Old Familiars
The Battle of Crim

Three empires in the stars
Two princes betrayed by their father
A vengeful daughter of a slain lord
A man in power, who once had none
One planet which will change the universe
And one battle that will change their lives

April 18, the Year of our Lord 3105 Castlecathedral Novoscoma, Tsarholme, Novograd Prime, Ostkraft Space

The window was already turning gray with the midday sun rising. The coloration controls automatically darkened whenever the white sun of Novograd started to stream through the windows of the Castlecathedral, so that those looking through the window would not be blinded. Christoff Ivanovic Romanov, Holy Tsar of all the Russias and Austrians of Ostkraft, somehow wished it wouldn't do that. Right now, blindness might be something of a blessing.

His second wife, Nancy, was in childbirth somewhere in the North Wing. Though it was considered custom for the Tsar to be present, along with a Priest of the Orthodox Church, when a Tsarovic was born, Christoff had no interest in this one's birth. Jolan was enough, he believed, all he needed was one heir, why had Nancy insisted upon a second? She was French, a citizen of le Republique d'Etoile, and as such rather enigmatic, as most of her countrymen where. He desperately tried to remember how she had convinced him that a second heir had been necessary. For the life of him, he could not.

He could hear his son (his REAL son) playing behind him. Playing was, to Jolan, watching old holo-records and simulations of Holy Navy ships fighting whoever the enemy was at the time of the recording. Sometimes it would be the Shogunate Keiretsu, other times it was the United Freestates, other times it was the mighty and feared navies of Prussia and the British Empire. Jolan seemed to love them all, win or lose. At only five years old, he could already identify the different classes of Space Warships in use by the Navy, and had even, at his father's request, been allowed to tour a Piotr-Class System Control Battleship while it was docked. He seemed to be bred for the Navy, like his great Ancestor Piotr the Great.

But what would this new child become? Christoff had bowed to his wife's idea that he be named after himself, and thus he would be Christoff II. But would he be worthy of the name? Such uncertainties came whenever a royal family brought more than one child into their house. Squabbling siblings could do more damage to an empire than a hundred Dreadnaughts parked in orbit. Prior Russian history attested to that.

He looked once at his son, watching a great battle between the British and his own people. The British were winning. Christoff smiled, though. It would teach his son that you cannot always win. It would teach humility, but strength.

The smile slowly turned into a sneer. The thought of another child in the house, attempting to undermine his brother for the throne, sickened Christoff. "But that won't happen."

"What was that, father?" Jolan looked over his shoulder at him, his face momentarily given a halo as the holo-image of a British frigate imploding from the blast of the great Ivan-Class SCB lit up on the screen behind him.

Christoff smiled lovingly, his great beard curling with the facial movement. "Nothing, my little admiral. Nothing at all."

Jolan nodded, but he still looked inquisitive. Yet another good feature of the future Tsar. "Father?"

"Yes, Jolan?"

"When is my brother coming? Mother has been away for a very long time, and I saw the priest come into the castle this morning. Am I going to have a little brother today?"

Christoff sighed. The boy was so eager to have a playmate, to have someone to study with, to talk to when no one else was listening. He was too young and naïve yet to understand what trouble a brother, especially a younger one, would be. "Yes, Jolan. You will be a big brother. This means you will have a great responsibility to make sure he is a good brother."

"But you are both our father. Isn't that what you are supposed to do?"

"I am the Tsar, Jolan. All of Ostkraft are my sons and daughters. But you will only have one brother. It is your duty to take care of him."

Jolan shook his head. "I don't know how."

The Tsar sighed. "You will learn, my little admiral. You will learn." Christoff turned and scooped up the gold and fur crown of the Tsar, and looked at it for a moment before putting it on. "I must go now. I have much work to do before the household is alive and jumping with your brother's birth." He began to walk out.

"Father?"

Christoff stopped just before reaching the door. "Yes, Jolan?"

"Do you want another son?"

The old Tsar bit his lip. Without turning to face his son, he replied simply "No. I do not."

TNN (Terran News Network) Special Report: The birth of a Tsarovic Aired April 19, the Year of our Lord 3105

Good evening, and welcome to TNN Nightly Report. Our top story tonight is the newest addition to the Romanov family. Young Christoff the second was born yesterday afternoon at 14:39 Novograd Prime Eastern time to Tsar Christoff and his French wife, Nancy d'Rouge. The baby boy is reported to be perfectly healthy, even unaided by gene-tech devices or medical nanotechnology. Christoff II will be the second addition to the Romanov family, and Christoff's first son to d'Rouge. Christoff II is second in line for the throne of Eastforce, after his older brother by five years, Jolan, born of Christoff's first wife, Tanya of Eastforce. Tutors applying for work to teach the young Tsar are requested to touch the blue-link here for more information. Other news tonight once again features Eastforce, and their border skirmishes with Clan Useugi of the Shogunate. The planet of Crim, long contested by both superpowers for its rich natural supplies of drinking water and iron, was recently retaken by Eastforce soldiers as they fell earlier today on the capital city of Trinket. The Useugi have vowed to liberate the world, and to strike, as the Useugi Daimyo put it, 'a blow in the gut to the paper bears'. Though Crim is a small world, and of little strategic importance, Shogunate and Eastforce armies have battled for control of the planet's resources for nearly a century. The League of Nations has urged both sides to reach a compromise on the matter before weapons of mass destruction are put into use by either power, but the matter remains that the conflict is too deep in both Shogunate and Eastforce space to warrant an LN intervention force. To see pictures of the fighting taken by Samurai forces during the battle of Trinket this morning, click the blue-link here. The Prussian Mark and the Pound continue to vie for position in the Interstellar Trade Market, while the Yen and Freestate Dollar continue to hold steady. The short-lived rise of the French Mark has ended in a 14% drop this past weekend. The Space Trading Company, however, ensures that the decline is simply 'a statistical hiccup', as Manager Tony Giuliani said, and that economic equality shall be preserved. Graphs of the overall economical state this month can be viewed by clicking this blue-link. UF Governor William J. Colding spoke out earlier this morning against the drop of police funding on the UF capital world Washington Prime, saying that it leads directly to 'the rise of organized crime, including the Mafia that we all know truly exists and has rooted itself in our communities'. The Freestate Senate plans to reconvene on the issue of nation-wide police shortages later this week. Prussian delegates have offered to train the existing police forces of the UF as a 'gesture of the continued goodwill towards our allies'. Attorney General Asher Johnson Jr. has yet to comment or reply to this offer. Freestate citizens interested in joining their planet's police forces are encouraged to click this blue-link for information on recruitment centers and skill requisitions. In the entertainment world, the film Waterloo has reached the trillions in its first week of viewing in the British Empire. Despite complaints from Republique critics that it makes the French, especially Naples, seem cruel and brutish in their mannerisms, the film is already being considered a triumph of holo-making, in the time honored British tradition of delivering only the best. Waterloo was written and directed by renowned British director Malcolm Trafalgar, perhaps best known for his film The Stripping of Stars, which debuted in 2969. To see a preview of Waterloo, click here. To read reviews of Waterloo, click here.

July 14th, The Emperor's Year 3105

Ikutsa Western Paddies, Ikutsa Rice Fields, Satsuma III, Shogunate Space (Clan Shimazu)

Hamiko's beautifully woven grey and blue kimono blew lightly in the wind, the scent of rice, ozone from the harvester's exhaust, and the barest hint of snow coming off Mount Kojiko, the extinct volcano around which the Ikutsa rice fields were based came with it. The girl of only seventeen closed her eyes, and barely opened her mouth to taste the air. The air of home.

All around Hamiko, the banners of Clan Shimazu, and their corporate owning, the Ikutsa Rice Farm, waved in the same breeze. They were not holo- projections, as they would be if in sight of any person from another clan or empire, but simple cloth. This gave a...a realness to them, that holo- projections could not.

"Hamiko-Chan, are you still out here?"

A smile played on the girl's lips, but her eyes remained closed. "Hello father."

Shimazu Shinji placed a hand on his daughter's shoulder, and sighed. "It is getting late, Hamiko. The wind you are enjoying will soon turn still, as it always does in summer." She could hear him grunt in discomfort himself. "Surely you don't want to be out here when it turns muggy and hot."

"The weather doesn't bother me the same way it does you, father. I like it. It's so different than space...and I'm up there all too often."

"I thought you liked space. Didn't you schedule a trip to Ikari next month? The ship that takes you will take almost a week to get there."

"I like space just fine father." Finally, Hamiko opened her eyes, and turned to face her father. "But every time I leave, I miss home. I miss the paddies, and the lazy commoners, and the snow melting on the mountains. I miss you and mother."

Shinji sighed. "I know. But your place is amongst all the other stars, Hamiko-Chan. You are the force that keeps Shimazu from being eternally grounded on this world and others."

Hamiko smiled at her father's compliment, but inwardly she wondered. Am I really? Do I really mean so much? I think you love me a great deal father, maybe too much. I am no future. I'm just a girl.

"Come on, let's go inside Hamiko. Your brother said he would call us from New Texas" -it came out, in his accent, as Noo Tek-hass-- "tonight, and tell us how the dealings with the gaijin are going."

Hamiko nodded, and followed her father inside. She turned her head once, before she entered the pagoda's porch door, and took one final breath of the air.

Home.

************************

The girl slept in perfect serenity. The glow from her personal computer, and the data parchment surrounding it, bathed her in the red and green colors of Clan Shimazu. Her face was loose, and her breathing was even.

Or rather, that is how it would have appeared to anyone else.

The man in the black, all-encompassing suit crept past the girl's room, and he noted with mild amusement, that the girl was, in fact, awake. Her neural patterns did not fit REM bands, and her chest was rising at a slightly faster rate than it should have, considering the girl's size and weight.

At least he wouldn't have to worry about waking her up.

Outside, the handiwork of the man continued. A small band of nanites had infested the motion sensors surrounding the pagoda, and had systematically turned their wiring and hypercoms to thin, fine layers of dust. The system was still transmitting, but nothing that would be of any importance to the Samurai and security commoners watching the house.

As for the Samurai inside...well, he just hoped Shinji didn't have a dog that would find the armored men with thick, shuriken-induced holes in their chests and necks. The last thing he wanted to hear was an animal whining. Right after a sword being drawn, of course.

He considered taking the girl. After all, she undoubtedly had some cybernetic implants that he could access, if only a data storage device in her wrist or behind her ear. And she would be so easy to crush...only seventeen, and probably never having had any training for resisting mind- rape. But no...His mission was not murder. It was not even truly offensive in nature.

The man continued on to his true objective.

*********************

Geosynchronous orbit around Satsuma III, Shogunate Space (Clan Shimazu)

High above Satsuma III, a dragon waited.

It was not a real dragon, of course. Those were mythological creatures most likely, and even if they had existed, they had undoubtedly been destroyed in the wake of the antimatter explosion on earth all those centuries ago. But that was all right. It was better than a real dragon.

The Go-Uda-class Dreadnaught, named the Lady of Immaculate Flame, had slipped into orbit only last night. Hidden in the sensor shadows of hundreds of other, legitimate Shimazu craft, and it's own cloaking device (one of the bare dozens available in the Shogunate for a ship this size) enhanced by the fusion drives of the three surrounding Koken-class battlecruisers, also cloaked, it had waited for an entire day for the moment when the beacon could be placed.

That moment had finally come.

Taisho Lord Uraki Jijuka of Clan Hosakawa leapt from his seat at the head of the dreadnaught's bridge. He stared at the planet below him through the plaz-steel eyes of the ship, styled to look like a powerful and ancient serpentine beast. "There, the signal has been sent. Did you receive everything?"

The Samurai at the communications station to Jijuka's left answered "most of it, Lord Uraki. There was some interference from the comm. station on the moon, but assuredly, nothing we can not rectify soon."

"Good, very good indeed. How soon can we launch dropships?"

"As soon as Prince Gomizuno-o's attaché can confirm the legal right to takeover of the planet."

Jijuka sneered. "That could take a very long time indeed. Have the Shimazu dogs detected the signal yet?"

The communications Samurai again. "Ye, Taisho. The Cyberninja sent the transmission by microburst signal, and he masked it under a royal channel. I doubt if the Shimazu are even tracking its source."

The General's sneer returned to its usual grin. "Good. Then we have all the time we need.

"All the time in the world."

September 12, 3105 AD

the Rundowns, Bangor Starport, New Maine, Freestate Space

William J. Colding was freezing.

The Rundowns, what the people around this area had lovingly taken to calling the abandoned construction area of the Bangor Starport, had all the ventilation systems of a gutted carcass. This, ironically, was what it was.

Overhead, the utilitarian designs of a wing of Trenton-class destroyers, their gravity sections still under the influence of the large moon's own gravity, lolled by, little more than a parade, even though officially they were on patrol safeguarding the Governor of the entire Hatstick system while on a personal mission.

I'll have to remind Eddie to cut down on the guards he thought to himself. The Trentons were just a little too obvious, and though their presence was impressive, they were also gigantic bullet-magnets as far as the Governor was concerned.

He'd definitely been in the military too long.

Already a small crowd of onlookers, most of them in rags and tattered clothes, had gathered around William and his two honor guards, both in Hercules battle armor. That, too, was a little much, especially for just a speech...and a promise.

The people all around him were, indeed, not on God's good side. In many mouths, teeth were missing, and those that remained didn't look so good as it was. Their bodies were not the epitome of cleanliness, and their eyes...the worst part was always their eyes...their eyes were empty, as if they were white dwarf stars, still there, still spinning...but long since having given up hope or heat.

These people had come to the United Freestates as refugees, as people looking to find a last bastion of hope from their oppressive governments and societies. William could point out Prussians, Nipponese, French, Chinese, African descendants, and a few that looked so plain they could have only been British. But whatever hope they had had before had been crushed, probably because they had to first be processed at the Ellis Station orbiting New Texas. But not everyone wanted to stay there, or to live on New Texas or its moon, Houston. They had gone to other planets to escape the overcrowding at that system...and had been stranded here by ticket costs.

The Freestate market being what it was, fuel prices and warpgate tariffs were rising at exponential rates, especially with the Hosakawa stirring up trouble again, trying to retake their lost worlds from so many years ago. They stood no chance, especially with the fleet of dreadnaughts parked in orbit around all three of the systems' central worlds, but the attacks drove prices up.

And with the loss of all their money, these people had been lost to this place, the Rundowns, of what should have been their salvation: a fully functional Starport.

But William Colding was going to change all that.

"Ladies and gentlemen, if you will all please be calm and settle down, I will explain my presence here." William wiped the sweat from his brow. It was cold, so very cold, but he was nervous. These people's fates rode on his following words.

The crowd had swelled to a few hundred now, all gathered around the half- finished landing pad that would have been made for Peregrine fighters or small transport hovercraft. They were murmuring amongst themselves; some of them recognized him, some did not. All of them knew, however, that he was somebody big: it wasn't everyday that man walked into the Rundowns in a four-piece suit, an honor guard, and three destroyers at his beck and call.

"My name, for those of you who don't know me, is Governor William J. Colding."

"Hi Bill!!" An old man with a bald head and an Austrian accent said smiling, while a younger woman tried to pull him back and shush him.

William couldn't help but laugh. Well, at least somebody liked him, even if it was just an old senile grandpa. "We know that you all have been...trapped, in this nightmare for years, some of you, decades, even. I know for a fact that one family has lived in the Rundowns for six whole generations." There were no speakers in the open-air landing pad, but William's booming baritone voice carried nicely through the plaz-steel surroundings. "I say, that that isn't right!"

Somebody in the crowd scoffed. "But its not like you're gonna do anything about, is it Mr. Governor?!"

He had been afraid of this. "As a matter of fact, I do intend to do something about this outrage."

"What?! Open up a soup kitchen? Organize volunteer teacher programs? What we need, Mr. Governor" --he said the name as if it was a bad taste in his mouth-- "is a ticket out of this dump, and ten thousand dollars to hire a lawyer and sue this damn Starport out of existence!!"

This guy was a professional asshole. He had no idea that William was probably the only politician in the region who really did give a damn about the little people. "Well, I don't know about the free ticket, but how does twenty thousand sound to you, sir?"

The man in the front shut up. I think I found the magic button, William thought. "The treasury of New Maine, and the Hatstick system as a whole, has seen fit to divert a very good deal of cash and resources to any public renewal project we wish. Our older friends here will know that this section of the Starport has remained unfinished for almost a century. If you ask me, that's way too long to have a project out in the air and not do anything with it."

William stepped down from the landing pad, and walked up to a cluster of people. They smelled bad, but William has smelled worse. Nothing like drying bodies after a bonsai charge, at least. "As Governor, I have...suggested to certain groups, that this funding should go to the completion of the Bangor Starport, the Rundowns in particular. Now, if my accountants have done their math right, the money spent would equate to about two thousand Freestate dollars per person living here. Living flats, climate control machines, railcar outlets, stores for you all to run and go to, banks to put money in and watch it grow, a waste disposal site, and anything else you people feel like putting in."

"This is all way too good to be true." The same man said. "We've all had politicians lie to us, use us, say they'll help, but really they just want good PR? I wonder were the camera is, broadcasting this to all his friends back on one of those destroyers above us?"

William let the man say his piece. He had a triumphant looking smile after he was done, even if he did seem like he was a little out of breath. "No cameras, sir. But if there were, I wish they could see this." Without another word, William pushed a button on his wrist computer, and sent a small hypercoms signal to some old friends.

"What was that, transferring imaginary credit to our helpless selves?" his opponent offered.

"No, nothing so silent, I'm afraid."

Behind William and his honor guard, the loud, thick pulsing of a fusion- diesel engine--no, several of them--started up, and began to get louder as they moved closer. A minute later, as the crowd watched with nervousness and confusion, four olive-drab construction 'dozers pulled into the Rundowns, each one carrying on it a full team of UF Army combat engineers.

They wasted no time in saying hellos or greeting the Governor: he had expressly told them not to do any such thing. Instead, one of the 'dozers began to unfold into a temporary barracks building, large enough to hold maybe fifty men, while the other three started unloading engineers and clearing debris.

"What were you saying, mister, about not keeping promises?"

And without another word, William J. Colding took an offered hardhat, and set to work helping the 581st Combat Construction team finish a long- awaited project.

May 2, the Year of our Lord 3105 Caterina XXI National Park, Last Forest, Novograd Prime, Ostkraft Space

Jolan and Nancy were already off in the woods, looking at the flowers and the moss-trees. It would start to snow soon, but that was nothing new on Novograd Prime. Nor was it on many Eastforce worlds. Nancy had gotten used to that, though.

Her step son was looking at a colony of ants somewhere on the ground. If his father had been here, he would have started explaining the perfect organization and cohesion of the ants, just like a fleet of starships, which would have undoubtedly caught the boy's attention. Fortunately, Christoff was back at the Castlecathedral, talking to a group of dignitaries form one of the Nipponese clans.

Nancy had taken the opportunity to take her sons out to a place where nature ruled, not men. Not to teach them something or to perhaps fill their minds with propaganda as their father had suggested she do. Even though it was quite obvious that he hated his second son.

She tried not to cry. She was strong, and she was not slave to her emotions. If her husband was intent on being a selfish and .that was his own fault, not his sons'.or hers.

Still, she wondered for the thousandth time why her nation, the Star Republic, one of the strongest democracies in the human sector, was so intent on marrying the daughter of one of their finest to a barbarian emperor in the Eastforce. Why? What purpose could it have possibly served to maintain ties to an empire that was known for treachery and illegal activities?

Jolan was starting to look bored. Little boys did not have good attention spans, even royalty. Christoff II was already back in the railcar with the nanny. What kind of boy would he grow up to be?

Only time would tell.

In the meantime, too many questions about the world as it was to preoccupy herself with the future. Too many strange things were happening.

"Mama, why is Papa so angry lately?"

Nancy looked down at her son in what might have been love. Love and pity.

"Your father is a very emotional person, Jolan. Do you know what emotional means?"

"Renko says it means angry all the time."

A smile touched Nancy's lips. The nanny was going to end up teaching her sons more than the tutors they would soon be hiring. That was indeed what emotional meant, it just wasn't what most people thought it did.

"Well, among other things, yes. Papa is an angry man, especially right now."

"He doesn't like my little brother, does he?"

No use lying to the boy if he already sensed the truth. "No, Jolan, he does not."

"He hates him, doesn't he?" Jolan's voice had taken on a sad tone. Apparently, the son did not share the father's feelings.

"And how do you feel about you brother, Jolan?"

Jolan didn't answer at first. He sat on the floor of the forest, and tried to scoop up an ant on a stick. Nancy didn't think he knew, not exactly.

But finally he spoke up. "I'm scared of him, I think."

"Why ever would you be scared of your little brother, Jolan?" Nancy acted perplexed, for her son's sake, but she knew the real reason.

"Papa says that Christoff will try to take the throne from me. Will he?"

Again, there was no use lying. "It has happened before, Jolan, on many worlds, in many empires. But if you are a good brother and a good ruler, and the people don't love you too much, then I don't think your brother will hate you enough to do that."

"Will he hate me at all?" Jolan seemed certain that he would.

"That is for you to decide, Jolan. Only you."

The five-year old boy nodded, and though he was young, Nancy believed that he really did understand. He was smart. He would make a fine Tsar.

But more important: would he make a good big brother? That, really would be what determined his place in the pantheon of Eastforce. Family was so strange in this had stopped trying to understand long, long ago.

July 15th, the Emperor's Year 3105

Royal Pagoda, Ikutsa Rice Fields, Satsuma III, Shogunate Space (Clan Shimazu)

It was the third bomb that finally awakened Hamiko.

Her room had been installed with sound-dampeners that cut out loud noises from the outside, so that she would be able to work and sleep in peace. But the last explosion must have temporarily knocked out the power, because suddenly a terrible rumble shook Hamiko's room, and she awakened with a start.

She awakened in a hell from her darkest nightmare.

Outside her viewer that looked out on the fields, she could see black, bladed shapes screaming through the skies; light fighter-bombers. She didn't know what kind.

Out in the fields, there were gray and maroon-clad soldiers rounding up the harvester custodians. Most were armed with simple LSMGs, but a few carried more powerful weapons, including a plasma flamer. The Samurai with that was promptly setting green flame to the fields, and she imagined she could see him laughing as he did it.

Immediately she leapt out of bed, not caring that she was only wearing her silk pajamas that her grandmother Tami had given her a year ago. She considered reaching into her drawer for the antique but still useable laser blaster. No. No time for that. She had to find her mother and father.

She rushed out of her room, the motion sensors just getting enough warning to open the rice-paper doors before the young girl slammed head-first into them. She took a quick look down the hallways, saw no one and nothing, and so continued to the tea room, where her father would be at this time, and also where most of the useful weapons were located.

As she neared the room, she could see Samurai suiting up in the middle of the hallways. They bowed low as she rushed by them, and it would have been comical to see half-dressed bearded men bowing to her, armored in the familiar red and forest-green colors of Clan Shimazu. But it was not funny. These men had the look of expecting death on their faces.

Her father, Shimazu Shinji, was indeed in the tea room, and two aides were already fitting the heavy armor and holo-projector on his chest and sides. "Hamiko! You shouldn't be here!"

"Father, what is happening?! Who are those men attacking us?"

"This is not the time, Hamiko-Chan. You need to join your mother in the shelter downstairs. Make sure the servants and any field workers who escaped get down there with you!"

"But I don't-"

"GO! NOW!"

Her father's commanding voice shut away all other questions and confusion, and she ran back out of the room, almost tripping over another soldier, this one a commoner Ashigaru, loading a clip into his rifle. "So sorry Hamiko-sempai, please forgive me!"

She had no time to do so, but flashed him a quick smile before she ran down the corridor again.

Who was this? Who could have penetrated this deep into Shimazu space without the patrolling ships detecting them? Or were those ships and station already gone? Had the Emperor deemed them all unworthy, and had dent his troops to destroy them?

No, she thought. Emperor Kejichiro has never found disfavor with us, and those soldiers were not his. They would have been dressed in Gold, for one, and they would never have attacked openly.

But then who was it?

Jijuka smiled a tiger's grin, and felt his stomach fight the inertia as the dropships descended gracefully down to Satsuma III surface. The holo projector in front of him showed the Hosakawa Samurai laying waste to the fields. Cries of victory sounded, and his grin widened even more as he saw the wings of Kitsune Hovertanks swooping in after disembarking from another ship, one of the transport frigates dispatched from the Lady of Immaculate Flame.

They had the Pagoda surrounded. Now the only thing remaining was to move in for the rather, for the purchase.

"Taisho Uraki, we are detecting engine signatures from the Shimazu ships over the polar regions closing in on the Lady. They are requesting permission to open fire on the lead carrier."

"No, there will be no need for such a waste of ammunition. Tell them to transmit Prince Gomizuno-o's decree, and to let the Shimazu ships read it. If they insist on combat, though, then by all means; annihilate the fools."

The pilot transmitted his orders on a microburst channel, although Jijuka knew that wasn't entirely necessary. There was no need to hide the fact that they now owned the entirety of Clan Shimazu.

The battle was now close enough that he could look out the window and watch it for real. His Hovertanks had encircled the housing structures, and the Samurai on them had focused the deadly 200mm mortars and auto-laser cannons on the central house, the ornamental, sloped building that was surely Shinji's. Likewise, the house's laser towers had risen from the ground, and were equally pointed at the Hovertanks and the massed Samurai. However, there were no shots fired. The lieutenant on the ground had probably already transmitted the cease-fire to the tanks and soldiers, and informed the Pagoda of its situation.

Here and there a few Samurai still battled, but as tradition and Bushido dictated, they were doing so with their Katana instead of their guns. A cease-fire meant exactly that: no guns fired. There was nothing said about swords. Jijuka was disappointed, but not too surprised to find that most of his soldiers were losing these duels. After all, the Shimazu were supposed to be near-legendary swordsmen every one, so it was no shock to the general.

It was no matter anyway. Soon, they would all be dead.

Finally the dropships carrying the last of his troops as well as himself touched down in the rice paddies, the anti-grav engines winding down with a high-pitched wheeo, wheeeeo, wheeeeeeeow. The pilot unstrapped himself and opened the door for his Taisho, like any good Samurai would.

Jijuka walked down the already-extending landing plank, not even dressed in full armor. The black and maroon business suit fit just fine, and thankfully, because this was more business than war. Still, his Daisho hung on his hips, an ancient badge of office that went back a thousand years to the Uraki family on old Earth.

The muddy rice fields squelched under his boots, dirtying them, but that was no real problem. It just meant he could track the mud in Shinji's house later. The Samurai outside bowed low to him, one even in the middle of a duel. This resulted in his head being lopped off quite nicely by his Shimazu counterpart's glowing blue sword. The wound instantly cauterized from the heat.

Fool.

The Hosakawa forces all around the area assembled before him, in straight lines, some even setting up shaded futons for the Taisho and his officers to sit on afterwards. Respect, honor, and oily precision. Everything that his Clan was known for. He felt something that was not quite pride well up in him. He quashed it. There was no time for such feeling.

He reached the patio in front of the house. Smiling, he unsheathed his Wakizashi, and flicked the power switch on. His sword glowing a dangerous hot pink, he carved a single word into the plaz-crete.

Mine.

At this, the doors of the Pagoda swung open, and at least twenty Samurai poured out, taking up tactical positions around the door. Each and every one of them was clad in red and green great-armor, the bisected green circle of Clan Shimazu displayed on their holo-projectors. Their weapons were drawn and ready, but none of them fired.

At last, Shinji himself walked out. His helmet gleamed under the morning sun, and his unsheathed katana crackled with white lightning. He snarled as only a Nipponese man in armor could snarl: a sound that otherwise would only come from an angered tiger. "Uraki," he said, straining every syllable. "What in the Emperor's name is the meaning of this?"

"Well, Daimyo Shimazu, ironically, in the Emperor's name, your land and men have come under the ownership of the Hosakawa Keiretsu and its subsidiary companies and families." His blade continued to glow faintly. He didn't think he would have to use it, though.

"You lie! The Emperor would never agree to something !"

"It is only unlawful because it is happening to you, Daimyo. If you do not believe me, however, take this." Jijuka reached inside his shirt, and produced a scroll of data parchment. He smiled as he did it.

Shinji snatched the scroll from him with his left hand, and flicked it open. His eyes read the parchment with growing fear and shock. Jijuka's grin widened.

"As you can see, Daimyo¸ this action is entirely legal, and sanctioned by Prince Gomizuno-o. Now, if your forces would freely stand down and allow me and my men to inspect our new assets, we can proceed with minimal bloodshed.

The other man shook with rage, and his sword began to splinter off into flecks of blue heat as his hand brought the sword up. "This is not right, Uraki, and you know it. You have no reason for this action!"

"Of course we do, Shinji-san." The Shimazu Samurai growled and shouted at this humiliating name their lord had just been given. "The reason is, you have come behind on your yearly quotas. We have lost significant amounts of money to investors who have opted to move to the Space Trading Company for market share. Clans Shimazu and Mori have been targeted as being the two primary reasons for ."

"And what has happened to the Mori as a result?!"

"They have with similarly. Their temples on Oki have been seized, and a good portion of Samurai have been transferred to Useugi control. As for , such a small clan you are, and it would just be easier for us to absorb you all at once, instead of leaving a lingering smell behind."

One of the Shimazu Samurai yelled in rage, and charged Jijuka, his LSMG blazing away. The general extended his hand, and his wrist-mounted shield generator caught the lances of red easily. He sidestepped the young and rash soldier's charge, and brought his Wakizashi down on the Samurai's back, splitting him down the middle from his lungs down.

"You should take care to control your men better, Shinji-san. I will have to change that when they become mine."

"My men will never fall to such a depth, coward. They would all commit seppuku before following a suggestion from such as you!"

"Careful how you speak to me, Shinji-san. I think you should know that the Prince, and most likely the Emperor himself are watching real time. From this point on, I am the governor of Satsuma III, of the entire Satsuma system in fact.

"You would do well to remember that."

December 20th, 3105 AD

Colding Manor, Bangor Starport, New Maine, Freestate Space

William was, in the utter sense of the word, exhausted.

The constant swinging of the sledgehammer clearing away the wreckage of what had, up until recently, been a laughable excuse for a home to those people, had taken its toll on his back and shoulders. He found himself saying under his breath, "you're not twenty-four anymore, Will. Gotta accept that."

As governor, he had probably the biggest living space on the planet, maybe in the system. Colding Manor was fourteen stories tall, built in Greco- Roman style with pillars and arches, but with a healthy collection of gothic-revival spires at the top, tipped not with crosses, but straddled by gargoyles. William had inherited this building from the former Governor, back when it had been called Hammerson Manor. He liked the Greco-Roman, but the dark, concrete gargoyles were a bit much.

William hated being showy.

His comm.-line on the west wall flickered on, a young, freckled redhead girl, for she was barely nineteen, appeared on the screen. "Mr. Colding, you said you wanted to speak to me?"

"Ah, Alice yes," Colding said, turning on his side of the visual image. "Did we get that report on those Nips holding out on the frontier worlds?"

"You mean Boston and Forestall? Not yet sir, the teams haven't reported back, ?"

"What is it Alice?"

"I think you may be looking a little deep into this, sir. In fact, I'm quite certain you are." Alice pursed her lips, a concerned look on her face.

William sighed. He'd known the risks when he'd gotten a psychic as an assistant. "I appreciate your concern Alice. But if there is any chance that these Hosakawa guys are moving against the Freestates, the Hatstick System is going to be the first to get hit. God knows it won't be the first time they've tried something like this."

"Sir, if I may say, I don't think the Hosakawa are ready for anything in the way of an invasion, especially not with half the 4th fleet in orbit around New Maine."

"They just absorbed an entire keiretsu, Alice. They've got the backing of one of their crown princes, and if they're making noises on Boston, they may be getting ready to do just that."

Alice sighed. The young empath had known William since she was sixteen, a street rat living in the same Bangor Starport that the governor had just cleaned up. She'd sold her abilities, and her body, for whatever money she could scrounge up. But the stranger in the expensive suit, but the more precious, pure eyes, had taken her in, cleaned her up, flushed the drugs out of her system. She was grateful, and she almost thought of William as her father, or she could never tell him that.

But when someone mentioned the worried about him.

"Thank you Alice, for the information. I think I'm going to call it a night, what do you say?"

She smiled. "That sounds like heaven, sir. Your usual wake-up time?"

"Maybe a little later today, I'm pretty tired. 5:30 sound good?"

"As you wish sir. Pleasant dreams."

"Good night, Alice." William cut the connection, and plopped down on a silk- lined recliner, his favorite in the whole house. That might have been because it was silk-lined, or it might have been because it held two Derringer laser pistols in the armrests. Luxury and security, all rolled up into one comfy blue chair.

He cleared his throat, and touched a small control on the chair. "Computer, activate north wall screen, turn to news channel 7, please."

The wall beeped in return, and the north wall flickered to life, a balding man on the screen, in the middle of a sentence. "-and as we are all aware, this move, though legal in every way, has resulted in some worrisome changes on the Shogunate-Freestate border. It is no secret that Clan Hosakawa has a particular hatred for the UF, and especially for Governor William J. Colding, who was unavailable for interview tonight."

William sighed. The people from the Freestate Holographic Network hadn't stopped calling until last night, when he had threatened to personally shoot down all the FHN satellites orbiting New Maine and Hatstick Prime if they didn't shut the hell up and leave him in peace.

"The recent battles between the British House Edinburgh and Clan Mirutsawa, a close ally of the Hosakawa, have also taken their toll on the Shogunate. Many people now fear that in this case, a cornered dragon is the most dangerous of all."

The screen changed to a recorded image of a battle scene, the blue link stating that it was from Boston, where Hosakawa forces where skirmishing over contested territory with Freestate soldiers. Hovertanks and Samurai soldiers poured out onto the stormy wastelands, green lasers slicing the air and cutting the fortified soldiers to bits. William saw, out of the corner of his eye, a bipedal John Henry combat walker toppled by a quartet of rockets launched from a fighter-bomber overhead.

William's eyes slackened. His mouth opened slightly, and his lips curled back in a snarl. His left hand instinctively reached for the-

June 9th, 2989 AD

Firebase Charlie, --------, ------ System, Freestate Space

-extra power box on his suit, and locked it into place on his M-150 assault rifle. Overhead, he could see a wing of Warhawk fighters screaming overhead, their dual 40mm anti-tank cannons blazing away, tearing a Samurai Hovertank into nothingness. The soldiers around it scattered, somehow avoiding the huge explosion as the tank's fusion reactor went up, making yet another crater in the already tortured ground.

"35th Lancers, move up to the forward trenches and hold position, lock and load gentlemen!" Lieutenant Peters ordered over the wireless headset, sending a small destination beacon to Sergeant William Colding's headset.

"You heard the man! Let's move, Free Marines!" William, and Able Company of the 35th Free Marine Lancer division, jumped over the plaz-crete walls that surrounded the auxiliary bunker, and rushed forward, their various weapons blazing, temporarily lighting up the dark terrain. Overhead, almost as an overture of the artillery blasts that, supposedly, where on their way, lightning struck, and loud, angry thunderclaps brought the battlefield into stark relief.

William could see, even though the rain clouded it slightly, three of those dreaded Shogunate Mecha on the horizon, what the Nips called Oni, or Demons. They weren't in range to do much of anything yet, but so far the Warhawks hadn't had much luck taking them out. Their armor was just too strong, and the Nips had set up a flak battery somewhere up on the hill.

Sergeant Colding had a bad feeling that that was what they were going to have to take out in a minute or two.

A Samurai popped up in his line of sight, a Windrider LSMG pointed at him. William shot first, putting two in the chest and one in the head of the ill- begotten soldier, who hadn't bothered to calibrate his shields against bullets, only lasers and energy weapons.

To his left and right, and behind him, he could hear screams, some of pain, some of rage, some of triumph, as his men and women charged the enemy, catching them off guard, and pushing them back across the forward trench. He let off a three-round burst at the fleeing Ashigaru soldiers, catching one in the back of the head, dropping him to the muddy ground below. William apologized as he passed the corpse, but only in dropping a spent casing on the man's back. War was what William had been bred for, but that didn't mean he had to like it. And the sooner that flak emplacement was taken out...the sooner this particular war would be over. But for now-

December 20th, 3105 AD

Colding Manor, Bangor Starport, New Maine, Freestate Space

-we all at FHN would like to wish you all a very merry holiday season. I'm Roger Thompson, saying good night, and keep watching the skies."

The governor of the Hatstick system jerked back to reality, and realized that he had the left armrest of the chair in a death-grip. He released it, and winced as the arthritic hand relaxed, and fresh pain filled his joints. His right eye hurt, and as he looked at his reflection in the mirror, he realized that a small trickle of blood was trailing down from the corner of his eye. The pressure in his face must have burst a blood vessel there.

The door behind him whooshed open, and Alice ran into the room. "Mr. Governor?! William?" She turned around to face him in the chair, and gasped when she saw him.

Colding opened his mouth, but nothing came out at first. He finally managed, "I'm all right, Alice. memories. If you ."

"Of course, sir." Alice stood over him, and placed her hands on William's temples. She slowly mouthed a prayer, and squeezed her eyes shut.

Deep in William's psyche, some of the most painful memories a human mind can endure where once again put back to sleep by the talented, empathic girl who the governor had rescued.

A moment later, she withdrew, and William's eye had stopped bleeding. "Thank you must have been the news program, you."

The girl smiled, pulled a small handkerchief from her breast pocket, and wiped the older man's face away. William J. Colding was only forty-three years old, but in that instant; he looked as ancient and gnarled as the centuries-old silverwood trees that grew in Colding Manor's garden.

"Those bastards from FHN still managed to get their kicks, didn't they?" he asked, a content smile back on his face.

Alice laughed, though she was still nervous and a little scared. "I guess they did, sir."

"You know, you can call me William."

"I know, sir."

January 9th, the Year of our Lord 3106

Miloslavsky Street, Lumanov, Crim, Shogunate-Ostkraft contested space

10th General Rosa Borinova watched as the column of tanks, a standard Stregeninova

Pack, rolled through the street, their Chainer cannons swiveling in every direction, trying to locate any Samurai soldiers who might still be hiding. They had held Miloslavsky Street for almost a full hour. As far as Rosa knew, that was a record.

Of course, the last time the Tsar's Holy Army had though they would be able to hold the street.

The general herself was perched quite comfortably in the uppermost floor of what had until recently been a nice hotel building, small, and certainly nothing that would change anyone's night, but it was nice. Perfect for a nest.

Her Druganov KD-72 sniper rifle sat against her shoulder, jerking as she took her quick inhalations, and slowly let them out through her nose. The best time to fire was when the body was most steady, and this was during a slow, controlled exhalation. Even though the KD-72 was a superb rifle, the best she could acquire as a Sniper of the Third Order as well as a 10th General, it was nothing if she could not shoot properly. So, she waited, watching the tanks roll past her, a second Pack following up the first, probably to act as a support group. Not that it would do much good if the Samurai brought out more of those terrible 15 story walkers. What was it that they called them? like that.

"Are you plenty comfortable up there, Rosatushka?" Her small microburst radio said, with extremely good clarity, little or no hint of static.

Rosa smiled. "I'd be even more comfortable if you would stop yakking in my ear the entire time, Fedor. What do you have to report?"

She could hear a faint hint of a whining anti-grav engine in the background. "Well, so far the Nips haven't caught onto me yet. I'm flying pretty low, and that Moscow Spring we brought in must have scared off all their fighters. But as for what they are doing, nothing unusual. They are reloading their weapons, and dropships land every fifteen minutes, as usual. They're not even unloading troops or vehicles, though; they're bringing in Plaz-crete and stationary guns."

"Sounds like they're planning on staying the night."

"Should we hit them while they're sleeping, General?"

"No. We don't know what they have already over there, and I don't want to leave this position undefended trying to take out a garrison station. No, I think we will do the same. Plant a beacon, Fedor, and head back to base. I think the time has come to draw battle lines in this damned city." As if to augment her point, off in the distance she could see a tall building falling down as her soldiers dirtied the region and made it inaccessible to their Hovertanks and Mechanicals. Also, plenty more hidey-holes for herself and the other Blood-Stained Talons in Lumanov.

Fedor sighed. "Roger that, General. Silent Harpies, returning to Miloslavsky forward base. See you in the barracks, Rosa."

"Safe journey home, Fedor. Borinova out."

A quick discussion with the ground team below her, and the corner of Miloslavsky and Josef II streets became a firebase and a barracks. The two tank columns assembled around the perimeter, and small Plaz-crete bunkers began to be constructed around them by a group of White Troopers. A nice defensive position, albeit a temporary one.

Rosa Borinova was not a woman who sat around and waited for the enemy to come to her.

Crim had been pushed into a slide of chaos world-wide ever since Ostkraft had retaken the capital, Trinket, back in April, as the Useugi had started pouring troops in from their ships overhead. The Holy Navy had tried to hold them back, but except for the moon base on the smallish L-class moon Makinova, the skies over Crim mostly belonged to the Samurai. Trinket was rumored to have been embroiled in combat again, as the Useugi had pushed even farther into the downtown area. The planet was, quite clearly and quickly, going straight to hell.

This displeased her greatly. She had friends on this world, living and dead, and this was their home. It had an Austrian name, and had belonged to Eastforce since before the Tsars had returned. The capital was founded by a Russian descendant who had started an agricultural colony on the world. And these ...thought they had any right to this world?

A lesson had to be taught. A painful one. And Rosa had the good or she would have to serve as tutor.

January 21st, the Emperor's Year 3106 QS Gateway near Satsuma V, Shogunate Space (Clan Shimazu Hosakawa)

The shuttle slid slowly away from view of the large gas giant beneath her. Hamiko had seen Satsuma V several times before on her trips to other worlds. The world was a milky white, with splotches of blue and green; storms the size of entire worlds. She'd always thought it was the most beautiful planet in the system, save for Satsuma III. But now, it was unlikely that she ever going to see it again.

Kou stood beside her, his face in even more of a scowl than usually. Her personal bodyguard, the Samurai had been with her since he was seven, and she just a newborn child. He was like an omnipresent, silent brother. This silence had bought him her respect and trust, and she told Kou everything. He had always been strong, like an immobile island in the middle of one of Satsuma's green seas.

A storm had come, and uprooted the island.

A signal had already been sent to her real brother, Yuuki, on New Texas, and had assured her that the Shogunate embassy there would accept them and give them asylum. He had called it political exile. Hamiko still refused to call it anything but running away. Samurai did not run, especially not Shimazu.

A hand came to rest on her shoulder. Hamiko slowly turned around, prepared to curse out whoever had touched her.

Kou gave her a small squeeze. "We will be back, Hamiko-sama. The Shimazu will not be eradicated so easily."

She sighed, and looked back at the slowly disappearing world. It was as if the shuttle pilot, a Hosakawa volunteer no doubt, was trying to torture them, by making them lose their home system slowly. She watched as the last of the blue Kasamuri Super-Typhoon slipped out of sight. She closed her eyes.

"How long will it be until the shuttle docks with the Talon?" she asked Kou.

The Samurai grunted. "As soon as the pilot and his crew disembark into the lifeboats; after that, we'll just need to get landing clearance from the ship."

She nodded, her eyes still closed. She found herself leaning against the Plaz-glass window, her hands supporting her by pressing against the surface. "I just wish we could get underway soon."

It had almost a year, living under the rule of Hosakawa occupation forces, since she had been able to leave the Ikutsa Rice fields, let alone the planet. It had taken that long for her brother, the Freestate-Shogunate deputy ambassador, to find a technicality allowing the heir and a number of servants to leave the system, as the last remnants of Clan Shimazu. Yuuki also retained his surname, and as such, the Keiretsu still had its honor of his position. Nothing in Prince Gomizuno-o's 'request' involved Yuuki giving up his position.

Now she was finally in space. The last heir of the Shimazu, no child to follow her, and with only two thousand, two hundred and twenty two men and women, Samurai and commoners both, to follow her, along with a single warship. The Jade Raven's Talon, a Kameyama-class Dreadnaught, bigger even than the Lady of Immaculate Flame, was her escape, her only truly formidable asset. The rest of the fleet was now in the hands of the Hosakawa, though formerly Shimazu crews still manned them.

Still, that proud ship was now an immigration freighter, not a proud warship that struck fear into entire fleets. The commoners, many of them, had been selected by the Hosakawa, seemingly at random, to accompany her as her servants. She had no intention of keeping them as such, though. There would be plenty of trials ahead, and surely these people would be useful in many ways. Some might even get promoted to Samurai-hood. Hamiko knew they would need all of those that she could get her hands on.

She heard shuffling going past her, and she looked up. In the Plaz-glass' reflection, she could see four men in maroon flight suits walking past her to the lifeboat section, one of them with several black stripes across his arms and chest. The square, metallic symbol of the Hosakawa gleamed on their shoulders and breast patches.

"The pilots are leaving. I will go ahead and begin our ascent to the Talon." Kou gave her one final rub on her shoulder, and walked to where the pilots had just come from.

She looked to her right, and caught a glimpse of the tiny scale of a lifeboat dropping away, maneuvering thrusters aiming it for another ship, a Hosakawa transport frigate, probably just there to watch them go and transmit an image back to to her father.

No, Hamiko-Chan, don't cry for me. I will await your return, and I will embrace you as your soldiers fall on this world and drive the colors of grey and maroon from our land forever.

That was the last thing her father had said to her before she left. He had smiled at given her his swords and armor.

She still had his katana with her, hooked onto the belt of her kimono, the same black and green one she had worn the day her world had been ripped from her.

I will be back, father.

The hissing of the docking clamps started her, and she looked away as the opaque doors of the Jade Raven's Talon's blast door sealed shut. The engines were already powering up, and she knew they would be moving toward the Quantum Slipstream Gateway orbiting Satsuma V. Soon the harsh technology of the QSG would take her away, at speeds that could not be measured in 'real' time.

Next stop was her exile world: Hatstick IV, otherwise known as New Maine.

January 27th, 3106 AD

Shogunate-Freestate Embassy, Osaka-Portland, New Maine, Freestate Space

Six days. That was how long this Nip princess had spent in Slipstream space traveling from her absorbed Homeworld to his own planet. That was a long time. A lot of pain in those six days until she could finally step out of that great ship of hers onto real gravity, without the constant state of QSG-tension that everyone got to some degree. There would be a lot of memories in those six days.

William would know. It had taken six days to get from his blasted world to the Eagle 12 station on Vermont Prime to go through debriefing and get his formal promotion and the stupid medals he was wearing right now. He imagined he knew how this Nip felt.

Of course, she was a Nip. They felt things differently than anyone else. Every schoolchild knew that. They themselves believed it.

The wind was especially strong today. His ceremonial dress longcoat, reminiscent of the blue coats worn by the continental army in the American Revolution, whipped this way and that, pulling him in several directions at once. The descending shuttle's backwash wasn't helping, either.

To William, the ship looked like an iguana straddling a fusion reactor. The cockpit extended forward, where he could see the sensor suit contained in the 'snout', and the windows that looked like slit eyes. The straight tail probably served some purpose, but William wasn't sure what.

"They're so different from our ships!" One of his companions, Ambassador Fred Harrison, shouted above the whining engines of the flying lizard. "So much organic art to them. You think if we had the money to waste, our ships would look like that?"

William smiled. "Don't bet on it."

With a final lurch downwards onto the landing pad, the shuttle extended its landing struts, seemingly at the last minute. A last blast of gas coolant into the air, and the whining engines finally shut up.

Colonel Henry Dallas, United Freestates Army, on William's other side, sighed in relief. "I thought I was gonna go mad. Their ships may be prettier, but good Christ in heaven they are loud!"

The governor nodded imperceptibly. This was going to be , unfortunately, unavoidable.

The door to the shuttle swung open nearly silently, and a small, flat board extended down to the ground. Four fully armored Samurai descended, complete with their A-14 LSMGs. Their swords hung straight and neat on their armor, looking like vipers ready to strike at anything that would disturb their serenity.

William wondered if this was how these people had felt when the Hosakawa had dropped on their own Homeworld. He hoped so, in his secret heart.

At least then, they would be on the same terms.

Behind the Samurai, two more figures came down the stairs. One of them was another Samurai, in even heavier armor than the other four, and carrying a Tambuk Firechaser sniper rifle and two A-3 laser machine pistols. His own swords were behind the holstered A-3s, as if as a backup in case the guns failed.

Henry continued his commentary. "He must be a Snow Spirit. Only those Nips would put their guns in front of their swords like that."

The other was entirely, as far as William could tell, gun-less. She wore a grey and blue silk kimono, fastened somewhat loosely because of the swords hanging on the belt, and had her hair up in that small, complicated bun that most Nip women still found fashionable after two thousand years. A pair of chopsticks stuck in to hold the hair in place. William suppressed a smile imagining what it would look like with forks instead of chopsticks.

Had to stop that. After all, he was going to have to talk to this Nip civilly, as per his 'requests' from New Texas.

The Samurai in front all bowed to the three-man greeting party, who half- heartedly bowed back. They turned ninety degrees, in perfect coordination, to face the princess and, probably, her bodyguard. They went to their knees as the two passed them by.

"Konichiwa, Princess Hamiko, and welcome to New Maine," Fred said in his eastern drawl, having a little trouble with the Nipponese greeting.

The woman nodded in return, and turned to William. "Domo, thank you for allowing your planet to house outsiders such as us, Governor William-san." She had the same problems with English as Fred did with her language. His name came out Wee-yum. All well, it wasn't her fault that her language didn't have an 'L' sound.

William bowed, and extended his hand, which held a sheet of data parchment. "Your brother on New Texas sent this for you, ah, Your Highness. He said to give it to you as soon as you arrived."

The Nip took the paper, looked at it for half a second, and put it in a fold in her kimono. "Again, domo, William-san."

The governor looked at her. "Aren't you going to read what it says?"

Hamiko shook her head. "I know what is on that parchment, Governor. It is not something that I should read in public." And just what the hell was that supposed to mean?

Fred cleared his throat. "Of course, Princess, we understand and appreciate your privacy. If you would follow me, Colonel Dallas, and the governor, I've arranged for a little tour of Osaka-Portland for you and your men."

The Princess smiled. "That would be very pleasant, Mr. Harrison." Another name butchered. "I will have the shuttle crew take our belongings to our apartments."

William suppressed an urge to ask "Do they know how to get there?" God forbid, that would be rude.

"Very well then, Princess. The Hovercar is right over there, if you'll just follow me." Fred seemed so happy and anxious about this. He'd always had a soft spot for other cultures, and had taken the study of the Nipponese language and customs very seriously indeed. William wished he felt the same way. That Hovercar was going to be very with that brute, what Henry had called a Snow Spirit, glaring at him and his men the whole way.

All well, at least that meant he wouldn't have to sit with her.

February 12, the Year of our Lord 3106 Castlecathedral Novoscoma, Tsarholme, Novograd Prime, Ostkraft Space

The men in the room with the Tsar were twitchy. Of course, anyone looking at Christoff on his gold and ironwood throne, his head inclined down and his scepter sitting across his legs, would be a little nervous.

"So, as you can see, Tsar Christoff, Holy Lord of Great and Little and White Ostkraft, Autocrat, this plan benefits yourself as well us. The world is of no particular use to either of us, but it would make the perfect staging area operations."

Christoff nodded. "You do realize that I should have you tortured and beheaded for even suggesting such a thing."

The small, bald man across from him nodded, and bowed for what had to have been the twentieth time. Christoff made a mental note to watch the recordings currently being taken by security nanites at this very moment; just to find out exactly. "Of course, Tsar *, and your benevolence will carry back to my Lord, Daimyo Hosakawa Tetsuya, and will not be forgotten in either of your lifetimes."

"Your Lord's ideas intrigue me, however. Tell will the other Keiretsu think of this? After all, your Clan typically does not deal, much less ally, with outsiders, and likely many other Keiretsu will fall to this planned campaign. What will the Emperor think?" This last was what the Tsar wanted to know especially.

"Tsar *, the Emperor will be unaware of these proceedings. After all, the Rising Sun will eventually pass into the next world as a full god, and leave the Chrysanthemum Throne open. When this happens, our full plan will be put into action, and Prince Gomizuno-o will be the Emperor then, and as his most trusted and loyal servants, the Hosakawa and Useugi will be the Shoguns. The other empires, if they can be honored by being called such, will fall before the combined might of the Shogunate and Eastforce!"

The man had a little too much faith in his own people, and not enough knowledge about others. offer was definitely interesting, and from what the man had told him, entirely workable.

"Tell your Lord Tetsuya, as well as Lord Kai-o, that I the possibility of such an alliance, and will send my own men to tell them of my decision. You are dismissed, low one."

"Thank you for your mercy, hospitality, and understanding, Tsar *. God and Buddha go with you." And with that, the little man and his retinue silently walked out the door, flanked by a pair of Russian Imperial Guardsmen.

When the vacuum-sealed doors hissed shut, the Tsar turned to the only other person in the room, 1st General Adolph Karl von Habsburg. "Adolph, what do you think of this proposal, ?"

The man hummed a thought, and adjusted the eye patch on his right eye. Adolph could have easily gotten the eye cloned and replaced for almost no charge since he was a friend of the Tsar's, but he kept the patch as a reminder of how he had lost the eye. "My Tsar, if such a thought may be permitted, I think the Hosakawa take you for a fool, a most grievous mistake I must add. If they are willing to conquer the entire Shogunate, as well as a good portion of the other Empires, they will no doubt turn on us eventually. Such is their nature."

Christoff had considered this. "Yes, but we will get just as much out of this as they do. Turning on us would incite an even more terrible war with both us gaining so many new assets. I do not think that they would be willing to instigate such a thing, especially if their Prince is only just coming to power, and their government would be so tipsy curvy." Christoff resisted the urge to correct his figure of speech.

"Considering we did join Prince Gomizuno-o in his little crusade, what do you think the chances of us gaining much out of it would be?"

The Habsburg smiled. "Honestly, my beloved Tsar, the chances are considerably well, all things considered. It would be a complete surprise to the other nations, and with an allied force such as the one they are suggesting, we could manage to take a great deal of territory and assets before meeting any organized resistance or allied counter-attack." Adolph frowned, though. "We would have some considerable hindrances, however. The Prussians and the British will prove to be extremely hard to defeat, especially if they manage to form a coalition against us. The Star Republic would be a complete mystery to us. The Freestates.I would say they could be taken easily, but they have proven extremely resourceful in the past."

"So we would give the Nipponese the tricky ones. Let the Republic and the Freestates deal with them, and we will take the larger powers ourselves. You yourself said they would be taken completely be surprise, and you know how the Prussians fight, you know their tactics and how to counter them."

Adolph still didn't look convinced. "My Tsar, I do not think this would be the wisest of choices. An all-out war would be devastating to the economy, and vast as our forces are, they would tire of war eventually. Another obstacle would be the Duma and the Boyars. It will be difficult getting them behind us without publicly announcing the idea to them. And of course, if we do that, we run the risk of being of being found out."

Christoff nodded slowly. "This is not something we will reach a decision on within a few moments of talking, Adolph. The other petitioners are waiting, and we both need to think about this. What is the on it?"

The Prussian descendant nodded, and bowed. "Of course, my beloved Tsar."

*NOTE: the space between Tsar .Autocrat is filled with what the Hosakawa ambassador addressed him as the first time. It is required that anyone not of the Tsar's family, friends, or advisors was required to use his full, nine-word title. Anything else would be considered an insult and, especially with Christoff running things in 3106, probably punished by having nanites disintegrate your penis, having all your nerve endings removed likewise, your eyes and ears removed with a Klaive, and then be thrust into a room with the Tsar's own concubines, while unable to feel their touch or appreciate their beauty or words. Something to think about.

March 19th, the Emperor's Year 3106 Shogunate-Freestate Embassy, Osaka-Portland, New Maine, Freestate Space

Hamiko had seen enough of this place to know that she was never going to get used to it. The entirety of the city was a mixture of her own culture and the Freestates, and it mixed so well that the flavors of both people were lost.

Osaka-Portland had been an experiment at its inception to see if a city made up of Nipponese immigrants to the Freestates would react well if combined with life-long Freestate citizens. The racist tendencies of the time had the experiment a necessity, to get both cultures to see the other face to face. In that respect, Hamiko decided the city was a success. She had seen gaijin children playing football with Nipponese children with a hand-sewn ball in a parking lot just the other day, and the restaurants all served both styles of food.

But at the same time, the Nipponese people here were nothing like those Hamiko had known in the Shogunate. They were outspoken, and there seemed to be no social classes. These people had obviously all been commoners when they had immigrated (or perhaps escaped), but they were not meek or downcast.

They were happy.

Hamiko wished she could share their feelings in this strange place. Osaka- Portland was indeed a beautiful city, and the people here, though strange, were kind, and had accepted the exiled princess and her retinue very easily. But it was not home. She did not wake up to find her father in the tea room, or her mother in the fields supervising the workers. There were no great Shimazu ships in the sky, watching over them.

She checked the cherry wood grandfather clock for the hundredth time. Yuuki was on his way here to see her, for the first time in over two years since he had taken the job as one of the ambassadors to the Freestates. It would be good to see his face, but she wondered if her brother would come, and he would be like the people in this city. Mixed. Different. Wrong.

Kou emerged from the room adjacent to her own, his bulky form barely contained by the tie-less Nipponese business suit he now wore. The green and red bisected circle of the Shimazu stood out either lapel, and the cuffs had one red stripe on either side.

Hamiko smiled. Kou always looked so wrong, so out of place in a Samurai business suit. His armor fit him better, in most ways. "You are always so formal, Kou. You know you don't have to wear that just for my brother."

The big Samurai shook his head. "This suit is a symbol, your Highness, of our Clan. The Shimazu are not defeated; we must make this clear at all times."

She sighed. "You do not have to prove this to my brother, Kou. He is my brother, and loves our people just as much as either of us does."

"I know, Hamiko-sama. But it is a matter of honor. Perhaps I need to be constantly reminding myself, so that I never lose the will to return to our glory."

Hamiko shook her head. "None of us need any reminding, Kou."

The door chimed once, and Kou went over to the camera panel. She saw him nod, and, with a final adjustment to the suit's collar, pushed the rice- paper door open.

In the doorway was Shimazu Yuuki, ambassador for the Emperor to the United Freestates, where they now resided, and depended on in ways that made Hamiko slightly uncomfortable.

Yuuki was handsome in many ways, specifically in a Nipponese and an American way. His skin had lightened a little from living for two years on a planet farther away from its sun than Satsuma III was, but his round features and green-within blue eyes that were so rare to see on a Nipponese man were the same. His neatly pressed business suit, identical to Kou's except for a smattering of red, white, blue, and black on the shoulders.

He smiled. " have no idea how wonderful it is to see you again after all these years.I wish it were under better circumstances."

Hamiko nodded, and went to her brother. Kou was the only other person in the room, and the security cameras had been turned off for privacy's sake. She put her arms around him, and buried her face in her brother's neck. She let the tears flow here, where she could nowhere else.

Yuuki held her, and rubbed her back. She felt Kou put his hand on her shoulder as well. "It is good that you came, Yuuki-sama. We will need your support."

"I know, Kou." He nodded, and kissed his sister's hair. "I take it you got my message?"

She wiped a tears stain from her cheek. "Hai."

" know father is dead."

She nodded. She had already accepted this fact beforehand, but it was hard not to start crying again.

No. She had to be strong. For herself, and for her people.

"Yes. It was a good death, though. It was bushido."

"This is true. I doubt, however, that Uraki did not have something up his sleeve in the duel."

Hamiko furrowed her eyebrows. "You think he pulled a gun from his sleeve, and shot father?"

Yuuki stared at her, then smiled and shook his head. "No, no Hamiko, it is just a figure of speech." His face hardened again. "But yes, I do believe he did not fight entirely honorably. We shall never know for sure, though. It was Uraki himself that told me."

She sat down on the mat again. "I would not be surprised."

Yuuki sat down opposite her, and Kou stood behind her, watching the two of them, and the door. His hand, as always, was on the hilt of his katana.

"So, should we begin the procedures?"

The Shimazu Princess nodded sharply. " have much to do if we are going to retake our home and people.

April 9, 3106 AD

Geosynchronous Orbit around Forestall, Cape Cod System, Freestate Space

The Captain looked like a man who was on the verge of either a mental breakthrough or a terrible madness. Commander Henry Gates still wasn't sure which, even after serving under him for almost three years.

"Sir? Are you entirely sure that we should be out this far?" he asked the tall, brown-skinned man standing by the sensors station at the front of the bridge. "The Leif Erickson has patrol in this region, and there haven't been any sensor readings for weeks that wasn't an asteroid or a civilian ship."

"I know the readings, Henry. I just don't think they mean anything."

Captain John Stooping Hawk stretched his back, and went back over to his semi-comfortable chair in the center of the room. His navy blue and matte grey uniform was adorned with flight patches for three ships, the Ghost Dance, Killdare, and of course this one, the Choctaw-class Battleship U.S.S. Marilyn Monroe, CBN-302, and a few medals here and there, some red, some gold. At the lapels of his jacket were two tomahawks, the deadly throwing axes used by some Native American tribes millennia ago. Oddly fitting.

"I'm not sure I follow you, Captain. The Erickson has some of the most advanced sensors in the system, and there are two-"

"I know what we've got in the region, Commander Gates. But none of that explains what's been happening lately."

For the past few months, the Hosakawa Keiretsu had been making pinprick insertions into Freestate border systems, and a few brief skirmishes had even occurred between the serpentine ships of the keiretsu and the blocky, utilitarian ships of the Freestate 4th fleet. The situation was only getting worse, too.

Three weeks ago, reports had started coming in from Forestall, the planet below them, of sightings of Shogunate materiel on the ground, Hovertanks ravaging farms, prominent people getting attacked by black-masked Cyberninjas, and even a pleasure cruise in the equatorial ocean had been torpedoed out of, seemingly, nowhere. The only way that much hardware and manpower had gotten onto the heavily guarded planet, much less receiving supplies and Intel, was by a ship of some size in orbit, but none had been detected.

Of course, that didn't mean there wasn't one.

Stooping Hawk shook his head. "Continue scans of the area, I want anything and everything looked over. Shogunate ships aren't usually big, so keep 'em peeled, people." He patted his chair. "Commander, the bridge is yours. I'll be in my cabin if you need me." With that, he left the bridge, the vacuum- sealed doors clamping shut behind him.

Lieutenant Tom Peters sighed long and hard from Tactical. "Well, someone's got an unhealthy obsession."

"Stow that shit, Peters. That's the Captain you're talking about."

"Sorry sir." The Lieutenant suddenly became very fascinated by the blinking lights at his station.

Gates took a minute before sitting down in the chair. It was too tough for him, and the armrests were a little low for his liking, too. "Look, I know we've all been up for twelve hours looking for this thing. Some of us longer." He nodded to George Thompson at Sensors, and to Rachel Lexington at Communications. "The thing is there's got to be something out there. We all know it, and we're all frustrated that we can't find it. The Captain is not handling it any better than the rest of us. Let's cool it, though, and just do our jobs. Hopefully, the Erickson will come along and ask us what the hell we're doing in their closet." He smiled as he said it, and a few of the bridge crew allowed themselves small expressions of humor.

Henry knew the crew of the Marilyn Monroe better than his Captain, having served with them all for ten years, rather than three. Stooping Hawk was going through commands like a virus, and the unfortunate loss of Captain Gering to a desk job on New Texas had given him this one. He wasn't a bad Captain, hell no, and the majority of the crew liked him well enough. But he knew that Stooping Hawk wouldn't be here any longer than he had to.

And that left who in charge, after the big Indian left? Another ship- hopper? A fresh new suit out of the Academy? A stuck-up Rear Admiral?

Him?

Who knew, and for the time being, who really cared? He had calmed the crew down, and he was in the mood to try and finish that old-fashioned paperback novel he was currently keeping in his back pocket. He couldn't think of any better way to kill time.

Suddenly, Stooping Hawk burst back through the bridge doors, even though they weren't entirely open yet. "Signatures!" he yelled.

Gates leapt from his seat as if he'd been caught doing something in it that he shouldn't. "Sir?"

"We've checked for engine and exhaust signatures of every single Shogunate ship we know of, right?"

"Right sir, even Temmu-class. Why?"

"Have we checked anything else? Anything at all?"

"You mean civilian ships?" It was possible, though unlikely, that the Hosakawa were using a non-military craft for insertion and supply so they could avoid detection.

"No, I mean ships that aren't Shogunate at all. Anything! They might have captured one of ours and used it, or ."

Henry shook his head in disbelief, but he nodded to the crew. "Expand sensors to include all known exhaust signatures and divert power to sensors." He turned to the Captain. "Sir, we're going to have a pretty big power drop if we use enough to scan for everything. That's also a major computational issue; it could lag the central computer a good deal sifting through all the ship types."

"I know, Mr. Gates. But if they have captured one of our ships, or have reconfigured their exhaust ports to look like one of ours, then that might explain why we haven't been able to find them. Execute sensor sweep."

He nodded. "Execute sensor sweep, aye sir."

Stooping Hawk went back over to the Sensor station, again leaning over the already-cramped Ensign George Thompson. "Set up active scanning, ping the orbit three times, then go back to passive and scan for responses."

Active sensors would make the Marilyn Monroe blindingly visible to anything looking, but they hadn't been running silent, nor had they done anything to hide the appearance of the miles-long Battleship. Still, it felt like taking a big risk to Henry. If this crazy scheme worked, and they did find something nasty out there, then whatever it was that was in orbit around Forestall would have their position to within a mile, not much breathing room considering how big they were.

This was going to get very interesting, very soon.

Sixteen kilometers closer to the planet than the Marilyn Monroe was, just below them, someone detected the active sensors. Someone very large, and, until recently, invisible.

The space shimmered around the ship, made entirely of clean, straight lines, a single conning tower at the dorsal aft sticking up, a few neat bumps that held weapon systems and sensors. Slipping out of the cloak- field, the white, grey, and gold-rimmed ship slid under the larger, but unprepared Marilyn. Six of the turrets swiveled up to face it, and a person with sharp eyes or a ship with sharp sensors would notice tiny red lights winking on and off around the turrets.

Things were indeed going to get interesting.

"Captain, I'm reading power signatures coming from directly below us, magnetic systems warming up, and I'm reading a microwave-fusion hybrid reactor."

John Stooping Hawk gripped the back of Ensign Thompson's chair. "Give me flanking speed, all ahead full, raise ventral shields to maximum!"

The inertial dampening systems cut out for a brief moment under the stress of the Marilyn Monroe's four huge intra-system engines shoving it forward as fast as possible. Henry Gates almost lost his footing before grabbing onto the Captain's chair, and Rachel, the pretty redhead at Communications, yelped as some of her equipment spilled into her lap.

"Magnetic fields peaking, reaching kinetic plateau! Shot's fired, brace for impact!"

The aft section of the Marilyn Monroe bucked upwards as six railgun-fired slugs impacted on her shields, sending blue-white ripples of ionized particles all over the ship's hull. Inside, anything not bolted down was falling, or worse, flying from its former resting place, proving in dramatic fashion Newton's laws to be true. One of the two spinning gravity generators cut out for a second, and the aft section experienced micro gravity until the auxiliary generators came back on-line.

"Executing emergency maneuvers!" Lieutenant Kate Packard at helm called, and the Marilyn Monroe fired several emergency thrusters on its dorsal hull, turning the ship forward and down at the same time.

"Lieutenant Lexington," the Captain said, turning to Rachel. "Send a distress signal to the Green Pastures MSS, and start monitoring broadcasts from that ship below us." He turned back to George. "Ensign, what are we dealing with here?"

"Not sure, sir. The lag from the central computer is giving some trouble with an exact configuration, but whatever it is it's using a hybrid reactor. Only Eastforce uses those, sir, and with the amount of firepower it's bringing to bear against us, I would have to guess it's at least a Battlecruiser."

"Eastforce?" Henry gaped. "Their border is a hundred systems anti-spin- ward! What's a Holy Navy ship doing here?!"

"Not our problem, Mr. Gates." Captain Stooping Hawk said. "Tactical, magnetize ventral and fore rail missile launchers, and order all fighters to launch and engage. Helm, bring us a little closer to them, try to force them into Forestall's gravity, it'll slow them down."

The crew complied, and Peters called from his station "RMLs loaded and magnetized, sir. I'll have a firing solution for you in thirty seconds."

Rachel spoke up. "Sir, we're being jammed from the Eastforce ship. That's some nasty shielding they've got, I don't know if I can break through unless we divert power to the comm."

"No, we need all we can get for battle systems. Okay people, we're going to have to do this alone, but we're heavier and meaner. Let's prove it." Stooping Hawk thumped Thompson's shoulder with his fist, and turned to Henry. "Mr. Gates, you have a degree in Stellar Cartography, don't you?"

Henry nodded, a little confused. "Yes sir."

"Anything in this system we can use to our advantage?"

He blinked, and ran the schematics of the Cape Cod system through his mind's eye. Standard H-class dominant system, an asteroid belt that ran between Boston and Forestall, and a nomad moon somewhere in the Oort cloud. He relayed this to the Captain. "Not much, sir."

Stooping Hawk's face twisted into a smile. "That's where you're wrong, Commander. Just keep that map in your head; I'll get right back to you."

"Firing solution for all RMLs calculated, sir," Peters reported.

"Well then what are you waiting for, Lieutenant, give 'em all the thunder they can handle!"

Along the Marilyn Monroe's ventral and fore sections, just below the bridge, six hatches swung open, and electromagnetic crackles ran over the RMLs they had uncovered. At the front of the ship, a classic picture of its namesake, holding down her skirt as an air vent threatened to blow it up, was bathed in blue light as, one by one, the missiles streaked forward from their launchers.

The Eastforce ship took the hit on the nose, and gold shielding pulsed over its hull, pushing the ship slightly off course, before it returned fire with four of its railguns

"Minimal damage, our shields handled it alright." Peters said. "Enemy ship has likewise taken minimal, but we forced the fore railguns out of range it looks like."

Stooping Hawk nodded. "Ms. Lexington, patch me through to the squadron hanger." A short burst of static came over the speakers, and then a clear, but deep voice boomed. "Did somebody order an air strike? Our special today is plasma scarring on bridge hulls."

Henry smiled. Josiah was always cocky; even if they had just been caught with their pants around their ankles by a ship that had no business anywhere near them.

"Glad to hear it, Mr. Arrow. Launch squadrons one and three and target enemy railguns. Squadrons two and four fly cover and target PDCs."

The gravity sections of the Marilyn Monroe lit up with alternating red and yellow lights, and the far ends opened up, revealing launch bays for the deadly and feared Peregrines and Ospreys. Launching in wings of two, the fighters, forty in total, shrieked down towards the Eastforce ship, which was launching its own craft.

"Captain, RMLs are re-magnetized, and we are in range to fire gravity slingshots."

"Hold off on the missiles, Mr. Peters, but fire all slingshots in range, force them down, trap them in the gravity. I want a legless deer, if you catch my drift."

"Aye sir, firing all fore gravity slingshots."

Four swirling cone-shaped sections on each corner of the rectangular bridge section started rotating too fast for the unaided eye to track, and behind each, a triangular device slid backwards on a track, gathering energy as it did. Shooting forward at the same time, the gravity slingshots sent a force of pure, aimed gravity down at the enemy ship.

It didn't look like anything had happened at first, no bright beams of light slammed into the ship, no traceable projectiles. But it was quite obvious that something had, because the force of three hundred earth gravities from each blast punched into the Eastforce Battlecruiser. It would have crushed smaller, frigate-class ships, and seriously wounded others. As it was, the ship was forced down even farther, gripped by yet more gravity, and the ship found itself seriously immobilized.

"Direct hit from all slingshots, sir!" Thompson turned to face the rest of the bridge. "Enemy ship is diverting power to their ventral shields to protect from the atmospheric heat, and they're moving aft, trying to get out of range."

"Can they do it?"

"At their speed, yes sir. At the rate they're moving, they'll be out of range before we can fire slingshots again."

Henry set his jaw. The slingshots had been a good move, but if the ship was sliding out of the Monroe's range of those, and firing the RMLs was chancy since they were now inside a planet's gravity well.

Rachel frowned. "God damn , we should be out of jamming range, but that thing is still blocking all my signals."

Stooping Hawk nodded. "That's unfortunate. Peters, keep the RMLs charged, but divert all other weapon power to shields." He turned, and looked at the whole bridge. "I think they're going to get us in a few good ones before we can return fire. Helm, ahead half, take us out of orbit. Hopefully we can make them chase us. Order fighters to finish attack runs, and then fall into escort positions around us."

The four main engines fired again, and the Marilyn Monroe pulled away from the other craft, but not before the Cruiser got off two railgun blasts that crackled the shields brighter than they had before. Everyone on the bridge knew that the aft shields might not be able to hold against constant railgun bombardment, especially not six blasts at a time.

"Rachel," Henry called out, "any luck with that distress signal?"

"Negative, sir. I can't figure it out! There's no way they should be able to jam us at this range. There's got to be something else out here blocking communications."

The Captain shook his head. "Never mind that for now. Helm, aim for the Red Sox asteroid belt, and give me flank speed for it."

"Sir?" Kate asked.

Stooping Hawk turned to look at her directly, his mouth open just slightly in a smile. "You heard me, Lieutenant."

She looked at him a heartbeat longer, then turned to around, and began setting coordinates, and, Henry could hear with the ear of a long-time starship officer, praying sardonically.

"Commander Gates, what are those asteroids made up of, mostly?"

He cocked his head. "Mostly nickel ore, sir. Some are large enough to have ice deposits in craters, and every now and then you find one that has some plaz clinging to it."

The other man nodded. "Could any of that be of use to us tactically?"

"Well, the interference from the Sox should screw with their sensors a bit, and we might be able to hide the fighters in the field for a sneak attack." He snapped his fingers. "Wait."

Stooping Hawk waved a hand. "Go on."

"The Sox are used as a mining coalition base, there'll be freighters going back and forth on their routes." He turned to Rachel. "Could we bounce a low-powered signal off the freighters if we lace in a UFN emergency code?"

She nodded. "I think we just might. I'll have to reconfigure the signal to send along a civilian line, but it could be done."

"Helm," Stooping Hawk called across the bridge to Kate's station. "ETA to the Red Sox field?"

"At flank speed, half an hour, sir."

To Sensors, he asked: "What do you suppose the top speed of that Eastforce ship is Mr. Thompson?"

"Judging by their maneuvering speed, engine type and size, I'd say about half again as fast as we are. Computer just got back to me, and I can confirm that it is an Eastforce ship, but its not a Battlecruiser, sir." George sighed. "Worse."

"Give it to me straight, George."

"We've got a Sluagh-class X-Cruiser on us, sir. They're small and lightly shielded for a Cruiser, and usually they're relegated to Black-Ops missions and planetary invasion. But 've got X-lasers on them somewhere, and they're faster to boot."

The entire bridge crew held their breath for a second. A in God's name did Eastforce slip one of their rarest ships all the way through Shogunate and Freestate space, and even though it must have been running silent, how had anybody missed it? Did it have a cloak? If it did, how had it maintained it for so long?

"Alright people," Stooping Hawk said. "I know this is a lot to take in, but let's just keep focused. We're the heavier ship, and we outnumber them in fighters. We just have to stay alive long enough to get a signal sent, and then we're home free."

Henry nodded, but inwardly, he was scared. He had only read reports, but those that he'd read.X-lasers. Powerful enough to break through a Sigma Shield, known to carve up planets if put on a capital ship, worse things than that. He had confidence in Rachel's skill at the communications, no worries was the staying alive part that would be hard.

Twenty-two minutes later

Red Sox asteroid belt, Cape Cod System, Freestate Space

The ship known as the White Darkness was not doing as well as she could have hoped. Outside, several Verozny-class corvettes were stationed along the engines and the two X-Laser arrays, taking shots when they could, defending themselves as well as possible against the superior Freestate starfighters. A wing of Peregrines streaked forward, their rapid-fire missile launchers biting into a Verozny, finally causing a coolant leak, and then a spectacular explosion from a volley of plasma cannons. Just below them, a single Osprey fighter-bomber jigged and hooked away from flak and PDC fire, dropping plasma exploders onto the hull. The pulsing bombs latched onto the White Darkness' hull, glowing brightly for a half second before sending a wave of green plasma across the hull, right above Main Engineering.

However, the battle was still definitely in their favor.

On the port side of the ship, formerly identifiable only by a few angular lines, a long, hexagonal cylinder began to move to the side, exposing the inner workings of the great ship, and it began to open its sides. All six radiation shields lifted up, and the deadly X-Laser came to bear, its frigate-sized focusing crystal already glowing red, like an overeager lover.

"Captain, I'm detecting massive power signatures coming from the enemy ship, and I'm reading active sensor sweeps over our hull."

"Mr. Thompson, estimated damage from that blast?"

"A well aimed hit could take out our whole engine section, sir, and if they catch us on the side, it could easily bisect us."

So much for having the superior weaponry, Henry thought. "Captain, recommend diverting power to aft shields."

"Negative, Commander. We need that power for the later. Execute emergency thrusters as power readings plateau, Mrs. Packard. I want you to break hard to starboard just before that thing fires."

"Aye, Captain." She wiped away the sweat that was gathering above her eyes, and swore in Yiddish. "Can we turn that hard that fast, sir?"

The Choctaw-class Battleship line was designed mostly for system patrol and fleet defense. It was not a hot rod, and while the huge engines got it from point A to B fast enough, it was not an agile ship. "We're about to find out, aren't we Lieutenant?"

She nodded grudgingly. Gates had been afraid he'd say that.

"Enemy weapon systems reaching kinetic , these readings are way off the scale!"

"Helm, break on Mr. Thompson's mark."

"Plateau in .one, break!"

The Marilyn fired every emergency thruster on its side that it had, again cutting out the inertial dampeners for a moment. Behind them, the White Darkness fired the X-laser, a throbbing, sun-bright beam of red and gold lancing outward.

Breaking the turn rate record for Choctaw-class vessels, the Battleship got out of the fire line, but its outer shields sparked wildly from the proximity of the scorching laser. Finally, they cut out entirely, and the shields flashed three last times before flickering out. The beam went on for another four seconds afterwards, but the Marilyn Monroe steadily moved away from the deadly laser.

The bridge crew let out a collected sigh of relief. "Damage report?" Stooping Hawk asked.

"Some scarring on the port hull, and we lost the external must have overloaded. Three PDC turrets shorted out, but I think we can repair those without too much trouble."

Gates turned to Rachel. "Any casualties from the fighters?"

She shook her head. "Most of them got the hell out of dodge, sir. The others were already ahead of us as soon as they read the energy readings."

He nodded. "Good." Facing the Captain, he said "Sir, what exactly are we going to do here? The asteroids won't do much against a blast of that magnitude, and I'm not sure we're maneuverable enough to not get hit. With the external shields gone, we'll have to be careful about that."

"I'm well aware of that, Commander. But I think this is the best bet we've got."

On George's screen, the Red Sox field loomed larger as the Marilyn Monroe sped toward it at best possible speed without engaging the Warp engines.

"Those asteroids can fool with sensors, correct?"

"That's true, but most warships worth their plating can overcome normal radiation and signal-bounce interference."

"What about targeting systems?"

"I suppose if there was enough interference, they could be fouled up. Why do you ask, sir?"

"Those X-Lasers must be pretty precise to fire. They'd have to be, otherwise they wouldn't bother firing the thing and getting their power drained as much as it must. If we foul that up, we can get the advantage back and hit them close-in when they come in to catch us."

"What if they fire it anyway, sir?"

"Well, then their systems will have a ton of lag from the shot, and they'll be vulnerable still."

"Maybe I should rephrase the question, sir. What if they fire anyway and hit us?"

Stopping Hawk stared at Gates for a second, his brow folded. "Then may Mother Star take us into her womb once more."

Oh, well that was comforting. Especially to an atheist.

"Helm, how close are we to the destination?" Stooping Hawk asked, returning to his chair.

"Close enough to read the inscriptions on the mining freighters, sir."

Rachel piped up. "Captain! I've got a clear signal; the last shot must have cut their jamming for a second."

"Then send, for your mother's sake! Message is as followed. This is Captain John Stooping Hawk of the United Freestates Navy, USS Marilyn Monroe. We are being pursued by Eastforce vessel outside their territorial boundaries, and are under fire. Please relay to Green Pastures Military Space Station. Stooping Hawk out."

Rachel pushed a blue, important-looking button, and nodded. "Signal sent, sir. The jamming started to come back towards the end, and we're in the dark again, but we got it out."

"Good. Now make a beeline for the Red Sox, and anything that gets in the way, hope they get back out. We brake for no one, Mrs. Packard."

Kate replied, with a smirk in her voice, "yes, sir!"

Once inside the Red Sox belt, the ship made a full turn around, using the asteroids as cover. All around the Marilyn, smaller freighters made up of a single command hull and engine, connected to a fourth-of-a-kilometer-long storage bay, flitting about, either trying to get out of the X-Cruiser's jamming range, or just getting as far away as humanly possible before a clash of titans occurred.

The White Darkness made a full stop just outside the asteroid belt, and began deploying its other X-Laser. The railguns began sweeping back and forth across the field, looking for a clear shot away from the large asteroids that were almost the size of their quarry and them put together. A few blasts from the forward battery hit one of the asteroids, the railgun slugs impacting and blasting the space rock apart.

The intention was quite clear.

Gates turned to look at Tactical. "Mr. Peters? Talk to me."

"They're out of range for accurate railgun blasts, despite what they might want us to think. However, RMLs are also not reliable at this distance, and the tact-nuke torpedoes are unguided."

"Fighters?"

Rachel reported. "Lieutenant Arrow just called to say they're running low on fuel out there, and are requesting permission to dock."

The Captain nodded. "Bring 'em home, Ms. Lexington. Refuel them, and have the squadron hanger fit all Ospreys with Water Moccasins. We're gonna have to time this just right."

She sent the communications, and turned back to her Captain. "What now, sir?"

"Now, we wait for the Russkies to take a chance." He popped his neck. "Let's see if that Holy Navy bastard is any good at gambling."

Outside, the White Darkness maneuvered anywhere it could, trying to get a clear shot with either X-Laser, the only weapon on either ship that could reach across the stellar expanse.

"Come on you bastard, you know you can't hit us this far away." Stooping Hawk muttered. Henry was convinced that the Eastforce captain knew no such thing.

George moaned from sensors. "Captain, they're charging X-Lasers again, both of them this time."

The big Indian nodded slowly. "Continue maneuvers, Mrs. Packard. Let's not make it easy for them."

"Affirmative, sir."

Henry's hand twitched. "Sir, whatever you're planning on doing, I think we should do ."

"Duly noted, Mr. Gates. Now shut up and hold on tight."

"Kinetic plateau reached, X-Lasers firing!"

Two red-gold beams lanced forward, writhing and pulsing from the sheer amount of power they were conveying. The Marilyn Monroe, hiding behind an asteroid, held position as both beams lanced directly over their dorsal section, the hull in that sections beginning to bake like a piece of bread in a toaster.

George Thompson gritted his teeth as he reported "Dorsal ablative armor is dropping fast, inner shield systems aren't responding." He sighed, but it was shaky. "Enemy weapon power 's gone."

The Captain smiled like a madman. " did it!"

Gates' eyebrow arched unconsciously. "Did what, sir?"

"His power has got to be so low he can barely maneuver after that blast, now's our chance to get back." He turned to Tom Peters. "Arm every weapon system we've got, and rig the RMLs for continuous fire. Divert power from the shields that we lost, and put it on the fore weapons."

Gates' eyes widened. " you going to do what I think you're going to do?"

Stooping Hawk nodded. "Probably. Mrs. Packard, on my mark, give me flank speed for the enemy vessel. When we get within a quarter of a mile, I want you to hit every brake, emergency thruster, and fore engine system we've got, stop us as fast as you can, as close to that ship as you can."

Kate nodded. "Quarter of a mile, aye sir."

Henry's hand continued twitching. Everyone here knew that was a very close distance, considering the size of the vessels. It was cutting it close, and with their outer and inner shields gone, a collision could be fatal to both vessels.

"Commander, I want you to assist Mr. Peters at Tactical, take command of the heavy lasers and the gravity slingshots. Lieutenant, you'll have the RMLs and the EMP cannons. Fire all systems on my . Packard, all ahead full.

"Let's see if this bastard blinks."

Henry gulped.

Shooting out of the asteroid belt, the Marilyn Monroe aimed itself like a charging knight's lance at the White Darkness, every gun port and heavy laser tower on the ship switching on and brimming with light and heat. The scarred Battleship rushed forward, all four intra-system engines glowing white hot from the thrust. The lady on the front of the ship was illuminated with all the weapons switching on, her strangely happy smile taunting the Eastforce ship, as if to say "We've got you now, you Russkie son of a bitch."

The White Darkness angled itself just right to keep the other ship in the right fire angle, the X-Lasers folding back into the ship like frightened animals at the sight of a hunter. The railguns began tracking the Marilyn, and even fired off a few rounds. One of them hit the port side, ripping a hole through the unprotected hull.

"We have a hull breach on deck nineteen on the port side, emergency force fields in place, three casualties reported, none serious," Tom reported.

"Hold your course, Mrs. Packard."

The Freestate vessel held its course, its various guns tracking its quarry, narrowing their aim as the two ships got closer. Its Eastforce counterpart turned on its own engines, six diamond-shaped intra-systems in a hexagon shape.

As the two ships began to close, the navigational shields of both craft began to mingle, blue and gold sparks flying off each other, tiny explosions of energy dotting both ships. They got .

Half a mile.

"Helm, all stop! All engines full reverse!"

Just as it seemed the two great vessels would collide, hundreds of emergency thrusters lit up along the front of the Marilyn Monroe's hull, and the four intra-systems cut out entirely. At the last second, Stooping Hawk's counterpart cut his own engines, and let his craft drift on simple inertia. The two ships were now facing each other, but they were going in the same direction.

"Lieutenant Peters, Commander Gates, do the honors gentlemen. Let thunder clap."

Henry and Tom both pressed the glowing panels their hands had been hovering over for the past minute, and several loud, metallic rumbles sounded throughout the ship.

From every weapon system on the ship, from rail missile launchers to heavy laser towers to the gravity slingshots, even the tractor beams normally used for moving objects out of the way, slammed into the White Darkness in a series of epic explosions. Having been so close to the enemy vessel, they had come in under their outer shields, which had shorted out from the impact of the huge Battleship ripping it apart.