Errata:  Part I, Chapter 8's date header was incorrect.  It should
have read "May 12th," not "April 12th."

     This fic contains adult themes and strong language.  If it were
a movie, I'd rate this section a PG-13. So please, let's keep the  
children out of the theatre...

Now... let the fic begin!  
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Publisher's note:
     The following dramatized history has been printed with the express
consent of both the Juraian Ministry of State Security and the Juraian
Fleet Intelligence Directorate.  All documents relevant to the events
herein described have been recently declassified based on article
46-5.3 of the Juraian Freedom of Information Act.  No classified
material or matters pertinent to Juraian State or Operational
Security are contained in this document.
          -Uesugi Tomoda, Chief of Hardcopy Publishing, JURAI  
MONITOR/PRESS.

Chapter 9
 The Inland Forests of Oceana's Main Continent, May 12th of R.Y. 732  
0400 Oceana Time

     Oceana nights, like Oceana days, are engineered to be spectacular.
This night was no exception to that rule.  Stars beyond counting
shone in the heavens like a multitude of diamonds scattered by a god,
and the sky that was their stage was a pure and uniform midnight
blue.  Each point of light seemed to glimmer with an excited expectancy
that somehow demanded individual attention, so that one could lose  
oneself for hours in the tranquil contemplation of the firmament.
     Against this backdrop, a lone shadow coursed through the winds
like a shadow on the wing.  It moved swiftly southwards, its passage
marked by the transitory obscurations of the stars that shone above
it.  After a time, the shadow began to slow, and then stopped entirely.
Motionless, it hung suspended a few thousand meters above the ground,
a seeming hole in the fabric of the night's tapestry.
     On the surface below, two men winked into existence beneath the  
canopy of the trees.  As one, each brought up their right wrist to  
their face and seemed to study something.  Then they both looked  
skyward and found the shadow.   One turned to the other and made a  
series of hand motions.  The other nodded and brought out what appeared
to be a pair of binoculars.
     Unaware of the strange activity below, the hovering shadow gazed
heavenward.
     *The stars are so beautiful here, away from the city-glow,*
thought Minagi.  *You can see almost as many as you can from space.*
Minagi eased her body into the plane of the horizontal and did a slow
roll.  She halted her rotation with her back to the ground and her eyes
to the heavens.  Drifting, she appeared as though she were floating
in some invisible stream in the night sky, letting the current take her
where it would.  The serenity of her pose and the setting were a stark
contrast to the state of her troubled mind.
     It had been a few hours since she and Kaje had completed their
drinking binge, and after a temporary hiatus her body's detox defenses
had made quick work of the remaining alcohol in her bloodstream.
The upshot was that she could remember every moment of the evening's
festivities in perfect clarity.
     The problem, she was finding, was that she couldn't EXPLAIN every
moment of the evening's festivities.  After she'd pried herself off the
suite's floor and stumbled into her bedroom to recover, her mind had  
started asking questions that she hadn't had any answers for.  As  
sobriety had returned she'd found herself unable to sleep in the face
of her internal interrogation, and finally her bewilderment had driven
her to break Kaje's proscription against flight and seek the solitude
of the night skies.  Now, at rest in the quiet darkness, her mind  
resumed the grim business of self-inflicted cross-examination.
     *What in the hell,* she asked herself, *just happened?*
     *Well that's easy.  I just got drunk and made a pass at a man I  
barely know.*  She paused.  That didn't seem so bad, now did it?   
Certainly, it happened all the time, or so she believed based on how  
often it seemed to happen in the movies.  So there was no real harm in
it, was there?
     *Well, other than the fact that I made a total fool out of myself,
no, it's not that bad at all!*  She clenched her fists in frustration.
*It's bad enough that I let myself get in that state to begin with,
then I have to come across as a bad cross between a shameless flirt
and a lovesick little girl!  Goddesses of Jurai, what was I THINKING?*
     *Well, you were thinking that he's kinda cute, he's a nice guy,
and that it's really pretty damn sexy the way it makes your toes curl
when he looks at you like he does...*
     Minagi suddenly found herself losing altitude in a rather  
precipitous fashion.  She quickly corrected and climbed back to her  
original altitude, her mind reeling as she climbed.  It's a little
known fact that when one asks oneself questions, one occasionally
gets answers.  As a general rule, people are totally unprepared
for this phenomenon, and Minagi had just found that she was in no way
immune to this fact...
     *WHAT?!??!?*
    Minagi's head spun.  Where had THAT come from?  She carefully
reviewed her answer-thought.  Was it true?  And perhaps more  
importantly... if it was, what was she going to do about it?
     Kaje, to her thinking, WAS in fact "kinda cute."  He was a  
generally nondescript character, but he had a wry smile and a bemused
demeanor that placed him quite firmly in the "inadvertently
huggable" category.  The fact that such a description would have  
totally nonplussed him only made it all the more true.  So that much,
at least, was dead on.
     *Okay, so he's kinda cute.  But a nice guy?  Come on, he's a SPY.
He's my damn babysitter.  He's ASSIGNED to me, for goodness sake...*
     Minagi cut that thought off and mentally stomped on it.  So what
if he was on orders?  He had a job to do, and he was doing it;  she  
considered it a testament to his good nature that so far he seemed
to be doing his level best to make the situation more palatable
for her.  Moreover, he displayed none of the angst that the average
Juraian seemed to bear her, nor did he simply stare at her like a piece
of meat as did the average male denizen of Oceana.  He listened when
she spoke, and answered when she questioned.
     *And there's a lot to be said for just that,* she thought.  *In a  
lot of ways, that's as much as you can ask of ANYONE...*
     Minagi decided that to this point, at least, Kaje fit the bill for
"nice."  She was relatively sure that there was a far better word she
could have used, but for the moment she was sticking with the simple.
     *So... cute... check.  Nice... check.  Which leaves that last  
part... which is a damn doozey.*
     Minagi thought back to when she'd looked over from her position
on the floor of the suite to find Kaje's eyes burning into hers.  Her
heart rate nearly doubled, and she soon found herself re- establishing
her altitude once more...
     *Damn.  Yeah, THAT look.*
     Minagi had no illusions about the extent of her knowledge  
concerning matters carnal.  She'd read a few things, and seen a few  
things, and once she and Sasami had been quite scandalized by a trip
through the more lurid section of Noboyuki's library, but that was  
about it.  But something about that look Kaje had given her had made
her want to do... THINGS... that she'd never even known were  
possibilities.
     And do them repeatedly and often, for that matter.
     Minagi sighed and closed her eyes. The intensity of her reaction
was such that it was a little frightening to her.  She'd spent years
mastering her self control, to the point where she could micromanage
nearly every function of her body during even the most heated combat.
Now she found that a Juraian spy looked at her a certain way, and her
knees turned to butter.
     She wasn't entirely certain she was happy with it.  On the one  
hand, the thrill it sent through her body was exhilarating in ways she
couldn't quite describe, but on the other hand, it also seemed to  
create a hungry, tight feeling in her belly that felt startlingly
like fear.  Worse yet, something about her reaction seemed  
overwhelmingly WRONG.
     Minagi's eyes snapped wide.  THAT was what was bothering her.  It
wasn't so much what she'd DONE tonight, as what she'd FELT.  It was as
if though she'd committed a mortal sin.
     And she didn't know why.
     She could explain being mortified by her behavior, but that wasn't
it.  What she was feeling went beyond simple embarrassment.
It wasn't her apprehension at the new experiences and stimuli she was
encountering, either.
     It wasn't even that somehow, she was disappointed that Kaje hadn't
taken her up on her offer... even at the same time she was relieved
by his restraint.    It was none of those things.
     *I've done something wrong,* she thought.  *I can feel it.   
Something about the way he makes me feel isn't right.  The whole  
universe seems out of joint, and it's all because the way I felt when
he looked at me was NOT supposed to happen...*
     Minagi felt her pulse quicken again at the memory of his eyes...
and felt her sense of "the universe just shouldn't be this way"  
heighten.
     *I can't have it both ways.  I can't be excited by it and feel  
so... so... DISPLACED by it at the same time...*
     *Can I???????*  
     Minagi felt a scream beginning to form deep in her throat.  She  
clenched her teeth and fought it down, reducing it to a low, feral,
frustrated growl that would have riven the soul from a lion.
     Far below, a shadowed form noted a readout on his wrist 'puter
spike dangerously.  He raised a weapon, only to be frantically
waved off by his partner.  Now was not yet the time.
     Far above, Minagi was unclenching her jaw.  *I don't know what's
going on, or why... but somehow, I have to stop wanting what I see in  
Kaje's eyes.*
     *I have to.*
     *I have to.*
     *This,* she thought resignedly, *isn't anything like the movies.*
With that, she accelerated skyward and headed back toward the hotel.
She'd discovered what was bothering her, or so she thought.  While she
had an answer, she didn't have a solution.
     *Maybe now at least I can get some sleep.  Maybe I can figure
things out in the morning,* she hoped.
     She hoped it, but she figured the odds as being low.  She didn't
see how sleep would help her understand something she had no  
explanation for.  Minagi raced northward, moving too fast for the eye
to follow.
     She hoped that nightmares didn't follow in her wake.
     Below, the two men watched her flight, or at least their sensor
systems did.  As she passed their detection range, one spoke to the  
other in an urgent whisper.
     "Why didn't we take her here?  She was alone, I had a shot!"
     "And if you'd missed, we'd both be dead," the other replied.
"We don't take risks like that.  We do it as a team, in accordance
with the plan.  Period, end of story."  The man paused.  "Did you get
the data?"
     His companion checked his wrist 'puter.  "Yep.  All we need, looks
like."
     "Good.  Let's get back."  Both men reached to their throats and  
manipulated their boom-mikes.  Then the air shimmered, and they both
vanished as if they had never been.

Chapter 10 The Masaki Residence, Tenchi's Bedroom May 12th of R.Y. 732
0945 Tokyo Time

     Tenchi Masaki, the  
sometimes-depending-upon-which-session-of-the-Juraian-Royal-Council-
had-just-met Crown Prince of Jurai sat at his desk, wishing he were  
somewhere else.
     It's not that the room itself was so bad.  It was neat, orderly,
well lit, and perfectly normal.  The bed was made, the trashcan was  
emptied, and the shelves and windowsills even looked to have been  
recently dusted.
     Nor was the activity Tenchi was engaged in particularly
egregious.  Surely, studying on a weekend morning wasn't his FAVORITE
activity, but the subject matter was moderately interesting and not too
mentally taxing.  The exam next week was in history, and Tenchi was  
confident that he'd do well.
     The immediate physical environment and the current activity
were not the problems.  Either, while somewhat boring, was acceptable.
Tenchi's difficulties, and thus his wish to be elsewhere, stemmed
from stimuli of an aural nature.  He could hear two sounds, quite  
different, but equally maddening.  They were slowly but surely driving
him to distraction.
     The first sound drifted in through an open window.  It was faint;
the slightest breeze or background noise tended to mask it.  The human
ear, however, strains all the harder to catch sounds that are not  
easily heard, and so Tenchi was acutely aware of it despite its  
intermittent nature.
     The sound was Aeka humming while she hung the laundry on the line
in the front yard.
     Normally, Tenchi would have found the sound pleasant, even  
comforting.  Right now, however, it was yanking his attention away from
his studies and beating into a state of submissive slavery.  Or at  
least it was when the OTHER sound wasn't doing the same...  that other
sound being Ryouko's laughter.
     Ryouko was asleep on the roof, which wasn't unusual.  She was also
talking in her sleep, which wasn't unusual either.  The problem was  
that she appeared to be dreaming about something either extremely
funny or extremely... stimulating... and was giggling in her sleep two
or three times a minute.  Tenchi's bedroom was on the second story,
and Ryouko was napping on the roof directly above.  The result was that
Tenchi could hear each murmur of laughter quite distinctly through
the open roundel-shaped window across from his desk.
     He could have closed either the roundel or the large square window
cattycorner to it and eliminated one noise source or the other.  He  
could have closed both and been rid of the problem entirely.  Had  
either sound been solely an annoyance, he certainly would have done so.
     His difficulty was that as much as each sound was jarring him, he
was also taking a rather perverse pleasure from them.  For Tenchi was
trying to get as much of the girls as he could these days.  No matter
how small or trivial the contact, he'd take it.  It seemed the only way
he could counteract the astonishing truth of his situation.
     The truth that for the past two weeks or so, he'd come to feel  
starved for affection.
     It had all started when he'd gotten home from school one night
to find Sasami, Aeka, and Ryouko sitting in the living room having
a rather animated conversation.  Tenchi had entered the room warily;
an "animated conversation" involving Ryouko and Aeka was often a  
prelude to violence.  What he'd found had been far more disturbing
than a fight would have been.
     First, the TV was off.
     Second, Aeka and Ryouko weren't even glaring at each other.  In  
fact, they were LAUGHING.  About what sounded to be a rather large fish
that had gotten away, for that matter.
     Third, when he'd come into the room, they'd both turned, hesitated
for a moment, then given him a perfectly sociable "Hello, Tenchi!"
and resumed their conversation.  Tenchi had nearly face faulted.
     What SHOULD have happened was that Ryouko should have let out an  
excited squeal and come flying over the couch to deliver a crushing
bear hug.  Aeka should have then pried Ryouko off of him, and finally
the two girls should have proceeded to make the living room look like
a hockey rink when both teams had their goon lines on the ice.  Or at  
least that was the worst-case scenario.  At the very slightest,
Tenchi felt that he should have gotten groped or somesuch.
     The incident had marked the start of a trend.  Ryouko's behavior
had been markedly different from that day onward.  Aeka had also  
changed, though in a subtler and somehow more devastating manner.
     Ryouko's changes were overt and easy to quantify.  For starters,
she'd begun to keep to herself far more than had been the case.  It had
been a solid two weeks since Tenchi had been ambushed, tied up, woken
up, flying-tackled, or otherwise had his personal space violently
invaded.  All in all, Ryouko had been quite tame- physically speaking.
     Unfortunately, now that Tenchi wasn't dodging flying tackles,
he was noticing other attacks of a far more insidious nature.  He  
wasn't even sure if they were intentional, but intentional or not, they
were REALLY screwing with his equilibrium.  There were several examples
he could recount.  Most salient was the instance when he'd come to the
onsen one afternoon, only to find Ryouko in the bath already.  Tenchi
had done what he always did in such instances- closed his eyes tightly
shut and waited for the inevitable come-on.  To his shock, it hadn't
come.  He'd heard the slight splash as Ryouko had climbed out of the  
bath, head the rustle of her towel as she'd approached...
     Then he'd heard her footsteps as she'd walked PAST him, toward
the onsen door.
     "It's all yours, Tenchi," she'd said as she went by.  "Sorry I was
in so long.  Gotta warn you, Washuu's going to be here in about an  
hour, so don't take too long."
     His eyes had shot open in surprise, and his head had whipped
around toward where he had last heard her voice...
     And he'd been treated to the sight of Ryouko's completely
naked body, rear quarter view, as she'd continued walking toward the  
door.
      He remembered how he'd stared.  Slim ankles, strong legs, tight
butt, smooth back, slender arms, sculpted shoulders... the nosebleed
had been almost immediate.  She'd reached the onsen doorway, turned,
and found him staring.  Her eyebrows had gone up, giving her a  
quizzical air.  She'd then pointed at herself, then at him.  The  
message had been clear.
     You like?  You want?
     He'd been frozen in place.  The only action he'd taken was an  
involuntary one: his nosebleed had increased.
     She'd shrugged, re-formed her clothes, and turned to leave the  
onsen.  Then she'd turned back toward him and winked.
     She'd WINKED.
     Then she was gone.  Behind her, Tenchi had dropped to his knees
on the edge of hyperventilation.
     There had been other, less mind-blowing cases, but the theme had
been the same.  Ryouko had shifted tacks completely.  She wasn't  
hunting him down anymore.  She'd gone from "aggressive" to "available."
And she was clearly very much enjoying herself in her new role.
     Tenchi, for his part, wasn't sure how much of this he could take.
Until now, he'd always had a very healthy sense of self-preservation
to insulate him from Ryouko.  Now that she'd stopped tripping his  
survival instincts every time she appeared, his imagination felt free
to dwell upon her in other ways besides "terror-stricken,"
or "safely untrusting."  And he was discovering that his imagination,
so freed, could come up with some very interesting material.  So  
interesting, in fact, that he'd begun to blush every time she was in  
the same room.
     Had that been his only challenge, Tenchi supposed that he would
have had a relatively easy solution at hand.  He could have responded
to the change in Ryouko with a change in himself.  He could have done
any one of a number of things, any of which would have led either  
directly or indirectly to the initiation of courtship proceedings.
>From a simple lunch date to roll in the hay, the possibilities
would have been infinite, except for one little matter that complicated
the situation.
     What made things not-quite-so-straightforward
was that only HALF of him was smitten by the new Ryouko.  The other
half was fully absorbed with a certain Juraian First Princess.  At  
precisely the same time that Ryouko had changed her approach Aeka had
done the same.  To be sure, Aeka's romantic methodology, never overly
aggressive to begin with, was still precisely as it had been.  The  
Princess was still very proper and polite at all times.  What  
flirtatiousness she evinced was always carefully controlled, very  
subtle, and completely plausibly deniable.  What had changed about the
Princess was not so much her methods as her attitude.
     Tenchi, from the first moment he had met Aeka, had been attracted
to her.  He found her to be beautiful, graceful, and caring.  He prized
those qualities in her greatly, and often found himself drawn to her,
especially when she was feeling introspective or calm.
     The problem was that those instances had never seemed to last long
enough.  When Aeka's temper flared, all of the things about her that
Tenchi valued evaporated like sublimating iodine.  Aeka in a full rage
was something that in some ways frightened Tenchi even more so than a  
rampaging Ryouko.  Ryouko, at least, was impetuous and unpredictable
as a matter of course.  Her rages never seemed so shocking as a result.
When Aeka became angry, the transformation was far more severe.  She  
could go from the extremes of serenity to the heights of wrath in an  
instant, and the suddenness and scale of the conversion was almost
as shocking and disorienting as the rage itself.  The consequence
was that Tenchi never quite settled into enjoying Aeka as he should
have.  He was always at least slightly on his guard against the  
possibility of an explosion.
     Now, since the last week of April, Aeka seemed to have radically
altered her means of expressing her anger.  Though sometimes with a  
visible effort, she was now more prone to close her eyes and sigh in  
frustration rather than break out a giant mallet and attack her problem
like a berserker.  The most notable change was in her reaction to  
Ryouko's advances toward Tenchi.  She'd more than once caught Tenchi's
reaction to Ryouko's "here for the taking," tactics of late... and each
time, she'd slumped her shoulders, sighed, and shaken her head.
     The net effect was that Tenchi would immediately feel extremely
guilty... and very proud of Aeka's restraint.
     There were other, intangible changes as well.  Aeka's apparent
renunciation of violent anger seemed to bring an overall improvement
in her mood.  She smiled more often than she used to, and seemed to  
enjoy her surroundings more.  She even seemed more tolerant of Ryouko's
quite unchanged reluctance to engage in household chores.  And though
it was probably totally inadvertent, the overall effect was making
Tenchi nearly dizzy.   
     The "new" Aeka melded perfectly with the image of her that he had
fallen for when she'd first landed.  As he became more familiar and  
more trusting of her gentler approach to life he found that his  
reservations about her were falling away.  He'd catch himself in rapt
contemplation of her smile or her graceful, regal bearing while  
watching her perform mundane tasks around the house.  At times he'd  
even close his eyes and just listen to her speak, losing himself in the
quiet femininity of her voice.
     All in all, Tenchi felt like he was developing a rather painful
case of split personality disorder.
     Each passing day drove the wedge in his feelings wider.  His  
desire for Ryouko was growing, to the point where he could feel a  
quivering knot in the pit of his stomach whenever he saw, heard, or  
even thought of her.  By the same token, the time he spent with Aeka
seemed to be becoming ever more enjoyable and desirable, even to the  
extent that he found himself occasionally wondering if it would really
be so bad if he were to return with her to Jurai...
     He couldn't have it both ways.
     He desperately WANTED it both ways.
     Tenchi's eyes suddenly snapped back into focus.  He stared down
at his history book.  It was still open to the same page as it had been
twenty minutes ago.  He wasn't getting a damned THING done.
     But he had one hell of an erection.  An uncomfortable one, too,
given that he was sitting down.
     Thru the roundel window came the faint sound of a giggle.  A few
seconds later a snippet of Aeka's humming drifted through the other
window.  Tenchi felt himself slipping into what promised to be a rather
erotic daydream...
     He reached down and slammed the book shut, then stood.
     *That's it.  I've got to take a walk*
     Tenchi strode toward the door, walking in a slightly obstructed
manner as he did so.  He still had that erection, after all.  A few  
miles away, a tracking sensor noted that one of the occupants of the  
Masaki household was on the move, and zapped a data packet to a remote
readout close by...

Chapter 11 Sienna Beach Hotel in Oceana, Kaje's Bedroom May 12th of  
R.Y. 732 0515 Oceana Time

     The sky was just beginning to show hints of the coming dawn when
Kaje awoke.   Not that he noticed.  He couldn't have noticed if he'd
wanted to, because his bloodshot, pain-ridden, sleep- encrusted
eyes steadfastly refused to open.  This, needless to say, had a rather
detrimental effect on the gathering of light-based sensory input.  So  
Kaje had no idea that the eastern sky was beginning to lighten.  By  
contrast, he had a quite concrete idea that he was in quite a lot of  
pain.
     *Bloody hell,* he thought unsteadily, *who put these vice grips
on my temples?  Oh wait, never mind, that's just a hangover...
gah.*
     *Ouch... ouch, ouch ouch ouch ouch... itai, even...*
     Kaje gradually began to detect sensations other than raw pain as  
his body came fully awake.  Shortly, he was able to determine that he  
was on his back, in his bed, in his room, in a state of undress,
and, based on the lack of local external heat-based or tactile stimuli,
he was alone.
     Kaje's eyes popped open, sending a few grains of dried  
eye-detritus flying.
     *Damn, that's right... Minagi.*  
     He levered himself upright and swung his feet to the floor.   
*She's probably still passed out on the damn floor,* he mused.  *Better
go check on her.*
     He padded over to the closet and grabbed his Academy Robe.  He  
dressed himself in it while underway, pausing briefly before opening
the bedroom door to ensure that none of the more unmentionable
parts of his anatomy were exposed.  After all, looking hung over is one
thing.  Looking hung over and being indecently exposed at the same time
is quite another matter entirely.
     Having reassured himself that he was within the bounds of proper
personal concealment, he opened the door.
     A rush of chilling wind hit him in the face.
     *Holy SHIT!  That's bloody COLD!*  A shuddering shiver wracked
him.  The remnants of his hangover evaporated immediately, which was  
fine, but Kaje had other concerns.  He looked frantically around the  
apartment; he had to find the source of the chill before his testicles
ascended into his abdomen and refused to ever come back down again...
     He noticed two points of primary importance.
     1), The sliding transparent ceramic door to the balcony was wide
open, letting in the morning's chill in all its frigid fury, and
     2), Minagi was nowhere in sight.
     Kaje froze in place.  The sliding door had been locked from the  
inside last night.  He was sure of it.
     *Oh, SHIT....*
     Slowly, he took three steps directly backward, taking himself
back within the confines of his bedroom.  He then turned and knelt  
before the dresser, doing his utmost to be silent.  He opened the  
bottom dresser drawer, then removed a false back from it.  He reached
into the concealed compartment and brought out a small focused static
discharge weapon.  Finally, he checked the charge and thumbed the  
safety to "arm."
     Kaje rose, still as slow and as silent as he could manage.  He  
adopted a combat stance with his arms extended straight down, the  
pistol in weaver-style grip in both hands just below the level of his
groin.  He then broke into a rapid, semi-crouched cross-side-step
that took him back into the main room.  Breaking the plane of the  
doorway, his arms shot up to a horizontal position, aiming the gun  
straight ahead.  He rapidly swept the room, his weapon following
his line of sight as he surveyed his surroundings.
     Nothing happened.
     Satisfied that there was no immediate danger, Kaje quickly checked
his route to the balcony.    There were two places along the path that
were exposed to fire from points he couldn't see in his present  
position.  He slid two feet to the left, changing his view angle so  
that he could clear the blind spots.
     Still nothing.  *Okay, here goes...*
     Kaje broke into a gliding, fast paced walk toward the open balcony
doorway.  There was no way for him to clear the balcony prior to  
entering it, so he was going in as fast as he could without sacrificing
aim or stealth...
     His gun crossed the line of the doorway.
     He put all his weight against his back foot and lunged low and  
fast onto the balcony.  His eyes caught an unexpected color off to his
left as he did so.  He threw himself horizontal, letting go of the  
electro-shocker with his right hand as he fell so that the impact his
right shoulder was about to take wouldn't spoil his aim.  His left arm
swung out, and his eyes locked into the shooting lane...
     And saw Minagi leaning on the balcony railing, facing away from
him.
     In between shock and relief, Kaje managed to get out a coherent
thought.  *Thank God it's her. I never could have made that shot  
anyway...*
     He hit the ground, right shoulder first.  His robe caught on the
rough concrete surface, causing his torso to slide partially free of  
the garment.  Bare flesh grated across the gritty floor.
     "OW!  God DAMN it!"
     Minagi turned to see Kaje sprawled on the balcony deck.  He was  
half in and half out of his robe, holding a gun, and gritting his teeth
while muttering a string of curses.  There was a bloody streak on the
concrete underneath his right shoulder, and blood oozed from a large,
nasty scrape across the right side of his back and right shoulder.
     "Um, Kaje," she said, with a quizzical look on her face, "What
the HELL are you doing?"

     A few minutes later, Kaje was in a much, much better mood.  He was
still slightly wounded and more than slightly embarrassed, to be sure,
but nothing helps to ease such trivial matters like the attentions
of a beautiful woman.   Kaje was sitting on a high three-legged
stool at the kitchen counter, his robe tied at the waist but with the
sleeves and upper garment hanging loosely behind him.   Minagi stood
at his back, fussing over the concrete burn across his back and right
shoulder.  Presently, she was applying antiseptic from a spray  
applicator.  Kaje's breath hissed violently between his gritted teeth
as the stinging liquid reached a particularly deep part of the wound...
     "Oh!  I'm sorry," exclaimed Minagi.  She immediately stopped
spraying.  "Did that hurt?"
     Kaje chuckled.  "I'm just a big ol' wuss, Minagi.  Spray away."
     She paused, considering whether he was serious or just being  
macho.  Deciding it didn't really matter, she resumed spraying.
"Okay, you're the boss."  She finished applying the antiseptic
and put down the bottle.  She reached for a small skin sealant sprayer
from the med kit on the counter.  "Now explain to me again," she said
as she began applying the sealant, "what in hell you were doing diving
half naked onto concrete floors while holding an electrostunner."
     Kaje sighed.  He felt his cheeks warm slightly as blood rushed
to his face.  "Um... well... when I woke up this morning, the balcony
door was open.  I got a little paranoid and thought that maybe somebody
either had been or still was in the suite..."
     Minagi interrupted him. "So you grabbed a gun and started playing
soldier.  In your ROBE."
     "It's called 'securing the area,' but yeah, that's right," replied
Kaje.
     "Had it ever occurred to you that as the other person living here,
_I_ might have opened the door?"  Minagi finished with the sealant.
She stepped back, eyeing her handiwork.
     "Well, no."  Kaje hung his head. "Actually, I was thinking that
the first thing I was gonna do was make sure no one was lurking about,
and then I was gonna go check to see if you were in your bedroom.
After last night, I still expected you to be out cold on the floor.
So no, I didn't consider that it might have been you opening doors."
     Minagi stood stock still for a moment.  "Um... Kaje?"
     *OH SHIT,* thought Kaje. *That's the "I've got something serious
to discuss" voice.* "Yes?"
     "About last night..." began Minagi.  She hesitated, seeming to  
search for words.
     Kaje's mind went into hyperdrive.  A veteran of more than one  
physical intimate encounter, he was fully familiar with the "About
last night" syndrome.  He called it the "morning after."  At various
times he'd been cried on, yelled at, and even slapped by women who had
decided, come the morning, that what they'd done with him last night
had been a mistake.  He'd learned not to take it personally; the  
reasons almost never had anything to do with him.  The problems were
almost entirely internal to the woman, and were impossible to detect
until after it was too late.  Sex was a powerful act, and could  
liberate all sorts of locked-away ghosts.
     Despite that, the experiences were unpleasant enough that Kaje's
blood still froze every time he heard the words "about last night"
along with that tremulous inflection that implied what was to come.
In fact, that thought had been in his mind last night when he'd somehow
managed to NOT take Minagi up on her offer...
     Kaje's mind screeched to a halt.  *Wait a second,* he thought
frantically, *that's right... I DID turn her down last night.  What the
hell is she giving me the "morning after" voice for????  We didn't
DO anything.*
     *Given the way she sounds right now, I think I'm glad we  
didn't...*
     Kaje suspended that line of thinking as Minagi continued.
"I did a lot of thinking after I... uh, recovered, last night."  She  
put the sealant on the counter and then absently ran her hand through
her hair.  Kaje began the process of shrugging back into the sleeves
of his robe.  "Here," she interjected,  "let me help you with that.
Take it easy on that right shoulder, you move it around too much and  
the sealant will come off."  Kaje obeyed and halted his movement.
Minagi reached down and took hold of the cuff of the right sleeve and
held it out to Kaje's side.  "Here, now try it."
     Kaje obliged, sliding his arm easily into the sleeve.  As he did
so, his head turned so that he caught sight of Minagi's hands as they
held the cuff open and outstretched.  What he saw made him blink in  
surprise.
     Her hands were trembling.
     Kaje was now officially worried.
     The intelligence officer squelched the impulse to turn in his  
chair and search her face.  He desperately wanted to be able to see her
expression, perhaps to better understand what she was about to say, but
decided that whatever it was she'd probably say it more easily if she
didn't have to look him in the eye.  And he wanted to hear all of this,
whatever it was, as she intended it.  Making her more nervous might
distort her language or her tone, and miscommunication was NOT what  
Kaje wanted right now.
     So instead of turning, he simply finished putting his right arm  
into the sleeve and said, "Thanks."  He got his left arm into the robe
without further assistance.  Meanwhile, Minagi resumed her earlier
line of conversation.  "Now... about last night.  I think the first
thing I should do is apologize."
     Kaje nearly choked.
     Minagi, still standing behind him and unable to see the look of  
shock on his face, continued.  "I was totally out of line, and you were
right to tell me 'no.'  In fact, thank you for telling me 'no.'   It  
kept me from doing something I shouldn't have."  She paused, and Kaje
could hear her sigh heavily behind him.  He opened his mouth to speak,
but promptly closed it again when she carried on.  "The second thing
I wanted to say is that I don't want you to... ummm... think  
DIFFERENTLY of me after what happened.  I was drunk.  That wasn't  
really what I'm like."   
     Minagi hung her head momentarily.  She was glad at that moment
that Kaje couldn't see her.  She thought of all the things she'd done
since coming to Oceana that had been "out of character" for her.  She
had to admit to herself that she really had changed, and that something
about her really was different now...
     But she didn't want Kaje to know that.  She remembered with a  
barely suppressed shudder the feeling of fundamental wrong that had  
come over her during her flight the previous night.  The things she was
doing and feeling now were NOT right.  They couldn't be- not if they
made her feel that sense of disharmony and dread.  She needed to return
herself to the way she'd been before.  Then hopefully, her sense of  
universal order would return...
     So she lied, and hoped to all the gods that Kaje wouldn't  
challenge her.  "I was doing things that had nothing to do with who I  
really am.  I don't want you to think I'm a lovesick little girl who'd
jump into bed with the first guy who came through the door.  I'm not."
Minagi hardened her voice.  This next part had to be delivered as if  
though she didn't care, or Kaje would never believe it.  "And no  
offense intended, but I don't know you nearly well enough to be able
to say that you'd be the guy I'd pick if I WERE to do such a thing."
     Involuntarily, her mind responded to her own statement.  *Yeah,*
her consciousness replied, *and if he gave you that same look again,
how long would you last?*  She found herself thinking again of that  
moment on the floor...
     The sense of wrongdoing returned in a wave so intense she nearly
staggered.  She HAD to stay on course here.  She pressed on.  "So don't
get the idea that I'm after you."  Her voice softened somewhat;
she just didn't quite have it in her to leave it sounding so harsh.
"Nothing personal, Kaje.  You're a cool guy, for a brass hat."  *Gods,
I hope that worked...*
     Kaje sat, still facing the kitchen counter, and was aghast.  One
thought was blinking in red neon in his mind:
     *BULLSHIT!!!!*
     Kaje cleared his throat and stretched to buy himself some time to
think before he turned around.  He didn't know why she was trying to  
deceive him, or even what she was trying to deceive him about, but  
something about that little speech just hadn't been true, and Minagi
was a terrible liar.  He'd noted the quaver in her voice, seen the  
trembling in her hands, and heard her quiet sighs during her monologue.
He was willing to bet that if he'd been turned around she wouldn't
have looked him in the eye.
     For all that, he might have been convinced; Kaje didn't consider
himself to be a remarkably perceptive man... but he'd spent several
months on a close-ob assignment on this woman.  He'd written her  
chapter in the assessment.  He knew her far too well to not notice
the signs.
     *I have to figure out what's going on here,* he thought. *It  
doesn't make any sense.  And things that don't make sense can be  
dangerous.*
     Kaje thought for a moment, then self-edited his thought.
     *Okay... that's macho bullcrap.  I have to figure out what's going
on because I like her a damn lot, and it bugs me like hell that she  
feel like she has to lie to me.*
     *And worries me, too.*
     Kaje could think of two ways to play things.  His espionage
background told him to appear to accept her statements, then carefully
observe her to try and determine what was going on.  His gut (and his
glands) demanded that he confront her immediately and try to talk  
things out.
     Kaje decide on the former course.  He guiltily admitted to himself
that it took far less moral courage than the alternative, and he wasn't
feeling very brave.  Kaje turned around on the stool and opened his  
mouth to form a response...
     His eyes met hers, and Kaje's heart almost stopped.  The guilt
and confusion on her face was both totally unexpected and completely
overwhelming.  She looked so vulnerable, and so frightened, that Kaje
had to consciously prevent himself from jumping off of the stool and  
sweeping her into a protective hug.
     Kaje was briefly surprised at himself.  He hadn't known he was the
protective type.  In any event, plan A was definitely out of the  
question.  Minagi was hurting about something, and he'd be damned if he
wasn't going to find out why.  Time for the direct approach.
     "Minagi, what's wrong?"
     The space pirate visibly panicked.  She started and then froze
in place, her widened eyes and unmoving posture making her look for all
the world like a deer caught in the glow of oncoming headlights.
"What do you mean?"
    "Minagi, you- damn!"  Kaje cocked his head to one side, listening
intently.  A high-pitched tone was emanating from his bedroom.  "Hold
that thought."  He jumped off the stool and half-jogged into his  
bedroom.  Of all the damn times...
     He picked up his watch from the dresser top and cycled it through
its display functions.  He finally found the source of the alarm.
     *A sniffer alert??? Huh???*
     Sniffers, or airborne particle sensors, were tiny air samplers
that Kaje had placed in a tight perimeter around the hotel.  The little
devices constantly checked the surrounding airflow, looking for  
particles of even molecular size that might denote something out of the
ordinary.
     *Iridium... Tungsten... Cobalt... Chromium...*
     Kaje's blood ran cold.
     "Oh, SHIT..."

Chapter 12
 Hills Near the Masaki Residence May 12th of R.Y. 732 1030 Tokyo Time

     Tenchi snapped his arm forward, side-armed fashion, and released
the stone.  It splashed out across the water, velocity and attitude
making it bounce across the surface of the water.
     *One, two, three, four, five....*
     The stone dug in with a splash and sank.
     *Damn it.  Didn't even get seven out of that one.*
     Tenchi looked about, searching for another smooth, flat rock to  
skip.  His walk had taken him around the lake to a small, stony beach
where he'd paused to skip some rocks and just generally relax.  It was
a pleasantly mindless activity, and one in which he could become easily
absorbed.
     Of course, even had he not been so occupied, he probably wouldn't
have noticed the laser dot that suddenly appeared on his temple.
     A mile away, a Romulask master sniper allowed himself a very small
sigh.  He snapped the laser off.
     *I could take him,* mused the agent, *and I could probably do it  
without giving away the mission.*
     He took his eye from the scope and visually confirmed his weapon
was on "safe."  His rifle was a 1cm slug-thrower with an outstanding
recoil-damping and silencing mechanism.  He could have put a ten round
burst into Tenchi's head and made no more noise than a very angry wasp.
But those weren't his orders, and he was a professional.  With only the
slightest pang of regret, the man settled back into his treetop perch
and waited.  Any moment now, the team lead should give the go-code...
     As though listening to his thoughts, his radio crackled to life
with a whispered voice.  A single word hissed from his headphones:
"Alpha."
     The snipers smoothly sat up and brought his eye to the scope.
He swiveled the rifle up and to the left, finding his intended target
quickly.  He came off scope and checked his selector switches.   
Everything appeared to be in order.  He brought his eye back to the  
scope.  The target remained in the center of his crosshairs, completely
unaware of the laser dot that sprang to life on the back of its head...
     The sniper whispered into his boom mike.  "Four.  Alpha check."
     A moment later, several other voices murmured in his headphones.
     "One. Alpha Check."
     "Three. Alpha Check."
     "Two.  Alpha Check."
     There was the smallest pause.  The sniper held his breath to still
his body and his weapon.  His finger began to ever so slightly squeeze
back the trigger...
     His headset crackled once more. "Bravo!"
     There was a slight buzzing sound...

Chapter 13 Sienna Beach Hotel in Oceana, Kaje's Bedroom May 12th of  
R.Y. 732 0531 Oceana Time

     "MINAGI!  GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE! NOW!"
     Kaje's near-panicked shout caused Minagi to whip her head around
toward the bedroom.  It probably saved her life.
     A blue-green blur crackled through the balcony door and cut  
cleanly through Minagi's hair, vaporizing several inches of it.  A  
nanosecond later, the energy bolt struck the paneled wall behind her.
The energy transfer instantly flash-boiled the trace amounts of  
moisture in the paneling, causing a hypervelocity gas expansion
that flung splinters outward like shrapnel.
     Minagi fell with a strangled cry, the left side of her body  
perforated by hundreds of razor-sharp slivers of varying sizes.
     In the bedroom, Kaje heard her shriek.  The world seemed to slow
down as adrenaline dumped into his bloodstream in a raging torrent.
     "FUCK!!!!!!!!"
     *Get a hold of yourself.  She must be alive, or she wouldn't
have made any noise.*
     He reached up and affixed his watch to his wrist, then slammed
his fist down on top of its face.  The timepiece's wristband  
hyper-expanded, enveloping his body in a black skeinsuit with a  
shimmery, mother-of-pearl finish.
     He heard the suite's front door being kicked open.  He hunched
into a crouch, opened his mouth, closed his eyes, and covered his ears,
waiting for the shock...
     A blast wave washed over him, tearing the air from his lungs and
knocking him flat.
     *Concussion grenade,* he thought.  He reached into the still-open
bottom dresser drawer and withdrew a slug-thrower.
     From the main room came the sound of booted feet, then voices
speaking in Juraian.
     "CLEAR!"
     "CLEAR!"
     "CLEAR!"
     "CLEAR!"
     "ROOM IS CLEAR!  TARGET IS DOWN BUT ALIVE!  SECURE THE AREA!"
     Kaje sprang to his feet and launched himself toward the bedroom
door.
     He reached the doorway.  There were four black-clad figures in the
main room, each carrying a gun.
     One was looking right at him.
     Kaje and the gunman brought their weapons up.  They each fired
simultaneously.
     The world seemed to stop.  Kaje's heart beat once.
     <<thump-thump>> pounded in his ears as his heart's valves cycled.
     The blue-green bolt from the gunman's weapon struck Kaje squarely
in the chest, but slithered off the rainbowed finish of his suit like
mercury on a smooth floor.  The intelligence officer's own double-tap
struck the man in the forehead.  Kaje's target was wearing a top-of-the
line negative albedo defense shield... which didn't do a damn thing
to stop bullets.   The large caliber rounds exploded his skull in a  
fountain of blood and brains.
     Kaje, had he been rational at the moment, would have been  
astonished that he'd made the shot.
     Kaje's heart beat again.
    <<thump-thump>>
     Kaje re-centered his weapon on another target.  This one was just
turning to face him from his position in the room's far corner.
     <<thump-thump>>
     Kaje fired early, hoping to drop the target before it brought
its weapon to bear.  The double-tap missed wide, burying itself in the
wall a foot from the aimpoint.
     *SHIT!!!!!!*
     <<thump-thump>>
     A black shape suddenly loomed up in front of him.  Kaje had just
enough time to blink before something icy and hard pierced his gut.
     The world resumed normal time flow.
     Pain lanced through him like a lightning strike.  His attacker
quickly yanked the wakazashi out of his gut as he dropped to one knee,
suddenly unable to breathe.
     Blood and bile came surging up his esophagus, burning his mouth
and nose and spewing in a sticky, caustic mass over the carpet.   
Somewhere in his skull, his mind screamed that he had to get up.
      His body responded by curling into a fetal ball of pain on the  
floor.  He wretched again.  He could feel his intestines trying to  
surge out of the small opening the sword had made in his abdominal
wall.  He choked and spluttered, the blood and acid in his mouth too  
thick to scream through.
     There was a click and a hiss from Kaje's watch, and suddenly
there was a cool, tingling feeling in his left wrist.  His mind  
suddenly sharpened.
     *There's the wound-response stimulants.  FUCK.  I'll never get off
the deck in time.*
     *I'm going to die...*
     *Minagi....*
     Kaje closed his eyes as the stimulants rushed through his body,
awakening shock-deadened nerves.  A tear squeezed out of his left eye.
He convulsed and wretched again.  Above him, his assailant raised his
sword and prepared to plunge it into Kaje's skull...  

Chapter 14
 The Masaki Residence May 12th of R.Y. 732 1032 Tokyo Time

     Ten small metal cones raced across the lake in a supersonic
flat arc.  Their flight path had been computed to end their travel
on a small spot currently designated by a bright red laser dot.
     That dot was on the back of Aeka's head.
     She was just finishing hanging the laundry, and was walking back
toward the front porch when she suddenly found herself surrounded
by a circle of small floating logs.
     An instant later, there was a sound like a string of firecrackers
as ten high-explosive rounds detonated against her shield.
     Aeka screamed and threw herself flat.  She had no idea what had  
just happened, other than that her shield had snapped on and there had
been a loud noise.
     On the rooftop, Ryouko popped awake.  She'd heard that noise  
before.
     *That sounded like gunfire?!?*   
     She stood, searching for the source of the noise- then threw  
herself on her back as a flight of shells ripped by her head like a  
swarm of deadly nettles.  She cursed.  "Fuck!!!! What the hell is going
on here?"
     Across the lake, the sniper was swearing profusely.  He'd missed
his primary target, and then when he'd tried to kill Ryouko to clear
the way for the close-quarter team he'd missed her as well.  He reached
down to flip his ammo feed from "H.E." to "E.M."
     A hand grabbed his wrist.  He came off the scope, nearly falling
out of his perch as he shied back and away from the unexpected
contact.  A pair of golden eyes stared into his.
     "Alright, dirtbag, WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA?" thundered Ryouko.  She  
lifted the struggling man by his arm and slammed him back-first
into the tree trunk.  Bark warped and split from the impact.  There
was a loud cracking sound from the sniper's spine, then he twitched
and went limp.
     "Oh, for the love of the GODS," she groaned, "You can't be THAT
fragile!"  Ryouko reached out and checked the now flaccid body's pulse.
     He was dead.
     "DAMNIT!!!!!"  She flung the body away and punched the tree in  
frustration.  Her hand went clean through the trunk and into the  
heartwood.  "Now I'll never know what the hell that was all about!"
     In her frustration, Ryouko failed to notice a small black box  
strapped to the underside of the late sniper's perch as it began to hum
slightly.  She withdrew her hand from the tree and began to teleport
back across the lake-  
     The small box was a hyperspace anomaly generator.  As soon as  
Ryouko began to phase out, the device encased her in a hyperspace
field- then winked it out of existence, sending Ryouko into subspace.
The now-dead sniper would have been outraged to learn that the futility
of his shooting and his subsequent death had all been anticipated
by his team leader- and that they had served the intended purpose
of drawing Ryouko into a trap.
     Meanwhile, across the lake, Aeka was just picking herself up off
the ground, her shield still humming around her.  Her Juraian battle
garb snapped into existence around her as Azaka and Kamedake came  
flying full-bore from their stations at the house's main gate.  She  
waved to them frantically.
     Suddenly, a deluge of blue-green bolts poured from the treeline...

Chapter 15 Sienna Beach Hotel in Oceana, Kaje and Minagi's Suite May  
12th of R.Y. 732 0533 Oceana Time

     *Minagi... Minagi... get up...*
     Minagi's mind struggled toward consciousness, guided by a familiar
voice.
     *Minagi... you will die if you do not get up...*
     Awareness began to creep into her psyche.  There was a hard floor
underneath her, and there was something warm and wet all over her left
side.
     Given the waves of pain gnawing at her, the wetness almost  
certainly had to be blood.
     *Minagi... GET UP!!!*
     The mental image of a VERY irate Yakage appeared in her  
subconscious.  His eyes glowed with disapproval.  *GET UP!!!* he  
thundered.
     Minagi's brain ratcheted into reality, bringing a massive dose of
pain with it as her nerves sent their frantic damage reports to her  
now-active frontal cortex.  She was on the floor of the suite,  
bleeding... yes, she'd been shot, or something close to it.  There were
several sounds, the most notable of which sounded like a choking,
gurgling scream.
     *Oh my God, that's Kaje!!!!*
     Her eyes cracked open and her combat senses kicked into overdrive.
She could see two black- clad men in her immediate field of vision,
and could hear faint movement behind her from what was certainly
another.  Of the two she could see, one was standing over her, holding
a gun.  The other was standing over Kaje in the room's far corner.
She could see the spy facedown in a fetal position on the carpet.
She could also smell his blood and the acrid tang of bile.
     *Gut wound.  Damnit.*  Somewhere in her mind a sympathetic
part of her shuddered in empathy.  Gut wounds HURT.  She knew.  She'd
received her fair share of them.
     The empathic thought never reached her forebrain.  It was quite
busy with another realization: the assailant standing over Kaje was  
raising a bloody shortsword in preparation for what was certainly
going to be a killing blow.   
     *And he's too close to Kaje for me to just vaporize him...*
     She noticed one other very important detail: The man standing
over her was watching his compatriot's sword, and not her.  Her  
decision was instantaneous.
     She punched directly upward and into the man's testicles,
exploding them like miniature grenades.  Before her target even  
realized he was permanently impotent she whipped her legs around in a  
scissors kick that snapped both his ankles and sent him floorward
at vision-blurring speed.
     Minagi used the leverage generated by the impact to pop herself
upright.  Letting the momentum carry her into a leap, she jackknifed
her body in mid-air and impacted the ceiling feet- first.  She flexed
her knees into the landing, then re-directed the energy outward and  
downward.  The end result was a fist-first flying lunge that took her
right hand directly into the back of the skull of Kaje's would-be
executioner.
     There was a sickening crack as Minagi's hand penetrated the skull
and turned the brains beneath into so much organic mush.  Minagi  
withdrew her hand and folded her body neatly in half, striking her  
now-falling victim in the small of his back with her feet.  She pushed
off and straightened out, launching herself on her back toward the  
room's far corner.
    She arched her spine and looked upward along her body's axis-  
horizontally in relation to the floor.  The third attacker, the one  
she'd heard but not seen, still stood in the corner she was now flying
toward.  Without righting herself she extended a hand and let loose
a blast of energy.  It struck her target squarely in the chest.  There
was a momentary flicker- the man was wearing an albedo screen- and then
his overloaded defensive system vaporized along with his body.
     Minagi neatly flipped over onto her stomach and halted her flight,
setting down one foot at a time in the middle of the room.
     At that moment her first victim's body hit the floor, rapidly
followed by that of the second.  The third had no body left with which
to test gravity.
     The entire combat had lasted less than one second.
     Minagi stood completely still in the center of the room, her  
senses questing.  She could sense life from her first target.  The  
black-clad humanoid was unconscious, probably from the shock of having
his gonads turned into powder.  Blood seeped from the shattered
messes that had previously been his ankles.  He was no threat.  The  
second man was definitively dead, as was the third.  There appeared
to be a fourth body, this one also clearly dead, in another corner.
She assumed Kaje had killed him.
     Minagi felt a momentary pang of regret; she'd been forced to move
at her maximum speed.  Such speed precluded the niceties of controlled
force that would have granted mercy.  Then the bitter scent of bile  
assailed her nostrils, and her regrets vanished.  They'd been about
to kill her spy.
     *Serves 'em right.*
     Had she not been still high on adrenaline, she might have noticed
that she'd just used a possessive in her thinking about the  
intelligence officer.  As it happened, she WAS high on adrenaline,
and failed to discern the fact.
     Pain washed over her.  Minagi stumbled briefly, then righted
herself.  Now that she wasn't killing people her body was once again
reminding her that it wasn't in quite the best shape.  The surge of  
pain reminded her that there was someone else still alive out there,
someone who had shot at her...
     She cast her gaze about the room, looking for...*There,*
she thought.  She eyeballed the blast mark in the wall, and did a quick
calculation...
     On a rooftop several hundred yards away, a sniper was blinking
through his scope.  He was fairly certain he'd made his initial shot;
his target had gone down hard.  He'd cursed as he'd heard one of his  
teammates die over the commlink, but then smiled in grim satisfaction
as the team lead had called a sword kill on the fucker that had done
in his fellow operative.  Then he'd seen a blur and a flash through
his scope, and all radio contact had ceased.  Something had happened
in that suite... something very bad.
     He stared intently through the scope, trying to determine who, or
what, had cut his contact with his teammates.  Suddenly, there was a  
pair of bright, golden eyes staring back at him through the high power
lenses.
     His brain screamed, his neurons fired, his finger began to tighten
on the trigger...
     There was a bright flash.
     Minagi's bolt screamed across the distance between them and  
impacted the scope in the center of its outer lens.  The energy beam
dissolved the sight and continued into the sniper's eye.  There was an
instantaneous energy transfer, and his skull exploded.  His now  
headless body slumped over his rifle, his brain's last command to be  
forever unexecuted.
     Minagi sniffed in annoyance.  She'd meant to only destroy the  
weapon.  *Oh well...*
     She stood still for a moment, waiting.  If there were another
gunman out there, he would fire now.  She'd have to dodge, or block,
or use her chi to shield herself, but she was relatively confident
that she could counter any attack.  Minagi needed to know if there were
any more attackers, and she was willing to use herself as bait to find
out.
     No shot came.  She allowed herself a sigh of relief.
     A strangled, choking cry rent the air from within the suite.
     *Oh Shit, KAJE!!!*
     She spun and darted back into the main room.

Chapter 16
 The Masaki Residence May 12th of R.Y. 732 1034 Tokyo Time

     Aeka watched in stunned horror as a flurry of pale turquoise
bolts converged on her two guardians.  Neither of the Juraian war  
machines had their protective shields about them, as each was  
transmitting their energy to HER shield in response to the sniper fire
that had so startled her a few moments before.  Both of her automaton
bodyguards were taken in the flank by the unexpected fire and suffered
heavily. Azaka took the brunt of the assault, being nearer to the  
treeline.  The log-like entity briefly seemed to stagger in mid air,
then there was a sudden profusion of splinters- and Azaka was gone,
reduced into a spray of wood chips and component parts.  Kamedake
faired slightly better.  Azaka's misfortune was his junior partner's
boon, as few of the deadly bolts slipped past Azaka's mass.  Kamedake
nonetheless came off badly.  Several energy blasts caught him along
his length, gouging great craters into his tough hide and sending
splinters flying.  The guardian remained in level flight for a fleeting
instant, then entered a lazy left hand corkscrew roll that quickly
smashed him into the ground.  The impact threw up a great cloud of  
dust- but there was no secondary explosion that Aeka could see.
     She thanked the gods for small favors.
     There was an incongruous quiet.  The falling dust from Kamedake's
crash pattered upon the ground in a staccato beat.  Somewhere in the  
distance, a bird sang.
     Aeka stood perfectly still, afraid to move.  This was far beyond
anything she'd been prepared for this day, and her mind and glands
were still trying to synch up...
     Three humanoids in black skeinsuits stepped from the treeline.
They were on line, 25 meters apart from each other, and walking slowly
toward her.  They were in step, and had short-barreled rifles at their
shoulders.
     Aeka stared and did not move.  The precision of their timed  
footsteps and the perfect unity of their movements mesmerized her like
the workings of some complex machine or the choreography of a ballet.
It was cold, rigid, precise... and somehow, terrifyingly beautiful.
     There was a blue-green flash.  Aeka's shield flared.  The princess
blinked, startled.
     The advancing assassins began a steady barrage on Aeka's shield,
taking precise, aimed shots at the logs that generated and controlled
the force field.  In short order several of the logs were smoking.
Aeka's shield began to flare with less energy as each successive
shot struck home.
     Aeka didn't notice.
     She'd watched her guardians be gunned down before her very eyes.
Ryouko was not in evidence, and given the pirate's complete lack of  
hesitation when it came to a fight, that probably meant she was dead.
What about Sasami and Tenchi?  Where were they?  Were they dead too?
     Aeka felt a deep, throbbing pain in her temples.  The edges of her
vision took on a reddish tinge.
     These people... these MONSTERS... were hurting the ones she  
loved...
     Another bolt struck one of her logs.  The little device shattered.
     Something in Aeka's mind snapped.
     A blinding white light blazed forth from Aeka's headband and  
enveloped her in a transparent, ghostly flame.  She threw back her head
and screamed in inarticulate rage.  The flame expanded, turning a  
brilliant white color with a faint green tinge.
     Her attackers halted.  This had NOT been in the brief.
     In one blindingly fast motion Aeka' flame coalesced into a small
coruscating orb above her head and shot forward like a missile.  The  
energy ball stuck the central attacker in the chest , seeming to merge
with him.  There was a brilliant flash and a noise like a  
thunderclap...
     And then there were only two black-clad humanoids facing the  
Juraian First Princess.
     Both men brought up their guns and fired, but Aeka's flame had  
already returned.  The ghostly conflagration seemed to absorb the  
energy bolts, growing larger and deepening in color with each shot.
     Aeka roared in rage once more.  Her hands reached forth, claw  
like, toward her assailants...
     The flame exploded outward in a cacophony of light and sound.
The air around her instantaneously combusted at temperatures
so extreme that the exothermic reaction became self- sustaining.
A white-hot fireball of plasma blasted concentrically away from Aeka
at the speed of thought.
     Suddenly, it was very still.  Aeka mind snapped back into the  
world of the sensory and concrete.  She looked about herself in  
bewilderment.
     The ground around her for a hundred yards was blackened and  
pitted.  In some places, the sand had slagged into glass.
     Her attackers had vanished without a trace.
     At that moment Tenchi came pounding down the path and into the  
clearing.  He saw Aeka and skidded to a halt.  "What happened?!!??
I heard an explosi- HOLY SHIT!!!!"
    Aeka looked at him blankly, then collapsed.
     Chapter 17 Sienna Beach Hotel in Oceana, Kaje and Minagi's Suite
May 12th of R.Y. 732 0535 Oceana Time

     Minagi charged into the suite's living area mentally steeled
for the sight of Kaje spilling his lifeblood out over the carpet.
Needless to say, she was caught off guard when she found the spy on his
feet.
     Kaje was standing over the body of the lone living assassin.
He held his left arm across his midsection, tightly clutching at the  
oozing tear in his right abdomen.  His right hand was empty.  His lips
were ruby-red with blood, and a wide swath of red-tinted saliva was  
smeared over his chin.  His chest and upper arms were both covered
with a patina of crimson fluid as well.
     Minagi could have and would have accepted the gory image without
pause.  The last she'd seen of him, he'd been drowning in a pool of his
own digestive fluids and blood.  It stood to reason that he'd look like
hell.  So that wasn't a problem.  The problem was that he was  
standing... and that the veins in his neck were bright blue and stood
out like neon.
     Kaje's eyes flicked up toward Minagi.  The space pirate suppressed
a shudder as their gazes met.  Kaje's normally grey eyes were bloodshot
through and through, and his pupils were dilated.
     *Combat stimulants,* she thought.  Now she was REALLY worried.
Her Master had taught her about battle drugs.
     Kaje's eyes seemed to soften for a moment.  He spoke through
clenched teeth in a rasping whisper.  "Minagi, are you alright?"  
     Minagi looked down at herself.  Her left side was caked in blood,
and her right fist was streaked black where her own blasts had  
flash-burned her hand-to-hand victims' blood into her skin.  She was  
suddenly aware of a sticky feeling on her forehead and left cheek.
She realized she probably looked like hell's own harbinger.  No wonder
Kaje was worried.
     *And if he's worried, the drugs haven't completely driven him  
insane,* she thought hopefully.
      "I'm fine.  You, on the other hand, need help."  Minagi reached
her hand out toward Kaje.  "Whatever you're on, it's probably  
accelerating your heart rate and increasing your internal bleeding.
We've got to get you to a hospital."
      Kaje began to laugh, then found his mirth cut off as the chortle
quickly dissolved into a choking wretch that doubled him over in pain.
He spit a fresh stream of blood onto the carpet before straightening
up.  Minagi began to move toward him, but he held his hand up to stop
her.  "No hospitals," he wheezed.  "Back to the ship."
     Minagi shook her head in an assertive negative.  "Kaje, HINASE
doesn't have facilities geared to your metabolism.  We've-"
     Whatever humanity had been in Kaje's eyes fled as he cut her off.
"Fuck it.  No Hospitals.  We'd both be arrested."  On the floor, the  
sole living assassin let out a tortured groan.  Kaje glanced down.   
"Good, the motherfucker's stims are kicking in.  Cover me."
     Minagi was confused.  "Cover you? What?"
     The intelligence officer was no longer paying attention to her.
Minagi watched in shock as Kaje reached down and put his thumb into the
assassin's eye socket and pressed inward.  There was a barely  
discernable popping sound as the eyeball imploded.  The man's other
eye flew open, as did his mouth.  His drew in his breath to scream...
     Kaje's heel came down on the wounded humanoid's throat, crushing
his windpipe.  The scream came out as a gurgle.  "Now, now," muttered
Kaje, "don't want to hurt the lady's ears, do we?"
     Minagi felt distinctly sick.  "Kaje, what the hell are you DOING?"
     Kaje looked up and over at her.  "Working."  He glared back down
at the still-gurgling unfortunate.  "Alright, motherfucker...
QAS IS VU APONEN?"
     The assassin's good eye widened in shock.
     "That's what I wanted to know," growled Kaje.  He brought his heel
down on to the tip of the man's nose, driving the nasal cartilage
like a spear into his brain.  His victim spasmed once, then a second
time, then finally lay still.
     Kaje looked over at Minagi.  She looked horrified.  Somewhere
deep inside his drug and pain fogged brain, part of him sighed.
     "When we get back to the ship, take off immediately," he ground
out.  "No launch clearances, no departure requests.  Just launch.
Head rimward at best speed."
     There was a moment of silence before Minagi replied.  When she  
finally spoke, there was menace in her voice.  "Kaje, I-"
     Kaje interrupted her.  "Can we talk about it later?  Right now,
I need to pass out."
     Minagi blinked.
     As though someone had thrown a switch, Kaje collapsed face first
onto the carpet.  A stream of fresh blood began to flow freely from his
wound.
     Minagi put her hand to her forehead.  "Perfect..."

Chapter 18 Romulask Counterintelligence Headquarters, May 12th of R.Y.
732 1830 Romulask Time

     "Dammit, I want ANSWERS!" thundered the watch officer.  The duty
analyst blanched, but held his position of attention.  "BOTH attacks
failed?  UTTERLY!?!?"
     The analyst swallowed hard.  "Well, not UTTERLY, sir..."
     The watch officer glared menacingly at the analyst.  "Oh, 'not  
utterly, sir!'  Then will you KINDLY explain to me how two catastrophic
mission losses might NOT be considered UTTER failures??"
     "Yes sir!"  The analyst quickly launched into his spiel at a one
hundred and eighty word-per- minute pace, clearly nervous that he'd be
cut off.  "The primary success was in munitions effectiveness
assessment.  The new cobalt-copper charges worked exactly as their  
source indicated they would.  Weapons branch has already recommended
procurement of like weapons for all future ops in Juraian space,  
pending opsec evaluation.  Secondary success was in tactics  
validation-"
     The expected interruption came.  "How can we have validated
our tactics?  We lost both teams!"
     "Sir, the tactics desk has already reviewed the remote footage."
The analyst quickly glanced down and consulted the sheaf of notes in  
his hand.  Finding the tactical report, he scanned his bullets and then
brought his eyes back up to a neutral position.  "In the case of the  
Oceana operation, standard tactics would have been completely  
successful had the initial sniper shot been on target.  The target
was taken unaware, and the close-quarter team had her covered and  
neutralized inside of two seconds from go-code.  It was only the  
extreme coincidence of the target's resurgence at precisely the time
that her compatriot disrupted the entry team that broke the operation."
     The watch officer snorted.  "Are we SURE it was a coincidence?"
     The analyst nodded emphatically.  "Yes sir.  Tactics desk  
indicates a ninety eight percent certainty that it was pure chance
that the timing worked out so catastrophically."
     The watch officer visibly calmed.  He'd been in covert ops for  
decades, and he'd seen more than one mission go south because of pure
unlucky chance.  He accepted random misfortune as a hazard of doing
business- indeed, the Laws of Lord Murphy seemed to haunt most military
operations.  The only good thing about it was that dumb luck rarely
repeated itself in the same form.  If it was just bad luck that had  
wrecked the mission, then they could simply try again... then he  
remembered why the mission had been laid on in the first place, and his
anger returned.  "I never did like that operation.  Damn those eggheads
for insisting on it!  Now she's got a REASON to be curious about that
courier's cargo, which means we'll have to devote resources to keeping
her from going to the Juraian security services.  Which means more  
observation and attacks- which means more risks."  The watch officer
sighed.  "Order up another reconnaissance detachment for her.  If we're
lucky, she'll keep running from the Juraians.  We may have to help her
on that score.  Have the recon boys look for opportunities to steal
the disk back, if they can confirm it hasn't been viewed."  The watch
officer paused briefly, considering his other options.  "If we're not
lucky, and she either tries to contact the Juraians or they capture
her, OR it's confirmed that the disk has been viewed, I want her  
eliminated.  Keep a full platoon on standby for the eventuality."
The analyst made a note of the order as the watch officer continued.
"What about the Terran operation?  That seemed like an unmitigated
tactical disaster!  And how did we let that psychopath become a team
leader?  He DELIBERATELY sacrificed a sniper as bait!"
     The analyst nodded again.  "Yes sir.  Internal Affairs is already
rousting the shrinks out for an investigation.  We'll have results
by morning."
     "Good."  The watch officer grumbled to himself, completely
horrified by the thought that a team leader would let one his men die-
no, EXPECT one of his men to die- as a diversion.  This wasn't the  
infantry, damn it!  Covert operatives were the product of decades
of training, and were never, ever, acceptable casualties.  To even  
think otherwise broke the sacred bond of trust that every field agent
shared with his team.
     The analyst continued on, oblivious to his superior's ruminations.
"While the ballistic sniper cover proved ineffective, it is probable
that the team lead planned this as part of his diversion.   
Additionally, his tactic of using a moving firing line against the  
force-field projectors nearly worked.  Intelligence completely
failed to predict that the target was capable of manifesting a full  
combat aura."
     The watch officer rolled his eyes.  It was always Intelligence.
You never had enough of it- and it was always what you didn't know that
jumped up and bit you.
     The analyst pressed on.  "In fact, in light of this new  
information, Tactics desk assesses that a standard fire-team assault
will be insufficient to neutralize that target."
     The watch officer's eyebrows shot up.  "WHAT?!?!??"
     The analyst flinched.  "Yes sir.  However, there is good news.
Plans and Analysis think they've come up with a non-lethal,  
non-intrusive way to achieve our objective on that point!"
     The watch officer blinked.  This sounded too good to be true.   
"Did you say 'non-intrusive?'  As in not risking any further  
operatives???"
     "Yes sir.  With your permission, sir?"  The watch officer nodded.
The duty analyst activated a small holocube.  "As you can see from this
data, sir, the insertion team observed a significant amount of personal
interplay between the target and subject A," he pointed to a table.
"There was also a significant amount of interplay between subject
A and subject B."  He pointed to another table.
     Comprehension dawned in the watch officer's eyes.  "She's in a  
LOVE TRIANGLE???"
      "Apparently unrealized in the physical, but yes sir.  And  
according to the data on the Juraian nobility provided by our... 'other
source,' the Royal Council would go completely BERSERK if the target
and subject A were to wed.  Subject A is simply too controversial
a figure at this time.  They re-vote his status once every few months-
a sure sign that there's too much volatility surrounding him for a  
stable succession."
     "Azusa would be forced to delay or even suspend the succession
if those two married.  That would serve us just as well as killing
her..."
     "Plans and Analysis agrees, sir."  The analyst snapped off the  
holocube.  "And they think they can do it without risking any further
agents."
     The watch officer leaned forward.  "How?"

Chapter 19 The Masaki Residence, Washuu's Lab May 12th of R.Y. 732 2022
Tokyo Time

     Washuu Hakubi was almost certainly the greatest scientist in the
known Universe, and she told herself so at least twenty times a day-
or at least she told herself something close to it.  In point of fact,
she usually left out the "almost" and the "known."  Suffice it to say
that she was NOT exactly lacking in the self-confidence department.
So when she'd gathered up the fragmented remains of Azaka's blasted
husk and silently disappeared into her lab without making any promises,
the Masaki family and guests hadn't exactly been encouraged.  The  
preternaturally underaged genius had been sequestered in her lab for  
nearly eight hours now, and the tension in the main house was growing
unbearable.
     The worst part, of course, was the inactivity.  Inactivity
breeds feelings of helplessness, and helplessness gives rise to  
despair.  To be sure, there had been activity aplenty in the attack's
immediate aftermath.  Ryouko had clawed her way out of the subspace
trap shortly after Aeka had dispatched the last of her attackers.
The enraged pirate and her cabbit-ship had spent nearly an hour  
careening over the lake's immediate environs in search of further
threats upon which to vent their anger.  Aeka, for her part, had been
absolutely beside herself until Sasami had been located.  The younger
Juraian princess had been quite taken aback when she'd returned to the
household from her explorations in the hills behind the Masaki Shrine
and been swept into a crushing, teary- eyed hug by her older sister.
After the reunion Tenchi had assisted Washuu in the collection
of Azaka bits from the ground around the scene of the guardian's
demise, and Yousho, having arrived too late from the shrine to  
participate in the battle, had hastily left to fetch Mihoshi.  Later
on, Washuu had repaired Kamedake, Mihoshi had begun an exhaustive
report for her superiors, and Ryouko had brought back a number of  
interesting items from her sweep, though she'd failed to find any  
further assailants.
     Indeed, for a few hours the area had been a beehive of activity.
All too soon, however, the pace had slowed enough that the reality
of Azaka's destruction had set in.  It had been Aeka who had first  
asked Washuu the question.
     "Washuu-chan," she'd asked in a tremulous voice, "can you repair
Azaka?"
     Washuu had simply stared at her for a moment.
     "Washuu-chan?  Please?"
     The genius had shrugged.  "I don't know."
     The frank admission of uncertainty, coming from Washuu, had so  
stunned Aeka that she'd burst into tears and fled the scene.  Washuu
had watched her go, then she'd sighed and slipped quietly into her lab.
     That had been eight hours ago.
     The door to the lab cracked open.  All heads in the living room
turned as one toward the portal (with the exception of Yousho's,
which remained firmly centered over a cup of tea...)
     Washuu's head poked out.  "Lord Yousho, Mihoshi, Lady Aeka,  
Ryouko, could you all please come in here?"
     Tenchi and Sasami stood with the others.  "No, not you Lord  
Tenchi.  Nor you, Sasami-chan."
     Tears welled up in Sasami's eyes.  Tenchi managed to look both  
hurt and confused.  Washuu sighed inwardly.  She would have liked to  
have included the pair in the discussion she was about to launch,
but neither would have benefited from being involved, and both might
have suffered.  She gave Sasami a wink, and then closed the door after
the four invitees had shuffled inside.
     Outside, Sasami sniffled.  "Tenchi, why doesn't she want us in  
there?  What's wrong?  Is Azaka going to be alright?"
     Tenchi gave her his best smile.  "Of course he is, Sasami.
     Sasami sighed heavily.  "You're not a very good liar, Tenchi..."
     Inside the lab, Washuu summoned a table and chairs.  The table
bore a mangled, blackened lump of metal, a small black box with a  
strap, and several small round metal objects the size and shape of  
shooters' marbles.  "Sit down, everyone.  And before you ask, no, this
isn't about Azaka."
     Yousho chuckled.  "I think we had figured that out already,
Washuu-chan."
     Washuu shot him an annoyed look.  "This is nothing to laugh about.
Now please, sit."
     Yousho sat.  Ryouko, Aeka, and Mihoshi each followed suit.  "I'm
sorry, Washuu-chan," offered the former crown prince.  "I meant in no  
way to make light of the situation."
     Washuu closed her eyes.  The scientist briefly reached up and  
rubbed her temples.  "Of course you didn't."  Her eyes opened.  "First
thing first.  To help us all focus on the issue at hand, I'll report
on Azaka.  Basically, he's toast."  Washuu held her hand up to belay
any outbursts.  "AT LEAST IN THIS FORM," she continued.  "I need to  
talk to Ryu-oh and find out if the tree has any cached memory and  
personality data for him.  If the last backup isn't too old, I can  
probably refabricate him in relatively short order.  He'll just have
a memory gap extending to the last backup."
     Aeka nodded.  "I can have that data for you tonight, Miss Wash-"
     Washuu glared.
     "-Washuu-chan," Aeka smoothly self-edited.  "You of course have
my unreserved gratitude for anything you can do to help him."
     Washuu shrugged, then smirked.  "I'll hold you to that later,
Princess."  Aeka suddenly looked very worried.  In the meantime,
Washuu resumed her monologue.  "Azaka, as much as we may all think  
highly of him, is really not the issue here.  The Princess of Jurai
has been attacked- and in a rather impressive fashion, I might add."
     Yousho nodded.  "Aeka's and Ryouko's descriptions indicate that
this was either a military or special operations unit."
     "Concur," agreed Washuu.  "And normally, I'd say that the  
investigation and response should also be a military or special  
operations matter.  One best left to the GP and the Juraian government.
But the objects here on this table argue that we may have to take a  
more personal role in all this."
     "Hey," interjected Mihoshi, "isn't that a cobalt-copper
charge rifle with an anti-mag-flux adapter on it?"
     The table's occupants gaped, openmouthed.  Mihoshi continued.
"I mean, it looks like it's gone through a volcano, or something,
but that's definitely what it is.  Yep."  She paused.  "And that looks
like a hyper-space field projector with a sensing-plate...
hmm... geared for teleportation detection, looks like.  And those look
like remote sensors... but I don't see a control unit for them?  Hey,
why is everybody staring at me?"
     Washuu was the first to speak.  "Mihoshi... how do you know about
these things?"
     "Oh!  Well, I think I broke everything in the experimental
field equipment lab at least once when I was back at headquarters,
and the Chief always yelled REALLY loud when I did.  So I tended to  
remember what it was he said I broke..."
     "It figures," mumbled Washuu.  "Well, as much as I hate to admit
it, Mihoshi's right.  And she said one other important thing-"
     "I did?" asked Mihoshi.
     Washuu sighed.  "Yes, you did.  You said you'd seen them in the  
EXPERIMENTAL field equipment lab."
     Mihoshi's eyes widened.  "That means... that means..."
     The others leaned in, waiting.
     "That means... oh Gosh, does that mean that I broke these?  I  
really didn't mean to, I swear!"
     The others rolled their eyes heavenward and wished they were  
somewhere, ANYWHERE else.
     "ANYWAY," sighed Washuu, "these are all Royal Science Academy
developmental items, or at least they're supposed to be.  Especially
this," she hefted the blackened remains of the rifle.  "This baby here
uses a cobalt-copper charge I designed myself back in the day.  You  
pass the charge through a rolling magnetic field, and it generates
a high-yield electron-bond release that forces a linear plasma  
reaction.  The best part is that it's a coherent pulse, so the energy
transference to target is nearly instantaneous.  Somebody seems to have
come up with a way of making the impulse monodirectionally
propagating- important if you don't want to shoot yourself at the same
time you shoot your target."
     Yousho looked bored.  "So it's an anti-Juraian gun."
     Washuu's shoulders slumped.  "Damnit, do you have to make it sound
so SIMPLE?"
     Aeka blinked.  "It's a what??"
     "An anti-Juraian gun," replied Washuu.  "The instantaneous
energy transfer isn't very effective against modern armors- they're
designed to disperse a shock across their surfaces, and the quicker
the shock, the more it plays to that strength.  Organic substances,
on the other hand, react more violently to a faster stimulus."
     Aeka blinked again, harder.  Washuu, warming to her subject,
continued on, materializing a chart with several indecipherable
graphs and charts on it over the table.  "Specifically, wood,  
especially living wood like that used by Juraian ships, Guardians,
and power artifacts," she pointed at a graph, "is highly resistant
to slow stimulus application.  The wood tends to warp, bend, burn, or  
indent rather than react violently.  An instantaneous energy transfer,
by contrast," she pointed at another chart, "will flash-boil the wood's
water content- causing the sort of explosion that we saw with Azaka
and your shield generators."
     "Washuu-chan, what about the shielding energy that covers the  
wood?" asked Aeka.
     "CC charges have an extremely efficient shield-penetration
ratio," replied Washuu.  "The energy of the bolt is finite in length
and duration because of the slow reaction of the ammunition charge-
it takes almost a full ten nano seconds for the beam to completely
form.  So the leading edge exits the reaction event before the trailing
edge is even formed.  The front part of the beam zaps the shield,
and the remaining energy may get through, depending on the shield  
strength."
     Yousho looked pointedly at the scientist.  "Washuu-chan,
there is no way the government of Jurai would ever allow this sort of  
technology to be developed unless it were strictly controlled."
     Washuu nodded.  "Which is why we're meeting.  Someone just tried
to scrape off Aeka-"
     "'SCRAPE OFF??!?!?!'" shrieked Aeka.  "I don't think that an  
assassination attempt should be described in such a cavalier manner!
I neve-"
     Washuu shot her an annoyed glance and materialized her laptop.
She depressed a key, and suddenly a rather large statue of a Lemur was
hovering over the Princess's head.  Aeka clapped her hands over her  
mouth.  Washuu cleared her throat, then resumed her statement.
"Thank you.  Now then, as I was saying.  Someone just made an attempt
on a Juraian Royal- with weaponry that is both experimental and part
of a close-control program overseen by the Juraian authorities.
This could be very bad."
     Mihoshi spoke up.  "Gosh, that could implicate the Academy,
the Juraian government, or even the Royal Family."  She paused,  
considering.  "Or it could be a frame job against any one of them.  Or
all three!"
     Washuu did a quick double-take... no, Yousho didn't seem to be  
practicing ventriloquism.  That was the second bit of deductive
logic Mihoshi had come up with in this conversation.  She'd have to  
remember to give the girl a thorough exam after this was all over- she
might be sick.  "Um, yes, Mihoshi, that's exactly right."
     Yousho spoke.  "Washuu... this could have ramifications
of absolutely incredible proportions."
     Washuu ran her fingers through her hair and closed her eyes.  "I  
know," she responded.  "And we need to figure out what they are before
they kill us."   
     Chapter 20 Minagi's Quarters, HINASE's Main Hold May 12th of R.Y.
732 1247 Ship's Clock Time

     Minagi stretched and sat upright.  Her eyes went immediately
to the holo-clock.
     *Damnit.  Only half an hour...*  Her shoulders slumped.  *Well,
I might as well walk down there.  I'm sure as hell not getting any  
rest...*
     She swung her feet out onto the floor and eased off of the bed of
living branches that supported her.  There was a faint creaking as the
limbs slowly straightened themselves from the positions they had taken
to support her body.
     This part of the ship looked nothing like the bridge and weapons
areas.  Those regions had been damaged in combat and refitted in  
various ports of call, and they had a correspondingly "classic warship"
look to them.  Those portions of the ship still in their original
state, such as this section, were one hundred percent Juraian in their
construction, and looked it.
     Which explained why Minagi slept on a bed of living foliage...
and why the passageway she now strode through was comprised of  
interlocking tree boughs.
     She turned a corner and was greeted with a solid wall of bark.
The space pirate pressed her palm against it and gave a slight push.
For a brief moment, the bark gave way, and a perfect imprint of her  
palm formed in the wall...
     The bark split, parted, and slid aside.
     Minagi stepped through the opening and into a small, dark room.
The walls, floor, and ceiling were of living wood and festooned
with tendril-like branches, several of which were currently extended
straight out into the middle of the chamber.  The tendrils met at the
room's center point, where they interwove to form a large knotted
snarl of approximately globular proportions.  
     Minagi stepped to the globe, closed her eyes, and pressed her hand
to it.  The globe parted.
     Minagi opened her eyes- and winced.  She'd known what she was  
going to see.  She'd even seen it before.  She'd just never seen it  
quite so... completely.
     Inside the globe of branches lay Kaje Ch'ka.  The intelligence
officer was clearly (and mercifully) unconscious.  He was completely
enveloped in a large tangle of tree limbs.  Small, prehensile  
branch-tips had worked their way through the skin of his temples,
into his nose, down his throat, through his chest, and into his wrists.
The thin tendrils undulated slowly, raising the occasional drop or two
of blood around their entry points as they slowly writhed.
     This wasn't the part that bothered Minagi.  She'd seen healing
trees interacting with their patients before; while it was slightly
obscene from a biological point of view, it was common practice and  
therefore expected and accepted.
     The part that bothered her was Kaje's gut.  A large, mature vine
had worked its way into the wound in his side and had sprouted a number
of small branch-vines that poked through his abdominal wall at various
points.  The vine as a whole sinuously rippled and heaved, creating
a rolling protuberance in Kaje's midsection that moved this way and  
that as though a small creature had been trapped in his innards.
The tentacle-like limb had completely invested his intestines,
tapering as it wound its way through his system until finally exiting
at the anus and snaking away to rejoin the ship somewhere along the  
room's far wall.
     Minagi couldn't decide if it looked like the tree were making
love to Kaje or if it looked like it was consuming him.  Either way,
she didn't particularly like it.
     HINASE slowly wafted into view from behind Kaje's body.  The  
little control entity was methodically circling his still form, keeping
a constant vigil on the healing process.  "Good evening, Mistress,"
greeted the orb.  "Do you require a report?"
     Minagi glanced once more at the large vine.  She swallowed
hard.  "Yes please."
     "As you suspected, the metabolic imprint for this tree is geared
toward your biological requirements, not that of a pure blooded  
Juraian.  This is significantly slowing the healing process.  The tree
is compensating nicely, however, and Mister Ch'ka has stabilized.
Given current progress, I expect that the tree will extract itself
in two to three days.
     Minagi felt both relief and consternation at the information.
*Thank the gods he'll be alright... but two to three days... that's
a long time at interstellar speeds.  I know he told me to go rimward...
but in two days we could be almost clear out of the galaxy...*
     Minagi and HINASE had blasted off Oceana and hurtled rimward
at best speed, as per Kaje's last conscious instructions.  Juraian
and GP patrols had intercepted them almost immediately after leaving
Oceana's gravity well, but Minagi, who at the time had been covered
with blood (both hers and others') and Hinase (who wasn't all that  
happy at SEEING Minagi covered with blood) hadn't been in a mood to  
stay and chat.  There were now two GP cruisers, three Juraian frigates,
a Juraian destroyer, and a full-fledged Juraian battlecruiser
disabled and drifting in their wake- though the commanding officer
of each was secretly counting himself lucky for all that.  HINASE had
done an exquisite job of using disabling, rather than destructive,
fire.  Minagi had perhaps put it best at the time: "I'd blow these guys
into next week, but I think that might adversely affect Kaje's career
prospects..."
     *Okay,* she admitted to herself, *I wouldn't have blown them into
next week in any case.  But that was one more reason not to.  In ANY  
event... what do I do now?  Sure, the Juraian/GP patrol net's been  
scattered, but now that we've been sighted they'll be on us like a pack
of wolves.  What's in the rim that Kaje wanted us to get to?  And will
we be well past whatever it is by the time he wakes up?*
     Minagi sighed.  *That damn idiot!  He didn't tell me ANYTHING
while we were on Oceana.  Not where the patrol net was, not where he  
planned to go next, not what our next move was supposed to be...  
NOTHING!*
     *Now be fair,* she chided herself.  *You didn't exactly CARE, did
you?  You were having fun...*
    *Right up until you almost slept with spy-boy here...*
     Minagi chided herself.  They'd been attacked and were now on the
run.  It was time to look ahead and form a plan, not look back and find
recriminations.
     Her mental self-censure utterly failed.  Minagi found herself
thinking back to the last  thing Kaje had said to her before the  
attack.
     "Minagi, what's wrong?" he had asked...
     *Indeed... what in HELL is wrong?*
     *You have a good time for a while, then you nearly jump the guy,
then you feel like you've just done the worst thing in the universe.*
     *Then you watch while aforementioned guy gouges out a helpless,
wounded man's eye with his thumb and doesn't bat an eyelash, then kills
him with an axe kick to the nose.*
    *And just, JUST when you think things can't get an worse, you find
that when you see that same guy hooked up to a damn tree and clinging
to life it makes your damn heart all fluttery and your stomach all  
jumpy and you're worried so bad you can't sleep...*
     "WHAT IN THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE???"  
     HINASE jumped back nearly a full meter in fright.  "Ma'am?  Is  
everything all right???  Did I say something in my report that-"
     "No, HINASE, it's not you."  Minagi reached out and patted the  
little ball.  "I'm just confused about some things."  She looked at  
Kaje's body again and shuddered a little.
     HINASE noted the glance.  "Confused about Mister Ch'Ka, ma'am?"
     Minagi gave the orb a hard look.  "And what would you know about
THAT?"
     "Ma'am, if I may be so bold as to offer an observation?"
     Minagi looked at HINASE.  The control entity had been her closest
(and sometimes only) friend for years.  Though definitely subservient
to her will, she'd never known the unit to offer anything but the best
advice and counsel, even when she hadn't wanted to hear it.  And while
it was true that most of that advice had been on matters tactical
or technical, there had been some occasions where affairs of the mind
and heart had been her chief concern.  HINASE had proven unfailingly
honest and insightful in those instances as well.
     "Alright, HINASE," she replied.  "What d'ya got for me?"
     "Ma'am," the orb began, "I think it's safe to say that you enjoy
the Lieutenant's company?"
     "Usually," allowed Minagi, "though he gets on my nerves on  
occasion."
     "Point taken, ma'am.  But in general?"
     "In general, yes."
     "Do you find him physically attractive?"
     Minagi blushed slightly.  "He's CUTE, okay?"
     "Not unattractive, then?" pressed the floating globe.
     "That's a better way of putting it, yes."  Minagi's blush  
increased slightly.  "What difference does THAT make?  And I though
you had 'an observation?'  This is more like twenty questions!"
     "Yes ma'am."
     *Uh oh,* thought Minagi.  *HINASE sounds awfully smug...*
     "Ma'am, based on your answers, the blood vessel dilation in your
face when the subject is broached, and my analysis of your recent  
behavior, I'd think it fair to say that you're rather enamored of the
Lieutenant."
     Minagi's blush ratcheted right from "pink" through "red" and  
straight into "scarlet."  She briefly thought of denying the statement,
then decided that it would be useless.
     "Yes."  She hung her head.  "Yes, that would be correct."   
     "Ma'am, you seem uncomfortable with this situation.  Is everything
alright?"  The hovering sphere moved closer to her, seemingly  
inspecting her in an attempt to determine the source of distress.
     Minagi let her eyes wander over Kaje's broken and violated body.
Her heart twinged painfully.  "Yes, that's right.  I'm...  
'uncomfortable' with the situation."  Minagi began to sit.  A vine  
snaked out from the ceiling and formed a looped sling that neatly  
caught her legs at the backs of her thighs and supported her as though
she had sat in a swing.  "I admit it.  I like him.  I'm not in LOVE  
with him, mind you."  She waggled a finger at the floating ball.  "I've
only known him for a month.  I'm not saying that I've fallen for him or
anything.  But yes, I like him.  He's smart, he's funny, he's polite,
he's well traveled and urbane, and yes, he's cute.  He's pretty damned
brave, he puts up with all the crap I give him, which is amazing...
and you know what?  He's attracted as all hell to me-"
     HINASE emitted a small burst of static.  In the control entity
lexicon, this roughly equates to "Duh..."
     Minagi took a casual backhand swipe at the ball.  HINASE dodged
the blow equally casually.  "ANYWAY... he's attracted as all hell to  
me, and I'm definitely starting to enjoy that feeling... and what  
REALLY gets me is that even though he's attracted to me, he actually
seems to GIVE a damn enough about me to not want to impose himself
on me..."
     Minagi thought for a second.
     "Come to think of it, that last part is actually kind of  
annoying..."
     "Excuse me, ma'am?"  The levitating control entity sounded a bit
confused.
     "Oh, don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about.  I know
you have to have had some kind of sensor feed from the suite.  Last  
night?  You know, 'Minagi gets drunk and propositions the Lieutenant'
night?"
     HINASE looked as innocent as a featureless sphere could look.   
'Ma'am, I can neither confirm nor deny-"
     "Oh, shut up.  You KNOW what I'm talking about."  Minagi leaned
back in the vine-swing and drew one of her knees toward her chest with
both hands.  She extended her other leg out in front of her for  
balance.  "I propositioned him and he turned me down.  For my own sake,
no less.  Talk about making a girl unsure of herself.  There I was,  
gunning for lust, and I come up with chivalry."
     "Ma'am, in his defense, you were rather unsure of yourself and  
somewhat shaky in your proposals-"
     "AHA!  You WERE watching us!"
     HINASE emitted a static-burst again.  Minagi glared.
     "I am ALWAYS watching, ma'am, unless you command otherwise.
Now as I was saying, your recollection of the events of that evening
may be slightly in error.  You presented yourself in a rather uncertain
fashion."
     Minagi leaned forward and touched her chin to her knee.  "Yeah,
I know."  She closed her eyes.  "I guess I'm avoiding the issue."
     HINASE moved in to hover over Minagi's head.  "What issue, ma'am?"
The concern in the control entity's voice was manifest.
     "I WAS uncertain that night.  I didn't know what I was doing,
or what I wanted.  I just knew that I wanted SOMETHING.  And the way he
was looking at me, and the way his body was reacting to me... it made
me think that maybe he could be that something.  It certainly made me  
want to try and find out."     Minagi opened her eyes and looked up at
HINASE.  "The thing is, that after it was all said and done, I felt  
WRONG.  Like I'd asked for something that I'm not supposed to have.
And now he knows that I'm thinking about that kind of thing, and  
something's telling me I'm not supposed to be... and... and... and I  
don't know what to do about it, damn it!"
     HINASE dropped in altitude until it was in front of Minagi's
face.  "Meaning you don't want him to know that you want him like  
that?"
     "EXACTLY.  It's like I just told him that maybe we can... do the
things he wants... and then discovered tight afterwards that we  
shouldn't.  What do I tell him now?"
     "Ma'am, I don't understand why it is that you feel so strongly
that your feelings toward the Lieutenant are wrong."  HINASE bobbed
slightly.  "Is this a moral issue?"
    "No... I don't think so."  Minagi sat up and straightened
her leg.  "It's just something about it feels really, deeply, truly
feels wrong.  I wish to the gods I could define it better than that,
but I can't."  She paused briefly.  "And there's one other thing.  The
way he... DISASSEMBLED that wounded man back on Oceana.  I'd never seen
him do anything like that before."  She looked up at Kaje's body and  
found discoloration on the inside of his left wrist.  "I mean, I know
he was amped up on combat drugs, and I understand that he was  
interrogating the guy... though about what, I STILL don't know...
but still... that was brutal."
     "Ma'am... has it occurred to you that the Lieutenant is, in fact,
a LIEUTENANT?"
     'Excuse me?"
     Hinase took on a rather stern tone.  "Ma'am, the young man in  
question is an officer of the Juraian security services.  It worries
me a great deal that you would have reservations about his conduct
in this matter."
     Minagi blinked in surprise.  "HINASE, he took out a wounded man.
The guy was NO threat-"
     "Ma'am, with all due respect, was the Lieutenant himself not  
wounded at that time?"
     "Well, yes-"
     "And is it not true that thanks to an automated combat drug  
injection that he was both mobile and dangerous?"
     "Yeah, but his ankles weren't broken-"
     "And is it not true that the assailant could have also had an  
automated injection system, and been further armed and able to do harm
once the drugs took hold?"
     "Well, according to what Kaje said, the guy's stims had already
started to kick in-"
     "Ma'am, he did two things.  He eliminated a potential threat and
he garnered useful information.  Given that he is an intelligence
officer, I'd say that his actions were directly in line with what  
should be expected of him under the circumstances."
     Minagi's head was spinning.  She wasn't used to HINASE being this
aggressive.  "What are you talking about?  What information did he get?
He crushed the guy's windpipe before he even asked him a question!"
     HINASE's tone softened.  "Ma'am... if I remember correctly,
you said that the Lieutenant said "qas is vu aponen," correct?
     Minagi nodded.
     Ma'am, that's Romulask for "What is your name."  Given that the  
Lieutenant apparently got the reaction he was looking for, and given
that the Juraian/GP net was NOT already surrounding Oceana when the  
attack occurred, I think we can safely surmise that your attackers
were Romulask agents... and that this is what the Lieutenant was trying
to confirm."
     Minagi thought about it.  It made sense.  If the assault team had
been Juraian or GP Special Forces, there would have been a thick net of
ships already around the planet before the attack was launched,
waiting to catch them if the assault had failed.  Furthermore,
since Oceana was a Juraian world, one would assume that there would
have been a lot more firepower available to a sanctioned GP or Juraian
operating team.
     HINASE continued in an almost gentle voice.  "He had to eliminate
the agent, if for no other reason than to save the Juraian government
from having to deal with the fact of a live Romulask special forces
member found wounded on one of its planets.  The investigation
that would have followed would have caused a great deal of diplomatic
trouble.  Maybe even a war."
     Minagi stood abruptly.  HINASE floated backward in surprise
as the swing-vine retracted back from whence it came.  "That's all well
and good, HINASE.  So he's a spy, and he has to do spy things.  So be  
it."  She turned to leave the space.  "I'm still not sure I like it."
     *And I still don't know what to do... or what I want.*

Chapter 21 Faculty Gymnasium, Royal Science Academy Main Campus (Jurai)
May 14th of R.Y. 732 1352 Juraian Standard Time (Adjustment Period
Number 2)

     The masked figure bent backwards at the waist and threw himself
a full pace backward.  His opponent's wooden bokken whistled through
the air where his torso had just been.  Beneath the mask, the figure
allowed himself a very feral smile.
     He screamed out a battle cry.  He bounced cleanly off his back  
foot even as it hit the mat to stop his rearward motion, and then threw
his torso into a forward lean.  The whip-snap momentum transfer hurled
him forward into a low lunge toward his antagonist's midsection.
     There was a hoarse shout of surprise, a shattering crack, and a  
spray of splinters.  A moment later, he was helping his groaning
opponent off of the mat.
     "There, there, Malthus," he chuckled, "think of how much it would
hurt if I'd hit you at the armor seam."
     "Gods of Jurai, Director," wheezed the fight's loser, "that's
the last time I ask you for a rematch!"
     The Director of the Royal Science Academy grinned wolfishly
as he doffed his fighting cage- mask.  "Now Malthus, don't be like  
that.  If my opponents keep swearing off sparring with me, I'll have
no one left to play with!"
     Director Honjo Inaba was something of a rarity.  Most Royal  
Science Academy Directors over the centuries had been esteemed  
academics that had shown sufficient managerial and social skills to be
entrusted with a leadership position.  Generally speaking, they were
cerebral, bookish sorts who had clawed their way up the devilishly
competitive scientific hierarchy through the raw force of their  
intellects.  Director Inaba fit their general profile not at all.
     Which was not to say that the Director was not a brilliant
man.  He was, and any of his faculty and staff, their personal feelings
about him notwithstanding, would have attested to this fact.  In terms
of intellect, he was quite in line with his predecessors.
     What set him apart was his birth.
     Honjo Inaba, born Inaba Honjo Ieyasu, was the eldest son of Inaba
Nobohide.  This made him the heir to the second most powerful family
of the Juraian noble clans.  Unlike every single one of his  
contemporaries and siblings, Honjo hadn't entered the military as a  
prelude to taking his place amongst the knighted nobility.  He'd  
shocked his family and the rest of the noble houses by entering into
the Royal Science Academy.
     That he'd been successful in his chosen field beyond anyone's
expectations shocked them all even further.
     Using the deadly combination of his agile mind and his experience
with the Byzantine methods of Juraian noble politics, Honjo had  
rocketed up the ranks of the Academy, breaking all known records for  
fastest published thesis, fastest tenure, and fastest admission
to the board of Directors.  Finally, at the age of two thousand and  
ninety six years, he had become the youngest ever Lord High Director
by unanimous vote of the board.
     Since his ascendancy, the Royal Science Academy had bloomed as it
had not done within living memory.  Honjo used his influence and family
ties liberally to aid the institution and to advance research and  
learning.  The Juraian government, traditionally somewhat leery of the
Academy and its maverick and independent nature, had poured grant money
and resources into the school as never before.  Even better, Honjo was
athletic, handsome, and an accomplished swordsman.  He was the  
veritable embodiment of a well-balanced and well-rounded man.  Prior
to his leadership, the Academy had recruited primarily from the  
one-dimensional lot of students that had devoted their lives to the  
hard sciences.  Honjo's ascendancy to the directorship had inspired
a whole new generation of Juraians to enter the Academy- and these  
Juraians, inspired by his example, were broader in their interests
and abilities than any previous class of Academy neophytes.  This had
brought fresh perspectives and fresh energy to the Academy and  
generally energized both the institution and its faculty.
     Needless to say, the Lord High Director was immensely popular
amongst his peers- though it did annoy them that he insisted upon  
thrashing them in the gym's fencing arena from time to time.
     "Sir," whispered Vice-Director Malthus as they stepped into the  
locker room, "there has been a message from Doctor Washuu.  You must
see it immediately!"
     "From Doctor Washuu?  You don't say?"  Honjo replied.  He gave  
Malthus a look that said 'is it about what I think it's about?'
     Malthus merely nodded.  He walked somewhat gingerly over to his  
locker (his ribs were still more than a bit sore) and opened it.  After
a moment's rummaging, he withdrew a message card and tossed it to the
Lord High Director.  "It's the only message on the card, sir.  It was
addressed to me, but I've stripped the password requirement off of the
message so that anyone with a level 4 clearance or higher may view it.
I think you'll find it VERY interesting."
     Honjo shrugged and put the card into his own locker.
     An hour later, after a shower and a change of clothes, the Lord
High Director settled into his large leather chair in his private
office and popped the card into a player.  The air above the desk  
crackled for an instant, then Washuu's face appeared.  The holographic
visage immediately began to speak.
     "Malthus, I hope this message finds you well.   It's been  
centuries."  She paused.  "Alright, that takes care of the  
pleasantries.  This is important, so pay attention."  Honjo chuckled.
That was SO like Washuu- always playing the role of the Sensei,  
commanding her "students" to listen to her...
     "I'm sure you've heard about the attack on Lady Aeka.  The news
HAS to be screaming about it by now."  Honjo smiled sardonically
at that.  Lady Funahou had clamped a quick info-hold on news of the  
attack.  Barely a thousand people in the whole of Juraian space knew
of the assault.  "I've already received a message from Lady Misaki
informing us that a courier will be here next week to bring us all back
to Jurai post-haste," she continued.  "I have something I want you to  
check on before then.  I want an answer the moment I get there."
     Honjo hit the pause button.  He reached over and switched his own
message machine's recording functions on.  He then un-paused the  
hologram.
     The hologram's field of view suddenly expanded to show a table.
On it were several lumps of metal and a black box.  Honjo snorted.
"CC guns, remotes, and a sub-space trap," he muttered.
     "These are CC guns, some remote sensors of the 640LC series,
and an ingenious little variant of subspace trap that won't be picked
up by a normal anomaly trace scan.  They were all used in the attack
on Lady Aeka.  Last I checked these were all highly classified
RAS projects.  Now they're out running loose and in the hands of folks
who are trying to kill Juraian First Princesses."
     The field of view zoomed back into Washuu's face again.  "I want
to know who the RAS has issued these things to, and I want a trace run
on where the technology went from there.  I highly doubt that the  
first-iteration users were dumb enough to employ these things- it'd  
point directly back at them.  It's far more likely someone stole the  
tech from them and is now using it to try to incriminate those users-
or the RAS itself."
     Honjo snorted again.  Occam's razor cut that theory to ribbons.
     "In any event," Washuu went on, "SOMEBODY is using RAS tech to  
take pot shots at Juraian Royals.  This could bring a whole lot of hate
and discontent down on the Academy, and neither of us wants that.  If  
we can aid the investigation now, the Academy can point to it later
and maybe avoid some of the fallout that's sure to come from this.  For
that matter, I want to know who's trying to kill Aeka for my own  
reasons.  I rather strongly object to gunplay in my immediate  
surroundings."  Honjo chuckled at that.
     *Classic Washuu,* he mused.  *Someone's shooting CC guns off near
her, and she gets indignant.*
     "Malthus, I'm dead serious about this.  Drop what you're doing
and get me these answers.  We'll have a head-to-head when I get there.
I'm going to try and develop some information on my own here before
the courier arrives.  We'll compare notes in two weeks.  Oh, and can  
you tell the boys in fabrication to whip up a new-model Guardian
shell for me?  I'm going to need it when I rebuild Azaka.  Thanks.
Hakubi out."
     The transmission cut off into a burst of static.  Honjo reached
over and switched his recorder off.  He sat quietly for a moment,
reflecting...
     He reached out again, this time to make a call.  He dialed a  
number from memory.  A voice-only channel opened.
     "Hello?"  a sleepy voice came from the speakers.
     "This is Honjo.  We have a problem..."

     Meanwhile, downstairs in his own much smaller private office,
Malthus was also speaking with someone.  "What do you MEAN, you haven't
gotten the disk back yet???"
     The face on the holo-link was that of the lead agent Malthus
had met with in the bar on Ontos.  The face's owner looked rather  
nervous.  "Are you SURE this link is secure?"
     Malthus waved his hand dismissively.  "I designed this encryption
myself.  The only computers that can crack it are here at the  
Academy... and I control them."
     The agent still didn't look happy, but he continued.  "Fine then.
To answer your question, no, we don't have the disk.  The attack  
failed.  Luckily, it failed catastrophically- there were no survivors
for the Juraians to interrogate.  So there's been no official  
'incident' yet."
     "Good for us, since we're not ready for one yet," groused Malthus.
"What about the disk?  Doctor Washuu is starting to make inquiries,
and she's not exactly an unintelligent individual.  We may need to move
sooner rather than later.  And to do that, we NEED THAT DISK.  So where
is it?"
     "Unknown."  The agent paused.  He HATED giving operational
details to this... this CIVILLIAN... but he'd been ordered to give a  
full report.  "Minagi and the Juraian agent accompanying her fled the
planet.  They were last seen headed rimward after blowing through
the Juraian interdiction flotilla."
     "Oh, is THAT what that was?  I saw in the news that an  
"unidentified pirate fleet" had busted up some poor Admiral's  
battlegroup..."
     "Pirate fleet my ass," scoffed the agent.  "That was Minagi.
The Juraians just don't want to make that public- more evidence that
they're looking for a way to avoid handing her over to us.  For that
matter, we've confirmed that their fleet does NOT know that she's being
accompanied by a Juraian agent- it looks like their Intel establishment
is trying to keep her out of trouble without telling the fleet about
it.  They're taking their operational security very seriously on this
one..."
     "Pardon me for interrupting," growled Malthus in a strangled
voice, "but what about that disk?"
     "Well, we she certainly still has it.  The problem is that we  
don't know where she is."
      "WHAT??????"
      The agent visibly winced.  "Vice Director, PLEASE... not so loud!
Are you in a secure area?"
     "Yes you ninny, I'm in a secure area!"  thundered Malthus.  "WHAT
DO YOU MEAN YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE SHE IS???"
     "By the time we got another recon team assembled, we'd lost her.
The systems are pretty sparse out on the rim; not a lot of good sensor
coverage.  We probably won't pick her up until she makes planet fall
again."
     "Damnit, who says she'll even MAKE planet fall?"
     The agent smirked.  "She'll have to.  Now that she's engaged
the Juraian fleet, they'll have half their force- AND the GP- out there
looking for her.  She'll have to put in somewhere to get her ship refit
and resurfaced- otherwise, she'll show up on their parametrically-gated
scans, and they'll find her for us."
     Malthus barely managed to keep his head from exploding.  "That's
NOT GOOD NEWS, YOU MORON!"  He heaved a shuddering sigh and managed
to lower his voice.  "If the GP or Juraians find her, THEY may get the
disk.  Then what??"
     "No worries there either, Vice Director."  The agent laughed.
"We have a source that will let us know if either the GP or the Juraian
fleet spot her.  Our assets in that sector are very well-located.
If she's spotted, we WILL get to her before the Juraians do."
     Malthus gaped.  "How in HELL can you be so sure?"
     "I do this for a living, remember?"
     "Yes, and the failure of your attack on Oceana just FILLS me with
confidence in your abilities.  Malthus out."  The Vice Director cut the
link.  He exhaled forcefully. He was still angry, and, truth be told,
nervous.  "These Romulask Intel types aren't impressing me enough for
me to trust them," he muttered to himself.  
     "I need a plan..."

Chapter 22 Minagi's Quarters, HINASE's Main Hold May 15th of R.Y. 732
2301 Ship's Clock Time

     "How long has he been sitting there?" Minagi asked worriedly.
     "Ever since he left the healing area," replied Hinase.  Minagi
and Hinase were staring at a small monitor in her quarters.  The pop-up
display showed a panoramic view of Kaje's berthing compartment
from the vantage point of his holographic display unit.  The room  
looked the same as it always had.  Kaje, on the other hand, looked
distinctly different.  The healing tree had slightly elevated his  
metabolic processes during the curing process, and he now looked to be
about ten pounds lighter than when he had first been injured.  He also
had a scraggly, patchy, blonde and black beard and was in need of a  
haircut.
     Kaje had been quite groggy when first awakened.  The tree had  
extracted itself without incident, and the Juraian Intelligence
Officer had regained consciousness a few hours later, seemingly
completely healed.  His first comment had been something along the  
lines of "Wow, is my ass sore!"  Minagi had managed to pretend not to  
hear him.  She doubted Kaje really wanted to know the intimate details
of how the tree had done its work.
     Kaje, meanwhile, had become increasingly surly as the fog of his
long sleep had cleared from his mind.  Minagi had been intent upon  
questioning him about his behavior back on Oceana, as well as getting
some concrete answers concerning his plans for their eventual  
destination, but had found herself startled into silence by his sharp
rebuffs of her attempts at conversation.  After not too long a time  
Kaje had stormed from the room, muttering that he'd be in his berthing
and wished not to be disturbed.
     Now the Lieutenant was sitting in his room, silent, staring at a  
wall.  He'd been doing so for hours.  He'd gotten a combat knife from
somewhere, and occasionally he'd idly flip it into the air and then  
catch it.  Minagi was more than a bit worried.  First, it just wasn't
natural for someone to stare at a wall that long.
     Second, she in no way trusted Kaje with a sharp object...
     Kaje, for his part, had no idea that he was being watched.  He was
vaguely aware that his holo- display had a two-way camera mounted
for ship's internal messages, but wasn't thinking about it at the  
moment.  He was far too absorbed with a scathing series of  
self-recriminations.
     *I...* he thought to himself, *am a GALACTIC FUCKING MORON.*
     *How the HELL could I let myself get so lax?  What in FUCK was I  
thinking???*
     *I'm on the lam with the galaxy's most notorious space pirate,
and what do I do?  I stop off at a RESORT PLANET for nearly a fucking
month.*
     *Oh, and I changed her GOD DAMNED HAIR COLOR!  Oooooo, look at me!
Aren't I fucking fieldcrafty!!!!*
     *I didn't put up a broad enough sensor net.*
     *I didn't monitor the spaceport for suspicious arrivals.*
     *I didn't give either of us a full geno-masking.*
     *I stayed in a known safe house.*
     *I let us go out in public... REPEATEDLY.*
     *I GOT DRUNK.  If they'd attacked that night... oh gods...*
     Kaje flipped his knife up into the air.  It'd serve him right if  
it landed point-down in his palm...
     *What in the FUCK was I thinking?*  He caught the knife.  *I was
waiting for an opportunity to leave, instead of MAKING an opportunity
to leave.  I was bloody well ENJOYING my damn self.  So I didn't push
it.  I just sat back and waited to get plucked off the tree like a  
overripe damn yuzu.  And it almost happened.*
     *I almost got her killed.*
     *I am on ASSIGNMENT, damn it.*
     *I have been neither objective nor competent.*
     Kaje closed his eyes.  He remembered the feel of steel sliding
into his gut.  His fingers reached down and massaged the keloid scar
that now graced his abdomen.  The memory of pain lanced through him,
making him grimace.
     Then he remembered Minagi's scream when shrapnel from the CC blast
into the wall had hit her.  He also remembered the thought he'd had as
his attacker had prepared to finish him off after he'd been stabbed:
that Minagi was going to die, and it would be his fault.
     Hearing that scream and thinking that thought had cut him far, far
more deeply than the stab wound.
     *Fuck me.  I am way, way, WAY too close to this problem.*
     *I let it cloud my judgment and my field craft.  I let it endanger
the Juraian state through my behavior.*
     *And then I took it out on that poor Romulask son of a bitch after
the stims kicked in...*
      Kaje could still remember the terrified realization that had  
shown in the man's remaining whole eye as his foot had descended.
     The knowledge that he was going to die, and there was nothing
he could do to stop it.
     Kaje shuddered.  HE'D done that.  He'd sent an unready man to  
hell.  It had been necessary; that he'd done it wasn't the part that
bothered him.
     What bothered him was that at the time, he'd enjoyed it.  The  
bastard had tried to kill Minagi.  He'd deserved to die.
      Thinking like that scared him.
     *I let my emotions cloud my judgment, and then I let them control
my actions.  That's inexcusable and unsatisfactory.*
     *Unsatisfactory.*
     "Unsat" is one of the strongest negative terms in military  
parlance.  To say that something is unsatisfactory to a military
man is like telling him that the situation borders on the fall of  
civilization as he knows it.
     Kaje felt some small piece of his brain trying to make the excuse
that he hadn't in any way been told to expect an armed attack; that his
job had been to hide, not to defend.  He was about to quash that  
thought under another avalanche of self-loathing when he realized
that he had a point.
     Why HAD they been attacked?
     The assault team had clearly been Romulask.  Why would they risk
a SERIOUS incident with Jurai over the extradition of a pirate?
     What the HELL had Minagi stolen from them???
     He could deal with this emotional morass later.  Right now, he had
an analytical job to do.  And THAT was something that was familiar,
solid ground.  A way, perhaps, to redeem himself.
     Kaje stood and strode over to the holo-unit.  He slapped the comms
switch.  In Minagi's quarters, a high-pitched squeal filled the room.
Minagi yelped and covered her ears.  Activating an already-open
comm-link makes for some rather nasty feedback.
     Kaje, oblivious to the pain he'd just caused his erstwhile
snoopers, spoke into the link.  "Minagi, Kaje."  He winced after he  
spoke.
     *Damnit, will I EVER stop talking like I'm on a radio???*
     Minagi recovered from her aural mugging and spoke into her own  
link.  "Yes Kaje?"
     "I need to know something, and it's very important."
     "And that would be?"
     "That courier ship you raided right before we met?"
     "Yes?"
     "What did you take from it?"
     "Actually, it was empty.  The only thing I got was an envelope
with a disk in it."
     Kaje thought for a moment.  "Did the envelope have any colors
or stripes on it?"
     "Yes, it did.  Red and white stripes around the border.  How did
you know?"
     Kaje's jaw dropped.  Red-and-white was the universal courier
striping for "top-secret."  "Where is it now?" he demanded.
     "Um... I think it's down in the main cargo area, why?"
     "Go get it. NOW.  The disk will be encrypted; get HINASE working
on it immediately.  Let me know when it's done."
     "Kaje, what's-"
     "Just DO it, okay?"  He killed the link.
     *Why the FUCK didn't I think of this before?* he berated himself.
*I should have checked on that FIRST THING.  FIRST FUCKING THING!!!!!
The nature of what she took would define their entire response...
and I just ASSUMED that it wasn't anything that important...
Lords of CHAOS, that was dumb!*
     Kaje's shoulders slumped.  Just how many dumb things had he DONE?
The number was starting to get too high to count.
     *Okay... new rule, boyo.  Henceforth, you are a cold, calculating,
hyper-paranoid ASSHOLE.  You can romance the space pirate... or NOT...
AFTER you complete operational requirements.  From now on... work  
first.  Hell, work first, second, and third.*
     *Though I have to admit, we did get interrupted during a very  
interesting conversation when those Romulask bastards came at us...*
     *STOP THAT!  Megami, you're violating your own rule already!*
He shook his head.  *Right now, you are a Lieutenant in the Juraian
Fleet Intelligence Branch.*
     *Anything else can wait.*

     A few hours later, Kaje was pouring through a most interesting
document.  HINASE hovered next to him.  "Sir, I apologize that it took
so long.  The encryption was of a VERY high level.  If I didn't have
Master Yakage's subroutines on chaos and fractal encoding on hand, I  
wouldn't have been able to decrypt it at all."
     Kaje answered without looking up.  "That's okay, HINASE.  From  
what I know about TS-level encryption, it would have taken our own  
cryppie boys a week to break this.  You did quite well."  Kaje scrolled
down another page.  "Hmm... this is interesting... that's one hell of a
speculation..."  Kaje used the keypad to highlight a section of text.
"This here's good too... hmmmm.  I don't like where this is leading..."
Kaje scrolled down a bit further.  His eyes widened.  "Holy SHIT...
oh my GODS, if we'd only looked at this back at Karentes... holy  
SHIT!!!!"   
     HINASE floated closer.  "Sir, are you alright?"
     "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine.  Damnit.  I can't even call this one in.   
It's too hot.  And what if it's a fake?  And if it's not, I gotta know
who's in on it... I can't trust anybody with this.  SHIT!"
     "Sir?"  HINASE sounded perplexed.  "What ARE you talking about?"
     Kaje ignored the control entity.  "I was going to put in on one of
the pirate worlds out in the far rim and get a façade put on us, but  
this... wow.  If this is for-real, I can't trust ANYTHING to strangers.
It's just too damned huge."  Kaje stopped, obviously thinking hard.
HINASE levitated quietly, waiting.
     Kaje suddenly turned toward the little orb.  "HINASE, how far are
we from Soknisi?"
     "Sir, we could be there in two days.  Slightly under if we redline
the drives, though that will increase our sensor footprint."
     "Let's head there, best stealthy speed.  I know some folks there,
and we're going to need them.  Even if I do NOT want to need some of  
them..."  Kaje closed his eyes and shuddered.
     'Sir, may I PLEASE know what's going on?"
     Kaje simply pointed at a particular section of his display.
"Read that."
     HINASED scanned the display.  "My goodness!!!!"
     "HINASE, goodness has NOTHING to do with it."

END PART II