Moon Cats: Walkabout

Chapter Six

Luna sighed as she leaned back, the printer behind her coming to life and spitting out her report. In spite of her demands otherwise, Hibuki had insisted on going into the palace and find out exactly what had happened. By the next morning the chuckling captain had let it slip, and she was getting called "Princess" by half the CAPPA staff.

Including Usagi.

He'd apologized, and Kasumi's baked goods delivered by the girl herself had gone a long way towards getting the group to focus on the "Swan" instead of the "Princess" in the story… especially since half the younger officers fell in love with the girl on sight… but it was still something to consider revenge over.

A knock on the door pulled her out of her plotting. "Come in!" She called. Unlike the other Lieutenants she didn't have a secretary, by choice. Hotaru slipped into the door, smiling shyly.

"Hello Hotaru-chan. I didn't know you were here today." Luna greeted, considering the girl.

The Senshi of Saturn had grown in the last few months. Taller, and more filled out than she'd been allowed to become in either of her previous incarnations, she was also healthier. Partially, that was just due to not having her life force drained by an evil entity from another dimension. Partially it was because Seargent Maya Shin had taken it upon herself to help the girl 'toughen up', the tiny commander of CAPPA's uniformed officers, and SWAT team seeing a bit of herself in the quiet Senshi.

"I come in on more than just my schedualed days. I have somewhat less to do in the afternoons than the other girls."

"I'm sure they wouldn't mind you hanging out at the shrine. They mostly just eat and talk, anyhow." Luna said with a smile, gesturing for the girl to sit.

"I know… but they're so much older than me, and Chibi-Usa is not around anymore so…" She shrugged.

Luna nodded. Hotaru, because of her gifts, had few friends her own age, and the closest of them wouldn't be born for years to come. "So what can I do for you? Are you just trying to avoid filing things for Shimaka? I swear that man needs to just get up the gumption to learn the filing system."

"No… I wanted to talk to you about some dreams I've been having." She admitted. "They… Well they are a little odd."

"Oh? Nothing bad, I hope."

"I can't claim they are pleasant but…" The small girl thought for a moment. "Why was Artemis called the "Exile" and why do I keep dreaming that he was my Advisor during the Silver Millinium instead of Minako's?"

Luna froze. "I didn't know any of you girls even knew that… title… for Artemis." She admitted. "He was… had… Oh how do I say this."

"Was Artemis in trouble?"

"At one point in his life, yes." Luna admitted. "He was the youngest son of his family… Mau only produce single children unlike terrestrial cats, but you likely had figured that out with Diana being around. His mother was… important and demanded quite a bit of her children. He rebelled… rather spectacularly."

"I remember he was accused of stealing something."

"A shuttlecraft, from a Mau settlement on the moon for a joy ride." Luna nodded. "He crashed it, though not to badly. Mostly he just fouled the landing gear, if my questionable memory serves. But Mau… we weren't forgiving of malcontents and he was exiled from his community… the Largest such in the solar system other than… " She paused, hesitant.

"Other than the Heart Star. I remember it, Luna." Hotaru said softly.

Luna winced. "You remember all of that?"

"The training, the anger… yes." She admitted. "I know why everyone was so afraid of me now."

Luna rose, and walked around the desk, putting her arms around Hotaru as she sat next to her. "You can't blame yourself for what a Saturn before you did."

"She destroyed your home world. And everyone back then thought we were just one soul, doing it all over again…"

"But you aren't… if nothing else, I know a hell of a lot more about reincarnation now than anyone did back then. You're not the Saturn that destroyed the Mau home world, and I don't blame you." Luna said. "Hell, most of the Mau couldn't legitimately blame her. It was easy to ignore the fact that we were declaring war on the Earth without the Thrones approval, or that our Queen at the time had fallen to a Metallia influenced advisor. When Saturn came, in peace, they tried to kill her and she had no idea how wide spread the corruption had spread."

"But she destroyed your planet. Most of you weren't evil! I know that, from both the Cats and from Millinial lessons! Artemis made sure I knew!"

"She made a mistake. She'd only been Saturn for a few years, and the catastrophe she was to destroy hadn't come yet. She didn't even try to survive when it came time to destroy the World Devastator a year later… The Pluto of that time confirmed her death was a suicide strike."

"But what if I made a mistake like that."

"You won't." Luna assured her.

"How do you know?"

"Because Artemis was your teacher. I remember it now. He wasn't ever really Venus's advisor. He was her partner, you see. But you, you were very much his student."

"But he didn't get much time to train me, did he."

"No… he didn't."

(Curious for details, please see Moon Cats: Silver Millennium. End of plug)

The desert was a cruel sea of sand. Or it was, if you didn't own a Range Rover, a cooler, and the good sense to pack proper supplies.

"I've never been on such a well provisioned expedition." Seta laughed as he helped pull the large, air conditioner equipped tents out of the back of said Range Rover. "Are you sure I can't tempt you into becoming a more full time donor?"

Artemis laughed. "Maybe, but I'm normally just a cop. One inheritance doesn't make me Mr. Moneybags, after all." Said Inheritance, in the form of Nephrites 'operating budget' gathered through who knows what means and 'liberated' by Artemis shortly after he'd discovered the hacking algorithms stored in the "Artemis Computer", his less functional but still super powerful mercurian pocket computer, came close though.

"Well darn." The professor laughed, good naturedly. "I still say I could have driven for part of the stretch."

Keitaro shivered, in spite of the heat. He did that every time Seto suggested that. "No, it's cool. I was feeling amped up anyhow." Artemis assured him.

"Well, we'll let the diggers finish setting everything up, then we'll do a bit of a walk around. From the information we gathered from the tablet, the shrine of Bast should be in this general vicinity."

Artemis nodded. Ever since Pluto's visit the night before, he'd felt even more driven to find out what was going on, and how Mau language had ended up on an Ancient Egyptian tablet. That was why, when he'd seen the primitive equipment and rusted out junk heap of a jeep the university had paid for, he'd dropped the cash for way better kit.

Seto had fought against it at first, not thinking it was fair to him, but he'd not fought hard. Now they had more equipment, better gear, and military surplus tents with portible AC's, mostly to support the computer equipment they couldn't, originally, afford.

Absently, Artemis wondered what Nephrite would have said to dumping half his 'fortune' in such a lump. Most likely nothing nice.

"You just want to break out the ground penetrating RADAR." Artemis teased.

It was dumb luck that he'd stumbled across a Oil Company start up which had gone bust, mostly due to buying to many expensive toys. He'd not even bought a fraction of their gear but Seto estimated they'd cut their hunt time in half.

"I'm going to get a jump on that walking around, thing." Artemis said. "I need to stretch my legs."

Both dark haired men nodded, and Artemis, in muscle T, far to long for his build, and shorts started towards the maze of cracked sandstone they had built camp just outside of. It was strange, almost magical looking from higher on the dunes, and was most likely where the 'temple of bast' was located. Artemis tried not to get his hopes up…

Even though it looked like New Mau did, back on the moon. Just the sort of place his people would settle in, if they had reached Earth. He walked to the very base of the strange rock formation, called 'The Stones of Madness' by some goat herders he suspected was looking to scare off diggers… to take their jobs up for themselves.

He gazed at the stones, then turned to walk back, when he heard… something.

"Hello?"

It was there again, like a voice he could almost hear. He took a step forward, towards the crack in the stone. "Hello?"

He didn't realize he stepped across the threshold to the 'maze' until he heard the voice, female say "Come closer" in Lunarian… a language no one could speak!

"I'm here. Hello!" He called… but the voice stopped. With a sigh, and the assumption he was hearing things, Artemis turned to return to the camp.

All around him were sand stone walls, and cracks… and no sign of the camp or dune.

"Oh… well… great."

AN: Not my best chapter, but I needed to get things rolling again.