Time Enough for Tenchi, part 6: Time Enough for 
 Breaking and Entering
by Eaerth

"Wake up, sleepyhead."

"Ohhh, go away," I said.  Someone switched a light on.

"Hey, it's breakfast time.  Somewhere outside the sun is
up!"

"Get the hell out, Mihoshi," I groaned.

"Come onnnnn," Mihoshi said, tugging on my arm, "you can't
sleep all day!"

"Fuck you," I said, yanking my arm away, "you sleep more
than everyone."  I pulled the sleeping bag over my head.

"Ok, I'll go.  But you're the last one sleeping, and I
thought you'd want to see Sasami before she leaves.  I'm
sorry."

With a rattle of a chain, the light went out.

"You're not nice anymore," I heard her say as she walked
away.

I lay in the darkness but I couldn't get back to sleep. 
"Dammit, dammit, dammit," I said as I stumbled to my feet
and out of the small storeroom.

There was a large crowd in the main bay.  It sounded like
introductions were being made.  "...is Evan Chen, who will
be doing communications.  And this is Shinobu Tachibana, who
is always right."

"I make sure no one forgets that."

"Oh, Tenchi, you're up," Mihoshi said when I joined the
crowd.  She smiled brightly.

I flinched.  "I couldn't sleep, that's all."

"Morning, Tenchi," Sasami said.  Though she was only a
slight blue-haired girl, she seemed no child when she looked
at me, hard and cold.

"Yeah, I suppose it is."  I tended to hurt all over in the
morning.  I glanced up at a tiny glint of red out of the
corner of my eye.  "I--"

Before I could finish, Sasami tackled me, pulling me down by
the legs.  "Sniper, get down!" she yelled.  I heard the
crackle of an energy weapon before I hit the ground. 
Someone cried out.  Everyone started shouting.  Rosman
yelled, "Someone get that guy!"

That was the first fifteen seconds.  I hit the ground and
lay stunned.

"Tenchi, are you all right?" Sasami asked when everything
quieted down a bit.

"Um, yeah I think.  I don't think I was shot."

"Then can you *get off me?*"

"Um, yeah, sorry."  I untangled myself from the child and
got up.  I heard gunfire from the rafters.

"Evan's dead," one of the Juraians said.  He looked up at
me.  "He was standing right behind you."

"That's silly.  Who would want to kill Tenchi?" Mihoshi
asked.

"I wonder," Sasami said.

The gunfire ceased.  "We got him!" someone called.

"Blast it," Rosman said as he looked over the fallen body. 
"With Mr. Chen dead, and Mr. Mercer bedridden with flu, we
have no one who can operate the ansible.  We must postpone
the Zaire mission."

I looked at Evan's body.  "I can do it," I said.

"What, Mr. Masaki?" Rosman asked.

"I can do it.  Sony holds the patents on the ansible, I
wrote much of the original firmware when it was developed, I
can rig it to communicate with your people."

"Thank you, Mr. Masaki," Rosman said, shaking my hand.  "You
don't know how much this means to the Juraian people."

An armed rebel approached.  "Dr. Rosman, sir," he said, "we
killed the sniper.  Sir, it was Mahiro."

"Mahiro?  I've known him for decades.  He wouldn't try to
kill Mr. Masaki."

"Aye, sir.  I can't explain it."

					#

The spaceship leapt swiftly away from Redmond but there was
no sense of acceleration.  We stood in the cabin as if we
were still on the ground, the 13 of us:  Sasami, Rosman, and
I, and 10 soldiers. 

"Just sit down somewhere," Sasami said.  "That way I can sit
down on the other side of the ship."

"Ok, ok, jeez," I said and found a chair.

"Why does she hate you so much?" Shinobu asked me as she sat
beside me.

"I don't know," I said to the delicate-looking Juraian
soldier.  "I suppose I just deserve it."

Faster than any Earth aircraft and more undetectable than
any stealth fighter, we crossed over into the night side of
Earth to central Africa.

"Ok, the installation is over the next ridge," Shinobu said
when we landed.  "Let's move.  You three stay out of
trouble.  I don't need to tell you this, Doctor, but you two
remember, I am in charge.  I am always right.  You do what I
say.  Got it?"

"Yeah," I said.

Sasami nodded.

"Let's go then."

We headed out into the wet darkness.

The high energy communications tower was just one building
in a complex of factories, office buildings, and
experimental nanotechnology laboratories in the foothills. 
Luckily, it was at the edge of the complex.  Cars whirred by
on the eight lane highway alongside.

"Do you think they know we're here?" I asked when we reached
a rear door to the tower.

"If they don't already, they will soon," Sasami said as she
moved to the front of the group.  The girl took a prybar
from a toolkit and pulled a panel from beside the door.

She mumbled to herself as she fiddled with tools and a meter
in the hole by the door.  "Almost got it," she said, several
wires in her mouth.

There was a flash of sparks and a click.  "There," Sasami
said.

Shinobu cautiously opened the door and looked in.  "Let's
go," she said to us, "before the lady of the house wakes
up."

We got to the control room on the third floor without
tripping any alarms, as far as I could tell.  It was a
simple office with two terminals and a central control
panel.  An unwatered plant was halfway to dying.  The
company logo, "Monsanto," was plastered on the wall above
them.  I sat down and got to work.

There were several well-known exploits in these systems,
unpatched for years, so it was easy to get access.  When I
was younger, I offered to fix security holes but was
ignored.  Later, I gave up.

Getting in was easy, but after that...

"Hurry up, old man, we don't have all night," Sasami said.

"This isn't simple stuff, you know," I said as I entered
Jurai's coordinates.

"Just get going, moron, we'll be caught any mo--"

At that point, a alarm bell began ringing in the distance.

"Here they come, folks," Shinobu said.  The soldiers set up
with energy rifles in doorways down the hall.  "We'll hold
them off while we can, but you better hurry," she said
before leaving the room.

"We'll all be killed because of you," Sasami said when the
shooting started outside.

"Lay off," I growled, and typed the start code. "Ishihara,
you there?" I said into the test mike.

"Who is this?" a scratchy voice responded.

"I've got your boss here.  Doctor, you're on."

Rosman took my place at the computer.

"Finally," Sasami said.

"Why don't you back the fuck off?  I'm sick of it."

"You're such a wimp, Tenchi."

"Shit," I said and turned away.

"Always were."

"I'm done.  Let's get out of here," Dr. Rosman said as he
ran by us, leaving us alone in the control room.

"Well are you going to just stand there, Tenchi, or are
coming with us?"

"Come on, you two," Shinobu said through the doorway. 
"We're leaving *now.*"

So Sasami and I followed them out.  Bullets bounced off the
walls around us.  The Juraians responded with energy pulses. 
Shinobu hurled a grenade down the hall, which cleared out
the security guards.  Then we ran.

Sasami and I tried to catch up but Sasami's short stride
held her back, and I was already out of breath.  Dr. Rosman,
old enough to be a grandfather, was nowhere to be seen.  As
we approached the next turn, an automatic door slid closed. 
I sprinted forward.  With a quiet thud the door closed and
locked.

I had made it through.

But Sasami hadn't.

"Fuck," I said, spinning to face the door.  "Sasami's
trapped."

Shinobu shouted to her men.  "You go, we'll catch up!"  She
faced the door and hefted her rifle.  "Ten minutes to burn
through, maybe she can open it faster."

"Is there another way out?"

"Not on this floor.  They'll all be locked down."

"Get out of here," I said.

"What?  I can't do that."

"*Go.*  This is my job."  I faced the soldier.  "You have no
identity on this planet.  Do you know what they'll do to you
if you get captured?  If I get caught it won't be so bad. 
Go with your people.  We'll see you on the outside."

"Aye," she said.  "Good luck."  And she sprinted after the
rest.

"Sasami, I hope you can open this thing," I yelled through
the door.

"Put your hands where I can see them and turn around," a
British voice said from behind me.

I turned around slowly.  A Monsanto security guard was
there, holding an automatic pistol on me.  I hacked out a
few coughs as he radioed that he'd caught one of the
intruders.  I doubled over with coughing.

"Listen, you, keep your hands in the air," he said, moving
closer.

I pretended to trip, falling into the guard.  I grabbed his
arm and, with an easy throw, pulled the guard over my hip
and shoved him head-first into the wall.

As he slid down, unconscious, I unclipped the security badge
from his coat and slid it into the slot by the door.  The
door slid open.

"Come on, Sasami."  I picked up the fallen guard's pistol. 
"We don't have much time."

"Hey, stop right there!"

I looked up.  A dozen security guards arrived, blocking the
way out.

I stepped through the door to Sasami's side and pushed the
button to close it behind us.  Bullets pinged off the other
side.

"Run!" I said, running down the hall and dragging the girl
by the hand behind me.  We turned a corner and I heard the
door opening behind us.  We passed an elevator.

"Stop here," I gasped, going back to the elevator.  I
slipped the badge into the elevator's slot and punched the
button to open the doors.

I dragged Sasami inside and pushed the button for the top
floor.  As the doors closed, I leaned against the wall,
gasping for air.

"Are you all right?" Sasami asked.

I nodded.

Before we reached the 23rd floor, I pressed the emergency
stop button.  The elevator shuddered.

"There should be a trap door on the ceiling," I said, giving
Sasami a lift up.  She opened the escape hatch and climbed
out the roof of the elevator.

When she was outside, I pointed the pistol at the elevator's
control panel, shielded my eyes, and held down the trigger. 
When the controls were destroyed, I dropped the gun on the
floor and tried to climb out the trap door.

"Ow, give me a hand please."

Sasami helped me climb out the rest of the way into the
elevator shaft.  I climbed the ladder until I reached an
access panel in the wall.

"Hopefully, we'll find a way to the roof.  Do you have a
flathead screwdriver?"

Sasami handed me a screwdriver and I unscrewed the panel. 
We climbed inside a cramped tube.  Ten yards in, we reached
a small hatch to the roof, with an electronic lock.

I tried the guard's badge.

"Shit," I said.  "They disabled the card."

Sasami shined a flashlight at the wall by me.

"There's a panel there, get it off," she said as she removed
a panel from the ceiling.

I removed the panel.  Behind were several circuit boards,
ribbon cables, and other wires.  Nothing I recognized.

"Here's a meter," Sasami said.  "Find the left side of the
board, next to two or three capacitors."

"Nothing."

"Try the next pin."  She fiddled with a device on her end.

"Five volts."

"Ok.  Next," she said.

"I can't see.  Ok, thanks.  No, nothing."

"You know, we wouldn't be in this trouble if you'd worked
faster."

"Just work on this," I sighed.

"I want you to connect these two points."  She handed me a
handful of short wires.

There were sparks falling from her panel.

"Not those two, you idiot!"

"Sorry," I said.  "This is a real pain in the ass.  If only
Washu-chan were here, this would have only taken seconds."

"Washu's dead, Tenchi.  She died on Mars."

Everything seemed to go dark, the light from Sasami's torch
snuffed out.  "Oh God," I said into the darkness.  "How did
it happen?"

"It was almost 30 years ago.  Only a year after ... Washu
left to teach at Sigma 957 University, for some reason she
quit and went to Mars.  On Mars, something terrible
happened.  Something killed her.  No one knows what, and no
one will ever find out, because everyone is afraid to go
there."

I set down the tools and lay flat on the ground.

"What are you doing, Tenchi?  I need your help if we're
going to get out of here."

"I don't care.  Washu's dead.  She was supposed to outlive
me."

"She died *28 years* ago.  You're a little late, as always. 
You have to help me or we'll be dead too."

Slowly I found the tools I had dropped.  I let her talk me
through the rest of the operation, and the hatch opened to
the night sky.

We climbed onto the roof.  In the foothills outside the
complex, the Juraian spacecraft was rising into the air. 
Sasami ran to the edge of the roof and waved, and the ship
turned and sped toward us.

I stood next to her and looked down at the street and the
neighboring buildings while we waited for the ship.

There was a bang of metal behind us.  I turned.  Armed
security guards were pouring onto the roof from an open door
and when they saw us, they opened fire.

Turning, I picked up Sasami and leapt off the building.

The girl screamed as we arced toward the street 23 stories
below.

There was a stomach-turning lurch as the spaceship's tractor
beam caught us and transported us aboard.

"They're aboard," Shinobu said.  "Get us the hell out of
here."

Then I passed out.

					#

At Microsoft we were met by Mihoshi.  "Thank goodness you're
back ok," she said.

"Yes, somehow we all managed to survive," Sasami said.

"Pfft," I said and wordlessly left the ship.

"Tenchi,"' Sasami said behind me.  I stopped.

"Tenchi, thank you," she said.  "You helped the resistance
more than we deserve to ask."

"Yeah," I said, and walked away.

---------
You'll notice that the parts are coming more slowly now.
Welcome to the land of deeper depression.  I'm completely
stuck in the middle of chapter 8, but if I can get through
this, I might just make it through to the end of season 1.
After that, who knows if it'll be renewed?  The ratings are
worse than the XFL's.

The names of Tenchi, Washu, Aeka, Sasami, Ryoko, Mihoshi,
and Kiyone are copyrighted and probably trademarked by AIC
& Pioneer LDC.  I don't claim any ownership over them.
Beyond the names, this story has just about nothing to do
with the series.  I hope you don't feel cheated.

Completely unrelated stuff, such as my comic, "Kevorkian 
Won't Return My Calls," can be found at my website.
http://eaerth.isfuckingbrilliant.com/ is the redirect.

The email address on this post has been spam harvested and
at least one of the spammers has the Klez virus, so I'm
getting that mailed to me too.  If you send anything there, 
there's a good chance I won't even notice it when I check 
email (once every couple months).

If you have any comments or questions or anything, check the
website.  I used to put my real email address here at the
bottom, but the website redirector has lasted two years, 
which is longer than any email service I've signed up with 
has lasted.  Sorry for the extra step, but if you'd tried 
to send a message to the old address at the bottom of this
chapter and gotten a bounce, you'd understand why.