Time Enough for Tenchi, part 9: Time Enough
by Eaerth

Our new home was worse than the last one, but it didn't
matter much because we would be leaving soon.  Just long
enough for Ryoko to deliver her shipment of weaponry and
then to distribute it to various cells of the Resistance,
and we would be off to a new planet.  Or they would be off. 
I wasn't sure if I would leave with them.

People shouted back and forth across the bay as they
unloaded the final batch of supplies into the dusty, disused
warehouse on the periphery of the Virgin arcology, in what
was once Great Britain.  The great doors in the roof were
closed now but it was still cold and dank inside.  Cracked
concrete made unsure footing and dropped objects rolled
downhill.

"Left!  No, no, your other left!" someone yelled.

There were still pallets of crates left over from when this
division closed down 20 or 25 years earlier.  I'd looked in
one of them.  Crates and crates of Chinese video discs.  Not
much call for them anymore.  Europe's infatuation with Asian
cinema was forgotten by all but critics and film school
students.

"Have you got the forklift working yet?"

"Just a minute!  It's almost there."

"At least we have lights now."

"Hey!  Hey, old man!"  A hand waved in front of my face.  I
looked down.

"Sasami," I said.  "Hi."

"Don't 'hi' me," she said, with a stamp of her foot.  "Stop
looking around like a fucking moron and start working.  I
need you to help me lay down floor in Misato's workshop."

"Yes, Sasami-hime."

She kicked me hard in the shin and I went down, cursing.

"Don't you dare call me that," she said.  "You have no
right.  You think cause you ran away you can make fun of me. 
When you laugh at me, you laugh at my people.  You're the
only joke around here, Tenchi. 

"We'll be in the workshop."

				#

It felt like hitting a wall of sound when I stepped back
into the main bay.  "Fuck, it's actually getting louder," I
said.  I looked around.  Sasami was standing with Rosman and
Shinobu.

"Ryoko's ship is in range," someone said.

"'Kay, broadcast our location."

"Hey!  Two hours till Ryoko!" one of the techs shouted to
everyone.

"Do you trust our hosts?" Rosman was asking when I
approached.

"No," Shinobu said.

"Agreed.  Do you think you can get perimeter scanners set
up?"

"Set up, yes.  With our power situation, I can't say
anything about effectiveness."

"It will have to do," Rosman said.  "Get on it.  I need to
see if we expect the doors to be open when Ryoko lands."

"Aye, sir," Shinobu said.  "Sasami, you know where they're
crated?"

"Yes," she said.  "Tenchi, help."  She waved for me to
follow her.

				#

The crates were on casters and were stacked two high, top to
top, wheels on the ground and in the air.  They were big,
but not heavy, just bulky.  Two of us could handle them.  We
would push one stack against a crate of Chinese action films
and then roll the top box on its corner over and down to the
ground.  Then we'd roll the boxes to where Shinobu's crew
was working.

It was sweaty work, though.  Sasami had blue hair matted to
her face, the longer strands of which she had to brush out
of her eyes every couple minutes.  It looked as if a few
swipes with a sharp knife passed for a haircut.

We moved to flip another box when the handle slipped in my
sweaty hands, causing it to slide down half a foot and pinch
the girl's fingers between it and its companion.

"Ow, you idiot!" she shouted at me while I tried to keep the
case from falling.  "Damn that hurts."

With her good hand, Sasami helped me inch the scanner to the
ground.

"You idiot, you should pay attention to what you're doing." 
She had her hand squeezed between her arm and chest.

"I slipped," I said.  "Sasami, you clearly don't like me. 
Why, every time you need help with something, do you ask
me?"

"You know the saying, 'Keep your friends close and your
enemies closer?'" she said.  "By keeping an eye on you, I
can--*pfft.*  I can--*pfft.*"  She was trying to blow a very
long strand of hair out of her face.

"Here, let me."  I brushed the hair away for her.

"I can make sure you don't screw up anything too major," she
finished.

"I wouldn't put money on that," I said.

				#

"We have Ryoko on the scanner, Dr. Rosman, sir," one of the
computer jockeys announced.  "She's in orbit overhead."

"Yay!" Mihoshi said.  She jumped up in the air three times. 
I had never met anyone older than six who jumped around when
excited, except Mihoshi.  "We get to see Ryoko again."

"Thank you, Shinji," Rosman said.  "Send her confirmation. 
Ok, folks, let's get ready to meet her.  Someone make sure
we'll have those doors open."

The lights went dim for a second.  A beep beep came from
Shinobu's computer handheld.

"Damn, that took the perimeter defense offline," she said. 
"I have to go reset them, I'll be right back.  I hate this
place."  She hurried off.

Rosman bowed to Sasami.  "Milady," he said.  Sasami led the
way to the landing bay.

"I miss Oude," I said to Mihoshi.  His business with Ryoko
concluded, he had left before we ever came to Virgin. 
Without him, everything seemed mundane.

"Yeah, he was cool," Mihoshi said.

"How are those doors?" Rosman called when we entered.

"Fine, Dr. Rosman."

"Good."  He spoke into his walkie talkie.  "Shinji, tell me
when Ryoko begins her final approach."

"Yes, sir."

We waited.

There was another momentary brownout.

I had the feeling I had been through this before.

Rosman picked up the walkie talkie again.  "Shinji, you
there?"

"Yes, sir.  Ryoko has not begun her approach.  She is just
waiting there."

I looked at Sasami and Mihoshi.  Mihoshi shrugged.

"Damn," Rosman said.

Just then, the lights went out.  There was the sound of
pounding feet and doors being forced.

"It's a trap," Rosman cried out in the darkness.

We hit our flashlights.  We were surrounded by NATO troops
in Achilles suits, coming around every crate and out of
every corner of the landing bay.  The incoming troops laid
down a wave of bullets that tore our people to shreds.

"Return fire, dammit," shouted Rosman.

I yanked Mihoshi and Sasami hard around a crate, out of the
immediate hands of death.  There we met a soldier, rifle
ready.  With a kick I swept his feet out from under him, and
then I jumped onto his chest.  I reached under his helmet
and pulled as he threw me off him.  Something unbuckled and
he got up helmetless.  I punched him hard in the nose with
the flat of my hand.

"Tenchi, duck!" Sasami yelled.

I ducked.  Mihoshi shot over me with the blaster she kept in
her purse, and a man went down.  Achilles suits were useless
against Juraian energy weapons, but there were more of them
and the Rebel was surprised.  I finished off the helmetless
invader.

Sasami stripped him of his sidearm.  I could hear blaster
fire.  Though we were giving them a good fight, there was
little Sasami, Mihoshi, and I could do.  Mihoshi killed
another NATO soldier.

"We're dead here," I said.  "We gotta get out of the open."

"That way," Sasami said, pointing.  "The women's sleeping
quarters.  Most defensible spot in the warehouse.  Maybe we
can regroup there."

"Let's go," I said.

Mihoshi dispatched several soldiers on the way.  She was a
crack shot, it seemed.  Against their armor, Sasami was able
to scare a few.  But we were not going to reach the women's
sleeping quarters.

A soldier launched an object from across the warehouse.

Mihoshi turned.  She tried to push us back.  Her eyes were
wide.  "Grenade..." she said.

The rocket-propelled grenade struck the wall by Mihoshi.

Grenades in those days weren't the feeble things we knew in
the 20th century.  They did not spray shrapnel or emit
concussive pressure.  Those weapons were now useless in real
warfare, good only for crowd control.  Modern grenades were
much stronger.  They obliterated everything in the area.

I looked at where the grenade hit, ten yards from us.  They
would not survive.  Sasami and Mihoshi would die unless I
did something.  I used the Jurai power.

No human-like species had natural psionic power except for
the Juraians, and only those of the original royal
bloodline, which had almost completely died out during the
Tuvan occupation.  I knew little about it.  The Jurai blood
power was only instinct for me.

The grenade tore apart the wall and everything around it.  I
surrounded Mihoshi and Sasami with a telekinetic dome.  The
blast hit the dome and was turned aside, enveloping me in
pain and falling wall.  I tumbled to the ground, alongside
the dome, but I kept them protected as long as I could
remain conscious.

				#

I was slung over a shoulder and my carrier was running. 
Currently I was being carried down a long worn-out looking
hall.  I glanced up at someone stepping into the hall and
shooting at us.

A door slammed in front of my face and we skid to a stop.  I
was whirled around and I heard a loud clank and a hiss from
the door.

"You awake?" a woman said.

"Uh.  Yeah," I said.  I looked down.  The woman carrying me
wore a brown trenchcoat with a terrible rip.

"Think you can walk?"

"Yeah," I said.  "I think."

She started to put me down.  Black hair.  Black hair in my
face.  No, green, green so dark it was almost black.  My
feet touched the ground.  I stumbled when my legs took my
weight.

"You sure you can walk?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.  "I'll manage."  I looked up.  "Kiyone.  What
are you doing here?"

"I did a little digging," the Juraian woman said, "and I
came up with something I had to tell you right away."

"About why Aeka's trying to kill me?"

"Yes, and it's not what you think.  But we have no time for
that now.  The weld on that door isn't going to hold for
long."

I looked at the door we came through.  Welded solid.  One of
the walls of the abandoned apartment we were in began to
glow.

"They're coming through the walls!"  Kiyone kicked open the
other door in the room and shoved me through.  "Run!"

I ran.  "We've gotta find Sasami!" I shouted back.

				#

"Tenchi," said a voice.  I opened my eyes.  "Tenchi."

For several moments, I couldn't focus.

"Tenchi," the voice said.

I was being held by Mihoshi.  I lay on the ground, half in
her lap.  I couldn't move my legs.  The air was filled with
smoke and it was strangely quiet.  I could hear some
scattered fighting in the distance, but where we were now
was quiet.

"Tenchi, you're awake.  You're alive," Mihoshi said.  Her
face was dirty and streaked from tears.

"Master of the obvious as always, Mihoshi," I said.  I
coughed.  I tried to get up.  "Help me up.  Where's Sasami? 
Is she ok?"

Mihoshi helped me to a sitting position.  My legs, I could
see, were trapped under a large metal beam.  "She's ok.  She
went to get something."

"What?"

"I can't remember.  Sorry."  Mihoshi smiled weakly at me.

She moved to kiss me, without warning, but I turned my face
away.  She kissed me on the temple instead.  "Running away
from you was the biggest mistake I ever made in my life,"
Mihoshi said.

I looked at her sharply.

I heard a grinding of metal.  Sasami had arrived, dragging a
long pole.

"Tenchi's awake?" Sasami asked.

"Yes," Mihoshi said.

"Good," Sasami said.  She dropped the pole and looked me
over.  "You're lucky to be alive.  You were protected some
by the shield.  If you hadn't been, you'd be dead right now. 
I don't understand though.  Why did you use the Jurai power
only to save us?  You could have protected yourself too."

"It's because he wants to die," Mihoshi said softly.

I stared at her.  That's twice.

"Welp, he's alive, so help me get him out from under this
crap."

"I tried, Sasami," Mihoshi said, "but it's too heavy.  I
can't lift it."

"That's why I got us a lever," Sasami said.

"A what?"

Sasami rolled her eyes.  "Take this piece of metal, put it
under the beam like this, and when I tell you to, push up
here.  I'll pull Tenchi out.  Got it?"

"Got it," Mihoshi said.  "Ready."

"Push," Sasami said.  Mihoshi pushed and the weight came off
my legs.  Sasami slid me out of there.

"Can you stand?" she asked me.

"I don't know," I said.  "My legs hurt bad."

"You can lean on me," Mihoshi said.

With Mihoshi and Sasami's help, I stood.  The only clear way
to go was into the center of the landing bay.  There were
bodies all over, burned, torn, or bloody, of rebels and NATO
soldiers.  The ceiling doors were torn open from a ship
crashing through, escaping.  The rebel's spaceship was gone.

"Gives 'em something to tell the tabloids about," I said.

I looked around at the bodies.  There was Dr. Rosman, lying
on his back with a hole in his belly.  Looks like they lost
their leader after all.  On the ground near Rosman's body
was his amulet, the statue piece from Mars, its cord broken. 
I limped over to pick it up, and put it in my pocket.

"Let's get away from this," I said.

We moved toward one of the exits, away from the sounds of
scattered fighting.

NATO troops surrounded us, rifles aimed and ready.

"Throw down your weapons and put your hands up," they said.

We were captured.

				#

They threw us into an armored van with four other prisoners. 
After some time, and one more new arrival, the van began to
move.  After a long drive, they marched us into a NATO
prison facility.

We were searched for weapons before our captors pushed us
into a room with about ten others.  They shut the door with
a clang.

"Tenchi."  Shinobu came out of the crowd.  "I'm glad you
three survived."

"You look like you've been through Hell," I said.  "I
suppose you have.  You know about Rosman?"

"I saw him go down," Shinobu said.  She winced at moving. 
The left arm of her shirt had been torn off and used as a
tourniquet above the place where she had been shot.  "That
bitch, I'll kill her."

"Who?" I asked.  "What did we do?"

"We were betrayed," Shinobu said, "by that twice-damned
Ryoko."

"Why would she do that?" Mihoshi said.

"I don't know.  But if I ever see her, she's dead."

I touched Shinobu's arm.  "Is the bullet removed?" I asked.

She nodded, unable to speak.

I closed my eyes.  Using the Jurai blood power, I reached
into the space she occupied and reknit flesh and tissue and
rerouted impulses of pain.  Instinct.  I could no more let
her suffer than I could stop my heart.

"You were kind to me,"  I said inaudibly.  I looked to see
that she was healed.  Her eyes were amazed.  They reminded
me of something I had not seen since I was a boy.

"Who else is wounded?" I asked the room.

				#

"They didn't get these from me," Sasami said.  She reached
into her shirt, under her bra, and removed two oval white
patches.  She pressed one onto the door, about where the
lock was.  "Stand back, everyone."

She slapped the second patch onto the first and ducked away
with the rest of us.

After the flash and crack, Shinobu and another rebel charged
out of the room and disabled the guards.

Shinobu took one unconscious guard's sidearm and gave the
other to Mihoshi.  "You're the second best shot," she said. 
"Let's go."

				#

"A Juraian cruiser?" Mihoshi asked.

We had come across a huge landing area containing an
arrow-shaped alien spacecraft.

"Shh, get down Mihoshi," Sasami hissed, pulling her down
behind the industrial crane we hid behind.

"They didn't look like galaxy police," Mihoshi said about
the drab-suited men who had just left.

"They were probably undercover," Sasami said.

"Oh," Mihoshi said.  "Right."

"Definitely Juraian," Shinobu said.  "Looks like we have our
way out."

"It'll be tough," Sasami said.  "Only two guards, but if
they raise the alarm and we have to fight it out, we won't
make it."

"We move fast, then.  No shooting."  Shinobu paused. 
"Where's Mihoshi?"

I looked around.  Mihoshi had disappeared.  I spotted her
dashing across the landing bay toward the ship.

"That idiot," Sasami said.  "If they look this way, we're
dead."

Mihoshi reached the side of the ship, out of their sight,
without being spotted.  We watched her sneak around the
cruiser, approaching the guards.

She stepped up alongside one, said something to get his
attention, and then floored him with a punch that looked
like far more than one plump middle-aged blonde could
legally deliver.  Before the first guard hit the ground, out
cold, she had her pistol trained on the second.  She gave a
command and he dropped his rifle and put his hands on his
head.

"This is the woman who was drummed out of the space patrol
for incompetence," Shinobu said.  She looked at us.  "Move
it guys, ships don't fly out of here on their own."

We hurried over to the ship while Mihoshi tied the guard's
hands together with the unconscious guard's belt.

"Hi guys," Mihoshi said.

Inside the ship's cockpit, Mihoshi sat in the pilot's chair
and pulled a lever to close the outside hatch.

"You know how to fly one of these?" Shinobu asked.

"Not exactly," Mihoshi replied, "but how hard can it be?"

"Oh crap," I said.  "Everyone fasten your seatbelts!  It's
going to be a rough one."

"Let's see, how about this," Mihoshi said as I tried to
strap myself in to a chair on the bridge.  She fiddled with
some controls.  "Yes!  We have power!"

The ship jerked to the side as the ship lifted off at a
crazy angle.  She yanked the joystick the other way, pulling
the ship away from the wall and death.

"If I were the weapons controls, where would I be?" Mihoshi
said.  "How about..."

Missiles destroyed the roof of the NATO landing bay.  The
ship surged out of the base and rocketed toward space.

"We've reached orbit," Mihoshi said after some time.  "Got
the cloaking device on and it feels like gravity is
working."

I unbuckled myself and paced, working the fear out of my
legs.

"We survived," Sasami said.

"Yeah," I said.  I put my hand on Mihoshi's shoulder.  "You
did well, Mihoshi."

She looked up and smiled brightly at me.

There it was again.  Not so much a sense of deja vu or even
a memory of being here before, though I knew those feelings
well.  It was the sense that I was looking 30 years back in
time.

"So where do we go now?" I asked, fiddling with the piece of
Martian statue in my pocket.

The Juraian cruiser orbited the planet Earth.

"I don't know if there's anywhere safe from Aeka," Shinobu
said.

---------

That's the end of the first series of 9 chapters.  Now,
after I do some other creative projects, I plan to continue
Time Enough for Tenchi, if people actually want to read more.

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.