth gaped open. "Oh. I guess you got a point there."

Genma-panda shook his head and stepped past his son to the sink. He gave himself a splash of hot water, changing back to his human form, and stepped past Ranma once again, leaving him alone in the Head.

"What the hell's going on in here?" the Roving Watch said to her, suddenly appearing from the upper deck. He looked at all the water on the floor, then to the naked Ranma. "I don't care who you are, lady. I ain't cleaning this up." He reached into the closet opposite the door and handed Ranma a mop and a bucket. "And put some clothes on, for God's sake."

Ryouga Hibiki was miserable. The people who had saved him from Capra were the ones who had given him his cursed pig body. He wanted Ranma dead for what he had done, but Akane... He had heard her wishing Ranma a good night, and knew that she would never forgive him for it.

He passed by a viewport. The stars were cold pinpricks of light, separated by vast distances of emptiness. He sighed sadly at beholding them.

The universe was a dark and lonely place.

In a cruel twist of fate, he stumbled across his wet clothes in one of the secluded forward passageways of the ship. A paper cup, once filled with punch from the dispenser in the Crew's Mess, rolled aimlessly on the deck with the whistling of air from a recirculation fan. He had somehow lost track of where he was from the moment he refilled his drink, to the point where he stumbled in the darkened passageway and spilled his punch on himself.

Now that he had recovered his clothes, he had to get back to the head to clean them and change himself back into a man. He grabbed the shirt and trousers in his teeth and began to drag them slowly across the deck to the stairwell, trusting to luck to keep his underwear from falling out. He'd come back for his shoes and socks later.

It was a long and arduous trip, but fortunately not a very complicated one. Anytime an airtight door loomed before him, he knew he was headed in the wrong direction. The Head looked deserted when he stepped inside, but he heard Ranma's voice grumbling incoherently from the Laundry.

How dare that jerk try to complain about having such a beautiful body! What nerve! He knew nothing about the suffering and humiliation one endured as a pig!

He steeled himself, and stepped into the laundry.

Ranma saw him immediately, his eyes flashing in the dim light.

"You gotta lot of nerve coming in here, piggy," he muttered to Ryouga. He was still naked, but wrapped in a towel.

Ryouga grunted a curse in reply.

Ranma looked at the wet clothes Ryouga had dragged in with him. The stains of punch were clear on the tunic.

"Well that explains why you were all sticky."

Ryouga grunted once more.

"Look, Ryouga," Ranma said to him. "I ain't here to be your enemy, okay? Let's just let bygones be bygones, all right?"

The pig that was Ryouga did not seem convinced.

Ranma snatched up the clothes, earning himself a bite on the arm."Look, you moron, I was going to wash your clothes for you!" he hissed at the pig. "You want to stand around naked in the laundry for everyone to see while you wait for them to get clean? I've got a towel, how about you?"

Ryouga gave him a dubious look, then relented.

"See? That wasn't so hard. Use your brain for once, Ryouga."

He applied a stain remover before putting the clothes in the washing machine. Ryouga remained near the door that opened into the Head.

"I ain't gonna bite," Ranma said to him.

The pig ignored him.

"Look, I'm sorry about what happened to you, okay? I had no idea what was in that stupid place. Trust me, if I did, I never woulda let Pop talk me into going there."

Ryouga snorted with contempt.

"What's it take to get through to you, man?" Ranma cried. "Are you still sore about that stupid duel from seven years ago?"

The pig's eyes flashed angrily.

"Whoa. I guess you are... You really need to lighten up, man..."

They sat in silence for awhile, with only the sounds of the laundry machines and the ship's engines to mark the time. Ranma put Ryouga's clothes in the dryer as he took his own out and got dressed.

"I'm gonna stick around until your stuff is done drying. Is that okay with you?"

Ryouga sighed sleepily and started out the door. He was bored and tired, and needed to take a walk to stay awake.

"Ryouga!" Ranma called after him. "Where do you think you're going, you moron! You'll get lost again."

He ignored Ranma, turning left into Berthing when he meant to go right, and losing his bearings in the darkness. He snuffled around the baseboards, figuring that if he kept following them, eventually he would find his way out. There was, after all, only one way out of Berthing.

A pair of hands seized him in the darkness, and he squealed with dismay at getting caught. When the hands brought him up to a familiar and beloved face, however, he went silent and ceased his struggles.

"How did you get in here?" Akane asked him quietly. "Did Ranma let you run loose?"

He let out a quiet oink in response, hating the sound that "I love you" made when spoken by a pig.

She looked at him for a moment.

"Well at least he cleaned you up first," she remarked with a yawn. "Honestly, I don't know what to do with him sometimes..." She clutched Ryouga close and rolled over onto her side. "I guess you can stay with me for now..." she said, and drifted back to sleep.

Ryouga felt the warmth of Akane Tendo surrounding him, and the soft fragrance of her hair was intoxicating. He yawned as well, content in the fact that he was now closer to her than Ranma would ever be...

NCDS Palomino, approaching NCJS Dragonfly

Ten light-seconds from the Capra System Zenith Jump Point,

Capra System, the League of Five Nails

22 March 3025

Ranma was too hungry the next morning to keep up his avoidance of Akane, and after the previous night-cycle's encounter, it was rather pointless anyway. The Crew's Mess was filled with the off-going watch enjoying a last meal before the Palomino reached the JumpShip. He spied his father sitting next to Doctor Tofu, and grabbed a bowl of miso soup and some rice from the steamer before joining them.

"Before you sit down, son, how about some more coffee?"

"Oh, me as well, please," Tofu added.

Ranma scowled at his father. Because the close quarters of the Crew's Mess tables required that people who sat away from the center aisle had to displace the rest of the people sitting at the bench in order to get up, it was customary for the person sitting closest to the center aisle to fetch drinks and second helpings for the rest of the table.

In this case, the duty fell to Ranma. He took his father's and Doctor Tofu's mugs and walked over to the coffee pot.

"You don't even drink coffee, old man," he muttered as he accepted the mug.

"You're never too old to start," Genma retorted.

Ranma filled the mug. "How do you want it?"

"Just like a Bierhaus fraulein," the elder Saotome replied. "Blonde and sweet."

Ranma shook his head in disgust. "I'll remember that one for Mom." He looked to Doctor Tofu. "Doc?"

"Black, please," Tofu replied.

Ranma prepared the coffee as ordered and returned to the table. His father was waiting for him wide, plaintive eyes.

"Now what is it?" he asked him.

Genma offered him his soup bowl. "How about some more soup - since you're still up."

Ranma made a growling noise and accepted the bowl. His own bowl of soup was getting cold in the process. As he returned with the soup, his father was holding up another bowl, empty save for a few grains of rice.

Genma read the look of aggravation on his son's face.

"Well, you can't have miso soup without rice," he explained to him.

Ranma contemplated dumping the fresh bowl of soup on his father's head.

"Why are you doing this to me, Pop?" he asked through clenched teeth.

"Hand me the soup and I'll tell you."

Ranma set the bowl of soup down before his father and collected the empty rice bowl.

"Well?"

"Have you apologized to Akane yet?" his father asked him.

"No," Ranma replied tersely.

"Well, now you know why," Genma returned. "And careful with what you take, boy. I don't want any of the burned rice at the bottom of the steamer."

Ranma turned once more for the sideboard. There was just enough left to meet his father's demands. He returned to the table, waiting to see if there was anything else his father wanted, because he was going to refuse in the most vocal way possible.

Genma must have sensed this, for he accepted the rice silently, and set about to eat.

Ranma at last set down to eat, noting ruefully that his soup was barely warm, and that the rice had started to set into a slightly crispy lump that defied the gentle proddings of his chopsticks. He set the mass into the soup, hoping to soften it enough to eat without melting into a sodden mess in his bowl.

As he ate his cold, overly sticky rice, he realized that he had fallen victim to his hunger, and should have waited until later before appearing on the mess deck. Was his old man going to play stupid head games like this until he finally apologized? He decided that he wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

Akari joined them after a while, looking as shy and demure as always.

"Commander Saotome?" she asked politely.

"What is it?" Genma returned.

"Forgive me for interrupting, Commander," she apologized. "I wanted to inform you that the damage to your Griffin has been repaired, and that the second coat of paint is curing on it."

Genma nodded at this, well pleased with the efficiency and dedication of his Senior Technician.

"Very well," he said to her. "Excellent work." He went back to eating.

She waited for an appropriate moment to interrupt.

"Commander Saotome?"

He set down his bowl. "Yes?"

"About the two extra battlemechs," she began. "May I have permission to begin repairs on them?"

Genma thought about this. While he was grateful for the assistance of the Hibiki fellow's BattleMaster, his partner Tarou's Hunchback had been little more than baggage on the trip. He was not running a charity here.

"What kind of damage are we talking about?" he asked her.

"The BattleMaster has some armor damage," Akari replied, and Ranma detected the most curious affection in her voice when she mentioned its name. "It's fairly extensive in some areas, but there was no internal damage," she added with no small amount of pride for the war machine's stout construction. "The Hunchback on the other hand needs actuators and some myomer work."

"Fix the armor on both 'mechs," Genma decided. "We don't have the time or the facilities to do any stringing or actuator work out here."

Akari was about to disagree, as she was a capable 'stringer,' or myomer bundle technician, but the tone of his voice suggested that there were other reasons behind his decision, and she could understand why he might be reluctant to front the parts and labor for repairs to a battlemech belonging to someone outside the mission. She let it drop.

"At once, Commander," she said, rising to get to work.

"Are you sure you have to leave right now?" Ranma asked her, wondering why she was so concerned about fixing the 'mechs when they were within a day of rendezvous with the Dragonfly. "Have some chow while you can."

Akari offered an apologetic smile. "It's no trouble, sir," she told him. "I was looking forward to working on the BattleMaster." Again, Ranma detected that note of affection in her voice when she mentioned the 'mech by name.

She excused herself politely and left the Crew's Mess.

"Man," Ranma said when she was out of earshot. "I've never seen a girl have it so bad for a 'mech before."

"There's nothing wrong with a little affection for a machine," Genma noted. "Why, I knew some women who preferred appliances, er, machines over men..." He tried not to snicker as he said it.

Ranma lowered his head to his chest in disgust, then banged it several times on the table.

"Just when I think that you've hit rock bottom, Pop, you somehow find a way to blast your way through to the next level."

"Lighten up, boy," Genma said with an overly hard slap on the back that made Ranma come close to choking up his breakfast. "I knew I should have started on the dirty jokes when you were younger, but my respect for your mother held me back."

"Respect for Mom? That's a laugh," Ranma snorted.

Akane joined them at the table before Genma could retort. He let the words die in his mouth as the Confederation Heir was seated. Cradled in her arms was a small black pig, who looked at peace with the universe. Ranma said nothing to her, preferring instead to glare at Ryouga.

"What a cute pig," Doctor Tofu observed. "Where did you find it?"

"I found him last night in Berthing," she replied, apparently content to make no mention of the first time she saw him, in the Head. "I have no idea where he came from. He must belong to one of the crew, but so far everyone I've asked has said no."

"Isn't a pig a bit unhealthy to have around a place where food is being served?" Genma asked her. Ryouga gave him a dirty look.

"He's very clean," Akane assured him.

She looked to Doctor Tofu, who added, "Most pigs are quite fastidious animals. And it's not like he's running around in the galley or the store-rooms."

Ranma squinted at Ryouga, who was enjoying himself in Akane's arms.

"So are you going to keep him?" he asked Akane. "I bet he'd make a great pet." He chuckled to himself when Ryouga reacted with hostility to the term 'pet.'

"I guess so," Akane replied. "If no one comes forward to claim him. I even have a name for him."

Ranma laughed. "This I gotta hear."

She gave him a warning look before continuing. "I call him 'P-chan.'"

"P-chan?" Ranma, Genma, and Doctor Tofu chorused.

She gave them all defensive looks. "Yes, 'P-chan...' 'P' as in 'Pig,' and 'chan' as in 'small and cute.'"

Ranma held back the laughter long enough to say "You're calling him 'Pig-cute?' Oh man, that's rich!" He then lost it and began howling.

Ryouga tried jumping out of Akane's arms to bite Ranma, but she held him in place. Ranma laughed even harder, making oinking noises that infuriated both Ryouga and Akane.

"It's not funny, Ranma!" she protested. Then in a motherly voice she added to the pig, "No, it's not, is it, P-chan?"

This only made Ranma laugh harder, to the point where an effortless shove from Genma ejected him from the bench seat to the deck of the center aisle. Hitting the floor only seemed to make him worse. The rest of the ship's crew looked on with varying degrees of curiosity and annoyance.

"Ignore him, P-chan," Akane said soothingly to the pig.

"Well, I'm not happy about it," Genma declared. "But I can't think of any reason why you couldn't keep a pet aboard ship. I guess it's settled for the moment."

Ranma finally recovered, drawing himself back up to the table, and trying to avoid a relapse. His ribs ached from all the laughter, and he hoped Doctor Tofu wouldn't have to perform any readjustments later.

"Well, P-chan," he told the pig. "I wish you the best of luck in your new career. You'll need it."

Ryouga's little face screwed up into anger.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Akane demanded of him.

"Take it any way you like it," Ranma returned.

"So, Akane," Doctor Tofu interjected. "Where exactly do you plan to keep him?"

"Oh, he'll sleep with me, I guess," she remarked off-handedly.

Ranma made a choking noise.

"S-Sleep with you?" he asked, dumbfounded. "HIM?"

"Of course," Akane replied. Ryouga gave him a smug look from her sheltering arms. "Like he did last night. He's very warm and cozy."

Ryouga blushed with happiness. Ranma looked like he was about to get sick all over the table.

"That's... That's disgusting," he grunted. "Sleeping with... with HIM..."

"It's not disgusting!" Akane protested. "There's nothing wrong with P-chan."

"Ha! That's what you think!"

"Would you care to explain that, Ranma?" she demanded.

"Yes, Ranma. If you know something important about that pig, then you should tell us," Doctor Tofu added.

Ranma looked at the pig for a moment. Ryouga's eyes were huge and full of terror at the thought of being revealed to Akane like this. It would be so easy to spill his secret, but as he thought about it, he realized that he owed Ryouga big time for knocking him into one of the Jusenkyo Pools.

"Forget I said it," he muttered. He looked at the pig, and his eyes flashed the message, We're even now, Ryouga. Got it?

He got up from the table and headed back to Berthing.

"What was that all about?" Genma asked them when Ranma was gone.

"Beats me," Akane replied. She cuddled P-chan. "That Ranma's such a weirdo, isn't he P-chan?"

Ryouga nodded vigorously. For the first time in his brief double-existence as the pig, he was happy in his porcine body. It wasn't much compared to the joy that could be had in Akane's arms as a whole man, but for the moment - who was he to complain?

The 1MC intercom buzzed with the sound of someone holding down the microphone button. "Station the Maneuvering Watch! All hands prepare for docking manuevers, and make reports to the Flight Deck."

"Wow," Tofu remarked as the crew got up from their meals and began to file out past the scullery. "Aren't we a little early?"

"We are," Genma replied, checking his watch. "I wonder what's going on?"

Pansuto Tarou smiled to himself as the order was given to station the maneuvering watch. It wouldn't be long now before he could get his revenge on Happousai. As soon as the JumpShip took them from the Capra System, he would act.

He had known about his nemesis almost from the start, having stumbled across his Locust while looking for Ryouga. The paint scheme was different than it had been on St. Ives - when they signed on with the Commonwealth. There was also a big fresh hole in the chassis from a PPC bolt, but it was definitely Happousai's battlemech.

From that moment on he had been plotting his vengeance.

One thing he had learned in his quiet lurkings throughout the ship was that Happousai was wary of him. It would have to be a quick strike from the darkness, and the much larger JumpShip would offer many more places for an assassin to hide than a DropShip like the Palomino. He would be in his monster form of course, which also meant that discretion was important. He did not need the ship's crew hunting him down as some thing to be blown out of an airlock.

He also needed time to gloat over Happousai. It was important to him, as he had a lot of pain and anguish built up inside that no simple murder would exorcise. Even if it meant only a few moments talking to him through the airlock door prior to spacing him, it would be enough just to hear him beg.

The important thing now was to pretend that there were no hard feelings between them. Ryouga had somehow managed to make peace with the bastard, and so he had some precedent to take advantage of. The transfer from the DropShip to the JumpShip would be the perfect time to feign indifference towards him.

After Happousai was dead, he was unsure. It depended on where the JumpShip was taking them. He would leave them as soon as possible though. He had done a little looting in the city, and figured that between the proceeds from that and some honest work as a mercenary, he could get his battlemech back to full repair. He didn't blame the fat Genma Saotome for only authorizing the repair of the armor on his Hunchback, in fact he thanked him. It would be one less expense to deal with.

The Furinkan Combine was in the ascendant, he noted, and he knew intimate details about one of the Commonwealth's most important planets. They would pay him well when the time came to invade the Commonwealth, as they certainly would once the Confederation was conquered, and his worthless former employers in the League of Five Nails had crumbled. It might do him some good to get in with the Combine early, to assure himself a position of status and power when it came time to invade.

The airlock equalized pressure with a sharp hiss before the doors slid open to link the Palomino with the Dragonfly. Ranma could already smell the difference in the cool clean air that blew softly through the connector tunnel that ran through the docking ring. He floated through to the other side, where Captain Ninomiya and some of her officers were waiting for them.

"Welcome aboard, Mechwarrior Saotome," Hinako said to him.

Ranma looked at the eight-year-old girl in the Confederation Navy uniform that was several sizes too big for her, and blinked in confusion.

"Hey, kid," he asked her. "Where's your mom?"

Hinako began to steam. Several of her officers winced, while others looked on rather hopefully that something was going to happen between them.

"What's your problem, Saotome?" she demanded of him. "Didn't you learn any respect for your superiors?"

Genma, Akane, and Doctor Tofu floated in behind Ranma.

"What seems to be the trouble?" Genma asked.

"Beats me, Pop," Ranma replied. "It's just this third-grader here being a brat. No big deal."

"Leave her alone, Ranma," Akane told him. "Pick on someone your own size."

"I wonder where Captain Ninomiya went?" Genma asked, ignoring the child who flailed her arms about for attention.

"Third-grader?! Brat!?" Hinako cried. "That does it! It's time for your attitude adjustment!"

She pulled out a small five mark coin with a hole drilled through it, and leveled it at Ranma. He casually flicked it aside, and floated past her to the elevator.

"Watch where you point stuff, okay?" he said over his shoulder. "It's rude."

Hinako scrambled after the coin as it floated away from her in free fall. When she recovered it, the elevator doors were sliding shut with the first load of returning Palomino crew.

"Dammit!" she growled. "Someone's gonna pay for this."

Her officers began to pale with dread in anticipation of being her next victims, before she floated for the emergency stairwell instead. Once she was gone, they sighed with relief.

Happousai noted that Ryouga and Pansuto Tarou were behind him in the connector tube, a tactical blunder that he might come to regret. He stopped short and pulled himself aside to let them pass, keeping a watchful eye on both of them, and tensing to spurt away to safety if they tried anything. Tarou gave him a haughty look as he floated past, but there was little malice in it. Ryouga ignored him.

He wondered at this turn of events. Ryouga he had browbeaten into staying uninvolved, but Tarou? It was weird. He expected a bit more from the bishonen mechwarrior. Maybe he wasn't as psychotic as he had previously believed.

He decided not to take the chance, and resolved to remain wary around the man until he could be safely rid of him. He'd choose his moment, then provoke him into revealing his Jusenkyo body. If he couldn't do that, then a little cold water in a flask would accomplish the same end. The crew wouldn't bat an eye when he blew Tarou out an airlock after that.

Akari and some of her techs passed by next, and he whistled tunelessly as he fell in behind them. His hot-tamale in tech's coveralls had such a sweet ass...

"I don't get it," Ranma remarked as they looked about the Bridge for the Captain. "Where is she?"

"Captain Ninomiya went down to the docking compartment to greet you," the young Officer of the Deck replied. "Didn't you see her?"

"All we saw was a little girl who was dressed like her," Ranma told the woman. "I thought it was her daughter, or a niece, or something."

The Officer of the Deck grimaced.

"No, sir. THAT was Captain Ninomiya."

Ranma's eyes bulged. "You're kidding, right?"

"I wish I was," the Officer of the Deck replied.

"I'LL handle this," a shrill voice issued from the emergency stairwell. Hinako pulled herself through the deck hatch to the Bridge to face the pig-tailed mechwarrior. "You are obviously a disciplinary problem, Mechwarrior Saotome, and I know just how to handle disciplinary problems..."

She raised the five mark coin to him once again.

He flicked it out of her hands. "Come on, quit it already. Do you really expect me to believe that this shrimp and the Captain are one in the same person?"

Hinako swam across the compartment after the coin, cursing and spitting with anger.

"I don't know, boy," Genma hedged. "There's something awfully familiar about her."

"You know," Akane remarked. "I seem to recall something about Captain Ninomiya that Dad warned me about before we left. I wish I remember what it was, but it seemed so ridiculous at the time..."

Hinako recovered her coin once again, and from the safety of the other side of the compartment she leveled it at Ranma.

"You can't stop me now!" she cried. "Happo-five-mark-satsu!!!"

Ranma brushed her off. "Aw, gimme a break, little girl!" He sighed wearily. "Since your mom ain't here, it looks like I'm gonna have to be the one who gives you a spanking."

He charged towards her. Instead of a look of fear, which he expected from her, there was a look of savage glee. In the next moment, waves of amber light rippled from his body, swirling and flowing into a spiral that tightened into the circular hole in the center of the coin.

"What?!" he cried in surprise.

He felt his ki getting sucked out of him, draining him of energy and will, and paralyzing him with its intensity. At the same time he watched the little girl before him begin to grow at an alarming rate, filling out her jacket and skirt with a voluptuous body he immediately recognized before blacking out.

Captain Ninomiya stepped aside casually as the limp, almost shrunken body of Ranma Saotome bounced off the bulkhead behind her, and floated face-down and unconscious for the rebound trip. She saluted Genma crisply, but the man was too busy ogling her in her skintight uniform to respond.

"I apologize for the interruption, sir," she said to Genma in a low, sultry voice. "But disciplinary matters should be dealt with immediately, don't you agree?"

"Huh?" Genma grunted. "Oh yes, I concur. That boy has been sorely needing a dose of that... whatever it was."

Akane floated across the bridge to catch Ranma's body in time to spare him another bounce off the bulkhead. "What did you do to him?" she demanded.

"I drained him of his battle-aura," she responded haughtily. "No one can attack me and succeed."

"What will happen to him?" Akane asked fearfully. He seemed so still and empty in her arms.

"He should recover in a few hours," Hinako replied. "More than enough time to let him think about proper behavior in front of his superiors. You should probably take him below to his quarters, we have a lot of work to do on the Bridge."

Akane blinked twice before responding. "Sure." She pushed off of a console for the elevator to take Ranma below.

Doctor Tofu nudged Genma. "What an amazing technique," he said excitedly. "I've never heard of it before. Have you?"

"Never," Genma replied. "Ranma has learned once again that the path of a true mechwarrior is fraught with peril."

Hinako cleared her throat for attention. "Commander, the reason why the rendezvous occured earlier than planned was that we have been detected by the Furinkan Combine."

Genma paled at the significance of this. "How long do we have?"

She looked over at a status board. "Four hours and twelve minutes," she replied. "A Combine GunShip detected us, and has changed course to intercept. We don't have the thrust to outrun it."

"But we can still Jump, right?"

"If we can reach the Jump Point in time," she agreed. "I don't think that's possible. We docked ahead of schedule to make a maximum burn for the Jump Point without having to worry about a last-second link up, but it still leaves us without enough time to get there."

"What about fighting?"

Hinako shook her head. "Our anti-meteor weapons are no match for a Union Class GunShip. Even with the fighters we couldn't defeat it."

"There's got to be something we can do," Genma said hopefully. "You wouldn't be telling us this if you didn't have an idea... Right?"

Her eyes narrowed.

"There is one thing we can try," she said. "But it's very dangerous."

"So is getting caught by the Furinkan Combine," Tofu noted. "You missed the close call we had with Tatewaki Kuno on the planet."

"What is it?" Genma asked, grasping at anything that would save them.

"As I said," Hinako explained in a voice entirely too sexy to convey the gravity of their situation. "It's very dangerous, and I didn't want to attempt it without your permission."

"Get on with it!" Genma cried.

"We can attempt a Jump outside the normal volume of the Jump Point," she declared. The rest of the Bridge crew went silent, even though they knew what their options were before the docking maneuver.

"Isn't that, you know... bad?" Genma asked haltingly.

Hinako gave him a hard look. "Weren't you just saying that capture by the Combine was something you wanted to avoid? To answer your question, yes, it is something that is to be avoided during normal operations, but it isn't impossible."

"What might happen?"

"We could misjump," she conceded. "It could be bad or not depending on where we materialize. We could burn out the JumpCore of the ship, stranding us wherever we end up, or we might not even make it out of the System. There is even a small chance that the drive could explode and kill us all, or that we might succumb to certain relativistic effects..."

Genma knew the horror stories as well as anyone who travelled the stars. Stories of ships that moved through hyperspatial moebius strips of time instead of space - killing their crews with old age. Ships that turned themselves inside-out on arrival in realspace - instantly exposing the crew to hard vacuum. Ships that traveled not the maximum thirty light years imposed by the height of the Star League's Jump Drive technology, but three HUNDRED light years. There were stories of ships that left their ports of call on two-parsec milk runs to the nearest star, and were never seen or heard from again.

"But if we don't try, we're screwed anyway," he said numbly.

"Essentially," she admitted. "This ship has a reputation for causing the Furinkan Combine harm, and there is a considerable bounty placed on it and her crew. I don't relish the thought of what Tatewaki Kuno would do to us if we were to be captured, and I hold my orders from Grand Duke Tendo to protect Lady Akane with the highest reverence."

"I guess we don't have much of a choice," Genma said sullenly. "Do what you have to, Captain."

Hinako saluted. "Yes, Commander." Her severe look melted into one that was decidedly warmer. "You and your crew had best get below and rest. We shall get as close to the Jump Point as possible before we Jump, but it will be at least three and a half hours."

Furinkan Combine JumpShip Imperator

Capra System Zenith Jump Point

Capra System, the League of Five Nails

23 March 3025

Tatewaki Kuno looked up from the collection of classical poetry he was reading as the Imperator's Chief Medical Officer stepped through the airtight door. The doctor's expression was guarded.

"My lord prince," the surgeon greeted him.

"How fares my sister?" Tatewaki asked.

"I was able to remove the bullet," he declared. "But we used a lot of blood in the process. Your sister is very weak." His face clouded. "Well, what I'm saying is that I can't offer any guarantees, my lord. If she survives the next forty-eight hours, then the chances are good that she will make a full recovery."

"She is a Kuno," Tatewaki replied proudly. "She will survive."

"Of course, my lord." He bowed for him. "If you wish to see her, your highness, they are moving her into an intensive care suite."

"In time," Tatewaki said, nodding.

The shrill of a bosun's whistle sounded over the intercom.

"General Prince Kuno, please lay to the Executive Bridge, sir," a voice on the 1MC requested.

Tatewaki frowned. This interruption was unnecessary. Were there not messengers aboard ship?

He left the surgeon in the waiting room, striding imperiously through the airtight door for the Executive Bridge. Members of the ship's crew stepped aside for him out of both reverence and fear. He rode the elevator up out of the Grav-Deck and into the center of the ship, feeling the subtle tug of the Imperator's artificial gravity lessen on his tall frame.

He floated out of the elevator and into the hub. The decks ran perpendicular to the long axis of the WarShip here, for those times when the starship was accelerating under drive. The Executive Bridge was near the bow of the ship, a short ride by elevator away.

"General on the Bridge!" one of the crew shouted as the elevator doors opened for him. He spied his Operations Officer, Captain Lucius Kyle, hunched over the tactical station.

"Kyle, what is the meaning of this interruption?" he demanded.

The Operations Officer looked up from the displays.

"Forgive me, my lord prince," he began. "I know your sister is in surgery, but something critical came up."

"My sister's surgery is over," Tatewaki informed him. "Now speak, man."

"Sir, the GunShip Sekigahara has detected a JumpShip on a parabolic orbit that will bring it within the Jump Point in a little over four hours."

"The identity of this starship?" Tatewaki asked. There were many possibilities, including that of the ship the beauteous Akane Tendo was aboard.

"It's a longshot," Kyle said to him, "Passive sensor data from the Sekigahara was relayed to us for analysis since our battlecomp gear is more sophisticated..."

"There is, I trust, a point to this," Tatewaki said impatiently.

"Yes sir," Kyle nodded. "As I was saying, it's a longshot, but it appears that the JumpShip is a Confederation Special Operations vessel, the NCJS Dragonfly. It is commanded by Hinako Ninomiya according to our latest intelligence."

"Confederation?" Tatewaki asked, more to himself than anyone else. Akane Tendo had to be aboard that ship! "Tell me of this Captain Ninomiya. Will she fight?"

"It's difficult to say," Kyle replied. "From what we know of her behavior, she's, well... I guess 'erratic' would be a good word to describe her."

"Nevertheless," Tatewaki pronounced, "We must capture yon ship ere it Jumps. Advise the Sekigahara accordingly."

"Yes, my lord prince. They are already on an intercept course. They should reach them well short of the Jump Point."

"Excellent. They are to shoot out the jumpcore without fail," Tatewaki ordered. "I will not tolerate the Confederation's escape."

"Of course, my lord prince."

Though his pulse pounded with the prospect of being reunited with Akane Tendo, and of capturing the cursed Saotomes, he maintained his composure. "What of the preparations for the invasion of the Capella system?"

"We shall be ready to attack in three days," Kyle replied. "We've effected what repairs we could, and the arrival of a floating airdock ship the day before you returned from Capra should take care of all but the most critical damage in that time."

"How many ships did we lose?" This question was critical, as it would determine the size of the force he could use to invade Capella.

"Two JumpShips were destroyed, as you know, in collisions. Two more suffered irreparable damage to their jump cores. Admiral Casick of the Engineering Command has a plan to convert them into space stations for managing the flow of troops and supplies into this theater of operations. The mobile recharge facility was destroyed."

Tatewaki nodded grimly. Four priceless JumpShips were gone. It was a painful loss to his fleet, but not an insurmountable obstacle to his plans for conquest. He was the Blue Thunder of the Furinkan Combine, and his victory was preordained.

He took his seat on the Executive Bridge and watched the tactical display with quiet intensity. The points of light that floated within the holotank represented the Sekigahara and its quarry, the accursed Dragonfly. Were Akane Tendo not aboard that ship, he would have ordered it destroyed.

Jusenkyo Commonwealth JumpShip Intangible

Tau Ceti System Zenith Jump Point,

Tau Ceti System, the Jusenkyo Commonwealth

23 March 3025

Shampoo waited for the 'Clear to Stations' order as the JumpShip adjusted its orbit above the Tau Ceti primary. Soon she would have to take the Jade Lotus to the planet, where she would face General Herb's debriefing. Inquistion was probably closer to the truth.

Mousse was with her, quiet and moody as he had been since they had collected him on Lightoller. She kept waiting for him to return to his old habits of annoying affection, and when he remained cold and distant, she came to the unlikely realization that she might have actually preferred him the way he was before.

Pink and Link were also with her. A smile graced Pink's face, while her twin sister kept her familiar frown. The two mechwarriors were also quiet, although if Shampoo knew them as well as she thought she did, they were busy plotting something.

The fact that Pink was a poisoner by hobby did not escape her, nor did the fact that Mechwarrior Laughing Orchid of the Recon Lance had taken suddenly ill. The backbiting mechwarrior had been the most vocal of the company in her denouncement of Mousse. The question Shampoo put to herself was whether or not Pink was responsible for Laughing Orchid's illness, and if so, why?

Pink had no reason to favor Mousse. Her attitudes regarding the inherent weakness of the male sex were much the same as those of the Joketsuzoku in general. Unless there was some personal grudge between Pink and Laughing Orchid, she could not imagine why she would do something insidious like poisoning her.

Asking Link would not help. Though she disapproved of her sister's habits, she would not betray her. The two were as thick as thieves.

Sighing, she spared a look at Mousse. He was the cause of more trouble than he was worth, she decided. Why had he been chosen for this mission?

She considered acceding to her battle-sisters' demands, and punishing him, but the truth was that he had done nothing wrong under the standards of clan battle law. She thought about what Kima might have done, and realized that the unfortunate woman who lay cold and dead in the Ship's Morgue would have had it no easier, having never been in a combat unit. Shampoo's jaw tightened. The decision was hers to make, and to live with.

There would be no reprimand for Mousse. If the others wanted to take their complaints to a higher authority, that was their right. She felt no concern over this, as her career - and possibly her life - were likely going to be over no matter what she did. The closer they drew to Tau Ceti's fourth planet, the more she felt that her destiny was there, waiting.

"Clear to Stations!" the 1MC called. "Set the normal Station Keeping watch, Section Two provide."

She rose from her chair and floated for the door. Mousse watched her go, and started up after her.

"What is it?" she asked him when they had cleared the room, and the door was safely shut behind them.

"I know what you're doing, Shampoo," he replied. His eyes were intensely dark against the white of his robes. The effect on her would have been powerful, had he not been facing halfway between the door and herself when he spoke.

"And what is that?" she challenged him, grabbing him by the collar, and turning him to face her.

"You're protecting me from the others," he replied. "They want to see me punished for what happened on Capra. By not acting, you're only condemning yourself."

Shampoo's violet eyes flashed in the dim lighting of the passageway. "That is my decision, Mousse. It doesn't concern you."

"It DOES concern me," he grated. "Shampoo, you mean everything to me. Don't you understand that? I won't see you destroyed because of me."

It was now obvious that his feelings had not changed in spite of his change in behavior. What had he endured on Lightoller after her escape from Herb to turn him into this sullen, angry man?

"You won't be destroying me," she replied with a touch of bitterness. "That honor belongs to General Herb at the debriefing."

Mousse's face contorted at the mention of the hybrid general's name.

"Him?"

"The same," she confirmed sadly.

"I don't understand."

"Nor do I," she replied. "But it's clear that because of our failure on Capra, I must assume responsibility and face the consequences."

Mousse threw up his hands. "But it isn't your fault!" he protested. "How were we supposed to know that the Furinkan Combine was going to invade the system?"

"We couldn't," she agreed. "But that isn't the point. I am the commander of the mission now, so the responsibility falls upon me. It is the way it should be."

"Can't your great-grandmother...?"

"No," she replied in a soft voice. "If she could, she would have done so, no matter what I might feel about it." She sighed and looked away from him for a moment. "This is something between the Elders, Mousse. I just happened to get caught in the middle. There is nothing you can do or could have done to prevent this."

"I refuse to accept that," he said to her.

Shampoo became angry, nearly throwing him away from her in the free fall of the passageway. "It's not your place to accept or deny anything!" she cried. "Can't you understand that? I am not a child! I will not continue to live in the shadow of my family, and I don't want any special treatment because I happen to be one of the Matriarch's great-grandchildren. I am responsible for myself and for my actions. I don't need your help, and I don't want it, do you understand me, Mousse!?"

He lowered his head to her.

"I will always be there for you, Shampoo," he told her. "I can't change the way I feel about this, because I can't change the way I feel about you."

"Then you're a fool for wasting your feelings on me," she returned.

His eyes were filled with pain. "I guess I am."

He pushed off the bulkhead, and floated clumsily away from her down the passageway.

"Mousse, you idiot," she whispered after him. "This is my battle to fight, not yours."

Nerima Confederation JumpShip Dragonfly,

6 light-seconds from the Capra System Zenith Jump Point,

Capra System, the League of Five Nails

23 March 3025

"Conn, Sensory; Time to GunShip Contact Romeo Five-Five intercept, ten minutes... mark!"

Captain Hinako Ninomiya nodded grimly at the update from her Sensory Officer. They were still too far from the Jump Point, and within ten minutes they would be at the extreme limit of the GunShip's weapons. She had no doubt that they would fire upon them, targeting their vulnerable jumpcore to prevent their escape.

"Conn, Sensory; new contact Romeo Eight-Four, bearing three-five-one minus one-eight, range is approximately four light-seconds, on intercept course. Romeo Eight-Four is classified as a troop shuttle."

"A boarding party," Hinako muttered. She turned to the Engineering Station, where the Dragonfly's Assistant Engineer monitored the ship's systems. He gave her a brief nod of assent. The ship was nominally 'go' for a Jump.

"Helm," she called out. "Commence countdown for Hyperspace Jump."

A brief silence filled the Bridge as the fateful order was given.

"Commence countdown for Hyperspace Jump, Helm, aye!" The Helmsman punched a sequence of commands into the main computer. "Captain, the Helm is slaved to the Astrogation Computer for Hyperspace Jump."

"Very well, Helm," Hinako acknowleged. In the ten minutes it would take to energize the enigmatic chandelier guts of the jumpcore, they would see if the Dragonfly could send them safely back to the Capella System. "Chief of the Watch, on the 1MC, Sound the Jump Alarm for the ten minute warning."

"Chief of the Watch, aye."

"Ranma?"

Ranma Saotome opened his eyes and then thought better of it. He was in his stateroom on the JumpShip, lying on his bunk, and Akane was sitting next to him. She seemed to be holding his hand for some reason.

"Yeah?" he mumbled.

"Are you okay?" she asked him.

He sat up slowly. His head hurt, and he felt a little weak. He looked around the small, spartan room, realizing that it was just the two of them.

"I guess so," he replied. "What the hell happened to me?"

"I'm not sure exactly," she said to him. "There was this big flash of light, and then you were out."

"Man," he stewed as he thought about the brief confrontation with Captain Ninomiya. "Who woulda thought she had such a powerful technique. I gotta find a way to beat her."

"Listen to you," Akane scolded him. "You can't even defeat Happousai, and now you want to fight Captain Ninomiya?"

Ranma frowned. It would be just like Akane to bring up his failure to deal with Happousai.

"You got it," he replied.

"You're an idiot," she retorted. "If you had just apologized, this wouldn't have happened to you."

"For your information, Tomboy," he growled. "She didn't exactly give me a chance to apologize!"

She let go of his hand, throwing it down to the bed with a huff. "That's right, Ranma. Just call me some more names, why don't you?"

"If you insist," he said to her. He stuck out his tongue and waggled it at her. "Macho chick."

Akane turned red.

"Ranma, you jerk!"

She shot to her feet and grabbed the pillow from the top bunk, bringing it down on Ranma's head with a thud, and wishing it was made of something heavier.

He took it harder than she expected, for he swooned back to the bed, dazed. In his weakened condition he was apparently not up to the abuse.

"Oh Ranma, I'm sorry!" she gushed, dropping the pillow as if it were on fire.

He raised a finger, curling it in a gesture to come closer. She leaned over him, wracked with concern.

"What is it, Ranma?" she asked him.

"You're uncute too," he whispered.

Her eyes crossed in response, and she began groping for the pillow a she glared at him. Perhaps another belt would do him some good, or at least teach him some respect. Then she realized that this was Ranma she was talking about.

"So what if I'm not cute," she muttered, quelling the urge to continue pummelling him. "It's not like I have to impress anyone."

"What about Ryouga?" he asked her abruptly.

She drew back from him, a smile forming on her lips. The pillow slipped from her fingers. "There you go again," she observed. "Talking about Ryouga. If I didn't know you better, I'd say you were jealous, Ranma."

"Ha," he retorted, though there was little conviction to it. "Why should I be jealous?"

"Because you really do like me," she declared, though this was only a guess. "And it bothers you to see me spending time with someone else."

"Don't forget the kiss you gave him," he added, his voice tight with emotion. He blanched when he realized that he had vocalized his thoughts instead of keeping them safely to himself.

She pounced.

"You ARE jealous!" she cried. She began to laugh.

"What's so funny?" he asked defensively. In that moment he felt about thirty centimeters tall.

Her grin was wide and smugly annoying. "I just think it's funny that the cool, self-assured Ranma Saotome can get so worked up about a little kiss on the cheek." She looked away thoughtfully. "I wonder how bad you'd be if I had kissed Ryouga on the lips instead?"

"Stop deluding yourself," Ranma growled weakly. "You go ahead and kiss anyone you want. See if I care."

Her eyes narrowed in appreciation for him. "Even you?" The quaver in voice as she asked him was faint and slightly hopeful.

He returned her look. "You wouldn't have the guts."

"Oh yeah?" she challenged. "It's more like YOU wouldn't have the guts to do it, Ranma. All you'd do is go run off and hide in the Engine Room."

He flinched. "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah!" she returned defiantly.

"Well pucker up, sweetheart!"

She paused for a moment, and he thought he had her beaten. Then she knelt down next to him on the bed, her eyes closed, and her nose just a few millimeters from his, waiting. Every muscle in Ranma's body locked up at the sight of her - the incredibly cute her - ready for his kiss.

"...Uh..." he remarked not so coolly.

She continued to wait for him, her eyes closed, and her lips puckered slightly to receive his kiss.

He was blazing red with embarrassment, but he was not going to lose this battle of wills with her! He closed his eyes and began to move slowly towards her. Just as he was about to touch his lips against hers, he froze.

She cleared her throat gently.

"Any time now, Ranma. If you really do have the nerve for it," she said to him quietly before returning her lips to their receptive position.

"I'm doing it," he muttered. "Don't rush me."

He opened his eyes. She was so close that he could make out the faint, downy fuzz of hair on her nose. He could feel her breath tickling him as he held there, motionless.

Dammit! he thought to himself. This stalling is makin' me look like a clown... It's just a lousy kiss...

He closed his eyes again and held his breath.

The loud klaxon of the Jump Alarm sounded over the 1MC intercom speaker outside his room, startling them both out of their dare.

"Ten Minute Warning to Hyperspace Jump," the Chief of the Watch said over the 1MC. "All hands lay to individual Jump Stations... The ship will execute a hyperspace jump in ten minutes."

Akane's eyes blinked open, driving him back in surprise. "Whoops!" she exclaimed. "We have to go now," she told him. They had to report to the 'C' Deck Lounge, where they would wait out the Jump until the 'Clear to Stations' was sounded. She gave him a look of mock sympathy. "I guess you just didn't have the nerve after all."

Ranma stared vacantly into space, at once relieved and disappointed by the interruption.

Akane stood up, pulling him upright as well with a tug on his shirt front.

"Come on, Ranma. You have to come along too."

"Yeah," he muttered, brushing absently at his mandarin style blouse and keeping his eyes on the carpet. He had lost to her, and the shame was all too painful for him.

She led him towards the door of the room, stopping at the threshold and turning around to face him. One of the Dragonfly's crew passed by in the passageway behind her, carrying a fire extinguisher.

"Oh, and Ranma?"

He looked up at her. "What is it?" he asked.

"I think it's cute that you're jealous," she told him with a smile. Then she leaned over and kissed him sweetly on the lips. She parted with him and dashed away with a laugh before he could react.

Ranma stood there in the doorway, watching her go. He placed a hand up to his lips, which were moist from her kiss, and held it there for a moment in wonder.

"Contact Romeo Five-Five time to intercept three-zero seconds," Sensory updated.

"Jumpcore internal temperatures stable," Engineering informed. "Inverters Alfa through India are green. Ship's Battery indicates sufficient charge for Jump." The lights shifted for a moment as the starship's power-plant adjusted loads for the Jump.

"Clock synchronization is green," Helm reported. "Helm remains slaved to Astrogation. Reaction Control System in automatic. T-minus two-zero seconds to Jump."

Hinako took these reports quietly. They were dangerously far from the Jump Point. Had they been any further away, she would not even dared to attempt a Jump. Even capture by the Furinkan Combine offered better odds than certain death.

"Conn, Sensory; detecting active gun-directing radar in T-band plus LIDAR sweeps."

She looked to the Chief of the Watch, knowing that there was little she could do about the GunShip's weapon acquistion. They would probably not fire at extreme range, and she was counting on those few seconds their hesitation would give.

"Chief of the Watch," she called to him in her sultry voice. "Sound the Jump Alarm." She stood, knowing that it was against procedure, but if she was going to die, it would be standing up, in command of her ship. "Helm, execute Hyperspace Jump!"

"Chief of the Watch, aye."

"Helm, aye. Executing Hyperspace Jump in five... four... three... two... one... MARK!"

The Jump Alarm klaxon sounded three times in urgent warning for the maneuver that lay ahead.

As the massive circuit breakers that connected the Jump Drive with the Ship's Battery slammed shut well aft of the Bridge, plunging them into a tunnel of hyperspace, Hinako wondered if she would live to see the other side.

Ranma took his seat next to Akane, who offered a teasing smile but said nothing to him. He tried to hold back his continuing blush from her in return. Genma, Doctor Tofu, Ryouga, and Tarou were seated behind them, each waiting with some trepidation for the Jump. Everyone knew that what they were attempting was dangerous but him, since he had been unconscious almost the entire wait since docking.

"What's everyone so worked up about?" he whispered to Akane, as she was the only one he could talk to without turning around.

"We have to Jump outside the Jump Point," she returned gravely.

"Isn't that dangerous?" he asked, wondering why the hell they were doing something so stupid.

"You missed it," Akane explained. "A Combine ship detected us, and we couldn't outrun it. We either Jump or get captured."

"...Damn..." he muttered. "Talk about a no-win situation."

"I'd rather take my chances with the Jump," she whispered. "The next time I want to see Tatewaki Kuno is through my Warhammer's gunsight."

"I hear that," he replied.

They waited in total silence for several minutes, the tension hanging thick over the entire room. The lights shifted over their heads, and several clunking noises could be heard below them in the Engineering spaces.

"It won't be long now," he said.

The sound of several airtight bulkheads dropping into place echoed through the small lounge. The tinny voice of someone using a local intercom circuit in the next compartment followed.

Akane slipped her hand into his.

"Ranma, I'm really scared," she whispered so softly that he wouldn't have heard her had the lounge been less quiet. He was scared too, but he wasn't going to tell her that. Instead he gave her hand a squeeze.

The Jump Alarm sounded three times over their heads, an angry klaxon that made a noise like a dying moose. Three twelve-ton circuit breakers slammed shut far below them, loud and booming as Jovian thunderbolts, shaking the deckplates beneath their feet, and bringing forth a subsonic groan so fierce and so terrible to behold that it made Akane tense up into a death grip on his hand.

For an instant, the Nerima Confederation JumpShip Dragonfly glowed brighter than a star, then winked out of existence.

Hyperspace

Contrary to what many in the Inner Sphere believed, hyperspace was not so much a place as an intrinsic property of the universe. Curled up into a tiny ball of cosmic string smaller than the Planck Length, the higher dimensions of hyperspace permeated all of existence, giving rise to a thousand quantum effects that even the scientific giants of the Star League had been unable to fully explain. In spite of this, hyperspace, that universal enigma, was not impenetrable.

Early physicists had predicted that the energy required to probe the Planck Length was on the order of many quadrillions of electron volts, or more power than the human race could ever conceivably hope to bring together at one time and in one place. What they did not know was that Nature was both cunning and underhanded, and while God did not play dice with the Universe, he wasn't adverse to keeping a few aces up his sleeve. There were ways around this seemingly insurmountable barrier.

Centuries later, the Kearny-Fuchida drive made interstellar travel practical, using one of God's back doors in the form of the intricate web of gravity that linked together the stars of the galaxy and the universe beyond. Humanity surged outwards into the depths of space, and soon after that the Star League was born. It was now close to a thousand years since the day that first JumpShip had leaped across four light-years from Sol to Alpha Centauri, but the process had remained relatively unchanged in all that time.

The Nerima Confederation JumpShip Dragonfly's voyage through hyperspace was nearly the same as that of its ancient predecessor. The ship fell through a wormhole in space-time, its hull perilously close to the field of negative energy that maintained the narrow throat of the tunnel that linked the Capra system to the ship's ultimate destination. Any contact with that field would collapse the wormhole in an instant, catapulting them back into realspace with disastrous effect.

Though the Jump was considered to be instantaneous to an outside observer, relativistic effects could make the trip considerably longer to those who experienced it firsthand. Ranma Saotome watched as waves of color, sound, and sensation washed over him, warped and distorted in this place of unreality and infinite possibility. Akane was by his side, her hand warm and trembling in his.

Here the boundaries of the quicksilver-random quantum world crossed over into the comfortably predictable realm of the Classic Newtonian universe, where gravity and the laws of thermodynamics held sway, and one could observe both the location and velocity of an object simultaneously in space-time. Here, time was more than relative; it could and often did reject entropy, and flowed backwards as easily as forwards, and one could know of many things that had not yet come to pass if one was prepared for the experience.

Hallucinations were common side effects of the Jump, but Ranma wasn't so sure the images and sounds were phantasms. More than anything, they seemed like bits of the past and of possible futures congregating in this nexus of limitless potential in hyperspace. What he had seen in Jumps before did not compare to his present experience.

He was not ready at first for the future, seeing himself instead as a child, putting his father's neurohelmet on his head and hearing his father's laughter as he stumbled around blindly, bragging about what a great mechwarrior he would be some day.

This image blended seamlessly into a montage of battles, real, simulated, and perhaps yet to come, that demonstrated how far he had come in his boast - and how far he had yet to go. As the flames of war burned around him, he saw himself in his girl-body, wearing a frilly peach-colored dress, and complaining about the lack of support he was getting for his breasts.

His protests gave way to hazy recollections of his mother, and her gentle yet uncompromisingly formal voice. He saw her face like that of some otherworldly madonna, ethereal and half-imagined, yet no less divine. He realized that his strongest recollections of her were the way she smelled; the soft lilting notes of her bath oil, the earthy fragrance of peat after a day of tending their small garden, and the sweet buttery scent of freshly baked cookies she had made him once just because it was Thursday.

A tear welled in his eye in that moment as he realized on the most intimate levels of understanding what had he had lost in his pursuit of martial arts. His father was to blame for much of it, but then, what had he really done about it other than complain?

Akane's face appeared before he could answer that question for himself, her eyes closed and her lips waiting for his kiss - a kiss that only minutes prior to their Jump he could not bring himself to give. He found himself leaning forward in his chair, trying to reach that phantasmal Akane, and ignoring the very real Akane who sat by his side, whose hand was set in his. Even as he struggled with himself, she met him halfway, her lips soft and warm, touching his with an electric thrill that he longed to feel again.

Did she really mean it? he wondered as the Dragonfly fell onward through the wormhole. Or was the kiss she had stolen from him just another way of mocking him for his weakness - proving how easy it was for her to do something that he had been unable to do? Was it actually possible that this macho uncute chick didn't really hate his guts - that she actually liked him - or was she just getting back at him for all those things he was better at doing than her?

Before he could come to grips with these possibilities, the lights and the sounds were gone, replaced with crushing darkness and a deafening silence. Pain shot through him, lighting up every nerve in his body in a flash of tingling heat. The ship seemed to twist and compress around him as a rushing bass vibratto swelled up from the depths of the ship, filling the silence with a furious noise. The shriek of tortured metal lanced through him, and visions of the ship being ripped apart wracked his fragile reserve of courage.

Emergency lights flicked on from battle-lanterns on the bulkheads, casting stark beams of white in the darkness. Akane was still there by his side, her eyes closed and her face taut with fear. The shadowy faces of his father, Doctor Tofu, Ryouga, and Tarou were behind him. He saw tears glistening on Ryouga's face, which the fanged mercenary quickly wiped away in the hope that no one would notice.

Genma coughed, breaking the silence. Ranma realized that not even the ventilation fans were running, and that at least this portion of the ship was without power. Gravity was not present, meaning the main drives were not functioning. There were no announcements from the Bridge to secure from Jump.

By all appearances, the Dragonfly was dead in space.

Azure Cloud Castle

Planet Nerima, Capella System

The Nerima Confederation

29 March 3025

"Father, you should come inside now."

Grand Duke Soun Tendo turned at Kasumi's words to see his eldest daughter standing by the door that connected the garden terrace to the castle proper. Though Akane most resembled his dear late wife in appearance, it was Kasumi who had manifested her vast reserves of quiet strength and patience.

"Just a moment, Kasumi," he said to her. His gaze returned to the heavens. Hikaru Gosunkugi's warning of an impending Combine attack on the Capella System had been corroborated by other sources, giving him just enough time to recall his forces for the coming siege.

The Combine's attack would mean that his daughter Akane, his dear old friend Genma Saotome, and Genma's son Ranma would be cut off from the capitol. They were truly on their own. To return would be to place themselves in Tatewaki Kuno's hands.

If they weren't already, he thought bitterly. The first stop on their expedition to find Ryuugenzawa had been the Capra System, where the Combine was staging for their attack. There had been no word of them since they left the Capella System weeks ago. Would Tatewaki Kuno be presenting them as hostages when he arrived in the system?

Kasumi stepped up to his side.

"Really, Father. If you continue to worry like this, you'll make yourself ill."

"I know, Kasumi," he replied. "I can't help but worry."

"Akane is in good hands," she observed. "Ranma will take care of her."

"He is a good boy, isn't he," Soun remarked. How he wished those two would come to their senses and start getting along better! He was weary of his throne, and longed to retire to a quiet life of peace and introspection - and drinking beer and playing shogi all night, too. But even more than beer and shogi, he wanted grandchildren! The sooner Akane and Ranma were married, the better.

"There is some hope for him," his daughter replied with a faint smile. "I think they are better suited to each other than they realize."

Soun returned the smile. "It relieves me to hear you say that, Kasumi."

"You really should come inside now."

He looked up to the bright stars. They were out there somewhere, along with their enemies - and in some forgotten corner of the Inner Sphere lay Ryuugenzawa, their only hope for survival. Genma had to succeed!

"Just a little longer," he mumbled.

She relented.

"Yes, Father."

Kasumi turned and left him out on the terrace. He was too much of a worrier to convince otherwise. As she stepped through the door, she saw Nabiki waiting for her in the hall.

"What is it, Nabiki?" She kept her voice civil for decorum's sake. The two had never been very close, and Nabiki's recent turn against the family unity had not done their strained relationship any service.

"Is Daddy out there?" she asked. Nabiki's ability to be so flippant with people was a constant source of aggravation for the formal and proper Kasumi.

"He is," Kasumi replied. "Though he doesn't wish to be disturbed."

Nabiki gave her sister a sidelong glance. "Then I suppose I'll have to tell you instead. The Deep Space Tracking Center has just informed me that the Furinkan Combine fleet has just Jumped into this system. They estimate that they will be in orbit around Nerima in five days."

Kasumi frowned. "What about our defensive stations near the Jump Points? Weren't they able to resist?"

Nabiki became tight-lipped. "I'm afraid not, sis. They were taken by surprise. We were lucky to get any warning from them at all before the stations were captured."

Kasumi's frown deepened. Those battlestations had been on alert for the past three days. How had they been taken so completely by surprise?

"You came back to the castle to tell Father this?" she asked Nabiki. "Or did you come for some other reason?"

Nabiki's eyes glinted against the light of the hall. "Just what are you getting at?"

Kasumi's frown hardened into a stern glare.

"I think you know what I'm talking about, Nabiki. I'm not nearly as stupid or as naive as you might think I am."

"More like prefer, sis," Nabiki said with a brush of her fingers against her jacket. "I know you're not stupid. Just stubborn. We don't stand a chance against the Furinkan Combine, and here you are ready to lose everything we have for the sake of duty."

"Is it stubbornness to fight for what is rightfully ours?" Kasumi countered angrily. "And duty is the price we pay for all that we have."

"It's a wonderful deal," her sister replied with dripping sarcasm. "I can't thank our Tendo ancestors enough." She looked up at Kasumi with a mixture of sympathy and loathing. "You may not be stupid, dear sister, but you're still a fool to believe in our senile half-wit father and his fat con-man friend..."

Kasumi's forceful slap in the face spun Nabiki into the wall. Her cheek stung from the blow, and the fierce heat of shame and anger bloomed within her heart.

"That was real genteel, sis," she managed. Kasumi's eyes were too intense to look at, and she kept her gaze averted slightly. "You should be proud of yourself."

The look on Kasumi's face told her that she was not.

"Go back into town," she said to Nabiki. "Leave the castle at once."

"I'll do that," Nabiki replied stiffly. "When you and Daddy finally come to your senses and realize that your misbegotten bravado will end up doing more harm to our people than good, let me know. I'll take care of things, just like I always do."

She straightened out her jacket and left Kasumi standing alone in the hall without any further words between them. She strode purposefully down the hall to the Inner Courtyard and her waiting car. She had come to visit her father simply for the sake of decorum, knowing that he would not change his mind, and fully prepared to act without him. Her driver opened the door for her, and she settled in on the buttery-soft black leather upholstery.

Once the car was clear of the castle proper and making its way down the winding road for town, she picked up her cellular phone. She had divorced herself from the family's accounts when she left the first time, and the expense of maintaining her own phone was nothing compared to her means. She needed the security of her own accounts.

"Tell them to proceed," she said to the man who answered her call. She then disconnected. Though her transmission was encrypted, she knew that Kasumi was smart enough to have it monitored. She would leave nothing to chance.

A quick poll among the nobles over the last three weeks had confirmed her beliefs. She owned several outright, and the rest would jump her way with little persuasion. They had lands and titles to protect, and assurances from Tatewaki Kuno that nothing would change in those respects after the Confederation had been ceded to him would be more than sufficient for them to do as she instructed. Especially when it was clear that their current liege was insane - as she would soon declare.

The only thing that remained was to hammer out the details with Kuno-chan. His arrival in the system was sooner than she would have preferred, but she was confident that she could pull off her coup d'etat with little difficulty.

She wished that it hadn't come to this. If her father had only listened to her instead of that oafish Genma Saotome, they could have avoided this ugly mess. Sure it would have meant that Akane would end up as Kuno's bride, but that was inevitable. Better that they got something out of it rather than watching the wedding from a prison cell. It wasn't her fault that she was the only one of the family with any common sense.

The car passed silently through the gatehouse and into the city. Nabiki looked at the blaze of lights around her and smiled. She would insist on keeping Capella as a personal fief, and looked forward to ruling over the system as Duchess. One star system was more than enough for her, and Kuno-chan couldn't begrudge her that much once he ruled the entire Inner Sphere.

Nerima Confederation JumpShip Dragonfly

Position Unknown, Date Unknown

"Did we make it?" Akane asked quietly by Ranma's side.

He released her hand.

"You're still here to ask about it," he returned.

"Jerk," she growled, though there was relief in her eyes. He wondered what she had seen during the Jump to make her so upset and so glad to have made it through to the other side.

"Hey, you asked," he replied curtly. He unstrapped his lap belt and rose from his chair. Gravity was still absent, and he floated gently towards the overhead.

"There seems to be a problem," Genma observed. The sound the ship had made both entering and leaving Jump had not been pleasant. Had they misjumped, or was it even worse than that?

"At least we're still alive," Doctor Tofu added. "I suppose it could be much worse."

Ranma twisted around to face them. "Don't say that. We don't know where we are yet."

He gave himself a push with his foot against the back of his chair, and drifted across the lounge to the sound-powered telephone station. The communications circuit was designed to be used in situations such as this, when electrical power was compromised.

He set a dial on the phone to the 'Bridge' position, and cranked on the growler. The growler was a small hand-turned DC generator inside the phone unit that acted as a kind of annunciator to the person at the intended station.

"Bridge, 'C' Deck Lounge," he spoke into the phone. His voice moved a diaphragm in the phone, which acted on a magnet that then sent a low-powered electrical signal through the line to the phones on that circuit. The signal acted on a magnet, which moved a diaphragm in the earpiece, which reproduced a tinny facsimile of his voice on the other end.

There was no answer.

"What the hell is going on up there?" he wondered aloud.

Captain Hinako Ninomiya righted herself in free-fall to face a Bridge in the midst of chaos. Sparks and flame burst from control panels, filling the room with smoke. Battle-lanterns flicked on around her as lighting was lost.

They had come through the tunnel, though far from intact.

"Damage report!" she demanded. There were no immediate replies as her crew brought the small fires under control around her. She reached for an emergency breathing mask and plugged it into the manifold.

The fires were quickly extinguished. Because they had lost power, it was a simple matter to put the fires out, but it also meant that they had bigger problems ahead.

"Main Power is down," the Assistant Engineer managed from his station. He fumbled for a breathing mask as the smoke thickened from melted wiring insulation. "Emergency Power has not responded. I've lost most of the repeater feeds for Engineering as well."

"Helm is down," the Helmsman added. "No response from the Main Engines or the Reaction Control System."

"Radar and passive sensors are down," Sensory reported.

"The Main Computer is down on loss of power," Astrogation chimed in. "We're rebooting from the system's dedicated emergency battery. It looks like the auctioneered power supply did not cut in. We're checking on what went wrong now."

Hinako knew the heart of the matter was located in Engineering. "Can we raise the Engine Room on any circuit?"

The Communications Officer shook his head. "I'm sorry, Captain. We're experiencing grounds on all powered and emergency phone circuits. We are trying the 1MC intercom system now."

He flipped a switch on a secondary breaker board, cutting in a stand-alone power supply for the intercom.

"Engine Room, Bridge, please respond."

The intercom crackled with static for several seconds. The voice that responded was pinched and tinny, and short of breath.

"Bridge, Engine Room! Fire in the Engine Room! Fire on all levels!"

The sound of men shouting and the hiss of breathing apparatus over the roar of an inferno chilled Hinako's blood.

"Bridge acknowledges the fire, Engine Room!" the Communications Officer replied.

Hinako looked at her crew. "We can't do anything up here until we restore power. We can't restore power until we put out the fires. Everyone clear the Bridge and get below. Chief of the Watch, sound the General Alarm. Pass the word on the 1MC for all hands to muster in the Crew's Mess for damage control efforts."

The crackle of the 1MC caught Ranma's attention.

"Engine Room, Bridge, please respond."

The intercom crackled with static for several seconds. Ranma was about to speak when there came a reply.

"Bridge, Engine Room! Fire in the Engine Room! Fire on all levels!"

They could hear the frantic efforts of the engineers over the intercom. He tensed at the news. Akane gave him a frightened look.

"Bridge acknowledges the fire, Engine Room!"

Ranma and Ryouga both started for the door, followed closely by Doctor Tofu and Genma. Tarou grunted and got up to follow, leaving Akane alone in the room.

"Where are you going?" she asked them.

"What's it look like?" Ranma shot back. "You wanna burn to death in the middle of nowhere?"

The reality of their situation set in for her. She had never before experienced such a disaster, and even the ship's drills she had participated in during her training as a mechwarrior did not compare to the sudden and dire urgency of the moment.

"Rig ship for Fire and General Emergency! All hands not on watch or involved with damage control efforts, lay to the Crew's Mess! All Palomino hands lay to the 'C' Deck Damage Control Locker," the voice of the Chief of the Watch on the 1MC demanded.

The General Alarm sounded. Akane steeled herself and followed after them in the knowledge that the next few hours might be her last.

The passageways were lit only by the prying beams of light from the battle-lanterns suspended from the bulkheads. Fingers of smoke coiled from ventilation ducts. The sounds of the crew carried through the darkness as they struggled in zero-gravity with powerless airtight doors and with damage control equipment.

They were in the middle of nowhere, both figuratively and possibly literally, and their starship was on fire. If they didn't act quickly and decisively, she knew, they were going to die as Ranma had said, burning to death or else choking on the smoke and toxic fumes from the flames.

She caught up with them as Ranma, Genma, and Ryouga struggled into fire-retardant canvas smocks at the 'C' Deck Damage Control Locker with the other crew members from the Palomino. The Dragonfly's crew were already heavily engaged with the various casualties, and the Palomino crew represented the only reserves available.

"What do you need me to do?" she asked the man in charge, whom she recognized as one of the Dragonfly's cooks.

The cook looked over the fire-fighting teams that were forming up around them.

"I need a phone talker," he replied, holding up a sound-powered phone headset.

Akane took the phones and put them on without another word. As she checked in with the few stations that remained on the circuit after the grounded sections were isolated, she saw Ranma placing a breathing mask over his face. Ryouga tended to Ranma's chemical oxygen supply, which the pig-tailed mechwarrior wore over his chest. The chemical rebreather would sustain him for about thirty minutes of strenuous activity at best before the cartridge needed to be replaced.

She caught the look in his eyes as he adjusted the straps for a good seal. There was fear there, something which she had never seen from him before. He was scared, but he was going ahead anyway to battle the flames on the decks below.

Ryouga finished with the rebreather, stuffed two extra cartridges into the thigh pockets of Ranma's smock, then tucked Ranma's exposed pigtail underneath the fire-retardant material. When he finished with Ranma, he began the same process for himself, with Ranma assisting. The way the two worked together shocked Akane. She hadn't thought they could ever set aside their differences for long.

When they had finished, they joined Genma and one of Akari's techs by the emergency ladder down to 'D' Deck. They would have to use the ladders, as the elevators were not working with no electrical power. There was a smoke curtain over the ladderwell, but enough of the soot and fumes had drifted through the gaps to begin filling the small compartment.

The cook ordered everyone who wasn't on a fire-fighting team into their emergency breathing masks.

Akane signed off temporarily to put on her mask. The synthetic rubber smelled of old sweat and the iodine-based disinfectant used to clean the mask. She pulled it over her head, thankful at last for short hair, and adjusted the straps. When she had a good seal, she plugged the hose into a manifold connection near the overhead and joined in the hissing chorus of those around her sucking in breathable air.

She wanted to tell them to be careful, but they were already starting down the ladder well.

Ranma checked the small digital timer display in his mask visor. He had just under thirty minutes of oxygen remaining. His father had a plastic board showing them where they were going and what to expect. It did not surprise him to know that they were headed right for the heart of the fire in Engineering to relieve the crew that were already down there - and getting short on air.

"Any questions?" Genma asked them when he was finished.

"Anyone seen Tarou?" Ryouga asked in a near shout because his voice was muffled by his breathing mask.

Ranma looked around. It was just him, Pop, Ryouga, and one of the Palomino battlemech techs. Doctor Tofu had left for Sick Bay, which was only natural, but where was Tarou?

"Beats me," Ranma shouted. "Time's wasting."

Genma nodded. His glasses were starting to fog inside his mask. They wouldn't clear up until the sweat was pouring down them, but that wouldn't be of much help to him.

"Let's go!" he shouted to them.

They had to pull themselves down the ladder well in zero-gravity. The hub of 'D' Deck was just as dark and forbidding as the rest of the ship, and smoke diffused into a sparkling haze under the stark beams of the battle-lanterns. Their breaths in the darkness were the only sounds to be heard over the distant roar of the fire several decks below.

"We'll check in on 'F' Deck," Genma reminded them as they continued ondown the ladder well between decks. The smoke was heavier the farther aft they went, though soon diffusion would make each level that was not isolated from the fires as unbreathable as the next.

Once on 'F' Deck they had to leave the ladder well and pull themselves through the smoke curtain. Beyond the deck hatch was an inferno, and they could see the metal glowing a dull red from the heat. One of the ship's crew stood nearby with a headset and a large plexiglass sheet with the schematic drawings of the Engineering Spaces. The room was stiflingly hot, and sensors on Ranma's helmet mask told him that the atmosphere was quite toxic. Some of the crew drifted in midair, completely exhausted from their exertions.

"It's a real Hell down there!" the man shouted through his mask at them. "We've got all the fires knocked down but one, and I can't get anyone close enough to it because of the heat."

Genma noted the stacks of empty carbon-dioxide bottles strapped down against a bulkhead.

"Any Halon left?"

"Not here. We've called for some from the upper decks, but nothing's reached us yet. The automatics went off as advertised, but something's pushing the stuff out of the space. The extinguishers are all used up."

"How much CO2 do you have left?"

"We're down to one pallet that we were able to swipe from the cryogenic plant before it got too hot," the man replied. "We called for that too, but so far, zip. I was saving what we had left for one last push, but my guys are all beat."

"That's what we're here for," Genma declared. He pushed Ranma and Ryouga forward. "Go take care of it, boys!"

"What about you?" Ranma protested.

Genma gave him a solemn look through his fogged mask. "I'll be behind you the entire way."

Ranma shook his head.

"Thanks a lot, Old Man."

The two started down a passageway where CO2 hoses tied to dedicated fire-fighting supplies hung limply in midair. Crew members carrying some of their own strapped down on stretchers were coming the other way. Ranma could see that several of the people on stretchers were dead, and that all had suffered burns.

They followed the hoses through an airtight door that had been cranked open by hand, and into an orange haze of light and intense heat. Two men in silvery proximity suits held up a reflective blast shield to keep the radiant heat that welled up from the ladder at bay.

"We gotta get past that?" Ranma shouted to Ryouga.

"I don't think we're dressed for the occasion," Ryouga agreed.

The two men in the proximity suits made way for them as they approached.

"Bring any Halon?" they yelled over the roar of the flames below.

"No," Ranma replied. "We were supposed to replace the fire-teams."

"They pulled out," the man said with a shake of his head. "It's too damn hot down there."

Ranma looked to Ryouga, who shook his head slowly.

"What's going on, boy?" Genma demanded from well down the passageway.

"There's no one here to replace!" Ranma called back.

"Stay where you are. We've got some Halon extinguishers on the way."

Ranma nodded his head. Shouting just used up your air faster.

"What's the plan?" Ryouga asked him while they waited.

Ranma looked at the open hatch. Flames licked up from the angry orange glow below. It really did look like some vision of Hell down there.

"I'm thinkin' we pin open a couple of extinguishers and drop 'em down there to beat back the fires. Then follow them in and go from there."

"That won't work in zero-gee," Ryouga countered. "They'll just shoot around the compartment like rockets."

"Then I guess we jump down there with them and hold them steady. We brace ourselves against the bulkheads or something."

"That's the best you can come up with?"

Ranma's sweaty frown was clearly visible through his mask. "Got any better ideas?"

Ryouga shook his head slowly. "I don't like it, but I suppose we don't have much choice."

Bottles of Halon and carbon-dioxide appeared, courtesy of Akane Tendo.

"What are you doing here?" Ranma asked her in disbelief.

"Someone had to bring them," she retorted. She hefted the line of bottles held together by lengths of nylon cord at him.

Ranma caught the bottles, and was driven against the bulkhead by them. "Thanks a lot," he groused. Then he turned to the men with the blast shield. "You guys first, since you're dressed for it. Come on, Ryouga."

The two men with the blast shield looked at each other, then at Ranma.

"You gotta be kidding us," one of them said.

"Nope. If I gotta go down there, then you can too."

Ryouga grabbed the blast shield from them. "Stop wasting our time," he yelled at them. Then he jumped down the hatch and into the inferno. Ranma followed after, while Genma, Akane, and the two men looked on gravely.

'G' Deck was filled with heat and fire. In zero-gravity the very air itself seemed to be ablaze, and it was impossible to tell where the center of the inferno could be located. Even with the blast shield protecting them from the bulk of the blaze, the heat was incredible, scorching them through layers of canvas and thermal insulation.

Ranma planted his feet against a bulkhead, praying that it wasn't so hot as to melt his insulated boots. When he was set, he clamped down on the Halon extinguisher and held tight. A cold gout of gas sprayed from the horn, pushing him against the bulkhead and driving back the flames.

The temperature dropped from dangerous to merely uncomfortable within seconds, giving them the foothold they needed to continue the attack. It was going to be slow going in zero-gravity, as he would have to hold on to things as he advanced with the extinguisher to keep him from being impulsed in the opposite direction as the gas.

The two reluctant crew were pushed down from above to land behind them. They carried additional bottles of Halon, which they quickly handed off to Ranma. Ryouga moved forward down the passageway towards the heart of the deck with the blast shield before them. Ranma adjusted his position, planting his feet on a section of piping and letting go with another blast of Halon to clear the way.

"Do you hear something?" Ranma asked aloud.

"Like what?" Ryouga called back.

"A hissing noise."

"I can't hear anything other than the fire."

Ranma wasn't so sure. A fire as intense as this one should have burned itself out by now from a lack of oxygen. At the very least it should have been sucking up the air from the other decks, but all he had seen was the fire moving the opposite way. Something was pushing the fire, just like the two crew members had said.

"Let's keep going and see if we can get a better look."

Ryouga nodded, and advanced with the blast shield before them. The bulkheads were scorched black around them, and melted metal and plastic bubbled and flowed into weird and grotesque shapes in zero-gravity. Hot gobbets of the stuff burned into their smocks and singed the flash hoods that covered their hair.

The hissing was more distinct.

"I hear it," Ryouga cried.

"What do you suppose it is?"

"I don't know," the fanged mechwarrior replied. "Maybe an air line is broken or something."

"Let's take a look."

They continued around a corner and into a wall of flame that shot down the passageway at them. The fireball crashed into the blast shield, licking around the edges at them like a ravenous beast. Ranma triggered his second Halon extinguisher, not caring that he wasn't placed for it. The blast of cold halogen gas smothered the questing fireball and sent him flying back down the passageway with a yelp.

As Ryouga fought to maintain his own balance, another fireball came shooting down the passageway in a curtain of pure flame. It pushed against the intangible barrier of Halon, driving it back in his face in wisps of decomposition products that tinged the air green against the orange of the fire.

"Ryouga, pull back!" Ranma shouted from down the passageway.

Ryouga held firm, digging the semi-soft soles of his half-melted boots into the deck for traction.

Ranma swore to himself and swam against the air currents to reach him. There was definitely some kind of air movement driving the fire back down the passageway. With no power in the ship, it couldn't have been a fan, so it had to be some kind of air leak.

He reached Ryouga as another wall of fire washed over them, searing them with its heat. The very air he gulped into his lungs from the rebreather was hot, and tiny wisps of steam fogged his vision from the drops of sweat that boiled off the inside of his visor.

"Ryouga, we gotta get the hell out!" Ranma cried.

"We can't let up!" he protested.

Ranma grabbed him forcefully and pulled him back around the corner of the passageway. The flames washed over them once again, nearly blinding them with the intense light of burning atmosphere.

"What are you doing?" Ryouga demanded.

"Saving your stubborn neck, P-chan! Now hold here while I drop this airtight bulkhead."

There was a manual release for an airtight bulkhead nearby. Ranma tugged at it, hoping to drop the fire-resistant curtain of steel into place, and stop the return of the fire to those areas they had just secured.

It came down slowly, with a squeal of protest, but it came down. The airtight bulkhead locked into place, protecting them from another wall of hungry flame.

"Now we can't attack the fire at all," Ryouga protested. "What's the big idea?"

"We ain't gonna be able to get through this way," Ranma replied in an exhausted voice. "Until we can find a way to cut off whatever is supplying the fire with oxygen, we're just wasting our time and what little Halon and CO2 we have left."

The fanged mechwarrior said nothing.

"Well?" Ranma asked him. "Am I right?"

Ryouga dropped his head to his chest wearily.

Ranma slumped against a bulkhead in Sick Bay. His face was grimy with sweat and smoke from the savage attempt at fire-fighting. The air was foul with particles of soot that glittered like tiny diamonds in the waning beams of light from the battle-lanterns. In addition, the carbon dioxide levels were high, and the oxygen levels low, making the easiest of tasks a challenge. Portable lithium hydroxide crystal air-scrubbers were the only things keeping the atmosphere even this breathable, but once the scrubber chemicals were exhausted, so were their chances of survival.

Ryouga, Genma, Akane, and Akari were present, as well as Captain Hinako and those members of the Engineering Department who were still ambulatory.

The sounds of the wounded and the dying were muffled by the roar of the oxygen-fed fire several decks below them. It was the last fire on the ship that had not been put out. The best they could do was contain it to parts of 'G' and 'H' Decks, but that wasn't good enough.

"The fire has spread back through Radial One-Oh-Five to within ten meters of the Number One Oxygen Bank on 'G' Deck," Chief Engineer Evans said to them, pointing from his sickbed to a smudged sheet of plastic adorned with the starship's blueprints. He was badly burned over most of his body, missing most of his hair, and loosely wrapped in bandages that oozed plasma and other fluids. Doctor Tofu watched over him as he spoke, keeping him conscious and lucid against the pain with acupressure, and keeping him alive with continuous intravenous drips.

"The cut-out valves for the O2 bank went shut automatically when the lines were broken on reentry from hyperspace," he continued. "But it looks like they're leaking by."

"Yeah," Ranma said. "We could hear the hissing any time we got close enough to the fire to fight it."

Ryouga nodded in agreement. He too was glazed with smoke and sweat.

"If the fire spreads into the O2 bank compartment..." Hinako began, knowing the answer and yet wanting it from her Chief Engineer firsthand. "What then?"

"The bank will probably explode once the heat raises the gas pressure above the rating of the flasks," Evans replied in a voice taut with pain. "If the Jumpcore hasn't already been ruined, an explosion like that will finish it off. But that won't matter much because the blast will probably decompress the rest of the habitat as well."

"Can we vent the O2 bank remotely?" Hinako asked. There were valves for that purpose, but whether they would work was another matter.

"We tried that," Evans replied. "Locally too." He looked down at himself. "How do you think I got this way?"

Hinako blushed with shame. "So what can we do, Commander?"

Evans studied the ship's drawings for a moment, straining for breath. "The only thing I can think of would be to vent 'G' Deck to space. The remote systems for that are down without power, though. Someone is going to have to manually override the ventilation flappers between 'H' Deck and 'G' Deck, and then he'll have to override the airlock doors on the starboard side of 'H' deck."

"There's a mechanical interlock that has to be defeated before you can do that, right?" Ranma asked, knowing that he was going to be the one who volunteered for the job.

"Right," Evans confirmed with a wheeze. "A rack and pinion linkage that keeps both doors from being open at the same time." He looked closely at Ranma. "You can disengage it from a bulkhead access panel from the inside only though. That means you'll be about five meters from the fire, maybe less by the time you get there."

Ranma tried to look nonchalant about it. "No big deal."

"It's suicide," Akane protested, giving him a look of exasperation. "Isn't there some other way?"

"Explosives maybe," Evans admitted. "But good luck trying to breach the hull near those points, and God only knows how much damage you'll do to other systems in the process. There's no time to get through the hull with precision cutting tools."

Hinako didn't like the idea any better than Akane, but she was out of able-bodied personnel who had both the necessary technical skills - and the guts - to do it. "What are the chances that Number One O2 bank will bleed down before the fire reaches it?"

Evans shook his head, an act that was clearly painful to him. "Number One was at 4500 PSI when we Jumped. At the maximum bleed rate through the rupture, it would take close to three hours to bring the pressure down to one atmosphere. With it leaking past the valves, it'll take much longer. We don't have that long before something bad happens."

"Right," Ranma declared. He thumped Ryouga on the shoulder. "Let's get suited up."

Ryouga turned to Ranma and gave him a stern look. There was no chance that he would refuse this opportunity to show Akane how brave he was, but to be upstaged by Ranma like this!

"You don't have to tell me, Ranma," he replied. "I would have gone without you."

Hinako looked at both of them.

"I can't thank you enough for what you're volunteering to do," she said in her sultry voice. She gave Ranma a penetrating look. "Perhaps I've misjudged you, Saotome."

"Save it," Ranma replied evenly. "I'm gonna want a rematch, you know."

Hinako gave him a tiny smile of approval. "Hopefully you'll get your chance." She turned to Doctor Tofu. "Get with the Chief Medical Officer and have them start moving the wounded up to the Greenhouses. The rest of us not actively involved in damage control will follow. If the airtight seals between decks start to fail when we vent 'G' Deck to space, the Greenhouses will be our only refuge."

Tofu nodded in reply. Invader Class JumpShips like the Dragonfly had two large bubbles outside the habitat where hydroponics gardens and small open air recreation areas were located. The Greenhouses supplied food crops and acted as a backup for the life-support machinery, and were well isolated from the primary habitat. Ordinarily in a situation like this, the DropShips could be used as lifeboats, but in this case, the fires and the loss of power had cut them off from such a refuge.

The 'E' Deck Airlock was the closest one to the affected part of the ship. Ranma and Ryouga struggled into their pressure suits, the lack of oxygen in the space making their efforts as difficult as the condition of free-fall they experienced.

Akane and Akari were with them. Akane because she wanted to be there when the two of them left the ship, and Akari because she had the tools they would need to complete their task. The demure technician floated close by, waiting patiently for them to finish the task of suiting up.

Ranma finally locked his helmet into place, visor up, then accepted a large transparent blast shield from Akari.

"Come on, Ryouga, we ain't got all day," he said to him.

Ryouga twisted his helmet into place. "Shut up, Ranma. Just try to stay out of my way, all right?"

"Gimme a break."

"Stop it, both of you!" Akane admonished them. "You were working so well together just a little while ago. What's gotten into you all of a sudden?"

Ranma looked at Ryouga and winked.

"Wouldn't she like to know, eh 'P-chan'?" he said in a voice too low for Akane to hear.

Ryouga grimaced, but said nothing.

Satisfied with their unspoken exchange, Ranma drifted towards the open inner door of the airlock, catching a small EVA thruster on the way. Akane reached out and snagged him by the foot, spinning him slowly in free-fall to face her.

"What's the big idea?" he asked her gruffly.

What had been concern on her face now became ire.

"I was going to ask you to be careful, Ranma," she said to him. "But now I couldn't care less about what happens to you. Jerk."

Her words stung, and he went on the defensive at once. "Oh yeah? Well what would I care about what some uncute tomboy like you thinks?"

"Ranma!" Ryouga barked. "Don't talk to her that way."

"That's okay, Ryouga," she said tersely. "I don't care what he thinks either." She gave him a forced smile. "Now you be careful, Ryouga. I mean it."

Ryouga blushed brightly as she took his gloved hands in hers.

"Whatever," Ranma muttered. He stepped inside the airlock to leave the two lovebirds to their good-byes.

Ryouga reluctantly let go of her hands and accepted the tool bag from Akari. He blushed again as their hands made brief contact in the exchange, but there was no time for words between them. Ranma was already complaining about what was taking so long.

"Can't you ever shut up?" he asked the pig-tailed mechwarrior as he joined him in the airlock.

"Nope," Ranma replied, dropping his visor and pressurizing his suit. He clutched at the clear polycarbonate blast shield he would use to protect them from the heat of the fire.

"If we get through this alive, I'm gonna kick your sorry ass, Ranma," Ryouga said to him as he dropped his own visor.

"You're welcome to try, man."

The airlock door went shut, and the air was cycled out. The last thing they saw before they turned to step out into deep space were the faces of Akane and Akari.

Ranma switched on his suit radio, and motioned for Ryouga to do the same. With the ship powerless, there was no way for anyone to monitor their conversation.

"You ready to do this, P-chan?"

"Shut up with that already," Ryouga returned. "What's your problem, Ranma?!"

"You sleeping in Akane's bed!" Ranma shot back. He stepped out of the airlock and into deep space.

Ryouga had no answer for that. It was true that he had enjoyed every moment of it at Ranma's expense, and it was also true that now there was no turning back for him as P-chan. If Akane were to find out that her beloved pet pig was not what he seemed to be... He shuddered in his suit at the thought.

"Come on, Ryouga," Ranma's voice crackled over the radio. "We ain't got all day."

He followed Ranma outside. The vast emptiness of space that now surrounded him shook him to very core of his being. Only the comfortable mass of the Dragonfly close at hand kept him from collapsing from vertigo on the spot.

Ranma was pointing out into space.

"Hey, check it out," he said.

Ryouga caught up to him and looked in the direction of his finger. A bright yellow orb glowed in the distance, shining forth with a light that humbled the cold pinpricks of the other stars.

"We made it," Ranma said with a relief. "We're somewhere instead of nowhere."

Ryouga sighed. If they had materialized in interstellar space, they would have been trapped forever, unable to Jump even if they were able to repair all of the damage to the ship. The K-F drive required a large gravity well in which to function, and such was not to be found in the void between the stars.

He triggered the small bank of jets on his EVA thruster, and started along the hull of the ship.

"Hey, Ryouga," Ranma said to him. "Aft is the other way."

He cringed inwardly and fired braking jets. Ranma was already moving towards the base of the dome shaped habitat of the Dragonfly, where the Engineering spaces could be found. The bricklike mass of the Palomino was beyond, attached firmly to the hull at the forward end of the long cylindrical mass of the JumpCore. At the far aft end were the plasma drives and the finger-like apparatus for furling and deploying the JumpSail.

When he caught up to Ranma, he was opening the outer door of the 'H' Deck airlock. It was a difficult task with no power, as he had to hand pump the hydraulic fluid through the operating mechanism. The orange glow of the fire spilled through the viewport of the door.

"It's gonna be hairy once we get inside," Ranma said to him. The airlock outer door finally began to move, venting to space the small amount of atmosphere within.

Ryouga could see the flames through the viewport of the inner door. The access panel for overriding the doors' safety interlocks was on the other side.

"I can see that."

Ranma gave him a questioning look. "You up for this?"

"You're holding the shield, Ranma," he returned. "You tell me."

Ranma nodded. "Right. Let's do it."

They floated inside the airlock and pumped the outer door shut from the inside. It was decided that since they were going to have to force the inner door open anyway, there was no point in equalizing pressure by filling the airlock with more combustible air.

The inner door was hot to the touch, a bad sign. Ryouga cranked on the hand pump as Ranma held the blast shield in front of the door. The airlock door creaked, then began to wrench open, sucking flames and hot gas into the tiny space with them.

More heat blazed at them, and flames curled around the edges of the shield, burning Ranma's fingertips through his gloves. He grunted back a curse and stepped into the inferno, trusting to his suit's environmental systems to protect him from the worst of it. Ryouga moved in behind him, searching for the access panel.

The bulkheads were scorched black from the heat, making it difficult to find. He was reduced to running his hands along the surface, feeling for cracks or handles. Ranma's grunts of pain and exertion filled his headset as the pig-tailed mechwarrior held the blast shield between the flames and themselves.

At last he found it. The metal was warped, and he had to wrench at it with all his might to open the panel. The metal of the rack-and-pinion interlock gleamed with heat discoloration within. Ryouga produced a pair of pliers, and began to work at the Jesus-clips and cotter pins that held the assembly together.

"Any time now, Ryouga," Ranma said tersely over his shoulder. The flames licked up at them from the deck, causing sudden waves of ice cold fluid from the environmental pack to course through the suit to compensate, making them shudder with the rapid extremes of temperature.

"I'm working on it!" Ryouga retorted, yanking fruitlessly at one of the fasteners with his pliers. No wonder they called them Jesus-clips!

A loud panting noise filled their ears, and suddenly another fireball crashed into them. Ranma yelped in pain over his shoulder as he wrenched the clip loose with a curse.

"The ventilation dampers must be leaking by," Ranma hissed. "'G' Deck builds up pressure from the oxygen leak and the heat, then it relieves through the dampers down here to 'H' Deck."

"Don't talk while I'm busy!" Ryouga growled.

"Bite me! This shield's getting too freakin' hot to handle!"

"I'm almost done! Now shut up!"

He wrenched at the last cotter pin, pulling it free. All he had to do now was disengage the pinion from the rest of the assembly, and the safety interlock that prevented both airlock doors from being open at once would be defeated.

"Dammit!" he swore.

"What is it?" Ranma asked.

"The damn pinion won't disengage! It's stuck!" He began pounding on it with a crescent wrench.

"OWWWGoddammit!" Ranma yelled back. "Don't say that! I can't do this for much longer! Shit! My goddamn feet are melting to the deck!"

Ryouga continued to wrench at the recalcitrant pinion assembly, to no avail.

"Ryyyyoooouuugaaaa!" Ranma howled as another fireball rolled over the shield to engulf them. "This hurts! Hurry the hell up!"

"I'M TRYING!"

Ryouga pounded one final time on the pinion, then threw the wrench away and lurched into the airlock with a guttural snarl. He clenched the outer door handle in both hands and began to pull with all his might. Veins popped out on his neck and brow as he wrenched at the door with everything he had.

The pinion assembly groaned with the strain, but continued to hold.

"GODDAMN YOU!!!" Ryouga screamed at the door. "OPEN UP!!!"

A loud crack filled his ears as something broke inside the airlock mechanism, and the outer door lurched halfway open. The sudden rush of rapid decompression sucked a huge tongue of flame through the airlock and across his body as 'H' Deck began to depressurize.

Furinkan Combine JumpShip Imperator

Capella System Zenith Jump Point

Capella System, the Nerima Confederation

2 April 3025

Tatewaki Kuno studied the reports offered to him by Captain Kyle in his private sanctum. The invasion of the system had proceeded as planned, with the added bonus of the intact capture of the system's defensive battlestations. He was glad he had decided to wait rather than press the attack against the Confederation, allowing Nabiki Tendo the opportunity to inform him of their weaknesses in time to act. The little traitoress was full of useful information it seemed. After his encounter with his beloved Akane Tendo and the cursed Saotomes on Capra, as had been foretold by Nabiki Tendo in her secret missive from Nerima, he was convinced of her veracity.

Though he was eager to press on with the siege of Nerima, he decided to wait a bit longer in the hope that Nabiki would provide him with further information about the planet's defenses. What did a few more days matter when it meant that his forces could be employed full-strength against the League of Five Nails? For that matter, the more Confederation troops that remained intact in the end, the more useful troops he could bring to bear in his conquest of the Inner Sphere.

Yes, he decided, he could afford a little patience.

As was his custom at this time of the day cycle, he set aside the reports and took a light lunch. The repast was excellent as always, but for the nagging worry that something terrible had befallen his beloved Akane Tendo and the mysterious Pig-Tailed Girl, which made him unable to fully appreciate the cuisine. The ship that they were almost certainly aboard had executed a hyperspace jump well outside the normal volume of the Jump Point - an extremely risky maneuver. They had dematerialized just outside of the gunnery range of the pursuing GunShip Sekigahara. What was not known was where or even if they had materialized at the other end of the Jump.

Would the gods deny him that which he desired most in the universe? He had not been exaggerating when he declared to Akane Tendo his feelings for her. The Inner Sphere meant nothing to him without her to rule by his side. And then, what of the Pig-Tailed Girl? Could he now forsake her, having borne witness to her magnificence? Had he not cursed Saotome for enslaving her, an Angel of Light, to his fell cause?

Was it not his duty to free her from his vile clutches?

He decided that it was. Images filled his mind of the Pig-Tailed Girl swooning demurely and graciously before him, offering everything that she had to him in gratitude. His heart began to race at the thought of taking such a firebrand as the red-haired goddess into his arms.

But could he accept her offers? Was that not an offense against his pure love for Akane Tendo?

Tatewaki fell to his knees in anguish, tears streaming down his face. How could he love one and forsake the other? O, the cursed misery of it!

His tears stopped abruptly as another possibility crept over him.

Could he not love them both?

The idea filled him with hope, for it was not uncommon in history for a man of such power and manifest destiny as his own to take more than one wife. Yes, he thought happily, the three of them together!

He finished his meal quietly and set the dishes aside for the steward to clear away. Akane Tendo was fated to be his, he decided firmly, as was the Pig-Tailed Girl. Not even the physical laws of the universe could come between them. He would refuse to accept any other possibility. It was the only way he could bring himself to continue.

Tatewaki stood. He would pay a visit to his sister, who was still unconscious in the intensive care suite, and then work out his tensions in his private dojo. The order for the deployment to Nerima would be given at the evening meal, giving him the opportunity to address his troops all at once.

Kodachi lay in her bed, still tied to tubes and sensor leads as she had been since she was taken from surgery. She had recovered enough strength to be taken off the respirator, and her prognosis was good. As Tatewaki stood by the door to her room he noted that a bit more color had returned to her cheeks since yesterday.

In spite of her madness, she was truly a Kuno, he thought solemnly. He considered himself fortunate in escaping the eccentricities of his bloodline, of which his twisted sister and his hated father suffered most grievously. The burden of bearing the only sanity in the family was trying at times, but in his opinion served to temper him for his eventual rule.

He watched his sister's slow steady breathing for awhile, satisfied that she would indeed recover as expected. Soon she would have to be moved to the Periphery, preferrably before she regained consciousness. He would have to pay the Surgeon a visit later, to secure his concurrence in moving her. It was a formality, but these things must be observed.

"...ranma..."

He started at the mention of the hated mechwarrior's name, and turned to confirm that Kodachi had in fact spoken it.

"...my darling... my incomparable... my ranma..."

He felt queasy at hearing these words spoken by his own flesh and blood. Had the woman no shame?

Kodachi continued on in a dreamstate, her eyes rolling behind her eyelids in REM sleep. A sly smile crept over her lips, and she made a noise that was distinctly sexual in its context. An uncomfortable cold sweat broke out on Kuno's brow at hearing his sister close to orgasm.

Had his sister taken this cretin to her bed? Had she debased herself with an enemy of the Combine? It made his stomach churn, for while she had long ago cast away the shackles of her virginity, she had also exercised a certain amount of restraint in her affairs. It was deplorable for a Kuno, of course, but at least it wasn't treason!

"...god, what a man you are... oh god, ranma... ranma...!"

He could not bear another moment of it. With a disgusted shake of his head, he left the room as swiftly as his feet would carry him. Perhaps that convent in the Periphery would do her more good than he had anticipated.

Sasuke was outside the room when he stepped through the door. The ninja bowed deeply for his lord as he approached.

"Speak, man," Tatewaki ordered him.

Sasuke looked up submissively.

"My lord, you ordered me to report to you when I was prepared to depart for the surface of Nerima. I am here."

Tatewaki nodded.

"Ah yes," he said thoughtfully. "Thy orders are to find and make contact with Nabiki Tendo. Tell her nothing of our intentions, and enter into no bargains with her. Officially, thou art merely an intermediary between us."

Sasuke bowed.

"And unofficially, my lord?"

Tatewaki smiled thinly. "I wish to know of her true intentions. I do not fully trust her, not even after all she hath done to persuade me. She bears careful watching, and thy task is to pay close heed."

"Upon my life, lord."

Tatewaki grunted in amusement. "Indeed."

Dragon of the Black Pool Fortress

Planet Tau Ceti IV, Tau Ceti System

Jusenkyo Commonwealth

3 April 3025

Shampoo found the gardens of the fortress to be a godsend, giving her a place of comfortable solitude filled with life and fragrance when she really needed it. Mousse had kept his distance from her as well, which was relaxing in itself.

Her stay had been uneventful thus far; though General Herb and his entourage had arrived from Lightoller, he had not convened the debriefing, and had made no attempt to contact her. The only thing that had marred her own arrival was the fact that Laughing Orchid had died shortly before planetfall. The funeral ashes had been scattered on Tau Ceti's winds days ago. There was no autopsy, as per Joketsuzoku custom, though Shampoo knew that even if one had been performed, Pink was too skilled a poisoner to use something that would leave detectable traces behind.

Laughing Orchid's death was officially listed as a fatal allergic reaction to conditions encountered on Capra. It was rare, but not unknown for a person's immune system to rebel completely against the body when faced with alien toxins, and in spite of the battery of antihistimines travellers were normally subjected to prior to planetfall. Unofficially

of course, Laughing Orchid's cause of death might be better listed as having crossed Pink in some way. Assuming there was still an expedition after Herb's inquisition, she would have to speak to her privately about the matter.

Herb would probably cast a more suspicious eye on the matter, but now that there was no longer a body to examine, what could he do? What concerned Shampoo more was that Herb was taking his time about conducting the debrief. The hybrid general was being extremely calculating in whatever it was that he had planned.

Perhaps he was assessing his position. Tau Ceti was a world that owed a great deal to her great-grandmother, and so he had to know that he was treading upon dangerous ground in spite of his authority from the Elder Council. If she had been ordered to bring the Intangible to the Epsilon Indi System instead, matters might have been very different for her indeed.

Shampoo stretched out beneath a shade tree to sleep. She knew that she had to remain on her guard when she finally faced Herb, and to do that she needed to be well rested. She was a warrior, and all these thoughts of intrigue and plotting were wearisome to her.

"So tell me, Mousse," the voice of General Herb said behind Mousse's back. "Have you enjoyed your freedom thus far?"

Mousse froze at the sound of his enemy's voice. The urge to kill the hybrid general rose in him, and it took several moments of sheer will to set it aside.

"I have done my duty," he replied, turning and offering a salute.

Herb was flanked by his lieutenants, Lime and Mint. His red reptilian eyes caught the light of Tau Ceti like polished garnets, dark and sanguine as his mood.

"Have you now?" he asked Mousse sardonically. "I suppose you have... - After a manner of speaking. Kima is dead, and your beloved Shampoo now commands the expedition. You've done your duty to Shampoo rather well, I expect. A pity about Kima, though..."

Mousse remained impassive.

Herb cleared his throat imperiously. "You haven't changed," he said at length. "Still a slave to her. A willing slave, in spite of her rejection of you time and again."

Mousse could bear this abuse no longer.

"Shampoo at least serves with me," he said flatly. "As I recall, she couldn't even stand to be on the same planet as you, General, sir."

Herb flushed red. Lime began to move towards Mousse with abundant menace on his face, but the general held him back with a look.

"Well said," he replied, still burning within. "I had no doubt of your loyalty to her, Mousse, which is why I have decided to approach you directly in this matter."

"What matter?" Mousse asked. "The inquisition where you hold her accountable for what happened on Capra?"

"Perceptive as always, in spite of your blind eyes," Herb conceded. "Yes, it is about that. And what comes after. You'd do well to listen right now."

Mousse nodded. "I'm listening. Sir."

"Good. You can no doubt imagine why I was chosen to handle the investigation into your failure and Kima's death."

Mousse nodded again.

Herb continued. "The Council wants blood. Specifically, Shampoo's blood. This is twice for her in two months, and they are weary of her failures."

"Shampoo had nothing to do with what happened on Capra!" Mousse protested angrily.

Herb shook his head sadly. "Don't be a fool, Mousse. Do you really believe such particulars matter to certain members of the Elder Council who feel a change is in order for the leadership of the Clan?"

Mousse's face paled. Herb wasn't talking merely of some petty infighting between rivals on the Elder Council, he was talking about an outright coup!

"I see that you finally understand," Herb said quietly. "Good. It will make this much easier, I think. Yes, Cologne has one foot out the door at this moment, and Peony waxes in the ascendant. Cologne's personal intervention on Shampoo's behalf has angered many on the Council, and to have it end in abysmal failure, with great loss of life and the loss of irreplaceable Commonwealth assets, is inexcusable.

"Shampoo is but the catalyst for this changing of the guard. Her execution will bring down Cologne's bloodline in disgrace, and with it her temporal control over the Clan. The Council will call for a vote of No Confidence in Cologne's rule, and out she'll go. I expect that she will be retired to an estate far away in the Periphery to live out what few years remain to her."

Mousse's heart trembled with rage. How could this hybrid bastard speak so callously of Shampoo's death and Cologne's ouster?

"Why are you telling me this?" he asked between clenched teeth.

"Because I like to play both sides against the middle," Herb said with a smile. "As much as I would love to see Cologne thrown down from her high pedestal, I realize that other than myself, she is the only one with the ability to lead the Commonwealth in the coming struggle with the Furinkan Combine. Peony is a bean counter, not a mechwarrior, and the rest of the Council are a gaggle of gobbling old crones who sit in authority by virtue of their antiquity. It would be suicide to seriously entertain such folly as putting Peony in command."

Mousse had no idea where Herb was going with this, and the look on his face confirmed it.

"Allow me to explain," Herb offered. "I know full well about the purpose of your assignment, since Peony was stupid enough to trust me with the knowledge when she recruited me for this kangaroo court - yet another strike against her, I'm afraid. If Ryuugenzawa exists, and I believe it does, it will be a powerful asset in our war against the Combine. It is a discovery we can't afford to jeopardize because of Peony's blind ambition.

"Shampoo will have to go on living, you see. To continue the mission to find the Saotomes and Ryuugenzawa. Of course, she won't be working for the Council anymore..."

"She'll be working for you," Mousse pointed out.

"Actually, you will be working for me," Herb corrected him. "I know her too well to expect her to knowingly take orders from me. You will act as my intermediary - but you will claim everything comes from Cologne. I'll finance the affair personally, but in exchange, all of your reports come back to my headquarters."

"Why would Shampoo care about anything I say?"

Herb shook his head sadly. "So hopeful and yet so hopeless, Mousse. You desire her love and yet you rate yourself beneath it. However do you expect to win her heart?"

Mousse was silent.

Herb cleared his throat again. "To answer your question: by the time I'm finished, you will be the only friend she has left. You'll just have to trust me at this point, as far as the particulars go."

Mousse thought this over. "I don't see how this helps keep Cologne as Matriarch."

"Leave that to me," Herb said flatly. "Let us say for the moment that I exercise a great deal of influence in Peony's faction, as she doesn't have much of an army to back her claim without me. All Cologne needs to do is bluff about civil war, and without me, Peony will fold. So you see, if I do not give my tacit approval, the topic of replacing Cologne will never see the light of day."

Mousse nodded ruefully. Herb had covered his bases well. Peony depended on him for her coup, and Cologne would have no choice but to be grateful to him for squelching it when the time came to reveal his true position in the matter. And if she felt less than grateful (which was likely in Mousse's personal opinion), she still had to recognize the power he held over her.

"You haven't explained why I would work for you any more than Shampoo would."

Herb smiled thinly. "Mousse, you are perceptive, but like your weak eyes, you lack the ability to see very far in front of your nose. Once Ryuugenzawa is under my control, who do you think will represent the true power of the Commonwealth? Cologne will be necessary, of course, in rallying the country against the Furinkan Combine, but once we have crushed them, she will no longer serve any purpose to me. The Musk Dynasty will rise up and cast off a thousand years of matriarchal tyranny!"

He threw his hands up in pride.

"Consider this, Mousse. For the first time in your life, you will no longer be a second class citizen. Men will rule the Commonwealth, men will make all the decisions..." His eyes narrowed at Mousse. "And men will choose their own brides. Think about that last point very carefully, Mousse."

Mousse did think about it. Shampoo as his bride. It was all he had ever dreamed of. Unfortunately it sounded too good to be true.

"What's to stop you from taking her yourself?" he asked. "After all, if this comes to pass, you'll be the ruler of the entire Commonwealth."

Herb inclined his head to Mousse as if conceding the point.

"I understand your suspicions, but to tell the truth, Shampoo means no more to me than a matter of personal conquest. I prefer my wives to be somewhat more docile creatures. You may do with her as you please, Mousse, if you think you can handle her."

Mousse closed his eyes and gave Herb's proposal some more thought.

"What if I still say no?"

Herb clucked mournfully at him. "There are other ways to obtain the information I need; my offer to you was simply the most expedient. If you insist on rejecting my proposal, then I'm afraid I'll have to exercise my prerogative as Adjudicator in the matter of Kima's death and your failure at Capra to apprehend the Saotomes. Shampoo won't be put to death, she's far too valuable to me as a bargaining chip between the factions on the Council for that, but a few years of forced labor at one of my private farms on Dok To might make her, shall we say, a bit more conducive to my advances..." He turned his head to Lime and then Mint. "And to the advances of just about anyone, really."

Lime and Mint broke into dreamy smiles, complete with lines of drool down the corners of their mouths at the thought.

"If I can't get what I want, Mousse," Herb said gravely, and his eyes flashed maroon and crimson in the sunlight. "Then it really doesn't matter what happens to anyone else. Consider that as well."

Mousse lowered his head.

"Tell me what I have to do."

Nerima Confederation JumpShip Dragonfly

Position Unknown, Date Unknown

Akane sat in the Port Greenhouse with the rest of the ship's complement. They could see the bright star in the distance and knew as well as Ranma and Ryouga that they had materialized in a star system rather than empty space. There was talk of using an auxiliary airlock in the Greenhouse to reach the Palomino and search for a habitable planet - in the event that the two mechwarriors failed and the oxygen bank exploded.

Akane would have nothing to do with such talk. Even though it had been more than twenty minutes since she had left them in the 'E' Deck airlock, there had been no word from them. The fire had been left to run its course, with the remainder of the ship locked down as best as could be done.

A growing fear gnawed at her in spite of her assertions that Ranma and Ryouga would succeed. What if something had happened to them? Shouldn't someone stay behind in the ship just in case they needed help?

Captain Ninomiya was adamant about keeping everyone in the Greenhouse. It was the safest place on the ship, she continued to assert. Akane found it hard to take the Captain seriously after she had reverted back to her child body, and begun cavorting among the hydroponic flower gardens of the Greenhouse's promenade.

Pansuto Tarou stalked his prey through the darkened passageways of the Dragonfly with the knowledge that his nemesis wasn't invincible. The bright blobs of fresh blood that drifted in free fall around him were proof of that. Happousai would not escape him this time.

In spite of the mortal danger they were all in, he had found that the disaster the ship faced made for the ideal time to strike against Happousai. No one would miss the little freak in the confusion, and he doubted that anyone would question his death by some horrible accident as a result of damage to the ship.

He floated on through the passageways, ignoring the heat that radiated up from the fires below, and wary of an ambush the way Happousai should have been when he first struck. It was blind luck that he had sensed his presence that first time, but he hadn't been fast enough to escape the knife completely. From all of the blood in the air, he judged that his hit had been a good one, even if it wasn't immediately incapacitating. His greatest fear now was that Happousai had already bled to death before he would get his chance to gloat.

It was of no matter, he told himself finally. As long as Happousai was dead, and knew who had killed him, that was enough. The little freak knew whose hand had guided the knife, so all that remained was the killing.

He had Happousai trapped below 'D' Deck, and far from any help from the ship's complement cowering up in the Greenhouses. The only working hatch up to 'D' Deck had been thoughtfully locked shut by the retreating crew from the other side, and with the fire burning out of control on 'G' Deck, there were only a limited number of places Happousai could go.

Happousai crept with a silence borne of absolute self-control. Tarou lurked in the darkness of the starship, hunting for him. The knife that had nearly ended his life in a flash of cold steel sought to finish the task the bishonen mechwarrior had set for it.

As it stood, he was injured. He could not remember the last time he had been so grievously wounded, and the shock of it had made him lose his head and flee rather than face Tarou while he was human and vulnerable. He was in control of himself now, and the master of martial arts in him was taking charge.

The wound continued to bleed freely in spite of his hasty attempts at dressing it. The knife had plunged deep into his back, probably getting a piece of his kidney - from all the blood he was losing - but missing any large blood vessels that would have killed him outright. He was lucky. It pained him to think that he had been so easily taken by an amateur like Tarou, but that was for another time. He hadn't reached the golden afternoon of his life without taking advantage of lucky breaks when and where they presented themselves.

He had planned on murdering Tarou anyway, and so the thought of killing him now posed no threat to even his stunted code of morality. The fact that he was leaking blood like a sieve only added a sense of urgency to the matter. Tarou could follow that blood right to him no matter where he went, and if he had changed into his monstrous Jusenkyo form, who knew what his sense of smell would be capable of?

He had to assume that Tarou had changed by now. The stab in the dark had been a spurious attack, Tarou taking advantage of the chaos of the ship's distress to murder a hated enemy. Now that he had escaped, and the assassination attempt had turned into a hunt, Tarou would be wary and prepared.

Where could he go that would give him the best advantage? He rightfully feared Tarou's strength and resilience in his Jusenkyo body, and he knew that he himself was no longer the fire-spitting hellraiser of his youth. One on one against Tarou's Jusenkyo body in a fair fight was a losing proposition, but then, who was he to fight fairly?

He was on 'E' Deck, after having learned that he was trapped below by the Dragonfly's crew. The fires that burned in the Engineering spaces must have been pretty bad, he realized, but then he had never bothered to learn much in the way of technical skills or damage control, and so it hadn't concerned him when it first came up. There wasn't much on 'E' Deck for him to take advantage of. It was mostly storage and bulk tankage for the life support systems.

'D' Deck had the Grav-Deck, which had been secured for the Jump, and thus was still in free fall. It would have made the ideal place for an ambush with its many passageways and compartments. Unfortunately, he couldn't get there since the crew had locked down all access against the fire. 'F' Deck marked the beginning of the Engineering spaces, but its atmosphere had to be completely foul by now. The air was bad enough where he was.

He would have to make his stand here, he realized. 'E' Deck had an airlock, and that would suit his purposes even if there was no power to automatically cycle it.

His eyes narrowed, and a chuckle escaped his lips as a plan formed. In spite of the pain, and of the numbing sensations he was experiencing in his extremities, he knew he had enough juice left in him for one last surprise.

Pansuto Tarou followed the drops of blood that hung suspended in the still air of 'E' Deck. He wore a flask of cold water tucked in his sash, and in his hand carried a squeeze bulb of hot water. The other hand held the knife, still slicked with Happousai's blood. The squeeze bulb would allow him to change quickly in zero-gravity. It would not do to be seen by one of the crew in his monster form, and even though they had retreated towards the bow, there was the possibility that there might still be one of the crew below 'D' Deck. He had no desire to kill anyone else today if he could help it.

The blood trail led away from the hub of the starship, towards the pressure hull. He followed warily, noting the irregular blotches and stains along the bulkheads, deck, and overhead indicating that his prey was starting to lose control over his flight. He had to be close to bleeding to death by now.

The trail ended before the 'E' Deck airlock door. Happousai floated limply in free-fall, his tiny hands stretched out in vain to work the blood slicked manual controls which lay exposed in the open access panel. Happousai was dead, it seemed, and all Tarou could bring himself to feel was disappointment.

The inner airlock door was slightly ajar. Apparently his nemesis had been trying to hide inside and avoid notice, but had expired before he could get it open far enough. Tarou's shaggy face broke into a smile. He might as well oblige the little freak.

He slipped the knife into his pantyhose sash and finished turning the wheel that manually opened the inner door the rest of the way. Happousai floated before the door lifelessly, his glassy eyes wide open in a stare of death, and his clothing soaked with dark red blood. Tarou sighed. He would have liked to have been able to confront Happousai before the end. As he had told Kima right before he crushed her spine, he had come to accept what he had become, but damn Happousai for not giving him a choice.

He could cycle the airlock manually from the staging area, and because the pumps would not work due to the loss of electrical power, the chamber would still be pressurized. Overriding and opening the outer door would eject Happousai's body cleanly into deep space.

One of his huge paws locked around the body of Happousai. He was cool to the touch from having bled out, and the limbs moved stiffly in free-fall. All it would take was one good toss to put Happousai out of Tarou's misery forever.

As he cocked back his arm for the deed, Happousai blinked.

Despite his surprise, Tarou managed to keep his head enough to try and clamp down on the diminutive mechwarrior in the hopes of squashing him dead, but Happousai squirted free with a cackle, and grabbed up the bottle of hot water from his hand. A hot jet of the stuff sprayed into his face, transforming him back to a human in a haze of water vapor.

"Idiot," Happousai spat at him as Tarou groped blindly for his knife. "You should have made sure I was dead while you had the chance."

"Goddamn you!" Tarou snarled back, as angry at himself for being taken in as much as he was at Happousai for getting away. "How did you...?"

"Come on," Happousai wheezed. "Did you really think a true master of martial arts wouldn't have learned to utilize certain cateleptic trances for just such an event?" He sprang past Tarou with a laugh, just avoiding the questing blade.

"It won't be a trance next time, I promise," Tarou replied furiously.

His wizened mechwarrior foe was behind him now, and he was wide open to Happousai's attack. He spun about in free-fall, slashing desperately with the knife. Happousai twisted clear, and pulled himself along the length of Tarou's arm in a flash to kick him square in the mouth. His head rocked back, and Happousai's blood-slicked hands clamped down on the carotid arteries just behind the jawline.

Happousai became a leech attached to the back of his head, and his cold claw-like hands dug into the flesh behind his ears, pinching the arteries against the jawbone and interrupting the flow of blood to his brain. Tarou brought his own hands back to dislodge him, and earned himself savage bites on the fingertips. A tunnel of black overtook the periphery of his vision as the oxygen supply remaining to his brain was expended. It would only take a few seconds before he...

He was reeling now with anoxia, twisting and lurching clumsily in free-fall as Happousai made wet spitting hisses of exertion in his ears. A roaring sound filled his consciousness as the tunnel of darkness expanded in his field of vision to leave only a tiny window of dim light. Losing himself in the swelling darkness, groaning out one last curse, he twisted one final time to crash limply against a bulkhead.

Happousai released his grip on Tarou's arteries, wheezing with pain and exertion. His own heart fluttered in his chest, and waves of dizziness washed over him. It had been a close thing between them as to who would black out first.

He dragged the weightless Tarou into the airlock and cranked the door shut. It would only take a few minutes to override and open the outer door to complete the job. He just needed to rest a bit first.

"What's taking them so long?" Akane asked worriedly.

"Have patience," Genma replied.

"They should have been able to get the airlock doors open by now," she continued. "How can you just sit there when your own son is risking his life for you?"

Genma's lips pursed.

"No one asked the boy to do it," he said at length. "He knew the risks involved when he volunteered. I respect his decision."

"That's not answering my question," she pointed out.

Genma blinked several times, but did not continue the conversation.

The ship trembled slightly around them.

"What was that?" Akane cried. Had the oxygen bank exploded?

One of the Dragonfly's crew looked up. "It felt like there was some kind of thrust on the ship," he replied.

The trembling became a barely perceptible vibration that continued for some time. Akane noticed that the normal conditions of free-fall within the hydroponic gardens of the Greenhouse gave way to a tiny amount of perceived gravity, and the stars shining outside the dome began to slowly shift their positions.

"They've done it," Genma announced gravely.

"Done what?" Akane asked, still very confused.

"They've depressurized 'H' and 'G' Decks," the crewman explained to her. "All that air rushing out of the airlock is acting like a thruster. We're turning slowly to port."

"Oh, thank the gods," Akane breathed with relief.

They continued their vigil, waiting for Ranma and Ryouga to return and give a report of what happened before returning to the habitat. The minutes dragged on long after the thrust on the starship had ceased. They were in a slow spin, with just enough perceived gravity to make them feel slightly disoriented when they moved. It was correctable once power was restored to the Helm and the engines, but until then they would have to live with it.

After what seemed an eternity to Akane, the primary airtight door linking the Greenhouse to 'C' Deck slid open. She rushed to the door in time to catch two pressure-suited figures in her arms as they fell face first into an unconscious tumble in free-fall. The stench of smoke and soot was heavy on them, and their suits were burned black and flaking off small bits of material to surround them in a dirty nimbus of charcoal.

"Ranma! Ryouga!" she cried as she tried to steady their tumble. Their eyes were closed, and their faces were ashen white behind their scorched visors. Arrays of small red lights flashed urgently on their torso mounted suit status displays.

There was no reply from either of them.

Federated Shiratori Battlemech Forces Mobile Command

Planet Tiber, Palatine System

The Federated Shiratori

2 April 3025

Brigadier Ukyou Kuonji looked out at the night sky of her personal balcony in time to see a shooting star streak across the heavens. She took advantage of this small stroke of fortune to make a wish. She closed her eyes and thought hard, as if by a sheer act of will upon the white hot chunk of blazing space rock, she could force it to grant her wish.

She had a lot to wish for, she realized when she was done, and the meteor had faded to invisible motes of dust in the sky. Chief of Staff Sanzenin was still on the planet, but he wasn't running things as he should have been. That onerous task remained hers, and hers alone.

Was it too much to ask that one of the battlemech troops accidentally step on him during the evening pass-in-review?

"Brigadier Kuonji?"

She turned from the balcony of her private apartments to see Major Konatsu at the door, dressed in slippers and a yukata with an absolutely gorgeous honeybee and daffodil print pattern. Konatsu always did have better taste in clothes than herself, she admitted. He had brought her a tray of milk and cookies, a personal indulgence she had thought was a secret known only to her. She should have known better, she realized, in having a former kunoichi for an adjutant.

"Thanks, sugar," she told him with a tired smile. His eyes widened slightly at her term of endearment. It didn't matter much to him if she was in the habit of calling just about anyone that she didn't outright hate by that particular term.

"Can I get you anything else, sir?" he asked quietly.

She blew her chestnut bangs out of her eyes. "Oh I dunno," she said absently. "How about a new life?"

Konatsu bowed uncomfortably.

"If it is in my power to give, sir, I shall do it."

Ukyou shook her head slowly. Konatsu's devotion to her was heart-warming sometimes, and exasperating the rest of the time.

"I didn't mean that literally," she told him, walking over to the table with the tray. "But I appreciate the thought."

She sat down at the table and plucked a cookie from the tray. The dear had brought her frosted animal cookies - her absolute favorite in the entire universe!

"You shouldn't have," she told him with a grin. "But I can't eat all of these myself. Have a seat."

Konatsu blushed. "Really, sir, I couldn't."

Ukyou dunked a cookie in her milk and ate it.

"There's only one person here who needs to worry about her girlish figure, sugar, and it isn't you. Have a seat."

Konatsu blushed again.

Ukyou knew that it pained him more often than not to be reminded of his true gender, but sometimes his girl act hit too close to home for her - especially where interesting, eligible men were concerned.

"If you insist, sir," he said softly, and took a seat, his eyes averted from her.

"Well?" she pressed.

He looked up briefly, doing his best to avoid eye-contact, and took a cookie from the tray. He ate it gingerly, as if afraid to spread crumbs on the nice clean tablecloth.

"Much better," Ukyou said with a chuckle. "Try to look like you're enjoying it, at least."

Konatsu cracked a weak smile. "Yes, sir."

"And stop with the 'sir' crap," she told him sternly. "Around the troops, I expect it, but here... It drives me nuts, sometimes."

Konatsu nodded meekly. "Yes sir, I mean, Miss Kuonji."

Ukyou made a face of disgust.

"Ugh... 'Miss Kuonji?' You make it sound like I'm some old spinster. How many times do we have to go over this, Konatsu? When it's just the two of us, call me Ukyou, okay?"

Konatsu's face was wracked with discomfort. "Yes, sir... I mean... Miss... I mean... Ukyou..."

"Work on it, honey," she instructed him as she ate another cookie.

Konatsu ate a second cookie, if only because he feared she would tell him to do so if he refrained. They continued on like this for some time, the silence heavy over them.

"Konatsu?" Ukyou asked him at length. "Do you mind if I bounce something off you?"

Konatsu looked up from his half-eaten cookie.

"I am prepared to accept whatever punishment you deem fit, sir, I mean, Ukyou..."

Ukyou brought a hand up to her brow wearily. "I meant an idea."

The kunoichi blinked twice in surprise.

"You would ask my unworthy opinion on some matter? Me?"

"Yes, you," she returned. "Do you see anyone else in the room?"

Konatsu actually looked around to confirm this, causing Ukyou to give a heavy sigh and gobble down a handful of cookies in despair.

"No... um, Ukyou, I do not."

"Now that we've established that there are just the two of us," she said to him. "What would you say if I told you that I was considering my resignation?"

Konatsu blinked several more times in surprise.

"Do you mean this?" he managed.

"I've been giving this a lot of thought, Konatsu, and I honestly don't think that I can continue being Mikado's whipping girl for much longer. I'm going to murder him one of these days, and end up answering to a firing squad..."

Konatsu bolted to attention, his eyes wet with tears of devotion. "Let not this burden consume you, I beg! My dearest Ukyou, please allow me the honor and the sacrifice of ending General Sanzenin's life! If it pleases you, I shall die gladly!"

It was Ukyou's turn to blink in surprise.

"Sit down, Konatsu," she said softly.

Konatsu did so, though he seemed quite disappointed at losing his opportunity to sacrifice his life for her sake.

"I appreciate what you're trying to do for me, Konatsu. I really do. The whole point of this is that I don't want to kill Mikado. But if I don't get out from under him, it's going to end up happening, I just know it. That's why I have to resign."

Konatsu remained silent for some time, analyzing the situation from every angle. Each time he came up with the same terrifying conclusion.

"But...?" he began, and then the words failed him.

Ukyou sensed the nature of his distress.

"Konatsu, I couldn't get rid of you if I tried," she told him.

Konatsu closed his eyes, and tears spilled down his face. "You could, dearest Ukyou," he said reverently. "If you wished for me to go, I would go. There would be no question of my obedience to you."

Ukyou blushed bright red. She had always understood Konatsu's devotion to her for what it seemed, that he was grateful to her for taking him under her wing, and sparing him further abuse at the hands of his mother and sisters. What she saw in him now was something altogether more intimate, and it spooked her a little.

"Don't worry about it yet, sugar," she told him. "I've decided to give it two more weeks before I make up my mind."

Konatsu opened his eyes and wiped demurely at his tears with a small handkerchief he always kept with him for feminine moments like these. Would his beloved Ukyou leave him? Could he bear it, and do as she asked? As to whether or not he would leave if she told him to do so, he knew that he would. He would sooner die than go against her wishes. What tore at him the most was the fact that he knew he couldn't bear a life without her.

Ranma Saotome opened his eyes to discover himself in a lush garden filled with flowers and creeping vines. He felt as light as a feather floating in this ethereal greensward, surrounded by the cool glow of starlight and soft voices. He tried to move, but his limbs would not respond. The moment was too surreal for him, and he yelped in panic at the sudden, horrifying idea that he had not survived the fire.

The yelp drew immediate attention, and he felt warm hands on his brow in reassurance. His eyes darted to the presence he sensed behind him, and he beheld an angelic face that did little to reassure him in his thoughts of mortality.

"Mechwarrior Saotome, sir," the sweet voice said to him. "Are you feeling better now?"

Ranma blinked several times in thought, trying to put the voice and the face together.

"I think so, Akari," he said finally. "Am I in the Greenhouse?"

She nodded.

"Is everything okay?"

"Yes, sir," she replied. "You and Mechwarrior Hibiki were able to extinguish the fires about nine hours ago. Since then, the crew has been restoring power and cleaning up the atmosphere."

Ranma nodded slowly. He had been out for nine hours? He vaguely remembered closing the 'H' Deck airlock inner door with Ryouga after successfully depressurizing the two affected decks. From there they had isolated the leaking 02 bank, inspected 'G' Deck to verify the fires were out, and then repressurized the decks with inert nitrogen from one of the surviving N2 banks. He didn't remember getting as far as the Greenhouse.

"Where's Ryouga?"

Akari blushed at the mention of his name. "Mechwarrior Hibiki is right here with you, sir."

Ranma craned his head over his shoulder to see Ryouga floating unconsciously in free-fall, wrapped loosely in a silvery exposure blanket, and tied to an intravenous drip. It was only then that he noticed that he was also hooked up to an IV, and that his arms were gently restrained to keep him from struggling in zero-gravity and pulling out the needle.

Doctor Tofu floated over to them then, smiling broadly in his usual manner. Oddly, his hands were spotted with fresh blood in several places.

"Ah, Ranma," he said to him while removing the IV drip and the various restraints. "How are you feeling?"

He took an internal inventory before responding. He had certainly felt better. His skin was red and sore from flash burns, his throat was dry and raw from breathing extremely hot air, and his eyes seemed overly sensitive to light.

"Not too great," he replied.

"That's to be expected," Tofu said, nodding. "You're suffering from extreme dehydration and heat stress, not to mention that you've got first degree burns over most of your body."

"How about Ryouga?"

"The same. I expect he'll be waking up soon enough. I prescribed some acupressure and a mild sedative for the two of you, in order to let you rest in spite of the burns. I'm worried mostly about your left arm where you were shot last February. The skin there is very new."

Ranma looked at his arm. It was about the same ruddy color as the rest of him, and felt no better and no worse.

"I don't feel any difference," he said to the doctor.

"That's good," Tofu said with a nod. "I'd like to keep an eye on it anyway."

"Fair enough. So what's with the blood stains?"

Tofu looked down at himself.

"Oh this," he said absently. "It's very strange. When the crew returned to the habitat to begin repairs, they found Master Happousai near death outside the 'E' Deck airlock." He looked gravely at Ranma. "He had been stabbed in the back."

Ranma's eyes widened. "No way!" he breathed. "The old geezer got stabbed?"

"I'm afraid so," Tofu declared. "The Ship's Surgeon, Doctor Mayinga, asked me to assist with the surgery. It was touch and go for awhile, but it looks like he'll pull through."

Ranma looked away. "Man..."

"That's a curious look from you, Ranma," Tofu noted. "I would have expected you to be happy about what happened to him, after the incident with Ryouga and Happousai on Capra."

Ranma remembered Ryouga's attempt to kill Happousai on the highway outside the city, and the disappointment he and his father had shared when Ryouga failed. His feelings in the matter would have been obvious to anyone. Tofu had been with them at the time, and he had seen it.

"I ain't gonna lie to you, Doc," he said after a moment. "If he kicked off today, I wouldn't miss him. It's the way he almost got it that bugs me. No one deserves to die like that, gettin' stabbed in the back." He narrowed his eyes at the doctor. "You don't think I did it, do you?"

Tofu shook his head. "Of course not, Ranma. The man who was probably responsible is already in custody."

"Really? Who?" Was it Pop? he wondered idly. There was no sign of his father in the Greenhouse. Knives in the back weren't really his style, but there was definitely no way the guy would have the nerve to face Happousai man to man.

"That friend of Ryouga's we brought with us," Tofu supplied. "Tarou."

"He isn't my friend," Ryouga replied suddenly. Akari was by his side, hovering over him, though he seemed to be oblivious to her. Ranma wondered how long he had been awake. "He was my partner for awhile, but I wouldn't call him a friend of anyone, least of all me."

"How do you know it was him?" Ranma asked Tofu.

"I believe it," Ryouga interrupted. "Tarou hates Happousai even more than I do."

"There was a struggle after the stabbing," the doctor explained when Ryouga was finished. He removed the IV and restraints from him as well. "When the crew found Happousai, they also found Tarou unconscious inside the 'E' Deck airlock. They figure Happousai must have tried spacing Tarou after he defeated him, and passed out from blood loss before he could finish the job."

"Lucky for Tarou," Ranma muttered. He didn't have anything against the man, but it was hard to feel sympathy for a guy that had been a cold fish from the moment they met. "What are they doing with him?"

"We don't have a place to put him yet, since the air below 'C' Deck is still pretty foul," Tofu told him. "So we're keeping him in restraints and heavily sedated until the Ship's Brig on 'D' Deck becomes habitable."

"Um, may I make a suggestion?" Ryouga said quietly.

Ranma and Doctor Tofu looked at the fanged mechwarrior, who seemed very uncomfortable all of a sudden.

"What is it, Ryouga?"

"You should, ah, keep him away from cold water," he replied. "This is important."

"Tarou went to the Jusenkyo Labs too," Ranma added, remembering what Ryouga had told him. "If you know what I mean..." He caught an angry look from Ryouga, which faded away when it became clear that he had no intention of revealing Ryouga's curse.

Tofu looked surprised. "What an amazing coincidence," he said evenly. "What does he turn into?"

Ryouga swallowed hard. "Something you don't ever want to see," he explained. "Trust me, it's dangerous."

Doctor Tofu nodded slowly. "I'll be sure to let Captain Ninomiya know that. Tarou is pretty heavily doped up at the moment, so I doubt that it will become a problem within the next few hours."

NCJS Dragonfly

Position Unknown, Date Unknown

"Captain Ninomiya, the ship is rigged for reduced electrical loads, and Assistant Engineer Fulton reports that emergency power from the Ship's Battery is ready to be restored, and that the JumpSail is ready to be deployed."

Hinako looked up from her coloring books and nodded at her Damage Control Assistant.

"Very well," she replied. "Have him restore emergency power." She went back to coloring.

"Restore emergency power, aye," the DCA acknowleged.

The main lighting flicked on abruptly, wavered for a moment, then came on strong. Displays flashed to life on the Bridge, filled mostly with urgent alarm messages and reports. The Dragonfly was coming back to life.

"Captain, Senior Lieutenant Fulton reports that emergency power has been restored. Estimated remaining life on the Battery, fifty-four minutes."

Hinako considered this.

The Dragonfly's electrical distribution system had suffered extensive damage, and the surviving members of the Engineering Department had been working on cleaning up and salvaging enough components to put together a functional Load Center since the fires had been extinguished. It was all very jerry-rigged, but vital to their continued survival. It was also just inert metal without a source of electrical power. At the moment they were existing on one reduced-capacity 400Hz motor/generator turned by the nearly depleted Ship's Battery.

The fusion plant was down, but was considered to be in adequate condition for a restart - but that would require sufficient energy to run the cooling system and the cryogenic plant for the magnetic bottle, and they would also need enough power to charge the pulse capacitors for the Z-Pinch ignition laser that would start the reaction. If they could get that far, then the Dragonfly would have all the electricity it needed, as well as the Main Engines to position them within the star system. The Jump Drive was another matter, unfortunately. The massive circuit breakers that energized the system had been critically damaged by reentry into realspace. The ship could not Jump until they were repaired.

"Will the JumpSail be able to provide enough power" she asked him. The starship's JumpSail would be the only remaining source of electrical power available once the Battery gave up the ghost.

The DCA nodded. "Yes, ma'am. We estimate being able to produce at least seven hundred kilowatts, which should handle our reduced hotel load, run the auxiliaries for the fusion plant start-up, and give us a modest battery charge."

"Order Fulton to deploy the JumpSail," Hinako commanded. She floated out of her seat. "Astrogation, how long until we can get a position fix?"

Her Astrogator consulted with his section. "At least four hours, ma'am. The Computer took a bad hit coming out of Jump, and we're having to restore parts of our database from the archives. The best I can offer is that we've materialized in a system with a 'G' type main sequence star, which gives us a good chance of arriving in a system with a habitable planet."

She frowned. "But we aren't in the Capella System."

The Astrogator shook his head. "No, ma'am. The star's spectral composition does not match Capella. Nor is there any indication of the system's battlestations. We misjumped, but for now we don't know where or even when we are."

"Do we have any ideas?"

"Well... From the star sightings I was able to take from the Ship's Observatory, I'd say we aren't even in the Confederation." He looked away for a moment in unease. "We really missed the mark, ma'am. I hazard the opinion that we have Jumped much farther than the normal ten-parsec limit."

"I see," she replied. Her bottom lip protruded in a pout. "Well, keep working on it, I guess."

"Yes, ma'am."

Hinako returned to her coloring books.

"Hey, Ryouga," Ranma said to the mercenary mechwarrior. "How're you feeling?"

Ryouga looked up from the squeeze bulb of fruit punch he was sipping. They had been recovering for some time in the comfortable free-fall of the Greenhouse. Most of the crew had returned to their duties of repairing and restoring the starship, leaving the two with the rest of the less seriously wounded until Sick Bay could be made ready to accept them.

"I'm fine, Ranma."

Ranma threw back his head. "Me, I'm bored. Wanna spar?"

"Don't even think about it, Saotome," Doctor Tofu said suddenly from behind him. "I want you and Ryouga to take it easy for a few days."

"Aw, Doc..."

"I mean it," the doctor said firmly. "Now I'm going to check on some of the others. You two behave."

They watched Tofu go before turning back to each other.

"So, Ryouga. What are your plans for when we finally get somewhere?"

Ryouga thought about this.

"I'm not sure really," he said. "When I was on Capra, all I wanted was to leave. Now that I'm gone from there..."

"You should stay with us," Ranma told him.

Ryouga looked at him like he was on fire. "YOU want ME to stay on with this group?"

"What's the big deal, Ryouga?"

"That's what I want to know. Aren't we supposed to be enemies?"

Ranma snorted. "Oh man, don't start that again. The only reason why we might be enemies is because you want it that way. I'm telling you, man, you need to relax a little, and stop sweating the small stuff."

"Junior High was not small stuff!" Ryouga protested. "I was the laughingstock of the Hsien Academy! You ruined my life!"

"Easy, Ryouga. Take it easy. You're blowing this way out of proportion. All I'm saying here is that you should just let bygones be bygones, and stay on with us. We could sure use you in a fight."

Ryouga raised an eyebrow. "Aha. You reveal your true intentions, Ranma. You just want me to stay because of my BattleMaster. If it was someone else with one, you'd want them to stay too."

"Oh man, it ain't like that, Ryouga," Ranma insisted. "Sure, it's great to have a BattleMaster around, and yeah, it's true that Happousai and his Locust ain't going anywhere for awhile, but I wasn't trying to be like that."

"Then what were you trying to say?"

Ranma blew out his breath in exasperation. "For Pete's sake, Ryouga, can't you accept for once that I'm trying to be nice?"

"Not really," Ryouga replied. "The memories of Junior High are still pretty strong for me."

"Fine," Ranma grunted to him. "You wanna talk Junior High, then let's talk. Who walked you back to your room all those times so you wouldn't get lost?"

Ryouga blushed.

"Uh-huh," Ranma continued. "That's what I thought."

"Then you left," Ryouga finished for him.

"That wasn't my fault. Pop thought I wasn't getting a challenge there, so he pulled me from school and we took a job off-planet. I had no choice."

"So you say."

"Whatever," Ranma said, throwing his hands up. "If you don't want to stay with us, then just say so. It ain't no big deal to me."

"I didn't say I didn't want to stay," Ryouga said after a bit. "I just asked why you wanted me."

"I'm not going there again. Are you with us or not?"

Ryouga looked outside the clear dome of the Greenhouse to the stars beyond. "How could I leave Akane to the likes of you?" he asked Ranma, though he continued to scan the heavens.

"You wanna run that by me again?" Ranma said in an acid tone.

Ryouga turned back to face him. "You don't deserve her, you know."

Ranma scowled. "Oh yeah? Who says?"

"It's obvious by the way you treat her," the fanged mechwarrior replied. "Akane deserves a man who will love and respect her. One who doesn't insult her, or treat her like she's incompetent."

"And I suppose you know just the man for the job."

Ryouga smiled dreamily. "Indeed I do."

"Give it up, ham-hock," Ranma growled. "She may be a macho, uncute battleaxe, but she's spoken for. Got it?"

Ryouga shot him a dirty look. "How did she end up with an arrogant jerk like you anyway?"

Ranma rolled his eyes at the thought.

"Her dad and mine made this stupid deal before we were even born," he explained to Ryouga. "They said they wanted to unite our two families, but it's all a bunch of crap. They just want Akane and I to take over for them so they can retire and live easy."

Ryouga thought this over. "I can't believe I'm hearing this. They actually want you to be the next Grand Duke of the Confederation?"

"Pretty weird, ain't it?" Ranma asked him with a grin. "I ain't too keen on it myself."

"So don't marry her," Ryouga suggested.

"Who says I'm gonna?" Ranma shot back. "Besides, if we can't find Ryuugenzawa, there ain't gonna be a Confederation for much longer."

Ryouga's eyes lit up. "Ryuugenzawa?"

"Yeah. I thought Akane told you what we were doing on Capra?"

"It didn't come up," Ryouga replied. "You really think you know where it is?"

The pig-tailed mechwarrior's expression darkened.

"Pop does. Me, I think it might have existed at one time, but it got looted just like all the other Star League outposts."

"But what if you're wrong?" Ryouga asked hopefully.

Ranma shrugged.

"Then I guess we can win the war against the Combine. We'll have all the old technology again, and our 'mechs will be better than theirs. Personally, I ain't holding my breath for it."

"I suppose it is a stretch," Ryouga conceded. "But something like that is too important to let go. Don't you realize, Ranma, that Ryuugenzawa could hold the secrets to our cure?"

"What?"

"You heard me, Ranma," Ryouga said to him quietly. "All the legends say that Ryuugenzawa was the primary Star League Defense Force proving grounds for advanced technology. If any place would have the know-how to cure us, that would be the one."

Ranma looked down at his hands. It was getting harder and harder to maintain his cynicism regarding Ryuugenzawa. What if Ryouga was right? What if Ryuugenzawa really existed? Could he say good-bye to his girl half forever?

"You're thinking about it, aren't you, Ranma," Ryouga observed.

"Maybe." His eyes lifted to regard Ryouga once again. "Man, I'm bored. Let's go see if we can find something to do."

"Captain Ninomiya?"

Hinako looked up from her attempt at zero-gravity finger painting. Her face was smeared with bright blobs of color, much to her Astrogator's dismay.

"What is it?"

"We've got a solid fix on our location," he declared.

"You do?" she cried. "That's wonderful!" She sprang from her chair and floated over to give him a congratulatory hug, which left him equally smeared with paint.

"So where are we?" she asked him.

He wiped at the paint with a handkerchief, remembering by Ranma Saotome's recent example to keep his temper around the Captain. "The Palatine System," he announced. "We've somehow Jumped over sixty parsecs to land in the middle of the Federated Shiratori. Currently, we are in an elliptical solar orbit that will take us within three light seconds of the primary - in about twenty-five months."

"You're sure?" she asked him.

"Yes, ma'am," he replied confidently. "In addition to the star-sighting data, we have spectral-type confirmation for the Palatine primary. We have also intercepted radio and microwave emissions from the third planet in the system, both military and civilian, that marks the world as Tiber."

"I see," Hinako said sagely. "If I'm not mistaken, the Confederation maintains a Consulate office on Tiber."

"Yes, ma'am. They coordinate our trade agreements with the Embassy on Genevieve. According to our atlas database, Tiber also has a moderately sized orbital drydock that regularly services civilian shipping."

Hinako snapped her fingers. "We're going to be okay," she declared. She turned to her Communications Officer. "Order the Captain of the Palomino to prepare for departure within the next twenty-four hours."

"Aye aye, ma'am."

"So why are we bringing the wounded with us?" Ranma asked as he and his father went over Hinako's plan. It had not taken long for him to run afoul of the elder Saotome. "Not that I have anything against those guys. Well, Happousai maybe..."

"Isn't it obvious, boy?" Genma countered. "In addition to taking some of the load off the ship's damaged life support systems, they can get better treatment at a hospital. All we have to do is make contact with the Consulate, and they'll arrange for them to be admitted with no questions asked. Meanwhile, we set up the deal to get the ship put into drydock, and to purchase the repair parts we'll need to Jump out of here. The Consulate should even be able to help us with funding and getting us crew replacements."

Ranma nodded slowly. It made a lot of sense.

"I guess so." He looked away. "So what do you think about the old freak getting stabbed?"

Genma frowned. "It's terrible," he grunted.

"It ain't that bad," Ranma countered. "The Doc says that he'll pull through."

"That's what's so terrible about it," his father returned. He looked to the overhead as if pleading to the gods. "Is it too much to ask to be rid of him forever?"

"I guess so," Ranma replied when the gods did not.

"Still," Genma mused. "I suppose we can enjoy the peace and quiet his convalescent period will provide."

"We're gonna be waiting on Tiber for awhile once we're there," Ranma noted. "What are we supposed to do in the meantime?"

Genma rolled his eyes.

"What else?" he asked sardonically. "We're going to train. I can tell that you're already going soft on me."

"That's a laugh," Ranma snorted. "You're welcome to try me anytime, Pop."

"Don't push your luck, boy. You're not that good yet."

Akane floated into the room as Ranma opened his mouth to respond. Her face and hands were streaked with soot and grease from her task of the last six hours - cleaning and replacing the filter plates for the portable electrostatic precipitators they were using to clean up the atmosphere after the fires.

"I heard the Palomino was getting ready to leave for the planet," she began. "Are we going too?"

Genma nodded. "Everyone not essential to the ship's function and repair is going, including the wounded."

"How about Tarou?" Ranma asked him.

"Tarou will be going as well. Captain Ninomiya wants him turned over to the Consulate so he can be shipped back to the Confederation to stand trial."

"I thought she could try him as the Captain of the ship?" Ranma asked.

Genma shrugged. "I guess she doesn't want to be bothered with it while the repairs are going on."

"I suppose you're right," Ranma mused. "It would have been easier if he had managed to kill Happousai instead of just wounding him. After she found him guilty, all they'd have to do is space him."

"True," Genma agreed. "There is no death penalty for attempted murder." Tears of frustration streamed down his face. "Oh why couldn't that Tarou fellow have succeeded!?"

"Listen to you two," Akane scolded. "I don't believe I'm hearing this. Happousai may not be the easiest person to tolerate, but you're actually wishing that he was dead - just so you can see Ryouga's friend get executed for it?"

Ranma and Genma looked at each other for a moment, then to her.

"More or less," they replied in unison.

Akane shook her head in disgust. "I'm sorry I asked." She started for the airtight door.

"Hey, Akane?" Ranma asked.

"What is it, Ranma?" she returned.

He started after her. "Are you feeling okay?" he asked as they passed through the door and into the passageway. "You don't look so good."

Her expression softened.

"I'm tired, Ranma. Tired and worried."

"I understand the tired part," he said to her. "But worried? We're okay, the ship is fixable, and we're within two days of a nice terran planet. What's to be worried about?"

"I'm worried about P-chan."

"P-chan?" It took Ranma a moment to remember that Ryouga was also her pet pig.

"With the fire and all..." she explained. "I haven't seen him since before we Jumped, and I'm really worried that he suffocated in all the smoke."

Ranma considered revealing Ryouga's secret, but decided that would not help steady Akane's current emotional roller coaster.

"He's fine," he told her.

"How do you know that?" she asked hopelessly.

They bumped into Ryouga at an intersection. He smiled for Akane, and gave Ranma an indifferent look.

"I know P-chan is okay," Ranma began, looking right at Ryouga. Had he really been serious about asking him to stay? He kicked himself mentally for forgetting so quickly that there was a very good reason for sending Ryouga on his merry way. "I know because I saw him not too long ago."

"Really?" Akane cried, almost in tears with relief.

"Yeah," Ranma returned. Ryouga was busy sweating fearfully. "Right, Ryouga?"

Ryouga turned red. He knew Ranma was trying to get his goat, but Akane's worry for her pet pig was so great that he couldn't bear to disappoint her.

"Um, yeah," he managed. "Don't worry, Akane. P-chan is fine."

"In fact," Ranma chortled. "He's probably closer than you think."

"Really?" Akane asked. "You're not just saying that to cheer me up?"

"Go on and tell her, Ryouga," Ranma said to him.

Ryouga shot him a death look. It was put up or shut up time, he realized. The trouble was that he couldn't bring himself to tell her. Not like this!

"It's true," he said defeatedly. He was commited to being P-chan now, but if it meant that Akane would be happy... "I-I saw him on the Palomino not too long ago, when I was moving supplies over for the transit to Tiber."

"Yeah, he's got the worst sense of direction," Ranma said with a triumphant laugh. "You'd almost think he was Ryouga or something..."

Ryouga's death look intensified, but was missed entirely by Akane, who smiled warmly at both of them.

"I'm really glad to hear that he's all right," she said. "I miss him already."

She floated down the passageway for the elevator to the Docking Compartment, leaving the two mechwarriors in strained silence.

"What's the big idea, Ranma?" Ryouga hissed when she was out of earshot. His fists were clenched into tight balls of bone and sinew.

"You tell me, bacon-butt," he retorted. "What's up with sleeping in her bed?"

"It just happened," he said to Ranma. "I didn't plan it or anything."

"Uh-huh, sure. I see you didn't knock yourself out trying to get away."

Ryouga smirked. He still had something over Ranma. "What's the matter?" he asked. "Are you jealous because it wasn't you?"

Ranma flinched at his words. "I ain't jealous of nobody, got it?"

"Heh," the fanged mechwarrior retorted. "At least I can be honest with my feelings for her. It's more than I can say for you."

"Don't make me laugh, pork-boy. If you're so damn honest, why ain't ya coming clean with her about P-chan?"

"Shut up!" Ryouga snarled. "The situation just got too complicated, too fast."

"It's more like you chickened out. I can only imagine how pissed she'll be at you when she finally finds out."

Ryouga grabbed him by the shirt front.

"She won't find out," he menaced.

Ranma narrowed his eyes at him. "Oh yeah? Says who?"

Ryouga cocked back a fist. "I'm warning you, Ranma. Not a word."

"Ooooo, I'm so scared. Gimme a break, Ryouga. I enjoy watching you squirm over it. You think I'm going to give that up?"

Ryouga's sneer intensified even as his grip on Ranma's shirt relaxed.

"Don't push your luck, Ranma," he told him. "Sooner or later she'll realize what a creep you are, and then she'll see me in a whole new light."

A blood vessel popped out on Ranma's forehead at the mention of the word 'creep.' Yuka and Sayuri were still giving him the cold shoulder over Akane, and he hadn't done anything wrong to her in hours!

"She'll see you in a whole new light, all right," he growled. "That is, as the other white meat..."

"So," Doctor Tofu asked as a battered and bruised Ranma Saotome floated into Sick Bay with an unconscious Ryouga in tow. "This is what happens when I tell you two to take it easy for the next few days?"

"He threw the first punch," Ranma groused, rubbing his sore jaw.

Tofu shook his head. "Maybe I should sedate you like your friend Tarou?"

Ranma put out his hands. "No thanks."

Ryouga shook himself awake. "Where am I?"

"That's the story of your life, ain't it," Ranma observed.

Ryouga wiped away a smear of blood from his nose, and started coming for him. "You got lucky, Ranma. If that pipe hadn't been in the way, I would have..."

"Not in Sick Bay!" Tofu shouted, losing his cool for the first time that Ranma could remember. "If you can't follow my orders to behave, then go beat the tar out of each other somewhere else - but don't think for a minute that I'll have any sympathy for you when you come staggering back to Sick Bay for help." His eyes narrowed to slits of cold fire behind his glasses. "In fact I have a few special chiropractic techniques that will make your healing process as miserable as possible... Do you boys understand me?"

Ranma and Ryouga nodded meekly.

"Good," Tofu said to them. "Now cool off and go clean yourselves up. I don't want to look at you for at least fifteen minutes."

The two gave each other sheepish looks and floated back out the door.

"Man," Ranma groused in a hushed voice to Ryouga. "What's eating the Doc?"

"I dunno," he replied. "But I don't want to find out."

Tofu watched them go and sighed wearily. He had been awake and treating the wounded for longer than he could remember, and his vigil would continue on the trip down to Tiber. His only comfort was that Happousai was judged by Doctor Mayinga to be too weak for transit, and would remain on board under constant observation - probably until the Dragonfly was put into drydock, and the trip down to the surface was not as demanding.

The stress of the mission was getting to be more than he could bear, and a large part of it was the separation from Kasumi. How he longed to see her shining face once more, and to hear her soft sweet voice! Why had he been such a fool around her all these years?

He should have told her how he felt before the Palomino lifted from the castle, but his nerve had failed him once again. She must have thought he was some kind of spastic dork for all of his carrying on. The attack on Capra, and their recent misjump, had brought home to him how dangerous this mission was. There was a good chance that he would never see her again, and the only way she would ever remember him was as the kind-hearted but goofy family doctor.

He couldn't take that. Not when he felt so much more for her. Didn't they both deserve a little happiness together?

Tofu reached into his desk and withdrew a small stereograph of Kasumi. It had been taken at a spring festival on Nerima not long before the arrival of the Saotomes. Somehow, he had managed to ask her to come along with him to the festivities without botching it too badly, and she had agreed. He did not know if it was out of a desire for friendly companionship, sympathy for his clumsy request, or something more - and he didn't care. That day had been one of the happiest of his life.

"Doctor Tofu?"

He looked up to see Akane floating in free-fall in the doorway.

"What is it?" he asked her nervously. The stereograph of Kasumi slipped out of his grasp to float gently with the air currents in the compartment.

"May I come in?" she asked him.

"Of course," he replied, snatching at empty air in a vain attempt to recover the precious stereograph.

Akane drifted silently over to the flat piece of holographic plastic and caught it between her fingers. She looked at the small 3D image of her sister for a moment, then sighed deeply.

"You really do love her, don't you, Doctor Tofu," she said quietly.

His face blazed with embarrassment.

"I-I do," he managed solemnly.

She pursed her lips in reflection. "I guess I've always known that." She pulled herself into a chair across from him, her face taut with emotion. "I may have tried to deny it sometimes, but I guess I could never put it out of my mind."

"What do you mean, Akane?" he asked her softly.

She looked up at him, her eyes wet. "Don't you see?" she asked in return. "For the longest time I've... Well..."

Tofu gave her a look of puzzlement.

"What is it, Akane?"

She took a deep breath.

"I've been in love with you, Doctor Tofu."

Tofu blinked in amazement.

"Akane..." he said softly. "Is this true? I never -"

"- I know," she broke in. "You never knew. That's been my problem the whole time. I've felt this way since I was fifteen, and probably before then, too."

He looked away for a moment. "What about Ranma?"

"I don't know," she sniffed. "I just don't know." Her eyes closed. "I didn't come in here to tell you this; I was just going to ask if you needed anything out of Stores for the trip, but when I saw you looking at that picture of Kasumi I felt like my heart was going to break."

"I'm sorry, Akane," he said to her awkwardly. He took his hands in hers and held them tight. "I didn't realize that you felt this way."

"It's all right," she said flatly. "This has been coming for a long time. I guess it's better that it finally happened. I was a fool to keep deluding myself into thinking that there was ever any hope for something between us, because I know that you love Kasumi."

They both fell silent for some time, each looking down at the neat surface of the desk. The soft sigh of the ventilation fans mingled with the sound of Akane's sniffling, and the sounds of airtight doors opening and closing beyond the compartment.

"We're a lot alike, I think," Tofu offered, at last breaking the silence between them. "Both of us pining for someone who doesn't have the slightest idea of how we feel about them."

"Yeah," she replied. "I guess so." She handed him the stereograph of Kasumi. "If you don't tell her how you feel when we get home, then I will."

"Akane!" Tofu cried, aghast.

"I can't let you waste your chance at love like this," she returned. "There aren't any guarantees that Kasumi will wait for you to get up your courage and tell her."

Tofu looked down at his hands. "No, I suppose not."

"Then you'll tell her how you feel?"

"I was thinking about doing just that - before you walked in," he replied. "I will tell her. Even if she doesn't feel the same for me, I have to tell her."

"I'm happy for you, Doctor Tofu," Akane said in a trembling voice. "I really am, and I wish you the best of luck with Kasumi."

Tofu squeezed her hands. "Are you going to be all right?"

She nodded. "I think so."

He rose up from his desk, drawing her up with him into a comforting embrace. She cried softly in his arms, as she had done once before, seeking solace in his embrace, and knowing that all they would ever share was friendship. For the first time she could bring herself to accept that fact unconditionally, and with no more regrets. She was finally over her crush on Doctor Tofu.

"Okay, Doc, we're all cleaned up and we - urk..."

Tofu and Akane parted awkwardly from their embrace to see Ranma and Ryouga floating in the doorway, their faces and bodies frozen in shock at seeing the two of them in each others' arms.

Ranma, his face pale and drawn, turned slowly away from them.

"Sorry," he said flatly, and pushed himself forcefully out the door. Ryouga remained where he was, poised to weep, and yet not daring to do so in front of her.

"Ranma, wait!" Akane cried after him. "Ryouga, this isn't what it looks like. Why can't that jerk understand?"

Ryouga nodded slowly. "That's all right, Akane. It's none of my business. I'll be going now."

He slipped out the door and floated miserably away.

Akane turned back to Tofu, who shrugged sheepishly.

"Thank you, Doctor Tofu," she said in a subdued voice. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you this sooner. Just remember not to make the same mistake I did, okay?"

Tofu nodded, and let her go.

"Ranma, wait!" Akane cried after him. She had only just caught sight of his pig-tail darting around a corner on 'C' Deck. Ranma did not respond.

Honestly, she thought angrily. He's such a coward sometimes!

When she reached the corner, he had already commandeered the elevator for who knew which deck. Out of spite she punched the bulkhead - regretting it immediately.

"Stupid jerk," she said between her teeth. Her hand ached from the blow, and she considered returning to Sick Bay where Doctor Tofu could look at it. After a moment's pause, she decided against it. Now was not the time to come back to him in tears. He had his own problems.

She decided instead to visit the Crew's Mess and get some ice for her hand. 'D' Deck was spinning again, meaning that a semblance of gravity had been restored on the ship, and that the deck was habitable. A nice cool drink probably couldn't hurt, either.

She touched the 'call' button on the elevator panel with her good hand, and waited for the car to appear on her deck. The doors slid open to reveal an empty car. That was fine by her, she didn't feel like explaining how she had hurt herself. She gripped the handrail tightly and selected 'D' Deck.

A loose congregation of idle crew sat in the Crew's Mess. Most were enjoying a little break from the long hours spent restoring the ship's functions, a few were preparing to come on watch. There were no regular meals yet; everyone was living off the contents of several large boxes of survival rations until the Dragonfly had enough reserve power to start up non-essential electrical loads like the galley equipment.

Fortunately for her, the Ship's Surgeon had prevailed upon Captain Ninomiya the idea that the ice-maker was a vital load for burn victims whose injuries weren't critical. She opened the hinged door of the machine and scooped up a large pile of ice cubes into a ziploc bag. The ice was soothing to her injured hand, and she sat next to the machine for several minutes enjoying both faux-gravity and the relief from pain.

In spite of herself, she thought about Ranma. The jerk was obviously upset at seeing her hugging Doctor Tofu. Or was it just embarrassment for walking in on what would logically be assumed to be an intimate moment by an outsider? The more she thought about it, the less clear Ranma's reaction became to her.

It was starting to give her a headache, although the below-normal oxygen and above-normal carbon dioxide levels could have been responsible as well. The tiny particles of greasy soot that clung tenaciously to the air in spite of the round-the-clock action by the precipitators probably weren't helping matters. There were a few pre-packaged acetominophen dispensers located at the end of the compartment near the galley, and she rose reluctantly to self-medicate.

P-chan sat despondently before the closed door to the galley, oinking mournfully for some reason that Akane could not fathom, and did not care about. All she knew in that moment was that her beloved pet was alive and well, and right before her eyes.

"P-chan! How did you get here?"

The pig looked up at her sadly.

She scooped him up into her arms, and hugged him close to her body.

"Oh, P-chan, I was so worried about you! Where have you been?"

The pig made a few weak grunts, and nuzzled against her in reply.

"I missed you too, P-chan," she whispered to him. "When Ranma said that he had seen you, I didn't know whether or not to believe him. If Ryouga hadn't said something, I probably wouldn't have. I know Ryouga would never try to mislead me."

P-chan oinked sadly at this.

Akane felt much better having P-chan with her, so much so that she forgot all about her injured hand. She walked off the Crew's Mess to her quarters, a small single-occupancy room on the far end of the ring-like Grav-Deck. If not for the 'D' Deck Hub that ran through the middle of the slowly spinning level, she could have looked directly overhead and seen the door to her room from outside the Mess Decks.

Her room was as she had left it before the Jump. There was a little smoke damage, leaving the place smelling sooty, but all in all it could have been much worse. She pulled the chair out from the fold-down desk and sat down with P-chan in her lap.

"It feels good to be sitting down," she said to the pig. "I've been on the go ever since the Jump." She looked down at her dirty clothes and sighed. "What I really need is a shower and a nap. You won't mind if I set you down for awhile so I can get cleaned up, would you?"

P-chan oinked in reply.

"Okay," she said lightly. "I didn't think you'd mind." She set him down on the bed and began tugging at her top. P-chan started to blush, and then turned away to face the opposite bulkhead.

"I've never seen a pig act so modestly before," she chuckled as she unhooked her bra and tossed it to the floor. Her shorts and panties went next, unnerving the pig as the lacy underwear was flung absently onto the bed.

"Thank the gods for JumpShips," she sighed. "My own shower..."

Individual showers were the standard for single-occupancy rooms aboard the Invader Class starships, and for once Akane had no complaints about her noble heritage. Most of the ship's complement had to make do with communal showers, which, although bigger and more numerous than on a Leopard Class DropShip, were still communal showers. Though her bathroom was every bit as cramped as the one on the Palomino, it was still hers and hers alone.

She opened the door to the bathroom and started the water running. Though the hot water heaters had not been reenergized yet, there was still a good reserve remaining in the large heated tanks on 'D' Deck to supply her with all she needed. She stepped into the warm pulsating streams of water and sighed contentedly. It was good to be the daughter of the Grand Duke...

After a long healthy soak under the showerhead, she stepped out and toweled herself off. She paused for a moment by the mirror, which was fogged up by steam. A few brushes with her hand against the glass cleared a patch in the center of the mirror, and she looked at herself for a moment.

She wondered how others saw her. The short hair was still something she was getting used to, but all in all she felt it was a good look for her. Her eyes were a little red and puffy, but she was willing to chalk that up to the lack of sleep and the dirty air. Her figure might need a little work, she thought grimly. She wasn't showing any flab now, but you never knew when it was going to sneak up on you. She would have to work out later, but first, she needed a nice long nap.

Her body-image inventory complete, she stepped out of the bathroom. P-chan remained facing away from her, looking for all intents as if he had never moved a centimeter since she started taking off her clothes. She suppressed a chuckle at this, and pulled a pair of pajamas out of the drawer beneath her bed. P-chan peeked over his shoulder at the sound of the drawer being pulled open, and got more than an eyeful.

Twin streams of blood fountained from his snout as he keeled over into merciful unconsciousness.

"P-chan!" she cried, pressing her pajamas to her bosom with one hand while scooping him up with the other. His head rolled around on his shoulders for a moment or two before he regained consciousness with a weak grunt. She looked at him for several moments, his face blazing red with heat, before deciding that he was okay.

"Don't scare me like that, P-chan. Honestly."

She set him back down on the bed, and he turned away so that she could get dressed in her pajamas. Once she was suitably attired, she pulled back the blanket and the sheets and slipped into her small but cozy bed. P-chan whimpered for a few moments until she snuggled him close to her under the covers. After that, there came only contented grunts.

"It's been a pretty rough day," Akane yawned as she turned out the lights. "I've survived a dangerous hyperspace Jump, a disastrous fire, and confessed my unrequited love for Doctor Tofu." This last declaration made the pig tense in her embrace.

"I'm glad I told him," she continued. "It was stupid to go on hoping that someday he would look at me as more than just Kasumi's little sister. I can finally get on with my life."

She gave the pig a squeeze - which elicited a happy sigh from him.

"And I'm glad you're okay, P-chan," she went on. "I feel that no matter what, as long as I've got you, I have someone I can talk to. I can tell you all those things that I'm afraid to tell other people, because you're just a cute little pig, and you can't pass on everything I say."

The pig sighed again, this time sadly.

"Ranma..." she said, oblivious to Ryouga's distress. "Should I tell him that I like him? Or would that just make him even harder to deal with?"

P-chan grunted in what seemed to be the firm negative.

"I just don't know what to do about him," she confessed. "One minute he's the bravest, coolest, most selfless guy I've ever met, and the next minute he's nineteen years old going on nine."

She gave P-chan a squeeze and yawned loudly. Sleep wasn't far away, and her emotional guard began to wane.

"Don't tell him I said this," she murmured drowsily to her pet pig. "But even though he's a total jerk sometimes, I think I really do like him. I don't know if I love him, but..."

A tear trickled down Ryouga's porcine face as Akane drifted off to sleep.

Azure Cloud Castle

Planet Nerima, Capella System

The Nerima Confederation

3 April 3025

"Would you care for some more tea, Mrs. Saotome?"

Nodoka Saotome inclined her head in the affirmative.

"Yes, your Grace. Thank you."

Soun grinned as a steward refilled her teacup. "Please, Mrs. Saotome, call me Soun. We've known each other for a long time, and certainly before I was the Grand Duke."

Nodoka nodded. "As you wish."

With the matter of formality between them settled, Soun took a slow drag on his cigarette. "Have you enjoyed your stay?"

She smiled. "I have. I'll admit that I was surprised to receive word from you inviting me to Nerima, and even more so at your news of my husband and son. I've never been away from Sian before now, but to see Ranma again, I would travel to the far side of the Furinkan Combine!"

Soun laughed a little nervously at this. There was still no word from his friend, and with the Furinkan Combine occupying both Jump Points, it was unlikely that they could return to the system safely. The ship bearing Nodoka to the Capella System had only just arrived ahead of the Combine, and now she was as much a prisoner of Kuno's blockade as the rest of the system.

"Of course," he replied. "So it's been awhile since you've seen the boy, has it?"

"Seventeen years," she replied tonelessly. There was a great sadness in her voice, which she tried her best to conceal.

Soun lifted his slack jaw from his chest. "...I see..." He cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Well, I suppose training in the art can make you lose track of time..."

"Yes," she replied wistfully. "I suppose it can. I am comforted at least in the knowledge that my dear Ranma has certainly become a man among men by now." She seemed to glow for a moment. "What you've told me of the mission Ranma and my husband have taken up for the Confederation fills me with pride. I've always known that my men were selfless and brave."

"We owe them a great deal for their courage," Soun agreed.

Nodoka sipped daintily at her tea. "You must be very proud of Akane."

Soun's face fell slightly. Not only was his old friend missing in action, but his youngest daughter as well.

"I couldn't be more pleased with her," he replied haltingly. "I know that she will make a fine Grand Duchess."

Nodoka blushed. "Ah, my dear little boy is getting married," she said in a near whisper. "They grow up so fast." She looked across the salon at the photographs of Soun's family. His three daughters looked so lovely, and there, on the far right, was a sterograph of Ranma and Akane together.

She rose, and Soun followed her with his eyes over to the portraits. Nodoka studied the stereograph of Ranma and Akane, taken at the surrender summit following Soun's announcement of their betrothal. Their nervous expressions did not dampen her appreciation for how beautiful they looked together. The three-dimensional photograph seemed to leap out at her as she looked at it, making her wish she could reach out and touch her son and future daughter-in-law, and take them into a warm embrace.

"He is such a handsome man," she declared, her voice filled with emotion.

"If I may say so, he has inherited his mother's grace and beauty," Soun added.

Nodoka blushed. "You flatter me, sir," she said to him. "I can see that there is a bit of his father in him too," she continued. "The way he carries himself in this stereograph. Why, he looks just as confused and overwhelmed as Genma did when we were first engaged." She chuckled softly and just a little sadly at the nostalgia she felt in that moment.

She looked at the other photos and stereographs on the wall. "Permit me to compliment you on your fine daughters."

"By all means," Soun returned proudly.

"Kasumi has certainly grown up tall and lovely," she declared. "I remember the birth announcement you sent to us on Sian. Genma and I had hardly been married a month when it arrived. It made me want a daughter so much. Genma, of course, had other ideas, and I suppose with Ranma he got his wish."

Soun nodded silently. While he welcomed Nodoka's presence in the castle, it was a reminder of how their two families had drifted apart since his coronation. His regret for keeping out of touch for so long had been subordinated by the problems of his country, and now when matters looked nearly hopeless for the Confederation, he had been given a chance to restore what had been a cherished friendship with the Saotomes.

"This must be Nabiki," Nodoka observed, looking at a picture of the mahogany-haired middle daughter. "She has quite a lot of mischief shining in those pretty eyes."

You don't know the half of it, Soun thought to himself.

"Nabiki has always been a handful," he agreed.

"Oh?" Nodoka asked. "I would think Akane would be the most trouble. She strikes me as a very spirited young lady."

"Akane and Nabiki can be difficult," he admitted. "In their own particular ways." He shrugged. "But what can I say? I love them both."

"Of course!"

Nodoka found another photograph of Akane, taken as a girl of sixteen. She wore a short floral print dress that flowed in the breeze with her long fall of blue-black hair. She was on a stretch of pristine white beach sand, standing before the deep blue water of the sea.

"This photograph reminds me very much of your wife," she said softly. "Akane has come to resemble her a great deal."

Soun tried not to choke up. "Yes, she has," he managed against the lump that formed in his throat.

Nodoka understood his sudden reserve. "Forgive me, Soun. I should not have mentioned..."

"No, no," he interrupted with a wave of his hand. "There's no need to feel that you've done anything wrong. It's difficult sometimes for me to accept that she is gone, but I can't change the past no matter how hard I might wish."

"Let us talk of happier things then," Nodoka offered. "Like the return of our loved ones, and the salvation of the Confederation. I believe very strongly that our hour of triumph will come."

Soun tried to smile. "By all means," he replied. "We have managed to marshal most of our resources in this system for Prince Kuno's siege. It will be a hard fight, but our morale is high."

"You see," Nodoka pointed out. "We have nothing to fear."

Soun nodded slowly. "Of course not."

Kasumi Tendo, eldest daughter of the Grand Duke, and the woman many in the Confederation felt should have been the Heir, dusted off her old neurohelmet. She frowned at its untidiness, a reflection of how much time she had spent with matters of state. Now, with the Furinkan Combine howling at the door, her duty lay in matters of war.

Her battlemech stood tall, foreboding, and silent in the family's armory. It had stood there for years, unused. The grinning death's head visage of her mighty Atlas, the largest, most fearsome battlemech in all of the Inner Sphere, had always made her feel as if the giant war machine was privy to a wonderful joke.

There would be little time for levity in the near future, she mused. Her army was about to deploy for Capella's second planet, a steamy hellhole of vulcanism and toxic atmosphere whose only moon served as the last bastion of defense between Nerima Orbit and the Jump Points. Fortifications on the moon awaited reinforcements, and the mines on Shounetsu Jigoku were vital to the system's industry for the battlemech-critical raw materials they produced.

Judging by Prince Kuno's caution since his arrival in the system, he would be loathe to ignore Shounetsu Jigoku and put its troops and ships at his rear where they could ambush his armies, and interdict his supplies and reinforcements from the jump points. He would have to attack there, and either capture or destroy the fortifications. The valuable mines would fall easily after that, and his way to Nerima would be clear.

The mantle of Captain of the Household Guard had fallen upon her in Akane's absence. Though morale was high among the troops, it was her duty as a Tendo to lead them in battle. She had not been in combat for four years.

Violence had never sat well with her, and she looked to the coming battles with all the anticipation of performing a vital, if distasteful, chore. She placed a hand on the cold, hard armor plate of the Atlas' foot, and steeled herself for what lay ahead. She wished that there was someone she could talk to, to confide in, before she boarded the DropShip for the front. Her father was trying to cope in his own way with the crisis, Akane and Doctor Tofu were gone to who knew where, and Nabiki...

Nabiki was plotting something dreadful. She had no proof of this, as her sister was taking pains to conceal her activities, but she had no doubt of it. Though it shamed her to admit it, she wished Father had not recalled Nabiki from her sabbatical when the Combine renewed its offensive. Her sister was sick, whether from greed and ambition, or something more physiological, she did not know. She only knew that Nabiki needed more help than she could give, and that her sister would not accept it if it were offered.

Now she was leaving the planet, and leaving Nabiki unchecked in her plots. A part of her wisely wanted to remain on Nerima to keep an eye on her. Who knew what Nabiki was capable of?

She had her duty, she reminded herself. She had to fight to protect her family and her people. Though she would make every effort to spare life in battle, she knew that in such hostile environments as the vacuum of space and the toxic, corrosive atmosphere of Capella II, that some of her enemies would not survive. It was as much as she could do to preserve her principles, and in the meantime, she would pray that Nabiki would stay her hand.

Army Group 'B' Headquarters, the Hotel Lyonne

Planet Viridian, Alpha Canaris System

The League of Five Nails

3 April 3025

"What am I going to do?" Hikaru Gosunkugi lamented to his trusted cousin, Tetsuo. His parents had ordered him to return to Tetsuyama Fortress on planet Angbad. The last thing he wanted to see - besides his parents - was the bloody red star known as Melkor.

They were angry at him for losing the Capra System. Never mind that they hadn't even heard of Capra before the Furinkan Combine seized it, they were angry that he had lost it in spite of the large force he had brought to that star system. His tremendous victory at the Jump Point meant nothing to them, as the Gosunkugis had a traditional contempt for the Navy that only Hikaru had been able to overcome. On the contrary, he reserved his contempt for the League Army, and had his reservations for their effectiveness in combat confirmed during the abortive attempt to engage the Combine on the surface of Capra.

"You have two choices," Tetsuo offered. "You either return to Angbad or you don't."

"That isn't very helpful," Hikaru snorted.

"I know you don't want to go back. So don't."

Hikaru frowned. "How exactly am I supposed to do that without making my situation any worse? I'm probably going to be grounded for this as it is."

"Stall. Find some excuse to stay here for the moment."

"Such as?"

Tetsuo thought for a moment. "Well, there is Prince Kuno's invasion of the Capella System. That's a pretty big deal, and it affects the League of Five Nails almost as much as it does the Confederation."

Hikaru nodded slowly. It was possible that he could beg off for the

moment using that excuse. "We could always say that we were readying an invasion of the Confederation to grab what we can for ourselves before the Combine takes it all."

"That will probably work," Tetsuo agreed. "You know how they want you to expand the League."

"We have more pressing problems. Like how to stop Kuno."

Tetsuo nodded in agreement.

"What did the oracle say?"

"'Ask again later,'" Hikaru lamented. He held up the small black sphere and shook it. "Now it says, 'You will order out for pizza and suffer third-degree burns.'"

"I got that once from a fortune cookie," Tetsuo noted. He looked at the black orb's missive. "You know, I didn't think they could fit all that in the space available, but what do you know!"

"It's a sign," Hikaru declared. His sunken eyes seemed even more hollow and empty than usual. "Of what, I have no idea."

"Perhaps we need to cast a detailed horoscope on the matter of what to do about Tatewaki Kuno," Tetsuo suggested. "But just to be on the safe side, let's cancel the Army Group 'B' Staff luncheon at Greasy Tony's, and eat in the Hotel instead."

"Agreed."

With the matter of lunch settled, the two rolled out a chart of the Inner Sphere that had been updated with their latest Intelligence, and began pondering over it.

"He's spread awfully thin," Tetsuo observed.

"True," Hikaru agreed. "But mostly in places where we'd have trouble reaching him."

"Capra is about his only vulnerable point where we can hit back."

"He'll be expecting it."

Tetsuo looked up from the chart and at his cousin. "You're really serious about stopping Kuno, aren't you? The Confederation has pulled back from just about everywhere on our border to defend Capella, and instead of hitting them now and grabbing what we can, you want to break the seige."

"If Kuno takes Capella and gets Tendo to hand over the Confederation, then we're done for," Hikaru pointed out. "He'll come after us next, and we won't be able to stop him. After that he'll go after the Commonwealth. If he can beat them, the Federated Shiratori will simply fold. The Inner Sphere will belong to Tatewaki Kuno."

"Not to mention Akane Tendo."

"I'm trying not to think about that," Hikaru said gravely. "So you see, we have to break the seige if we're to have any hope. Even keeping the status quo is better than letting Kuno win."

"So what do you propose, cousin?" Tetsuo asked.

Hikaru bit his lip. What he wanted would not find much acceptance beyond the confines of the room he occupied.

"I want a strategic alliance with the Confederation," he declared.

"A tall order," Tetsuo said, whistling with appreciation for his cousin's daring. "You'll have to convince Grand Duke Tendo as well as your parents."

"Tendo might not have much choice," Hikaru pointed out. "As for my parents, well, we don't have to tell them just yet."

"I assume that Akane Tendo will be handed over to you in order to seal the alliance?"

"Of course."

"Another tall order."

Hikaru frowned. "I'll find a way to convince him. All I need is some kind of in with him. Even if I can't convince him, though, I still have to stop Kuno from forcing his will upon the man. We have to get him to hold off on a full-blown invasion of Nerima, and that means we have to hit him where it will hurt."

"His pride is easy to play on," Tetsuo noted. "The target doesn't necessarily have to be that important so long as it makes him look bad."

Hikaru snapped his fingers.

"That's it!"

"What is, cousin?"

Hikaru gestured to the map of the Inner Sphere. "Tetsuo, we are going to invade the Furinkan Combine."

Tetsuo's first reaction was one of utter disbelief. Then he began to think about it. A wide grin moved slowly across his face.

"Cousin, you are either completely crazy or else a certified genius."

Hikaru grinned back. "Since I know I'm not crazy, the answer to that is obvious." He pulled on his headdress and lit the candles. A fatted calf would be sacrificed tonight in burnt offering to the gods for success.

Dragon of the Black Pool Fortress

Planet Tau Ceti IV, Tau Ceti System

The Jusenkyo Commonwealth

4 April 3025

Shampoo fastened the last frog-closure on her full dress cheongsam before the mirror in her quarters, then stepped back to admire herself. The pattern of eight butterflies chasing flaming pearls was skillfully embroidered with gold and silver thread on her sleek attire, and glittered in the light. Her lustrous purple hair was done up in her usual buns, though she had carefully wound strings of pearls and gold beads through them. The Phoenix insignia of Mechwarrior Major on her high collar - encrusted with garnets, amethysts, and honey-colored topaz sewn into the embroidery - was especially suited to her, she decided. She only hoped that she would continue to wear it after Herb was finished with her.

The general had decided to convene the formal debriefing that afternoon. She had received the summons to attend from Lime and Mint, Herb's inseparable henchmen. Fortunately for them, they knew better than to say anything to her other than that which was dictated by their orders when they presented themselves. It would not help her in the General's eyes to have beaten his lackies to a pulp.

She had enough time to visit the small temple on the fortress grounds before she was to report. She was not an overly religious person, but she felt that in this case she could use all the help she could get. Checking herself in the mirror one final time, she opened the door of her quarters, and stepped out into a small plaza whose flagstones were covered with a kind of local ivy and patches of hardy blue-green moss.

The visiting officers' quarters were just a few minutes' walk from the temple, and from there only a brief transit to the small auditorium where General Herb was holding the debrief. Shampoo walked proudly towards the temple in spite of her unease, drawing salutes from the mostly female troops she passed. She vowed to enjoy her status while she could, and put dark thoughts of her uncertain future aside for the moment.

The temple was small, a place barely large enough for one to kneel and offer prayers to one's ancestors for intercession and guidance. The cold granite stones were polished to a mirror finish, the sharply chiseled characters soaking up the reflected light into their depths. The sweet tang of incense tickled her nose.

Mechwarrior Lieutenant Pink was there, kneeling silently in prayer when she approached. There was no sign of her twin, but that didn't mean that Link wasn't around. Shampoo stopped short of the threshold to wait until Pink was finished.

The young mechwarrior stood slowly and offered a brief salute to the slabs of granite before turning to leave. Her eyes met Shampoo's and they locked for a moment in silent challenge.

"Mechwarrior Major Shampoo," she said to her superior with a salute.

Shampoo returned it. "I see that I'm not the only one in need of guidance from the ancestors." Her curiosity got the better of her. "Were you praying for our fallen sister, Laughing Orchid?"

Pink fought back a tinge of color in her cheeks.

"If I was, what would it mean to you?" she asked archly.

Shampoo decided to press the issue. After all, was it likely that she would ever get another chance? "It would mean that her death was not the simple matter the Ship's Doctor made it out to be."

Pink's eyes narrowed.

"It's true what they say; a woman who faces her own death has not the time to fear anything else."

"It seems to me that you have more to fear than I do," Shampoo returned.

"Perhaps," Pink conceded. "But then, anything that happened aboard the Jade Lotus during our return to Tau Ceti was your responsibility. You would have as much to lose as me by coming forward with the truth."

"Hardly," she snorted. "So you did poison Laughing Orchid. It was very clever work to have fooled the doctor so easily."

Pink nodded slowly, taken in by Shampoo's flattery. "It was one of my more difficult assassinations. You can appreciate my subtlety then, when I say that there are far swifter and less pleasant ways of passing-on than the gentle wasting that Laughing Orchid endured." This last seemed to be something of a threat, and Shampoo considered it as such.

"My only question is why," she returned in a tight voice.

"The answer should be obvious."

"Forgive my ignorance," Shampoo said with a humble smile that was anything but.

Pink returned the smile with her own wry grin. "Laughing Orchid disgraced herself and she disgraced the company with her shameful retreat on Capra. Then, in the full bloom of her crimes, she dared to accuse Mousse, the comrade she had abandoned in the thick of the battle, of mutiny and insubordination." Her eyes closed. "It was inexcusable."

"So you poisoned her," Shampoo pointed out. "Rather than see her answer for her own transgressions in the proper manner, you took matters into your own hands."

Pink gave her an accusing look. "Are you suggesting that I openly denigrate one of my battle-sisters in favor of a man?" She spat upon the ground at her feet. "Ludicrous."

"Then why murder Laughing Orchid at all?"

"It was the solution that offered the most face," Pink declared. "It was fitting that Laughing Orchid die for her cowardice in battle, and that she suffer for her shameful and baseless accusations. That was the price she had to pay, but for her sake I also ensured that by her premature demise, Mousse could not prevail against her in a public trial. She saves face that way, as do we all for not having to endure the shame of seeing one of our battle-sisters belittled for the sake of a man's honor."

Shampoo nodded slowly at Pink's logic. There would be no shame upon the sisterhood of the Joketsuzoku by having Laughing Orchid die of a supposed allergic reaction to Capra's biosphere. On the other hand, to allow Mousse to confront his accusers in a public trial - and very likely prevail in any court overseen by General Herb - the result would be an acknowledgement that a man had shown great courage in a battle where his female accusers had fled like cowards, and then tried to cover up their actions with slanderous accounts. On the whole, a scenario many in her clan would have found quite unpalatable.

In an earlier day, she would have agreed with Pink. Now, the idea of Pink's motivation sickened her. It was nothing more than lip service to the ideals they had all sworn to uphold when they became Mechwarriors of the Commonwealth. In denying Mousse his right to defend himself against his accusers, Pink had firmly committed herself to putting the face of the clan above her oath.

"I see your point," Shampoo said quietly. Her disgust was evident, and she wanted Pink to have at least a taste of it.

"I did my duty to the sisterhood," Pink declared, sensing exactly what Shampoo thought of her solution to the problem. "Justice is done, and our way of life is preserved. If you feel that the matter should be pursued beyond the happy conclusion I have provided, then you are an idealistic fool."

Shampoo flushed with anger. In a stand-up fight she could kill Pink in the blink of an eye and with one arm tied behind her back. Pink knew this, and so a fight between them would be anything but honorable and clean.

Pink gave her a warning look, then added. "I can see where you might have certain sympathies for Mousse. He has endured a great deal of torment for your sake."

"What do you mean by that?" Shampoo demanded.

"Haven't you seen his back?" Pink asked in return. Then, realizing that Shampoo had not, she continued. "If you have the opportunity, you should look at his back. Those kinds of scars aren't gained in battle, and they're too fresh to be much older than six months. That would put them from around the time of your departure from Lightoller, most likely. As I understand it, General Herb wasn't very keen on releasing you from duty, and Mousse had a hand in your escape. The General is a vengeful man."

Shampoo thought about Pink's words. Had Mousse been tortured as punishment for disobeying General Herb? It would explain a great deal about his behavior since leaving Lightoller.

"It's no business of mine," she replied.

"As you say," Pink said with a grin.

Shampoo couldn't let her go that easily.

"Remember, sister, that justice is not yours to mete out at your own personal discretion. If ever we should serve together, you will do well to remember that."

"Good luck with the debrief," Pink retorted, knowing full well that the odds of Shampoo escaping with her life, much less her rank, sat upon that precarious perch between slim and none. She offered a perfunctory salute, and stepped past the purple-haired mechwarrior to join her twin sister Link, who had appeared out of seeming thin air.

Shampoo watched them leave, and decided that it was for the best that she held her temper in check. Though Pink was ever the more treacherous of the two, Link's loyalty to her sister was sufficent to provoke a dagger in the back at the least opportunity.

When they had gone, she presented herself before the polished slabs of granite and knelt in prayer. She did not pray for deliverance, for she knew better than to expect that. She prayed instead to acquit herself well on the field of honor that would be her place of execution.

The Law of the Joketsuzoku held that a warrior sentenced to die for a crime had the right to face her executioners in combat. If she defeated them, more would take their place until she finally fell, or until no one else dared to enter the fated circle. If she could survive against all comers, then her innocence was established in blood for all to bear witness.

General Herb would make certain that her executioners were the fiercest fighters in the Inner Sphere, for he maintained a private stable of male gladiators that often ruled the circuits at Solaris VII and in other respected venues. It galled her to think that she might have to face mere men at her execution, and that eventually they might even defeat her.

Give me strength, she pleaded to her ancestors. Do not let me shame my great-grandmother by dying cheaply. Let me sell my life dearly!

Mousse watched silently from some distance to the temple. Though Shampoo was but a fuzzy smudge of color to his weak eyes, he looked on as if he could see the worry and anguish that wracked her lovely face. She knelt before the ancestors as one who faced death, though she had no way of knowing yet of General Herb's plans for her.

His heart ached to see her like that, and to know that it was all for nothing. The General had already stated that he would not execute her, though the alternatives were perhaps even less palatable. He himself would play the pivotal role in their fruition.

How could he have become Herb's tool so easily?!

He looked at her once more, and knew the answer. For Shampoo, whom he loved with not simply his heart and soul, but the very entirety of his being, he would do this. To follow Herb's orders was to buy time for her, so that somehow they might escape the machinations of the hybrid general and the enemies of Cologne on the Elder Council. They would have to leave Tau Ceti in disgrace as wanted criminals, but also with the opportunity for eventual redemption.

He closed his eyes slowly, drew in a deep breath, and left Shampoo to continue the preparations General Herb had outlined for him.

General Herb stepped into the auditorium from the greenroom at the back of the hall, his long full cape draping him in shimmering emerald silk. The serpentine coils of a dragon embroidered in gold and platinum thread wrapped around the full body of the cape, writhing and undulating as he walked, and the large embroidered Chinese characters for his rank and station glittered with the light of thousands of tiny diamonds expertly set into the fabric. His red reptillian eyes gleamed maleficently, and his jaw was set with the grim determination to execute his duty to the Elder Council.

He took his place behind the cloth-draped table that had been set upon the stage, eyeing the crowd in attendance with satisfaction. His personal guard, led by Lime and Mint, stood well behind him, but their fearsome presence was undiminished by their distance. Scribes and recorders in their ceremonial garb took their places at the wings of the stage.

He took his seat, and those in attendance slowly followed suit.

His eyes settled upon Shampoo, who sat with an older woman acting in the capacity of her counsel. He recognized her as one of Cologne's old friends, and who currently served as the fortress' Castellan. She would play into his hands quite suitably, he thought with a smile.

Lime sounded a large gong.

"This convenes the formal proceedings into the matter of Fourteen through Fifteen March of the year 3025, aboard and about the Jusenkyo Commonwealth DropShip Jade Lotus," he announced for them.

Mint stepped up to provide a stack of hardcopy for him to pick through.

"I have been conducting this inquiry privately over the last several days through the study of the ship's logs, flight recorder data where available, and deposition of the relevant personnel in the interest of saving time," he continued. "It was my sincere hope that more formal proceedings would not be necessary."

His eyes settled once again upon Shampoo, who sat imperiously in her chair as if none of this meant anything to her.

"Unfortunately, I find that this is not the case. Having exhausted all avenues of research into the matter, it is the finding of this officer of the Commonwealth High Command that the mission entrusted to Mechwarrior Major Shampoo and Agent Kima by the Elder Council has failed disastrously, and with great loss of life and irreplaceable Commonwealth assets."

Shampoo's counsel began to stir. Herb cut her off before she could voice an objection.

"Due to the unfortunate death of Agent Kima on the planet Capra, I find that all responsibility for the incident must fall upon Mechwarrior Major Shampoo. It is a sad but inarguable consequence of command, and one that I am certain that Mechwarrior Major Shampoo understood when she assumed command of the mission."

He looked at her closely.

"Is this not correct, Mechwarrior Major Shampoo?"

She steeled herself and stood to face him.

"It is just so, General," she replied in a firm voice.

Herb smiled thinly. "Having established her own culpability in this incident, and in light of the preponderence of evidence in the matter, I find that the law offers me little recourse in my final judgement." His gaze passed over the many faces in the auditorium. Disbelief was evident, as was shock, and even disgust with the ease in which Shampoo was being railroaded. He knew their sympathies lay with her, and that too would play into his hands.

"Nevertheless, I found it necessary to transmit my findings via HPG to the Elder Council, and seek their wisdom in the matter. I cannot argue the fact that the chief cause of woe to the mission was the untimely arrival of a large Furinkan Combine force on the planet - a circumstance beyond either Agent Kima or Mechwarrior Major Shampoo's control - and I hoped that the Council would take this into consideration when determining what disciplinary measures would be appropriate."

His eyes fell, and he seemed to slump for a moment in sadness.

"The Council, however, informed me that Mechwarrior Major Shampoo was under a probationary sentence at the time of the mission for a previous failure in action - the details of which are irrelevant to these proceedings. In fact, the resolution of her probationary sentence was contingent upon the success or failure of the mission to Capra."

He regained his composure, giving Shampoo an evil grin that lasted just long enough for her to notice. Her sudden tension delighted him.

"Mechwarrior Major Shampoo, rise, and face the pronouncement of this Board of Inquiry," Mint called from behind his general.

Shampoo stood quietly, her face calm and serene in the face of imminent doom. The auditorium was eerily silent around her as the assembled soldiers and functionaries of the fortress looked on in horror.

General Herb broke the seal on a gilded scroll, unrolled it, and stood. Mint stepped forward to take the scroll and read it aloud.

"It is the determination of this officer of the Commonwealth High Command, Mechwarrior General Herb, the Commander of the First March and its Wards, that the suspended sentence of death imposed upon Mechwarrior Major Shampoo shall be reinstated by the expressed orders of the Elder Council. This sentence of death shall be carried out at a time and place determined by Mechwarrior General Herb, who acts in the capacity delegated to him by the Elder Council."

A groan of disbelief spread throughout the auditorium. Shampoo remained proud and silent. This had not come as any surprise to her. General Herb had put on a good show, but she knew how much he was savoring this moment. She renewed her vow to make him suffer for this by forcing him to watch his precious cadre of gladiators die gruesomely at her hands.

Herb took the scroll back from Mint.

"It is my determination that the sentence of death imposed upon Mechwarrior Major Shampoo be carried out at dawn on the first day following her arrival on the planet Jusenkyo, that the Elder Council may witness it. As is the right of all soldiers of the Commonwealth, those who wish to set themselves before Mechwarrior Major Shampoo in combat should beg leave from their superiors and report to the starport by midday tomorrow for transport to Jusenkyo."

The gong sounded.

"This concludes the Board of Inquiry. Mechwarrior Major Shampoo, you will surrender yourself immediately for confinement pending the execution of your sentence."

She closed her eyes, and held out her wrists for Lime and Mint to cuff.

Furinkan Combine JumpShip Imperator

Capella System Zenith Jump Point

Capella System, the Nerima Confederation

4 April 3025

"Tell me, brother dear, were you worried about me?"

Tatewaki Kuno regarded his sister from across the small room. She looked remarkably better than he would have expected for someone who had been so close to death within the last two weeks. It was time to see her moved to that convent in the Periphery with all haste.

"Perish the thought," he harrumphed. "Thy death would have been a boon once I pronounce sentence upon thee for thy treason."

"Treason, brother dear?" she asked sweetly. "Whatever do you mean?"

"Do not play coy with me," Tatewaki returned. "Thy crimes are legion, and thy mutiny hath put the Army into disarray. Full many an officer have I been forced to execute, much to the wounding of our noble cause."

Kodachi measured his words carefully. Upon regaining consciousness aboard the Imperator, she had known that any of her troops captured with her would likely be put to swift death. She didn't hold it against Tatewaki beyond a certain personal attachment for some of her officers, as she would have acted in the same fashion had her position versus her brother been reversed.

"Am I to meet the same fate, I wonder?" she mused aloud.

"Nay, sister," Tatewaki replied. "Father would not stand for it, as you well know. Instead, I have decided to send thee away."

"Send me away?" Kodachi asked, knowing where he was headed with this, and simply going through the motions to get him to continue. Tatewaki needed drama in his life the same way people needed oxygen, and when he did not get it, he became rather cranky. It was best not to make cranky the man who held your very life in his hands. Well, not too cranky...

"Aye," Tatewaki continued, pleased that she remembered how the game between them was supposed to be played. "To a convent in the Periphery. There it is to be hoped that thou shalt find and mend the error of thy shameful ways."

"A convent," Kodachi replied dryly. "Should I be surprised that you would think of nuns at a time like this?" she asked teasingly. "I know very well the effect your years of Catholic School has had upon you, you naughty boy."

"Be silent, woman!" Tatewaki seethed. Having renounced Catholicism for the more pliable Shinto/Buddhist blend favored by his ancient Japanese ancestors, Tatewaki loathed even the mention of his time at the Our Lady of Perpetual Misery Elementary School, to say nothing of those trollish nuns who smote his knuckles with such holy wrath. "Thy impertinence earns you only ever more time spent in those dreary halls."

"Very well," she simpered. "To the convent I shall go. Perhaps if you visit me some day, you'll find me wearing one of those short plaid skirts I used to wear in school." She batted her eyes and grinned wickedly at him. "I remember how uncomfortable you used to get when you saw me in them..."

Tatewaki's face reddened.

"Be silent," he said. It was close to a plea.

"Calm thyself, Tachi, dear," she said mockingly. "I wasn't interested then, and I'm not now." She sized him up with a glance, enjoying how easily she could set him on the defensive, even with her position as weak as it was. "But if it will mean my freedom, well, I wouldn't mind indulging you just this once." She began to draw the sheet away from her bare breasts, giving him a peek at her rosy nipples. "I'm a little weak and tender right now in my wounded condition, so you'll have to be gentle with me..."

Tatewaki remembered to avert his eyes.

"Get thee behind me, sister!" he snarled. "Thy shameful licentiousness is a scourge upon the great name of Kuno!"

Kodachi laughed at him with all the mockery she could muster.

"You might be First Lord of the Star League one day, my dear brother, but you'll always remember who it was that could break you with a word."

Tatewaki took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"To think that I let thee live when it was full within the measure of my power to end thy life with but the press of a button..." he muttered angrily. "If such dark times befall me that I ever be considered a fool in the eyes of men, let it be for that singular act of mercy. Good day, O wicked sister."

With that he stepped through the airtight door.

"Oh pooh," Kodachi sighed. "That was just too easy."

She pulled the sheet back up over her breasts, as the room was a little drafty. It really was just too easy to get under Tachi's skin. He might be sending her off to a convent in the Periphery, but the matter of how long she remained there would not be decided by him. Surely at least some of her regiment had escaped from Capra!

She needed to speak to Sasuke. Hopefully the ninja had been resourceful enough to escape execution with the rest of her officers and staff. She decided that he was. Her brother would probably want to keep him close for the moment, in order to establish his loyalty.

Escape ranked high in her thoughts, but another matter lingered in her mind. What of that rogue, Ranma Saotome?

She had returned to consciouness with his name upon her lips. Though they were dreams borne of the delirium of her injuries, she knew that Ranma Saotome could indeed protect her from Tachi. That handsome devil, so brave and gallant on Capra! She had never before beheld his like, and thoughts of him fascinated her.

They also stirred thoughts of jealousy within her bosom, for he was the fiance of that insufferable Akane Tendo! How was it possible that a man like him was shackled to such a vile and shrill girl, when a woman of her own unsurpassed beauty, grace, and breeding was denied?

She would have to rectify that matter. Her darling Ranma deserved far better than the Tendo girl!

A sudden thought brought out a sly, wicked grin. In taking him for herself, she would not only gain such a fantastic prize of manhood, she would also exact yet one more richly deserved bit of vengeance upon the cursed Akane Tendo!

Nerima Confederation DropShip Palomino

Transitting the Palatine System en route to Planet Tiber

The Federated Shiratori

1 April 3025

NCDS Palomino transitted the interplanetary void between the marooned starship Dragonfly and the planet Tiber. The voyage would be a short one given their proximity to the world, a mere eighteen hours acceleration followed by another eighteen to decelerate at the end of the trip. The planet itself glowed blue in their telescopes, a welcome sight after the bleak deserts of Capra.

As they neared the end of their acceleration run, the passengers and crew enjoyed supper in the tiny Crew's Mess. Two of the Dragonfly's cooks had come aboard to prepare meals full time, as the number of wounded who were berthed in the 'Mech Bays had doubled the DropShip's normal complement, and food preparation had become more than a simple affair.

"All hands prepare to shift propulsion," the 1MC announced. The ship would be securing its main engines for a brief period of time in order to realign them for deceleration. The sensation of gravity provided by the plasma drives would cease during this time, putting the entire vessel in free-fall.

The crew taking their meal groaned in complaint.

"It figures that they'd decide to do this right in the middle of chow," Ranma complained. Their food was not currently configured for consumption in a weightless environment.

"It's only for an hour or so," Genma replied. "You can wait that long, can't you?"

Ranma was busy stuffing food into his mouth. He paused just long enough to give his father an incredulous look.

"Really, Ranma," Doctor Tofu cautioned. "Eating like that right before going into free-fall isn't healthy."

Ranma grunted in disagreement.

"Are we really surprised at this?" Akane said with a chuckle. "In the past two months I've learned that nothing comes between Ranma and food."

Ranma nodded vigorously as he crammed an entire pork bun into his mouth in one bite.

The rest of the crew stood and began to file through the scullery with their plates. Genma rose with Akane and Doctor Tofu.

"Can I get your plate, Akane?" Tofu asked her.

She gave him a warm smile.

"Why thank you, Doctor!" she exclaimed.

She passed him her dirty dishes. "That's very sweet of you."

"It's my pleasure," Tofu beamed.

"'Scuse me," Ranma grunted, hopping over the bench seat to get past them. There was a hurt look on his face that she had seen before. She mentally kicked herself for not confronting him sooner on the issue, but after the incident in Sick Bay, she had not had a chance to get him alone. The way he hung around other people since the departure of the Palomino made it seem like he was consciously trying to avoid just such a confrontation.

"Ranma?"

"Hey, uh," Ranma muttered, his food gone. "Look at the time. I better check on the LAM for tomorrow, huh."

He slipped past the crew waiting in line by the scullery for their turn at disposing their dishes. His plate sailed over their heads to land neatly in the stack. He disappeared forward before anyone could raise a voice in complaint.

"Ooohh..." Akane hissed. "Not this again." She started after him, feeling the gaze of the entire Crew's Mess upon her as she dashed after him. She could not believe she was doing this. If Ranma wanted to act this way, then who needed him?!

"Securing the Main Engines!" the 1MC announced.

The constant muted rumble of the plasma drives ceased abruptly, and the ship lurched ever so slightly into free-fall. They would drift for about an hour, then position their drives towards Tiber for the eighteen hour deceleration burn. Until then, they were weightless.

It made chasing after him that much more difficult, and she once again questioned why she was bothering.

"Ranma, stop right there!" she yelled at him. "Stop being such a coward!"

She pulled herself around a corner to come face to face with Ranma, who floated idly in the middle of the passageway as if he had been there the whole time. His expression betrayed no insight into what he might have been feeling or what he was thinking in that moment.

"Ranma!" she cried in surprise.

"You wanted something?" he asked nonchalantly.

She decided to let him play his cool act. It was better than facing a crybaby.

"I just felt that you needed to know something, that's all."

"That you're in love with Doctor Tofu?" he asked her. "I kinda figured that out for myself, the way you're always acting around him." He brushed at his threadbare red mandarin blouse. "It's no big deal," he continued impassively. "I understand how you feel. I'm even happy for you."

"You're an idiot," she replied. "And you don't understand anything. I'm not in love with Doctor Tofu. Not anymore."

He looked surprised. So surprised in fact that he didn't rise to her slight.

"No kidding?"

She nodded. "I've had a crush on him for years. That much is true."

He waited for her to continue, then finally asked her the question that burned in his mind. "So now you don't?"

"He happens to be in love with Kasumi," she explained. "He's felt that way for at least as long as I've been able to notice. It didn't change how I felt about him, but I always knew that he would never feel the same way about me as he did about Kasumi."

He nodded slowly at her words. "So what about you two hugging in Sick Bay?"

"He was just comforting me," she said softly. "We had a talk about how I felt, and the fact that he was in love with Kasumi. We're just friends, Ranma. Nothing more. That's how it will always be between Doctor Tofu and I." She grinned mischievously at him. "So stop worrying, okay?"

"Hey," he complained. "Who's worrying?"

She leaned in close to him, making him break out in a sweat. "Whatever you say, Ranma. Whatever you say." She looked him in the eyes. "You know, Ranma, just because I told you that I thought it was cute when you were jealous -"

She ceased speaking. Ranma remained deathly still, his eyes wide and a sheen of perspiration gleaming on his brow under the fluorescent lighting of the passageway.

"What is it, Ranma?" she finally asked him, drawing away from his face.

"Uh, nothing..." he muttered nervously. "I just thought you were gonna kiss me again or something dumb like that."

She smiled. "I think it was more like you hoped I would." She looked him over, then checked to see that there was no one else in the passageway. "Close your eyes."

Ranma swallowed hard.

"Y-You mean it?"

She gave him a sidelong glance. "Just do it, okay?"

He closed his eyes. The sweat was starting to bead around his brow in free-fall like a salty mist.

"Gotcha!" Akane cried, and gave him a push that sent him tumbling away in a slow zero-gravity somersault. She pushed off in the opposite direction with a hearty laugh, and disappeared down the ladder to the Lower Deck.

Ranma opened his eyes as he tumbled away to crash into the far airtight door. His last sight of her was of her laughing eyes as she stole one final glance at him before slipping down the ladder.

"You are sooooo uncute..." he grumbled.

Firebase LIBERTY

Currently on the night side of Oni,

a moon orbiting Shounetsu Jigoku

Capella System, the Nerima Confederation

H-Minus 5 Hours, 6 April 3025

Air hummed softly in the cockpit, stirred by several ventilation fans set above and behind the mechwarrior's ejector seat. The tinny whine of an array of gas-plasma displays added to the ambient sound, as did the muted roar of several hundred kilograms of liquid nitrogen rushing through the flashing chambers of the battlemech's heat sinks.

Acting General Kasumi Tendo took in these subtle noises as an indicator of her Atlas' health, in much the same way as her father had taught her when she was little, and the way she would teach her own children - when she finally got the chance to settle down and have some. Her battlemech was in prime combat condition, though she could hear the coolant circulating impellers surging, a consequence of the deep vacuum that surrounded her, as it forced the battlemech's heat sinks to rely on inefficient radiation rather than forced-air convection to shed waste heat. The coming battles were going to be a problem for 'mechs that relied heavily on energy weapons.

Combat was imminent because the moon of Oni posed a strategic problem for the Furinkan Combine that could not be ignored. The greatest threat to them were the three underground bases for GunShips and aerospace fighter squadrons, as they could range between the Jump Points and Nerima in search of Combine convoys, and strike at will at their reinforcements and supply columns. These bases had been constructed during the Age of War, in the dimly-recalled time before the short-lived unity of the Star League. As such, they were built to withstand the terrible firepower unleashed in those elder days, up to and including low-yield nuclear warheads.

Prince Kuno and his Furinkan Combine were not going to be able to simply bombard them from a distance with their far less potent weapons, and hope to succeed. Even if they tried, the bases were protected by heavy gun emplacements and formidable missile batteries - weapons designed to annihilate the great battleships of the First Succession War.

Though no rival Great House had ever faced these weapons before, the guns of Oni had duelled with a seditious branch of the Tendo Family in the Confederation Civil War of 2802. The result of this fateful battle was that the rival Tendos and their allies within the nobility were forced to withdraw from the system before ever reaching Nerima, and had suffered the loss of their pretender to the Ducal Throne when his heavy cruiser was gutted by Naval Particle Cannon fire.

The lethal barrage had come from the very base Kasumi now occupied with the 1st Nerima Guards regiment - on loan from Akane until she returned. From where her battlemech stood, she could see the bowl of the large crater Satoru Tendo's Shokaku had made when it crashed. In the airless void of Oni, such historical landmarks were frozen forever in time.

The only way Kuno and his armies could silence the guns and seize the bases was to launch a ground attack. There were blind spots in the weapon coverage of the firebases that would allow his DropShips to land their battlemechs without losing them en masse to the guns. They would have to make a long trek across the airless wastes to reach the bases, and Kasumi would see to it that they fought for every kilometer of it.

She had three regiments of battlemechs to do the job. It was a sizable force when considering that the entire Confederation had perhaps twenty full regiments of active duty 'mechs, held six mercenary regiments on retainer, and could call upon another four regiments of reserves made up of retirees or from the nobles' personal levies. She also had two brigades of crack Confederation Marines, a close-knit brotherhood of piss-and-vinegar lifetakers who had been doing this kind of ugly close-quarters fighting in a hostile environment for so long that most of the troops had permanent rasps from breathing canned air. Even if the Combine got close enough to the guns to destroy them, they still needed to dig out the Marines if they wanted to get the fighter bases. No matter the outcome, the bloodshed would be terrible.

As she considered the coming carnage, her adjutant piped in from a secure landline plugged into a terminal at the base of her battlemech's ankle.

"General Tendo, Deep Space Tracking reports a large force approaching Shounetsu Jigoku. The raid count is twelve DropShips and three wings of aerospace fighters. Estimated time of arrival is three hours and fourteen minutes."

Kasumi regarded Colonel Mukaida on her display. The last time she had spoken to him in this manner, he still enjoyed the use of his legs. The battle that saw him become a paraplegic had occurred shortly after her decision to step down as Commander of the 1st Nerima Guards. She had done so in order to take over as Castellan of Azure Cloud Castle, and to act as Lady Steward for the Confederation. It was a continuing source of guilt for her, as he had been injured while leading the regiment in the time before Akane took over as commanding officer.

"I see," she replied thoughtfully. "What is the time to intercept for our fighters?"

Mukaida consulted a display in the Command Center that was outside the camera's view. One thing that hadn't changed about the colonel was that he looked just as cramped and uncomfortable in a pressure suit as he had years ago.

"Our 9th and 11th Attack Wings and our 13th GunShip Command should be engaging them within twelve minutes," he declared. A voice off-camera said something that Kasumi couldn't quite hear, causing the colonel to shake his head in disbelief. "Those Combine fools have either underestimated the range of our batteries, or else they're utterly insane. They're coming right for us."

Kasumi nodded slowly. "If we fire, we'll only pinpoint the location of this firebase for them."

"I don't think we should pass up the opportunity," Mukaida countered. "If nothing else, our fighters might be able to take advantage of the situation while those Combine bastards are still busy shitting in their pants from our salvos."

She frowned at his crude but appropriately descriptive turn of phrase. "Very well, Colonel. You may fire at will, but I want you to stop in enough time to avoid hitting any of our approaching units."

Mukaida grinned. It was clear that despite his contempt for a staff job, he relished the idea of commanding such incredible firepower.

"Aye aye, ma'am. I'll inform the regiment to keep their heads down.""Thank you, Colonel."

She trained her Atlas' optics suite to the location in the black sky where the Combine fleet lay. Firebase LIBERTY was currently located away from the harsh glare of Capella, and the stars shined brilliantly in the void. With sufficient telescopic zoom and image enhancement, she was rewarded with a cluster of tiny blue flashes against the colder white of the stars - the plasma drives of the decelerating Combine ships.

"TEN SECOND WARNING TO COMMENCE FIRE," an automated warning from the base's battlecomp sounded in her headset. The batteries of Firebase LIBERTY were about to shake the heavens.

Kasumi waited silently, wishing that none of this had to happen, and knowing that as long as a man like Tatewaki Kuno commanded troops, the Confederation would not be safe from invasion.

"ALL BATTERIES; COMMENCE FIRE! COMMENCE FIRE! FIRE AT WILL!"

Sixteen terawatt-class particle beams lanced bolts of annihilation into the darkness. There was no sound - save for the intense crackle of static over her radio from the electromagnetic discharge of the guns' focusing arrays. Brilliant flashes of light strobed across the airless wastes, creating deep shadows among the boulders and crater-raised ridges of Oni's dead surface.

Kasumi continued to watch her display. It would take less than a second for the bolts to reach the Combine ships, and just as long for the light of any impacts to return.

Four bright flashes of orange and silver light lit up the display almost simultaneously as four enemy ships were vaporized. A relatively small DropShip was no match for the might of four Naval Particle Cannons firing in unison. The guns would need several minutes to cool and recharge their capacitors before the fusillade could continue, and Kasumi prayed that the invading Combine forces would see the futility of their actions and withdraw their attack without further loss of life.

Firebase LIBERTY

H + 2 hours, 6 April 3025

Kasumi Tendo took the news from her starfighter wings with silent despair. The Combine ships the guns of Firebase LIBERTY had destroyed were nothing more than ancient freight-haulers - virtually space-going derelicts. It was a clever ruse by Prince Kuno to expose the guns to the scrutiny of his scouts, and from their observations, to determine the best landing zones.

Now, hours later, she had even worse news.

A second flight of DropShips had landed nearly unopposed just south of the moon's equator, and the battlemechs and troops they disgorged were moving north towards LIBERTY. They were perhaps a hundred klicks from the base. Even now, Combine and Confederation fighters duelled in the airless skies over Oni, their struggles little more than tiny flashes and streaks of light in the darkness.

The battle for the moon of Shounetsu Jigoku was joined.

"Rockstar, this is Hermit One-Five," a voice crackled over the tactical channel. It was one of the 1st Nerima Guards' scouts. "Request fire mission, over."

Kasumi listened intently. The projected location of Hermit One-Five danced within an ancillary cockpit display. The scout was positioned in the volcanic highlands of Oni's Kyushu Plateau, about eighty-five kilometers south-southwest of LIBERTY's outer defensive perimeter. Though the moon's vulcanism had been extinguished eons in the past, the volcanoes themselves had formed jagged peaks and deep rifts in the soil - suggestive of a time when the moon had borne a thin and primitive atmosphere. These geologic formations could screen the advancing Combine troops from fighter attacks, but would ultimately form choke points from which her forces could repel their advance.

"Go ahead, Hermit One-Five," one of the base's officers replied.

"Rockstar, Hermit One-Five; Request fire mission at Alfa-Two-Four-Four by Tango-Three-Six-Niner. Observing enemy battlemechs in company strength."

"Copy that, Hermit One-Five. Alfa-Two-Four-Four by Tango-Three-Six-Niner. 'Mechs in company strength. Wait one."

Kasumi turned her Atlas' head to the east. A battery of five mobile Long Tom artillery pieces was dug-in behind earthwork fortifications near the base. The guns were a vacuum-ready variant of the standard Long Tom, using an expensive binary propellant system that was difficult for current industry within the Confederation to manufacture. In the weak gravity of Oni, the 250mm shells they hurled could reach targets up to three hundred kilometers distant. All they needed was something to shoot at.

She had given orders for the battery to use up all of their propellant in this battle, as the guns were too slow and cumbersome to evacuate should they be forced to retreat. The gunners were only too willing to oblige her, having never been called upon in time of war from their lonely and - at one time - secure posting within the Capella System. They would get their chance today.

She saw the long barrels of the artillery pieces begin to elevate out of their pits, and train on their distant targets. One of the guns belched a silent cloud of burned propellant gas that scattered and drifted like tiny violet flakes of snow upon the dull grey sand of Oni.

"Hermit One-Five, Rockstar; shot out!"

"Copy, Rockstar. Wait."

Kasumi knew that the spotting round was probably still climbing through the airless sky on its carefully plotted ballistic arc. The moon's feeble gravity would eventually tug the high-explosive projectile back towards the surface, hopefully on target.

Fifteen agonizing seconds passed.

"Rockstar, Hermit One-Five; drop two hundred, and fire for effect!"

"Copy, Hermit One-Five!"

The shell had landed two hundred meters behind, but presumably neither to the left or right of the advancing Combine 'mechs. The five guns began belching more violet clouds of burned propellant as they cycled through shell after shell. In the deep vacuum of space there was almost no concussive effect to be had. The shells would need a direct hit on a battlemech to do much good, although shrapnel from the exploding walls of the ravines could cause a reasonable amount of damage. At the very least, it would force them to spread out and seek shelter. She needed to delay them until she could put together a strike force to go out and oppose them directly.

"COUNTERBATTERY WARNING!" an automated prompt sounded from the base's battlecomp. The base's radar array had detected incoming artillery!

She waited silently within her battlemech as a tangled web of data and program commands darted through the base's defensive systems. No one currently living understood exactly what was going on within the computers and systems that managed the base, and if they should be forced to abandon LIBERTY, nothing would be left for the Combine to salvage. Yet another piece of advanced technology from a bygone age would be lost.

As Kasumi pondered this, the incoming shells were tracked, point defense guns rose from their armored bunkers and trained on them, and beams of nearly invisible laser light arced noiselessly across the wastes. Only motes of dust and burned propellant refracting the beams made them visible at all in the vacuum.

She bit her lip as shell after shell exploded with flashbulb spontaneity in the darkness. The Combine had artillery of their own, and were responding to the attack. They were probably safely dug in at their own landing zones, where Combine fighters prowled in numbers large enough to discourage a head-on attack.

She keyed her command mic, knowing that there wasn't much time to lose.

"Break!" she cried over the tac net. "This is Mother! Override fire mission! Shift fire to suppress hostile artillery!"

Shells that survived the point defense guns began dropping around the base. Noiseless explosions threw clouds of rock and dirt into the void. The interior of the base would be safe from these hits, but a 'mech would be in trouble. A vehicle or a soldier standing in the open would be utterly obliterated by a direct hit.

"Copy that, Mother. Shifting fire," the battery commander responded. The guns began to train due south, and then renewed their salvos. To hit the enemy artillery at the Combine Landing Zones would require them to use much more propellant with each shot. Kasumi hoped the Combine's gunners would run out first.

Prince Kuno had certainly come prepared for this battle, she noted ruefully. It was almost as if he had in-depth knowledge of Oni's defenses. she shuddered to think about the implications of that.

Nabiki...

Furinkan Combine Landing Zone Blue

Oni Southern Equitorial Zone

H + 12 hours

Tatewaki Kuno took in the reports of the battle from the War Room aboard his Overlord Class DropShip Oda Nobunaga. His forces had managed several landings on the surface of Oni, including a surprise attack within striking distance of one of the cursed Confederation fighter bases. The word from his commanders in the field was optimistic, though casualties were much higher than anticipated.

He chafed to be within the cockpit of his battlemech, personally handing the Confederation their defeat. Until the situation solidified somewhat, he was needed here to direct his forces. Nabiki had not told him everything about Oni, and his troops had earned their education the hard way. All the more reason to have her quietly strangled when the Confederation was at last brought to heel.

Alarm klaxons sounded then, causing his staff to cringe all around him. The deep booming of his grounded DropShip's weapons firing at an unknown foe somewhere beyond the cramped and dim confines of the War Room filled the still air. The ship shook with return fire impinging on the armored hull, but no decompression alarms sounded to warn of a breach.

"Curse those Confederation fighters," he spat. They had been harrassing his landing zones for the past twelve hours, non-stop. The Confederation garrison either had far more fighters than was estimated, or else their pilots were fighting at exhaustion levels. The answer was probably a little of both.

The fighter base his commanders were close to overrunning had already sent its deadly flock away, leaving only hardened positions occupied by Marines and artillery modified for use in vacuum. He ordered the attack to continue, for to leave the base unmolested was only asking for the fighters to return when his back was turned. He would give them no quarter, and no place to rest and regroup.

As he pored over the situation displays it became clear to him the center of the Confederation's resistance was a base known only as LIBERTY to his staff. Nabiki had been especially vague about its capabilities, though his SIGINT (SIGnal INTelligence) group had determined that the eldest daughter of the Grand Duke was personally directing its defense. He smiled warmly at the thought. Though it was not the fair and fierce Akane Tendo, he felt that Kasumi Tendo would make for a worthy opponent. He would have to lead the charge on LIBERTY so that he might get the opportunity to challenge her.

Alarms sounded once again, and once more the Oda Nobunaga shuddered with weapon hits upon its hull. This time a second alarm shrilled in his ears, filling his staff with dread.

"Hull Breach on Deck Eight!" the 1MC crackled. "Emergency bulkheads on Deck Eight indicate shut!"

Tatewaki seethed. These Confederation dogs were relentless! He would have to see them properly chastised.

"Prepare my battlemech," he ordered his aide-de-camp. "Have my battalion commanders assemble in the Ready Room at once! It falls upon the Blue Thunder of the Furinkan Combine to smite the foe!"

Confederation Main Line of Resistance

At the base of the Kyushu Plateau

H + 12 hours

Kasumi watched as the Combine Ostroc a hundred meters in front of her position exploded under the hit of her main gun - a Class 20 Autocannon with enough punch to annihilate a light 'mech in a single shot. The pilot of the sixty ton Ostroc, hammered by missile fire from her rapid-firing LRM-20 rack, was not used to operating in a reduced gravity well, and had attempted a clumsy break from cover. He found himself haloed in her gunsight a moment later. The hypervelocity depleted-uranium shell shattered the already cratered center torso armor, punched through the musculature and foamed aluminum internal structure, and then rammed straight through its missile magazine.

Missiles corkscrewed crazily out of the glowing wreckage of the Ostroc as the ammunition cooked off. Kasumi was enough of a realist to know that even though the shell had not struck the fragile cockpit, the ammunition explosion had finished the pilot just as surely as a direct hit through the armored canopy.

There wasn't time to say a prayer or to ask forgiveness. The Combine was pouring down from the plateau to the volcanic floodplain of hard, glassy lava that marked the southern extremes of LIBERTY's defensive perimeter. Their axis of attack was along three narrow fronts, into which an entire regiment of battlemechs was being thrown. The understrength 1st Nerima Guards and a battalion of the 3rd Tomobiki Hussars under Lieutenant Colonel Mendo was all she had with which to bar their way.

A barrage of missiles exploded into one of her wing companies on the left. Warning shouts and explicatives crowded the airwaves for a moment as the bombarded Confederation 'mechs sought cover and attempted to return fire. Another wave of high explosives rained down on them, and Kasumi saw one of the Lance Commanders fall into the churned grey rock, his Griffin holed through-and-through with missile hits.

Searching for their attackers, she found a line of Combine 'mechs setting up a defilade on a nearby ridge. They were artillery units for the most part; Archers, Crusaders, Trebuchets, and Riflemen, with some Hunchbacks and Centurions for close support. From their position on the ridge, they could overlook the entire lava plain. In the weak gravity and lack of atmosphere, weapon ranges were ten times longer than normal. They could clobber almost anything they could see.

Kasumi scanned her tactical display. As she had feared, the company of Tomobiki 'mechs detailed to protect the approaches to the ridge had been driven back from their positions with heavy losses. She had been too busy dealing with the enemy Ostroc to notice.

"Rockstar, this is Mother," she called over the command channel. "I need Close Air Support five hundred meters south of my position. Enemy battlemechs in company strength at Charlie-One-Zero-Four by November-Five-Eight-Eight."

Colonel Mukaida handled her request personally, popping up on her HUD.

"Copy, Mother. Close Air is unavailable at this time. All units are either engaged or rearming."

"When can I get some air?" she returned. "We have a serious problem out here."

Mukaida scanned several situation reports at his station. "Nothing for the next fifteen minutes, and probably more like twenty-five before they can reach your position. I just don't have any fighters free and armed at the moment."

"I see," she said tersely. There was no long range artillery left to call for, as the guns had run out of propellant. The Combine unit was laying down a tremendous barrage, pinning her units. She could already see other Combine lances slipping through the choke points and making a break for the open lava plain.

Her Atlas surged forward towards the ridge. The hundred-ton death machine shook the ground as it stomped ponderously on, crunching through the glassy lava rock to leave deep rectangular craters in her wake. Other Confederation 'mechs turned to see her walk out into the open, their pleas for her safety over the commo net falling on deaf ears. Instead, she was giving orders.

"First Battalion, advance by companies on enemy held ridge bearing south by west. Second Battalion, maintain position and provide supporting fire. Third Battalion and the Cavalry mop up the stragglers that get through."

It did not matter that they were breaking cover to attack. She knew that they needed to hit the Combine assault head on and turn it back with pure ferocity. Her enemies had marched several hundred kilometers across an airless waste, while enduring attack after attack by her scout units, platoons of ambushing Marines, her handful of LAM Light Cavalry, and of course, the fighters. They had to be tired and at the low ebb of their morale by now. One good charge could throw them back and send them into retreat.

The Combine fire company on the ridge did not notice her advance at first, as they were trading salvos of missiles with her forward-positioned One-Charlie Company as it broke cover and began to rush the ridgeline. Her main gun trained slowly from her 'mech's hip onto the closest of the enemy, a Rifleman that tracked the black sky above for a sign of the Confederation fighters. The range indicator on her HUD slowly ticked off into the amber, then the green.

Kasumi squeezed the trigger, and felt her Atlas pivot slightly at the waist from the recoil. The dull slamming sound of the feed mechanism loading another round carried through the 'mech's internals to her cockpit, confirming that her weapon had fired. As she noted this, her armor-piercing shell struck the Rifleman in the right torso.

The pristine gull-grey armor plate was spalled off in an instant, huge chunks of aligned-crystal steel flying apart in a spray of molten metal sparks. She watched as the enemy battlemech twisted crazily from the force of the impact, the pilot losing control of his machine. It fell backwards to crash into one of the Trebuchets - knocking it over as well.

Now they knew she was there.

A volley of missiles from two Archers streaked into the sky, eighty high explosive warheads ready to pound her flat. They never made it that far, as an alert Jagermech in her Support Lance trained its light Mydron Model-D autocannons into the sky, and with its formidable Garret D2j radar and aerial tracking system, began trap-shooting the incoming missiles. Their premature detonations filled the void with shrapnel, and the rest of the missiles in the volleys fell to fratricide.

This prompted the Combine units to shift their fire into the offending Jagermech - before it rendered their bombardment useless. A rain of light and armor-piercing depleted-uranium slammed into the Confederation 'mech, obliterating it in a flash of silver plasma. Stifling a cry of horror and anguish at the sudden end to her comrade, Kasumi returned fire with everything she had, and her weapon strikes ripped apart a Centurion limb from mechanized limb.

Laser beams and autocannon shells zipped around her as she approached the halfway point to the ridge. The intensity of their attacks was growing, for they knew what an Atlas was capable of at point-blank range, and they could not miss seeing the large blue and white Ducal pennant extended on one of the 'mech's antennae. Kasumi bit down on her lip and continued on. As the beams and bolts of the enemy exploded around her mighty Atlas with little effect, she was reminded of General DeChevallier's assault on the palace of Stefan the Usurper at the end of the Reunification War.

Her troops began to cheer and shout their encouragement over the tac net. Those that were not presently engaged in close combat continued to throw a barrage of suppression fire at the ridge, forcing the Combine 'mechs back from the cliffs and away from the lumbering Atlas. Her plodding charge went on, churning up a wake of glassy debris behind her.

As she closed the range, she set her LRM launcher to fire in automatic on the ridge line. The unique nature of her launcher was that five launch tubes disgorged four missiles apiece within the ten seconds it took to throw each volley, the net effect being a nearly continuous bombardment of the enemy position for as long as the ammunition held out - about a hundred and twenty seconds.

Such an outpouring of firepower left her free to concentrate on the handful of Combine 'mechs that had broken through, and now ran from position to position before her. The jagged peaks and piles of boulders that marked the boundary of the Kyushu Plateau and the lava plain gave them plenty of cover, and forced her to keep a close watch. More than once her finger tensed on the trigger of her main gun, only to hold back at the last instant when her target ducked behind the cover of solid rock. She only had eight rounds left for her massive autocannon, and she needed to make them count.

Her Headquarters Company had taken up a loose wedge formation behind her. It was a dangerous prospect, for her Atlas had become a fire magnet, but as her personal bodyguards, their duties were clear. They swept the flanks for her as she advanced, and she could hear the grunts and gasps of close combat across the entire battlefield in her headset. More than once she heard the tell-tale crunching sound of a 'mech cockpit depressurizing as it was hit.

She refused to let it affect her. Not here. Not now. She had a job to do, which was throw the Furinkan Combine off this miserable moon, and she was going to do it.

The ridge loomed before her, a graceful sweep of basaltic rock littered with pyroclastic spurs that was too fragile to exist in a place with weather and stronger gravity. The stark beauty of it was also too fragile to exist under continuous bombardment, as chunks of rock and glassy lava were blown free of the sandy grey soil to mingle with the bits of armor and machinery from fallen battlemechs. Her proximity made it impossible for the Combine 'mechs at the top to fire at her, but the reverse was also true. She could not hit them either.

She wasn't sure if the steep cliff of the ridge would support her battlemech's weight in a climb. The rock was brittle, and had been subjected to high explosives. The alternative was to approach from the rear, but that meant a dangerous path into what would certainly prove to be a Combine shooting gallery, with herself as a prize target.

Not wanting to prolong this battle any further, she dug her Atlas' hand into the rock. It seemed to hold the weight of the war machine, and she followed with a foot. It too held. Encouraged by this, she began to climb the ridge in a careful, deliberate fashion - mindful that one stray shot could blast her off without warning.

Her troops saw her climb, and eased up their barrage as she neared the top of the ridge. The loss of suppressing fire was certain to bring the Combine 'mechs back into position. Kasumi was counting on it.

With one more cycle of movement to go, she spied a large metalshod foot step precariously close to the edge. Her Atlas reached out and grabbed the battlemech's ankle, its massive fingers crushing through the weak armor of a Trebuchet and snapping the actuator. The Combine war machine jerked instinctively away from her grapple, but the Atlas was too strong to resist. Kasumi thought her 'mech through the complicated series of motions necessary to wrench the hapless Trebuchet off the cliff, and was rewarded by the flash of a Furinkan Combine pineapple insignia painted on its torso as it flew over her shoulder and crashed against the jagged rocks below.

The Trebuchet began to thrash violently on the lava plain, impaled by a lance-like piece of basalt, and a victim of a slowly brewing ammunition explosion. Kasumi was too busy clambering up the cliff to notice.

She was rewarded for her efforts by a dozen Combine 'mechs freezing up in terror at the sight of her. The Atlas brought down a huge armored fist onto the closest 'mech - a Hunchback. The 'mech tried to dodge the well-aimed blow that was meant to knock out its powerful Tomodzuru Type-20 autocannon, and landed instead on the turret-like head. The Hunchback staggered over, the arms flailing out of control as the mechwarrior's dying neural spasms gave them commands they could not properly interpret.

A Centurion within arm's reach was the first to regain its composure, and tried to gun her down with its autocannon. A 155mm shell gouged a crater in her left torso armor before she caught the cannon-arm in an elbow lock that was a specialty of the Tendo School of Anything Goes Martial Arts, and wrenched it effortlessly out of the socket joint at the shoulder.

Using the inert cannon-arm as a club, she then proceeded to bash the Centurion into a very expensive pile of scrap, ignoring the feeble beams of medium and light lasers from the other 'mechs as she did so. If she showed any mercy, it was only because she did not aim for the Centurion's head. The other Combine 'mechs, being mostly walking platforms for long range missile launchers, and therefore lacking a significant secondary armament, now began to panic.

She took full advantage of this, stomping inexorably towards them with the battered club held high. The grinning death's head of her Atlas had been engineered to be as gruesome and frightening as possible, and the sight of a 'mech that could literally rip any other battlemech apart with its bare hands was enough to give even the bravest mechwarrior pause.

They were good troops, brave and dedicated, but they weren't stupid.

Kasumi let them run, sending volleys from her SRM launcher to speed them on their way. On the floor below the ridgeline, she could see her forces throwing back the Combine advance on all sides. Confederation Eagles, Transgressors, and Hellcat IIs streaked without warning across the starry sky, their hulls scarred and blackened, and their guns rippling fire at their enemies.

Kasumi let out a deep breath, knowing that they had won this time, and knowing that the Combine still had plenty of fight left in them. This was only the beginning.

The War Room of Azure Cloud Castle

Planet Nerima, the Capella System

Nerima Confederation

H + 19 Hours, 7 April 3025

"I'm afraid it doesn't look good, your Grace."

Grand Duke Soun Tendo spared another glance at the report and agreed. Despite their best preparations, the Combine was winning the Battle of Oni. Two of the main bases had already fallen, their squadrons of fighters and GunShips making a desperate retreat to the remaining base, or to the small installation on the hostile surface of Shounetsu Jigoku. There was no word from his eldest daughter, though she was reported to be holding the vital approaches to the remaining base.

"Casualty reports are coming in," an aide announced.

"How bad is it?" Soun asked.

The aide gave him a stoic look. "You should see the other guy..."

Soun nodded. It was true that the Combine had paid a very dear price for their victories, but they also had far more troops to lose. Every Confederation loss was irreplaceable.

"I'm afraid that we've underestimated the Combine's fighting strength," he said to his assembled staff. "Unless a miracle happens, the situation on Oni is untenable."

There were various murmurs of agreement.

"Keep trying to get in direct contact with General Tendo," he added. His faithful Kasumi, shouldering the burden that he should have reserved for himself! "Order her to make preparations to evacuate Base LIBERTY and return with all remaining troops to Nerima. We'll make our last stand in orbit and on the surface of the planet."

"Your Grace," one of the officers broached in the silence that followed his pronouncement. "Shouldn't we take this opportunity to get you and the rest of the General Staff out of the system while we still have enough escort ships to fight our way to the Jump Point?"

Soun frowned. "What are you saying, Captain?"

"Well, your Grace, we know that Prince Kuno has leapfrogged directly to the Capella System with the intention of taking you prisoner, and extorting the surrender of the Confederation from you. If you were to flee the system, we could continue the fight from a new headquarters and force him to keep looking for you."

The Grand Duke nodded slowly. "I agree that your proposal has merits, but the time is past for fleeing. The Combine has enough fighting strength to conquer the Confederation no matter what happens to me. If we must fight, and I believe that we must, it is better that we spare the other systems of the Confederation from further bloodshed and destruction."

He gave them all stern looks.

"We fight here."

"I'm very sorry, Miss Tendo, but your access to this area has been rescinded."

Nabiki Tendo gave the soldier a cross look.

"On whose authority?" she demanded.

"Lady Kasumi, ma'am," the man answered coolly. "My orders are quite explicit. I'm going to have to ask you to leave at once."

She might have known.

"I'm the goddamned Chief of Intelligence!" she protested. "She has no authority to restrict my access to the War Room."

The soldier unslung his weapon.

"Ma'am, my orders were countersigned by his Grace, the Grand Duke. I have no obligation to inform you of this, but given that you're family, I thought you should know. Now, will you leave or do I have to make you?"

Nabiki grimaced. This was not entirely unexpected, but a nasty experience nonetheless. She had counted on having a little more time to gather current data on the defense of the system. She was not going to turn it over to Kuno-chan wholesale, however. She wanted him to pay for his victories, that he might better appreciate her assistance when the time came to offer it. Knowing what was going on in the war was important for her sense of timing.

"Put that thing away," she said to the soldier, gently pushing the muzzle of his rifle down towards the floor with her finger. "I was just on my way out."

She would have the last laugh, she thought with a smirk. I'm ready to act as soon as the time is right. And Kuno-chan is right on schedule.

Dragon of the Black Pool Fortress

Planet Tau Ceti IV, Tau Ceti System

The Jusenkyo Commonwealth

5 April 3025

Shampoo paced her small dungeon holding cell, awaiting her escort to the starport. She had not slept the previous evening, and her eyes were red and puffy with weariness. Those who would see her march to the DropShip would think that her red eyes were from weeping, but she hadn't been able to produce a single tear.

It surprised her, to feel so miserable and yet be unable to cry. Had she crossed over some threshold of pain without realizing it, or was this merely the numb acceptance of fate said to come over the doomed in their final hours? She had no answers, only tears that could not be spilled.

She had spent much of the night thinking about her execution. It would take at least a week to reach Jusenkyo, leaving her with nothing but time to anticipate the end. Why had Herb chosen the capitol, when he could have had the sentence carried out immediately, here on Tau Ceti?

One reason might have been that there would have been few Joketsuzoku willing to step forward into the Fated Circle to carry out the will of the Council. Tau Ceti remained a system loyal to her great-grandmother. It was a plausible reason, but one that did not explain why Herb hadn't chosen a system under his administration, like the Epsilon Indi System, which would not only have provided sufficient executioners, but also satisfied his penchant for irony.

The only reason she could think of that seemed to fit Herb's motives was that her death was meant to bring home the disgrace she had earned her family. Her great-grandmother had exercised a great deal of influence among the Council to grant her a second chance. To have her failure flung back in Cologne's face must have been delicious to Herb.

The sounds of doors opening and closing down the hall made her tremble inside. They were coming for her. As her escorts approached, she wanted to damn Ranma Saotome for her miserable fate, but that too would not come. It was odd, but the more she thought about it, the more she realized that he wasn't really responsible for her failure. It was her decision to respond to the security breach in such a way as to violate procedure. It had been her sloppy pursuit that had allowed them to get away on Lightoller. If she had tarried even a few minutes to investigate the wreck of the ATV, she would have discovered that both Saotomes had survived in time to finish the job.

Her failures had truly been hers, she realized. Though the disaster on Capra had been hung neatly on her shoulders, it would never have been necessary to go there had she done what was expected of her on Lightoller. Kima would still be alive. As would Joyful Cloud. Laughing Orchid too, though perhaps she would have found another way to cross Pink. As the sound of footsteps echoed down the dungeon halls, she came to accept the judgement of the Council, and in turn, the sentence of death that awaited her. It made her no less weary, anxious, or frightened, but at least it gave her a way to find some dignity in the whole sad affair.

She would enter the Fated Circle. She would fight with all her skill and might. If Death came for her, as it likely would, then the story of her glorious end would be remembered within the clan for all time, and serve as a just atonement for her shortcomings in life.

Perhaps it was this belief, unrealized until now, but deep within her subconscious, that had kept her from weeping, she mused. She had not only accepted her doom, but embraced it, and in so doing had made peace with herself and the universe.

The sound of keys rattling in a lock grated through the steel door, which slid open with the creak of hinges that hadn't been oiled in years.

"Shampoo?"

She turned at the sound of Mousse's voice. It would have to be Mousse, wouldn't it? she noted to herself. His face was drawn and pale, with dark circles under his eyes that spoke of his own sleepless night. He was alone, which surprised her.

"Go away, Mousse," she told him quietly. There was none of her usual venom.

"I brought you a change of clothes," he said, offering her a duffle bag.

She brushed at her full-dress cheongsam. "I'll go dressed as I am,"she told him. "My rank and station have not been taken from me, no matter the sentence I face."

Mousse shook his head.

"You don't understand," he returned. "I'm here to free you."

"What are you talking about, Mousse?"

"You're being used as a pawn against Cologne by Elder Peony and some of her allies on the Council," he explained. "I'm here to help you escape. Cologne sent word to the Castellan of the Fortress to see to it that you were to be allowed to escape before you could be shipped to Jusenkyo. You've got to believe me, Shampoo."

Shampoo considered it. It sounded like one of Herb's traps. Rather than grant her the opportunity to redeem herself in death, he could heap further disgrace upon her by having her shot in an escape attempt. Poor, dumb, hopeless Mousse would be easy enough for Herb to dupe into making it happen.

"Why?" she asked him. "Why go against the Council for my sake? I'm guilty of the crimes that I'm to answer for." She gave him a stern look. "I'm not afraid to die, Mousse. I'm ready to accept my fate as befits a warrior of the Joketsuzoku. I won't bring further shame upon myself or my family by running from my death."

"Shampoo," Mousse said quietly, his voice pleading. "You've got to understand... This is for your own good. It's the only chance you have left to redeem yourself without dying for it." He looked at her through his thick and wavy glasses, his eyes trembling and watery. "Don't you deserve another chance?"

His words stung her resolve. She did not want to die. She had resigned herself to it as the only possible salve to her wounded honor, but she did not want to die.

"I don't understand how escaping from here will solve anything," she replied cautiously.

"Commonwealth agents in Comstar have intercepted a communique from a Confederation Consulate in the Federated Shiratori," Mousse explained, reciting what Herb had instructed him to tell her. "The Saotomes are stuck in the Palatine System for weeks, pending repairs to their JumpShip. If we can get there in time, we can fulfill your orders from the Council to seize the information regarding Ryuugenzawa, and to kill the Saotomes. If you do that, then Cologne will have the leverage necessary to intercede on your behalf to the Council. You won't just be exonerated, you'll be a heroine to the entire Commonwealth."

Shampoo frowned. Mousse's story sounded awfully convenient.

"And she sent you to tell me this?" she riposted.Mousse nearly shook with frustration. "It isn't just me," he said to her. "Who do you think is letting me walk out of here with you? The Castellan of the Fortress and Cologne have been friends for more than a hundred years."

Shampoo set her hands on her hips. "General Herb put you up to this, Mousse. He fooled you into thinking you could help me, just so he can have me shot for trying to escape."

Mousse blanched for an instant as she declared her belief in Herb's responsibility for the escape. When she continued with some nonsense about assassinating her instead, he gave pause. It was possible, but then why go to all the trouble of this ruse when he could have her 'shot while trying to escape' at any time during the transit? In the split second such thoughts took to cross his mind, he decided that Herb's plan as outlined to him was genuine. He really did want the secrets of Ryuugenzawa, and talk of finding out through other sources was just a smokescreen. Herb needed them, not just to further his own ends, but as a way to distance himself from Peony at the same time as he appeared to be doing her bidding.

He needed to take another tack to convince Shampoo.

"Don't you even care about what happens to Cologne?" he hissed at her. "I wasn't kidding when I said that Peony and the Council are using you against her."

Shampoo arched an eyebrow at him.

"Now what are you talking about?"

"Peony is going to oust Cologne from leadership of the Commonwealth!" Mousse cried. "Cologne has angered enough members of the Elder Council with her favoritism of you to allow a vote of No Confidence in her leadership. If you don't succeed with this mission, then out she'll go, and the rest of your family with her!"

Shampoo's eyes grew large. What Mousse said to her made a twisted kind of sense. She knew of Elder Peony's hatred for Cologne, and figured the elder to be the chief advocate of her death sentence. Still, there were loose ends with Mousse's story.

"So how is escaping from here going to do my great-grandmother any good in the eyes of the Council?" she challenged him.

"It delays the process," Mousse replied, grasping at straws. "Until you can actually enter the Fated Circle, your ultimate innocence or guilt remains uncertain. They can't go after Cologne unless you die in the Circle - proving your guilt, and Cologne's irresponsibility for giving you a second chance." He had to hand it to himself for coming up with such a convincing explanation on the fly.

Shampoo's resolve wavered further.

"Supposing you're right, and Herb isn't just duping you," she began. "What then?"

Mousse recited his briefing from Herb to her.

"There's a ship due to leave the planet in less than an hour. It's a Covert Operations ship masquerading as a Free Trader. They'll get us to the Palatine System. After that, it's all up to us."

"Us?"

"I'm coming with you," Mousse said firmly. "I have all of the contact information, the code words for sending messages through Comstar, and the credit cards for our expenses are under my name and thumbprint."

Shampoo winced. Mousse had gone out of his way to make himself indispensable.

"Are you going to do something about this?" Mousse pressed. "Or are you just going to go off and die - and let Peony win?"

Her blood began to boil at his accusation. Mousse may have been a fool, but his words made a great deal of sense. If there was a chance to redeem herself, and her great-grandmother as well, she would take it. It was an extremely risky proposition, but it was better than taking a dive.

She opened the duffle bag. Within the bag was a small blanket and a squeeze bottle of water.

"I don't understand," she said to him, holding up the bottle.

"You can't just walk out of here, no matter how you're dressed," he explained. "Use the water to change into your Jusenkyo body, then get in the duffle bag. I'll carry you out the same way I brought the bag into the prison. There's mesh on either end so that you can breathe. Hide under the blanket in case someone actually bothers to search the bag. Once we get to the starport, you can be just another stray cat."

Shampoo looked at him. "How do you know what I turn into?" she asked him sharply. "I've never told anyone. Not even Doctor Gaido."

Mousse began to blush. "I - I uh, well..."

"You spied on me," she accused.

"It was unintentional!" he protested. "An accident! Really, Shampoo, I swear!"

She gave him a dubious look. "Never mind that," she said at length. She took the squeeze bottle and pointed the nozzle at her face. "Turn your back," she told him. "I don't like the idea of someone watching me change."

Mousse did so. For a moment she contemplated clocking him on the head and continuing on without him, but checked herself. What were the odds that Mousse actually had on his person all the information she needed?

Instead she closed her eyes and gave the bottle a squeeze. A cold jet of water splashed into her face, and she was hit with a sudden wave of vertigo. She knew that this was because she was rapidly shrinking into her cat body, but the experience was no less unnerving for knowing why.

She meow'd for Mousse's attention. The heavy embroidered silk of her cheongsam surrounded her, and she was unable to free herself without resorting to her claws. Mousse lifted away the folds of the dress and picked her up into his arms. He stared at her for a moment in wonder, and drew a sharp hiss from her to get on with it.

Mechwarrior General Herb's shout rang throughout the dojo as a bolt of heat and pressure - conjured from within his own body - burst forth from his hands and crashed through a stack of bricks. The pile of masonry flew apart in a cloud of red dust as the bolt's report mingled with the lingering syllables of his cry. The last bits of debris were still dropping from the air as he drew himself up from his crouching posture and studied his handiwork.

The hundred-kilo pile of bricks had been destroyed as expected, but the exercise was, for him, a warmup at best. He would face reinforced concrete next, knowing that its compressive strength would represent a formidable challenge. Once he had overcome the concrete, he would move up to a sheet of mild steel plating. The process would continue, with each target for his chi getting stronger, harder, and heavier.

On a good day, he could work his way up to punching through a one-centimeter-thick sheet of aligned-crystal steel battlemech armor with a single blast.

When he saw Lime and Mint approaching with stupid self-satisfied grins on their faces, he knew that he wouldn't get the chance.

"What is it?" he growled. Though he was certain that their tidings were glad indeed, it was best in this place so closely allied with Cologne that he keep up appearances.

"Shampoo has escaped, my General," Mint reported, his face falling with mock gravity.

"What?!" he exclaimed. The chi exercises were good for getting the blood flowing, and he was certain that his face was the perfect shade of livid red. "When and how?" he demanded after a suitable period of silent rage.

"It could not have been more than four hours ago, sir," Mint replied. "The guards were logged as making a tour of the cells then. They reported Shampoo secure. She was discovered missing on the next watch."

"I see," Herb muttered angrily. "How did she escape?"

"It's difficult to say, sir," Mint said with a thinly veiled smirk. "There was only her dress uniform in the cell when they discovered her missing. There was no indication that the door had been forced, and none of the guards saw anything."

"No," sniffed Herb. "Of course not." He shook his head in disgust. "If that fool of a Castellan hasn't already done so, order the starport sealed and all ships grounded until they can be thoroughly searched!"

"Yes, General!"

Herb whirled about, apparently lost in thought for a moment. "Four hours... Four hours... How many ships have left the planet between now and four hours ago?"

Mint had the figures ready. "Tau Ceti is a busy port of call for merchant shipping, my General. At least three ships have left the starport for the Jump Points."

"How convenient..."

Mint waited a moment before speaking.

"Should we send ships to intercept and board them, my General?"

Herb thought about it for a moment.

"No. Let them go. It's likely that she's still on Tau Ceti. She enjoys a great deal of support from the local population because of her great-grandmother, the Matriarch. She could easily afford to wait here until the crisis passes, and then slip away off-planet at her leisure."

"What then, sir?"

Herb's reptilian eyes flashed.

"It is obvious that Shampoo was able to escape with help from within the garrison of the Fortress. I would not put it past even the Castellan herself to have had a hand in this affair. Would that I had jurisdiction on this world, I could begin an investigation into the matter, but lacking that, I can only report this incident to higher authority." He stepped to the mat where his cape lay. Lime hustled wordlessly over to him and draped the shimmering green silk over his shoulders. "Give notice to the Captain of the Demon-God of the East Wind that we shall raise ship as scheduled."

"At once, sir!" Lime and Mint scrambled to comply.

Herb pulled the frogs of his cape closed. Mousse had been a useful tool after all, for Mint was not to have given the word of Shampoo's escape unless it had been confirmed that she and her half-blind companion had boarded the Free Trader as planned. Had they not, then Lime was to have given the report. One could never be too careful in the house of one's enemies.

There would be fallout from this incident. It was necessary for him to keep up appearances and denounce the escape as the work of Cologne sympathizers within the Fortress, and it was no secret that the Castellan was a strong ally of the Matriarch. Peony would seize upon that fact like a mad dog with a bone in its teeth, and never let go.

She would need to be restrained from rash action. He needed to keep Cologne in power for the moment. This would require a personal intervention on his part, meaning that they would still have to Jump to the Jusenkyo System. Once it was clear to Peony that his army was not at her exclusive beck and call, and Cologne was coached to make vague threats about civil war in the meantime, he would have the impasse he needed. If Peony balked at his sudden lack of loyalty to her, that was all she could do. He didn't need her nearly as much as she needed him.

With luck he would have enough time for Shampoo and Mousse to acquire the data regarding Ryuugenzawa. He had a regiment of crack Musk Dynasty troops standing by to deploy to any part of the Inner Sphere to take and hold the legendary world long enough to loot it of all its secrets. Then he could finally drop his charade of loyalty to the Joketsuzoku, and usher in a new age for the Commonwealth: the Age of the Musk Dynasty, with himself as its first Emperor.

Though the blood of the Joketsuzoku flowed through his veins, he did not consider himself one of them. He was a man, and as he had learned long ago, a man had no place in a world run by women. What wealth and station he possessed, he had taken for himself by virtue of his skill, strength, and, as he was proud to admit, by his treachery. Beating the women at their own game was nothing to be ashamed of.

Furinkan Combine JumpShip Imperator

Capella System Zenith Jump Point

Capella System, the Nerima Confederation

7 April 3025

"Sasuke?"

The ninja melted out of the bulkhead of Kodachi's quarters with a smile. His chameleon suit crackled quietly in the dim light as it powered down.

"I am here, Mistress."

Kodachi chuckled softly. Her ninja retainer was supposed to be on the planet Nerima attempting to make contact with the turn-coat daughter of the Grand Duke, Nabiki. She was certain that Tachi had forbidden, on pain of death, any contact with her.

"It took you long enough," she sniffed.

"My apologies, Mistress," he demurred. "I judged it prudent to wait until Prince Tatewaki had departed for battle, as I am supposed to be on the planet Nerima at this moment."

Kodachi yawned absently at this. She would have preferred to escape out from under her dear brother's nose.

"I assume you have a plan for my release?"

Sasuke nodded. "The JumpShip Harushio is scheduled to depart the system for Capra, and from there into the Combine interior. Several of the ship's officers, including the Captain, are sympathetic to your plight." He did not feel it necessary to mention that the reason Harushio's skipper felt obliged to assist in Kodachi's escape was because one of his brothers had been recently executed by Prince Tatewaki for the crime of being a staff officer in the Black Rose Terror Regiment.

Kodachi waited coolly for Sasuke to continue.

"Once the Harushio has reached the interior, we shall rendezvous with the surviving elements of the regiment."

"Survivors?" Kodachi asked hopefully. Her cool demeanor had given way to something more passionate.

"Yes, Mistress," the ninja replied. "The regiment is little more than a battalion of battlemechs now, but they remain loyal to you alone."

A tear welled at the corner of her eye, and she brushed it away. It was more than she had hoped for. It was certainly enough to quickly rebuild the regiment to its old strength. She would need to find replacements for them, but these she could recruit from within her own marches of the Combine.

Once the Black Rose Terror Regiment had risen from the ashes of defeat, she would need a course of action. Her dear brother would have to pay for plotting to exile her to the Periphery. The game would go on. How best to accomplish this?

Visiting Father in the Alpha Centauri System was an idea, but one she quickly dismissed. Though Father would forbid Tachi to exile her to the Periphery, he would also insist on peace between them, and that was something neither she nor her brother would agree to. He was too close to conquering the Confederation - and ultimately becoming First Lord of a new Star League, and she was too hungry for revenge.

No, there could be no peace between them. Their game must go on until she was the final winner. She did not care for the same conquests as her brother. Her battleground was as much in the mind of her enemies as the actual field of combat. Victory would not come until her brother was a broken man, humbled and powerless. Defeat, though unthinkable, would come only with her death.

She continued to ponder the matter, as she had for the last week since regaining consciousness. Sasuke remained silent and ready to respond at her feet.

It would be best for the moment to withdraw from the Combine, she decided. Once she had rebuilt the regiment, they would need training and battle experience to regain the esprit de corps and the cohesion for which her old unit had been famous. The quickest way to accomplish this was to retire to the Federated Shiratori. Mercenaries were always needed there to fill the ranks of the squabbling nobles who had good reason to avoid the support of Empress Azusa's incompetent army.

Becoming a mercenary wouldn't shame her, as she had always been a bit of a renegade and a maverick within the Furinkan Combine. The only difference now was that she would have to take orders from someone else. It was distasteful, but if she found the right employer, namely one who cared for results more than methods, such distaste could be minimized. There might be an outcry from the Combine's daimyo at her defection, but Father would handle them as he always did.

Once the Black Rose Terror Regiment regained its fearsome reputation, she would see about putting Tachi in his place. She had little doubt that the Confederation would fall before she was ready to return to the Combine, the question was whether or not he would have the dreadful Akane Tendo as his bride.

She hoped that he would. It would make the Tendo witch's death by her hands that much more painful to him.

Of course, if Tachi had Akane Tendo for a bride, then Ranma Saotome would have been dealt with. Dealt with severely, knowing her brother.

Kodachi did not like that idea one bit. Her longing for Ranma had grown more and more within her heart during her captivity aboard the Imperator. Having never felt such passion for a man before, she did not question the rationality of it. It did not matter to her that they had met only as foes over the barrels of her Marauder's guns. What mattered was Ranma Saotome, headstrong and handsome devil that he was, holding her in his arms, and telling dear Tachi where he could stick that precious katana of his.

It was imperative that she find him before Tachi did. Of course, wherever Ranma was, his shrewish fiancee was certain to be nearby. It would save her the trouble of tracking the Tendo harridan down.

All in good time, she thought with an inner chuckle. If she did not escape from Tachi's flagship, none of her nebulous plans could be put into practice.

"When do we leave?" she asked him.

The sound of a body hitting the floor outside the door to her quarters punctuated her question.

"Right this moment, Mistress," Sasuke replied with a faint smile.

Blue Thunder Regimental Mobile Headquarters

Kyushu Plateau, the Moon of Oni

Capella System, the Nerima Confederation

H + 21 hours, 7 April 3025

"She's what?!" General Prince Tatewaki Kuno demanded over the radio.

"Your sister, Princess Kodachi, has escaped from her quarters," Captain Kyle responded. There was a considerable lag of nearly nine minutes between the two, owing to the considerable distance that separated them.

"Find her!" Tatewaki thundered. He had a war to win, and could not just walk away from an important battle to deal with his treasonous sister! Even worse, he was still almost eighty kilometers from Base LIBERTY and his self-appointed duel with Kasumi Tendo!

"That may be difficult, my prince," Kyle responded after an agonizing wait. "We believe she has already escaped the system aboard the JumpShip Harushio. They were bound for Capra, and then the Combine interior."

Tatewaki turned a deeper shade of red. "Thou art certain of this?"

"Yes, my prince. We were able to detain one of the conspirators before he could make his own escape. He told us enough to know that the ninja, Sasuke, was the mastermind of the plot. He also informed us that surviving elements of the Black Rose Terror Regiment are awaiting the return of their mistress, and that when reformed, they would attempt to overthrow you, my lord."

The Blue Thunder of the Furinkan Combine tensed in the cockpit of his battlemech. Sasuke... His hands clenched around the control yokes of his Thunderbolt. He knew then that he should have listened to the voice of caution and had that cur executed with the rest of them!

"I have news of even graver import to tell you, my prince," Kyle continued. "We have just received unconfirmed reports via HPG that the League of Five Nails has launched an offensive against the Combine border. Six systems have been hit in surprise attacks against our garrison forces. All six systems are believed to have fallen to the League."

Tatewaki could not believe his ears! He was within scant kilometers of seizing his primary objectives on Oni, and then this! His cursed sister had escaped, and now Hikaru Gosunkugi had the effrontery to attack the most powerful nation in the sum of all human reckoning?

"How can this be?" he asked himself. This news was beyond grave, it was staggering! "Speak man," he told Kyle. "What is the nature of this attack? What are their intentions?"

Kyle studied a hastily assembled report from the Intelligence Section, leaving Tatewaki feeling helpless and impotent within his cockpit.

"The main thrust of the League advance seems to be directed towards the Alpha Centauri System," Kyle replied. "Thus far, their intention seems to be one of conquest."

"Conquest of the Furinkan Combine?!" Tatewaki cried in disbelief. "Surely the seed of the House of Gosunkugi hath better sense? Or mayhap he thinks that I, properly distracted in noble combat, will not pay heed to his base deeds, that he might profit from this skulduggery!"

"Whatever his intentions, my prince," Kyle returned. "It seems our interior garrisons are in no position at the moment to form an organized opposition to this invasion. Most of our deployable assets are tied up with our own invasion of the Confederation."

"Of course," Kuno snorted. "Certainly, this is what the cretinous Gosunkugi believes."

"What are your orders then, my prince?"

Tatewaki struggled with his rage for being placed in such a damnable position. He was so close to conquering Oni, the stepping stone to Nerima. But his honor had been sorely wounded by this surprise invasion of his empire by an upstart, and that he could not abide! There was also the matter of his sister, who was no doubt headed straight for their father. The fool would naturally take her side in the matter, and forbid him to take punitive sanctions against her.

It was enough to make his blood boil and his teeth grate.

"It seems that we must answer this challenge to our sovereignty," he said at length. "The Confederation is beaten; that much is obvious by our great victories in battle this day. They shall keep for the nonce. It is the head of Hikaru Gosunkugi that I hunger for now..."

Firebase LIBERTY

H + 25 hours

Kasumi Tendo had never considered the matter before, but the woman who sat in the cockpit of a battlemech and gave orders that sent young men and women to their deaths, was not the same woman who now walked the darkened halls of LIBERTY. Out there she had to be cold and calculating, weighing the losses versus the potential gains of any decision. Away from the fighting she was warm and compassionate, lending her empathy to all who suffered. At that moment she found herself wishing she were otherwise, for there was far more pain here than one woman could ease.

The stench of death was everywhere. The wounded, mostly from the two main bases that had fallen and their secondary bases, lay wrapped in silvery thermal blankets in the halls. Some had enough strength to moan in pain, others, in shock or too proud to cry out, gave her glassy-eyed looks as she passed. The handful of doctors, nurses, and medics available made their rounds like blood-spattered ghosts, their voices soothing and quiet as they gave demerol to calm the ones they could save, and morphine to the ones they couldn't.

The dead had already filled the morgue, and were now being laid out on tables in the Mess Hall.

She stood in the doorway to the Mess Hall, looking at the many still forms lying beneath bedsheets, blankets, even formal capes and camouflage panchos. The steady drip of blood and other fluids echoed hollowly into sheet pans from the kitchen that had been placed on the floor underneath the bodies. Steeling herself, she began to walk silently among the dead, passing a pale and bloody limb that had fallen out from under the mortuary shroud here, or a long fall of once-lustrous green hair that reached the floor over there.

She lifted the sheet that covered a man who could have been Akane's age. By his unit patch and by the prancing horse tattoo on his forearm, she knew that in life he had been a Marine with the 5th Brigade, all but decimated after the battle for base FIDELITY. In death, well, to his comrades he would always be a Marine, she supposed. His handsome face was marred with the bluish tracery of ruptured capillaries - the surest sign of death by explosive decompression. There didn't seem to be any other injuries. One crack, one hole in your pressure suit, was all that it took.

He was one of the lucky dead, she knew. He had a left behind a body that his loved ones could grieve over. There were many who had died out on the dark frozen wastes that would never be recovered. There were pilots, their fighters crippled, that had been flung into interplanetary space. They would hold out for a few days until their life-support finally failed, then slip away into oblivion - tiny new planets orbiting the star Capella for all eternity.

She returned the shroud to its place and left the makeshift morgue. The sight of so much death, so much sacrifice, was more than she could bear. A mechwarrior the tender age of twenty-two, she had never been in a battle so large and so costly before.

"How long have you gone without sleep?"

Kasumi looked up from her cup of chamomille tea to see the haggard face of Colonel Mukaida staring back at her. His wheelchair was draped with flimsies and charts. His voice had a worrisome rattle to it that nagged at her.

"About as long as you have, Colonel," she replied.

Mukaida nodded sagely. "I'm getting word from our remaining fighter squadrons."

"How are they holding up?"

"They're right at the limit. Fifty-percent casualties, most of them fatalities. That's how it goes when you fight in vacuum. Another sixteen percent of the remainder have fighters that are too damaged to go back out. We're down to some Combat Air Patrol around our inner perimeter, a few recon flights, plus an odd squadron or two for Close Air Support. We're running it on a 'Push' basis."

Kasumi nodded slowly. 'Push' CAS meant that unless the 'mech forces requested close air support on a specific, individualized basis, the fighters were free to do what they wanted. At the moment, that meant staying inside the base, resting and replenishing their reserves.

"What about recalling the GunShip squadrons?" she asked. They had sent them out away from the moon to search for a possible Combine end-run around their defenses while they were busy fighting the landing force. So far, the Combine had decided to stick to the battle on Oni. No ships had been spotted trying for Nerima.

"It's possible," Mukaida admitted. "We could use the firepower, but I'm worried about Kuno sneaking past us and making a go for home plate."

"True... I guess we'll have to make do with what we have left." She sipped at her tea. "What was the word from our fighters again?"

"The Combine is withdrawing most of their forces from the moon," he replied. "They're keeping the regiment that's south of us in position, and moving in some Engineer units with heavy equipment modified for vacuum to support them."

"That's odd," Kasumi remarked. "It sounds like they're digging in. Like they plan on staying where they are for awhile."

Mukaida agreed with a grunt. "It doesn't make much sense. They've got us on the ropes. Why pull back now?"

"Could it be that they're just repositioning for a massed attack on us from multiple fronts? Now that the Particle Cannons at the other bases have been destroyed, they can move across most of the surface of the moon with impunity."

"It doesn't look that way. The DropShips are all headed back for the Jump Point. It's like they're getting ready to pull out of the system."

"Oh my," she breathed. "Surely they can't all be retreating. There isn't any logical reason to simply abandon the Jump Points and let our reinforcements get through."

"Whoever said Prince Kuno was logical?" Mukaida returned. "Anyway, we have a respite for now, so get some sleep, all right?"

"Yes, Colonel," she said with a wan smile. "You do the same."

"Yes, ma'am."

He wheeled himself out of her tiny office. Kasumi knew the strain of combat was taking a particular toll on her adjutant. He was too old to be doing this, and too proud to quit.

She finished her tea and set the cup down on the desk. The office came equipped with a couch that wasn't too uncomfortable thanks to Oni's weak gravity. She stretched out upon it and tried to clear her mind enough to sleep.

It wasn't easy. Colonel Mukaida's bombshell about the Combine leaving the moon disturbed her. Being stuck on Oni meant that she was out of the Intelligence loop - at least until they could repair the long range radio array the Combine had bombed early in the battle, and reestablish contact with Nerima. At the moment they depended on a shaky daisy-chain of radio links through the GunShips, but those were line-of-sight and often tenuous given the distances involved and the incessant Combine jamming broadcasts.

The horrendous loss of life also plagued her. Those Marines at the other bases had fought to the last man. In the end they had been forced to pump out the air inside the bases to reduce the effectiveness of the attacking Combine Marines' explosive weapons. That meant that even the most minor injury in battle could be fatal if one's pressure suit didn't reseal. She knew those men prided themselves on their long-knife skills, and that many a Combine Marine had probably died in a flash of cold Confederation steel before the end.

The madness of it all made her shiver. In spite of herself, she had to agree that Nabiki was right about the Succession Wars. They were stupid, brutal, petty squabbles over an empire that no longer existed, and probably never would again. She was trapped in a vicious cycle of hate and violence, with all of the players acting out the crazed fantasies of their greedy, ruthless ancestors.

What was the point of all of this? she wondered painfully. It was painful because she knew that the Confederation was doomed, and that a man like Tatewaki Kuno, as bloodthirsty and delusional as any of the original members of the Star League High Council, was going to prevail. What would the Inner Sphere be like with him as its ruler? Could a man like him be satisfied with dominion over the Inner Sphere, or would he use his time as First Lord to rebuild his armies, and press out into the Periphery as well? He likely would, she reasoned.

And when the Periphery was his? Well, there were legends of early settlers moving beyond even the Periphery in search of habitable worlds, and what of General Kerensky's Exodus? Surely their descendents still lived somewhere far out beyond what was considered Known Space. Would he try to conquer them too? Would people completely innocent of the madness of the Succession Lords have to suffer for Tatewaki Kuno's glory?

This was the paradox which encompassed her. Fight and kill and die for a tired, centuries-old conflict, or submit and let a madman like Kuno export his dreams of conquest into virgin space. How many more like that boy in the Mess Hall had to die before someone was finally satisfied?

It was too much for her to take all at once, and she broke down into tears, her body trembling with exhaustion and wracked with sobs.

Eight Shining Pearls Fortress

Planet Jusenkyo, Jusenkyo System

The Jusenkyo Commonwealth

8 April 3025

Cologne took in the setting sun with a weariness she had never before experienced in the many decades of her considerable life. She had seen through Elder Peony's plot from the very moment of its inception, but her rival had carefully chosen the time to act, and in fact there was little Cologne could do to stop her - short of a civil war. That, she was reluctant to do, but the necessity of it in light of the Furinkan Combine's siege of Capella was obvious. Kuno may have had his hands full with the sons and daughters of Nerima for the moment, but the final outcome was never in any doubt. Once the Confederation fell, the League would crumble, and then the Furinkan prince would turn his hungry eyes towards the Commonwealth.

Peony could not manage the country by herself, and her faction in the Council was represented by the incompetent remnants of a power-clique Cologne had snubbed a hundred years ago when she became the Matriarch. They and their descendents had been nursing their grudge for just as long, and it had festered into a thing of blind hate with a life all its own. They sat on the Council by virtue of their ancestors, and their sole purpose in life seemed to be opposing her in all matters.

Cologne had perhaps four votes on the Council, and all of these were family or allies of her family from the earliest days of the Star League. Their support was unswerving, but not enough to oppose Peony and the remainder of the Council who were fence-sitters - jackals who scented the shifting winds of fortune and positioned themselves accordingly. Any support for her from these opportunists was hollow so long as Peony stood a chance to topple the Matriarchy.

The temptation to have Peony and her ilk assassinated weighed heavily upon her. It was an act that might very well provoke the civil war she wished to avoid. As the sun sank lower into the Jusenkyo sky, mirroring the sunset of her own reign, she looked back upon the bright morning of her rise to the Clan leadership.

It would have been better to have removed them then, and installed her own people in the positions Peony and her cronies now occupied. She realized that had she been a spiteful woman in her salad days, this dilemma would not have come to pass. She was stronger then, politically and physically, and better able to ride the shockwaves such a brutal act would have caused.

What would Happi have done? she wondered idly, knowing full well that the Happousai she had known many years ago had never cared for power so much as he did the pleasure that came with it. He would have thrown all caution to the wind, and had Peony's faction rounded up and killed without a second look back.

That was an answer in itself, she decided, and one which vindicated her decision to hold no ill will against the defeated factions the day she had become the head of the Council. She had gone far in life by not doing what Happousai would have done. She nodded grimly to herself. Civil war was not what she wanted to be remembered for.

In truth, the entire fate of the Commonwealth rested upon the hybrid shoulders of General Herb. He was backing Peony's bid for the Matriarchy with his army - an army loyal first to him, and then to the Commonwealth. Peony's fiscal improprieties in the general's favor had not gone unnoticed by Cologne, and she understood what Peony hoped to gain in making Herb such a powerful and nearly independent force within the Army. What troubled her most was how Peony could possibly believe that she could control him? Was it hubris, or was it naivety on a simply staggering scale?

Herb was the unknown variable in the equation of the Commonwealth's power politics, that much was clear. He could, and would, go whichever way offered him the most advantage, and at the moment Peony was in the ascendant. As far as Cologne saw things, Herb had two options.

He could continue to support Peony in her bid for the Matriarchy, and bide his time until the opportunity to betray her was at hand. Unlike the hereditary Joketsuzoku core of the Commonwealth Armed Forces, his Musk Dynasty was a populist movement. It was true that the core of his army was comprised of male hybrids of considerable skill and power, but on the whole they were inferior warriors when compared to the Joketsuzoku females. What made them a threat to the stability of the Commonwealth were their numerical advantage, and the many worlds under Commonwealth dominion where the common men chafed under matriarchal rule. Herb was probably strong enough to form a breakaway state within the Commonwealth even if total conquest eluded him.

His other option was less likely, but had an ironic twist to it that she knew he might not be able to resist. He could always wait until the struggles within the Council came to a head, and then approach her - knowing that she might be willing to offer up certain concessions in exchange for his loyalty. If she said no, then he backed Peony as planned, and in the end he would still win. Cologne did not like the idea of needing Herb's dubious offer of loyalty, and in particular because she knew what his demands would be.

Herb wanted more territory under his personal administration to increase his power base, and he wanted greater rank within the Army. It was not enough to be a male general in an army run by women. He wanted the rank of Field Marshal at the very least, and if he thought the clan would let him get away with it: Commander in Chief.

The thought made her frown. She had wanted that position to go to Shampoo. Granted she would have needed many more years of experience before she was qualified, but Cologne had planned to be around long enough to see that she got it. It was a bitter disappointment to realize that her favorite great-granddaughter had been the very instrument of her downfall.

Had she really been blinded by her love and devotion to Shampoo? Blinded enough to miss the obvious danger of giving Peony something to use against her? She had called in many old favors on the Council to give Shampoo a second chance, only to see the expedition fail miserably, and Kima slain. It was the opening Peony and her cronies had needed for over a hundred years, and Cologne had practically gift-wrapped it for them.

Perhaps I've grown old and senile, she thought bitterly. This would not have happened even ten years ago. I was stronger than that. Harder. I should have hardened my heart to Shampoo and sought my heir in another child.

The sun, now huge and red, dipped below the horizon, casting rays of orange and purple into the hazy sky. Though the day had passed on, Cologne drew herself up and stood proudly before the approaching darkness. Shampoo's fate was being decided on Tau Ceti, but her own trials were yet to come. Peony would find that her old rival still had tooth and claw.

The Jusenkyo Labs

Planet Lightoller, Epsilon Indi System

The Jusenkyo Commonwealth

8 April 3025

Doctor Gaido was feeling better than he had in years. It helped that his sinister landlord, General Herb, had left the system for Tau Ceti. Not having the hybrid general breathing down his neck was a liberating feeling.

The data for Saffron stood before him on the little computer display in his office. The hybrid represented the crowning achievement of the Commonwealth's Breeding Program, a being of incredible power and physical perfection. His ability to control his chi was innate - very little training had been required before he was capable of projecting devastating blasts of thermal energy generated by his own fighting spirit.

General Herb's own ability to do so was considerable, but if the data was accurate, Saffron eclipsed Herb's might by a full order of magnitude. The Chief Scientist of the Commonwealth knew that Saffron represented the future of the Armed Forces; warriors who were just as dangerous outside their war machines as within. Once the hybrid reached full maturity and his power could be fully established, the production of whole legions of his kind would begin.

These others would, by necessity, be less powerful than the original, but no less fearsome against the troops of the Inner Sphere. Saffron would be their general, and, if the Council could be trusted in this, fully under the control of the Elders.

Gaido wasn't as confident. General Herb was the only example he needed to justify his wariness. Though Saffron's indoctrination was being conducted with great thoroughness, how long would it take before he realized the power he possessed, both within himself and within the ranks of his hybrid army? What if Herb, ever the calculating player in the games of power and politics within the Commonwealth, somehow got his hands on Saffron, and added a little conditioning of his own? The Musk Dynasty could not receive that kind of boost to their ranks if the Commonwealth was to survive.

He knew that Saffron was supposed to be Cologne's weapon against Herb, but now he heard vague rumblings of a schism within the Council that threatened her ouster. Whose finger would rest upon Saffron's trigger then? Most likely Herb, if the rumors of collusion between the general and Elder Peony were to be believed. The fact that Herb had rushed from the planet to the Tau Ceti System on Council business seemed to confirm in Gaido's eyes that the rumors were to be believed. Herb didn't jump through hoops for the Council unless he was getting something out of it, and Cologne would not be throwing the general any bones.

He switched off the display. It was time to take matters into his own hands. Cologne respected his opinion, and she needed to hear his reservations about Saffron firsthand. Before it was too late.

Kanehoe Beach, Maui Atoll

Planet New Hawaii, Alpha Centauri System

The Furinkan Combine

9 April 3025

Hikaru Gosunkugi tramped across the firm wet sand of a beach, enjoying the cool night air and the fresh salty breeze provided by the tradewinds. He was surrounded by his soldiers as they fanned out across the expanse of Maui Atoll in search of their quarry. The atoll was too small and weak to support battlemechs, and in any event, careful observation from orbit had indicated that there were no Combine 'mechs anywhere on the watery planet.

The warm glow of a campfire suffused the darkness ahead. His men were already close to the site, their armed and armored silhouettes darting to and fro against the light. As he neared the scene, he could hear the sound of music and singing.

"Tell the men to exercise restraint," he hissed to one of his officers. "There's no need to go in guns blazing. He can't escape."

"Yes, sir," the man responded with a salute. He passed on the appropriate commands to the troops via the radio.

"It was good to get off the ship," Tetsuo Gosunkugi observed from nearby. Hikaru agreed with his cousin. They had spent entirely too much time on miserable spaceships getting here. He must have lost another vital kilo or two to free-fall sickness during the trip.

"We have the area surrounded, sir," the officer reported. "We're ready to move in on your command."

Hikaru nodded and continued on. There was no hurry. The man was making it easy for them.

As they reached the cordon of League infantry, the crackle of the fire was soothing, and the music was clear and proud. Hikaru pushed his way past the troops and through a stand of leafy saltwater shrubs. His men followed right behind him.

"Aloha, bruddahs!" a husky voice greeted them as they stepped into the ruddy light of the campfire. "You been expected!"

Hikaru turned to the voice and saw the Shogun of the Furinkan Combine, dressed in a floral print shirt and bermuda shorts, casually strumming on a ukulele. Exotic dark-skinned beauties in grass skirts danced a hula, their graceful hands and arms undulating in time to the music. More girls appeared with wreaths of colorful tropical flowers, and set them around the necks of Hikaru and his infantry - giving them each a kiss on the cheek as they did so.

"When you been lei'd, den come over here and siddown. We gotta whole lotta pig to eat tonight, eh bruddahs!" Shogun Kuno told them happily. A chorus of burly men in loincloths and brightly colored capes agreed with their Shogun - or was it Kahuna? - their large feathered hats bobbing with raucous laughter.

Hikaru turned to his cousin, who looked back at him with an expression of equal bafflement. The two shrugged in unison and returned their attention to the father of Tatewaki and Kodachi Kuno. There was no doubt about it, weirdness ran wild in their family.

"We're here to take you as a hostage of the League of Five Nails, your Eminence," Hikaru told the Combine Shogun in his most assertive voice.

Kuno gave the leader of the League forces a big grin.

"Sure whatever, brah," he said laughing. "But first we gonna have us a luau!"

Hikaru looked once again at Tetsuo, who once again shrugged. It sounded like he was agreeing to surrender to them...

"Uh, okay," he told the leader of the Furinkan Combine. He had heard stories about how whacked in the head the guy really was, but until now had never really believed them. He did seem friendly enough, though, and the whole atoll was surrounded by League troops. "Where do we sit?"

"Anywhere you like, brah," Kuno said graciously. "Dis be your party, eh? Siddown, grab one o' dese pretty wahines dere, and eat! We gonna party all night, no shit!"

Again, the burly men laughed loud and heartily in agreement. Hikaru figured that even one of them could eat an entire pig by himself. He then blinked in surprise as two young lovelies of Polynesian stock approached him with bashful smiles, their grass skirts whistling as their hips swayed with the music. It occured to him then that the nights on New Hawaii lasted about twenty hours at this latitude and time of year. As the girls sat down on either side, and as a healthy portion of roasted pig, a bowl of poi, and a tray of assorted pupus was set before him, it also occured to him that he didn't really mind. It was all so surreal that the only way he could deal with the situation was to accept it.

After all, they had days before Kuno could disentangle himself from the Capella System and Jump all the way back to Alpha Centauri, and how often did he get to attend a luau?

Nerima Confederation JumpShip Dragonfly

Approaching Drydock Three of the Palatine Orbital Shipyards

in orbit above the planet Tiber, in the Palatine System

11 April 3025

Hinako Ninomiya floated attentively on the bridge near her chair. The approach to drydock was a dangerous time in the life of a starship, and Hinako was determined to see that the maneuver proceeded without mishap. As the ship could not advertise its true allegiance as a ship of the Confederation Navy, she was clad in the worn wool jacket and skirt of a merchant skipper under Confederation flag. The crew was similarly disguised. The cordial trade relationship between the Confederation and the Federated Shiratori made it plausible, and such duplicity was old hat for them as a Special Operations vessel of the Navy.

"Captain, the Orbital Tugs Pushmataha and Niantic are standing to, off our port beam. They request permission to approach."

Hinako took the report from her Communications Officer with a shake of her long brown mane.

"Very well," she purred. "Have them approach to within one hundred meters. Chief of the Watch, what is the status of readying the foc'sle for docking?"

The Chief of the Watch consulted with the Dragonfly's Executive Officer, who had taken charge of the ship's rarely-used Forecastle and its vital docking machinery. The Forecastle, or 'foc'sle' as it was often called, was a compartment in the bow of the ship. It was the location of the enormous hydraulic winches and tackle that would assist ever so carefully in pulling the starship into the cavernous chamber of Drydock Three.

"Captain, the X.O. reports that the foc'sle is manned and ready. All machinery standing by for docking procedures."

Hinako nodded. "Very well, Chief of the Watch."

Ships like Dragonfly massed over a hundred and fifty thousand tons, and to fire their massive drives indiscriminantly within close proximity to an orbital construct was dangerous. Once the tugs had taken hold of the ship, their smaller, highly agile drives would painstakingly ease the Dragonfly into position before the open 'barn doors' of the depressurized drydock.

This manuever alone could take over eight hours, as the tugs' drives, while capable of moving a ship as large as the Dragonfly with ease, also had to coordinate their efforts with absolute precision and timing to bring the ship into position at the exact relative velocity as the orbiting drydock.

Once that was accomplished, the tugs would stand off away from the starship and the drydock, while smaller apparatus - similar to a space-going battlemech in the ten-ton range - would approach from within, and attach meter-thick steel tow cables through the ship's bullnose. The bullnose was a large vanadium-steel ring at the very tip of the ship's bow, and was attached to the starship through a smaller series of winches and tackle in the foc'sle to maintain the proper amount of strain on the tow cables without parting them. The steel cables provided the necessary flexibility and cushion against acceleration forces while remaining strong and resilient, but if they parted, they could snap-back into the hull and tear the bow of the Dragonfly apart.

A gigantic capstan within the drydock, working in conjuction with the smaller winches anchored to the strongest structural members of the ship's keel, would slowly pull the starship inside. The tugs would assist in keeping the ship's stern in position until the very last moment. Hinako had experienced this once before as a junior officer, and knew that the towing process could take six hours or more.

Once fully inside, the 'barn doors' would be closed, and their seals inspected. A web of mooring lines would then be attached to the ship's hull from bow to stern to secure it within the drydock. When the ship was secure, the process of sending over 'pier services' such as shore power would begin. As this was being accomplished, the drydock would be flooded with breathable air, and enormous low-velocity circulating fans would begin to condition it to a comfortable temperature and humidity.

All of this required a great deal of effort, but the ability to work on the repairs to the ship in a shirt-sleeve environment made it worthwhile. The risks of working in an industrial surrounding were unavoidable, but compounding them with a vacuum environment made accidents many more times likely to be fatal. Working in drydock would also increase efficiency and decrease overhead, as the yard workers would not need to spend time suiting up for a job, nor would it be necessary to pay for the maintenance of so many pressure suits and related equipment.

"The tugs are approaching, Captain," her Sensory Officer reported.

Hinako watched the two ships settle fore and aft of her ship. Their bulbous, shock-absorbing gel-filled bows would soon contact the hull of the Dragonfly as they began their slow-motion ballet of positioning the ship.

"Very well, Sensory," she replied calmly. Once they received permission to commence the docking operation, the conning of the Dragonfly would be out of her control.

She took a look at the Palatine Yards on the main telescope display. At the height of the Star League, the facility had been able to service the monstrous Monolith and Starlord Class JumpShips, as well as the great battleships of the Star League Defense Force Navy. Now the Yards were down to only three of the original six drydocks, and these were in danger of shutting down when the last remaining spare parts for the massive air compressors that evacuated them, and the air handlers that conditioned them, finally wore out. She tried to imagine how the Successor States could possibly maintain their fleets, military and merchant, without these incredible constructs, and found that she couldn't.

The starships of the Inner Sphere had been built and maintained in Yards like these. Reverting to the ancient times of working in a constant vacuum would never replace the productivity of the drydock. The attrition alone from accidents would ensure the loss of not only skilled labor, but also the arcane knowledge these engineers and technicians has passed on from one generation to the next. Eventually the entire program would wither and die.

Perhaps on the day when the last shipyard shut down, there would finally be peace in the Inner Sphere. Without drydocks in which to repair and to maintain them, the JumpShips would eventually break down. Without JumpShips, there could be no more interstellar war. The human race would live out its days in whatever star systems they happened to call home. Hinako doubted that even isolated in their own systems, humanity could ever give up on war, but at least they wouldn't be exporting it throughout the cosmos.

Offworld Quarter, the City of Aquila

Planet Tiber, Palatine System

The Federated Shiratori

12 April 3025

Genma Saotome left the grounds of the Confederation Consulate to the Federated Shiratori with a frown on his face.

"Hey, Pop," his son greeted him as he stepped through the guarded gates. Ranma and Akane had been standing outside in what appeared to be relatively companionable silence while waiting for his return. "What's up?"

"I've just been informed by the Consul that the Dragonfly has been put into drydock," Genma replied. He began walking down the wide tree-lined boulevard towards their hotel. Ranma and Akane hastened to catch up with him.

"Great. Who's footing the bill?" his son asked.

"I convinced the Consulate to pay, since our reserve of C-bills on board the ship is for emergencies in places where we won't have such assistance," Genma said dryly. He inclined his head to Akane and added in a voice that was almost too soft to hear, "They didn't like it, but with the daughter of the Grand Duke accompanying us, they weren't going to deny us."

Akane harrumphed quietly at this. She was never one to take advantage of her station, and it never ceased to gall her when others felt free to do so for her. Genma continued.

"To make it look less suspicious for us, they gave me the account number to an emergency fund held with the Bank of Sol. Since they act as a clearing house to handle the international exchange for Comstar, it won't raise any eyebrows for a Confederation merchanter to have an account with them, and we won't draw any attention by utilizing it. We have to make a trip to the planet's Comstar facility to have them transfer funds to an account set up with a local bank."

Akane nodded with silent relief. She had been prepared to liquidate personal shares of her stock in the Ceres Metals Corporation if necessary to pay for the repairs to the ship. Even her small portion of stock would have yielded an enormous sum of money, as the Ceres Corp was a vast holding dating back to the earliest days of the Terran Hegemony, and was the very foundation upon which the Tendos of old had built their wealth. Doing so would have also drawn a great deal of attention to herself. Even Kuno's spies would have been capable of picking up on the sale, and drawing the correct conclusions from it.

"Sounds great," Ranma said, interrupting Akane's train of thought. "So what's up with the long face?" he asked his father. "I haven't seen you look that upset since the family 'mech got scrapped."

Genma took his time in responding.

"Well?" Ranma pressed.

"The Consulate has received word from the Capella System," Genma said finally. He was looking at Akane as he spoke. "Kuno's invaded and has them under siege. They don't know how long they can resist."

Akane tensed at his words, feeling absolutely helpless in that moment.

"No way," Ranma gasped. "You're serious, Pop?"

Genma nodded slowly. "I'm sorry, Akane," he said to her. "I'm afraid we might already be too late to help your father."

Akane closed her eyes to keep the tears away. There was nothing they could do. Without the Dragonfly, they could not leave the system, and their faithful starship needed extensive repairs to the power systems that fed its Jump Drive.

"How long will the ship be in drydock?" Ranma asked hopefully.

"Two weeks," Genma replied. "At the minimum. Hinako's already asked for three shifts a day to work on the ship, but it will take at least ten days to machine the replacement components for the Jump Drive main circuit breakers. Some of the parts they can't manufacture here are getting shipped from the nearby Bangalore System. They've already sent an HPG message to the factory there for a rush order, but it will take some time to hire a ship passing through Bangalore to Palatine that can deliver it."

"Damn," Ranma muttered softly. He offered Akane a sympathetic look, which went unnoticed with her eyes closed.

"They can hold out," she finally declared. "I know they can."

"That's the spirit, Akane," Ranma chirped. He turned his attention to his father "We just need that sixth key, right, Pop?"

Genma nodded.

"So where is it, already?" Ranma demanded. "You said you knew."

Akane opened her eyes and brushed away the wetness that had accumulated behind her lashes. "Yes, Mister Saotome. Where is the sixth key?"

The elder Saotome took a deep breath and held it for some time.

At last he spoke. "Azusa Shiratori has it," he declared solemnly.

"What?" Ranma and Akane cried in unison.

Genma withdrew the small notebook journal of the Scout that he kept on his person at all times. "It says here that our predecessor, alias Chance G. King, had the key, but he ended up losing it to the Empress."

"How the hell did that happen?" Ranma demanded, not believing a word of what his father had said. In his mind, Genma had no clue where the sixth key was, and had made up such a ridiculous story to conceal that fact. The fact that he hadn't come forward with his cockamamie story sooner seemed to clinch the matter for the younger Saotome.

Genma however, displayed the tearstained pages of the journal for them to see. They were tearstained because both he and the now long dead Scout had wept over them for what was lost and what might never be recovered. The crabby, almost illegible handwriting of the Scout was there for them to see.

"He was on Genevieve after discovering a small cache of Star League-era materials he had found on Derviso II. He was trying to sell his discoveries to the F-S," Genma explained. "Part of his find included the sixth key, but since he knew what it was, he didn't intend to sell it."

Ranma was tired of the charade. How could Pop do this to Akane when the Combine was laying siege to Capella?

"Yeah, so?"

"So... The F-S being what it is under the domination of the Cult of Azusa, he had to make his pitch directly to the Empress. Most of the booty was still buried on Derviso, the materials being too big for a man of his modest means to move. He was going to sell them the location of the depot, and he used some of the smaller items he had recovered as proof of his discovery. While he was displaying some of the gewgaws he had recovered, she happened to see the sixth crypto key." Genma produced the necklace of the five keys in their possession from underneath his dogi. The brightly colored plaques glittered in the warm mid-morning sunlight. "You've travelled in the F-S long enough to have heard the stories about their Empress, boy."

"You mean the fact that she's like a magpie?"

"Keep your voice down," Genma hissed. "If one of the Cult heard you insult her like that..." He let the threat hang between them. When he was certain that no one had showed any interest in his story, he returned the necklace of keys to their place. "You're essentially correct," he continued quietly. "She grabbed the sixth key right out of his hand and named it on the spot."

Ranma shuddered. He had heard the stories all right. Azusa the First was quite possibly the most spoiled girl in the entire universe. Whatever she wanted, she got. The Cult of Azusa, which had deified her and then subordinated the old feudal system of federation that bound the F-S to the Great House of Shiratori, would see to it that every whim of their goddess was indulged.

"Did he get anything at all for it?" he asked hesistantly.

"Oh, they paid him for the location of the depot," Genma said. It was not necessary for him to refer to the journal in this regard, for he had pored over that sad chapter endlessly, searching for some clue as to the exact location of the key. "Of course what they paid for the key was nothing compared to its real value, but he wasn't about to tell them what the key could be used to find."

Genma looked away for a moment. "He was a broken man after that. You can see it in his journal entries. The separations between entries grows and they become more desperate in tone. He's searched just about everywhere he could manage in the Inner Sphere by this point. An entire life spent looking for Ryuugenzawa. He can't bring himself to give up, and continues the search. He finally finds what we now call the fifth key - for him the sixth and final component to unlock the data disc - but the quest has lost its meaning."

He went silent then, walking on with some hidden purpose.

"Then what happened, Mister Saotome?" Akane asked after a long pause.

Genma sighed. "It wasn't long after he hid the fifth key that the boy and I found him. He had completely lost it by then; drunk, penniless, a little mad, and then at the end, the Nevermore Fever that killed him."

"That's terrible," Akane said sadly. She had never given much thought to the mysterious Scout who had done most of the groundwork for their quest. It occured to her that should they succeed in finding Ryuugenzawa, the Confederation would owe a great deal to this poor, broken man.

"So what you're saying is that we have to steal the sixth key from the Empress?" Ranma asked. For a cockamamie story, what Genma had said to them bore the bitter ring of truth. They had a serious problem.

"I'm afraid so, boy," Genma replied. "You can see why I've been so reluctant to talk about it."

Ranma gave him a grudging look of agreement. "Well... Yeah... But you have a plan, right?"

Genma offered an enigmatic look. "I'm working on it."

The pig-tailed mechwarrior slapped his forehead wearily. "I'll take that as a 'no...'"

Genma harrumphed at his son's lack of confidence in him.

"We can take comfort in the fact that since she named it, it will be in the same place she keeps all of her other precious things."

Ranma scowled. "Yeah, in her Collection of Cute. That is to say, in an armored vault deep in the bowels of her capitol fortress, surrounded by heavily armed and totally fanatical guards. We might as well waltz into Comstar's headquarters on Earth and ask them where they keep all their secret technologies..."

"Oh ye of little faith," Genma scolded. "Giving up already, eh boy? Scared by a girl, are we?"

"I ain't scared of no girl," Ranma bristled. "It's her legions of wacko Cultists I'm thinking about." He glanced briefly at Akane before returning his attention to his father. "And I ain't giving up, neither, got it?"

Genma grinned smugly. "That's what I like to hear, boy. Because if anyone gets the job of infiltrating her Collection of Cute, it'll be you..."

Ranma's scowl deepened.

"Pop, have I ever told you how much I hate your guts?"

"Listen here, boy," Genma returned. "When the day comes that I don't hear that from you, that is the day I know that I've failed you."

"Did he really mean that?"

Ranma looked up at Akane from the low grassy hill where he sat. Aquila Park lay spread out before them, its cool green lake long, sinuous, and winding past tree-covered knolls below, the gentle ripples of the water glittering in the early afternoon sun. Paddleboats splashed through the water, scattering flocks of snowy white ducks before them.

"Mean what?" he asked, knowing what she meant and not wanting to say it himself.

She remained standing in spite of the urge she felt to sit close to him.

"When he said he was failing you if you didn't tell him how much you hated him every day."

"Oh, that," he replied coolly. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure that he does."

She eyed him speculatively. "Do you?"

Ranma's eyes grew slightly larger at the question, as if prodded with a dull needle in the back of his neck. Her query had not brought pain, but discomfort, and more than a little surprise.

"Do I hate my Dad?" He looked away from her for a moment, casting his eyes down the hill to the lake and the clots of ducks that congregated close to the water's edge. "I probably should..."

"That's no answer," she scolded gently. "Do you or don't you?"

He looked back at her. "What are you getting at?"

"I want to understand you a little better," she replied, wanting once more to sit by his side, and realizing that he was not ready to accept her so close to him. Not after her line of questioning. "Haven't I said that once before?"

He shrugged, his eyes remaining fixed upon her. "I guess so."

She smoothed the hem of her pale yellow sundress against the breeze. She realized then that the sight of her with the sun shining in her short blue-black hair seemed to be unnerving to Ranma. It was as if all he could do was look at her and admire the way the gentle breeze lifted the delicate locks of hair that fell in front of her ears and made them drift across her eyes. She brushed away the locks of hair and tried not to blush. No one had ever looked at her in that way before. There was an almost childlike reverence in his expression.

"Well? Do you hate him?" she asked, breaking the spell over him, if only for the moment. She needed to say something to him, or else she would be utterly consumed by his gaze. "I'd understand if the answer was yes. If not, why do you think you should?"

"I don't hate him," he declared, and she knew by the timbre in his voice that it was true. "I don't want to end up ever hating anyone, even if they deserve it." He picked at the soft grass at his side, casting the severed blades into the wind. "When you hate someone, you give them power over you."

Akane absorbed this quietly. She was starting to realize that the best way to get Ranma to open up about himself was to get him talking and then avoid interrupting. This time, however, the subject seemed to die with his last word on the matter. Perhaps another prod.

"That's why you can't beat Master Happousai, isn't it?" she pointed out. She expected him to get angry with her, and she supposed that she might have deserved it with that remark. Instead, he surprised her.

"I never thought of it that way," he observed quietly. "I always thought it was because he was a better martial artist than me."

"He is a better martial artist than you," Akane declared with a grin.

"But that's not why he keeps beating me," Ranma returned, not rising to her gentle barb. "He keeps beating me because I let myself get angry with him. I don't hate the little freak, I actually feel sorry for him most of the time, but getting angry with him is a lot like hating him. I lose my head." He slapped a fist down into his palm. "I can finally beat that little bastard. I know it."

"'Little bastard?'" she said teasingly. "It sounds like you haven't learned anything."

"What else am I gonna call him?" he returned. "Sure as hell not 'master.'" He offered a grin to show that he didn't take her jabs as anything more than playful.

She decided that he was approachable now, and sat down beside him. He seemed to tense for a moment, then relaxed slightly as he turned back to the lake below.

"It's good to be on a planet again," she observed after a thoughtful moment's pause to set him at ease. "A nice green planet, too. Even one day on Capra was too long."

"It wasn't so bad," Ranma returned. "Except for the part about us getting captured by the Joketsuzoku, and almost getting killed by the Black Rose, and then ending up as Kuno's prisoners, and finally having to fight our way off the planet... Not half bad at all."

She turned to him and laughed in spite of herself. It took several moments for Ranma to realize that she was not really laughing at him, before he too began to laugh at the absurdity of what he had said. It felt wonderful to be able to sit next to him and laugh, and to hear him laugh with her.

Finally, when the moment had passed, Ranma eased himself onto his back and looked up at the cloud-scudded blue sky. Though he had been smiling and laughing mere moments before, his face now seemed grave, his eyes lined with concerns that would have bowed the back of a person twice his age and experience. In that moment she caught a glimpse of the Ranma Saotome he would someday become.

"What is it, Ranma?" she asked him at length. "What's bothering you?"

His eyes remained fixed on the sky.

"I'm sorry," he told her. "We blew it, and I'm sorry."

"I don't get it," she returned uneasily. "You're sorry about what?"

"You know, Kuno's siege at Capella," he replied. "I'm sorry we couldn't find what we needed sooner. We're too late. Now we're stuck here for weeks, totally helpless. We can't even go back and help your dad make a stand."

Her own face fell as he spoke. She had been trying to put those thoughts aside since Mister Saotome had told her of the siege, and for awhile that day, she had actually succeeded.

"It doesn't matter," she said quietly. "Even if Kuno wins, and my father is forced to surrender, I'm still not giving up. I'll start an insurgency from within the Confederation... I'll even raise an army of mercenaries and fight for anyone who has the guts to oppose the Combine if I have to."

She wrung her hands anxiously.

"I need you, Ranma," she said to him, her voice urgent and making him tense with surprise at her side. She realized that she had said more than she had intended to with the remark, and continued hastily with, "That is, I need you to help me find Ryuugenzawa. I can't give up the fight. I know my chances aren't very good if the Confederation is forced to surrender, but without Ryuugenzawa, I might not stand any chance at all."

Her voice began to break, and she pressed her lips together tightly to keep them from trembling. She willed herself not to cry, not after she had made such a declaration, and not in front of Ranma. As the tremors passed, she rose quickly to stand and face the sun.

He was following her with his eyes, she knew. She wished for a moment that she was alone on the hill, knowing that Ranma was too insecure around her to say and do the things she needed from him for comfort. It was funny in a sad kind of way. Ranma would fight against suicidal odds to protect her - she knew that, had witnessed it - but was too unsure of himself to give her even a comforting hug.

"Y-You okay?" she heard him ask hesitantly. His query armored her, and she bit down on her lip the way Kasumi often did, and willed away her fears and pains.

"I'm fine," she replied coolly. "What's taking your father so long?" she continued, eager to steer the conversation away from what was hurting her. "He should have been here almost two hours ago."

Genma had sent them on to buy lunch and wait for him in the park while he went to the planet's Comstar facility, and then to the local branch of the Bank of Sol to set up the fund transfer into an account. The costs of drydock and repairs to the Dragonfly were to be deducted from that account, with any money remaining going back to the Consulate. The whole setup shouldn't have taken more than an hour from their end, and it had been more than three since they had separated.

Ranma stood. "Good question. Knowing Pop..."

He paused, unwilling to continue.

"Yes?" she asked him.

He offered a lame look. "Well, knowing Pop the way I do, he's probably trying to figure out a way to slip a little of the money from the emergency fund into a private account he can convert to cash."

Akane grimaced. How could the man be so greedy and corrupt?

"You're serious," she remarked.

Ranma nodded slowly. "Oh yeah. I can see it. He's probably getting smashed in some bar with the money right now."

"Great," she spat. "I suppose we should go find him then."

Ranma rolled his eyes. "I was afraid you were going to say that."

Brigadier Ukyou Kuonji stepped down the folding boarding ladder of her brigade tiltrotor as the aircraft's twin turboprop engines shrilled overhead. At least she was on fairly clean tarmac, she supposed as she scooted away from the tiltrotor and towards the staff car waiting for her by the fence. There was less dust that way. Her adjutant, Major Konatsu, was waiting for her with the rear door open, a gloved hand holding down his uniform skirt against the rotor-generated wind.

She returned his crisp salute and slipped onto the rear bench seat. As Konatsu joined her, the tiltrotor's engines spooled up and began to pull the ungainly aircraft into the sky. It banked into a turn, the engines rotating into fixed-wing flight as it did so, before racing away from the airfield for the distant exercise grounds.

"How was your flight, sir?" Konatsu asked politely. The driver took this as his cue to put the car in gear and leave.

Ukyou smoothed her hair back into place with the assistance of the small mirror in her compact.

"The usual," she lamented. "I hate those noisy things. Even a normal helicopter isn't as loud."

"At least the tiltrotors are faster, sir," Konatsu pointed out. "You were able to return in half the time."

"Point," Ukyou conceded. "Any chance to get away from Mikado is worth the sacrifice."

Konatsu nodded slowly.

Ukyou caught the thought-processes behind his nod. She had set aside open talk of resigning for the moment, though he knew that it was never far from her mind. Any mention she made of General Sanzenin was filled with it, even if it went unspoken, and Konatsu knew that.

"Is my Hatchetman ready?" she asked absently as she combed the windblown tangles out of her bangs.

"Yes, sir," he replied. "The Armorer also informed me that your new spatula blade arrived from the foundry yesterday, and that he would be mounting it to the autocannon before noon."

Ukyou beamed. Custom bladework for battlemechs was both tricky and expensive. Her last spatula blade had shattered five days ago during a weapons drill in the field. Mikado had wasted no time in dressing her down in front of the troops for using a non-spec hatchet blade. It was more than embarrassing, it was a stain on the family honor, and she vowed to get even with him for it.

"Good. I feel like taking it out this afternoon," she said coolly, thinking about how good it would feel to someday drive her massive spatula blade through the torso of Mikado's 80-ton Victor.

"Yes, sir," Konatsu sighed.

"By the way," Ukyou added. "I've taken a three day leave of absense, so no matter what, if anyone sends for me, and I mean anyone, I'm not available. Got it?"

"Yes, sir," Konatsu replied formally. His eyes then lit up in surprise. "General Sanzenin actually let you go, sir?"

"Not exactly," she replied. "Let's just say that I included myself in the liberty orders for the troops following the completion of the exercises. I'm supposed to route my requests through him, but technically I am assigned to one of the units that was granted liberty."

Ukyou sat back in the seat and relaxed. It was good to get away from the troops for awhile. It was definitely good to get away from Mikado.

"Won't the General be angry, sir?"

"I suppose he will," Ukyou admitted. "But by then, it might just be too late."

Konatsu blinked twice.

"Sir?"

"Not here," Ukyou replied, waving him off. The driver was not her usual chauffeur, and though Konatsu was good when it came to matters of her physical security, he might have missed one of Mikado's spies. "Wait until we get to my quarters."

"Yes, sir," he sighed. He affected a look of unease - probably without even realizing that he was doing it, she supposed.

"It's time you knew," Ukyou told her adjutant. Konatsu stood silently near the door, his eyes fixed straight ahead and unblinking. "I'm going to make a personal appeal to the Empress for an assignment to diplomatic duty. It probably won't be with the Confederation the way things are going, but I'd take an assignment with the League or the Commmonwealth. Anything to get out from under Mikado's thumb."

Konatsu nodded slowly.

"And if the Empress does not grant your request, sir?"

Ukyou tossed back her chestnut mane of hair.

"Then I tender my resignation on the spot," she replied matter-of-factly. "There are mercenary regiments on the border with the Combine looking for good officers. I know of several that have favorable connections with my family, so one of them should be able to come up with a billet for me. I certainly wouldn't mind a little action against Kuno's troops that might actually have a chance of success."

Konatsu closed his eyes and stood silently by the door.

"I'm taking you with me, Konatsu," she told him. "Though you might have to take a demotion from adjutant to aide-de-camp. Of course, that's what you really do for me here, but there would be a pay cut involved."

His eyes flicked open. "Dearest Ukyou, I would live on bread and water if it meant that I could continue serving you!"

"I think we can manage better than bread and water for you, sugar," she said gently. "Thank you for the enthusiasm." All the same, she felt a little guilty.

There were no guarantees that any mercenary regiment she might find willing to hire her would be as tolerant of Konatsu's cross-dressing and effeminate manner as Empress Azusa. His was a situation that was worse than it appeared, because in spite of his habits and his inclinations, he had been forced to face up to his true gender by her, and now harbored no desire for other men. Even what little previous desire he had felt for men had been based on what he had supposed was expected of females.

Despite his obvious heterosexual bent, she had tried without success to get him to become more masculine. Having been raised for most of his life to believe he was female meant a great deal of conditioning to overcome. Conditioning that she had no time or energy to break. Conditioning that had endeared him to the Empress, and, should it have been overcome, would have spelled the end for him in Her Imperial Divinity's service.

While she felt obligated to him for his loyalty and devotion, if it meant that if she was faced with the choice of joining a regiment without him, or crawling back to Mikado for a job, Konatsu would be out of luck. He had been a stray puppy to her for the most part, and stray puppies could be put up for someone else to adopt.

"I need to get out in town for awhile," she told him. "Alone," she added quickly. "I need you to stay here and fend off Mikado in case he figures out too soon that I'm gone."

Konatsu saluted. "Yes, sir. Should I put out a fresh uniform for you, sir?"

Ukyou waved him off. "That won't be necessary, sugar. I'll wear some civvies instead. I might have to get used to them again, you know."

"Of course, sir," Konatsu replied. "Shall I go now, sir?"

"That will be all, Konatsu. Dismissed."

He saluted again, and left the room silently.

Ukyo sighed. He had taken the news better than she had expected, but not by much. She stepped over to her dresser and began to disrobe. A good brisk walk through downtown was what she needed. Interacting with people who weren't soldiers was the cure for what ailed her.

She decided against a shower, as she had done nothing to exert herself that day, and it had been fairly cool up in the highlands where the military reservation was located. She pulled on an old and comfortable pair of black tights and a short belted tunic in her family's purple. She tied a white ribbon into her hair, adorning the top of her head with a cheerful bow. Now she looked very little like the young woman who commanded by default most of the Federated Shiratori's battlemech forces.

The Kuonji's had been both martial artists and merchants from a time long before the dawn of interstellar travel. Specifically, they were purveyors of a certain type of Japanese fast-food: the okonomiyaki. The spatula she often wore on her back was a symbol of that ancient tradition, and of the okonomiyaki-based school of martial arts in which she studied.

There were still branches of the family that sold the pancake-like food, her own included, and she had been required to learn the art of cooking it as part of her training with the battle-spatula. As she strapped her family's preferred melee weapon onto her back, she thought of the possibilty of forsaking the military altogether and going back to her roots.

She knew she was skilled in the art of preparing okonomiyaki. She practiced every chance she got, although since her promotion to Mikado's Whipping Girl, those opportunities had become less and less frequent.

With some assistance from her family, and what she had saved up over the years from her salary, she could probably open up a very successful restaurant on Genevieve, or perhaps even New Osaka. It would certainly be a more rewarding pursuit than fighting the Furinkan Combine or taking part in some petty dispute between the remaining nobles within the Federated Shiratori. For one thing, there were far fewer condolence letters to be written in the restaurant business.

Deciding that it was better not to be noticed, she slipped out the back door. The row of guest houses for general officers on the base was dotted with many old trees, allowing her to reach the alley without drawing any attention to herself. Most of the generals on the planet were still out at the reservation with their commands.

It was a short walk down a lonely tree-lined road to the Chapel Street Gate, and from there into town. She gave a nod to the gate guard as she walked past, and then off the base. He probably figured her for a soldier's girlfriend, and returned her nod with a leering stare which she ignored with the secret satisfication that she could have had him flogged for such an offense against an officer, and a general at that.

The busy thoroughfare beyond the base led straight into downtown Aquila, and with its tree-lined medians and flower beds laid along the sidewalks, was well worth the walk in her mind. Unlike many large cities that boasted Army bases, Aquila had grown up as something other than a military town. The Federated Shiratori Army had come to the planet Tiber only within the last fifty years, seeking a planet better suited for its Spring Manuevers.

Skyscrapers rose into the blue midday sky before her, glassy and bright in a minimalist architectural style that set them far apart from the buildings of Kawaii City on Genevieve. Those horrid things were so cute as to be grotesque. New Osaka was starting to sound like a better place for a restaurant than Genevieve, even if it meant stiffer competition.

When she reached the cool shade of the skyscrapers, she knew she was where she wanted to be. Most of the heart of Aquila was cut off from vehicle traffic, forcing people to get out of their cars and walk places. Far from grumbling about it, the people of the city actually enjoyed the warmth of downtown and its many parks, fountains, and flower gardens. Office girls and junior executives of the planet's many private companies sat and ate their lunches while taking part in that oldest of urban rituals - people watching. Ukyou found that she didn't mind the attention she was getting from the men in this setting.

There was a place near the very center of downtown where she could enjoy a cold beer with some first class teppanyaki, and it was there that she walked. The front door was set a good two meters below the level of the sidewalk, in what was the lower level of a major banking tower. The girl at the hostess' rostrum did not recognize her, which was just as well, she figured. Mikado knew of this place, and he knew that she enjoyed coming here.

She was led to a table near the middle of the establishment. There were three chefs on duty for the lunch crowd, and one seemed to be working overtime serving a rather heavyset man in a worn white dogi. The man was alone and clearly drunk. Many empty bottles of the local beer lay scattered on the teakwood countertop around the griddle, which the wait staff could not have ignored, and therefore must have been ordered to leave alone.

What's his problem? she wondered idly as she pored over the beverage list. She had a mind to try a glass of import lager from New Brisbane that was known only by the cryptic brand of 'XXXX.' Being an import, it was pricey, but she had heard good things about it from some of her staff.

One of the serving girls took her order, and quickly produced a chilled glass full of the crisp amber colored lager for her. She sipped at it appreciatively, and decided that she liked it. The man at the other table loudly ordered another beer for himself.

Ukyou frowned. If he was going to keep this up, she would have to see about getting another table. The place was busy, but if it meant getting away from him, she wouldn't mind the wait.

He began to ramble about something that obviously saddened him. She couldn't help but overhear him, even though she wished he would just pass out and get it over with.

"I failed you, Soun, old buddy," he blubbered. "Failed!" He swallowed the beer in one gulp, and ordered another round, prompting Ukyou to wonder why no one had cut him off yet. "You're gonna lose your duchy, and then there goes our dreams!"

The mention of the name 'Soun' and the loss of a duchy made her perk up her ears. Was this man a Confederation sympathizer? There were a lot of people in the Federated Shiratori who made a living trading over the border. If - when, she corrected herself - the Furinkan Combine conquered the Nerima Confederation, all those lucrative trade agreements would go up in smoke.

The waitress took her order and placed it near the griddle for the next available teppan chef to handle.

"And that ingrate son of mine..." the man rumbled on, lurching nearly out of his chair while the teppan chef hastily and without any showmanship prepared his food. "You'd think he could do right by his poor father and marry Akane... But nooooo... Any time I mention it he gets all defensive and tries to blame me for all his problems..." The man lurched upright and confronted the chef. "Ha!" he barked a little too loudly. "He thinks he's got problems... That damn Ranma... O, my ingrate son...!" He then fell to sobbing into his hands.

Ukyou nearly dropped her beer.

Ranma?

It wasn't a very common name, she admitted to herself. One part of her mind tried to write it off as mere coincidence, but that other more rational part of her brain began filling in the blanks. A man named Soun losing a duchy. That could only mean Soun Tendo, the Grand Duke of the Confederation, and a man who was about to lose his holdings to Prince Kuno. Akane Tendo was the Grand Duke's daughter. Akane was the name of the girl this Ranma person, the 'ingrate son' of the drunk, was supposed to marry.

Ranma Saotome was supposed to marry Akane Tendo...

She looked a little closer at the portly man in the dogi. It had been years since she had last seen Genma Saotome, and to be honest, she didn't really remember him all that well. It could have been Genma Saotome, but then again, it probably wasn't. After all, what were the odds of him not only showing up on the same planet, but in the same restaurant, as her?

"Damn fool Ranma..." the man grunted, nearly falling face first into the griddle before the teppan chef could stabilize him with a swift thrust to the chest with the flat of his spatula. "...You bring dishonor to the Saotome name...!"

That tears it! Ukyuo thought angrily. Somehow, the gods had seen fit to grant her the vengeance she so urgently wished for. Somehow, the gods had seen fit to deliver Genma Saotome into her lap!

She rose quickly to her feet. Genma's insobriety was at last garnering the necessary attention, and several of the wait staff prepared to hoist the man out of his seat. The hostess was calling a cab for him. She needed to act now.

"There you are!" she said angrily to him, as she stumped over to his table. The wait staff gave her curious looks before deciding that she was a daughter or perhaps younger lover of the drunk. She saw no reason to dissuade them of this belief. "I've been looking all over downtown for you!"

Genma gave her a dumbfounded look. There wasn't even a hint of recognition in his bloodshot eyes, making her even angrier. The bastard could at least realize who it was that he had betrayed so long ago.

"I'll handle this," she told the wait staff. She dropped her shoulder underneath his armpit to steady him. "How much does he owe?"

"One-hundred and fifty-seven imperials," the waitress replied evenly. "Plus gratuity."

Ukyou reeled for a moment at the number. The place was a little on the expensive side, but damn! Most of it had to have been the bar tab. She spied a fat bulge of cash in the front pocket of Genma's gi, fished out three crisp hundred-imperial bills, and set them on the counter. Such a large gratuity was going to be remembered, but she wanted to get him out of there with absolutely no fuss. "Have a nice day," she told them with a shaky smile.

"We've called for a cab," one of the bus boys offered. Bicycle-driven rickshaws were the only allowed form of motorized transport downtown.

"Thanks anyway," she replied, steadying the hundred plus kilo bulk of her despised and quite drunken foe. "I think a good walk is exactly what he needs to clear his head."

"Do I know you?" Genma slurred to her.

She elbowed him in the ribs. "Of course you do!" she said with an embarrassed laugh. "Come on, Dad, let's go..."

She led him unsteadily out the door, and up the steps to the sidewalk level. It took just about every ounce of strength she had to keep him moving without spilling over.

"Where're we going?" he slurred.

"Never mind that," she snapped. "You are Genma Saotome, right?"

"Yup!" he returned.

"And you have a son named Ranma, correct?"

"Correctamundo!"

There was one final question to be asked, the answer to which would cast aside all doubt as to the identity of the pathetic drunk in her charge.

"Your son is supposed to marry the daughter of the Grand Duke of the Confederation, right?"

Genma grinned stupidly. "You betcha!"

Ukyou wanted to kill him right then and there. If only there weren't so many potential witnesses!

She shuffled him to one of the smaller grassy areas that lay between skyscrapers. The place saw very little sunshine, and was generally shunned by the locals. When she was certain that no one was around to see anything, she let him fall face first into the grass.

"...heeyyyy..." Genma whined, his voice muted by the ground.

"It serves you right, you bastard," she growled at him. "I've a mind to beat you to a bloody pulp, you know! You and your no-good son!"

Genma rolled over onto his back, the world spinning before his eyes.

"What'd I ever do to you?" he asked in a pathetic voice.

Ukyou steamed. She drew the battle-spatula from her back and brandished it for him. "You don't remember who I am?"

Genma blinked several times at the spatula.

"Not a clue," he said with surprising lucidity.

"I'm the girl you left behind!" she cried indignantly. "Ukyou! Ukyou Kuonji! Does that name ring any bells, or do I have to ring some bells of my own!?"

Genma thought long and hard. Drinking slightly less than a case of beer in under two hours was not helping the process.

"Ukyou?" he asked aloud.

"That's right!" she cried. "Do you remember or don't you?!"

He thought some more. The glint of steel that shined in his eyes from the spatula began to accelerate the process, more out of the instinct for self-preservation than any recognition.

"...Ukyou..."

"Quit stalling and answer my question," she growled. If she wasn't careful, she was going to draw unwanted attention. As a brigadier in the Army, she could easily talk her way out of a police entanglement, but it would also mean Genma's escape from her vengeance.

"Could I get another hint?" he pleaded.

Her hands began to grip the spatula with such an intensity that her knuckles cracked.

"I'm the girl you promised Ranma to," she told him through clenched teeth. "My father gave you a controlling share in the family business as a dowry... REMEMBER!?"

Genma thought some more.

"I think I do remember..." he said at length. "It was a chain of okonomiyaki restaurants, wasn't it?"

"That's right..." she confirmed bitterly. "And when it came time for me to go with you on your next training mission, you left me behind!"

Genma tried to sit up and failed. He honestly could not remember this girl, but he remembered the dowry! That had to have been more than ten years ago! Why, he'd liquidated those shares right before they left New Osaka on a training mission. They needed the money to buy spare parts for the LAM...

His bloodshot eyes focused on the girl, now no longer a girl, but a young woman Ranma's age.

"That's right," she said coldly, somehow knowing where his thoughts were leading. "You sold those shares to a competitor and almost ruined my family! Instead of taking over the family business, I had to take our rickety battlemech and join the Army! I dedicated my life to battle because you had ruined any hope I had for a normal existence!"

"D-Don't you think you're overreacting?" he stammered. Fear was doing wonders for his body's metabolization of alcohol.

"Overreacting!?" Ukyou cried furiously. "Overreacting!? You RUINED my life! I was in love with Ranma, you know! When he left the system without me, I was CRUSHED! All my friends started ridiculing me for being dumped, and for my family being sent to the brink of poverty because of you!"

She raised the spatula overhead to strike and end his life. Witnesses be damned, she could claim he was an assassin! The Federated Shiratori's civil unrest in the wake of the Cult of Azusa's ascension simmered just below the boiling point, and vendettas between rival families were often settled over the tip of a poisoned dagger.

"W-Wait!" he pleaded. "You don't look like you've got it so rough now!"

She paused. He was too drunk to be an assassin sent to murder her, she realized. The story would never stick. She relaxed her grip on the spatula and addressed his pathetic attempt to garner a few more seconds of life.

"If that's true, then it's because I worked my ass off to restore my 'mech and use it to rise through the ranks," she told him in an icy voice. "As for my family, it's taken them almost ten years to recover from the damage you did with your lies and deceits..."

Genma lay silently on the grass, ashen faced, waiting.

She gripped the spatula once again, all of the pain and frustration of her life coming back to her in a rush. He was the reason she had to endure the humiliations of Mikado Sanzenin. His abandonment had made it impossible for her to trust a man in any kind of personal relationship, and so he was the reason why she was so lonely. She wanted to split his face wide open. She wanted to deliver his head, wrapped in a preserving sleeve, to her father on New Osaka. She wanted him dead so badly for all the suffering he had caused her.

"I should kill you," she told him flatly.

"But you're not?" he asked hopefully, his eyes drooping drunkenly.

She lowered the spatula to the grass. He was a worm. She realized in that moment that there had been no malice in his decision to abandon her. He was simply a greedy, selfish, pathetic worm, incapable of looking beyond the immediate personal gratification of his actions for any sort of lingering consequences or harm done to another. Thinking about what a pathetic life he must have led, she came to the conclusion that killing him might turn out to be a kindness. He deserved far more in the way of punishment than granting him a swift, if bloody, death.

"Just tell me one thing," she said quietly. "Tell me where Ranma is."

Genma did not answer her, for in the span of mere seconds from the time her spatula touched the ground, he had passed out.

"How dare you," she growled, wrenching him into a sitting position with a violent jerk of his dogi.

His eyes opened blearily, and he muttered something she could not hear.

"What?!" she demanded. "Speak up!"

He slipped back into a dreamless state of unconsciousness without answering her.

"Bastard," she grunted. She leaned him forward, so that he sat more or less upright, his considerable girth preventing him from spilling all the way over onto his knees. She then hauled back the spatula and swung it with all her might.

The wide flat of the blade slapped into his face with a satisfying smack of doughy flesh against steel. Genma's torso pitched over so that he was lying spread-eagle on the grass, his nose bleeding and starting to swell, and both his eyes graced with freshly purpling shiners.

Ukyou looked over the battered destroyer of her childhood and smiled grimly. Though Genma had not told her where she could find Ranma, she had an idea that would bring her long-lost fiance to her.

Nerima Confederation DropShip Palomino

Landing Pad #6, Aquila Starport

Planet Tiber, Palatine System

The Federated Shiratori

12 April 3025

Ryouga Hibiki looked after the battlemech that had once belonged to his erstwhile companion, Pansuto Tarou. They were planning on selling it in order to defray some of their expenses, Happousai's hospitilization being chief among them. They were going through with the sale in spite of the fact that for some unexplained reason, the Consulate had decided not to accept responsibility for Tarou.

Tarou's innocence or guilt was in question, and no one was willing to resolve the matter. With the siege of Capella, it was clear that ships moving over the border between the Federated Shiratori and the Nerima Confederation were going to be few and far between, and the Consulate itself had no actual jurisdiction to try Tarou for his alleged crime. That was the explanation Commander Saotome had put forward for the Consulate's change of heart, and Ryouga saw little reason to doubt it.

Captain Ninomiya had more pressing matters at hand than giving Tarou a trial, and so he remained in lockup on the Palomino. Lockup meant being consigned to his cursed form, mildly sedated, heavily shackled, and kept under continuous armed guard in the Number #1 'Mech Bay. He would have to keep until the Captain decided to try him, or else they were able to reach the Nerima Confederation and hand him over to the authorities - assuming of course that the Confederation had any authority remaining to it at that time.

The fanged mechwarrior tried to mask his regret at suggesting Tarou be held in his cursed form, but after watching Ranma slip his bonds with such ease after being splashed on Capra, it made sense. Tarou could pull no surprises on his captors if he was already in his monstrous Jusenkyo body, and they could control his access to hot liquids much easier than they could with cold. It was true that he was more dangerous in his cursed form, but at least those assigned to guard him could be trusted to keep their distance from him, and to shoot without hesitation should he somehow free himself.

He regretted it because he knew how lonely it must have been for Tarou. Since he was unable to speak in his monstrous form, he was essentially a prisoner of his own body. He was trapped, incapable of communicating beyond grunts, growls, and mournful howls.

In truth, he could not blame Tarou for trying to kill Happousai. He himself wanted the old freak dead as much as his companion did. Tarou's only crime lay in getting caught.

"Mechwarrior Hibiki, sir," a soft voice called to him. He froze at the words, knowing that they came from the lips of Senior Technician Akari Unryuu, the girl Happousai had once mocked him for admiring.

"Y-Yes?" he asked, turning to face her.

"May I ask what you were thinking about?" she inquired. He found himself staring at the delicate streaks of pink that ran down the fall of her walnut colored hair from her temples.

"Um, thinking?" he managed weakly.

"You seem upset about something," she observed.

"I guess so," he replied. For the last several days she had been close at hand whenever he was around a battlemech, particularly his own, and he was starting to get the worrisome impression that she liked him. It was worrisome because he thought she was sort of cute, and very nice, even if she was completely hung up on battlemechs - and especially because he found himself acting like a complete fool in her company, which was rather like the way he did when he was around Akane.

Akari turned away, sensing his reluctance to talk about the matter. "Forgive me, sir," she demurred. "I shouldn't pry."

"Um, well," he mumbled. "It's no trouble. No harm done."

"Thank you, sir," she said, the corners of her mouth rising slightly. "I was wondering, sir, if you would be so kind as to accompany me on a final inspection tour of the Hunchback. It would not do for us to sell a battlemech that wasn't in the best possible condition that we could achieve within our means."

Ryouga found himself nodding.

She brushed lightly at her coveralls before drawing a notepad and stylus from her breast pocket. Her dark eyes seemed to glitter in the afternoon sunlight. "Shall we begin then?" Her attitude towards him seemed to change from meekly subordinate to cheerfully companionable in an instant with her query.

"L-Lead the way," he said to her.

He regretted his decision to follow, for his eyes fell upon her shapely rump as she scaled the gantry ladder around the scaffolding for the Hunchback, and followed her every movement. His face reddened with shame as he realized that he was ogling her, but he could not bring himself to look away. Happousai's admonition that he needed to get laid more often - at all, he reflected sadly - came back to haunt him.How can I think these thoughts about another girl when I have such strong feelings for Akane? he asked himself.

Akari reached the top of the gantry, oblivious to his hungry eyes. When she turned to him, he managed somehow to affect a look of intense concentration for the job at hand - for her sake as much as for his.

"The sensor package needs work," she began, and he nodded mutely in agreement. She pointed out the sensitive photonics through open access panels. "I can replace the telescopic suite fairly cheaply, but the radar might have to be left as is. Tacticon Tracer systems are rare items in the Federated Shiratori."

"It can't be helped," he said with as much authority as he could muster.

Akari pointed out several discrepancies with the Hunchback's Tomodzuru Type-20 autocannon.

"The external reloading mechanism is sticky," she said to him. "In fact there is one round still in the magazine that we weren't able to remove, so we haven't been able to fully inspect the weapon."

"Really?" he asked, looking down into the large armored port in the battlemech's namesake bulging back. He could see the 210mm shell sitting on the feed rollers just inside the port. "Tarou always said you needed to give it a good kick to knock things loose. Usually he meant for me to do it."

"Can you get it out?" she asked him hopefully. Her smile was warm enough to melt hardened steel.

He nodded while shyly taking off his tunic to avoid getting it dirty. Though he was graced with an impressive physique, he did so unthinkingly, and certainly not intending to impress her. The effect, however, was the same no matter his intentions.

Closing his eyes for a moment in concentration, he kicked the feed rollers hard in the usual spot. The shell came loose, and rolled out to the hard-stop detente at the edge of the port. He bent down at the knees and hefted the massive discarding-sabot cannon round up into a flawless clean-and-jerk lift, and set it onto his broad shoulders with a grunt.

"I'll go put it with the others," he said, oblivious to the look of awe he was receiving from Akari. He started down the gantry ladder with the shell across his shoulders, his fingers sinking into the semihard caseless gelatine propellant block. Sweat formed a sheen on his arms, back, and chest from the effort.

"Hubba hubba hubba!" a girl's voice cried out in appreciation, and he turned with embarassment as the two Air Lance pilots, Yuka and Sayuri, rolled down the DropShip's cargo bay ramp in an open-topped ATV. Sayuri waved to him as Yuka tried not to wreck the vehicle while staring at his rippling muscles.

"Hey, Ryouga!" Sayuri called to him. "Is that an armor-piercing shell on your shoulders, or are you just happy to see us?" Her finger pointed to the sharp tip of the superhard tungsten-carbide-lined penetrator dart that gleamed dully in the sunlight from within the ridged discarding-sabot sleeve. The phallic references implied in her remark were not lost, even on Ryouga.

"Oh, Sayuri," Yuka scolded her companion. "Don't tease the poor guy. You know he's soooooo dreamy..."

"Definitely yummy," Sayuri agreed, licking her lips. "You know how I like my beefcake rare..." The two reluctantly drove off down the tarmac for the distant gate into town.

Ryouga, his face a deep crimson from more than just the exertion, could only stand while holding the shell in a pose that he hoped wasn't too statuesque, and watched them go. If it weren't for the fact that those two were known to be ruthless teases by the crew of the Palomino, he would have been a total wreck. He was not accustomed to girls adoring him.

"Ryouga, dear!" Akari called to him from high above. "Is everything okay?"

He almost dropped the shell. She called him dear! How many times in his life had a woman other than his mother called him that? His knees began to buckle at the implications.

"Uh, ah, no problem!" he called back, unable to meet her eyes with his own.

Slowly, carefully, he set the shell down into a wooden packing crate with the others before he dropped it. The ammunition would have to be moved into the Ship's Magazine soon, as it was a safety hazard sitting out in the open unprotected. A forklift stood on the tarmac nearby for the job, and he pondered using it as an excuse to escape Akari until he could think the situation over.

"Ryouga, dear! Could you please come up? I need help with one of the access panels."

Every nerve in his body began to tingle at the sound of her voice. Twice! Twice she had called him 'dear!' It could not have been unintentional for her to have said that twice!

"Ryouga, you idiot!" he said to himself. Then, internally, he continued his monologue.

How can you even think about walking away from her? he asked himself. How many girls have ever showed interest in me? I've been wandering the Inner Sphere as a mercenary for years without finding someone whose favor I could bear.

But Akane! another part of him cried. How can you two-time her like this?

"But I'm not two-timing her," he muttered to himself. "You can't two-time someone who's with someone else - even when that someone else is a thoughtless, totally egotistical jerk like Ranma..."

"Ryouga?" Akari's voice was filled with concern.

"Ah, er, I'm coming!" he cried. He spun around and began walking in what he thought was the right direction. Instead of the gantry ladder, he began climbing up the ramp to the DropShip's cargo bay.

"Where are you going, Ryouga?" she asked him. He turned around and stared dumbly at Akari, who was now almost at eye level with him.

"Um... Ooops?"

He started back down the ramp, his face beet red.

"You big silly," she chuckled, and he nearly tripped down the ramp. First 'dear,' and now 'silly?' This was serious!

She was waiting for him with a torque wrench in her small graceful hands when he finally managed to climb the staging that surrounded the Hunchback.

"I couldn't get the bolts broken on this panel," she pointed out in an all-business tone. Then her voice sweetened. "Could you do it for me?"

I am putty in your hands... Ryouga thought as he took the torque wrench from her and set to work.

Akane's cell phone began to ring. As they had planned on being stuck on Tiber for weeks, Genma had decided to purchase a dozen phones and a bulk subscription package to allow the crew to remain in contact away from the DropShip.

"You gonna answer that?" Ranma asked her. He despised the idea of carrying one of the things.

She fished the tiny phone out of her handbag. "Of course I am." She flipped it open and set it to receive the call.

"Hello?"

"Where are you, Akane?" It was Sayuri's voice.

She looked around for a street sign. They were walking east along the edge of the park, towards the center of town.

"Sowell Boulevard," she said into the phone. "We're on the north side of Aquila Park."

"Stay there. Yuka and I are on our way to pick you up."

Akane began to look concerned. "Is something wrong?"

"It's not something that we can talk about on an open frequency."

Now she frowned. Though the phones had some of the best encryption standards available, Genma knew from experience that the Cult of Azusa had forced the F-S's various service providers to give them access to the decryption keys. Because of this, they had to observe specific security protocols of their own, and that meant certain topics were taboo over the ether.

Whatever Sayuri needed them for, it was important enough to keep it to themselves.

"Okay," she replied coolly. "We'll be waiting."

"What's up?" Ranma asked. He had been stuck following only Akane's side of the conversation.

"I don't know," she replied. "I guess we'll find out."

They weren't kept waiting long. Yuka and Sayuri drove past, missing them at first, and then shifting over to the far left lane to pull a u-turn at the next light.

When they came back around, they were ready for them.

"Hop in," Sayuri said, giving Ranma a narrow look as she did so.

Ranma, feeling self-conscious under Sayuri's glare, helped Akane into the back of the ATV before leaping in.

"What's going on?" Akane asked as Yuka pulled out into traffic.

"The Consulate called the ship," Sayuri began. "Apparently, Commander Saotome decided to get roaring drunk downtown, and then got mugged. The local police have him in custody for public intoxication. They say they'll release him to us if we plead no contest and pay his fine."

Akane looked to Ranma, who shook his head slowly and shrugged.

"You were right," she said to him.

"I know my old man," Ranma returned. "I say we let him rot there for the rest of the day and get him in the morning. A night in jail will serve him right."

"He's supposed to speak with Captain Ninomiya tonight over the radio to discuss the drydock schedule," Sayuri pointed out. "It's not like she can catch a shuttle down from orbit just to speak with him in the town jail." She seemed to approve of Ranma's attitude towards his father, however, and her near-constant look of mild disgust for him softened.

"Well then," Ranma muttered. "I guess we go spring him."

The police were holding Genma in the 1st Precinct, a solid looking building set near downtown and just far enough out from the heart of the city to allow access by road traffic. Yuka and Sayuri waited in a secure lobby on the first floor as Ranma and Akane were inspected and sent through a metal detector to receive custody of Genma Saotome.

"He's being held on a charge of public intoxication," the police sergeant who escorted the two mechwarriors pointed out.

"We know," Ranma replied gruffly.

"What do we have to do about that?" Akane asked.

"It's a misdemeanor charge, so all you have to do is fill out the defendant's portion of the citation and go over to the City Court Clerk's Office to pay the fine. It's a hundred imperials for a first offense." He shrugged. "Unless you want to fight it, in which case you still have to go over to the Clerk's Office to set up a court date."

"We'll pay the fine," Akane declared.

"Probably for the best," the cop agreed.

"We were told he got mugged," Ranma said to him. "Is he okay?"

"Two black eyes and a broken nose," he said to Ranma. "The medics checked him out, and it doesn't look too serious. In fact, we don't know for sure that he was mugged. He had a lot of cash on him when we found him, and he was face down on the cement." The police sergeant gave them a noncommital gesture with his hands. "It's possible that he was so drunk, he just passed out and fell flat on his face."

"Sounds like Pop," Ranma agreed.

"You said he had a lot of money on him?" Akane asked, and shot Ranma a knowing look.

"Close to five thousand imperials," the policeman replied. They were passing into the holding cells now. "That's why we aren't sure it was a mugging, unless the person who called it in to the emergency dispatch scared the mugger off before he could rob him. Whoever called it in didn't stick around to tell us anything, though."

"What did my Pop have to say about it?" Ranma asked.

"He doesn't remember anything about the incident," the sergeant said. "We gave him a detox shot when we brought him in, but he's still a little buzzed. That must have been some bender he was on." He reached into his pocket and handed Ranma a card. "This is a number you can call for some counseling for him on alcoholism. If you're interested."

"Thanks." Ranma stuffed it into his pocket. There was no way in hell that Pop would ever go to an A.A. meeting.

Genma Saotome sat silently in one of the jail's two drunk tanks. He was watching a game show on a small closed-circuit television with the sound turned all the way down. His face was bruised and puffy in spite of the anti-inflammatories the medics had given him. A white bandage crossed the bridge of his nose and held the bones in place.

"Hey, Pop," Ranma said to him. "We're here to spring you."

Genma turned to face his son, and looked relieved.

"You do your poor father proud," he grunted.

"Shove it," Ranma shot back. "If it was up to me, you'd be rotting here until tomorrow morning."

The police sergeant unlocked the cell door and instructed Genma to step out. The portly elder Saotome did so slowly, as if each step were painful.

"You look like hell," Ranma observed.

"Honestly, Mister Saotome," Akane added. "What possessed you to do something like this?"

Genma gave them both hurt looks.

"Neither of you could hope to understand..." he said cryptically. He turned to the policeman. "What do I need to do to get out of here?"

"I've already explained the legal process to your son," he replied. "As for you, you need to come with me and retrieve your personal effects. We'll also take a statement from you if you so choose, but I'm required to inform you that anything you say or do can and will be used against you in a court of law should you choose to challenge the citation."

"I don't think he can handle it," Ranma interrupted. "Why don't I go get his stuff, and he can make his way to the door. We aren't going to challenge nothing, so he ain't got nothing to say." He gave his father an angry look. "Right, Pop?"

The policeman looked to Genma to see if he agreed with what his son had said.

"The boy's right," Genma said, casting a hopeless look of shame in Ranma's direction. "Just let me sign the citation and we'll be on our way. You can release my things to him."

"As you wish," the policeman replied. He motioned for Ranma to step through a door at the other end of the holding facility and handed him the release order. "Please follow me, Mister Saotome."

Ranma thumbed through the legal-sized manilla envelope as they drove down the Expressway towards the Starport. Though they had hotel rooms in town, it was decided that Genma needed to dry out for awhile, and that meant staying on the DropShip.

"So how much did you embezzle from the Confederation Treasury, huh, Pop?" he asked his father as they drove. Sayuri turned back to face them for a moment in consternation.

"You can count," Genma replied sourly.

"I'll do that."

Ranma pulled out the fat wad of freshly printed Federated Shiratori scrip. E-money would have been more convenient, but left a data trail that was easy to follow. Bills made laundering the money a simple task.

"There's about forty-six hundred in local cash currency here," he announced. "Plus a receipt from the Palatine branch of the Bank of Sol for a five thousand C-bill deposit in your name. Not bad, Pop. Just enough to live the good life here without taking so much as to be noticed by the Consulate."

"This is shameful," Akane scolded. "I thought you were supposed to be helping the Confederation, not stealing from us."

"I was weak!" Genma wailed. "I admit it! You try life as an impoverished mercenary for twenty years and see what it does to you."

"You don't see Ranma doing something like this, do you?" Akane retorted. Yuka and Sayuri gave each other funny looks as she said this. Ranma began to shrink into the rear bench seat next to his father.

"You don't want to know some of the things Ranma has been a party to with me," Genma grumbled.

Akane was taken aback, but just for a moment. "If Ranma has done anything wrong in his life, it was because you failed to be a good example for him!"

"Hey, easy now, Akane," Ranma said to her gently. "Let's just drop this whole thing, okay? We'll pay the money back to the Consulate before we leave the system, and that will be that. No one's gonna miss the few hundred he already spent."

"I suppose," she agreed. Ever since Ranma's suspicions of his father's embezzlement had been confirmed, she had felt betrayed. She was furious with the man, and wanted to have it out with him.

Ranma went back to looking at the money. The bills were paper thin pieces of plastic with Goddess-Empress Azusa Shiratori's face plastered over most of the available surface not actually needed for such things as watermarks, holograms, serial numbers, and the bill's denomination. Thoughts of having to invade Azusa's Inner Sanctum to get the sixth key made him shudder, but he found himself oddly fascinated with the idea of a culture that could deify a spoiled brat like her.

"Hey, check this out," he cried in astonishment as he flipped through the wad once more.

"What is it, Ranma?" Akane asked him.

"These are supposed to be fresh bills from the bank, right?" he asked.

"I guess so."

"Someone wrote on one of them," he said, pointing to the ink scrawl over Azusa's forehead. "It looks like a phone number." He turned to his father and showed him the bill. "Does this look familiar?" he asked him. "Did you meet someone in the bar?"

Genma shook his head. "I don't remember a damn thing," he replied. "It could be anything."

"It's probably nothing," Akane said.

"Maybe," Ranma returned. "Maybe not. I'm gonna call the number when we get back to the ship."

"What are you saying, boy?" Genma asked tersely.

"I'm not saying anything, Pop. But, if you weren't planning on two-timing Mom with whoever is on the other end of this phone number, you've got nothing to worry about, right?"

Genma flushed crimson. He honestly didn't remember meeting anyone, much less getting their phone number, but it wouldn't be the first time he had succumbed to the loneliness of the life of an itinerant mercenary.His sexless, repressed, wussy of a son just didn't understand! Maybe if he actually got up the guts to screw Akane and thus find out how great sex was, he might finally cut his poor father some slack!

"Speak up, Pop," Ranma pressed.

"Go ahead and call," Genma grunted. "It means nothing to me."

"Fine," he agreed. "I'll do that."

"Let it go, Ranma," Akane said quietly to him. They were on the Flight Deck, which was currently deserted with the ship secure on the ground and its reactor shut down.

Ranma reached for the ship-to-shore telephone anyway.

"Why should I?" he asked sullenly.

"Because all you're doing is setting yourself up to get hurt," she told him. "If that phone number is what you think it is, that's exactly what will happen."

He gripped the receiver tightly in his hand and unfolded the hundred-imperial bill with the phone number.

"Why couldn't he have just gone home to Mom if he was so lonely?" he muttered to himself. "Why does he keep doing this to me?"

Akane rested a reassuring hand on his arm.

"I don't know why, Ranma," she said to him. "I think the only person who can answer that question is your father."

"Fat chance," he spat. "All I ever get from him is lectures. 'Do as I say and not as I do,' and bullshit like that."

"If you know he's cheating on your mother, and that he's not going to stop, then why do you keep trying to find out about it? If what you say is true, it won't make any difference, so why bother?"

"I need to know," he said to her coldly, "so I can look my old man in the eye every time he fucks up, and let him know how much I despise him for it."

Akane drew away from him. Here was something about her fiancee that she wished she did not know. Was this just a taste of what marriage would be like? Finding out about all the dark corners in your spouse's life, the hateful things and dirty little secrets that were best left unsaid, whether you wanted to or not?

Was there a deeper reason behind why Ranma was so against their eventual marriage? Had his father forever poisoned him against marriage by his own shoddy example?

She discovered that as she thought about these things, she had come to her own realization regarding their engagement. Whether she loved him or not - and she was still very unsure of her true feelings for him - she was willing to marry him someday as per her father's wishes. The thought of getting married soon did not appeal to her, but maybe in five years or so she felt she could bring herself to do it.

This realization was coupled with the knowledge that any marriage to Ranma Saotome was going to have its rocky moments, and especially so if it was a loveless one. She would need to bring to bear all of her devotion to her people to make it last if that was the case, and she wondered once again if her father had even bothered to think the idea through when he first agreed to joining their families. It was much easier for him, she decided. His marriage to Mom had been a happy conjunction of love and politics - a rare enough occurrance in the Inner Sphere.

Ranma punched in the numbers on the phone.

"Hello?" a female voice answered. Ranma cringed, because she sounded pretty cute.

"Hello?" the voice asked again.

Stifling a curse, he spoke. "I heard you met my father," he said into the receiver. "You left your number on a hundred-imperial note. I just thought I'd call and say hi."

There was a cold silence on the other end of the line. He could feel an intense hatred there, wherever it was.

"You still there?" he asked her.

"Ranma Saotome..." the voice replied, and Ranma decided that she no longer sounded cute. "Meet me tomorrow evening in Aquila Park. Twenty o'clock sharp, by the statue of Karl Tiber on the east side of the lake. Come alone."

The line clicked dead.

"Are you satisfied?" Akane asked him tersely.

Ranma blinked a few times in disbelief. That was not at all what he had been expecting.

"I ain't sure," he replied distantly. What the hell was going on? Who the hell was this girl, and how did she know his name? He started to punch in the number again, before finally hanging up the phone. Whoever that girl was, she had already set the conditions for their next conversation.

He wanted answers, and so he intended on being there.

Ukyou Kuonji set down her personal cell phone, her body trembling.

She had just spoken to Ranma Saotome, her childhood sweetheart, after more than ten years. She tried to imagine what he looked like by the sound of his voice, a voice that had been tinged with anger and something else. She knew what it was because she had lived with it all her life.

Pain.

She found it disconcerting. Here she was, preparing to exact revenge on him for more than ten years of misery and humiliation, and he sounded just as hurt and miserable as she did. Where was the revenge in kicking someone who was down?

It was the reason why she had not killed Ranma's despicable father, Genma, and the reason why she had contented herself with just one good blow rather than beating him to a pulp as she had dreamed of doing for so long. Was she going to be any more capable of giving Ranma the thrashing he deserved for abandoning her than his father? Or had the gods merely pulled a bait and switch, goading her with the chance for obtaining her revenge and then denying her any satisfaction in the deed?

There was only one way to find out, she decided. She would go to the park tomorrow night and see just what kind of man Ranma Saotome had become. Then she would know if her revenge would bring her any release from pain.

Free Trader Don Maestro Domingo Diaz de la Vega y Martin

de Valencia y Avila el Conquistador y Gruzado la Montana,

Bangalore System Nadir Jump Point

Bangalore System, the Federated Shiratori

13 April 3025

The Merchant Class JumpShip Don Maestro Domingo Diaz de la Vega y Martin de Valencia y Avila el Conquistador y Gruzado la Montana, besides having a long-winded Spanish name, was also one of the most profit-minded spy ships Shampoo had ever heard of. The ship was supposed to be transporting herself and Mousse to the Palatine System in time to catch the Saotomes, whose JumpShip was currently undergoing repairs. Now, a single Jump from the Palatine System, the starship lingered at the Jump Point while its master conducted trade with the planet's capitol city.

She realized that the ship's crew were supposed to be under cover as merchants, but it appeared to her that they were taking their cover a little too seriously. What good was extra money in their pockets when it meant that she would fail yet again in her mission? Her great-grandmother was gambling everything on success. Had she gambled in vain?

The crew itself knew nothing of her mission. Only the Captain knew why they were aboard, and he was currently on the planet selling his cargo. The crew's instructions were to keep the ship's two passengers comfortable and out of the way while the ship conducted its business.

Shampoo didn't mind the privacy, but it disturbed her to realize how helpless she was. She couldn't even send a message to her great-grandmother, as the ship did not possess an HPG array, and they were not to leave the ship until they reached the Palatine System. They were dead weight until then, 'scrubber loads' as far as the crew was concerned - the derogatory term for anyone whose existence aboard ship was simply that of a drain on the life support systems.

Of course, 'privacy' was a relative term. The small stateroom on the Grav Deck she occupied was shared with Mousse.

One thing was for certain, he was still the changed man he had been when he first came aboard the Jade Lotus, a day that seemed so long ago after all that she had been through. He was quiet and maudlin most of the time, lacking in all of his old affection for her. He still loved her, it was clear by the fact that he had sacrificed everything to help her, but his love was now carefully guarded. He pled ignorance to her many questions regarding the mission, lending her to suspect that he knew far more than he pretended, and was probably playing on her suspicions to keep himself indispensible to her.

How well he knows me, she observed as she considered this. The moment she discovered the full extent of his knowledge, he knew she would abandon him. A search of his belongings for materials related to this desperate endeavor had proven fruitless. He must have committed everything to memory.

It was possible, she supposed, that she might be able to seduce it out of him. She would have to play that card very carefully, however. The old Mousse, sappy, cloying, and worshipful, would have been an easy mark for her feminine wiles. The new Mousse was wounded and wary, and therefore armored against her. Discovering and exploiting the chinks in that armor would require careful observation and boundless patience.

If nothing else, she told herself, I have plenty of time.

She drew herself up from the room's single chair, set upon her new course of action.

Mousse was currently in the shower. Shampoo could hear the sound of water splashing as she entered the Head, where she knew she could find him because he had left their stateroom with his toiletry kit and towel. None of the crew were present; it was just the two of them.

She slipped out of her clothes and set them neatly on the short bench outside the communal shower bay. Mousse continued to bathe. His face was directly in the spray of the water, and he was oblivious to her. She watched him for a moment, admiring the way his long black hair spilled over his shoulders and down his strong back, reaching all the way to a tight, athletic butt that she grudingly admitted was nice to look at. If there was a scar on his back from Herb's punishment of him, his hair obscured it from her view.

She licked her lips nervously, knowing that her performance had to be perfect, and stepped over the tiled sill that separated the shower bay from the changing area. Mousse heard her bare feet padding over the wet tile, and turned to face her with a look of astonishment.

"Shampoo?" he asked, his eyes drifting down her naked body and lingering in those places men found particularly interesting on women.

"What is it, Mousse?" she asked in a bored tone of voice. She took the showerhead two down from his own and turned the water on as if she were completely alone.

He appeared somewhat crestfallen at her projection of ennui.

"I, uh, I'm just surprised to see you here. That's all."

"Surprised that I bathe?" she asked with a come-hither look. There was a teasing quality to her voice now, which made him suppress a shiver of excitement. A thin smile graced her lips as she noted that another part of his anatomy was starting to betray his true feelings. "Why should you be surprised about that?"

She returned to wetting her body in preparation for scrubbing without apparently caring if he responded. Mousse remained silent, his face starting to burn because he could not stifle his growing erection, and because she was right there to see it. Unwilling to do what first came to mind to ease his affliction, which was turn on the cold water full blast, he settled for turning away from her.

She suppressed a chuckle at this. So far her plan was working as she had intended. This little taste of her naked flesh was designed to provoke his feelings of love and desire for her, and was carefully seasoned with the slightest hint that she might not be as cold to him now as she once was. It was important that she not overdo it, as it might provoke his suspicion instead.

She began to bathe in earnest now, lathering and scrubbing as if she were the only person in the shower. She did not linger in her task, knowing that she couldn't get him too worked up. Of course, a healthy rebuff of any advances he might make could still work in her favor later. It just depended on how heavy-handed he played it. She didn't expect much subtlety from him.

He surprised her by not doing anything untoward. Instead he rinsed, shut off the water, and started awkwardly for the changing area. Her eyes fell upon his back in that moment, and behind the wet locks of hair she saw a livid flash of bright pink scar tissue against his pale olive complexion.

Pink's assessment of the scar was understated, she realized. It looked like a terrible burn that had healed over with only the crudest of skin grafts. What had the General done to him? she wondered. His sudden change in attitude towards her finally made sense. He had suffered torture for her sake, and her treatment of him had been as shabby as always. That would have been enough to make her change her tune, had their positions been reversed, but still the man loved her. He was just more guarded about it now than before.

She felt somewhat guilty about that.

He toweled off in the changing area, casting furtive looks in her direction as she continued bathing. She caught him cold once, and instead of frowning as he might have expected her to do, she offered him a sly look that could have been interpreted several ways. Let him guess what she meant by it.

Kaneohe Beach, Maui Atoll

Planet New Hawaii, Alpha Centauri System

The Furinkan Combine

13 April 3025

"It's been days, cousin," Tetsuo Gosunkugi observed blearily. "How much longer can this party go on?"

"What was that?" Hikaru asked. He lay on his back in the damp sand with an empty half-coconut in his hand that stank of rum punch, and a Force Five Hangover raging within the confines of his skull. His clothes were wet and sandy, and his skin chafed from exposure to sun and seawater. He blinked when he remembered to.

"Hey bruddahs," Kuno called to them. The man had an inexhaustable stamina when it came to partying. He was currently dressed in a day-glo yellow half-body wetsuit and carried a humungous pineapple-patterned surfboard that was at least four meters long. The tiny bonsai palm tree surgically grafted to the top of his head seemed to twitch with excitement. "You awake yet? We go surfin' now. De tides, dey coming in, no shit. Dis be Tube City in another hour, you watch, brah." He gave them appraising looks. "You go get changed, yah?"

Hikaru shook the cobwebs from his head and tried to remember what day it was. He remembered the sun coming up at least twice. Given the forty hour cycles of New Hawaii's day, that meant...

"Gods above and below!" he cried. "It's the Thirteenth if not later!"

"Huh?" Tetsuo murmured. He had apparently gone back to sleep in the interim.

"We've been here four days by the standard calendar!" Hikaru cried. He looked around for his soldiers. They lay scattered about the beach asleep, some with the Shogun's girls in their arms. The sundry debris of a marathon luau lay scattered among them.

What was even more shocking, was that despite his troops' dereliction of duty, the Shogun had made no attempt to escape. The man was either a complete and total nut case, or else he was very, very clever. Hikaru was not certain at this point which, but his suspicions were starting to favor the latter.

He had succeeded in delaying them at least four calendar days from taking him away from New Hawaii and packing him off as a hostage of the League of Five Nails. In that time, Tatewaki Kuno was surely making his way back through captured Confederation space to the Furinkan Combine. While it was no secret that there was little love between father and son, Hikaru knew at the very least that Tatewaki would be coming to avenge the insult the League had given him with its invasion.

"You're setting us up, aren't you?" Hikaru said accusingly to his host/hostage.

The Shogun of the Furinkan Combine looked offended.

"You get first class kama'aina treatment, brah," Kuno returned in protest. "Plenty o' food, booze, music, and da kine wahines, yah?"

Hikaru turned to his cousin. "Get the men up and moving. Signal to my DropShip for an immediate dustoff, and I want a report from my staff on Prince Kuno's whereabouts."

Tetsuo pulled himself upright.

"At once, cousin."

"One more thing," Hikaru said slowly.

"Name it."

Hikaru Gosunkugi squinted at the sun with his watery, bloodshot eyes.

"Get me some ibuprofen. A whole bottle of it."

Firebase LIBERTY

The moon of Oni, orbiting Shounetsu Jigoku

Capella System, the Nerima Confederation

10 April 3025

"The burial detail has returned, General Tendo."

Kasumi Tendo looked up from a draft of her detailed action report, and regarded the young staff officer who addressed her. She was barely sixteen, with long brown hair pulled into a ponytail, and a look on her face that told Kasumi this girl was on her first deployment from home. Just twenty-two herself, she tried to remember if she had ever been that young.

"Thank you, Lieutenant Grace," she said to her.

The young lieutenant took this as her cue to leave. She did so reluctantly, as if hoping for another word from her beloved commander. Kasumi wished she could have found something to say.

Their dead were now entombed in three mass graves near the accesses to the base. It had become more and more apparent that they were going to be stuck on Oni for awhile, and the fallen needed to be tended to. She had ordered them buried outside, knowing that the vacuum and cold would preserve their remains until such time as they could be exhumed and properly interred on Nerima. Even if the Confederation fell, Tatewaki Kuno could be expected to grant his defeated enemies that courtesy.

Later, when time permitted, she would don a pressure suit and walk among the buried dead as she had done in the makeshift morgue. There had been no public memorial for them, nor could there be until the fighting was over. Her private prayers of mourning would have to suffice. It was the best she could do until an acceptable resolution presented itself.

The Combine's radio jamming had effectively cut her off from communication with her father's forces on Nerima, leaving her without instructions from higher authority. With a Furinkan Combine blocking force preventing an easy retreat from the moon, she had decided to maintain her position, using the time to reorganize her shattered units and repair what combat mecha they could before the next major attack.

Thus far the Combine had been content to keep her bottled up on Oni, using random probes of her defensive perimeters to assess her strength and to keep her occupied. Where the main body of the Combine forces had gone in the meantime, she did not know. Fragmentary reports from her GunShip squadrons had confirmed that the majority of the Combine's ground attack forces had Jumped out of the system, leaving only the Combine Navy to maintain the blockade.

It was a remarkable turn of events, and she did not know who to thank for it. Perhaps the Jusenkyo Commonwealth had taken advantage of Kuno's daring invasion of the Confederation, and launched one of their own into the heart of the Combine? It was all just speculation at this point, but as long as the Capella System remained in Confederation hands, there was hope.

Colonel Mukaida entered her tiny office with a knock, his gaunt face looking paler than usual.

"We've established a line-of-sight lasercomm link with the GunShips Leyte Gulf, Cowpens, and Cold Harbor," Mukaida said to her. "We have a three hour window of communications with Nerima before their respective orbits put them out of position in the daisy chain."

Kasumi flushed with relief. They had been trying to establish this link for days without success. The Combine had GunShips of its own prowling the dark reaches of interplanetary space, searching for the Confederation vessels. Being a mechwarrior, she could hardly imagine the silent cat and mouse games those ships played with each other in the void.

She punched at the terminal built into her desk. "Wonderful," she said to the colonel. She then addressed the commo tech on her display. "Are we through yet?"

"We're just now getting a signal," the tech replied. "There's going to be about a three minute lag between points, ma'am."

"Send our data first," Kasumi told him. She tapped at her function pad briefly, sending her action report to his station. "We can exchange pleasantries after."

"Yes, ma'am," the tech replied. "Sending all data over the encrypted bands now. Estimated time of transmission, fourteen minutes."

Kasumi nodded in reply. The encryption was a time-consuming nuisance, and in this case, not technically needed. Since they were sending via laser light, it would require a Combine ship to be in the direct path of the transmission for them to intercept it. Her real concern was Nabiki's agents getting hold of the data once it reached headquarters.

Every instinct told her to have her middle sister detained before leaving for Oni, but Nabiki had been clever enough to avoid directly incriminating herself in any form of wrong-doing. There was no legal basis for holding Nabiki, and the best she had managed in her appeals to Father was to have her sister's security clearance and official duties stripped pending an investigation. It would blunt Nabiki's overt probes into the affairs of the Confederation, but Kasumi doubted that she lacked for other resources.

The City of Gondolin

Planet Nerima, Capella System

The Nerima Confederation

11 April 3025

Nabiki Tendo kept on the move.

Though there was no warrant out for her arrest, she was smart enough to operate as if one could be issued at any time. She spent a lot of time in vehicles; from ground-effect limousines to a flock of rented helicopters and tilt-rotor aircraft, and she always had more than one way out of the city if she needed it. She maintained her communications links through privately owned cellular phones, purchased under pseudonyms, and paid for with anonymous blocks of service time purchased with cash through every cell-phone provider in the city at ten different convenience stores.

There was no doubt in her mind that she was living in the most dangerous time of her life. The termination of her position as Chief of Intelligence and the suspension of her security clearance was intended as a warning from her father and eldest sister that they suspected her of treachery. At first she had resented the move for the crimp it put in her intelligence collection efforts, but it did not take her long to feel grateful for their futile wrist-slapping.

If she had been running the show, there would have been no warning. There would have been arrests, not warnings. It may have proved that blood was thicker than water, but in the 31st Century, such sentiments more often than not led to palace coups...

Now she was playing a waiting game. For some asinine reason, Tatewaki Kuno had left the system in a rush with most of his invasion force. She needed decisive action from him if her plot was going to have any chance of succeeding, and his desertion had left her in the lurch with the nobles, who were really getting anxious. What the hell was going on with him? She needed him to keep the pressure on, because her father's futile defiance of the Combine was what she was counting on to spring her trap.

One of her phones rang. A bodyguard handed her the unit, then reached over to the bar and began mixing a drink for her. He must have had the feeling that she was going to need it. Outside the limousine the bright neon and liquid-crystal adverts of the city's entertainment district glittered in the cool summer evening darkness.

"Yes?" she asked with just enough venom to warn her caller that she was in no mood for bullshit.

It wasn't bullshit.

"Terrific," she spat into the receiver. "You tell that son of a bitch that I want to see him NOW. Not tomorrow, not later tonight, not even in an hour from now, but right goddamned NOW. Are we clear on this?"

She disconnected and accepted the drink from her bodyguard.

"Spineless assholes," she muttered between sips of her Chivas and Coke. "Instead of moving things forward, all I'm doing is putting out fires."

Count Baldur Thuringia of Tikonov was getting cold feet. She knew the others were just as bad as the addled Count, but he had been the first to start visibly cracking. If she did not immediately take action to secure his confidence, the others would bolt from her little camarilla en masse. It wouldn't be easy, for her position was weak, and with recent events he had every reason to be worried about the plot's chances for success.

That wasn't going to stop her from trying. If she did nothing, then he would certainly bolt, and the plot would unravel around her. Worse, he could go to the Grand Duke and expose her. A fat lot of good it would do him when the Combine conquered the Confederation, but a frightened man often overlooks these things in his haste to escape more immediate threats.

She keyed the limousine's intercom to speak to the driver. "Take me to the Alcazar Hotel." The Count was staying in the hotel at her insistance, rather than staying in the Castle as the other nobles who had come to Nerima for the final battle had done. Baldur really was the weakest link in the conspiracy, and she wanted him in a place where she could keep him in line.

The limousine took a left towards the starport, leaving the city's luminous entertainment district. It was odd, but even with the Furinkan Combine breathing down their necks, the place was as busy as ever. Perhaps it was the people of Gondolin enjoying their last days of self-rule before they became a vassal state of a vast new empire. Perhaps it was simply easier to ignore one's doom rather than face it with open eyes.

The Alcazar was a luxury hotel that often catered to visiting nobility. True to its namesake, it had been modeled after a Spanish castle from the period of pre-Jump Earth, if a little smaller than the original. The Count would have the penthouse floor reserved for himself and his senior officers. Most of his personal forces were encamped on the plains surrounding the city, close enough to reach Azure Cloud Castle quickly when the time came to declare Grand Duke Soun Tendo, Nabiki's own father, insane.

She had been so close to that moment, she reflected bitterly as the limousine descended down into an underground parking garage reserved for guests of the highest importance. All she was waiting for was news that Oni had fallen, and that the Combine was on its way towards Nerima. Any further resistance would have been clearly futile at that point, and her father's stubborn refusal to yield would have given her the opportunity she needed to publically denounce him as insane.

With Akane gone to who knew where, and Kasumi either killed in the battle for Oni or captured, she would have been the obvious successor to the Ducal throne. From that position she would turn over the Confederation to Kuno and thus end the stupid wasteful war between them. If, for some reason, Tatewaki chose to ignore her terms and take the planet by force, she would have her revenge. She had discovered the combination that would unlock the family's nuclear arsenal, and she would not hesitate to turn Kuno's invasion fleet and landing forces into radioactive vapors - the Ares Conventions and the consequences be damned!

It was a sobering thought, because the use of nuclear weapons on her homeworld both frightened and sickened her, but she would not go down quietly to any of Tatewaki's treachery, and she intended to let him know just how far she was prepared to go during the surrender negotiations. She wasn't asking for much, after all, just the Capella System in exchange for the rest of the Confederation's peaceful surrender.

The limousine came to a stop near the express elevator that went straight to the penthouse level. She needed to draw her focus inward, towards the present, rather than grim possible futures. She needed to reassure Count Thuringia, or at least browbeat him back into line, and that meant assuming an impenetrable mantle of strength.

Two of the Count's men were waiting at the elevator doors as she stepped out of the limousine. Her expression was distant, with a touch of her usual arrogance. Her bodyguards fell into step behind her, their eyes watching for any signs of treachery. There was always the possibility that the Count had already sold out, and would offer her up as a sign of good faith to the Grand Duke.

"His Excellency has stated his wish not to be disturbed," one of the men declared when she made to step past him.

She glared at him in return. A pang of fear knifed into her breast even as he began to wilt under her gaze. Had the Count already sold her out?

"His Excellency knows better than to deny me," she returned. "Step aside."

The man wavered for a moment, but held firm.

"I'm sorry, my lady."

Nabiki's lip curled into a sneer. "You will be, mister. Now step aside. Do not forget that the Count is my guest on this world."

The man wavered once more, his eyes darting to face his compatriot, who offered nothing in the way of assistance out of the situation.

"Last chance," she told them. This is getting worse, she thought. Unless Baldur was pulling some kind of power trip on her, there was every indication that he was more than simply nervous about the plot. She needed to talk to him, and with no further delay. Only then would she know what he had or had not done.

The men stood still, their trembling hands aching to reach for weapons. They dared not shoot down the daughter of the Grand Duke, nor could they take any other sort of physical action against her, and yet they were ordered to keep her from passing them.

Nabiki cocked her head towards her bodyguards, who lashed out with lightning speed to bear down on the two wavering men at the elevator with primed submachineguns. Nabiki stepped past the two hapless agents of the Count and into the elevator. Each of her bodyguards motioned for the men to join her, lest they sound an alarm in the time it would take to reach the penthouse.

She watched dispassionately as the two were forced down on their knees before her in the elevator, each with the muzzle of a fully automatic weapon pressed behind their ears. Her bodyguards pulled themselves just inside the doors, and then punched for the penthouse floor.

As the elevator rode up the shaft to the Count's apartments, Nabiki was talking on her cell phone. She felt like having a little more insurance in case things went badly from here.

The doors opened on the penthouse floor. Her bodyguards got off first, their weapons tucked back under their coats, but easily reached if need be. Nabiki stepped out imperiously, leaving the two men to cower in the elevator as the doors slid shut behind her.

They were not expected.

One of the Count's bodyguards began reaching for a phone as she approached. She could feel her own muscle men tensing at the sight, waiting for her orders. She decided to let the man call the Count. It would make him wonder about how she had managed to get this far, and perhaps would think twice about continuing to believe that he could avoid her.

The bodyguard spoke softly on the phone, then waited with nervous patience for instructions. Nabiki waited coolly, knowing that one way or another, she would see the Count. Her bodyguards were the epitome of impersonal menace.

Finally, the Count's bodyguard put down the phone.

"His Excellency will see you now," he told her, as if there had never been an edict against her visit.

"Marvelous," she replied. "You don't know how pleased I am to hear that."

Now came the moment of truth.

The bodyguard opened a set of double doors before her, and led her into the Count's parlor. The lighting was set low; several lamps of wrought iron and brass that glowed dully from the corners of the room, and the rest supplied by lamps illuminating oil paintings - some of which dated back to the Terran Hegemony.

The dark leather of the furnishings seemed to soak up what little light was available, and the deep pile carpeting absorbed the sound of their footsteps. The library was stocked with a selection of leatherbound and digital media books that she doubted the Count had the education or the temperament to appreciate. She noted that the bar was in use, with an assortment of glasses and decanters scattered about the hand-rubbed amaranth wood surface. Whatever discussion had recently taken place in this room, it had been a difficult one judging by all the booze consumed.

The first man to appear was Baldur's son, a young man of twenty-one with more bravado than brains, and who, by Nabiki's personal estimation, wasn't half as good in bed as he thought he was. That didn't stop her from fucking the living daylights out of him when the Count's party first arrived on Nerima. As she was well aware, Count Thuringia was the weakest link in the camarilla, and it was always good to have a loyal replacement waiting in the wings.

"Hello, Rolf," she purred for him. He returned her sloe-eyed look with one of piggish lust. A man of appetites more than ambitions, Rolf Thuringia would make, at best, a temporary replacement for his father if circumstances came to that. She had no intention of stringing him along any longer than absolutely necessary before turning him over to the mercy of relatives with a keener sense of politics than his. After the surrender to the Combine, it wouldn't matter an iota to her who actually held Tikonov's seat.

"Want a drink?" he asked her as she took the chair that would allow her to best dominate the rest of the room with her presence. His grating and hollowly insincere chumminess only served to remind her of how odious a chore sex had been with him.

"Please," she returned coolly. "I was having a Chivas and Coke when the necessity of this conference brought me here."

Rolf stepped around behind her to the bar, pausing long enough to look down her scoop-neck black satin top. Nabiki could feel his eyes plunging into the depths of her cleavage, and suppressed a cold shudder of disgust. Though he was fairly handsome, with rough angular features that a man of his tender years shouldn't have possessed, his very nature left her feeling as if she needed to bathe herself after every little contact - even visual.

She reflected briefly upon their one liaison, and wondered if she hadn't made a mistake in assuming that sex was the best way to approach the man. Perhaps it was just wishful thinking on her part, because his libido had been the key to unlocking the nature of his relationship with his father. Which was to say that Rolf would have sold the man without batting an eye as long as he got to take over when the dust cleared. She was, of course, incapable of seeing that same quality in herself for the horrid thing that it was, and instead saw only opportunity in him.

Count Thuringia stepped into the parlor from his personal chambers as Rolf searched the bar in vain for a bottle of Chivas. He was accompanied by his aide de camp, a lieutenant colonel in the Confederation Army with a reputation as a petty schemer. The colonel was right up Nabiki's alley in most respects - ambitious, bright enough to be reliable, and of a suitably flexible moral character. With the present difficulties in regards to the Count, she now saw the colonel in a different light. He had hitched his star early to the Count, and was considered extremely loyal to the man. Should she decide to promote Rolf to Tikonov's seat, the colonel would have to be removed as well. She saw danger along that path, and resolved herself to find a solution to the problem as quickly as possible.

"I see you've made yourself at home," Baldur sniffed at beholding her in his favorite chair.

"This is my home," she reminded him curtly. Rolf, having given up on finding any Chivas, returned with an ordinary bourbon and coke, and set it down on the end table by her elbow.

She sipped at the drink, her nose wrinkling slightly at how strong he had mixed it, and wondered if this wasn't some sophomoric attempt at getting her drunk for another round of the old in-and-out once his father went back to bed. She tried to keep a rein on her bile, and directed the scathing look she longed to give to Rolf at his father instead.

"I've heard some very disturbing things about you, your Excellency," she said to him, letting the implications of this hang between them.

"No doubt the reason you're here at this hour," Baldur returned.

"Do you want to tell me about it, or will I have to get it from you one question at a time?"

The Count sighed heavily and ordered his son to pour him a glass of brandy. Rolf did so sullenly, realizing at last that this was not going to be a social call on Nabiki's part.

"It's too dangerous," he said after taking a sip of the brandy. "We have to call the whole thing off."

"Nothing's happened yet," she returned, wondering what he knew. Her dismissal as Chief of Intelligence was not public knowledge as far as she was aware.

"The Grand Duke knows!" Baldur hissed. She could see the fear in his eyes, how it paralyzed him and made him a slave to his instincts. He hadn't sold her yet, she realized. He was just weak and stupid and afraid.

"My father doesn't know a thing," she countered coolly. "If he did, I'd be under arrest by now, and so would the rest of you. If you would pull yourself together for a moment, you'd realize that." She needed to coddle him a little, and see if it had any useful effect. If it looked like he would respond to her, she would be content to let things continue as planned. If not, there was always Rolf.

Baldur averted his eyes from her, and looked down into his glass of brandy.

"Oh he might suspect that I'm up to something," she went on. "But his suspicions will come to nothing as long as we all keep our mouths shut." She gave him a penetrating look that he did his best to withstand. "You can keep your mouth shut, can't you, your Excellency?"

"Of course," he replied. "Of course I can."

"Good," she purred. She was not entirely satisfied with his response, but a little more encouragement might help. "You realize that our little arrangement is the best hope the nobles have of retaining their titles, don't you, your Excellency?"

"Yes, of course I do," Baldur replied. Like so many other nobles within the Confederation, his chief worry was the fear of Prince Kuno stripping them of their lands and titles and giving them to rivals, or worse yet, to the daimyo of the Furinkan Combine. Nabiki's plot, while treasonous, held out some measure of security for them that they would not otherwise have.

"Then I don't see why you're having second thoughts," she said to him. "Running away from our pact will gain you nothing in the end. Your only hope for the future rests with me. As long as you do your part in this endeavor, we will succeed, and then we shall all reap the rewards of our efforts."

Baldur nodded slowly. Nabiki could see that there was still some lingering doubt within him.

"What is it?" she demanded.

"I beg your pardon?" he asked uneasily.

"I can see that you aren't entirely convinced," she returned. "I don't want to feel as if I'm wasting my time with you, your Excellency." Her eyes narrowed. She had played it soft with him, and now it was time to play it hard. "Take this any way you like, your Excellency, but understand that you are not irreplaceable within this pact."

Her eyes flicked briefly to Rolf, a gesture that went unnoticed by the Count. The colonel merely seethed in silence near the bar.

"You wouldn't..." Baldur muttered, realizing that she meant to replace him more than she meant to replace his role within the plot.

"I will," she replied coldly. "As long as I remain unconvinced of your dedication - not just to me, but to every other noble who has joined us." She gestured to herself. "I won't have to lift a finger against you, your Excellency, should it come to that. Once the others realize what a threat you represent to their futures, well... I needn't go into details that you can surely provide for yourself."

His eyes trembled in their sockets, and she knew that, for the moment, she had him. Rolf would just have to wait a little longer for his chance, she decided.

"It's good to hear your voice, Father."

Grand Duke Soun Tendo cracked a wan smile on Kasumi's display. There was a three minute lag between the time she had spoken and the time he could reply, making the conversation that followed a painful exercise in patience.

"It's good to see my daughter safe and sound," he replied.

"Did you receive my reports?"

Soun nodded. "I haven't had the time to go over them. I felt it was more important to speak to you directly."

"Of course, Father. We continue to hold base LIBERTY. The other bases have fallen. Our casualties are high, but we are consolidating and reorganizing our remaining forces into effective units to continue the defense of Oni, or to effect a retreat if ordered to do so."

This last she let hang between them, as if hoping her father would indeed give the order to retreat.

"I understand," Soun replied. "I would gladly give the order to return to Nerima, but with recent developments..."

Kasumi bowed her head. She had expected this.

"Yes, sir," she returned. "We shall continue the defense of Oni."

"I'm sorry, Daughter," Soun said grimly. "Prince Kuno's withdrawal from the system has left us baffled, but we can't let an opportunity like this go. I've ordered a mission to Shounetsu Jigoku space to resupply your troops, and to allow you to evacuate your wounded. I'm sending what little I can to reinforce your position as well."

"What are my orders, Father?"

"Kasumi, you are to reestablish control of the moon. Intelligence indicates a modest enemy presence there, probably just enough to threaten your retreat. You are to attack and destroy that force. From there, you are to support a naval operation to harass the forces defending the Jump Points so that we might break the seige before Kuno can return."

Kasumi knew that without a great deal of reinforcements, liberating the Jump Points would be a tall order. Father had to know that. Perhaps it was his real intention to make the conquest of the Capella System so costly that Prince Kuno would withdraw rather than lose more men and materiel. The League of Five Nails and the Jusenkyo Commonwealth had to be watching this conflict, and assessing the Combine for weakness.

"I understand, Father," she said to him.

The Grand Duke's eyes began to water. "You make your father very proud, Daughter."

Kasumi bowed respectfully, her cheeks tinged with red.

"How are things on Nerima, Father?" she asked after an embarrassed moment of silence.

"As good as can be expected," he replied. "Morale is still high."

"And Nabiki?" She had to ask. She was going to have to stay on Oni for a little longer, and that meant only Father stood in her sister's way.

"I have taken your suggestion to heart and suspended her of her duties. Military Intelligence has taken over for her organization, and her people have been reassigned." Soun thought about this. "Of course, that meant only those who were on official payrolls."

"She won't be without resources," Kasumi agreed.

"Really, Kasumi," Soun harrumphed. "It's not like you to be this way regarding your sister. You don't know how hard it's been for me to even hear this kind of talk from you."

"I know, Father, but I wouldn't ask you to do such things if I felt they weren't justified. Nabiki was set on surrendering to the Combine in order to end the war. You remember her reaction when we agreed to allow Mister Saotome and his son to search for Ryuugenzawa, and she was furious when you honored your promise to marry one of us to Ranma."

Soun nodded slowly, his mustache drooping at the corners of his mouth.

"That I do. It doesn't make talk of treason any easier to hear. If it had come from any other lips than yours, I wouldn't have even listened."

"I know how hard it must be for you, Father," Kasumi assured him. "I don't like to think about it either, but I can't deny my conviction that she is plotting something terrible against you."

Soun gave her a dismissive gesture. "Fear not, Daughter. I've quietly banished Nabiki from the Castle and suspended her bank and credit accounts. She's living off of whatever she's managed to squirrel away for herself right now. When she runs out of money, she won't be as much of a threat."

"Be careful, Father. That might only make her more desperate."

"In any case," Soun continued. "She can't sell us out to the Combine with Prince Kuno off chasing his tail. The wait will hurt her more than us."

"If she does try something that you can hang on her, and fails, what will you do to her?"

Soun considered this for a moment.

"Exile, perhaps," he replied. "Maybe a few years in the South Tower. I don't know, Daughter. A year ago I wouldn't have even imagined such a possibility as a betrayal by my own flesh and blood. This is like some nightmare out of the early days of the First Succession War, when our family nearly ripped itself apart." Streams of tears fell down his face. "I had thought we were beyond that now..."

"One last question, Father," Kasumi pressed. "Before our time runs out. Have you heard anything from Akane?"

Soun looked away. "I received word from one of our foreign Consulates that she is alive and well. I dare not say where she is out of fear that somehow Prince Kuno will find out. Their expedition continues with some minor difficulties. That's all I know."

The transmission began to break up as the GunShips that maintained the lasercomm link drifted further and further out of alignment. They were risking so much already by maintaining such predictable orbits for so long.

"Take care of yourself, Daughter," he said to her. "Again, you make me proud."

"I will, Father," Kasumi replied. She brushed away a tear. "Good bye for now."

The transmission broke up, leaving her to wonder if her father would even receive her farewell.

Offworld Quarter, the City of Aquila

Planet Tiber, Palatine System

The Federated Shiratori

13 April 3025

Ranma Saotome was not a man at peace with himself. He had been playing the conversation with his father's mystery lover over and over in his head ever since she had hung up on him. It bothered him that she seemed to know who he was and, worse yet, despised him.

Was she even a lover at all? he wondered. It didn't make much sense, now that he had considered it for so long, but what else could she be? They had been on the planet less than two weeks so far, and Ranma was certain that they had never come here in the early days of his youth. Who would possibly know them here?

Genma had been no help. Whether he was simply feigning an alcohol-induced amnesia, or he had really been that drunk, Ranma could only guess. All he knew was that whoever the girl was, she had met his father that day between the time they had left the Consulate, and the time he had been arrested for public drunkenness. She might have been the one responsible for Genma's injuries, an idea that Ranma was forced to consider following her hostile reply to his call.

He pulled the hundred-imperial note from his pocket and studied the handwriting. It was not his father's chicken scratch, but a girl's neat, loopy script. She had given his father her number. Why?

"You aren't seriously planning on meeting her, are you, Ranma?"

He tried to ignore Akane's question as he walked down the hallway of their hotel.

"Ranma?"

She had been nagging him about it ever since he had made the mistake of discussing the phone call with his father. His biggest mistake, though, was telling Genma that he was going to meet the mystery girl as requested.

"I'm not going to be ignored, Ranma," she added indignantly.

"Yes," he barked, still walking for the elevator. "I am serious about this. I want to find out who knows us on this planet, and how they know."

"You just want to confirm if your father's having an affair," she countered.

"Maybe," he agreed. "But I don't think it's that anymore. It's weird that she would know my name, and I want some answers."

They reached the elevator doors. Ranma stabbed at the call button repeatedly, as if by pressing it over and over again, the elevator would somehow move faster.

"Okay, fair enough," Akane conceded. "But I'm coming with you."

"Will you please stay out of this?" Ranma said, his voice pained. "I don't need you tagging along."

Her eyes narrowed at him. "You said yourself that she sounded hostile over the phone. What if you're walking into some kind of ambush?"

"All the more reason for you not to be there," Ranma returned. "There's no need for you to get hurt over this." The elevator doors opened, and he stepped inside, his finger shooting to the 'door close' button before Akane could join him.

"I happen to be a decent fighter, Ranma," Akane countered. She stepped past the threshold as the doors started to close, breaking the light beam that acted as a safety feature, and propping the doors back open to Ranma's obvious chagrin.

"Yeah, maybe."

"What do you mean, maybe? Where were you when the Black Rose was attacking Port Said?"

Ranma grimaced. "You don't have to remind me. I've seen the newspages."

"So how about a little credit then?"

"I still don't want you coming."

She stood up on her tip toes and pressed in close to meet his gaze. Tiny beads of perspiration began to form on his brow. "I already know where and when you're supposed to meet her, Ranma. You can't stop me."

He leaned back against the wall of the elevator, his face a mask of surrender.

"Whatever," he said finally. "But if you get hurt, I don't wanna hear about it, okay?"

"Fair enough," she agreed smugly.

Her smugness grated on him.

"And don't think I'm gonna jump in and save your big butt, either," he added, knowing full well that if things did go wrong, he would do so without hesitating, as if it were a reflex.

By her sly grin, she seemed to know exactly what he was thinking. She was so pleased with her estimation that she let his big butt remark slide - at least for the moment, there would be time to make him pay for it later.

"That's fine with me, Ranma. I don't need your help."

Ryouga Hibiki strolled down the warmly lit sidewalks of Aquila Park with Senior Technician Akari Unryuu by his side. Happiness was such a transitory emotion with him that he remained uneasy even in the presence of such a lovely young woman - one who obviously adored him - waiting for the other shoe to drop. They were thoroughly lost, of course, but Ryouga knew that as long as they stayed on the sidewalk and didn't cross any streets, they would be okay.

He certainly didn't remember crossing any streets, but by the same token, he was sort of tuning out the world around him. Including Akari, who had amazed him with her ability to talk. And talk. And talk.

The primary topic of her monologue was battlemechs. No surprise there, he figured, but she had an anecdote for just about any situation a Tech could possibly have encountered in dealing with them, each as dry and uninspiring as the last. He found that he wasn't even required to make the appropriate interested noises, because that would mean that Akari would have to pause first to allow it.

Despite her phenomenal talent for prattle, Ryouga was quite at peace around her. Adoration was not something he was accustomed to, and he found himself drawn towards her like a man starving for affection. Which he was, he quickly realized.

The words "...So it's quite obvious that you're the man I'm going to marry someday..." passed through his ears. They bounced around inside his skull for several seconds looking for something fragile within his psyche to run into. Eventually, the words "you're," "I'm," and "marry" met up within his head to the delicate sound of a train derailment.

Ryouga stopped in his tracks, leaving Akari to take several more steps before realizing that he had done so.

"Wh-Wh-What was that y-you said again?" he stammered softly.

She stopped and offered a sheepish grin.

"I said that it was obvious that you're the man I'm going to marry someday..."

Ryouga blinked. The sound of his eyelashes clicking together was defeaning to him. A rushing sound filled his ears as he pondered this.

"That's what I thought you said."

He swooned, and then, darkness...

He awoke to the curious mingling of perfume and traces of molybdenum grease that was Akari's trademark scent. Warm hands brushed at his brow, soft fingertips tracing down his temples and over his ears. He opened his eyes to see Akari's face looking down at him. His head was apparently in her lap. She didn't seem concerned in the least about his collapse. Instead, she looked quite wistful.

"My grandfather always said that I should marry a man who pilots a BattleMaster," she told him with a smile.

"A-A BattleMaster?" he asked dazedly.

"Yes!" she beamed. "Isn't it so romantic?"

She likes me just because of my battlemech? Ryouga wondered, his heart sinking. That's it?

"But what difference does a person's 'mech make in who they are as a person?" he asked her. It was such a bizarre sentiment that he simply had to get an explanation for it.

"My grandfather always said that men who piloted BattleMasters were brave, noble, selfless men, the kind of man who would make a good husband for me. No one knows me better than my grandfather. He raised me, and taught me everything I know about being a Tech, so it just makes sense that he would know who was best for me as a husband."

Ryouga's eyes crossed at her twisted sense of logic.

"B-But it's just a machine," he protested. "How does a machine make a person brave and noble and all that...?"

Akari shrugged. "I don't really know," she admitted with a giggle. "But in your case, it's all true!" She leaned over him to touch her brow softly against his. "It's all true, Ryouga, dear... I didn't think much of it when you first joined us, but since then I've seen that you are all that my grandfather said and more."

Ryouga's face began to burn with a great heat.

"Y-You mean, you really want to marry me?"

Akari shrugged. "It seems like a good idea. I can't think of any reason why not."

The Dreamer in Ryouga began shouting, She wants to marry me! ...ME! O, a ray of light in a dark and lonely universe!

The Logical part of him then began to vigorously slap the hell out of the Dreamer. Wake up, stupid! it bellowed. Don't you think this is a little sudden?

"But we hardly even know each other!" he blurted, his heart about to burst in his chest. "D-Don't you think this is a little sudden?"

She brushed at his hair some more, her eyes huge and trembling. "I'll understand if you say no," she whispered. "I know this is all so sudden, but I'm willing to wait for you as long as it takes to say 'yes,' Ryouga, dear."

WOO-HOO!!! the Dreamer part of his mind whooped gleefully.

It'll never work... the Logical part countered. A marriage based on a battlemech? Puh-lease!

Ryouga's face fell with this realization. The internal conflict raged on.

Akari is beautiful, she's sweet and kind, she absolutely adores us... So what if she talks too much and is hung up on battlemechs? the Dreamer put forward. How many girls in the universe have ever even given us the time of day? This one wants to marry us!

Sorry slugger, the Logical part returned. I didn't want to have to do this... BUT WHAT ABOUT AKANE!?

Ryouga flinched as if he had been struck. How could he let Akane go so easily? What kind of man was he to do something like that?

"What is it, Ryouga, dear?" Akari asked him.

"Ummm..." he murmured, his heart close to breaking. "Can I think about this...?"

Akari offered him a tiny smile. "I said I'd wait for you. Take as much time as you need."

Ryouga Hibiki closed his eyes, knowing that he might need a long, long time to figure this all out.

The bronze statue of Karl Tiber was pitted and weathered with centuries of age. Ranma paused from his search of the surroundings to note the plaque dedicating the statue of the colony's founder in 2519. There was no sign of the girl who had directed him to come to this place.

The statue was only a few meters from the lake. The paddleboats had all been returned to the rental pier as the sun set, and the surface of the water was glassy and reflective of the bright yellow crescent moon hanging low in the evening sky. The area around the statue was freshly cut grass, with lines of tall, billowy trees of local origin set on knolls to either side.

Akane remained a good distance from the statue, over by the paddleboat rental shack, hopefully watching out for him without being too obvious about it. The mystery girl had been very specific about meeting him alone. As long as Akane didn't screw up and scare whoever it was off, he would get his answers.

For a moment he wished he wore a watch. As it stood, he had no idea what time it was. She could be late for all he knew. She might even have decided to stand him up. He paced back and forth with this thought in mind, eventually dismissing the idea.

Where the heck was she?

Ukyou Kuonji watched the man she believed to be Ranma from the shelter of the trees. There was a passing resemblance to the elder Saotome from what she could see of Ranma, mostly around the brow, chin, and the general arrangement of his face. The odd style of dress he affected pointed to offworld origins. What she had remembered as Ranma's long ponytail was now carefully braided.

It had to be him. He was a stranger, standing where she had directed him and at the appropriate time. He looked a little like Genma Saotome, and his movements as he paced suggested long practice in the martial arts.

The question then, became one of what to make of his shadow, the girl who watched him from the boat rental. A sister? she wondered. One she had not met before? It didn't seem likely, she decided. She looked about the same age as Ranma, and there had never been any mention of any siblings in his family. There was also the fact that there was little resemblance between the two of them.

A sudden thought occured to her.

"That can't be Akane Tendo," she muttered to herself. "Could it?"

"Yes sir, I think it is. She's cut her hair, but I pride myself on being able to recognize important political figures of the Inner Sphere."

Ukyou looked up at Konatsu, who watched the unknown girl through a set of magnigoggles while perched atop a handy tree limb. Her adjutant was dressed in his kunoichi attire, something he had not worn in her presence in years.

"I thought I told you not to come, Konatsu."

Konatsu gave her a sheepish look and put away the magnigoggles.

"Um... Would you believe my being here is just a coincidence?"

Ukyou scowled. "Not now, not ever, sugar."

He held up the magnigoggles.

"How about this: I've taken up birdwatching."

"Konatsu, get down off that tree before I get any angrier with you."

The one-time kunoichi dropped onto the spongy ground and stood at attention before she could finish her threat. Ukyou looked him over.

"What are you really here for?" she asked him.

Konatsu remained at stiff attention.

"Begging the General's pardon, sir, but as the General's personal bodyguard as well as her adjutant, I was looking after her physical security. Sir."

"So you took it upon yourself to violate my orders and follow me," she pointed out sternly.

"No sir," Konatsu replied formally. "The General did not specifically order me not to accompany her. I believe the General's exact words were, and I quote:" His soft falsetto then became a frighteningly convincing facsimile of Ukyou's voice. "'Konatsu, honey, I really don't think you should come along with me.'" His voice then shifted back to his usual breathy falsetto. "Unquote. Clearly, sir, no such order was given."

Ukyou blinked several times in exasperation. She hated it when he did impressions of her. It was spooky the way he could duplicate her voice and mannerisms. Mimicry was part of his kunoichi training, no doubt.

"Very cute," she said dryly. "Now here's an order you can appreciate, Konatsu. I ORDER you to return to the base, and to stay there until I direct otherwise. Is that perfectly clear?"

Konatsu bowed low.

"Crystalline, sir."

He bounded off into the woods, disappearing within moments.

She blew her bangs out of her eyes with a huff. She should have expected this from him. His devotion to her wouldn't have permitted anything less.

She returned her attention to Ranma Saotome. He was getting visibly impatient, and she wondered how much longer she should keep him waiting. Looking at him brought back all the old memories of childhood, and she fought back a sniffle at the pain she had endured after the Saotomes walked out of her life.

Could she really blame Ranma for getting left behind? He was, what, nine years old at the time? What was she really expecting from this meeting?

She had set the whole thing in motion on a whim. The phone number on the bank note was just a lark. She hadn't really expected them to notice, it was more like wishful thinking on her part. When Ranma had actually called her, she had reacted in the worst possible way.

Now she was here, having called him out to this place to meet, and she didn't know what to do or say. Half of her wanted to rush out and join the boy she had fallen in love with - perhaps even recapture those happy days of their childhood before Genma had taken Ranma away. The other half wanted to walk away, and put Ranma out of her mind forever - that part of herself that knew one could never truly recapture a particular moment in time. After all, he had Akane Tendo now... Right?

"Screw this," Ranma snorted to himself. "I'm outta here."

He started towards the boat rental pier. Akane watched him leave the statue, presenting him with a 'what gives?' gesture as he approached.

"Ranma, wait!" a voice called to him from the trees to his back.

He spun around. A girl with long chestnut hair tied with a white satin ribbon bounded from the tree line. She wore black tights and a purple belted tunic, and a large axe - or shovel, or something - with a squarish blade was strapped to her back.

This was the girl who had penned her phone number on a hundred-imperial note?

He had to admit, though, that his old man had shown remarkably good taste for once. She was actually pretty darn cute.

"You're the girl I talked to on the phone yesterday?" he asked her as she ran towards him.

She drew within two meters of him, her face betraying her mixed emotions of that moment. To Ranma it looked as if she wanted to come much closer, and wasn't sure if she should. She didn't seem angry or vengeful in the slightest, which was a sharp contrast to the voice he had heard over the phone.

"You don't recognize me, do you?" she asked in a quiet voice.

Do I know this girl? Ranma thought frantically. I'd have to remember someone as cute as her, right?

"Um?" he offered lamely.

"I guess not," she said mournfully. "It's been over ten years. A lot can happen in that time."

"You mind telling me who you are?"

Her green eyes flashed hopefully. "I'm Ukyou Kuonji. I'm from New Osaka originally."

Ranma wracked his brain for some kind of confirmation. He remembered New Osaka, as it had been his first time away from the Nerima Confederation, and also one of the few planets where they had spent any decent length of time. He didn't remember any girls though.

"That means nothing to you?" she asked, her voice edged with sorrow.

"I'm thinking," Ranma protested. "I moved around a lot when I was little."

"I suppose you have," she agreed.

The name Ukyou came back to him suddenly. Those were the days! he reflected happily. Me and Ucchan! The brawls we'd get into... The food... Sparring together in the mountains while on a training trip with Pop... Food... Shredded-cabbage pancakes or something like that, but gooood...

He looked at the extremely cute girl standing before him. There was just no way.

"I remember my best friend on New Osaka," he said to her. "A boy named Ucchan."

Ukyou's jaw dropped. Her mouth flopped open and shut several times, as if she were trying to speak, and no sound would issue forth. Finally, she managed to get her vocal cords to obey.

"A... BOY!?"

"You ain't looking like any guy I ever met," Ranma pointed out. "What are you, his sister or something? I don't remember Ucchan having any sisters."

Ukyou's face took on a deep red hue.

"You thought I was a BOY!?"

Ranma cocked his head to the side. There was something he was missing in this conversation, and he wasn't quite sure what it was.

Ukyou did not give him any further opportunities to ponder this.

"You... You... YOU IDIOT!"

The next thing he knew, the large flat-bladed shovel she carried, or whatever it was, was suddenly slamming down on the top of his head. He saw lots of pretty lights after that, and then, a close-up perspective of the grass.

Ukyou looked down at her handiwork, the spatula warm in her hands from the energy of the impact. It had all happened so fast! One moment she was seething mad at having been mistaken for a boy all these years by the one person she had ever loved. The next, she was clobbering him with her ancestral weapon.

"RANMA!" a young woman's voice cried out in the distance. It was the girl shadowing Ranma. The Lady Akane Tendo, Heir Apparent to the Nerima Confederation, by Konatsu's estimation.

Ranma's fiancee...

The girl, Akane, whoever she was, was charging straight towards her.She was yelling "Get away from him, you!" and variations on that theme.

What have I done? Ukyou wondered, her mind in shock. I've killed him...

Then, as if to make her feel even more foolish, Ranma began to stir.

"What'ya do that for?" he groaned from the grass while rubbing his head.

"Ranchan!" she cried with relief. She knelt over him and began to hug him. "I'm so sorry! I don't know what came over me!"

Ranma, still dazed from his blow to the head, sat back dizzily and let the girl, who had just clocked him, now put her arms around him. A annoying buzzing rang in his ears, and he realized that it was the sound of Akane's voice. She was probably ragging on him for something he had done wrong, he supposed.

In the meantime, this girl who was hugging him sure smelled nice...

"You keep your hands off him!" Akane raged at Ranma's assailant. She had her cell-phone in hand. "I'm calling the police!"

"It was a mistake!" the girl protested. "I didn't mean to hurt him!"

"Ha! Like you didn't mean to hurt Mister Saotome yesterday!?" Akane shot back. "I saw what you did to his face with that big, er, whatever it is!"

She began dialing the emergency assistance number when a miniature version of the mystery girl's melee weapon cut through the phone with a flash of sparks and shattered plastic. The throw had been so precise that she hadn't even been injured by the blade as it passed.

"You're making a big mistake," the girl told her, a brace of the mini-spatulas in her right hand as she cradled the dazed Ranma's head against her bosom with the other. "Now stop overreacting and give me a hand with him."

Akane stood still, eyeing the oddly-shaped throwing weapons warily.

"Just who do you think you are?" she demanded of the girl.

Ukyou gave her a tight-lipped and sad little smile.

"I'm Ranma's fiancee."

Nerima Confederation DropShip Palomino

Landing Pad #6, Aquila Starport

Planet Tiber, Palatine System

The Federated Shiratori

13 April 3025

"Well, it doesn't look like there's any permanent damage," Doctor Tofu said as he studied the scans from the DropShip's portable MagRes Med-Imager in Sick Bay. "It's been my opinion based on previous experience that Ranma has a pretty thick skull..."

"No kidding," Akane huffed, casting a contemptuous look towards Ranma, and the girl who sat by his side to comfort him. His fiancee!

"So he'll be okay?" Ukyou asked the doctor.

Tofu patted Ranma's shoulder. The pig-tailed mechwarrior's head was topped with a cold compress.

"He should be just fine," he replied. He looked to Ranma. "Now remember, Ranma. If you should feel even the slightest bit dizzy or nauseous within the next few days, you let me know," he admonished.

Ranma shrugged it off.

"Sure thing, Doc."

Tofu continued.

"I'll want to run another scan in the morning in any case, just to make sure nothing's changed with your condition. It's good that you caught me when you did, as I was about to make a run over to the hospital to check on my Dragonfly patients." He gathered up a bag. "You kids play nice now, okay?"

He then stepped through the Sick Bay door and into the passageway beyond.

Once Doctor Tofu was gone, Akane turned back to Ukyou.

"Ranma's going to be okay," she pointed out. "Now are you going to explain this fiancee business or not?"

"Fiancee?" Ranma blurted. He had not been terribly coherent during the trip back to the starport. "No thanks, I've already got one, and -"

"- That's what I've been trying to tell her," Akane said snidely.

"- And if you'd let me finish," Ranma shot back. "I was gonna say that one fiancee was one too many."

She gave him a dirty look. "Jerk."

"Tomboy," he riposted.

"Anyhow..." Ukyou interjected, more than a little amused at their verbal sparring. "It's all true. I was promised to be Ranma's fiancee over ten years ago on New Osaka. His father even took the dowry for me and then spent it all."

Ranma shook his head slowly. This was news to him, especially the part about his old chum Ucchan being a girl - and a very cute one at that. Had he been that completely naive not to notice?

"That figures..." he muttered. He looked around Sick Bay. "Where is my old man, anyway?"

"I don't know," Akane answered him. "He wasn't on board when we came back to the ship." She looked down at the deckplates. "How could he?" she asked herself. "How could he just promise Ranma away like that?"

"It gets better," Ukyou said to her. "Instead of taking me with them like they were supposed to, I got left behind." She tried not to think about the pain, the humiliation. "Genma used my family like a pair of ramen-shop chopsticks, and then he threw us away."

"Is that why you smacked him in the face?" Ranma asked her coldly.

Ukyou drew back from him, afraid of what he might do next.

"Yes," she said flatly.

"Good," he snorted. "It sounds like the old prick deserved it."

"Ranma can't be your fiance," Akane pointed out in the silence that followed his remark. "He's engaged to me."

Ukyou looked first to Ranma, and then to Akane.

"From what I've heard, you two only got engaged in the last three months or so. I've been promised to Ranma, and the dowry paid for mind you, for over ten years. If anyone has precedence here, it's me."

"That's ridiculous!" Akane retorted. "We've only got your word for it that it's even true!"

"I believe her," Ranma said evenly, before Ukyou could reply. "Why would Ucchan make something like this up?"

Akane whirled on him. "So you're telling me that you WANT to be engaged to this girl, who comes from out of nowhere and says she's your long lost fiancee, and piles on this sob story about how your Dad cheated her family out of a dowry?"

He failed to detect the hurt tone in her voice before he replied.

"At least she's cute!" he retorted. "Not like some people I could mention, who run around complaining about how they don't get any respect from me, and hit me when they get mad, and..."

He stopped when he realized what his words were doing to her.

"Akane, I -"

"Save it, Ranma," she replied bitterly. "Have fun with your cute fiancee."

She stormed out of Sick Bay, leaving Ranma and Ukyou alone at last.

"Let her go," Ukyou said, tugging at his sleeve as he rose to chase after Akane. "This can't be easy for her. I know it hasn't been easy for me."

"Stupid, uncute tomboy," Ranma growled. "She's just like her Warhammer, always overheating, always flying off the handle at every stupid little thing I say or do. I don't know why I even bother sometimes..."

Ukyou gave him a penetrating look, her green eyes filled with hope.

"You don't like Akane?" she asked him.

"She drives me nuts," he replied slowly.

Ukyou wanted to ask him another question, but held off when she detected something else in the tone of his voice. Better not to push the issue any faster than she already had, she decided.

"So? Are you glad to see me?" she asked him.

He blushed slightly. "I don't know, uh, sure, I guess."

"That sounded very sincere," she pointed out mockingly.

"Geez, Ucchan," he said, standing. "Akane's right. You came out of nowhere, and I honestly didn't know you were a... well... A girl."

"A cute one too, according to you," she added with a shy grin. She felt like she was thirteen years old in that moment. Ranma was so handsome standing there, even with a cold-pack on his head. His rocky relationship with Akane was more than she could have hoped for.

"I guess I did say that," he replied quietly.

"Ranchan," she said to him. "I know this is sudden. And I know that I haven't approached this situation in the best possible way. I was angry, Ranchan. Angry at your father, and angry at you for leaving me behind all those years ago. But I don't blame you anymore, Ranchan. Not even for thinking I was a boy this whole time."

"That was pretty stupid of me," Ranma said, blushing. "I'm sorry if I offended you, Ucchan."

"You're forgiven, as long as I am too, for hitting you over it."

He rubbed at his cold-pack. "You're forgiven, Ucchan."

She smiled brightly for him.

"I'm glad," she said warmly. Thoughts of Mikado Sanzenin and the Federated Shiratori Army were parsecs away from her now.

"Hey, I've got an idea," Ranma broached. "Let's go out for awhile, and catch up on old times."

"That's a great idea," she returned. "Did you have any place in mind, or can I recommend?"

Ranma pointed to the ceiling. "I have just the thing." He reached for the intercomm and pressed the 'call' button for the Tech Shed.

The Boomerang, freshly unpacked from its stowage crate and assembled on the tarmac, sat before the two mechwarriors. The moon had risen higher in the sky, though its light was overwhelmed by the lights of the starport.

"What do you think?" Ranma asked Ukyou.

She had planned on somewhere a little more comfortable, but she didn't want to dampen his obvious enthusiasm. "It's not quite what I had in mind, but that's okay."

"Great. Let me give it the once-over, and then we'll get going." He pointed to the sky. "No one can bother us up there."

Ukyou saw his point. "Lead the way."

Ranma did a preflight inspection of the turboprop recon plane while Ukyou watched. When he was satisfied that the aircraft had been properly assembled, he signalled her to hop in.

"Ever flown in one of these?" he asked her when they were seated.

She had, once. As a Brigadier in the Federated Shiratori Army, she didn't get much of an opportunity to become more familiar with the planes.

"Just once," she replied. At least the seats were side by side. The cockpit was actually kind of cozy. "Does this thing have an autopilot?"

"Sure," Ranma replied. "A simple one. Why do you ask?"

She blushed at the thought of getting in some smooch-time that was long overdue. "Oh, I don't know. Things happen."

Ranma, ever the dense one, didn't make the connection.

"Whatever."

He lowered the canopy and sealed it. The powerful turboprop engine roared to life behind them as he hit the starter. He sat there in comfortable silence with Ukyou as the aircraft's engine warmed up for take off.

Akane watched as the little reconnaisance plane taxied down the tarmac until it was well clear of the DropShip, then turned back to face parallel to the ship and accelerated. It leaped into the air within the length of the Palomino, reminding her of a time only weeks previously that she had spent with Ranma in that very plane. This time it was Ukyou flying with him.

She watched the little plane soar into the night sky, its collision lights swamped by the yellow-orange haze of the starport's high intensity sodium lamps. The symbolism of it wasn't lost on her. Ranma was flying away, escaping from her with his new fiancee - a girl he had only just met.

His cute fiancee.

Damn you, Ranma! she railed at the sky. The Boomerang was lost to her sight against the glow of the starport, but without the muffler engaged, she could still hear its low, throaty buzz. I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!

But she didn't hate him, and that was why it hurt so much.

She turned away from the open 'Mech Bay Door, past the hunkered, furry mass of Pansuto Tarou, who was drifting through a sedative-induced fog until he could finally be brought to justice, past the crewman with the assault rifle whose job it was to shoot Tarou if he tried to escape, and past the techs who had unwittingly abetted in Ranma's betrayal of her.

As she reached the Lower Deck, she encountered Yuka and Sayuri. Both fighter pilots were dressed to go out for a night in town. The two offered unsolicited looks of sympathy for her as she passed them. It was obvious why they were doing this, as they were the ones who had driven the three of them back to the ship from the park. On small ships like the Palomino, there were no secrets among the crew, and Ukyou must have been a pretty hot gossip item.

"Forget about him, Akane," Sayuri said to her.

"He's a jerk, just like his father," Yuka added. "Don't waste your time."

She let it go, pretending not to hear them as she climbed through the open hatch to the next deck.

"So, ah, Ucchan," Ranma began as he levelled off from his turn. The muffler was now engaged, making the ride smooth and quiet. The lights of Aquila were receding behind them as they flew south over moonlit farmland. "What do you do now? Are you still making that okonomi- ah, you know..."

"Okonomiyaki?" she teased. "Not really. I used to, but recently I just haven't had much time for it."

"Too bad," Ranma returned. "It was good stuff."

"Would you like some?" she asked him. "When we land, you can come back to my place and I'll make you as much as you want."

Ranma's eyes lit up.

"Really? That'd be great!"

He goosed the throttle and pulled up into a full loop, whooping with glee. Ukyou tried to keep her stomach under control throughout the maneuver, but was secretly pleased by how happy he was.

"Of course, you'll know what I do for a job once you see where I'm living," she added. Konatsu might have to receive some very explicit instructions later, instructions that involved in no uncertain terms his removal from the premises for the rest of the evening. And hopefully well past breakfast, too...

"So what do you do, exactly?"

She smiled. "Well, you'll be happy to note that I'm a mechwarrior now."

"Really?" Ranma gushed. "Cool."

"But I don't get much time in a cockpit," she added. "I'm a Brigadier, commanding most of the Federated Shiratori's battlemech forces."

"Whoa," Ranma gasped. "That's way cool, Ucchan." He gave her a funny look. "You're not pulling my leg about this, are you?"

"Not at all, Ranchan," she replied. "Although I've been thinking about going back into the okonomiyaki business."

"Why?" he asked her. "I mean, if your okonomiyaki is anything like it used to be, you'd do pretty well, but the job you've got sounds pretty good."

"Not really," she lamented. "I hate my job. And I hate the man I'm working for. I've been seriously considering resigning my commission."

Ranma shrugged. "Well, whatever. If it makes you happy, I'm all for it."

Ukyou blushed. "Do you mean that?"

"Of course I do. Why wouldn't I? We're friends, right?"

Friends, she thought. I want to be so much more, but I guess that's a good place to start.

"Of course we are," she returned.

"So why do you hate your job?" he asked. "Is the regular army that bad?"

"This one is," she answered ruefully. "The Federated Shiratori Army doesn't exactly inspire fear in the hearts of our enemies. Most of the officers are totally incompetent, and the enlisted are usually nothing more than a heavily armed rabble. I've been here since February directing the Spring Maneuvers just so we can get up to par, but I know it'll just be a waste of time because the Empress will undo everything, just because she suddenly doesn't like one of my commanders and sacks him."

She gave Ranma a stern look.

"You can't run an army like that. Sacking commanders left and right and promoting others just because you think they're cute. Morale goes straight to hell and..." She stopped, realizing that she was venting, and that she didn't want to do that around Ranma. Not when every moment they were alone together was so important. "Sorry, my job has really been getting to me lately."

"It's okay," Ranma told her. "I get the picture. It sounds like you're not happy with it, so move on."

He flipped a switch on the simple instrument panel, and then let go of the control column.

"Autopilot's on," he said to her. She blushed at the thought.

"So what have you been doing all this time?" she asked coyly.

"The usual training up until about three years ago," he said to her. "Then we lost the family 'mech. It got too worn out to fix, so we had to scrap it. Bill collectors took most of what we got for it, and we were too broke to buy another 'mech."

"I see. Then my dowry was ultimately for nothing, then."

Ranma shook his head in disgust for what his father had done to Ucchan.

"I guess," he murmured, uncomfortable with the subject. "After that we became Scouts. We've been chasing after this myth called Ryuugenzawa ever since."

"Ryuugenzawa?" Ukyou chirped.

"You've heard of it?"

"What mechwarrior hasn't?" she replied. "I can see what you mean by myth though. It can't possibly exist."

"My old man thinks it does." He thought about what Akane had said to him in the park the day before, about how she needed Ryuugenzawa if she was going to take back the Confederation from the Furinkan Combine. "Heck, I've even started believing in it. Well, just a little."

"Why?"

Ranma wondered how much he should tell her. She was, after all, a high-ranking officer of the Federated Shiratori Armed Forces.

"We've found a few things," he said at length. "Artifacts. Stuff that points to where we might find the place."

"Really? Where do you think it is?"

"Not a clue. We need to find one more piece of the puzzle, and then we'll have our answer. That's one of the reasons why we're here in the F-S."

Ukyou was intrigued.

"You think it's here. On Tiber?"

"Nah. It's on Genevieve," Ranma replied glibly. "Azusa's got it in her Collection of Cute." He clamped a hand over his mouth just a little too late. "I, uh, probably shouldn't have told you that..."

"It's okay, Ranchan," she assured him. "Why would I tell anyone about this?" She leaned in close to him. "We're friends, right?"

"Yeah," Ranma affirmed. He eased ever so slightly back into his seat.

"Hey," she said after a moment. "Maybe I can help you get it."

He gave her a dubious look. "You? How?"

"Well, you see I was planning on going to Genevieve anyway," she began. "I was going to petition the Empress for diplomatic duty, and if she said no, then I was going to resign my commission and go home to New Osaka."

He thought about what she had said for a moment.

"I don't see how that can help us, Ucchan."

"I know my way around the palace," she said to him. "I'm not proud of this, but I'm also one of the Empress' favorites. I can get you access you'd never get on your own."

Now he was starting to see the possibilities.

"Hey, yeah," he exclaimed. "I get it. If you could help us, that would be so cool, Ucchan."

"Wouldn't it, though?" she asked with a grin. The grin faded. "There's only one problem though."

"What's that?"

"Akane. I don't think she likes me."

Ranma shrugged. "What's that got to do with anything? She's not in charge of this expedition. My Pop is."

Ukyou's eyes lit up.

"Really?"

"Yeah. The only reason Akane's tagging along with us is because her Dad, the Grand Duke, sent her away from the war at home."

"So you don't think your father will have any problem with me helping you guys out?"

"The way I figure it," Ranma said to her. "He owes you big time for this whole dowry thing. He doesn't have a choice."

He turned back to his instruments for a moment, then cast his eyes out across the darkness. Ukyou watched him for some time in friendly silence. She felt so comfortable around him. Words were not necessary between them.

She leaned back in her chair. Ranma was like a dream come true, she realized. Handsome, thoughtful, kind, and instantly open and friendly to her even after ten years of separation. It was too bad he was shackled to a shrew like Akane. In spite of herself, she grinned. But he won't be shackled to Akane for very much longer, she thought.

She sighed happily to herself, secure in the knowledge that she was still in love with Ranma, and even if he was a little clueless for a guy his age, she knew that he would eventually come to love her back.

Eight Shining Pearls Fortress

Planet Jusenkyo, Jusenkyo System

The Jusenkyo Commonwealth

17 April 3025

"I'm very disappointed in you, General Herb."

Herb's red reptilian eyes flashed in response to Peony's declaration. "How so, Elder?"

The wizened crone that was the Commonwealth Chancellor of the Exchequer gave him a toothless sneer. Unlike Cologne, who Herb had known through the clan's portraits to have been an extraordinarily beautiful woman in her youth, Peony had always been homely. Age had done her no favors.

"You allowed Shampoo to escape justice and become a renegade."

"That's hardly fair," he sniffed. "Given that it was your decision to hold the hearing on Tau Ceti, where she would not lack for allies."

"I had little choice in the matter," she returned indignantly. "Once again Cologne abused her power as head of the clan to insist upon a favorable venue. My hands were tied."

Herb remained silent. He had expected Peony to have already gone through the roof in a rage over the matter, and bring the conflict within the Joketsuzoku leadership to a head. That was the reason for his coming to Jusenkyo, to stave off such a disastrous turn of events.

Instead, Peony had done nothing. Did she already suspect that he was less than loyal to her cause? At this point it would mean little to him, as he had been prepared to tell her so outright had she taken the expected course of action. He needed to discover her intentions.

"What do you intend to do about it, Elder?" he asked.

Peony grunted. "For the moment, nothing. Cologne and her family will bear the brunt of Shampoo's dishonor and disgrace. In time, it will bring the other elders who have not yet taken sides into my circle."

Herb frowned inwardly. Had a hundred years of being second best to Cologne finally granted Peony a measure of patience? If so, he had badly misjudged her, and that was dangerous. Furthermore, if she was willing to let Shampoo's escape go with little fuss, he would have very little to offer Cologne.

His position had just been weakened considerably, for his power lay with the strength of his army - and the threat of its use. Now there was nothing to rattle his saber over. His only consolation was that he had not exposed himself too soon in the game. He was still Peony's obliging tool, at least for the moment, and Cologne knew that he continued to represent the balance of power.

Since nothing else had changed in the game, it was incumbent upon him to change his own position and strength. Cologne had certainly guessed by now where his true loyalties and ambitions lay, and with no crisis to force her hand, would be maneuvering against him.

Even worse, it was possible that she suspected his involvement in Shampoo's escape. Since Peony had not pounced, who else could have stood to gain from it?

"What are you plotting, General?" Peony asked him then, nearly startling the wits out of him with such a direct accusation.

"Pardon me, Elder?" he asked in return, trying to sound offended by the idea of plotting anything.

"Strange whispers come to me from many corners of the Commonwealth," she said, her toothless mouth hissing sibilantly as she spoke. "From time to time I entertain them with my ear."

"Rumors," he scoffed. "Whispers. Show me an authority figure who isn't whispered against, Elder. You should know that as well as I."

Peony nodded slowly in agreement. "Do not presume to remind me of such things, young hybrid." Her rebuke was mild in tone, but Herb sensed the anger in it.

"Of course not, Elder," he returned humbly. "May I inquire then, as to the nature of these rumors?"

Peony's breath rattled in her throat. "I hear of the Musk Dynasty," she said to him. "A rabble of men who believe that they should rule over the rightful affairs of women. They grow in strength on worlds administered by you, General." She gave him a rheumy-eyed look. "Some would question your loyalty, General..."

Herb affected a look of indignance. "Do you question my loyalty, Elder?"

Peony closed her eyes. "I do not," she replied. "But there are those on the Council who fear you, General. Fear is a dangerous emotion. It clouds the mind and smothers the spirit. It breeds lies and hate." She gave him another stern look. "You have many enemies, General."

Herb realized at last where this was going, and had to stifle a laugh.

"You mean Cologne, do you not, Elder?" he asked haltingly.

Peony nodded. "I do. And you would do well to realize that in your future dealings with her. She would destroy you were it not for my intervention."

Now Herb was rolling with laughter on the inside. The old bag was trying to reinforce their alliance by frightening him with the spectre of Cologne! It was too rich.

"I-I thank you for the warning, Elder, and for your benevolent protection," he said reverently. That's right, you stupid old hag, I'm just a scared little boy, lost in the halls of power with no woman to guide me. Please let me take your hand!

Peony seemed pleased by this, and smiled her toothless smile. "You may keep your silly fraternity, General. I have no reason to fear them."

Herb bowed indulgently. Oh, but you do, you mindless, senile old biddy.

You have EVERY reason to fear them.

Cologne regarded her Chief Scientist carefully. For the man to have journeyed all the way from the Epsilon Indi system to Jusenkyo unannounced, it would have to be something important.

"Yes, Doctor, what is it?"

Gaido bowed low for her.

"I humbly come before you to discuss the matter of Saffron, Elder."

Cologne puffed thoughtfully on her pipe.

"Dispense with the formalities, Gaido. We've known each other for many years. Say what is on your mind."

Gaido relaxed slightly at this.

"I have analyzed the data," he began.

"Is there a problem?"

The portly scientist sucked at his teeth for a moment. "Not with Saffron specifically. Indeed, he has exceeded all expectations for his performance."

"What then?"

"It has to do with his indoctrination," he said to her. Lazy coils of blue smoke wafted over his head as Cologne puffed indifferently on her pipe.

"You're concerned that Saffron is too powerful to be controlled," she said, seeing straight through to the heart of the matter. It was little wonder why she was the Matriarch. "I must confess that I too, from time to time, worry about that possibility."

Gaido took her words as hope for his cause.

"I have supported you in all things, Cologne," he said to her. "The Breeding Program especially. But right now I fear for the future of the Commonwealth. What we've been able to achieve with Saffron has no precedent. We cannot guarantee control over his power, or his loyalty."

"There is no guarantee of loyalty for anyone," Cologne countered. "Even you, Doctor." She blew a smoke ring. "Trust is a vital component of society, which is why treason and betrayal are accorded universal hatred among all of humanity. Saffron will be as loyal as any warrior of the Joketsuzoku can be when raised and conditioned with the values of the clan."

"General Herb would be a good example of this then," Gaido snorted.

Cologne favored his outburst with a penetrating gaze. "General Herb has become what he is because I let him," she said coolly. "For good or ill, I have allowed him to achieve a position of power and authority, even knowing that he could abuse his station and become a threat to our society."

Gaido's mouth gaped open. Cologne was talking madness!

"For what purpose?" he asked.

Cologne closed her eyes for a moment in reflection.

"Our society is very old," she said in soft voice. "Thousands of years old, from a time long before humankind reached out for the stars. We began as pastoral farmers on the fringes of China, calling ourselves Chinese, and yet paying only lip-service to the Emperor and his bureacracy. Always we were a clan, ruled by a council, and that council was made up of women.

"Throughout our history we have been subject to the influence of outsiders, from Genghis Khan and his warriors of the steppe, to the British and American colonialists, to Japanese occupation, to Mao Zedong and his idiotic communists, and even to Jiang Kao Xian's New China Sphere, and despite them all, we have always done things our way. We maintained our identity. When the Jump Drive became commonplace, the ancestors of this clan went into space as mercenaries. We fought using modern technology, but it was our ancient customs and our ideals that gave us unity as an army, and allowed us to conquer our enemies.

"In the early days of space travel, our clan, the Joketsuzoku, grew wealthy and powerful. We expanded our influence from matters of war to the colonization of the Inner Sphere. We founded the Commonwealth from this very world, and now we control over a hundred planetary systems. In all that time we were a clan, ruled by a council, and that council was made up of women."

Cologne took another puff on her pipe before continuing her history lesson.

"Would that our hegemony be so uniform," she muttered. "Our numbers were never very many, and our warrior nature prevented us from ever truly colonizing these worlds within our sphere. Mongrel races live in our empire, Doctor Gaido; foreign cultures with foreign ideals. We can't stamp them out, and it would be foolish to try. We need them, foreigners to our way that they are. They run our factories, work in our mines, and grow our food. Their taxes finance our armies and our fleets."

She set her pipe aside in a small clay bowl.

"And therein lies the mortal danger to our clan, Doctor. We are an empire populated by strangers to our ways. It does not matter to these people that we have existed as a unified culture for millenia with women as our leaders. They see only what they perceive to be discrimination. These views infect us, Gaido. General Herb and the Musk Dynasty are but the most threatening symptoms of our exposure to these alien thoughts."

Gaido frowned. "I don't understand exactly what you are getting at, Cologne. What does this have to do with allowing General Herb to become a threat to the Joketsuzoku?"

Cologne snorted. "You've spent too much time in your laboratory, Gaido. You should know that from time to time we must experience crisis if we are to be reminded of ourselves and what we stand for. I myself have gone soft these last ten years, doting on my great-grandaughter, Shampoo, who has become such a terrible disappointment to me. Her bitter failure, and the shame it has brought me, has opened my eyes. I am truly awake for the first time in years."

She regarded him closely. Gaido could see the deep lines of concern in her face, and knew that she had been contemplating many difficult paths of inquiry into the future of the clan.

"When I say that I have allowed Herb to become what he is, I do not mean that such was my intention. Now I see once again with the wisdom of my predecessor, that Herb is a test for the Joketsuzoku, and that it is my responsibility as Matriarch to allow that test to come to pass. Dust and cobwebs clutter the minds of our people, Gaido. We have become complacent, even tolerant in the face of customs that are anathema to our clan. It is time for a cleansing of spirit and a rededication to our ideals. For with the Furinkan Combine waxing in the ascendant, and Prince Kuno soon turning his questing eye towards our worlds, we cannot face them without unity of purpose, and hope to prevail.

"In the coming struggle we shall either triumph and thus preserve our ways, or else we shall be swept away on the tides of history, our clan and its culture lost to the antiquity from whence it sprang."

Gaido did not find the reassurance he was looking for.

"I see, but what does this have to do with Saffron?"

"General Herb is the symbol of the Musk Dynasty. Without him, they would be nothing more than a rabble; brutish, stupid, and easily controlled. Herb himself has seen to that - he hates competition. If we are to crush the man-symbol of disobedience to Matriarchal rule, what better way to do it than with another man? A man loyal to the Council, with power and might far beyond a normal human being - and yet still loyal to his clan." She offered him an indulgent smile. "I understand your fears, Doctor Gaido, but Saffron will continue as is. Herb will never even meet Saffron until such time as it becomes necessary for him to be destroyed."

"Until it becomes necessary?" Gaido asked incredulously. "I would think it was necessary right now!"

"Not so," Cologne countered. "He bears a close watch, but to destroy him now, before he can commit his treasonous heart to concrete action, would be to make him a martyr. I don't want him to become a martyr. I want him to be remembered as a villainous traitor to the clan. His fall from grace must serve as a lesson to us all. Until he does something unquestionably treasonous, and furthermore worthy of his removal, he is free to cook up whatever plots his heart desires."

Gaido gave her a guarded look.

"You play a most dangerous game with our clan, my oldest friend," he said to her. "Perhaps it was best if I returned to Lightoller. I have neither the heart nor the stomach for such intrigues."

"Go, my gentle scientist," Cologne said to him warmly. "I don't fault you for wanting to be well away from this place."

Kyushu Plateau

The Moon of Oni, orbiting Shounetsu Jigoku

Capella System, the Nerima Confederation

14 April 3025

The soft hum of air stirred by ventilation fans set above and behind the mechwarrior's ejector seat mingled with the tinny whine of an array of gas-plasma displays, as did the muted roar of several hundred kilograms of liquid nitrogen rushing through the flashing chambers of the battlemech's heat sinks. To this chorus of sound was added panting breaths of nervous tension, echoing in steady, measured counterpoint to the myriad noises of the machines. Kasumi Tendo sat anxiously within her mighty Atlas, waiting for the moment to attack the Furinkan Combine reinforced regiment that threatened her tenuous hold on the moon of Oni.

The star Capella lay far over the horizon, shrouding the furrowed, glassy lava plain that was the Kyushu Plateau in near darkness. The only visible light came from the reflected glory of Shounetsu Jigoku, the harsh hell-world that held Oni in its gravitational thrall. The soft pink and cream bands of cloud were beautiful and deadly, for they were filled with corrosive compounds, and trapped the intense heat of the world's rampant vulcanism. There were installations there - owned by the Ceres Metals Corporation - for the exploitation of Shounetsu Jigoku's vast strategic mineral resources. Though they could provide refuge for her rag-tag army in the event that evacuation back to Nerima proved impossible, she did not look forward to going there.

She knew that the harsh environment of Shounetsu Jigoku would wreak havoc on sensitive and even irreplaceable battlemech components, forcing her army to stay within the shielded domes and deep caverns of the mines. It was true that the Combine would not come after her there, but they wouldn't have to. The planet depended on shipments of food and other supplies from Nerima to continue operations. All Prince Kuno needed to do was take Oni, use it as a base to intercept the resupply ships, and then starve the planet into submission.

A winking of light in the darkness caught her eye. It was a signal lamp, flashing from the cockpit of one of the 1st Nerima Guards battlemechs. The regiment was observing radio silence for the sneak attack on the freshly constructed Combine base, and so all pre-strike messages were sent via lamp. The method was awkward and slow, but it was secure against electronic forms of eavesdropping.

"ALL-UNITS-IN-POSITION," her compatriot declared.

She nodded absently in reply, a gesture that the man in the distant Ostscout was unable to see. It was time for the attack, and that had to commence with as much precision as possible.

Kasumi unlocked a small armored cabinet on the left side of her cockpit and undogged the door. Within the cabinet lay a dozen metal cylinders, each festooned with arming pins and red paper tags. Taking care to select the correct device, she withdrew it, secured the cabinet, and then began pulling the arming pins.

When she had prepared the device, she inserted it into the breech door of a metal tube set in the overhead of the Atlas' cockpit, then locked down the breech. The tube was a signal ejector, and the device a 7cm Pyrotechnic. Kasumi took a deep breath, then stabbed at the 'launch' button next to the ejector.

A red starshell fired from the Atlas' head, just above the 'mech's right 'eye.' The pyrotechnic device sailed across the starry black sky, trailing lazy crimson sparks as it flew. On this signal, the 'mechs of the 1st Nerima Guards charged to the attack. Father had promised her aid to keep the pressure off of Oni, but so far, nothing of the sort had materialized. She could not see the tiny black shapes moving through the void millions of kilometers above the cold dead moon, their armored hulls causing the stars to wink out briefly as they passed.

Somewhere within five million kilometers of

Shounetsu Jigoku, the Capella System

Nerima Confederation

14 April 3025

The ships of the 777th Strike Squadron drifted through the void, their drives quiescent, their passive sensors straining for any sign of their foes. They were an ancient unit, their Balao Class Corvettes dating back to the Star League. They had been known as the 'Triple-Sevens' in those early days, before they rejected Kerensky's Exodus and joined the House of Tendo. By the time of the Third Succession War, they had become known by another moniker, one fitting of their deadly reputation.

The Terrible T's.

There were six ships remaining in the squadron; Tang, Tautog, Trepang, Tarpin, Tunny, and Thresher. After the devastation of the First Succession War, these six ships had their Jump Cores removed to keep them in service as combatant vessels. Though some considered them to be little better than GunShips at that point - converted DropShips that needed to be carried into a battlezone by a noncombatant JumpShip - the Tendos knew otherwise. These were no mere GunShips, but BattleRiders, proud ships of the line.

These modified Balao Class warships carried weapons far more powerful than any simple GunShip; weapons designed to attack and destroy the capital ships of Stephan Amaris the Usurper during the Reunification War. In particular, they carried the Barracuda antiship missile, a deadly torpedo that no current Successor State could effectively defend against. There were only a handful of these torpedos left in the inventories of the Great Houses, and their use was reserved for only the most desperate battles.

The Siege of Capella was one of them. Grand Duke Tendo had ordered the 777th Squadron into battle, and the Terrible T's obeyed. With the proud traditions of their ancient unit behind them, the officers and crew of the 777th - each descended from the squadron's original crews - left port in orbit above Nerima. In the belly of each sharklike warship sat the entire Confederation's remaining stockpile of Barracudas.

The ships of the 777th enjoyed one other advantage over the Furinkan Combine ships that had invaded the Capella System, and that was in their special hull lining. The Balao Class had been been designed to minimize their radar-cross-section signature, and constructed with black, energy-absorbant coatings over the armor plating which made them difficult to detect at long range with radar. They were stealthy ships, ghosts in the darkness.

Time and tiny micro-meteoroid impacts had taken their toll on the hulls, however, and the ability to manufacture the special hull coating had been lost with the First Succession War. The corvettes had patchwork hulls now, and there were parts of the ship that were vulnerable to radar detection. The crews had to minimize the enemy's exposure to these parts of the ship, and their tactics reflected this weakness.

"This wasn't the mission I had in mind," the Captain of the Tang remarked to his X.O.. The 777th was supposed to be in orbit above Nerima, docked with the ancient Corvette Tenders Mare Island, Murmansk, and Holy Loch, to have their Jump Drives reinstalled. The squadron would then have been available to evacuate the Tendo Family and the General Staff from the system in order to continue the war.

The Grand Duke had surprised everyone, however, with his firm intentions of staying on Nerima and making a stand against the Combine. Plans for refitting the squadron had been scrapped. The deadly and rare Barracuda missiles had been taken out of mothballs from the Tendo Family Armory, and loaded aboard.

"You've got to admit though, that this is the mission we've trained for, and hoped for, all our lives," the X.O. pointed out. "Those metalhead grunts on Oni are depending on our interdiction of local space."

"True," Captain Hauptmann agreed, wondering if his subordinate and friend was aware that one of those 'metalhead grunts' was the Lady Kasumi Tendo, eldest daughter of the Grand Duke.

He looked to a portrait on the bulkhead of the Wardroom. It was of a man who had been dead for over a thousand years, the famous captain of Tang's ancient namesake: Richard 'Killer' O'Kane. Beneath the portrait was a silver-plated cribbage board, worn and pitted with tarnish over the centuries despite dilligent preservation efforts. Legend had it that this artifact was the actual cribbage board used by O'Kane during an ancient and practically forgotten war, a war at sea rather than in space, and the numerous plaques that adorned the board testified to a tradition of passing it on from ship to ship throughout its nearly eleven-hundred-year history.

The spirit of the Star League-era Corvette was much like that of the ancient Fleet Submarine; attack without warning, from a position of maximum advantage, without being detected. Hauptmann knew this as well as any of his crew. With their new orders from Grand Duke Tendo, they had been given their opportunity, perhaps their only opportunity, to resurrect their ancient heritage.

"I never thought I'd see this day," Hauptmann went on. "I just hope the missiles still function. If they don't, we'll have to get in close like the damn GunShips, and slug it out point blank. Any damage we take in the process will only make us more visible to enemy radar."

"They've been checked out," the X.O. assured him.

"Nothing's certain until we shoot."

The phone squawked for attention, interrupting their conversation. Hauptmann picked it up and listened intently. He gave a few terse orders and then hung up.

"Time to go to work," he said to his Executive Officer.

The 1MC crackled to life as he finished.

"MAN BATTLESTATIONS!"

"Captain's on the Bridge!"

Captain Hauptmann floated through the airtight door and onto the cramped Bridge. Gas-plasma displays glowed in the dim lighting around him as he assumed his position on the conn. He had repeater displays for every vital station on board the ship at his disposal; from sensors, to weapons, to engineering. The muted murmurings of the crew bubbled over the chirps and bleeps of the instrumentation as they set to work prosecuting their first target of the engagement.

"Captain, the ship is manned for Battlestations," the Officer of the Deck informed him. "We hold contact Echo Five-Five on our passive sensors."

"Very well, Mister Patel," Hauptmann grunted.

"Conn, Sensory," the Sensor Supervisor called out. "Contact Echo Five-Five designated as a Union Class DropShip. Contact now bears Three-One-Zero minus Three-Five. Sensory holds no other close contacts."

The Officer of the Deck looked his supervisor in the eye. "Very well, Sensory."

Hauptmann noted the data streaming on his displays before asking his Officer of the Deck any questions. Tautog was the closest friendly ship to them, about four light-seconds distant on their port beam. If the Barracuda missed, it might be up to them to destroy the fleeing target.

"This is the Captain," he announced. "I have the Deck. Mister Patel retains the Conn."

The various stations on the Bridge acknowledged this. He continued.

"Fire Control, I intend to attack contact Echo Five-Five with a Barracuda. Make tubes One and Two ready in all respects."

"Make tubes One and Two ready in all respects, Fire Control, aye."

"Range to target Echo Five-Five; two hundred-thousand kilometers," Sensory updated. It would be a medium range engagement for the formidable Barracuda.

"Conn, Fire Control; tubes One and Two ready in all respects."

"Very well, Fire Control," Hauptmann replied. "Firing Point Procedures!"

This was the moment of truth. They would launch a Barracuda missile at the Combine DropShip. If things went well, the enemy would not detect the ejection of the weapon from the tube. They wouldn't be able to retaliate at this range even if they did, but Hauptmann wanted to give them as little time as possible for evasive maneuvers.

"Firing solution set," Fire Control announced.

"Fire One," Hauptmann ordered coldly. This was his first Barracuda fired in anger. His first Barracuda fired ever.

"Fire One, aye... Weapon away!" the Weapons Officer announced to the hushed Bridge crew.

The Barracuda antiship missile, a command-guided and self-homing torpedo, was catapulted with an audible thunk from the Number One launch tube of the Tang via an electromagnetic ejection system.

"The Weapon is running hot, straight, and normal. Estimated time to Weapon-Enable Point: one-nine minutes, mark."

"Very well, Fire Control," Hauptmann acknowledged. He left the conn to observe the attack from Sensory.

It would take nineteen minutes for the torpedo to reach the point at which it would enable itself. In that moment, the weapon would energize its radar and laser homing sensors, and begin searching for Echo Five-Five. Once it found the target, it would engage its plasma drive and make a beeline straight for the enemy spacecraft.

Captain Hauptmann hunched over his Passive EMS Sensor Operator's shoulder, and scanned the displays. They were continuing to avoid the use of their own radars, which would only give away their location.

"Any indication that they detected our launch?"

"No sir," the man replied. "Not yet."

The minutes ticked off with an agonizing gait. Still, the Combine ship had not detected the incoming torpedo. No other ships appeared on the passive scopes that could threaten them.

"The Weapon has enabled," the Firecontrolman finally announced while studying the feedback from the torpedo's on-board computer - via tightbeam laser datalink back to the Tang. "The Weapon has acquired the target, and is homing."

Several moments passed as more sensory data streamed in. The smudge of green radiance on the display that marked the Combine DropShip began to shiver and quake with multicolored bursts of light. Hauptmann saw it as soon as the Passive EMS Sensor Operator did.

"Echo Five-Five has engaged its drive," the enlisted rating announced. "They are radiating from their primary search-and-acquisition radar."

Hauptmann's response was automatic. He had to know which direction they were running in order to decide whether it was worth the risk of radioing the Tautog to pursue.

"Mark bearing rate."

"Echo Five-Five is turning to port," Sensory declared. "Bearing rate indeterminate..." He continued to study the data as it streamed in from the Target Motion Analysis computers. "He's reversed his turn to starboard, now putting on negative pitch... Now turning back to port... He's maneuvering very erratically, Captain."

"They're scared," Hauptmann said solemnly. "They've never had to deal with this type of attack before. With just a handful of Barracudas left in the entire Inner Sphere, it's no wonder."

"The Weapon has shifted to terminal guidance mode," Fire Control updated.

"Torpedo!" the Sensor Operator of the Furinkan Combine Union Class DropShip General Belgrano cried in terror, her eyes wide and flashing with panic.

The aged Captain of the Belgrano paled as well. "Are you certain?"

"Yes, Captain Peron," the Sensor Operator replied. "Incoming torpedo bearing Two-Eight-Eight, plus Two-Nine. Range: fifty thousand kilometers." Her eyes closed wearily. "Speed: plus two-thousand meters per second,

relative."

Captain Peron did the math. Given range, speed, and their own course and velocity, the torpedo would hit them in just under thirty seconds. That wasn't a lot of time. "Sound General Quarters!" he ordered. "Helm, take evasive maneuvers! Communications, notify Theater Command at once of our position and situation! Sensory, go active on radar, and find the ship that launched that torpedo! Weapons, all gunners prepare to shoot down incoming torpedo! Have them commence fire as soon as they are in range."

It would take almost five minutes for his crew to man Battlestations, more time than they would probably get, but at least he had been prudent enough to keep a third of his gunners on station at any given moment. They might be the only chance the ship had.

General Belgrano began to lurch with erratic thruster burns in the hope of shaking the torpedo. Barracudas and their like were such rare weapons in the Inner Sphere that DropShips like the Union and Leopard Classes no longer carried any kind of countermeasure systems. Only the Overlord Class, itself a rare sight in the Inner Sphere, had the radar jamming and laser-spoofing systems necessary to confuse an incoming torpedo.

"Confirming incoming torpedo as a Barracuda-type," Sensory updated. "The Weapon has acquired us with active sensors and is homing." She consulted the angry red numbers in the upper left corner of the display. "Estimated time to intercept: twenty seconds... Mark."

Peron nodded slowly. There wasn't time to don a pressure suit. Even their light-speed message to Theater Command at the distant Jump Point would take longer to reach its destination than the torpedo would give them before impact.

"Helm, continue evasive maneuvers," he said, sitting down in his acceleration chair. "Use full overthrust until the five-seconds-to-impact point." The crew dashing to their stations would be unable to move, might even be injured by the sudden five-gee burns, but it was their only chance outside of shooting the weapon down. That was what the last five seconds were for, to give the gunners their chance without the high-thrust evasive maneuvers spoiling their aim or pinning them helplessly in their chairs.

"Torpedo continues to home," Sensory declared, her voice strained by the sudden gee-forces that afflicted her. "Time to intercept: ten seconds... Mark."

The torpedo was a single-minded entity possessed of all the ruthless efficiency of any cold, calculating machine. Its sole reason for existence was to locate the target programmed into its memory banks using its active sensors, home in on it at extremely high velocity, and destroy it. Its passive sensors noted the bursts of infrared and visible light from the target's drives, and the microwave emissions from its radar and commo systems. It then analyzed these inputs for a split second to determine that the data was spurious, and to be ignored. Only the time-stamped data encoded into its own radar energy reflected from the target was a valid input to the Target Motion Analysis subroutines.

The target was attempting to evade it, though its relatively feeble drive was no match for the sheer power of the torpedo's own plasma drive. A plasma drive sending a torpedo on a one-way trip could be asked to put out levels of thrust far greater than any manned spacecraft could hope to match. Its relative velocity was so high that only a computer-controlled, radar-directed point defense weapon could hope to shoot it down, and those systems no longer existed on ships like its target.

It was close now, and the fractional reserve of reaction mass used for terminal guidance was now released for use by the Guidance Logic. The target could not evade. It could only be destroyed.

"Torpedo impact in five seconds," Sensory announced. Her voice was clear and high, with only a slight tremor of fear.

The flashes of light and rumble of autocannon fire through the hull announced the gunners' desperate attempts to shoot down the torpedo. The Belgrano's erratic maneuvers ceased, making the flight through space as smooth as glass.

Gunner's Mate Second Class Akira Takeshi squeezed the firing studs of his heavy laser array again and again, heedless of the overheat warning he received from the computer. If he didn't hit his target in the next few moments it wouldn't matter if he burned out the focusing optics. The target was nothing more than a blue-shifted blur in his scope, more a projection of where the computer assumed the weapon would be in the near future, than an actual, solid target.

All Akira could do was train his laser along that thin swath of black sky designated by yellow tracking lines in his HUD, and start shooting.

There was a flash of light in his scope, and he whooped in triumph, sure of a direct hit. He couldn't have been more wrong, but there wasn't time left to realize that.

The torpedo ignored the incoming streams of impotent light and armor piercing shells. Its sensors were locked onto the looming spherical hull of the Furinkan Combine DropShip General Belgrano. At five seconds to impact, the thousand-kilogram high explosive warhead armed itself. The bursting charge was buried deep within a diamond-hard penetrator assembly located just behind the sensor package within the sleek armored hull.

The Barracuda antiship missile struck the General Belgrano square amidships, just a meter to the right of one of the DropShip's maneuvering jets. The sensors which had faithfully guided the weapon were smashed into tiny bits an instant later against the hull, and the torpedo's considerable momentum forced the penetrator through the six-centimeter-thick armor plating. Even as the rest of the Barracuda was being obliterated by the force of impact, the penetrator continued on into the Belgrano. It blasted through the pressure hull, snapping through structural members, power conduits, and miscellaneous plumbing, before the detonator fired.

Akira watched as the outboard bulkhead facing his station bowed inward as if the treated steel plating were made of rubber. Time slowed down for him as the fresh white paint on the bulkhead began to blacken, the stain spreading out from the center of the distortion like a cancer. In the fraction of a second before he was vaporized by a thousand kilograms of detonating plastic-bonded high explosive, Akira realized that the black stain on the bulkhead was the paint being burned away by the tremendous heat of an exploding torpedo on the other side.

General Belgrano shuddered with the impact, its hull rippling outward like waves of water from the surgically-neat hole created by the torpedo. Viewports in the path of the ripple cracked and burst their seals. Whole sections of armor plate popped free from their mounting. Tiny flakes of paint and motes of accumulated dust were flung from the hull in a hazy white nimbus.

The warhead detonation split the DropShip nearly in half from within, fire and light streaming from fissures in the hull and fountaining from the impact point. Parts of battlemechs and unrecognizable pieces of scorched technology scattered from the ruptured Belgrano and into the void. The tremendous heat of the blast had vaporized the organic matter of the crew on three entire decks, including the 'Mech Bay, and so no corpses followed.

Some of those spared the blast died as concussive forces threw them against unyielding metal and each other. The entire Engineering Watch Section died within seconds as the breached reactor vessel vented star-hot plasma into the spaces. Others died in the moments after as the through-deck seals ruptured and the compartments depressurized. The pitiful survivors that Fate had spared from instant death were now subjected to hard gamma and neutron radiation from the leaking reactor plant, and the flood of radioactive coolant gas venting through ventilation ducts whose bulkhead flappers had been knocked open by the impact or had failed to close in time.

The Captain of the General Belgrano knew his ship was dead, even as he knew that he would soon die. The Flight Deck was smashed. All but the failing Emergency Power was lost. The slow hiss of escaping atmosphere filled his ears, a sibilant harbinger of doom over the moans and cries of his surviving crew.

There was no sense in asking for a damage report. He could see through the cracked viewports an entire third of his ship peeling away from the superstructure like the rind of an orange. Shards of metal and other wreckage tumbled in free fall outside. The ship was totally destroyed.

There was only one duty left to him.

"Communications," he croaked. "Can we still transmit?"

His Communications Officer, her scalp split wide open and streaming blood, pulled herself up to her station.

"We have a low-power radio set," she moaned. "All long-range comms are down. We might be able to reach another ship, if it's close."

"Activate the automated distress beacon, assuming it still works," he ordered. "If the Main Computer is still functional, purge all memory banks and destroy all crypto material."

He picked up the 1MC mic and was surprised to see that it still worked. The question now was how many of his crew would be able to hear him. "All hands abandon ship," he commanded. "All hands abandon ship."

There would be no abandoning ship for the Flight Deck crew, he realized. The escape pods were located a deck below, and the section of the pressure hull that connected them was depressurized. They were trapped, doomed to die as the compartment slowly bled its air into space. He lay back in his chair and watched the viewports for the sight of an escape pod, just one, that would tell him some of his crew would live.

There were none.

He let out an anguished cry, the only one he would permit himself.

The Captain of the Tang watched General Belgrano's death throes through the high power telescope monitor. His crew watched with him. A single Barracuda had torn the 3500-ton DropShip completely asunder.

"Captain, we're picking up an automated distress beacon from Echo Five-Five, along with some low-power voice-only transmissions requesting assistance."

His X.O. gave him a questioning look.

"Should we lend a hand?" he finally asked.

"No," Captain Hauptmann replied, his voice taut with loathing. "No, we can't do that. Combine GunShips will be closing on this area in force, and they'll be blazing away with their radars to find us. Our job is to find and destroy them without being detected, not to get ourselves killed playing rescue."

"But there are survivors over there," the X.O. pointed out. "Look at that wreck, Skipper. You know they can't last long."

"I know that. Don't think for a moment I don't. My decision stands."

Hauptmann looked to his Officer of the Deck. "Get us the hell out of here, Patel. Remain at Battlestations for an hour. If there are no close contacts at that time, call me in the Wardroom and we'll secure from Battlestations."

As he floated through the airtight door he noted that the triumphant expressions on his crews' faces were gone, replaced with the silent knowledge that next time, it could be them out there left to die in the cold airless void. He thought back to the days of Killer O'Kane, where combat had been on the similar terms of attack-without-warning and no-quarter-given, and wondered if the man had felt just as sick with himself after a victory as he did.

Nerima Confederation DropShip Palomino

Landing Pad #6, Aquila Starport

Planet Tiber, Palatine System

The Federated Shiratori

14 April 3025

Akane sat sullenly in Crew's Mess. One of the ship's crew casually swept the center aisle between the tables, his broom making a sighing sound as it brushed against the linoleum deck. She could feel his eyes upon her from time to time as she hunched over the table, her chin resting on her crossed wrists.

It must have been quite the joke among the crew, she thought angrily. Grand Duke Tendo's daughter and her cipher of a fiance, Ranma, fighting once again, she mused. 'And did you see that cute girl Ranma was with?'

He had called her 'uncute' before. It was a stupid insult when she thought about it, something a ten-year-old would come up with, and so naturally the first time she had ever heard the term was from Ranma. She could deal with his childish insults, knowing that it was just his usual way of getting back at her for something that was clearly his fault. But when he had compared her to Ukyou, and the 'long-lost' fiancee had been judged the winner, that had hurt.

What did Ukyou have that she didn't?

Was it the hair? she wondered. Her hair had been longer than Ukyou's once; shiny, silky strands of blue-black that she had considered one of her best features. Then she had cut her hair for the expedition. Didn't everyone, including Ranma, say that they liked her short hair better? Were they just being polite?

No, it couldn't have been that simple, she decided. It's just Ranma being his usual childish, insensitive self. It's no secret that he doesn't like the engagement with me. I don't like it either, so why is it somehow my fault?!

"Ranma, you jerk..." she muttered to herself. The young petty officer sweeping the Crew's Mess paused for a moment in his duties to observe her.

She looked up to regard him, an action that turned him away quickly in embarrassment, his sweeping motions becoming more vigorous as he tried to pretend that she didn't exist and wasn't looking right at him.

She knew him peripherally. The Palomino was too small of a ship for her not to know the crew by sight. She knew some of them by first name. He was a Sensor Operator on the Flight Deck, and doubled as one of the Mess Cranks during off-watch meals. He was about her age too, and kind of cute in a boyish way.

It would serve Ranma right, she decided. I'm not going to sit here and sulk over him!

"What are you doing after this?" she asked him.

The young petty officer started, then turned back to her.

"M-Me?" he asked in a small voice.

"Yes, you," she said with a smile. "Do you have liberty after you finish up here, or are you stuck on the ship?"

The man set his broom aside. "As soon as I'm done here, I'm cut loose for the night, ma'am," he replied. "But I really wasn't planning on going anywhere."

She turned up the heat in her smile.

"Do you think you could change your plans?" she asked him.

The young petty officer began to perspire.

"Um... Do you mean go o-out with you, ma'am?"

"Something like that," she replied.

"I'm not sure if I should, ma'am," he demurred. "I mean, you being who you are and all..."

She should have expected this, she realized. To the crew, she was the daughter of the Grand Duke no matter what pretense they happened to be operating under.

"Forget who I am for a night," she said casually. "I'm looking for company, and you look like a guy who could show a gal a good time."

The petty officer flushed red.

"Y-You mean that, ma'am?"

"'Akane' will do nicely," she corrected him gently.

"Yes, ma'am!" he said, wincing as he as said it. "Um, yes, Akane. I, uh, it's... I'm gonna need a few minutes."

"I'll meet you down in the Cargo Bay," she told him. "Don't keep me waiting long."

She rose from her seat and gave him a wink.

The petty officer tried to stop trembling with anticipation as she left Crew's Mess. He looked at the deck, then to his broom.

"Screw this," he said, tossing the broom into the Galley, and headed for Berthing to get changed.

They were seated in a beergarden, near the park, that Akane had seen when they first made planetfall on Tiber. She had been curious about the place, which was sunken into the side of a sloping hill below the level of Sowell Boulevard. The soft whir of electric automobiles moving nearby was a gentle sound, mingling with the pleasant hum of conversation, and muted by the hanging vines that clustered about every table. The lighting was soft, provided by candles at each table and by the evening glow of the city that surrounded them.

It was a spot she had hoped to take Ranma, assuming she could have ever talked him into it. Her 'date' for the evening sat across from her. It was not the pig-tailed mechwarrior, but Petty Officer Third Class Thaddeus Howard, the Palomino's Sensor Operator.

Thaddeus, or Tad, as she had often heard the crew call him, was a true gentleman. It was a welcome change from watching Ranma shovel food into his mouth while arguing with his father, to note that Tad understood a napkin belonged on the lap, not tucked into the collar of your shirt, and that a lady appreciated it when you showed her to her seat. She knew on an instinctual level that it more than simply hollow courtesy for one of the nobility on his part, that such etiquette and respect for a lady came naturally to him.

The Pig-Tailed Jerk and his cute fiancee were out of her mind, at least for the moment.

She had not eaten before the meeting in the park with Ukyou, and now she was famished.

"Hungry?" she asked Tad.

"I could go for a little somthing," he responded. Her beau for the evening was understandably nervous with the whole affair, and she resolved to make the night as stress-free as possible for him.

One of the menu items showed particular appeal to her. A large pepper, indigenous to Tiber, stuffed with three kinds of melted cheese, seasoned bread crumbs, fresh cream, and shredded savory herbs. It was exactly the kind of food that Ranma would despise. She ordered for both of them.

They also ordered beer, which seemed to flow in this place from an endless tap. Buxom waitstaff in archaic bodices and skirts whirled around them with silent efficiency and pleasant smiles, each carrying a fistful of quart glasses filled with the golden brew.

Akane wasn't at all a drinker, and she had never been terribly interested in beer, but when in Rome... She sipped tentatively at her glass of pilsner, noting the bite of the hops and the crisp finish of the lightly-bodied beer. It wasn't half bad, she decided. She could see why men liked drinking the stuff on a hot day.

Tad drank his with gusto.

"What do you think?" she asked him.

"It's good," he replied, agreeing with her assessment. "I'm not much of a lager drinker, but this really hits the spot."

She took a larger drink from her glass. The beer's effervescence tingled in her nose and throat, a sensation rather like drinking champagne, she decided, only without most of the cloying sweetness. She was liking beer better and better.

"Have you come here often since we first arrived?" Tad asked as she put away her first glass in three giant gulps.

"This is my first time," she replied, now feeling a little bloated by so much liquid taken at once. Their waitress immediately noted the empty glass and replaced it with a full one. In spite of herself, she took another drink.

"Ma'am, I mean, Akane..." Tad began. They had just finished their stuffed peppers, and were starting on another round of beer.

"What is it, Tad?" she asked him. She was feeling very warm and fuzzy at the moment, and her grin was perhaps a little too wide.

"Um, if you don't mind me asking, why exactly did you invite me along to dinner?"

"Two reasons," she blurted, alarmed by how easily the words just slipped out of her mouth. "The first is that you were there when I wanted to go."

He seemed to take that in stride, with only a little disappointment showing on his face.

"The second," she said, wobbling slightly in her chair. "Is that you're really damn cute..."

When he blushed, she giggled a little too loudly, and then took another drink of her beer.

"Actually, there's a third reason," she added. "You aren't that stupid, insensitive jerk, Ranma Saotome..."

"Excuse me for saying this," Tad returned, his expression clouded with concern. "But aren't you engaged to marry Ranma Saotome?"

She snorted into her beer. "Ha! Don't make me laugh, Tad. Why would I EVER want to marry a clod like him?"

"Begging your pardon, ma'am," Tad said uncomfortably. It was now very clear to him that Akane was more than just a little buzzed, but the fact that she was the Grand Duke's daughter could not escape him. He would have to tread lightly. "But wasn't this your father's idea?"

She set her glass down heavily on the table, sloshing beer over her hand as she did so.

"Now you see here, mister," she said in a slurred, angry tone. "My father is a total idiot for doing this..." Her eyes lost focus for a moment before she continued. "...For even associating with a couple of con-men like the Saotomes... I mean, who in their right mind would want to join families with an asshole like Genma Saotome? He cheats on his wife, steals from the Treasury..." A dark thought crossed her mind. "...I bet he even robbed Chance King before the poor guy died...

"And Ranma," she went on. "Sometimes I feel sorry for him because he had to grow up with that loser of a father, but then he does something like this!" Her cloudy eyes lit up with fire. "He thinks she's cuter than me," she muttered bitterly. "Jerk... Asshole... Bastard..."

Tad waved off the waitress before she could bring them another round.

"Nabiki was right," Akane moaned. "This was a terrible idea. A crazy idea. I should be home right now, fighting the Combine, not sitting here safe and sound in some restaurant two hundred light-years away..."

Tad had no reply to that. News of the Combine's siege had been a blow to the ship's morale, made worse by the fact that they were stuck in the Palatine System until the Dragonfly's repairs were complete.

"Maybe we should get back to the ship," he suggested.

Akane set her chin down on the table, her eyes heavy with sorrow and weariness.

"I have to pee," she said to him, ashamed that she wasn't able to observe even the slightest decorum in her speech. "But I can't stand up on my own."

Tad looked away for a moment, wondering how in the hell they had come to this moment. "I'll help you up," he told her.

While Akane did what she needed to do, Tad waited outside the restrooms. There was a pay phone situated between the Men's Room and the Lady's Room, and he considered using it to call the ship. Lady Akane was extremely drunk, and it was probably a bad idea for her to be like this in public, much less in public on a foreign planet.

"What's taking her so long?" he wondered, hoping that she hadn't passed out or something.

He continued to wait, watching as patrons came and went. Still, there was no sign of Akane.

Finally, he asked one of the ladies who was about to enter the restroom if she would look for Akane. When she returned, she shook her head in the negative.

"I'm sorry, sir," the lady replied. "But there was no one in there fitting your descripton of her."

"What?" the young petty officer cried. "You've gotta be kidding me!"

"I'm afraid not," the lady replied. "You know that there is another door to the restroom. It leads to the cafe inside."

The color drained from Tad's face. She didn't...

He thanked the lady for her troubles, then plunged through the door to the Men's Room. Like the other restroom, this one had a door set on the opposite wall, and it led into a small cafe. Through the windows he could see the bright lights of the street beyond.

There was no sign of Akane in the cafe, or outside.

"Oh man," he groaned. "I am SO screwed..."

Genma Saotome awoke from a deep dreamless sleep in Berthing. The Captain of the Palomino stood next to his rack, shining a flashlight at the deck.

"Commander Saotome," the Captain addressed him. "We have a serious problem on our hands."

"What is it?" he asked blearily. He could not imagine any problems in that moment, other than the JumpShip's jump core being somehow irreparable, or that the Confederation had finally fallen to the Combine.

"The Lady Akane is missing," the Captain told him gravely. "She went out into town with one of my crew, got drunk, and disappeared on him."

Genma blinked away the sleep. Akane, missing? Drunk? With some other guy?

"Where is my idiot son?" he demanded.

For the first time in his life, Ranma Saotome felt completely relaxed in the presence of a girl. It amazed him how well he and Ucchan had been able to pick up where they had left off more than ten years ago. True, his best friend from childhood wasn't who he had always believed she was, but that didn't seem to matter much now.

"It's getting pretty late," he said to her. "We're coming up on 'bingo' fuel."

"Yeah, we should probably head for home," she agreed. Thoughts of continuing their time together in more personal surroundings was foremost in her thoughts.

Ranma banked the plane into a turn for the starport.

Akane Tendo staggered down the wide tree-lined boulevard near the Starport Expressway, alternately crying her eyes out and cussing hard enough to strip away old paint. Though she had stopped drinking an hour previous to this moment, she was getting more and more drunk as her system absorbed ingested alcohol into her bloodstream. It seemed that her forward motion was more an act of sheer stubbornness than any sort of coordination between her brain and her feet. In fact, she had only a peripheral awareness of heading back to the DropShip, as if her feet were engaged by a subconscious autopilot.

Her thoughts flew from one extreme to the other, hating Ranma for what he had done to her in one moment, then railing against herself for treating him so poorly at the castle. She pitied herself and then pitied Ranma for having such an awful, mixed-up childhood. The next moment she was raging at the night, shaking a fist into the sky as if Ranma and Ukyou were right above her.

Finally, without realizing it at first, she had returned to the Palomino. She did not recall tearing a ten-meter section of chain-link fence from its posts on the perimeter to get there, nor did she recall tramping across a kilometer of grassy fields and stretches of concrete tarmac, oftentimes only just avoiding certain death from the arrival or departure of a spaceship. All that she was aware of was that she had returned to the Palomino.

As she staggered past the steel-tube staging around Tarou's Hunchback, the throaty sound of the Boomerang's engine filled her ears. She looked up, her bloodshot eyes wincing at the intensity of the aircraft's flashing collision lights as it passed overhead. Ranma had returned.

She watched the Boomerang circle lazily around the DropShip before diving sharply at the ground. Her heart nearly seized up at the idea of him crashing, and then he pulled out of his dive to flare out neatly for a landing. Only then could she breathe again.

The Boomerang rolled to a stop near the ramp up to the 'Mech Bays. Ranma killed the engine with an absent flick of his wrist. He turned back to Ukyou, who was giving him an adoring look which he misread as simply having enjoyed the flight.

"Well, here we are," Ranma announced to her.

"Are you still interested in some okonomiyaki?" she asked him coyly.

"Am I? You bet I am!"

"Terrific," she said to him. "But first I want to thank you for the ride."

Ranma began to say "Aw, it was nothing," but got as far as 'it' when she reached over and kissed him. Her parted lips pressed firmly against his as she curled her arms around him to draw her fiance into a deeper embrace.At first he was too surprised to do or say anything. Then he started to enjoy it.

It was only when her tongue began to slide into his mouth that he panicked. What in the hell was he doing with her?!

Ukyou sensed his negative reaction to the new direction she was taking with their embrace, and parted with him. He looked like an animal caught in the headlights of an oncoming car as she drew away.

"Something wrong, Ranchan?" she asked softly.

"Uh..." Ranma murmured cogently.

"You don't get kissed very often, do you, honey?" she noted. She knew she was correct in this, and that only made her chances with him better. If he wasn't smooching Akane, then he didn't really love her. Right?

"Uh... I guess not..."

She chuckled. "That'll have to change." She popped the canopy release and lifted the clear polycarbonate to step out of the plane. "Come on, Ranchan, that okonomiyaki awaits."

The mention of food snapped him back to reality.

"Oh yeah," he said brightly. "Cool."

Akane watched as the two lovebirds walked towards the Palomino, oblivious to her presence. Anger welled within her once again, and she lurched forward towards the DropShip.

"Where the hell have you been, boy?" Genma Saotome asked his son in a tone of voice that brooked no bullshit. He cast a furtive glance towards the girl accompanying his son, trying to remember where he had seen her before.

"What's it to you, Old Man?" Ranma retorted. He was in no mood for his father's crap anymore than Genma was for his. Not after hearing in gory detail the story of Ukyou's abandonment and the accompanying theft of her dowry.

Ukyou bristled by his side, only the sight of Genma's bruised and swollen face keeping her from hitting him once again.

"Akane is missing, boy," Genma growled. "Apparently she ran off with one of the crew and got drunk. Now she's lost in town."

"What?!" Ranma blurted. Akane and some other guy? It couldn't be Doctor Tofu, or Pop would have said as much.

"You heard me," Genma told him. "And from what I can see, it's all your fault, boy."

"Then you're blind," Ranma retorted. It's all HER fault, he thought.

"If anyone is to blame around here," Ukyou added, pointing an accusing finger at Genma. "It's YOU."

"Who are you, anyway?" Genma asked her, his voice filled with anger.

Ukyou brandished her battle-spatula.

"Does THIS ring any bells?"

It did. Genma fell backwards in his haste to avoid another blow from the dreaded implement of okonomiyaki cooking.

"Don't hurt me!" he wailed, bringing his arms up to ward off attacks from her. Some of the assembled Palomino crew looked on with amusement from the deck of the open 'Mech Bay above.

"What a coward," she spat at him. She turned to Ranma. "Aren't you embarassed to have him for a father?"

"Constantly," he muttered in reply. He looked down at his father. "You're pathetic, Pop."

Genma had no rebuttal for this.

"So now what?" Ukyou asked Ranma.

He blew out his breath in a heavy sigh. "I guess I gotta go look for Akane," he told her.

This was not the answer she was hoping for, but she could see how he was obligated in the matter. She considered the possibility of lending her assistance in the search.

"I'm right here, Ranma," Akane said behind them, her voice ringing clear and sad in his ears.

Ranma spun around to see her. She was not a pretty sight. She was drunk and disheveled, her skin blotchy and her eyes red from crying. Her feet were caked with mud from walking across the open ground of the starport, and her arms were scratched from her encounter with the chain link fence. The smell of burnt synthetic rubber from the soles of shoes that had walked across recently plasma-blasted concrete mingled with the strong scent of beergarden brew.

"Akane!" he cried a little too cheerfully. "You're okay!"

"Not that you'd care," she retorted, wobbling slightly as she did so.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked her.

She gave them both appraising looks, her head drooping involuntarily as she glanced at them in turn. "I suppose you two have plans for the evening, right?"

"As a matter of fact," Ranma told her. "Ucchan and I were going to go back to her place to eat okonomiyaki. Right Ucchan?"

For all of Ukyou's desire to be rid of Akane, she was very uncomfortable with the present situation.

"Uh, yeah," she replied.

Akane closed her eyes and lurched forward towards Ranma.

"Izzat a fact now?" she asked him in a slurred voice. She opened her eyes and gave him a hard stare, a shaky finger pointed at his face. "I suppose that smudge of lipstick on your mouth got there by ACCIDENT?!"

Ranma's hand came up to his mouth, brushing at his lips and coming away slightly waxy and tinged with red. Genma wailed with dismay about how his son had betrayed Akane.

"H-Hey, uh," he stammered. "T-This ain't what it looks like."

Her face screwed up with anger.

"Don't LIE to me!" she screamed at him. "I HATE YOU!"

Her open hand smashed against the side of his face. The blow and the emotional release threw her off-balance, and she began to swoon drunkenly. Ranma caught her in his arms, his cheek red and stinging from her wrath.

As she sank against his body her tired, aching eyes fell upon the crook of his left arm, and the narrow burn scars that cross-hatched his skin. It was the aftermath of his wounding in the garden, where an assassin's laser had come close to slicing off his arm. He had earned those scars saving her life.

The sight of them brought back all of her lingering questions and doubts regarding the pig-tailed mechwarrior, and in her vulnerable state of body and mind, she broke down into sobs.

"Why, Ranma?" she moaned softly, her voice slurred almost beyond coherence. "Why did you do this to me?"

He held her close, his eyes trembling with uncertainty and shame as she continued to cry quietly in his embrace. Then with a final shudder she passed out in his arms. Ukyou looked away uncomfortably from the scene. The Palomino crew did as well.

"I need to get her to bed," Ranma said to Ukyou at length. "Sorry about this."

"No, no. I understand," she replied. "I'll call you tomorrow."

Ukyou turned and started to walk away from the landing pad. When she was out of sight she would call Konatsu and tell him to bring a car to the starport. Until then, all she could think about was Ranma's relationship with Akane.

It was clear that Akane had feelings for him. It was also clear to Ukyou that the Tendo Heir had been jealous of her from the moment they had met, and her drunken breakdown in front of Ranma had been an affirmation of that belief. The only question that remained was Ranma's feelings for Akane.

She didn't want to believe it, but her fiance seemed to have more than simply a grudging involvement with Akane. There had been real pain in his eyes at her tacit accusal of betrayal, and he had chosen to see to her well-being rather than leave with his 'cute' fiancee. Sure, part of it was his obligation to Akane, but there was more than that.

Ukyou clutched her arms around herself as she walked, and shuddered. He wasn't lost to her yet, but she had to make an effort to get into his life quickly, and win him over before it was too late. She couldn't bear the idea of losing him a second time.

Ranma Saotome was conscious of the many eyes upon him. Most of them were unsympathetic, some were downright hostile. He had never seen the crew like this before.

He cradled Akane's dead-drunk body in his arms and started slowly up the ramp, his eyes glaring back at his silent accusers. They turned away from him, each unwilling to answer his unspoken challenge. Genma watched his son enter the ship, conscious of the crew's sudden shift in attitude towards them both.

There was no elevator leading from the 'Mech Bays to the living spaces aboard the Palomino, an oversight of the Leopard Class that had never been addressed despite centuries of production. He would have to put her on his back and carry her up the ladder. This he did, taking care not to injure her as they passed through several deck hatches to the Lower Deck.

It was easier for him now, as the ladders were more like steep stairs in the living spaces. Akane was a lot heavier than he expected her to be, but that might have been because she was so drunk. He made it as far as Berthing when he realized that she was starting to throw up.

He dashed for the Head, making it to a stall, but not in time to keep her from vomiting all over his red mandarin blouse. Steeling himself, he wiped away the stinking muck from her mouth and chin and set her down over the bowl. She murmured thanks and began another round of retching.

Ranma ran the sink while she continued coughing and spewing. Between heaves she sobbed and mewled, making him feel about ten centimeters tall. It wasn't his fault that she was like this, but he felt guilty just the same. He peeled off his puke-stained shirt and tossed it into the sink to get the worst of it off before he put it into the Ship's Laundry.

Akane lost what little strength she had regained, and slumped against the bowl of the toilet. He had to prop her up to keep her from heaving one final time onto the cold terrazzo floor. When it looked at last like she was finished, he gently pulled her out of the stall and let her lay on the deck.

She was filthy, he realized. Her feet were muddy, her clothes covered with spattered vomit, her face tear-stained, and her mouth dribbling a combination of drool and the dregs of her digestive system. A clump of wetted paper towels cleaned up her face, but the rest of her needed work if he was going to put her in her rack. That would mean getting her clothes off - a task he balked at almost immediately.

Still, he had to do something. He couldn't leave her here. Even if he wanted to, the crew hated him enough already. He didn't need to give them any more ammunition.

As he pulled her shoes off, he couldn't help but think that this was actually somehow his fault. At least a little. He felt like it was, anyway. It was a stupid thing to believe, he told himself, because HE wasn't the one who had gotten so drunk that he couldn't take care of himself!

"Dammit, Akane," he grunted. "Why'd you have to freak out on me like this? I don't understand why you're so mad at me. I didn't do nothing."

But he did, he realized. He had kissed Ukyou. Sort of. It was more like she had kissed him, but until she started getting weird with her tongue, he had been content to let her.

"The kiss was nothing," he said to Akane. "I mean it. I had nothing to do with it. It was all Ukyou's idea, okay?"

Her head lolled on her shoulders, and her eyes fluttered, but she did not reply. Now that her shoes were off, he was back to the impasse of getting her out of her clothes. His face flushed at the thought. What could he do?

"Hey, uh, Akane," he said to her. "We need to get you out of these clothes, okay?" She murmured something incoherent. "So, ah, I'm gonna close my eyes and unbutton your blouse, all right? I promise that I ain't gonna look."

He closed his eyes and turned his head away for good measure before his fingers began fumbling with the buttons on her blouse.

Man, I hope she's wearing a bra...

"What the hell do you think you're doing, Saotome?" an angry voice asked him.

He opened his eyes and looked at his accuser. Yuka and Sayuri were standing in the open door of the Head, looking at him, shirtless, and in the process of taking Akane's clothes off...

"This ain't what it looks like," he said tersely.

"Didn't we just hear that line of crap from you?" Sayuri tossed back at him.

"What a pig," Yuka agreed.

"For your information," Ranma bristled. "I was trying to get her cleaned up. She's covered in puke. You want me to put her to bed as is?"

"We'll take over now," Sayuri declared. "You've done enough damage for one night."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?!" he demanded.

"What do you think, you neanderthal?" Yuka asked him angrily. "Can't you see what you've done to Akane?"

Ranma stood, jabbing a thumb at his chest. "I'M not the one who decided to get falling down drunk!" he retorted. "So how the HELL is this all MY fault?"

"Are you blind?" Sayuri riposted. "Can't you see how much she feels for you? Don't you understand how badly you've hurt her?"

Ranma flinched at her question. "Her? Feel for me? Gimme a break."

"She loves you," Yuka returned. "Why she loves you, I can't possibly imagine. And in spite of her feelings for you, you betrayed her for some cupcake with a ribbon in her hair. Pig."

Sayuri gave him a look of disgust. "You're worse than blind. You're a total fucking idiot. You and your half-wit father."

"Don't piss me off, lady," Ranma menaced, his teeth clenched.

"Or else what?" she returned.

He stood in cold silence. He did not hit girls, he told himself. Even girls who deserved it. Even these two, who had hated his guts from Day Fucking One...

"Stand down, Saotome," Sayuri continued. "Just get the hell out of here. Leave. Do us all a favor - especially Akane - and go find your little local honey. When we finally get off this planet, you should just stay here with her, okay?"

Ranma fists clenched tight with barely-checked wrath. The two fighter pilots could hear the knuckles crack and the tendons in his wrists and forearms creak with tension.

"I don't need a couple of dykes like you telling me how to live my life," he said to them, his voice trembling with fury. "You don't know me, and no matter what you might think, you don't know Akane either, so just STAY THE HELL OUT OF THIS!"

He pushed his way past them before he lost his temper and did something he would really regret.

Akane does not love me! he thought angrily. He took the stairs down to the Lower Deck three at a time. Half the time she doesn't even seem to like me!

Ranma Saotome could feel Ryouga's eyes burning into him from across the 'Mech Bay when he stepped through the airtight door.

"Raaaannnnmaaaaaa," the fanged mechwarrior growled. Senior Technician Akari Unryuu stood nervously by his side. Members of the Tech Shed and the ship's crew looked on, anticipating a fight. "What have you done to Akane?!"

"Blow it out your ass, Ryouga," Ranma growled back. "Don't get involved in something you know nothing about."

Ryouga started towards him. "Maybe I'll just have to beat the truth out of you, then!"

"You want a piece of me?" Ranma shot back. He beckoned with his hands. "Come get some, Pork Boy!"

They charged straight at each other across the 'Mech Bay, meeting at the feet of Genma's Griffin to the sound of fists smashing into each other's faces. Neither bothered with defense in that first clash. Each wanted to knock the other's head off.

Ryouga slammed into the Griffin's ankle from the impact, which he shrugged off a little faster than Ranma managed to recover from his own injury. Only the separation they had between them kept Ryouga from exploiting this advantage.

"They tell me you were cheating on her with some other woman!" he snarled at Ranma as he approached.

"I told you not to get involved in something you don't know nothin' about," Ranma returned. He dropped into a low fighting stance, knowing that Ryouga would come to him with little provocation.

"Were you with another woman or weren't you?"

"She's not some 'other woman,' you dumbass," Ranma protested. "She's an old friend from when we were kids! Can't any of you idiots figure that out?"

"I've had about enough of your lip, Ranma!"

Ryouga lashed out with his foot, his strike aimed for Ranma's nose, and angled up in such as way as to drive the bone into the brain if it connected. The pig-tailed mechwarrior bobbed clear of the strike knowing that it had been a potentially fatal blow.

If Ryouga wanted to turn up the heat, that was fine with him...

A second kick cut his cheek as he dodged away. He kept up the momentum of his dodge, pivoting on his heel to whirl into a flying roundhouse that drove into Ryouga's chest. He could feel Ryouga's ribs straining against their connective tissues and somehow holding together. The blow sent Ryouga to the deck, but not long enough for him to follow up.

"Not bad," Ryouga grunted. "I'm glad that you won't make this too easy for me."

"It's gonna get a lot worse for you," Ranma returned, wiping away the blood on his cheek, and secretly fearful of the man's resilience. What was this guy made of? This was not the candyass he had spanked time and time again in 7th Grade!

Ryouga just seemed to be getting angrier as he stood there.

"I'll tear your head off, Saotome!"

He came at Ranma again, throwing punches that ripped through the air, blows so strong that Ranma's arms and hands ached from blocking them all. Straight punches became vicious combination attacks that Ranma could only defend against. Ryouga's ferocity and his seemingly limitless endurance gave him no openings to exploit.

They stood locked in mortal combat beneath the Griffin while techs and members of the crew looked on in awe. The sound of flesh striking flesh popped and snapped in the cavernous hangar, with neither combatant gaining the upper hand.

Finally, Ryouga got lucky, and Ranma's head rocked back with a blow. The pig-tailed mechwarrior flew backwards to smash against the Griffin's right foot. Ryouga followed through this time, landing a punch to the solar plexus that knocked the wind out of Ranma, and sent him to the deck wheezing for air to fill his nearly collapsed lungs.

"Now you'll pay!" he snarled at Ranma, kicking him soundly in the jaw and laying him out flat.

Ranma rolled over onto his back before Ryouga could stomp down on his neck and snap it. He lashed out desperately with his feet, tripping Ryouga up as he tried to recover from his would-be death blow, and sending him flailing clumsily to the deck, face first.

Ryouga stunned himself with the fall, giving Ranma the chance to get his wind back. He rose to his feet, body burning with pain, as Ryouga did the same.

"Had enough?" Ranma asked him, blood trickling down the corner of his mouth.

"You're still breathing," Ryouga spat wearily. "So the answer is no."

"Don't make me kill you, Ryouga," Ranma returned, huffing painfully. "I will if I have to."

"I'd rather die than let Akane's betrayal go unavenged!"

Ranma leaped into the air with a swiftness that took Ryouga by surprise. "I didn't betray her!" he shouted as his foot smashed into Ryouga's chin.

Ryouga reeled with the blow, staggering backwards near collapse. If Ranma hadn't been hurting so much, he could have ended it right there. Instead, Ryouga found his footing and shook away the cobwebs.

"I didn't betray her," Ranma repeated. He had only just stopped short of dealing his own deathblow with that kick, and Ryouga had taken it like they were merely sparring. He didn't have much juice left in him at this point, whereas Ryouga was just starting to feel it.

He needed to buy himself some time.

"You want the truth so bad? Here it is, Ryouga..."

Ryouga tensed, but did not return to the attack.

"The truth is that Ukyou and I knew each other on New Osaka when we were both nine years old," Ranma continued. "The truth is that until today, I didn't even know she was a girl..."

"You lie," Ryouga snorted. What kind of fool did Ranma take him for?

He started towards Ranma again, lunging with his foot, and drawing Ranma into a defensive posture that anticipated a low kick. Instead, he followed through with a left cross that grazed Ranma's jaw, then came back with a hard right uppercut and left hook combination. He had picked up a little boxing in his travels, and figured Ranma wouldn't expect it from him.

Ranma took both blows hard, and staggered backwards in a daze. Ryouga noted his adversary's watery knees, and knew that one more shot would put him away for good.

He didn't get the shot. Ranma must have been faking the extent of his weakness, he realized as a devastating punch combination smashed into his bruised body and face with incredible force. That rotten, sneaky bastard! He saw stars for a moment, and felt the throbbing of his lower lip as he closed up his guard against another blow. The taste of blood ran in his mouth from where he had inadvertantly bitten his tongue. Now he was in danger of being savaged by an enemy that had every reason to do him in.

His enemy did not follow through, either.

"Hear me out, goddammit!" Ranma cried, shaking with pain and with exhaustion. "You wanted the truth, and I'm giving it to you. If you can't handle the truth, then just say so and we can go back to killing each other."

Ryouga was about to reply that yes, killing him would be a good idea, when Akari shouted his name.

"Ryouga, dearest!" she called to him. "Let Ranma speak. I think we all need to understand what happened tonight before we rush to judgement."

Ryouga paused, making Ranma want to hug Akari right then and there. Of course, that would probably have set Ryouga off again... 'Ryouga, dearest'...? Just what was going on between those two anyway?

"I'm listening," Ryouga said tersely, interrupting his internal speculation.

"Like I said," Ranma went on. "I didn't even know she was a girl until today."

"Not just a girl," Ryouga pointed out, "but your fiancee!"

"That's my stupid Old Man's fault!" Ranma returned. "He made some deal with Ukyou's dad ten years ago, but all he was doing was swindling them out of her dowry. I had nothing to do with it! I didn't even know there was an engagement! I thought Ukyou was a BOY, remember?!"

Ryouga thought this over, his face a mask of skepticism.

"Keep talking, Ranma."

"All we were doing tonight was talking, Ryouga. We hadn't seen each other in ten years!"

Ryouga pondered this as well. He didn't look convinced.

"If all you're saying is true," he said sternly. "Then explain what her lipstick was doing all over your mouth. I wasn't here to see it, but plenty of other people did."

Ranma blanched. It kept coming back to that stupid kiss!

"That ain't so easy to explain," he admitted, and Ryouga took a menacing step towards him. "The truth, and I mean this, Ryouga, is that SHE kissed me. I don't know why she did it. Maybe she was just being friendly, I don't really know." Actually, he was starting to believe that Ucchan had intended much more than a simple show of friendship with her kiss, but this was not the time, and Ryouga was not the person with whom to discuss the matter.

"Sounds awfully friendly to me," Ryouga noted darkly.

"Look, Ryouga, it ain't like that," Ranma countered. "I don't know what she was thinking tonight, but to me she is just a friend, and a friend who can help us find Ryuugenzawa."

Ryouga gave him a dubious look. "Now you're just talking nonsense," he rumbled. His fingers cracked as he made a fist. "How can this Ukyou person help us find Ryuugenzawa?"

"She's an officer in the Federated Shiratori Army," Ranma replied. He was eager to continue talking as long as it meant he could replenish his fighting strength. "She says she can get us access to Empress Azusa's fortress. That's where the sixth key is located."

Now it was Ryouga's turn to blanch. His ferocity had given way to a sudden abject terror. "Em-Empress Azusa has it?" he stammered fearfully. It now looked as if he was about to break down and cry.

"Ask my Pop," Ranma confirmed. "He'll tell you."

"We're doomed," Ryouga moaned. "...I'll never get my cure..."

Ranma's eyes lit up. At last he had his opening!

"I just told you that she can help us out, Ryouga," he said to him in a voice quiet enough to prevent eavesdropping by the fight's many spectators. "Once we find Ryuugenzawa, we'll both get our cures, you just wait and see!"

"Shut your mouth, Saotome," Ryouga growled. "Don't try to sweet talk me out of kicking your sorry ass."

So much for an opening, Ranma thought. Time for another tack.

"Look, Ryouga, I don't see how the two of us trying to kill each other is going to get us any closer to Ryuugenzawa. We should be working together, not fighting."

Ryouga looked to Akari for a moment. She smiled back supportively. Then he turned to Ranma.

"I can't bring myself to forgive you for hurting Akane," he said through clenched teeth. "You've got a lot to answer for."

Ranma's attempt at remaining calm began to fail. Why couldn't everyone just leave them alone!?

"Anything between Akane and me is just that, Ryouga. Between her and me. Not you. Not my Old Man. Not anyone else. You have no right to butt in on this. Akane is MY fiancee, got it? Not yours, Ryouga. MINE."

Ryouga's eye began to twitch, making Ranma tense for immediate combat.

"Do you really mean that?" he growled at the pig-tailed mechwarrior. "Does she really mean anything at all to you?"

Ranma hesitated. He hadn't even understood why he had just made such a declaration. Akane did not love him, no matter what Yuka or anyone else might say. Why did he even care if she was his fiancee?

As Ryouga stood fuming just out of striking range, he realized that he needed to come up with an answer.

"Let's put it this way, Ryouga," he said finally. "The only person who can say if we aren't engaged anymore is Akane. Until she says otherwise, you just stay the hell out of our business."

"Fine with me," Ryouga grunted. "The second she wakes up tomorrow, she's going to dump you, Ranma." He cracked his knuckles in anticipation. "And then your ass is grass."

"Akane means a great deal to you, doesn't she?"

Ryouga tensed at Akari's question. How could he reconcile his feelings for Akane while knowing that Akari was ready to fill his life with joy if he would just let her?

"She does," he replied uneasily.

"Are you in love with her?" He detected the faint tremor in her voice that spoke of just such a fear within her. His heart began to clench tight. He did not want to hurt her. He could not bear to hurt her.

He could not deny to himself his feelings for Akane.

"She was very kind to me," he told her finally. "Before I joined the the Palomino on Capra, no one could have cared less about me. It was Akane who rescued me from the Furinkan Combine by making a place for me on the ship."

"I see," Akari replied. "That's why you were so quick to defend Akane's honor, then. Because you felt you owed her for her kindness to you on Capra."

Ryouga closed his eyes. If that is how you want to see things, Akari, then for you it shall be so...

"Yes," he replied. "Exactly."

She looked at him with her huge soft eyes. "Would you do the same for me?"

Yes, he thought to himself, I would. But please don't ask me to choose between you and Akane, because I don't know that I could.

"O-Of course I would," he replied.

Akari sighed contentedly. "It makes me feel so very special to know that you would." She snuggled sleepily against his shoulder as they went up to Berthing. "You mean the universe to me, Ryouga dearest."

Heat welled up within him at her declaration. He felt such an intense satisfaction and pride at being the object of Akari's affection, and at the same time he felt such intense shame for not being able to come to terms with his love for Akane, that he was leading Akari on. Was he any better than Ranma to feel this way about two women? Didn't that make him a two-timer, with the only difference between himself and Ranma being the fact that Ranma had actually kissed one of his loves?

"Well, Ryouga dearest," Akari said to him in the darkened passageway of Berthing. "I guess this is good night."

He could see her dewy eyes shining.

"I, uh, guess so," he replied.

She closed her eyes and tilted her face up to him.

"Would you like to kiss me good night?" she asked him.

Sweat began to pour in buckets down Ryouga's temples. His knees buckled. The compartment seemed to be swaying back and forth around him.

She waited patiently for his lips as he grappled with himself.

"I would like to kiss you good night," she added softly.

"No! Um, er, what I mean is. Th-That is to say that..." he stammered helplessly.

"What is it?" she asked coyly, her eyes still closed. Her lips returned to a slight pucker that would be receptive to him.

"I-It should be m-me who, ah, you know... uh, er, k-k-kisses you g-good night," he rambled. He didn't even hear half of what he was saying, he was wound up so tight.

"I agree completely, Ryouga dearest."

She continued to wait with seemingly infinite patience, which was a good thing considering the glacial pace at which Ryouga's reluctant lips descended towards her.

I can do this! Ryouga thought to himself. She wants me to kiss her! No girl has ever wanted me to kiss her before!

He misjudged the distance in the darkness, for his lips met hers long before he thought they should have. Their first kiss! Akari was so soft and gentle. She felt so warm and alive as he put clumsy hands upon her shoulders. She smelled so nice, too!

He could feel the heat rushing to his face, the blood pounding in his ears, the growing stiffness in his...

He broke from the kiss with a start. What kind of pervert was he?! Self-loathing coursed through him. He was an animal, a slave to his baser instincts, by taking advantage of this girl!

He was no better than Ranma, for now he too had kissed a girl, one of two that he couldn't keep from his thoughts. His two-timing was complete.

He was no better than Ranma...

Akari smiled to herself as Ryouga stammered a 'good-night' and left Berthing for his cot in 'Mech Bay Four. Ever so slowly, she lowered herself off the balls of her feet to the deck. If she had waited for him to finally reach her, she had the feeling that she would have been left waiting until well past dawn. A sweetheart beyond compare, but oh, was he shy!

The last person Ranma expected to see near the very top of the DropShip Palomino was Doctor Tofu Ono, but there he was, climbing through the dorsal hatch.

"I had a feeling that I might find you up here," the doctor remarked."Do you mind a little company?"

Ranma wasn't in the mood. "Actually -"

"Good, I didn't think you'd mind," Tofu said, interrupting him.

Ranma relented. He didn't need any more enemies than he already had. Better to let the Doc say his piece and leave.

"So who sent you?" he asked instead. "My Pop?"

"Akane, actually," Tofu replied. "First she told me to see if you were 'sulking in the Engine Room,' as she put it. When you weren't there, and no one had seen you leave the ship, I figured this was the only place left where you could go and still hope to be alone."

"Great," Ranma muttered. "So how is she?"

Tofu shrugged. "Physiologically, she'll pull through. After purging her stomach the hard way in the Head, plus the detox shot I gave her, she sobered up enough to talk."

"So now you know her side of the story," Ranma observed. "Are you here to kick my ass too?"

"Far from it, Ranma," Tofu replied. He adjusted his glasses. "I'm here to offer a little advice."

"No thanks. I've got enough advice for one night. Most of it centers around me dropping dead or leaving the ship for good."

Tofu chuckled to himself. "I've got to admit, Ranma, that you really got yourself into a mess this time."

"So you think this is all my fault too, huh?" Ranma snorted. "Great. Maybe I'd be doing myself and everyone else a favor by leaving."

"Spare me the misery, Ranma," Tofu said, his voice decidedly lacking in sympathy. "If all you're interested in doing is sitting up here the rest of the night feeling sorry for yourself, I'll leave. If you actually want some useful advice, I'd be happy to give it."

An uneasy moment of silence passed between them, as if Ranma really would leave the ship for good.

"Go ahead, Doc," Ranma said wearily. "I'll listen."

"Good," Tofu said with a nod. "The first thing you have to do is talk to Akane. Now I wouldn't recommend going to see her right now, she needs her rest after tonight, but I wouldn't let this fester between you any longer than absolutely necessary, either."

Ranma muttered agreement.

"As for what you need to say to her, an apology would probably be a good place to start."

"What do I need to apologize for?" Ranma demanded. "This is all her fault for overreacting!"

Tofu offered up his hands in a gesture of supplication. "Easy there, Ranma. I agree that Akane hasn't handled this business with your other fiancee as well as she could have, but you could have at least done or said something to reassure her about Ukyou."

"Oh yeah? Like what?"

Tofu shook his head slowly. "I guess it's useless to go on unless I know how you feel about certain things..."

"Like?"

"Don't play dumb with me, Ranma," Tofu scolded him. "You know exactly what I'm talking about."

Ranma looked away.

"I don't know," he said slowly.

"You don't know what I'm talking about, or you don't know how you feel about Akane?"

"The second one."

Tofu chuckled again. There was little mirth in it. "Well, I guess I had to try. If you can't answer that question for yourself, you can't really tell her much."

"I'm not in love with Ukyou," Ranma grunted, although after their kiss he wasn't entirely sure that he was without feelings for her. "How's that?"

Tofu shrugged. "I suppose it's a start. Not much of one, it's true, but better than nothing."

"So what if I was in love with Ukyou?" Ranma asked him, his voice taut with challenge. "What then?"

"I can't answer that question, Ranma. The best I could offer is that you should tell Akane about it instead of making her play guessing games." He gave him a penetrating look. "She was really hurt by this, you know."

"So everyone keeps telling me."

"Have you stopped to think about why she might feel this way?"

"Yeah, I have," Ranma returned. "Trouble is, it don't make much sense."

"Neither of you are any good at playing guessing games, I see," Tofu replied cryptically. "Talk to her, Ranma. Really talk to her."

"I ain't no good at it," he said in a surly tone. "Besides, all she wants is an excuse to blow her stack with me. It's just better to let her alone for awhile."

"Not this time, Ranma."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Tofu gave him another hard look.

"What it means is that she is ready to go home. Back to Nerima. We aren't simply talking about ending the engagement between you and her. We're talking about her fighting to the death against the Combine rather than continue on this expedition - no matter how close we may or may not be to finding Ryuugenzawa.

"If you hadn't noticed by now, the crew is ready to follow her. Your father may be the official commander of this mission, but as the daughter of the Grand Duke, he won't count for much if she decides the other way. Now ask yourself, Ranma, do you care enough about her to want to find Ryuugenzawa for her? Not for you, Ranma, and not for your father, but just for her sake?"

Ranma remained silent in thought.

"Whether you love her or not is immaterial to my question, Ranma," Tofu continued. "I just want to know if you care enough to want her to live, because right now I don't think she wants to go on."

This troubled Ranma more than he cared to admit.

"Are you trying to say she's suicidal?"

"Not in so many words, but yes, right now she would rather die in battle to protect her homeworld than go on with this expedition one more day."

"All you're really saying is that she hates me," Ranma said finally. "You haven't told me anything I didn't already know."

"That's not it at all," Tofu protested.

"It seems that way to me."

The doctor shook his head sadly. "I'm not as good at this as I had thought," he remarked, mostly to himself. "Talk to her, Ranma. You might be surprised to know this, but you're the only person whose opinion matters to her right now."

"You're right. I would be surprised," Ranma replied. He looked away for a moment and nursed his cheek. Even after the beating he had suffered from Ryouga, it was Akane's slap whose pain still lingered under his skin. "I'll wait until the morning, Doc. Let her sleep it off first."

"And you, Ranma?" Tofu asked him. "You could probably use a little sleep yourself."

"I wish," the pig-tailed mechwarrior returned. There was too much on his mind for that, no matter how close to sunrise the night had come.

League of Five Nails JumpShip Impaler

Bernard's Star Zenith Jump Point

Bernard's Star, the Furinkan Combine

15 April 3025

It had been a narrow escape from Tatewaki Kuno in the Alpha Centauri System. The Furinkan Combine Prince had just Jumped his fleet into the star system as the League Navy was preparing to leave. It was only their considerable separation at the Jump Point that gave Hikaru and his ships time to form up and Jump to safety before Combine fighters could bear down on them.

Instead of fleeing back to the League, as Kuno no doubt expected them to do, they had jumped the relatively short distance to Bernard's Star, a deserted system with no commercial value, and no planets worth colonizing. Its dull red primary glowed balefully through the viewports, reminding Hikaru of Melkor, the star of his birth on planet Angbad.

It was a gamble coming here, as the weak red radiation of Bernard's Star would take longer to recharge their Jump Batteries than Kuno's fleet would need at Alpha Centauri to recharge theirs and start looking for him. He had to stay ahead of Kuno if he was going to survive, for after his attack on the Combine Fleet at Capra, he knew that his adversary would not hesitate to attack his JumpShips directly.

"What now, cousin?" Tetsuo Gosunkugi asked him.

Hikaru consulted the charts. Their horoscopes were vague at this point, offering little in the way of advice. Worse, he had run out of pigeons to sacrifice; their entrails had been particularly oracular for him of late.

"Well, cousin," he replied, his sunken eyes gleaming dully for a moment in the red light of the star. "We've succeeded in drawing Kuno away from Capella. I hear he's only left a token force there while he comes after us. That will help take the pressure off the Confederation for awhile."

"I realize that," Tetsuo agreed. "But what now? Can we really afford to keep this up? Not all of our forces on the worlds we occupied were able to escape. This is costing us."

"I know, cousin. I know. I want to pursue our strategy of an alliance with the Confederation." An idea came to him. "I think we should use our 'guest' to maximum advantage."

"The Shogun," Tetsuo hissed frightfully. "HIM?"

"He's perfect!" Hikaru said, rising from his bloodstained altar to take his leave of the chamber. Tetsuo followed after his cousin, eager to hear how they could use the deranged leader of the Furinkan Combine. At the moment he was nothing more than a hostage, and not a very good one at that.

They walked down the curved passageway of the Impaler's Grav Deck to the Shogun's quarters. The sounds of drums, steel slide-guitar, and ukulele were audible in the passageway, as was the sound of laughter and cheers. The Marine guards who stood outside Shogun Kuno's stateroom snapped to attention, their discomfort with their assignment evident on their faces.

Hikaru punched in the code sequence that would open the door. It slid open, bombarding him with sound that poured out into the passageway.

o/" ...We throw our nets out into the sea,

And all the ama-ama come swimmin' to me!

Well, we're going... To the Huki-lau!

The Huki-Huki-Huki-Huki-lau! o/"

Hikaru Gosunkugi fought back the urge to scream in pain. Within the chamber was Shogun Kuno of the Furinkan Combine, along with most of his retinue from the atoll. They were continuing the luau, dancing around a pile of broken furniture that served as a faux-bonfire in a place where open combustion was severely frowned upon.

Kuno caught sight of his captor and leaped over the jagged pieces of mahogany and oak to greet him.

"Aloha, bruddah!" he said with gusto. "You come to da big party luau, no shit?"

"Not exactly," Hikaru replied, knowing that he had to get rid of his royal hostage, and quickly. For the sake of his sanity.

"We make planetfall soon, yah?" Kuno continued, ignoring the young man's reply. "No can surf in dis big metal can!"

"I'm afraid not, your Eminence," Hikaru said to him. "We'll be Jumping again shortly."

"Dat's heinous, brah!"

"I can see that you're enjoying my hospitality," Hikaru observed. One of the hula girls he vaguely recognized from his time on New Hawaii saw him and gave him a wink. He blushed. "I have good news though, you'll be going to a planet with big oceans very soon."

Shogun Kuno's tanned face beamed.

"Hey yah, bruddah! Where we be goin'?"

Hikaru cast his cousin a look. "The Capella System," he told Kuno. "The planet Nerima."

Kuno shrugged indifferently. "It got oceans, den it got surf."

"I'm glad you agree," Hikaru said to him. "Farewell, your Eminence." He stepped back through the door and mercifully sealed it against the noise of the luau.

"What are you talking about, cousin?" Tetsuo demanded.

"I want you to take the Seisyun to the Capella System," Hikaru replied. "And I want you to bring the Shogun and his entourage with you."

Tetsuo was aghast.

"For what purpose?" he asked indignantly.

"To offer the Shogun to the Grand Duke as a bargaining chip with Tatewaki," Hikaru replied. "Kuno might like to see his father done away with, but the Combine's Daimyo won't stand for it. He'll have to back down from his invasion if he's to get his father back. Just be sure to let this magnanimous gesture on our part cement our alliance with the Confederation, and my betrothal to Akane."

Tetsuo stepped away from his cousin to think about his proposition.

"It's crazy, cousin, but it might actually work," he finally conceded.

"The tricky part will be in breaking the blockade," Hikaru noted. "But if I can continue to lead Kuno on while you make a break for Capella, it will keep the number of ships guarding the system low enough for you to have a good chance of pulling it off."

"It will be interesting to work with Nabiki again," Tetsuo agreed. "I'm sure, given the current situation, that she'll see the merits of working towards an alliance with the League."

"We can hope, cousin," Hikaru said, nodding. "We can hope. In the meantime, get that crazy idiot off my ship. I can't stand having him on board any longer."

Furinkan Combine JumpShip Imperator

Alpha Centauri Zenith Jump Point

Alpha Centauri System, the Furinkan Combine

15 April 3025

"Oh, Prince Kuno, you big stud, you..."

The honeyed voice of his Pig-Tailed Goddess called out to Tatewaki Kuno, and he turned to see her clad in a diaphanous gown of the purest white. Angelic she looked, yet her fiery red hair and her flashing blue-grey eyes spoke of her burning desire to be made a woman by him - pure in its devotion, luciferian in its intensity.

"Oh, Pig-Tailed Girl," he returned, his arms opening wide for her. "My Venus! Come, let me take you into my embrace!"

She leaped for him, her lips pursing in anticipation of his passionate kiss, and her ample bosom bouncing within the loose restraints of her gown.

"Wait!" a voice cried out. His head turned to see Akane Tendo standing forlornly by his side, her eyes downcast and filled with sorrow.

"Pray tell, what is it that troubles thee, my lovely Akane Tendo?" he asked her.

"You have chosen the Pig-Tailed Girl over me?" she asked him wretchedly.

Her query wounded him to the depths of his being, pangs of grief and dismay that shook him to his very foundation.

"Never!" he cried, shocked that such a thing was even conceivable. "Thou art my Tigress! My shining Valkyrie with blue-black hair! Never could I, Tatewaki Kuno, foresake thy love for another!"

"Oh, Tatewaki," the Pig-Tailed Girl cried out in grief. "Then you don't really love me?!"

Tatewaki reeled. How could he forsake his buxom red-haired Venus?

"I -" he started to say.

"You must choose," Akane told him sternly. "Which one of us do you love the most?"

He looked to the Pig-Tailed Girl, her fiery, almost masculine spirit and her vibrant sexuality beckoning to him. Then he looked to Akane, that fierce huntress who dared him to catch her up in his arms with every battle they had ever fought - if he was worthy of her.

"Woe!" he cried, tears streaming down his face. "Oh, woe! Why must I choose?! For I, Tatewaki Kuno, do love thee both!"

"You cannot love us both," Akane and the Pig-Tailed Girl chorused. "You must choose."

"Nay!" he wailed. "Why must thou render such cruel judgement upon me? I cannot give my heart to one and forsake the other. Is there not a place for the three of us at Aphrodite's table?"

"No," they intoned. "You must choose."

Overcome with grief, he leaped at them to take them both into his embrace. His two loves lashed out with simultaneous jumping kicks to his face.

He awoke to discover that two of his portraits had fallen off the bulkhead and landed on his head. One was of Akane Tendo, a portrait he had commissioned from stereographs taken at her nineteenth birthday, and smuggled out of the Confederation by his agents. The other was of the Pig-Tailed Girl. This image was based upon the few good shots of her that were available from the flight recorder of one of his bodyguards on Capra.

He regarded them both for a moment, tears still streaming down his cheeks.

"It is not right that I should abandon either of my loves," he said to himself. "I must find a way to make them both mine forever more."

A tone from the door sounded. He set the two portraits back upon the wall before acknowledging it.

"Enter," he commanded.

It was Kyle, his Operations Officer.

"Speak," he ordered the man.

"My lord Prince," Kyle began. "I apologize for disturbing your rest. I wanted to inform you that our forces have rooted out the last League invaders from the occupied systems."

"And what of these base curs?" Tatewaki inquired.

"Most of them escaped, Lord," Kyle said uneasily. "It seems that they were not as heavily reinforced as we had expected. They were ready to flee the systems on very short notice. We were only able to destroy a handful, and we captured even fewer of them."

"Pay them no mind for the moment," Tatewaki said, dismissing the matter with the wave of his hand. "It is the whereabouts of that blackguard Hikaru Gosunkugi that concerns me."

"Ah, yes," Kyle returned uncomfortably. "We are unable to determine the whereabouts of his fleet at this time, but as our ships finish charging their Jump batteries, we shall begin searching all the systems within a One-Jump radius of Alpha Centauri."

"It is not good that Gosunkugi should escape," Tatewaki seethed. "He has my father as his hostage." He clenched a fist. "Oh, how I have prayed for an end to his pusillanimous reign over the mighty Furinkan Combine, but not in this manner! He finds yet another way to debase the high rank of his office by allowing himself to be made the prisoner of a half-wit such as the scion of Gosunkugi!

"Now, I, Tatewaki Kuno, must spend my forces in the search to recover him, that we do not lose face with the Daimyo - for they will assume that I have abandoned my hated father to mine enemies, that I might rise to the Shogunate in his absence. Like Alexander the Great, I shall be forced to return to my demense to restore order amongst the bleating herd of the lords, and all momentum of conquest shall be lost!"

"I understand, my lord Prince. We shall redouble our efforts to find the League Navy."

"Nay!" Tatewaki thundered. He began to shake with rage. "Thy eyes see nothing, thy ears hear nothing, and thy mind understands nothing! The mass of our great endeavor grinds to a halt! Even now the cursed Commonwealth looks with sallow eye upon my vast empire. The Amazons know I am occupied with the Confederation - should they discover that we are laid bare by the hated League, and our sovereign lord taken hostage..."

He raised his fists over his head.

"It is intolerable!" he bellowed. "That such a great lord as myself be made to play the fool!" He fell to his knees and began to beat upon the carpeted deck. "Both of my loves are snatched from me by that fell villain, Ranma Saotome! My twisted sister escapes from my very flagship! And now, my own father is taken by the likes of Hikaru Gosunkugi, a cretin so callow and crass that he dares not face me as true man - upon the battlefield - but as a craven plotter, weaving instead his dark magicks upon me!"

Kyle could only stand in silence, and let his lord rage impotently against the cruelties of the gods.

Kyushu Plateau

The Moon of Oni, orbiting Shounetsu Jigoku

Capella System, the Nerima Confederation

14 April 3025

Nerima Confederation Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant Tran Minh Ky raised his blazer rifle over a dusty grey boulder, allowing his gun camera a look at the Combine defenses around the hastily constructed earthwork fortification that housed the 11th Sword of Thunder regiment. The small muzzle-mounted video camera projected a grainy green-scale image onto his helmet display of two Combine Marines in pressurized Battle Dress Armor guarding the airlock to the base interior.

A fence of monofilament wire was strung in a deadly cat's cradle around the approaches to the airlock, and he noted the tell-tale bulges of command-detonated mines buried in the sandy grey soil. The defenses were sloppy, reflecting the haste with which the 11th Sword of Thunder had set up camp, but they would make his job no easier to accomplish. The airlock was one of the few that Confederation fighters had been able to spot from high orbit before they were chased away, and that was his first objective.

Ky knew that his team of commandos could breach both airlock doors within seconds of each other, and depressurize a good chunk of the makeshift belowground base in one shot. Lady Kasumi knew that as well, and had specifically forbidden any such attack. She wanted live captives from the 11th Sword of Thunder and its auxiliary units, not a cavern full of corpses.

The plan involved a hard-hitting surprise attack with commandos, who would use gas grenades to incapacitate the Combine troops before they could get to their combat stations. Of course, that meant the commandos would have to cycle through the airlock a handful at a time while the Combine defenders rushed to repulse them. The Combine forces outside the base would be attacked by the fast-moving LAM Light Cavalry unit that Colonel Mukaida had put together, while the main force of battlemechs commanded by General Tendo moved in to mop up, and to deal with the Combine heavies. It was lauded by the officers as a brilliant plan. Gunny Ky had his own opinion on the matter.

Lady Kasumi's plan was all well and fine when you were sitting on top of a hundred tons of walking death machine, he mused, but when you were a squad leader with a scant twenty kilos of ceramic armor plating to cover your entire body, and whose job it was to penetrate the airlock and wage a close-quarters battle while heavily outnumbered, a certain pragmatism was in order. He was thirty-four, which was a ripe old age for a Confederation Marine, and he intended on living to make retirement.

That meant he wasn't going to screw this up, and he sure as hell wasn't going to let anyone else screw it up for him. He patted the sheath of the fighting knife on his hip, knowing that it would have more than enough work to do today. If you wanted a job done right, you just had to do it yourself...

The cold steel knife blade plunged soundlessly into the Combine Marine's throat, slipping inside his ceramic armor gorget and carving open his larynx before he could muster more than a grunt of surprise. Blood streamed into his lungs, making his dying cry little more than a muted gurgle over the commo net - which was lost in a crackle of static. His body, taut with shock and sudden terror, went limp as he expired, and he was eased to the dusty grey sand by Gunny Ky with a tenderness that was in stark contrast to the brutal method used to dispatch him.

Ky observed the second Combine Marine slumping over into the sand two meters away. The Marine's helmet visor was splashed with dark red blood that completely obscured the face within. His squadmate, Corporal Pennington, had slaughtered his man with equally silent efficiency.

Satisfied that his own victim was dead, he carefully withdrew his knife just enough to slowly bleed the air out of the pressurized suit. A plume of rapidly escaping air was like a camera flash in the darkness to a trained eye, as Ky well knew. He watched for a moment as tiny red crystals of flash-frozen blood misted his armored gauntlet before returning to his observation of the area around him.

The rest of the squad would be following him through the maze of monofilament wire, burning it down with spray cans of highly corrosive acid foam. The wire itself was easy to spot with UV lamps which, used sparingly, would allow them to pass without drawing attention to themselves. Ky himself had opted for a less direct route to the airlock, needing to take advantage of every bit of cover in the week-long semi-darkness of the Oni night to approach without being seen by the hostile eyes of the guards.

He checked the airlock seals and found that they weren't wired to anything. The airlock itself was a portable unit used in the mining industry, set into the glassy lava rock that lay beneath a thin layer of sandy soil. The temptation to simply plant a block of plastex on the door and then take cover came over him.

He checked himself. He was a Marine, and Marines followed orders, no matter how dangerous or stupid.

His squad came hopping boulder by boulder up to the airlock to avoid the mines. There was always the chance that at least one of them would have a pressure plate or a tripwire. Communication with them was by hand signals to avoid detection. There were twelve of them, counting himself, and every other man slung his blazer and readied a brace of gas grenades. Each grenadier counted on the knife work and quick trigger finger of his comrades to keep him alive.

He signalled for the first group of four to enter the airlock. Four was all that could fit inside at one time, due to the bulk of their own Battle Dress Armor. It would take sixty seconds to cycle the airlock, meaning two-and-a-half long minutes before the entire squad was inside. If they could help it, they would avoid combat until all twelve of them were inside the base.

Ky was in the first group. As the inner door slid open, he realized that for once the Intelligence estimations of the Combine base were correct. Given the fact that the Furinkan Combine engineers had little time with which to construct the base, it was little more than a massive cavern hollowed out of the glassy rock and pressurized. Row after row of cots filled the cavern, along with large circulation fans and hastily strung lights. Self-contained air scrubbers hummed away above the din of fans and men. Crates of supplies and ammunition were stacked haphazardly about, creating a labyrinthine nightmare for a dozen men to try to secure. The base's only conceit to safety in the event of a depressurization accident were a dozen rescue shelters - little more than pressurized tent domes that could hold perhaps twenty people apiece.

But the most urgent thing Ky noted about the place was that they were surrounded by over a hundred Combine troops, most of whom were armed in some fashion or another.

In that first moment of contact, the Confederation troops had the element of surprise going for them. Sizzling pulses of laser light from blazers cut down those most immediate to the airlock chamber, and the dull pop of the gas grenades quickly obscured their surroundings in a sickly ochre haze. Shouts of surprise and warning gave way to screams of agony as the lasers did their terrible work, and then the effects of the gas began to be heard.

Those who were not immediately slain by the lasers or flashing knives of the Confederation Marines began to retch uncontrollably after breathing in clouds of vomit gas spewing from the grenades. Ky engaged his suit's ultrasonic sensor, and its high pitched chirps were joined by chirps from the rest of his men in a mad chorus.

Using the ultrasonics, he could see filmy images through the gas of his surroundings projected onto his helmet visor. He shot at anything that moved in front of him, his blazer's over-under twin beams crackling through the fouled air and scattering shards of intense light as they struck random molecules of gas. He ordered his three companions to take up defensive positions and hold back the Combine forces as the rest of the squad cycled through.

Gunny Ky knew that those troops on the other end of the cavern were just now getting the alarm, and would be grabbing weapons to counterattack them. He needed more gas to flood the cavern before that happened, and he needed to destroy a few of the air scrubbers before they cleaned the air of what little gas he had.

He and Pennington took cover behind a crate whose contents were hopefully not explosive. From there he began sniping at anyone foolish enough to present themselves, while the corporal threw the last of his gas grenades as far as he could down the cavern. The sizzle of laser fire sounded around them as more and more troops shrugged off the surprise of the attack and began to fight back. The sound of Combine soldiers puking miserably around them seemed absurd under the dire circumstances of the battle, and the veteran gunnery sergeant tried to keep a straight face as he fired.

Kasumi noted the positions of her troops on her tactical display as she advanced her Atlas across the airless plateau. The commando units were encountering heavy resistance at the three Combine bases, and it looked like the 'mech forces might have more than just a few patrols to engage. Her LAM units, formed up into two cavalry troops, had not been able to effect a link up with the Marines, as they were currently entangled with the Combine Combat Air Patrol that her regular fighter assets had somehow missed.

It was the fatigue, she knew, that was responsible for this debacle. They had been fighting for ten days now with little respite, and the exhaustion and having to cope with heavy casualties was putting a strain on everyone. She wanted to turn back, but knew that there could be no easy retreat from this battle. They had to press on.

"Enemy battlemechs in lance strength approaching from the southeast at ten kilometers," one of her Recon Lance commanders reported over the command channel.

"Three-Bravo Company moving to engage," one of her brevet-captains in the Third Battalion responded. He had been at mechwarrior rank before this campaign, but the loss of every officer in the company had sped up his advancement considerably.

"Don't let them draw you in, Three-Bravo," the major commanding Third Battalion advised his inexperienced company commander. "You don't know what's out there, so engage at no closer than medium range."

"Copy that, Big Three."

Kasumi let the exchange go at that. She had an intense desire to mother her troops sometimes, and she knew that she could not watch over every single one of them and still fight a regimental-level battle.

Her priority command channel came to life as she decided against adding to the major's warning. It was Colonel Mukaida. She could tell by his taciturn expression that he didn't have good news.

"Mother, this is Rockstar with FLASH priority traffic," he addressed her.

Kasumi nodded to herself. FLASH was the highest message priority.

"Go ahead, Rockstar."

"I'm getting reports from our 2nd Attack Squadron of enemy GunShips approaching your positions from high orbit," he said to her. "They are escorted by fighters."

It was definitely not good news. The Furinkan Combine was throwing in their GunShip assets to guarantee victory against her forces. A squadron of converted Leopards could do serious damage to her regiment while they were scattered out in the open.

"Can you do anything about it?" she asked him.

"I'm doing my best, but we only have so many fighters to send against them," he returned.

"I understand, Colonel."

She continued her forward march as the word was passed on the tac-net to watch for the GunShips. Her troops, all bloodied veterans by now, began to space themselves at the proper anti-aircraft defense intervals without needing any prompts from their officers. It was a risky to keep your radar on all the time in battle, but Kasumi did so, knowing that the sensors on her Atlas were second only to the Garret D2j units found on dedicated air defense 'mechs like the Rifleman and the Jagermech. She wanted to have plenty of warning when the Combine GunShips arrived.

She was occupied with the data from her radar when an autocannon shell slammed dead-center into her Atlas' torso. The 210mm depleted-uranium armor-piercer disintegrated against the thick slabs of Durallex Special Heavy armor, gouging a meter wide crater in the battlemech's chest plate. The blow rocked Kasumi in her ejector seat, her head almost pitching against the cockpit console.

As she fought for control of her battlemech, she could hear the hissing noise of slowly escaping atmosphere from her cockpit windows. The shock of the impact had wrenched them nearly from their seals, and now she was depressurizing. Another good hit could pop them out completely.

Warning shouts over the tac-net provided her with an idea of the location of her foe. A Furinkan Combine Cyclops had somehow avoided her advanced units and had lain low among the scattered rock formations on the plateau until it was well within the main body of her regiment. The 90-ton 'mech had apparently spotted the Ducal pennant flying from her Atlas and chosen her to be his suicide target.

It was suicide for the Combine mechwarrior because he was completely surrounded. Once he had broken concealment, he had sealed his own fate. But if he could slay the commander of the Confederation's forces before he himself fell, he would be a hero to his country.

The words of General George S. Patton came to Kasumi as she charged at the hideously ugly Combine battlemech. It was Patton who said that wars were not won by dying for your country, but by making the other poor dumb so-and-so (not Patton's words, of course) die for his country. Kasumi thought Patton was a rude, crude, and otherwise socially irredeemable man, but he knew what he was talking about when it came to warfighting.

She returned fire with her main gun, giving the Combine Cyclops a taste of its own medicine. The shell careened off a shard of volcanic glass in front of the Cyclops before slamming into the 'mech's left arm. Kasumi watched as the arm's protective sheath of armor and hull shattered from the wrist to above the elbow, obliterating the left arm laser and exposing the bright pink myomer bundles of the actuators.

The Cyclops was obscured for a moment both from radar and visual identification as bits of machinery and armor plate scattered from the impact point, and gouts of liberated coolant gas fountained from the circulating system before automated shut-off valves isolated the damaged sections of limb. Kasumi watched as four Short Range Missiles volleyed crazily into the air in a wild return shot from the Cyclops.

She thundered on, ever mindful of the leaks in her viewport, yet wanting to keep the Cyclops occupied with her rather than with a 'mech in her regiment that could not weather a hit from the enemy's autocannon as well as her own. The Atlas was lumbering at a full tilt now, not very swift by battlemech standards, but with a hundred tons of mass behind her she could ram with devastating effect.

Lasers from her Support Lance lit up the rock around the Cyclops' position, giving her something to steer by as she closed the range. The ninety ton Combine 'mech appeared from the clouds of gas and debris even as her HUD weapon status turned green for her autocannon.

Both 'mechs fired at once, their armor-piercing shells leaping across the furious battlefield in airless silence. Hers scored on the left torso, slamming the Cyclops's mangled arm and shoulder back with sledgehammer force. His struck low, crashing through the armored knee guard of her right leg and striking the upper portion of the limb in a shower of molten uranium sparks. The armor held, though another couple of hits from the autocannon would likely tear the leg off.

Both battlemechs fought to remain upright from the tremendous impacts. Kasumi could see that the Cyclops' left torso was laid wide open, the launch tubes of the 10-rack LRM practically begging for her to put a shot into them. He was in medium laser range, and her slender fingers tensed on the triggers. The beams sprayed wide of the mark, cutting into the already damaged left arm actuators and grazing the retrofitted 'helmet' on the 'mech's head.

They were within a hundred meters now, the Cyclops running towards her to meet her charge head on. Both huge and ponderous war machines, each scarred with the weapon hits they had visited upon each other, resembled angry metalshod gladiators closing for a lethal pass of swords. Kasumi noted the streams of inert long range missiles being dumped from the back of the enemy 'mech as it closed the gap between them, and knew that she wouldn't get a lucky ammunition hit before they met.

They traded yet another autocannon salvo, his shell slamming into her right torso with tooth-jarring force and hers blasting apart most of the center torso armor above the SRM launcher. Each battlemech stumbled in its run across the uneven lava plain as bits of shattered aligned-crystal steel showered behind them. Kasumi felt her ears pop as the seals on her viewports flexed open for a moment, and the vacuum of space sucked at her precious cockpit atmosphere. The hissing was stronger now, almost beyond the capacity of the life-support system to make up.

The two were now less than forty meters apart, and she could make out the green and brown pineapple of the Furinkan Combine against the Cyclops' blackened torso. Kasumi gripped her controls tightly, praying for her feed system to load the main gun before her enemy could fire another round. The straining actuators of her Atlas as it stomped across the plateau screeched like distant banshees in the pit of her stomach. They were playing a game of chicken with nearly two hundred thousand kilograms of heavy metal between them.

Out of instinct, she squeezed the trigger on her main gun before the HUD indicated that it was ready. As the signal to fire the 210mm autocannon left the fire control computer and reached the electronic ignitor in the breech, the weapon finished its return to battery, and cleared its firing interlocks.

The distant slamming sound of the feed mechanism went unnoticed by her as the Cyclops took a second shell into the center torso. The left torso flew apart from exploding shrapnel bursting deep within the battlemech, and severed the mauled limb attached to it. Flames leaped from the SRM launcher below the double impact craters.

Still, the Cyclops staggered on at her.

"Long live General Prince Kuno and the Furinkan Combine!" she heard the fanatical mechwarrior shout over the Confederation tac-net.

The two battlemechs crashed headlong into each other, with Kasumi throwing her Atlas' arms out in a double palm-strike that flung the shattered Cyclops backwards and away. It exploded at a safe distance from her with a fatal reactor crash-out, washing the lava plain in waves of star-hot plasma. The Combine 'mech rained down in millions of glowing embers, each no larger than a fifty yen coin.

Their duel was ended.

It was only then that she turned to deal with her remaining problem. Taking a pressurized can of spray foam sealant, she liberally applied it to the joints around her viewports. The hissing stopped as she used up the last of the can, and she knew that at least for the moment, her troubles were over.

Her relief was very short-lived.

"Combine GunShip at five o'clock low!" someone cried over the tac-net. She turned her battlemech's head to see a Leopard Class GunShip race across the lava plain, its weapons blazing strafing fire at her lines. Two Confederation fighters nipped at its sides before being driven off by the Leopard's point defense guns.

They were in serious trouble without GunShip support of their own. Short of ramming one, her fighters would be hard pressed to shoot a GunShip down.

"Rockstar, this is Mother," she called over the command channel. As she opened the channel she was assaulted by the loud warbling of radio jamming. She wondered if they would receive her transmission. "An enemy GunShip is engaging our forces with heavy effect. I need Close Air, everything you have, including the LAMs."

Colonel Mukaida was barely audible over a blast of radio jamming from the Combine GunShip.

"We can't reach them over this jamming," he replied. At least that was what it sounded like he had said. "I'm afraid you're on your own."

"Keep trying, Colonel," she advised. There wasn't much hope for the attack now.

I'm sorry, Father...

Kasumi trained her weapons at the GunShip as it made a wide circle over the battlefield for another murderous strafing run. Only her LRM launcher and her arm-mounted lasers could hope to reach the Combine GunShip; her hip-mounted main gun could not elevate sufficiently to engage close aerial targets.

The Combine GunShip came back at her lines, its nose-mounted lasers and autocannon blazing away at the 1st Nerima Guards. Shards of glassy lava were blown into the starry black sky as shells exploded in her midst, and a haze of dust and rock splinters obscured her vision for a moment. The sound of her targeting system registering a weapon lock hummed in her ears as she squeezed the trigger on her LRM launcher.

The first five missiles had hardly cleared the tubes before the Gunship suddenly trembled with a massive impact and began to break apart. She watched in astonishment as the Furinkan Combine GunShip was ripped into tiny glowing shreds by a massive and utterly miraculous explosion. The brilliant plasma fireball of the converted Leopard Class GunShip cast an electric silver glow upon the rocky battlefield of the Kyushu Plateau before fading away to darkness. Whoops of triumph sounded over the Confederation commo channels as the fearsome Gunship disintegrated above them.

She looked elsewhere in the sky for Confederation fighters, but there were none close enough to have done such a thing.

"Did anybody see what just happened?" she asked over the tac-net.

"Torpedo impact!" Fire Control announced. "Echo Four-Eight destroyed!"

Captain Hauptmann confirmed the data on his repeater display. The Combine GunShip was a rain of metal splinters falling towards the surface of Oni.

"Conn, Sensory; new contact Echo Four-Nine bearing one-eight-three, plus seven-five! Echo Four-Nine is painting us with gun directing radar. Range to Echo Four-Nine: three-five thousand kilometers!"

"Bring us hard about," Hauptmann ordered the Officer of the Deck. It was time to destroy another Furinkan Combine GunShip. "Fire Control -"

The Sensory Supervisor interrupted him over the 27MC intercomm - fear was strident in his voice.

"Conn, Sensory; incoming torpedo bearing one-eight-three, plus seven-five! Echo Four-Nine classified as Dunkerque Class Torpedo Escort!"

Hauptmann's reaction was borne of long years of training.

"Fire a Snapshot from tube three at Echo Four-Nine!" he ordered Fire Control. "Helm; All-Ahead Flank, fifty degrees negative pitch! Chief of the Watch; sound Torpedo Evasion!"

"Fire Control, aye!"

"Helm, aye! Maneuvering answers All-Ahead Flank!"

Tang's plasma drives came to immediate life, propelling the Balao Class corvette towards the surface of Oni. Hauptmann held tight against the sudden thrust, knowing that others throughout the ship were probably taken by surprise. The crash of dishes from the Galley below confirmed this as Sensory called out data on the incoming Barracuda.

The 1MC sounded over his head as he pored over the Sensory and Astrogation plots for a way out of their predicament. If the jamming and the countermeasures didn't work, their chances were grim.

"TORPEDO EVASION! SNAPSHOT: TUBE THREE!"

"Prepare to launch countermeasures!" he ordered. "Energize radar and laser jamming systems!" Tang still had working models of these vital lostech devices, for which Hauptmann was grateful.

It had just been a matter of time, he knew, before the Furinkan Combine called in assets capable of countering the threat posed by the Terrible T's. The Nerima Confederation was by no means the only Successor State with Barracudas and the ships to launch them. The Combine Torpedo Escort must have been lying in ambush well above the battlefield, waiting for one of the 777th to pop a GunShip so that it could fire one of its own torpedoes at them in return.

"Bring us as close as you can to the surface," he ordered the Helm. "Within one thousand meters if possible." They were fighting the effects of a steady three-gee burn, and it was showing in the strained faces of his crew. They needed to approach the moon at as steep an angle as they could, and get as close as possible for the radar return of the moon's rocky surface to add to the confusion of their jamming, and, at the last moment, the confusion added by the volley of countermeasures he was about to order released.

"Yessir," the Helmsman replied tautly. She did not look back to the conn to address Captain Hauptmann. Even if she hadn't been under three gees of acceleration at the time, which made turning one's head a difficult proposition, her attention was fixed upon her instruments.

"Remember how you once told me you could outfly a Sparrowhawk with the Tang?" Hauptmann asked her. He had to shout to make his voice heard.

"Yessir."

"Outfly this torp, and you'll never have to prove another thing to me ever again."

"I'll hold you to that sir. Oni Closest Point of Approach is eight hundred meters, in three-zero seconds, mark."

The sound of the Barracuda in tube three being ejected from the ship was lost within the controlled cacophony of voices and instrumentality on the Bridge, as the Tang strove to evade the incoming torpedo. Hauptmann noted the data from his outgoing torpedo streaming down his Fire Control repeater, and knew at that even if they lost this struggle with survival, they were going to take one more Combine ship with them.

Kasumi observed a sudden flare of light in the darkness, growing brighter and closer with each moment, and watched with fascination as the light resolved itself into a massive black shape that soared soundlessly overhead at low altitude. It was the sharklike form of a Balao Class corvette, and she could make out the subdued dark grey fishcake of the Nerima Confederation and three 7's crossed against a giant capital 'T' upon the patchwork black of its armored hull. This had been what her father had meant by sending her assistance, and she was grateful for the daring crew above.

There was something bearing down on the corvette from above, a hellish flare of brilliant blue-white light that could only have been a torpedo. A torpedo which was heading straight for them.

"Oh my, no..."

"Torpedo impact in ten seconds," Sensory called out.

"Launch countermeasures fore and aft! ...Helm, fifty degrees starboard yaw!" Hauptmann ordered.

Brilliant fingers of red light lanced out of Tang's upper hull from the bow and stern in a spread that arced across the Oni sky to the left and to the right. Each was an anti-missile countermeasure.

The dozen devices seeded thumbnail sized prizms in their wake as beams of laser light crazed the void around Tang to spoof the Barracuda's active laser guidance system. The buzzsaw roar of the radar jammers across the microwave bands canceled even the battlemech radars on the surface of the moon. Plasma blooms from the corvette's ventral reaction control thrusters suffused the warship and the surrounding void in a soft thermal glow. With the main engines shut down and the ship hurtling into a massively elliptical orbit around the airless moon, the torpedo could not rely on its sensors to home. It had only its tremendous speed and a logic system that could make an educated guess on where its path would intersect with the Tang.

It did remarkably well in spite of these handicaps.

The Barracuda exploded into the Tang at a void space between the dorsal superstructure and the pressure hull forward of the drive section. The thousand-kilo high explosive warhead blew out most of the panels of stealthed superstructure on both sides of the void space before ripping apart the aft dorsal Naval Laser turret, and forcing a jet of superheated gases into the centerline compartment where the Jump Core had once been housed. The pressurized tanks of reserve reaction mass now housed there ruptured almost immediately, though their exceptionally cautious design and construction meant that most of the energy of the explosion vented itself through blow-away ducts amidships.

The Tang was engulfed in flames along the entire aft third of the ship as it lost altitude and began a shallow dive for the moon. Kasumi watched in horror as it hurtled nearly out of control towards the Furinkan Combine bases.

Captain Hauptmann could do nothing but watch helplessly as his ship dove for the surface of Oni. Power was interrupted following the hit, knocking out the Main Computer, and there was no word from his Helmsman that she had any control over the thirty thousand ton warship's fall.

"Sound Collision!" he ordered. It was just about the only useful thing he could do.

The Chief of the Watch swiped at the Collision Alarm before returning to his white knuckled grip on his acceleration couch. The strident whoop of the alarm howled in the dim red emergency lighting of the Bridge.

"Port Centerline and Starboard Outboard Main Engines indicate All Back Emergency!" the Helmsman yelped over the wail of the alarms. Hauptmann could feel the rumble of the plasma drives as they fired full reverse thrust to slow their forward velocity. Would it be enough?

"Fires spreading to frame two-four-zero," the Assistant Engineer updated from aft of the conn. Hauptman paid the report no mind. If they were going to die by crashing into the moon, the fires hardly mattered.

"Reaction Control System marginal," Helm updated. Hauptmann could see over her shoulder the artificial horizon begin a slow advance towards level flight. She was flying on electro-hydraulic manual override: the photonic control system had crashed with the Main Computer. One motor-generator set and an intact run of pressurized hydraulic piping was all that was keeping them from cartwheeling into flaming wreckage across the surface of the moon.

"Can you pull us out?" he shouted at her.

"No, goddammit!" she replied angrily, as if his question was somehow an insult to her skill. "But maybe we won't hit as hard!"

"Get your asses back!" Gunny Ky called to Pennington and his surviving handful of commandos as they fought for the airlock. The Furinkan Combine base they had hit was supposed to have been the mechwarrior base. Instead, they had walked straight into a Combine Marine battalion. He was surprised to have lasted as long as he had.

They jammed into the airlock, six in a space that should have only fit four, but it couldn't be helped. Leaving two behind to cover the lock was asking those two to die. The airlock simply couldn't cycle through for them in time.

He only hoped that the hundred Combine Marines wearing Battle Dress inside the base would remember their less fortunate comrades, and not blow the airlock with their enemy still inside. Sure a bunch of his enemies would die as well when the cavern depressurized, but then he wouldn't be making his retirement, either.

They didn't blow the airlock. Ky decided to return the favor and leave it intact. He did, however, jam the outer door open to keep the Combine troops within the base from entering the airlock to give pursuit.

"Move it, you sorry apes!" he called to his men. They had to get the hell out of there and back to their own lines.

He looked out across the lava plain, and saw the flaming black mass of the Balao Class corvette Tang hurtling straight towards them on a crash course with disaster. It was going to land right on the base, with them standing next to it.

"...Fuck me..." Ky moaned. Then, turning to his men, he thumped his corporal, Pennington, on the helmet. "What are you apes waiting for? MOVE IT, MARINES!"

They commenced to hauling ass.

"Three hundred meters," the Helmsman called out. The Tang's bow was edging slightly above level flight, but with only two of the ship's four Main Engines answering the Helm, they didn't have enough maneuvering thrust available to check their steep rate of descent.

"Two-five-zero meters."

Captain Hauptmann lay in his acceleration couch, waiting for an impact that would probably kill them. This wasn't the end he had expected, to crash into a moon when space was so vast and empty.

"Two hundred meters."

He wondered how the rest of the squadron was doing. Tautog would be the next senior ship, then the Tarpin. Hopefully they were having an easier time of things than he was.

"One-five-zero meters."

The ship trembled as another explosion aft was vented through the hull. The tech at Astrogation shrieked briefly, thinking it was their impact with the moon coming sooner than expected. A harsh look from the Chief of the Watch cowed him instantly, and shut him up.

"One hundred meters."

Hauptmann spared a few thoughts for his wife. Had she taken his advice and moved down to the planet from their quarters on the orbital fortress? How long would she have to wait to learn that her husband wasn't coming home?

He closed his eyes, finding a sudden peace in the realization that none of this would matter in a few more seconds.

"Five-zero meters... Reaction Control System in Normal! Helm in Normal!" the Helmsman cried out in surprise. "All Main Engines indicate All-Back Emergency!"

"Belay that!" Hauptmann shouted, wriggling out of his seat straps in his rush to countermand the ordered bell. "All-Ahead Flank!"

"Aye sir," she responded, understanding what he wanted her to try for. "Maneuvering answers All-Ahead Flank!"

Hauptmann buckled up once more, knowing that this was going to be too close to call.

Tang crashed into the mound of lava and dirt that was the Furinkan Combine Marine base, armored belly first, as its main engines blowtorched a niagara of high-energy plasma. The ventral superstructure was ripped open to reveal the pressure hull, and long gouges ran through the lower compartments as sheets of sparks and flame from the burning interior storage sections rained down upon the makeshift installation. The battered corvette skipped across the hard and glassy lava rock, its engines roaring defiantly, as it clawed its way spaceborne once more.

Gunnery Sergeant Tran Minh Ky pulled his short bruised body out of a gully and brushed at his Battle Dress. With thirty thousand tons of flaming metal mere seconds from crushing him like a bug, his time for the fifty meter dash was the lowest it had been since the end of Boot Camp. The rest of his surviving squad mates popped up like prairie dogs around him, their eyes blinking in shock from their narrow escape.

In the distance he could see that the base was completely caved-in from the impact. If there were any survivors, they wouldn't last long. The rest of the compound was scorched from the Corvette's drives, rendering much of the enemy's support gear and supplies useless. It looked like the Furinkan Combine was going to have to withdraw from Oni for awhile.

"So much for prisoners," he grunted. "Everything here is blown up, burned down, or broken: our work is done... Now let's get the hell out of here before an officer shows up and starts pitching a bitch about the mess. You know how I hate watching you guys while you work."

Firebase LIBERTY

16 April 3025

"Captain Hauptmann, you and your crew have my deepest gratitude," Acting General Kasumi Tendo said to the weary corvette commander. "Between your direct efforts, and the actions of your squadron, we have secured this moon for continuing operations against the Furinkan Combine."

Hauptmann bowed graciously.

"Just doing what they pay me for, ma'am," he replied.

Kasumi could see how tired he was, and was prepared to let him return to his ship, but she had to ask him one more question.

"Is there anything I or my staff can do for you, Captain?"

Hauptmann ran his fingers through thinning hair.

"I don't think so, ma'am," he replied. "About all I can do is limp what's left of the Tang back to Nerima for repairs, but I'm afraid her days of sneaking and peeking are over. All that superstructure damage we took makes us light up like a neon sign on radar sets now. Without the right manufacturing knowledge and capability, we can't replace the hull stealthing that we lost."

That worried Kasumi. They were taking a great risk returning to Nerima in their near-crippled condition, and to lose such heroes on the way home was unthinkable.

"Perhaps I can detach a GunShip to you for an escort," she offered.

"No need, ma'am, but thanks," Hauptmann returned. "The Trepang is going to babysit us on the way home. Most of her torps are malfunctioning, and as soon as we make it back to the Mare Island for repairs, they're going to relieve us of the weapons we have left, and then go back out."

Kasumi nodded. "Well then, Captain. Thank you for sparing a moment of your time to come down here to speak with me. I wish you the best of luck."

She offered her hand. He shook it warmly, then saluted her.

"I request to return to my vessel, General."

"Granted, Captain," she said with a weary but heartfelt smile.

When Hauptmann had left, she returned to her desk to work on the latest action report. They had driven the Furinkan Combine from Oni, though they had only taken a handful of prisoners in the process. The rest were either buried in the rock and sand or else had escaped into space on the 11th Sword of Thunder's DropShip fleet. The 777th Squadron, save the crippled Tang and her escort Trepang, would be hunting them down all the way to the Jump Point.

Their victory could not have come at a better time. Her entire force was below minimum combat effectiveness. Most of the fighters and the battlemechs were in need of heavy repair, work that couldn't be done here, even if they had the parts and the expertise. Her troops were also absolutely exhausted.

She looked over the conclusion to her report. In it she requested her father to grant permission for the immediate relief of her forces at LIBERTY, with replacements from the Nerima garrison to take custody of the base until such time as the 1st Nerima Guards and the 3rd Tomobiki Hussars - plus regimental assets - could rest, repair, and reorganize. If permission to withdraw was not given, she concluded, she did not feel that her forces could repel a second invasion of Oni.

She added that as long as the main Furinkan Combine army was occupied elsewhere, her forces' chances of safely evacuating and quickly regaining their strength were as good as they were ever going to get.

Colonel Mukaida entered as she was putting the finishing touches on her report.

"Here we go," Kasumi said to him by way of greeting. "If my Father doesn't grant permission for us to withdraw, I don't know what we're going to do."

Mukaida nodded with a grunt of understanding.

"Stay here until we rot or get driven out," he concluded.

"He has to understand our position," Kasumi added. "I can't see how he wouldn't."

"We don't know what else is going on in the Inner Sphere," Mukaida pointed out.

Kasumi closed her eyes and sank into her chair. Her eyes and ears still ached from the pressure transients she had suffered in her leaky Atlas cockpit. Her body was weary beyond measure, and her spirit drained of nearly all her vitality. She simply didn't know how much else she could possibly give of herself to this war.

Brigade Headquarters

Planet Tiber, Palatine System

The Federated Shiratori

15 April 3025

"What exactly did you think you were doing, Brigadier Kuonji?"

Ukyou faced off against General Mikado Sanzenin in the confrontation she had known would take place from the time she had left the exercise field. She wasn't going to give up any ground to him.

"Sir?" she asked him in a mock-innocent tone.

Mikado narrowed his gorgeous eyes at her with the practiced ease of a man who spent a lot of time rehearsing his expressions in front of a mirror.

"Don't play dumb with me," he replied. "I want to know what made you think you could simply leave your post at the exercise field and take liberty."

Ukyou remained firm in the face of his accusation. Her green eyes flashed with challenge. "The exercises were complete. My brigade was one of the units granted liberty. Sir."

Mikado stiffened. He expected a little surliness from his subordinate, but Ukyou's seething hostility towards him was unexpected. "You call that an excuse?" he asked her, self-doubt creeping into his voice.

Ukyou continued to glare. In the silence that followed the general's question, the sound of dust motes settling against the window sills seemed deafening to her. She could feel the tension within her body as she replied. "It's no excuse, sir. It happens to be the truth."

Mikado, hoping that she would submit as she usually did, was now at a loss, and settled on what he hoped was an authoritative frown to regain his momentum.

"But what about the reports?" he demanded finally.

She could tell that he was astonished by the particularly virulent tone she had adopted with him, and that he wasn't quite sure how to proceed. "I have a staff to take care of them," she returned. "They're working on them now."

Top that one, asshole...

"I don't care about your staff," Mikado replied gruffly. He had either found his spine or else he was bluffing, she decided. Probably bluffing. Mikado continued. "From now on, all reports come directly from you, not your precious staff. Now get back out to the Mobile Headquarters and finish your job, Kuonji, or I'll have you busted down to platoon leader in the brigade infantry so fast you won't have time to blink."

Damn... Ukyou cursed to herself. Maybe he isn't bluffing...

Still, just to show him up, she blinked at him as deliberately as possible.

He let it pass, content with his victory over her.

"Move, it, Brigadier. Your time is MY time."

She couldn't take his smarmy attitude another moment, and sensed the uncomfortable shifting of Konatsu, who was probably preparing to stop her from killing the general.

"You're really starting to piss me off, Mikado," she told him sharply. The general's expression became one of amazement and just a little fear. She liked seeing genuine fear in him, having never witnessed it before, and pressed on. "Ever since I said that I wasn't interested in a cheap and tawdry affair with you, you've been going out of your way to make my life miserable."

She looked him over as if sizing him up for a body bag. The healthy golden tone of Mikado's skin began to pale, and tiny beads of perspiration congregated at his temples.

"I've put up with it so far," she continued. "But so help me, you slimy sack of shit, if you push me one step farther, I'm going to tear your goddamn head off." She took a menacing step towards him and brandished a fist. "Comprendez vous, bucko!?"

Mikado opened his mouth to speak. Ukyou didn't let him.

"Now I'm going back out to the exercise fields to do your busy work. THIS time," she said to him. "Consider yourself lucky that I'm in a good mood."

Mikado blinked at her a few times.

"B-Brigadier," he said, trying to sound tough and failing.

"Yes, sir?" she asked him with a mocking grin, her voice all sweetness and light.

He looked at her, then to Konatsu.

"It can wait," he said, then took his leave of them, utterly cowed.

When he was gone, Ukyou turned to her adjutant.

"Wow..." she gushed. "If I had known that he would crumble like that, I would have gotten tough with him a long time ago."

Konatsu wasn't as amused.

"Sir, I really think that was a bad idea."

"I don't know about that," she returned. "I really castrated him."

"No sir, I don't think you understand," the former kunoichi pleaded, wringing his immaculate white-gloved hands. "The General has the biggest ego in the entire universe. You just wounded that ego, and badly. As soon as he gets hold of himself, he is going to have his revenge on you."

Ukyou thought about this. Perhaps she had laid it on a bit thick...

"I'm serious, sir," Konatsu continued. "You've threatened a superior officer. That's a grave offense."

"It's his word against yours and mine," Ukyou countered. Her eyes burned into Konatsu. "RIGHT, Konatsu, honey?"

"Of course, dearest Ukyou, sir," he demurred. "But that does not change the fact that he can do plenty of things to make your life even worse than it already is under him."

She had to agree with him there. Why had she told him off like that? There was no reason to pour gasoline on her already adversarial relationship with Mikado. Was it because of her wonderful night with Ranma that she didn't care about minding her P's and Q's around her despised superior?

"Well," she said softly. "I guess that makes up my mind about resigning. It seems I just burned my last bridge."

Konatsu nodded ruefully. His was the truly uncertain future, no matter what assurances she had given him that he would remain in her life.

"Pack my things, sugar," she told him at length. "We're leaving."

"Everything, sir?" Konatsu asked her hesitantly. "It's only going to be a few more days out at the exercise field."

She raised an eyebrow at him.

"We aren't going to the exercise field, honey."

The former kunoichi didn't like where this was going.

"We aren't?"

"Nope. We're going to Genevieve. As soon as we're both packed, notify my personal DropShip of our imminent departure. Meanwhile, I'll get busy drafting some bogus travel orders. For once, the fact that I do all of Mikado's paperwork is finally paying off. I can sign his name to orders better than he can."

Konatsu nodded nervously.

"Are you sure we can leave the system before he finds out?"

"Trust me, sugar. There's a JumpShip scheduled to depart for the capitol in four days, which will give us just enough time to transit out to the Jump Point. Now that the exercises are over, that playboy will want to spend the next few days with his latest piece of ass." She shook her head at how quickly Mikado's previous flame had been quenched and the new one kindled, and was glad that she had never accepted his advances. "By the time he figures out that we aren't where we're supposed to be, it will be too late to stop us."

"Yes, sir," Konatsu replied, accepting his fate with grim stoicism.He left the room to begin packing.

Ukyou sighed wearily. She had not expected matters to come to a head so soon with Mikado, but looking back on that moment, she had no regrets. There could be no happiness or satisfaction serving in an army with a sleazeball like him in command.

Her only regret, in fact, was that she was going to have to leave Ranma for the moment. It was only temporary, she knew, for he had told her of their need to travel to Genevieve to get a decryption key from the Empress. She had offered to help him, after all, and so while she was there trying to get an audience with Azusa before Mikado could catch up with her, she would also lay the groundwork for their arrival.

She wanted to go see him one more time before she left, but realized that she might have too much to do in too little time, and so she might have to settle for a phone call or a note before she lifted off.

The DropShip Palomino

"How do you feel this morning?"

Akane looked up from her cup of herbal tea and gave Yuka a wan smile. Yuka and Sayuri had joined her in the Crew's Mess. Breakfast was over, and the only other people present were a few techs avoiding work by lingering near the bug juice dispenser. Petty Officer Howard - Tad - was busy washing dishes in the scullery as part of the disciplinary action against him for losing track of her in town.

"Terrible," she replied, thinking of how poor sweet Tad was getting the shaft for something that wasn't his fault. At least he wasn't going to lose a stripe over it. "My head is killing me."

"That's what happens when a man makes you drink too much," Sayuri scolded.

"No one made me drink too much," Akane returned softly, and wondered why Sayuri had come across so outright hostile over her relationship with Ranma. "I was the one who should have known better."

"Who can blame you after the crap Saotome pulled?" Yuka returned.

Akane sighed. She did not need any reminders about last night. All things considered, she would be very happy if the subject never came up again.

"Let's not talk about it, okay?" she asked them both.

"Akane, we've known each other since we were kids," Yuka said to her. "If our skills hadn't lent us towards flying fighters over battlemech piloting, we'd probably have been lancemates, too. We want to help you get through this."

"More like get over him," Sayuri broke in.

"I don't want to talk about Ranma," Akane replied, her voice full of anger and hurt. "I don't even want his name mentioned."

"Does that mean the engagement is off?" Yuka asked hopefully.

Akane looked away for a moment before answering.

"As far as I'm concerned, it was never on."

"What about this expedition?" Sayuri pressed. "Are you going to take over command from Saotome?"

Akane hadn't thought that far ahead. It showed in her troubled expression. "I don't know. I want to talk to Captain Ninomiya first, and see what she thinks about going home."

"You can order her to do it, you know," Sayuri said.

She gave her friend a troubled look. What was she getting at?

"I know that," she replied. "But it would be wrong for me to do something so presumptuous."

"Wrong?" Sayuri protested. "Presumptuous? You're the Grand Duke's Heir! Captain Ninomiya takes orders from the Tendo family. If you ordered her to set a course for Capella, she'd do it."

"I know that!" Akane shouted, and instantly regretting it as her temples throbbed. "What is it with you two?" she demanded. "I know things are bad at home, and that they could use our help, but this is turning into some kind of crusade with you."

Yuka and Sayuri looked sheepishly at each other for a moment.

"Akane, you're being used," Yuka said softly. "I hate to say this, but your father is too. The faster you get away from the Saotomes, the better. This crazy hunt for Ryuugenzawa is just a hoax. We're your friends, Akane, and we're tired of seeing you get hurt."

Akane closed her eyes.

"I know that," she said. "I know what they're doing to us."

Do I? she asked herself bitterly. Genma, certainly, was using us, but what about Ranma?

Forget him, another part of her snarled. Even if he wasn't consciously using us, he does whatever his father tells him to do.

"Then why don't you stand up to them?" Yuka asked her.

Akane clenched her fists tightly. The pressure in her head rose to the point where she could feel her pulse throbbing through her ears.

"Why does it have to be me!?" she cried.

The two pilots were taken aback.

"Well," Sayuri said softly. "Who else can it be?"

Akane gulped down the rest of her tea. "We only need one more crypto key," she said, her voice barely audible. "We are so close."

"That's only if Commander Saotome was telling us the truth about Ryuugenzawa," Yuka pointed out. "After all this, do you really believe him?"

She didn't know. The fifth key had been where Genma Saotome had claimed it was. Why shouldn't the sixth? Why shouldn't Ryuugenzawa exist?

The terrible truth, she knew, was that Genma Saotome was a liar, a cheat, and a thief. He had raised his son to be a liar, a cheat, and a thief. How could she trust either of them?

The Confederation's odds of surviving the year were grim. She knew that. In spite of this, she was wanted to go back and die if necessary to protect it from Prince Kuno. Even if Ryuugenzawa existed, could it really offer up anything to them which could prevent that?

She remembered the day before yesterday, and the afternoon she had spent with Ranma at the park. She had made a stupid confession that she needed him - to help her find Ryuugenzawa, of course - so that even if the Confederation fell, she could raise an army strong enough to get it back.

Ranma... Hadn't said anything to that. Not yes. Not no. Did he know something about the expedition? Is that why he wouldn't answer her? Did he know that this whole mess was just some kind of cruel scam concocted by his father to gain access to Confederation assets before the end? Is that why he kept protesting his disbelief in Ryuugenzawa, as a kind of warning to her not to believe in them? If so, why hadn't he just come out and said it!?

She could feel her throat starting to sting. She wasn't going to cry. Not in front of her friends. They had seen her in enough pain already.

Could Ranma betray her like this? she asked herself. If the answer was yes, then why? After all that he had done for her, after every sacrifice for her sake, why would he do something so terrible to her?

More importantly, why did she let all of this hurt her so badly?

Deep within her heart and soul, she knew the answer, and knowing only made it worse for her.

She was in love with Ranma.

It was the only explanation, and even then it defied belief. How could she love a thoughtless jerk like him? The universe was a cruel, cruel, place when sick jokes like that were played on women.

The object of her affection and the cause of her heartache appeared on the Crew's Mess even as she questioned her feelings for him. He moved stiffly, confirming the rumors she had heard concerning his brawl with Ryouga after she was put to bed. His skittish eyes fell upon her for just a moment before noting that Yuka and Sayuri were with her, and flicked away in discomfort.

She expected him to make a hasty exit from the room, but he surprised her. Trying to look cool and failing, he approached her table. She didn't want to deal with him, and decided to lay into him and see how he reacted to it. He would probably leave, knowing him for the spineless emotional cripple that he was.

"What do you want, Ranma?"

Ranma cringed at her icy tone of voice. It pleased her to think she could make him so uncomfortable. It was payback for last night.

"I just wanted to see if you were feeling better," he muttered, his eyes darting to and fro as if searching for an easy escape route. The hateful looks he was getting from Yuka and Sayuri were probably not making him feel any more at ease.

She had to stifle a bitter laugh. Feeling better? She was miserable. Absolutely miserable. This idiot, whom against all good judgement she had somehow fallen in love with, was asking her if she was feeling better after having discovered that he was two-timing her!

"What does it look like?" she asked him sharply.

"It looks like 'no,'" he replied.

"Way to go, Saotome," Yuka added in an acid tone. "He can be taught."

Ranma favored her with an acid look in return. "Butt out," he barked at her.

Yuka shot back a look that shouted 'drop dead!', but was cut off from a verbal rebuke by Akane.

"You don't tell my friends to 'butt out!'" she snarled.

Ranma rolled his eyes at them. "Some friends," he grunted. "I came here to apologize and to explain what happened last night, but I guess as long as they're here to poison anything I say, there ain't no point."

"Spare us the theatrics, Saotome," Sayuri said to him. "She's not going to listen to your crap anymore."

Ranma looked to Akane to say something. She was troubled by Sayuri putting words into her mouth, but remained silent.

"I guess not," he replied at length.

"There's nothing to explain, Ranma," she said bitterly. She did not want to hear an apology from him. He wasn't getting off the hook with a simple 'I'm sorry.' "As far as I'm concerned, the engagement is off."

The shocked and even hurt look in his eyes stabbed at her resolve, and she called up every reserve of anger with him to keep from breaking down.

Damn you, Ranma! That was only supposed to hurt you, not me as well!

"But, Akane...?" his mouth seemed to hang open.

She continued her fusilade with the ammunition at hand. There was no way he was going to walk away from this intact!

"Since you love Ukyou so much, Ranma, maybe you should marry HER!"

Ranma was flabbergasted by her declaration.

"Love Ukyou?!" he cried, coming back to his senses. "Akane, you got it all wrong. How many times do I gotta say this? Ucchan is my friend, okay? Nothing more."

Akane's lower lip began to tremble. She bit down on it, and fought back the stinging in her throat. How could this lying, cheating... fraud say something like that to her face?

"I didn't know friends kissed each other like you and Ukyou did last night," she said, her voice dripping with accusation. She picked up Yuka's glass of ice water and threw it in Ranma's face. "You call yourself a man?!I hate you, and I want you out of my life!"

Ranma flinched at her words more than she did at the icy water that dripped down her face. She blinked away the discomfort as if shaking off a jab to the nose, and fired back with her own barb.

"I thought you and I were friends once," she replied, thinking back to the minutes before Dragonfly Jumped to this damned star system. "And it didn't stop you from kissing me."

The thought of it wounded her even as she said it, and she fled the Mess Decks before Akane could try to hit her back.

"Stupid macho chick," she growled while grabbing a pot of hot water from the top of the coffee mess on her way out. "I shoulda known better than to apologize. To hell with her!"

Akane watched Ranma go. She could sense the relief in her friends upon his departure, and wondered what might have happened if he hadn't run away as usual. Most of all she wondered if the things he had said about Ukyou were true. Had she been overreacting this whole time because of her feelings for him?

She felt more hurt and confused than ever, and longed to be back in a 'mech cockpit, directing the 1st Nerima Guards once again. This fool's errand, even if Ryuugenzawa were real, was no place for her. It was time to call Captain Ninomiya up in orbit and talk to her about going home.

Ranma, still female, stepped through the airtight door and into the 'Mech Bay, still growling curses under her breath when she ran into her father - almost literally. Some of the hot water from the pot sloshed onto the deck at their feet.

"Watch it, Pop!" she barked at her father.

"Look here, boy," Genma returned, checking Ranma's advance with a firm hand on his son's arm. "I'm in no mood for your lip."

Ranma looked her father up and down.

"Ask me why I should care?" she said with a sneer.

Genma's eyes narrowed for a moment, as if contemplating the idea of giving Ranma a knuckle sandwich for his surliness. He decided against it. There were times when even a sound thrashing wouldn't get through to his son, and this looked like one of those times.

"I'm going to let that go, boy," he said to Ranma. "Now did you apologize to Akane yet?"

Ranma looked away silently.

"Based on the fact that you're currently a girl: apparently not," Genma observed.

Ranma looked back at her father. "It ain't like I didn't try!" she snapped. She folded her arms across her buxom chest, a gesture she knew her father despised, because it called attention to her cursed female body. "It don't matter anyhow," she continued. "'Cause she broke off our lame-o engagement."

Genma's eyes bulged out of their sockets.

"SHE DID WHAT!?"

Ranma remained aloof. "You heard me, Pop. Akane broke off the engagement." She looked away once more. "Hell, I'm glad she did. Who could possibly marry a chick as crazy and violent as her?"

"You, that's who," Genma countered. "This isn't entirely unexpected after your foolish fling with that Ukyou girl, but that's not important right now. What's important is continuing the expedition."

"You gotta be kidding me!" Ranma said angrily. "Who gives a rat's ass about that goddamn myth!? And besides that, I didn't have a fling with Ukyou!" She threw up her hands in disgust. "Don't try to put the blame on me, Pop! In case you hadn't figured it out by now, this whole mess would never have happened if you hadn't made that phony engagement promise to Ucchan's folks!"

Genma gave his son a dark look, choosing to ignore any mention of a girl he had thought long forgotten. "I never joke about Ryuugenzawa, boy. You know that."

Ranma remained standing still, though her hands flexed into and out of fists as her father looked at her in silent contemplation.

"Perhaps you had best lay low around Akane for awhile," he said at length to his son. "She's a spirited girl, and she needs a little breathing room to calm down and come to her senses."

"You think so, Pop?" Ranma responded in spite of herself. She didn't think Akane had much sense to begin with, but then again, her Old Man was the more experienced one when it came to dealing with women. After all, he had somehow managed to marry Mom and have a son, right?

Genma was looking at her as if she had grown another head. "I know so, boy! Now get a hotel room in town - away from the one we're already using for the crew - and stay there until I call you. If I'm right, and I'm always right, she'll be begging to reconcile with you inside of a week."

"Maybe I don't wanna be reconciled with her," Ranma retorted. "It sounds too much like being engaged again."

"You're still engaged, boy," Genma countered. "Akane has no more choice in this than you do."

Ranma dumped the pot of hot water on her head and raised an eyebrow at him. "We'll see about that, Old Man."

Pansuto Tarou opened his yellow eyes to face his guard, and weighed once again his chances of escaping. Doctor Ono had misjudged the dosage of sedatives used to keep him under control in his monstrous Jusenkyo body, leaving him sluggish, but not incapacitated. Tofu had erred on the side of caution, not wanting to kill him with an overdose, and consequently he had been underdosing him for over two weeks.

For the moment he had been playing a waiting game, carefully adjusting to the effects of the sedatives so that he could act without hindrance when the time came to make his break. In that time he had been a fly on the wall for numerous conversations in the 'Mech Bay, and weighed the implications of each according to its merits. They were talking about selling his battlemech for one thing, though with the Consulate refusing to take custody of him, that was not an immediate concern.

Ryouga had certainly turned on him quickly enough. Now that he had that sweet little dish of a technician to follow around like a lovesick puppy, to hell with Tarou, right?! He had watched as his one-time comrade assisted Akari Unryuu in the preparation of his battlemech for the auction block. Some friend!

He had learned of Happousai's survival as well. That alone was nearly enough to send him on a murderous rampage, but his will and the soporific effect of the drugs had stilled that urge in time. As his ill-fated attempt to kill him had proved, he would have to be both careful and ruthless around Happousai if he was to have his revenge.

On a less important note to him was the blowout he had witnessed between the younger Saotome and his fiancee. Tarou had little regard for the girl named Akane, and even less for the pig-tailed mechwarrior, but found it amusing to watch them tear each other apart over some bimbo named Ucchan. It had been even more fun to watch Ryouga pummel Saotome over it shortly after the blowup.

During that confrontation, however, he had heard something which he now wished he had not, something which dredged up memories he had tried for far too long to bury. The very idea of facing HER again was enough to drive him into the narcotic stupor Doctor Ono's drugs had failed to achieve.

Ranma Saotome passed by him on his way off the ship. He watched the pig-tailed mechwarrior walk down the ramp and grunted his disdain for him. Ranma didn't seem to notice him.

As Ranma left the ship, and idea came to Tarou. Perhaps there was a way to get himself out of this predicament with a little less risk. It would mean going with them to Genevieve, and maybe even... facing HER... But if he could learn the location of Ryuugenzawa, he would have one hell of a bargaining chip with the Furinkan Combine when he went to join them.

The only question remaining was whether or not the damn fool Saotomes were going to be able to continue with the expedition.

"Hiya, Ranchan!"