A Thousand Mile Journey.
Chapter One: Kyo wa ki o utsusu.*

    Princess Sasami hiked up the stone steps, carrying the large lacquer
picnic box, with its tiered trays and tea flask.  She smiled to herself as
she slowly approached the pathway that would head away from the stairway to
the work shed.  She had spent hours preparing the meal, carefully slicing
the
vegetables and measuring every pinch of spice or dash of ingredient.  She
had
poured both time and love into the dishes and was looking forward to
visiting
both her sister and her friend.
    The birds seemed to be out in full force, singing and flying about.
Sasami giggled happily as she entered the forest, heading towards the work
shed.  'I do hope they are getting along,' she thought, 'Those two have so
many problems to deal with.'
    Sasami knocked on the door lightly and said, "Hello!  Anybody in there!"
    The door opened a few seconds later and Ryoko stepped out.  She was
wearing a pink summer kimono, with her hair in ponytails.  The princess
needed a few seconds to absorb this knowledge before saying, "Ryoko!  I
brought you lunch!"  Sasami held up the picnic box.  "Where is my sister?"
    Ryoko smiled, "Hey Sasami!  Thanks.  Oh, she's here.  Come on in."
    Princess Sasami stepped into the work shed and looked about, very
impressed.  Most of the items, such as boxes or crates, had been pushed to
one side OR turned into makeshift tables and chairs with the help of cloth
and pillows.  A few of the larger crates now dominated the center of the
shed, as a dining table, with matching cloth covered boxes as chairs.  Lamps
were here and there, set to light as much of the shed as they could while
burning as little of the oil as possible.  Princess Ayeka was sitting at the
dining table, putting down a sweater she had been working on for the past
few
days, and smiled at Sasami.  "Sasami, how are you?  Come to visit us?"
    Princess Sasami held up the box which she placed on the table, "I
decided
to visit and feed you too.  I see you have been working on the shed as well
as on the carrot fields?"
    Princess Ayeka nodded, "Oh yes.  Me and Lady Ryoko decided we needed to
make the place a tad warmer, more like a house then just a shed."  She held
up the sweater and said, with a pink blush, "I am making a sweater for her.
It is so cold up here in the mountain sometimes and Ryoko has had problems
sleeping."
    Ryoko closed the door, after checking outside to see if, just maybe,
Tenchi had come to visit too and then sat down across from Ayeka and asked,
"So, Sasami, what you bring us to eat?  My cooking is just barely edible."
    Sasami carefully served the food filled trays and poured each of them a
cup of tea while trying not to go into shock.
    'She is making a sweater for Ryoko?  Ryoko making fun of her own
cooking?'  Sasami sighed and shook her head while thinking, 'Oh no, their
poor minds have snapped.'

    Ryoko had always enjoyed Sasami's cooking and soon was asking for
seconds.  'It's like having ice cream after spending five months on an
island
in the middle of nowhere.  Oh God, it tastes so good.'  She tried not to
shovel the food into her mouth too fast with the chopsticks, but she just
couldn't help herself.  'Too bad she only had tea in the flask.'
    Ryoko slowed down and watched Ayeka eat her fried chicken and rice with
a
tad more grace, but just as much enjoyment.  'There!  I felt it again.
Something kind of warmth in my chest.  I think I am beginning to like her.'
Ryoko glanced at the happy Sasami, who was busy answering Ayeka's questions,
and thought,  'Luckily for us you didn't try to bring us breakfast.  Finding
us both fast asleep in the same bed would have been hard to examine.'  Ryoko
started to blush and tried to hide it by drinking some tea. 'Stupid, it's
nothing to be embarrassed about.  She is helping you deal with your fears.
This shed might not be a cave, but even a rope scares a man who fears
snakes.'
    Ryoko remembered that morning, when she woke up whimpering, like a
puppy.
 Ayeka had been there, sleepy eyed, but already enclosing Ryoko within her
arms.  Ryoko had felt safe, like a young child in the arms of its mother.
    Ryoko placed the cup on the table and smirked at herself.  'A mother who
is less then half my age.'

    "So, Miss Mihoshi is learning how to be a Shinto Priest?" asked Princess
Ayeka, somewhat alarmed.
    "Oh yes," answered Sasami happily, "grandpa said that she is a very good
trainee.  Of course, he says she will have to attend one of the two Shinto
universities as well as learn from on the job training."
    "I thought she was just going to be a shrine maiden?" replied Ayeka as
she picked up a piece of fish with her sticks.
    "Oh yes, well," Sasami giggled and continued, "she has shown a great
deal
of interest during Tenchi's studies and even now is able to do some of the
rituals without a flaw."
    'A great deal of interest, did she?'  Ayeka chewed on the chopsticks and
her thoughts turned dark. 'Why that nitwit!  She's after Tenchi!  We have to
invite her up here and somehow get her to stop.'
    Princess Sasami turned to look at Ryoko.  'That braid work looks like
Ayeka's.  Have they been helping each other with their hair?'  Sasami served
her sister some more of the fish before she noticed that Ryoko's kimono was
one of Ayeka's.  'They're sharing outfits?'
    Ryoko frowned, having noticed that Ayeka was turning red and said, "How
is my Mom?"  Ryoko started to smirk, as she thought, 'The Princess is going
to blow her top.  Got to go to another subject and fast.'
    Sasami grinned at Ryoko and stated, "She is going OK.  We haven't seen
much of her, but from what I can tell, she is very happy.  She has been
visiting the far side of the moon, trying to find out more from that ship.
She knows it was sent out to investigate her, but she has no idea who sent
it
or why."  Sasami looked a tad worried and added, "She seems to have a very
long list of enemies.  In fact, she has said she might have a few she does
not know about yet."
    Ryoko placed her chopsticks on the edge of her bowl and shook her head,
"She hasn't a clue who sent that damn computer after her or why it also came
after me?"
    Sasami shook her head.  "She said most of the systems were very common
and nothing in the wreckage gives a clue to where it came from.  Or, what
she
said was, where didn't it come from."
    "What does THAT mean?" said Ayeka, finally pulled out of her dark mood
and thrust into a different one.  'How can Miss Washu not know who the ship
belonged to?  She has always been one step ahead of our foes whenever they
appear.  Most of the time she is ready before they are!'
    Sasami bit her lower lip and said, "Well, she compared it to making a
car
with parts from all over the world.  America, Germany, Japan and other
places."  The little princess gestured with her hands, "She said she can't
figure it out.  She can trace the parts to hundreds of planets and
factories.
 One of the power plants she found in the wreckage even came from the
Imperial Science Academy."
    "What?" chirped Ayeka, as she almost choked on some rice.  'It can't be!
The Galaxy Academy is funded by both the Galactic Union and by Jurai.'  She
tried to clear her throat and continued.  "The computer has to have been
stolen.  There is no way the Academy would allow its equipment to be used in
a questionable manner."
    "Well," said Sasami as she watched her sister try to clear her throat,
"however it got there, it was from the Academy.  She says she helped in the
design herself over 6,000 years ago, so she should know."  She glanced at
her
sister's dish and wondered.  'I hope I did not add too much ginger to the
chicken.'
    Ayeka turned pale.  'Both Jurai and the Galaxy Police profit from the
Academy in the form of new computer systems and weapon systems.  If somebody
else was able to somehow get their hands on those parts...'
    Ryoko leaned back in her chair and frowned.  "We have to find out how
that computer got into that ship.  Somebody stole it or sold it or got
something for it."
    Ayeka shook her head and sighed.  "If Washu could not trace it, how are
we going to?"
    Ryoko placed her cup onto the table and remarked, "First off, how do you
know my Mom tried?  That Academy is not paradise to her you know?  To her,
well, to her its nothing but pain."  Ryoko tapped her finger onto the table
and continued, "She has linked the Academy to the painful loss of her son
and
husband.  You picture her even calling them up and asking about it?  Heck
no.
 She is going to be spending the next few weeks, poking about the faded
memory of a dead computer because she is the greatest scientific genius in
the universe."
    Sasami blinked, listening to the exchange and added, "But how will you
two find the information?"
    Ryoko winked and smiled down at Sasami, "We won't, but you and Mihoshi
will."
    "Huh?"
    Ryoko leaned onto the table and smiled at Sasami, "Your father IS the
King of Jurai.  And Mihoshi's grandfather is Marshal of the Galaxy Police.
Don't you think they would be interested to know about somebody stealing
from
the most powerful source of knowledge in the universe?"

    The lights in the meeting chamber slowly turned up, as the projection of
Washu's features slowly disappeared.  Tally stood next to the laser
projector
and looked about the room with his hard eyes.  "As you see," he said as he
folded his hands behind his back, "Rift failed at the main goal of the whole
mission.  While we do have more information then before, we still have
nothing to help us with our war with the Lady Tokimi."
    Many of the military officers before Tally seemed to stir at their
briefing stations, a few even beginning to look like they wished to say
something.  Tally held up a hand and continued, "I know many of you feel the
mission was useless to begin with, but Haven High Command felt it would cost
us nothing if we launched a scout mission into universe 345."
    Tally allowed his hands to tug at his blue naval uniform and he gave the
room another once over with his colorless eyes.  'Brave, eager pilots and
warriors, each and every one.  So eager to fight and die.'  First Fleet
Commander Tally nodded to a few of the older, wiser officers.  'Not like the
elders.  They don't remember the horror, the great desolation and the
wandering of the last few decades.'
    "I want reports from all tracking stations within Universe 345 within
three cycles.  Dismissed."
    As the crowd of men and women left the room, a flowing river of red and
blue and black uniforms, First Fleet Commander Tally turned to one of the
closed windows.  A push of a button and the windows went transparent,
showing
the yellow light of a nearby star reflecting off a hundred hulls.  Scout
ships, gun ships, escorts, destroyers, dreadnoughts, high speed fighters and
zigzagging transports.  Only one of the few hundred fleets and bases hidden
within the pocket universe.
    'So much firepower.  Our people can blast whole planets to nothingness,
yet we hide, like worms.  Defeat after defeat has twisted us, marked us.'
    The First Fleet Commander of Haven picked up his cap and placed it on
his
head, his two eyes like black marbles, without pupils or color, stared off
into sky.  He was not looking at the modern ships, but seeing the older
ones,
ones he had seen from memory cubes of the past.  Spaceships burning and
exploding as the foe ripped into them.  'We will return home.  Goddesses or
no Goddesses, we will return.  No matter how many fleets are used, no matter
how much blood is wasted.'

    Four cycles later First Fleet Commander Tally was kneeling before the
throne of the Lord-Regent of Haven, Lord Lance, Defender of the People and
Master of the Relic.  Lord Lance was white haired, with very pale skin and a
black cloth wrapped about his eyes.  He sat in the throne as if sleeping,
but
Tally knew under that white cloak was an alert and sharp mind even in the
shadows of the throne room.
    "Report," said the soft voice of the most powerful being in Haven.
Tally
bowed and crossed his arms over his chest.
    "Lord Lance, the Universe 345 is still free.  Neither Lady Tokimi nor
her
allies have moved against it.  Something holds her back."  Tally bowed
deeper
and added, "We failed to prove one way or the other if Washu is the cause."
    Lord Lance lifted a hand and made a dismissing gesture, "She is the
factor.  Somehow her presence protects that universe, unlike all the others
that have fallen to that Goddess and her kind."  Lord Lance suddenly started
to cough and covered his mouth.  The cough was wet sounding and it took a
few
minutes for the Lord-Regent to recover.
    He sighed and moved his head in Tally's general direction.  "I'll die
soon and they will have to replace me with a new leader from the vats.
Maybe
his or her DNA mixture will show less defects."  He shook his left hand at
the protesting Tally, "No, no.  Don't try to humor me.  Our race has no
place
for humor anymore.  Not until we can drive our enemies from our own home.
Now, go prepare the next mission.  If we can't bring Washu to us, we will go
to Washu!"
    As Tally stood up and left the throne room Lord Lance turned his chair
about to face a display screen.  When the room's doors hissed shut he turned
on the screen to show the information that Rift HAD been able to bring back
about Ryoko.  He removed the black cloth, revealing two yellow eyes that
seemed to water and blink even in the half-lite darkness of the room.  He
absorbed the scrolling data as it flowed across the wall screen, like a
school of red fish in a blue sea.
    "Well, at least the damn computer did bring us something we could use
besides Washu," sighed Lord Lance.

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Tenchi Muyo! and all related characters were made by and or owned by AIC and
Pioneer.  I had nothing to do with it, nor was I even around for the great
fire in London.  Before my time.  All other characters, like Rift, Tally,
Lance and the Haven High Command are mine (unless they go and do something
illegal, than they're on their own).
*One's residence affects one's mood.