[Senkusha]

"Mission Briefing in five minutes, in the Ready Room.  Five minutes.", an announcement came from overhead.  People filled the hallways going in various places, in both directions.  Some moved faster than others.  Most of the people were dressed in black uniforms, a few were in a greenish-tan looking uniform and carried large rifles slung over their shoulders.  (The view slowly focuses in on one man in particular, traveling down the hallway from behind, dressed in black, wearing a matching back back pack.)  As he enters a large room filled with concert seating and a large hologram projection system in the front of the room, he is greeted by his peers.

"Tashika! Hey man, I heard you just got back from one of those Level A missions.  Tell me...is the rumor true?", a bald dark colored man said as he did a quick slap-hand shake with Tashika.  He gave a nervous laugh in response, "Yeah, I was captured....", he paused for a moment as a flashback played through his mind, and quickly finished the dialog, "but at least I made it back here in one piece.", Tashika said in a rushed mannor.

"Hey, aren't you supposed to be granted Leave or som'thin'?", the bald man persisted.

"Yeah, but I declined it.  If ya haven't noticed, we're a little short staffed around here, and .. well, you know me -- I can't stand to miss a good fight!", he finished with a chuckle taking his seat.

"Oh, yeah, can't forget that, old dog -- listen I've gotta take my seat up in back, so I'll catch ya around, alright?"

"Yeah, no problem.  See ya out there .", Tashika responded.

He took a few seconds to organize his things.  He pulled out a small data computer out of his back pack that he always carried, flipped it on and configured it so that he attached to the internal network of the facility.  Now he could record the entire mission briefing and organize it's content into a searchable database for later.  Ususally when the C.O (commanding officer) calls these meetings, there's something big that's going to happen, with lots of little subtleties.)

"TENCH HUT!", and order barked from the door entrance.  With a quick movement, the entire room stood up, snapped their heels together and stood perfectly straight up, facing straight ahead, arms pinned to their sides.  A man silver haired man dressed in all black, with several medals of sparkling silver entered the room with slow stride.  As he took the front podium he commented not looking upwards, "At ease.".  The entire room of combat hardened soldiers took their seats quietly.

A hologram map of the galaxy formed in the front of the room, in full three-dimensions.  It slowly zoomed into a specific part of the galaxy, causing stars to whiz by many of the pilots in the room.  As it was finishing, it began to print text with reference arrows pointing to key things of interest.  The commander began the briefing.

"Gentlemen.  I am pleased to report that after your last research Op, we've discovered that Admiral Yeen has made several critical errors while positioning his fleet of Imperail war birds.  He's left himself completely exposed from this flank over here (the map coordinated with the timing of the C.O's speech, and rotated the map to left side of the fleet of vessels.  On one end there was a Navi-buoy marked "N7-DC-45", and at the other end (the direction the fleet was moving towards) was another buoy marked "M2-29-394".  There was one other Nav-Buoy displayed and highlighted on the screen marked, "N7-39-A8", and a path line formed from this buoy, which headed towards the Imperial fleet, cutting off their arrival at the other Buoy (M2-...).

"You mission is to hit this fleet hard and fast.  Flank these Command Ships on the right and draw their fire as our Second Wave force comes in from behind them using Buoy "N7".  Our mission is to cripple this shipment of advanced fighter craft and food-things from being delivered.  Expect this fleet to be lightly armed, as their escort craft are currently lacking behind the fleet at least by ten minutes.  Intel has reported that their next generation hyperdrive systems aboard their advanced fighter craft are prone to overheating while travailing through hyperspace for extended periods of time.  A short cool-off period is required before they may enter hyperspace again.  Fortunately for us, they have no way of knowing their escorts have fallen behind between hyper jumps, and this opprotunity is good to pass up.  You will depart immediately after this briefing, to report to your assigned craft.  Any questions?", the CO finshed.

"Yes sir.", Tashika stood up and addressed the CO.

"Yes?", the CO responded.

"Approximately how much time will he have to perform this mission?", Tashika sat down.

"You will have approximately 10...maybe 15 minutes before the escort fighters catch up to the fleet.  I should also point out that your standard weapons configuration has been modified.  I've had Ion Cannons installed on the fighter craft as well as special high yield Proton Torpedoes added to your weapon manefest.  It's your job to take out those capital ships so that we may come in from behind and do the damage to this massive transport fleet.  Dismissed.", he said solidly.

With that many shuffling began, pilots jogged from the briefing room to the hangar bay.  Tashiko quickly packed up and also headed towards his ship.  Upon entering the hanger bay, he was directed towards his spot, which wasn't too far from the entrance door.  It looked like a standard X-Wing, only with two mounted heavy cannons mounted to the sides of the cockpit.  Also along the bottom there was an additional weapon launcher attached next to the conventional launchers.  Tashka climbed up the ladder and entered his cockpit, a mechanic was performing the final checks while he strapped himself in.

"Hey, will this bird be able to get off the ground with all this ordinance?", Tashka half joked with the guy.

"Yeah, it might be a little heavy, but nothing you can't handle for sure, sir.  Good luck, sir!", the mechanic gave his salute and gave his thumbs up.  Meanwhile Tashika heard on his transmitter, "Red-Seven, cleared for take off.  Platform 2-D".

"Acknowledged.", Tashika responded clearly into the microphone, as he powered up his ship, which began to levitate.  Slowly he rotated about ninety degrees to the right and slowly moved forwards.  When the indicator light turned a bright green in front of him, he gave it full throttle, and slowly (more slowly than normal), ascended into the atmosphere.

"Wow, this is heavier", he said as he leveled off his ascent to prevent a stall out.  He pushed a button on his front console.  The small window terminal in front of him displayed the following:

Weapons Check:
* Laser Cannon (4) OK
* Ion Cannon (2) OK
* Concussion Missile (16) OK
* Proton Torpedo (6) OK
* Nuclear-Plasma Rocket (4) OK


"What the heck is a Nuclear-Plasma Rocket?", Kamado said to himself, as he entered in the coordinates for the hyperspace jump:
N7-39-A8
* HyperJump Coordinates Validated.  Stand By for Jump...

A few seconds later the stars in the field in front of him skewed backwards and whizzed past him in a brilliant rainbowish effect.  A few minutes later he emerged from Hyperspace...

[Senkusha]

Meanwhile back at the Masaki Shrine...

A few days had past since Ayeka, Sasami, Ryoko, Mihoshi, and Kiyone left the royal palace.  Everybody had beaten Ayeka back yesterday.  Ryoko was her typical self, being all victorious, eagerly awaiting for the Princess' return to shove in her face that she had been beaten in the race home and back into Tenchi's arms.  This morning, Sasami woke up in her assigned room, still with no big sister next to her.  She began to get worried, and ventured off downstairs.  Most everybody was in the living room watching a television program.

"Hey, has anybody heard from Ayeka yet?", Sasami asked upon entering the room.  Ryoko was the first to answer, "Naa.  Haven't seen her yet.  Maybe she took a wrong turn and ended up on the other side of the galaxy.", she said only half sarcastically.  Everybody else in almost unison, responded a second later with a flat, half interested "No." response, still engrossed in the program on TV.

"She should have been here by now for sure!", Sasami thought to herself.  "Maybe Washu can tell me some better news."

She walked up to the closet and and was greeted by Washu herself.

"Oh, just the person I wanted to see.", she said in her nasally, drawn out voice. "Come, follow me.".  Both short girls entered and closed the door behind them.  The two walked for a good while, past various science experiments, and finally stopped by a bank of computer terminals.

"So--", Sasami was cut off, as Washu began to explain what she had found.

"Sasami, I'm not one-hundred percent certain yet, but I was tracking Princess Ayeka's flight pattern, since a couple of days ago.  I noticed the pattern stopped here.", she pointed to a little blip on the map.

"When I stopped receiving the beacon, I widened my search parameters and discovered what looks like a very large scale battle that was going on right around the same time in these coordinates here.", she pointed to a location and then typed a couple of commands, that overlapped the two images on top of one another. 

"As you can see the two points are almost on top of one another.  Futher analysis determined that I lost the signal right as this group of craft exited hyperspace.", Washu explained.

"We've gotta go find her, Washu!", Sasami almost cried.

"Yes, I know.  I hacked the Space Police Intragalactic Network (SPIN) and I've arranged for Lieutenant Kiyone to be assigned to a special mission of my design.", Washu commented.

"Thank you Washu!", Sasami cheered, with an embrace.

Recovering from her rather blunt intrusion, Washu continued on, "As you know, Mihoshi will probably make her way into this plan as well.  She hasn't stopped following Kiyone since she received her promotion, you know!  I've also got a plan to get Ryoko roped in to help.", she said with a twinkle in her eye.

"When do we leave?", Sasami asked.

"We can leave now if you want.", a familiar feminine voice said behind her.

"Oh good, you've arrived ahead of schedule.", Washu said.

"Yeah, I think I finally lost Mihoshi around the rings of Saturn, heh heh heh.", Kiyone said with a chuckle.

"She deserves more credit than you give her Kiyone.", Washu responded.

"Why is that?", Kiyone asked.

"Because according to my calculations, Yagami is going to enter Earth's atmosphere in approximately fifteen seconds, and by the time I get done explaining how and why I know this, she will have crash landed into the lake out in back.", Washu said, as her proximity alert alarm quietly chirped.

"Wha--!??", Kiyone was beside herself as she saw with her own eyes, her former red ship on the view screen as it hurlled down towards the Earth's surface.  Sasami giggled as she watched Kiyone visably melt inside and fumed on the outside.

Not a moment later the door slammed open, with Ryoko marching inside the complex laboratory.  "WHAT IS THE MEANING OF--- THIS!", she held out a note scribbled in black ink.

"It's quite simple really.  In exchange for your tracking and deep space skills, I've arranged with the holy council to have your wanted status removed.  All you have to do is find the Princess with us.", Washu grinned widely.

"But.....but......OOOH!  I HATE that woman!", Ryoko stammered.

"Well, it appears that you all can board Yagami.  I'll pack up a few things here and I will join you in a few minutes.  If what I'm thinking happened, I'll need to search within Subspace to find her at that location.", Washu commented.  Curiosity quickly arose and deflated, as everybody else inside the room got the unanimous thought, "She's loose us anyway with her techo-babble"

After a few minutes, everyone was settled in, Washu had her holo-pad up and running, Mihoshi was in the navigator's chair, and Kiyone was taking command in the pilot's seat.  Meanwhile Tenchi, Ryoko, and Ryo-ohki were all keeping Sasami entertained trying to play a "simple" game of checkers.  After Kiyone completed her preflight checklist she glanced at Mihoshi, who glanced back at Kiyone with a smile, and Kiyone nodded.  "Alright, the game is afoot", she said, engaging the throttle.

"Huh?  What game is a foot?", Mihoshi asked dumbfounded.

"No, not a foot, afoot.  It means to begin.", Kiyone commented back.

"But what does starting a game have to do with your foot?", Mihoshi asked back.

"MIHOSHI!!!", Kiyone yelled from up front.  Tenchi visably laughed.

"What's funny, Tenchi?", Sasami asked.

"Oh, it's nothing really....just with all of you here with me again.....it really is a good day.", Tenchi reminisced.

"Engaging hyperjump now.", Kiyone said clearly.  With the push of a button the star field around them turned into a rainbowish jumble of colors and whizzed past the window.

[Senkusha]

Stand By to Exit Hyperspace..., the computer terminal displayed on Tashika's console.  He sat upright and prepared to engage into battle.  Within a moment the space in front of him flashed a brilliant white color and stars changed from a rainbowish slur of colors to the normal white speckels they were supposed to be.  A head of him in the distance was the massive collection of the fleet, already he was in the firing solution of one of the capitol Star Destroyers.  While still decelerating, a large warning popped up on the screen, along with an audible alarm:  "Collision Alert!"

"What?!  Tashika took the controls and pulled back towards him with all his might.  He slowly inched upwards, but it was too late.  He skimmed the top of the other ship with the bottom of his shields.

Warning:  Shields Critical!  15%, along with another, different sounding alarm when off in the background.

The Star Destroyer was not aiming for him however, the green bolts whizzed past his ship and hurlled towards the other ship that was in his exit path.

"Hmmm, something's not right here.  Somebody on board that ship must be pretty important.  I should try to protect them.  After all, and enemy to Yeen is a friend of ours!", Tashika commented bravely outloud.  He dumped all of his laser energy into his shield generator to quickly recharge his shields, and then looped back to see if he could offer assistance to whoever that was that he had run into.  Bolts continued to zoom past him, a few started hitting his hind quarters as he got closer to the damaged ship.  "I must have completely disabled that ship when I ran into them.  Let's see, life scans.....", Tashika punched in a few commands and docked on the other side of the ship from the enemy fire, using the damaged ship as cover.

Confirmed.  1 Life form detected., the computer terminal displayed.  Quickly, he activated his emergency docking tunnel and slid out of his chair to the removed R2-Dx chamber.  With the push of a button, the tunnel lowered a few feet and an explosion was heard, that rumbled both ships slightly.  Debris from the other ship scattered out into space.  Tashiko quickly climbed down the hatch and started calling out "Hello!?".  The lights were flickering, those that were on anyway.  There was wires and various items scattered about.  Dust and scorch marks littered the interior of the ship.  Tashiko quickly made his way up to the bridge of the wooden ship where he found a young woman weeping hysterically.

"Ma'am, we've gotta get out of here now.  Can you hear me?", he waited for a couple of seconds for the distrot girl to respond.  With no answer, he picked the purple haired lady up and slung her over his shoulder and trenched up the hallway, as more plasma bolts continued to weaken the hull integrity of the ship.  Slowly he climbed up his ladder, back onto his ship.  He quickly sat her in the co-pilot's chair in back of him, and pushed a red button, releasing the docking tube from the adrift space craft.  A warning message was flashing indicating that the remote ship's hull integrity was near critical, with only three percent remaining.  One more direct hit, and he would have been sucked out into space with the his passenger.  He took a reading of his own ship's statistics.

"Cannons, fully charged; missiles, armed; Shields, 53% charged.  Alright, that'll have to do it.  Just as he punched the throttle forward the other ship exploded into a cloud of debris.  Now the laser shots focused on his ship.  He dodged to the left and the right avoiding the shots being fired at him.  He took a sensor reading of the battle in progress.  It appeared that the command ship was completely ignoring the main distraction group, and just focusing on him.  Just then the main assult group exited hyperspace, and began their attack on the fleet.  Now three Star Destroyers were bearing down on him.  His shields were only at 27%.  He calculated the nearest Nav-buoy and determined that he might just have enough time before his shields fail to make a Jump.  He mashed his navicomputer keypad...he didn't care where he was going, just out of here.

Coordinates Confirmed, Stand By to Enter Hyperspace...

With his shields only at 3% he reached the jump coordinates and entered hyperspace.  The stars turned that most beautiful color that they do, as he flew to God-Only-Knows-Where.

Tashika got up out of his seat and knelt down next to the now calm woman.  "Are you okay?  What's your name, Ma'am?", Tashika asked.

"Ah, yes.  I am much better now, thank you very much for your assistance.  I am Pri---", stopping in midsentance, she thought for a moment. "It would be wise of myself to keep a lower profile for now.".  Continuing, she said, "Um, I am Ayeka.  How do you do?"

"Ayeka, okay, Ma'am.  I am Major Kamado Tashiko, however, you may just call me Kamado.  I'm sure that the Imperial fleet caught you by surprise.  You sure are lucky to have survived an attack from a Star Destroyer!  We barely made it out of there alive.", Kamado stated. 

Just then a quiet chirp sounded, alerting them that they will be exiting Hyperspace momentarily.  When they did, both Kamado and Ayeka stared out the front window.  What they saw was impressive.  There a was a massive formation of stars, like a colorful nebula, the computer was receiving telemetry from in front of them, indicating there was a dense asteroid field approaching.  Beyond that there was a solar system with five habitable planets, two super giants, and various other planets rich in mining ores and resources.

"Hmm, the computer doesn't have a solar system with this configuration listed in it's databanks.  I really have no idea where we are.  First things first, though.  We've gotta get through this asteroid field coming up.  You might want to buckle up, this could be a little bumpy."

[Senkusha]

Ayeka took the seat in back of Tashika.  She quickly figured out the five way harness and with a couple of clicks she was securely seated.  Kamado did the same and grasped the control stick tightly in his clamy right hand.  It had been a while since he was around a woman as attractive as Ayeka in such a close proximity.  He glared ahead at the many small flying rocks in front of him, deciding on the best course of action to take.  After a few minutes, he had made his decision and pushed the throttle forward to full power.

"Hold on tight for the ride of your life!", Kamado almost shouted over his shoulder.  As he entered the asteriod field, he dove right and left, up and down, did a couple of rolls to either side.  Whenever a boulder got in his way, he squeezed the trigger, obliterating it into a milliion dust and ice fragments that bounced harmlessly off his sheilds.

"Oh, I think I'm going to be sick.", Ayeka commented while holding her a hand gently to her mouth.

"Just another couple of minutes, and we'll be home free!", Kamado said quickly.  Sweat beaded on his forehead and his grip became slippery, as he inhailed Ayeka's sweet fragrance of perfume.

More manuevers to the left and to the right.  To the outside observer, it looked as if he was performing some cork-screw flight pattern with the occational red bolt of laser energy quickly destroying rocks in front of him.

Meanwhile back in the Zatoonmake Region (where Tashika was supposed to be...)

"Three more squadrons of fighters in sector Three-Tango!"

"Got it.  Take evasive pattern Delta-Bravo-Papa in three seconds."

"I'VE GOT ONE I CAN'T SHAKE!!!!"

"AAHAHHAHHHH!" *BOOM*

"Sir, we have seven more casulaties.  Tashika's beacon signature has still not been found.  I'm afriad he may have been hit just after exit of hyperspace."

"Don't worry about him right now, we'll review the sensor data when we get out of here.  Stand by for immediate evac.  Plan Two-Alpha."

(group response), "Yes SIR!"

One by one ships entered hyperspace after thier failed battle attempt.

Back at the base, about 30 minutes later....

"Sir, I've revieweed the sensor data, and it does appear that Major Tashika collided with another craft that was heavily damaged upon his exit from hyperspace.  I was able to detect an entrance signature about three minutes after his collision from around his last known coordinates.", an officer reported to his superior.

"Very well.", the commander responded.

"Sir, one other thing.  The sensor scans did detect one passenger aboard that crippled craft shortly before it was destroyed.  It is possible that Tashika was following procedures and performing a rescue operation.  As you know, that is one of our highest priorities, even during combat operations."

"Yes, very well.  If Tashika makes it back to the base, I'll be sure to launch a full inquiry and perhaps he may be up for a comidation as well.", the commander hurridly said.




Back in space, aboard a Star Destoryer....

"Admiral, I have a report.  We did successfully destroy the princess's ship, however, shortly before it was destroyed it appears as though an X-wing star fighter docked with it and maybe rescued the princess.", a Captian reported.

"Damn!  Do you have a trajectory?!"

"I think so, sir.  Shall I plot a course?"

"Immediatly!  We can not let her get away!", the Admiral said firmly.

[Senkusha]

Tashika finally cleared the asteriod field.  Before him was a set of fairly large planets all in orbit around a giant green star.

"Hmmmm, well, I'm not detecting any landing beacons, so I really have no idea what planet this is.  There's a farily large city on the Northern contentent, so we'll go there.  Seems like the tech level is pre-space flight, so it might be a good place to make repairs and hide out for a bit.

"I absolutely can not wait to touch solid ground again.", Ayeka almost declared.

"Well in a few minutes you can certainly do that, all though if I were you I wouldn't wander too far from the ship.  I have no idea if the people here are going to be friendly or hostile.", Tashika stated

"Very well.  You shall be my body gaurd while we are on the surface.", Ayeka ordered.

"Starting decent, this could get a little bumpy...", Tashika threw over his shoulder.

Back on the Star Destroyer...

"Admiral!  I've got thier location!  They just entered the Nahoyi System, and our spy satelite tracked thier entrance on to the fourth planet of the system.", an officer said loudly walking briskly down a ramp.

"Excellent!  Set course immediatly, I want to catch her surprised.", the Admrial sneared.


Leaving Earth's Orbit...

Kiyone entered a set of coordinates that Washu had provided her a few moments ago.

"Washu?  Are you sure about these coordinates?  They seem......so far outside of the Empirical Network that--", Kiyone said as she was cut off by Washu.

"I'm almost positive that is where we will find her.  I hacked an Imperial spy satelite network and performed my own trajectory calculations.", Washu grinned.

"Okay, here we go!", Kiyone said as she entered the coordinates.

...

A little over half an hour later, Yagami exited hyperspace to see the giant asteriod field in front of them.  Washu, being the clever one that she is, pushed a few buttons on her holopad and said, "Don't worry Kiyone, I've modified your shields so that these rock particles will phase right through the ship.  Just fly a clam and straight course and we'll be fine.

Five minutes later they had reaached the planet and begun decent.


(Back on the Star Destroyer)

"Admiral, we have exited hyperspace!  Sensors indicated a GP cruiser had just entered the fourth planet's atomosphere moments before we arrived."

"Okay, so that just means there are two groups of people looking for our beloved princess.  When you find them... vaporize them...including her. I'm finished playing this game.", the Admiral responded.

"Sir, we'll be clear of the asteroids in fifteen minutes."

"Excellent.", the Admiral said smiling.


(Meanwhile on the planet...)

Tashika landed gently on an open pasture nearby to a heavily wooded forest.  He opened the cockpit dome and threw out the rope ladder.  He offered his assistence to Ayeka, by outstreching his hand to her.

"Oh, thank you.", Ayeka said taking his strong hand and gently climbing down the ladder.  Kamado followed.  Once he had touched to the grassy earth, he pushed a button on his wrist that made his ship disappear.

"Come on.  Let's go find out where we are and get supplies.", he said setting off in the direction of the town.

[Slade]

Elsewhere...

"Kurdeto Huoania, you risk hampering the position of our ships with your unscheduled communications to us just so we can hear of a plan that hasn't even been proven yet?"

"Now you see gentlemen, that is where you are wrong"

Kurdeto sat back on his chair with a smug, the holo graphic images of the fellow other admirals, allied to each other with one sole purpose. While they all want the same, it was by the means that left them divided, each not sure on what to do. However all who gathered at Kurdeto's meeting knew they had a bad feeling about this from the start.

"for you see, i have come with a plan, for months it was i alone who saw Jurai as the next expansion for the empire and better still that they'll have what we need to be rid of the rebel scum!"

"Well that's very nice" Interrupted one admiral with a tone of sarcasm "But I'm more interested in getting resources that won't lead us into war with another empire. Fine, nagi did destroy half of their entire fleet during an attempt by a rouge faction ton usurp kagato, but despite what our propaganda states, jurai in truth is niether weak nor stupid. I can't believe were having a discussion about another invasion when we-"

"oh shut up"

"What?"

"Yes, I said shut it because i know how we can defeat jurai without even having to worry about their military."

"Oh and would this be any better then say palpentine's plan of useing enough materials to build two moon sized death stars without even thinking of using such material instead to say, build a even bigger fleet? Your plan sounds almost as egoistical as his was!"

Back then such comments wouldn't had dared existed, now there was a lack of fear to superiors and respect to equals for with palpetine gone many things changed but Kurdeto was still yet to see any changes on his behalf, he would have them congratulating him so, even if they did it grudgingly.

"Oh yeah? try saying it when you see it now!"

The screen flicked on before the holo admirals who simply stood, shell shocked in a way at what they saw, in fact one of the admirals watching it threw up as shown on his holo image, it was a understandable feeling.

"Not even war produces this amount of horror, it's..it's obscene!"

"Exactly" Defended Kurdeto "don't you see, once Jurai sees this, their faith in the royalty will never be the same again, in fact they may even demand a removal and that could get ugly."

"yes...but isn't that 'jabba?' and he's on top of that...wo—woman?!"

Another depiction of a holographic admiral shared his disgust.

"I am happily married you know, you better write my name out of this involvement!"

"I hate to admit it" Said one "But it's so moronic and perverted it just might work"

"Of course it will!" Kurdeto spoke with head up high in pride at what he accomplished even if the admirals watching it had a tough time trying to discuss this plan while seeing 'that' before them.

"Not to be rude or anything but how do we know the woman with jabba so to speak isn't an impersonator?"

"Trust me she's real, my ship personally intercepted her and from there I formed a scheme with the huts to promote her as jabba's assistant, and  thus began a 262hr-"

"WHAT?!"

 Kurdeto just smiled at their disbelief.

"Edited of course, cutting out the toilet breaks etc, anyway we made it look like she was willing to implicate that it's more of a secret side to her and then send an interstellar signal using the latest of technology to hijack all jurain media stations and play nothing more then 262hrs of pure entertainment!...along with bonus features of course"

"....I wouldn't be surprised if you had your shot at her as well"

Kurdeto joined in with the laughs made by the group while secretly cursing himself for missing such a chance.

"And where is this woman now?"

"well she erm...escaped"

"She did?"

"Yeah, I think she was motivated to do so when she heard of a planned sequel dubbed 'Porn Wars: The Jabba strikes hard' shame really"

"Just hold on" Butted in one admiral before he himself paused when a high satisfied groan by jabba came from the screen,  Kurdeto was quick to press mute. The other admiral continued.

"It won't be a problem this escape?"

"How? Soon what your seeing will soon launch itself all over the jurain empire and she can do nothing to defend herself, besides I'm sure we can get her captured, once we have reports of someone like her, I'll simply take custody of her and send her to to the next filming location for the sequel...I'm under contract by the huts to ensure they do a trilogy with her"

"Too much information there, way too much" Said one admiral, who felt like throwing up again while the others looked at each other, gave some thoughts and placed out their answer.

"Ok we'll support this but if this fails to destable jurai then your on your own!"

"Oh don't worry, I can assure you it won't"

[Senkusha]

"I've locked onto an Ion trail that appears to heading towards the Northern Contenent, about five "clicks" away from that large city.", Washu directed Kiyone as they entered the atmosphere.

"Roger.  We'll make a simular approach.  More than likely, we'll find Ayeka in that town.", Kiyone responded, looking back at the rest of the group.

"I estimate that we'll be on the ground in three minutes.  Stand by for a Class A landing.", Mihoshi reported, while pressing a few illiuminated buttons on her console in front of her.

"I'll try to intensify the scanning beam and triangulate Ayeka's exact position.", Washu said tapping on her holopad.

A few minutes later, the GP Cruiser landed in the same grassy pasture where Tashika landed before.

"I'm detecting a visual destortion field about fifty meters the the left.  It's more than likely Ayeka's ship.", Washu said to nobody in particular.

"Why is it cloaked?", Tenchi asked.  "There's nobody out here?", he concluded.

"I'm sure it's to hide from those two Star Destroyers that followed us, and are stationed in orbit above us.", Kiyone stated in a mellodramatic tone.

"Oh.", Tenchi responded.

"Princess Ayeka's bio-signature leads off in this direction.   Most definatly, she went into the city.  If we hurry, we can catch up to her.

After a little while of walking, Kamado and Ayeka entered into the main square of town.  It had a style of middle eastern bazzar.  There were street venders lining the streets all around.  Fresh fruit, vegetables, and various other packages littlered the sidewalks.  Fresh aromas filled the air....coffees, teas, smoked meats..... all of this made Ayeka's tummy rumble fiercely.

Kamado walked up to a vender who had fresh shishkabobs grilling and sizzleing.  Taking a handfull of credits out of his pocket he negotiated with the vendor.  After a successful exchange, he walked away with two large meat kabobs and a package of fudge.

"Let's go sit down over there under the shade.", Kamado motioned.  The two visitors walked over to a vacant table and quickly devoured the tasty meats.

"So, what were you doing in the middle of that space battle?", Kamado started trying to distract himself, and to find out about his new comrad.  He sat there staring at the fudge, which was neatly placed in the center of the table.

"I ....", Ayeka paused, and diverted her gaze down towards the fudge. "... was escaping. -- Are we going to stare at that or eat it?", she motioned towards the warm fudge, trying to change the subject.  She noticed how Kamado began to fidget and that he was staring at the fudge.  It almost seemed as though he was struggling with an addiction, so it only seemed logical to have a little fun and see just how far she could push him.  If nothing else, it would keep the conversation off of herself, at least for a little while.

"Oh, you go ahead and have some.", Kamado casually waved.

"Oh, no, I insist, you must have some as well!", Ayeka insisted, opening the delicate tissue paper, revealing the deep, rich, smooth, gooey, dark chocolatey substance.  The fresh aroma filled the immediate air, causing Tashika to salvate.  He visably twiched, inching his way over to the tempting treat, and fighting every urge in his body to tear into the lovely chocolate delight.

Ayeka noticing Kamado's frustration, took the initiative and cut off a peice, taking a peice for herself, she placed the rest right in front of Kamado.  "Go on, it won't hurt you!  It's quite lovely.", Ayeka prodded, somewhat teasing him, and getting all the pleasure she thought she'd get.  Kamado scanned the area desperatly looking for a place to hide...it was as if he had an itch that he couldn't resist scratching any longer.  The temptation was irrestitable.  Watching every fork full that Ayeka took, watching her slowly placing it inside her mouth, and slowly chewing.  A small speckle of chocolate rested gently on her lower lip.  Sweat beaded up on Kamado's forehead.

"Why aren't you eating any, I assure you it is quite good.", Ayeka persisted.

"You....don't understand.  Now is not -- ", Kamado forced out.  Holding the fudge in his hand, he paused, and gazed at the fudge, like a cat in heat, he couldn't resist any longer.  He took a large bite of fudge and shoved the whole piece in his mouth.

"Now, if you'll excuse me more a minute, I'll need to ...", he got up from the table and glanced around.  The square began to spin, and he collapsed in a disorented motion.  Nobody seemed to notice as they all continued thier exchanges.  Ayeka watched as he pulled himself underneath the tablecloth.  Fierce movement occured under the table.  The faint sound of a zipper being undone and a few thrashes later, Ayeka started to become concerned of Kamado's ungentle behaviour.

"Mr. Kamado Tashika.  This is quite irregular behavior.  Get out from under that table this instant!", Ayeka said loudly.  She lifted the cloth not to find Kamado, but a young girl about about the age of eight with long blue hair.  She wore red pullover short-sleeve shirt with a matching red skirt that fell down to just above her knees.  As she sat there, finishing the knot on her shoe she blushed fiercly.

"Who are you?"  Ayeka questioned.  Helping the girl out from under the table, she still had chocolate pasted around her lips.  She looked fearful in her red eyes.

"I ..... I can um...... ", the girl started, but then Kiyone came into the square following Washu as she held some kind of scanning device.

"Ayeka?", Kiyone called.

"Kiyone?  Washu?  Is that really you?", Ayeka called.

"That's her!", a stormtrooper called.  His team began to open fire behind him.   People began running, and screaming.  Laser bolts devistated the once festive square.  Kiyone whipped out her side arm and began returning fire, making herself a target.  She dove into a series of tables and knocked one over on its side.  Ayeka and this new blue hair girl, dove under another nearby table.  She survayed the area, and said to Ayeka, "We gotta get out of here!  Come on!" 

"I insist that you tell me who you are!", Ayeka commanded, resisting the girls tugs.

"It's a long story.  Just call me......", she paused for a moment quickly thinking of something to call herself, as she'd never been stuck in this position before.  She'd never really considered a psedu-name for her alter form.  The first name that popped into her head, just happend to be his school-time sweetheart.

"....Kimberly.", the young girl finished.

The two women crawled over to another table and picked up Tenchi, Sasami, and Washu, the group of five continued to crawl over towards where Kiyone and Mihoshi were pinned down, once there, the little girl glanced around for an escape route...

[Senkusha]

More red laser bolts inpacted on the makeshift fortress that Kiyone and Mihoshi had constructed.

"We can't stay here much longer!", Kiyone yelled back to the others.

Kimberly looked around, and saw the only way out was right through those stormtroopers firing on them.  Looking at her remote control bracelet on her wrist, she got a gleam in her eye.

"I've got a plan, but we'll need a distraction, and I think I've got the perfect package.  I can remote pilot my ship!  If I can get to it's landing point, then I can give air support and all of you can get out of here.  The only problem is that it's going to take about three minutes for my ship to arrive.  Can you hold them off that long?", she looked at Kiyone and Mihoshi.

"Yeah, that won't be a problem, but whatever it is you're going to do, you'd better hurry  These blasts are starting to melt through the tabletop.", Kiyone advised.

With that, Kimberly reached down to her wrist and entered the new landing coordinates for her ship to land.  About five km away, the engines kicked on and slowly the cloaked vessel became airborn, slowly moving over to it's new landing spot.

"Hey, Kiyone?", asked Mihoshi, "Why don't you call Yagami by remote and then we could just get out of here?"

"I would, but there's no place for Yagami to land.  It's much too crowded here, and we'd never make it to the ship without getting hit.", Kiyone sighed.

"Don't worry, leave this to me!", the little blue hair girl announced with victory.  "But first, I'm going to need to aquire a few things.", she muzed, glacing over at a near by storm trooper's rifle.  "I'll be right back.", she said diving out in front of the table at a full charge towards the trooper, all the while dodging laser bolts from the left in an amzingly acrobatic display of flexibility.  The trooper noticed at the final few seconds before Kim arrived, she performed a handstand flip, planting her feet into his chest, causing him to fire as he fell backwards in an uncontrolled fashion.  Quickly, Kim snatched his rifle, armed it, and took her shot, killing the dazzed trooper.  Just as quickly as she lept forwards, she dove in back of some other tables with her new found weapon.  She started fireing at the front line of troopers, and slowly inched her way towards the exit of the square...

(Back on board the Star Destroyer in Orbit)

"Sir, I have news to report.", an officer entered the dark chambers of the Admiral's office.

"What is it?", he responded coldly.

"Sir, we have located the Princess.  The lead commander is reporting that she is recieving help from her old comrads.  There is a pretty intense fire fight going on as I am speaking to you now, sir.  Lead command is requesting another Division of troops to surround her position, and subdue her. -- "

Another officer barged in to the office.

"SIR!  A strong shield has formed  over the location of the Princess, our ground forces can not seem to penetrate it.  They are requesting more backup immediatly!"

"Here's what I want you to do, Captian.", the Admiral paused.  The two other officers blinked in anticipation.  "I want you to get a planetary target lock on the surface, and open fire.  Do you understand me?", he questioned, in just the same cold toneless voice.

"You want me to open fire on our troops position on the planet?  What about all those innocent bystandars...what about our troops!  You'd kill them just for this Princess?!"

"Yes.  Do it now..... or I'll find somebody else who will.", he responded mellodramatically.

"Very well, sir.  Your pincess will surely be dead in a matter of minutes.", he said as he turned on his heel and walked out to the command deck.

"Lieutenant!", he barked

"Yessir!", a crisp repsonse was heard from below.

"Target all forward batteries towards the following coordinates, and prepare to fire!", the Captain ordered, handing him a slip of paper.

"Sir?  If I ....", the Lieutenant started.

"You have your orders, just do it.", the Captian sighed.

"Very well sir.  Aligning main blasters to the following coordinates.  Stand by to fire in T-minus 30 seconds...

... Batteries 7 through 39 are now live and awaiiting final authorization sir.", he finsihed

"T minus 19 seconds...", another officer yelled.

"You are authorized.", the Adrmial said coldly.  He had stepped out of his office to see the final destruction of Princess Ayeka with his own eyes.

The Lieutenant pushed a series of buttons on his console....

Engines could be heard powering down just behind the storm troopers.  Only twenty feet away, but so far away, Kim looked as she was able to take a sniper shot at one of the storm troopers.  At full speed she leapt out pulling the trigger on her rifle, mowing down three troopers as she ran past the formation.  She tapped her bracelet, and her ship decloaked, and opened it's canapy.  She took a springy leap and sumersaulted into the cockpit.  Mashing the keypad, the canapy came to a motorzied shut, and the engines erupted with full force, as she slowly acended into the air.  She activated her shields just in time as some of the troopers began to open fire on her.  She positioned herself and returned fire, opening her Xwing into Combat mode, four red energy bolts errupted from her wing tips.

While all this was going on Kiyone signaled Yagami also on Remote for a pickup.  The group of women and Tenchi slowly started for the exit as well.  Then the sky rained down green energy bolts.  An audible alert sounded in Kim's cockpit indicating the new threat.  Hovering only a mere fifteen feet off the ground, she didn't have much room to manuever, but she still had to keep on those storm troopers....

[EK]

Its so short!
Note: Goes through before the imperials show to the ending of Senk's post.
________________________________________________________________________

  "Oi, Kinshi! Over here!"
  Shiori sighed as she paid for the small burger, suppressing a low growl to her forced companion. Sometimes she wondered if she should've let herself starve back at that base.
  She immediately cleared her head of the though and strolled over to the table where the pirate sat. He was rough looking, brown, unruly hair reached to about his shoulders with a scuffed beard. His eyes were dark, contrast to his pale skin.
  "Hey, ready for your first lesson?" the man etched, giving a toothy as Shiori took a seat. She stared at him for a moment, slowly chewing her food before looking back over at the table.
  She had just recently had her gun returned to her, and, in a way, the other pirates must've been firmly convinced that she would be joining them. Unfortunately for them, that wasn't what she had in mind.
  Sure, she was ecstatic to have been rescued from the station, but she would've gladly stayed there if she knew what she was getting herself into. Sure, she was grateful, but being held (somewhat) captive for ransom wasn't that appealing to her. 
  Shiori wondered how long it would take for the man to notice that she was ignoring him. There group had stopped on the northern continent for supplies, so many of them were taking the chance to enjoy themselves while they were here. She knew it was the perfect time to get away, but there wasn't much she could go to avoid them. She didn't know much of the area around the city either.
  Her train of thought abruptly ended when she felt a hard punch in the arm and she sharply turned her head over to the man. "Did you hear anything?" At her blank look, he sighed impatiently, "Go distract the people over there. I'll get their wallets."
  Shiori glared angrily at the man, unbelieving. She was an imperial captain, for crying out loud! She didn't need to stoop so low into stealing from someone, but, when the man quickly shoved her to the ground, she quickly changed her mind.
  "That's her!"
  She quickly heard the sound of rifles going off as she saw the shoes of people running and screaming in panic. Many of them fall dead, some, she realized, to be the companions she had been forced to accompany for the past few months.
  Shiori crawled her way from the firing laser bolts and the trampling people behind a bench, taking the laser pistol from the holster on her waist. She gave a swift kick to the table, knocking it hard to the ground and firing fiercely at the direction of the laser bolts.
  It certainly had been a long time since she had been in gun-fire, but her instincts quickly took over.  Her eyes widened as she realized who it was that she was dealing with. She quickly jumped up, raising her hands in defense. "Hey, hey!" she yelled out irritably, gritting her teeth at the fact that she was caught in a cross-fire with Imperials, "I'm on your side!"
  Shiori hastily ducked down as more laser bolts whizzed passed in her direction. She cursed under her breath as she quickly dove to another bench table, already knocked over by, most likely, a fleeing bystander. Much to her distaste, however, the firing was worse at this area.
  There had to be some way to avoid the constant laser bolts. By all means, she didn't want to fire at her own army! An idea struck then as she heard the familiar whizzing of a ship nearby. She peeked her head over the table just barely enough to see the hell square.
  A ship, looks to be a standard military type, hovered above the square. She grinned widely at the turning point of her luck. Just maybe she can get away from the skirmish and the pirates at the same time!
  Without a moment to loose, she stepped out from behind the table and made a break for the ship, ducking down to avoid the gunshots.  She screeched to a stop for a moment, taking note of an extra chamber inside. Shiori leapt into the ship and made her way into the chamber, just in time for the cockpit lid to close.

[Senkusha]

Kim's console displayed a proximity alert as Yagami came into position, she swayed out of the way for Yagami to land, then squeezed the trigger, sending off a round full of laser cannon fire towards the strom troopers for the others to make thier get away.  Another alert sounded, indicating that the shields were down to 50%, from the plasma blasts raining down from the sky.

"Just a little longer....", she whispered to herself.  As soon as Yagami was airborn, so was she.  She set a course following the Yagami into orbit.  More green bolts came flying past the two ships, as Kim's sensors indicated another Star Destroyer bearing down on her exit position.  A few blasts hit, a new sounding alert of a triple tone sequence sounded, indicating that the shields had fallen to a critical 15%.  Kimberly, quickly rotated the shields to maximum front and ploted a course through hyperspace.

"Attention pilot, Yagami  please transmit your jump coordinates so that I may follow.", Kimberly announced into her microphone.

"Kimberly is it?  Follow us on the following trajectory.  We should be safe there.  Oh, and the name here is Officer Kiyone."

A set of coordinates popped up on her console, and Kimberly quickly engaged the hyperdrive engines.  Stars flowed into streaks of rainbowish light, and whizzed past the cockpit.  Kim hit the mute button, silencing the crtical alarm.  Her shields were only down to 4%.  Unbuckling her self from the chair, she stretched her legs.  It will be a short while before they exited Hyperspace again, and it was time to "fix" something.  Kimberly reached back for her backpack but it was nowhere to be found.

"Oh no!  I hope I didn't leave it behind!", she paniced and leapt out of the pilot seat, she scooted herself over to the Dx chamber and entered the combination to open the door.  When the door opened, she stepped inside in search of her stash of beer.  Instead of finding that though, she found something....someone else.

"Huh?" ....

(Meanwhile back in space above the planet....)

"DAMN!", the admiral yelled, hitting his balled up fist on the bulkhead in front of him.

"Sir!  A fleet of Rebel ships just exited hyperspace and are heading this way.  Main batteries are still armed, but thier charge has been reduced to 47%.", an officer advised.

The admiral glared at the officer, then out the window to where the two ships had just escaped to.  Softly and slowly he said, "I don't care about those Rebelan scuttle-buckets.....I want that Princess.  Can you track her?"

"Yes sir, I have a possibility of three destinations they could have gone.", he replied.

"Good.  Lay in the course and get her!", he demanded at the top of his lungs.

"YESSIR!", a snappy response came.  With that the two Star Destroyers entered Hyperspace in pursuit.

(Aboard the Rebellan command ship Tyderious...)

"General, Tashiko just entered hyperspace along with that GP cruiser!", an officer reported.

"Man, I have no idea what that kid got himself into, but I'm willing to bet that he's going to need help.  Were you able to determine his jump point?", the General responded.

"Yes general.  They are heading for a tiny, realitivly unknown planet known as Earth.  A class D planetoid, low technology level.  It's listed in the "Restricted Flight Zone", sir.

"Very well, prepare to have the fleet jump.  We certianly can't have rogue Imperials messing up the Restricted Zone, now can we?", the general almost answered his rhetorical question.

"Very good, sir.  Stand by for Jump....in ten seconds."

The fleet of 38 ships all entered hyperspace one after another within that ten second window....


(Down on the planet...)
"Kinshi!  Kin....shi!", a pirate yelled.  He was amoung the rest of the bloody bodies that laid there motionless.  He searched through all the dead, unable to find his partner.

"Why that little.....", he muttered  With most of his gang just hurt and just unconscious, he got them all to a ship and set a course.  He was determeined to find that little punk girl, and make her pay for what she caused.  He locked on the recent Ion trials, and engaged they hyperdrive, setting a course for the unknown...

[Senkusha]

(Meanwhile back on Yagami...)

"We should reach Earth in about an hour or so.", Kiyone said while unbuckling her seat restraints.  She walked to the back room where Ayeka was gathered around by everyone else.

"So who's your new friend?", Kiyone asked.  "Kimberly?  I think she said her name was?"

"Oh, yes!  Please do tell sister!", Sasami chimed in.

"She did quite a bit of butt-kicking back there...even though she didn't have to", Ryoko said.

"Say....why where those Storm Troopers firing at you anyway?", Ryoko added.

"Well, if you must know, I escaped from thier imprisonment.", she paused, "....and if it wasn't for Kamado, I'm sure I wouldn't have survived.", the princess finished.

"Escaped?", Ryoko asked

"Kamado?", Kiyone and Washu commented in unison.

"Yes, well, I don't really want to talk about what happened before my escape."  She blushed a bit, and stared at the floor.  Then raising her head and looking at both Washu and Kiyone, she answered, "Yes, Kamado was his name.  He rescued me shortly before my ship disintigrated with his X-wing.  Then we went to that planet, and got some lunch, shortly before that attack happened.  They were chasing me!", Ayeka said with dramatics.

"But....I didn't see any guy with you....only that little girl", Mihoshi questioned.

"Um, yes...I am still a bit confused about that as well.  The last time I saw Kamado, he had just eaten a huge block of fudge...then he scamppered underneath the table we were sitting at, and I found that young girl there.", Ayeka remembered.

"That's sounds quite a bit farfetched.", Ryoko prodded

"So who is she?", Sasami asked, with great interest.  Finally, she might just have a friend of somebody her own age to play games with.

"She said her name was Kimberly over the Comm.", Kiyone interrupted.

"She did fly that ship fairly well on the ground.", Mihoshi pointed out.

"Did I miss something?", Tenchi asked, clearly confused.  "I thought you were rescued by a guy....where did this gril come from?"

"That's the point.  I think that Kimberly and Kamado are infact the same person.", Washu concluded.  "She would make a most interesting specimen to study!", she schemed excitedly.

"I think I'll cook a nice supper for her.  She seems awfully nice.", Sasami said with a smile.

"Do you think it's wise to trust her?  What if she's a spy?", Ryoko pointed out.

"That is one possiblity, however, I doubt she's that complicated.  She didn't look a day over twelve to me, and if I remember, a person has to be an adult to be a legitimate spy for the Jurain Empire, isnt' that correct, miss Ayeka?", Washu pointed out.

"Yes, that's right.  Maybe she's got a condition?", Ayeka said.

"I'll be more than willing to check her over with a fine tooth comb back at the lab.", Washu said, putting her hands together beneath her chin, with an evil smile.

"So who's up for a game of Go?", Sasami asked.

"Okay, that sounds nice!", Ayeka said, eager to spend time with her little sister.

"Are you sure she's okay?", Kiyone whispered to Washu.

"Nope.  But nevertheless, I'm going to check her out too back at the lab.", Washu commented. And perhaps I'll get Tenchi in there too. she plotted.

[Slade]

'Admiral Kurdeto?'

'Admiral?'

'ADMIRAL!'

Kurdeto was still fiddling with the remote, an hour after showing it to his less then agreeable fellow conspirers and the footage was still being shown, he wondered why he ever purchased a remote with over fifty buttons in languages he couldn't make out (even if it was his own) before an audio invoice from the entrance by one of his officers to his briefing room, informing him that he now has a high classed security holo message in waiting for him. Still scrambling around after two minutes, he couldn't ignore the demand for his attention. As a last ditch attempt he moved the table round where a disc shaped panel was waiting to become active and display the electronic impersonation of that person.

"can't they just send e-mail these days?" Complained Kurdeto bitterly before till he finally shifted the table around and hoped the figure himself won't turn round to see the mute but deeply questionable material.

"Ok, put him through!" A failed attempt to disguise his desperation in still trying to find the off switch for the image by his remote and was still fiddling when the dark image appeared. Kurdeto, true to himself yelped in pety shock and hid the remote well behind his arms before the dark depicted image, the hologram just showed a towering figure, the outline figure could be made out to be a powerful and muscular appearance but anything facial was hidden by a deep black. Despite the shroud masking his facial features, the manner of the entry and his deep voice, heavy and unforgiving was enough for Kurdeto to know who he was talking to.

"..Lo--Lord Krayne, your presence is indeed a surprise"

"Why should it be? this was pre-arranged after all"

"Yes well, erm...anyway" Rather then admit he never checked his appointments, he fast forwarded the issue of the matter...what it was he was still trying to remember. Fortunately it was Krayne who inquired first.

"I believe you have convinced the other admirals of your scheme?"

"oh yes, of course...yes, yes...yes...in..deed..." 

If Krayne could be seen, he would had shown an raised eyebrow to his expendable minion's sudden lack of concentration to the conversation for his eyes were drifting at something with his mouth half open and tilting his head to 'gape' as it were at something.

"Kurdeto?"  "What are you-?!?!" 

Kurdeto's worst case scenario came true, his masked superior turned around, curious by Kurdeto's sudden interest in something else. Kurdeto couldn't help it, the video at the back showed a new clip, now it was jabba having her...well he had her 'feeding' as it were his...Kurdeto was still surprised the sheer size of it, then he noticed his supervisor turn and he too, jumped at the sight.

"Kurdeto!...This was to be shot at Jurai, not during your private hours!"

"but but, I can't get it switched off!"

"Oh right, sure" Replying in rare sarcasm before reverting to his stern words once more "Main thing is, is it on it's way to Jurai"

"Of course!"

"And then everything is set to cripple the jurai goverment"

"Certinely!"

"...then there is nothing to add" Krayne wanted to add more but the sight of it was well... had an off putting effect. "I will report again" His voice boomed "Though next time, get it off, ok?"

"Well that could be a problem, it is on for 262hrs...along with bonus features I may add-"

"just do it!"

The conversation ended there, Kurdeto sat back on his chair and sighed wishing it would all end before seeing the video again, looking around first, he then lowered his pants and amazingly found the button to unmute the sounds, hearing the and feeling the eroticness it made for him. And with a low voice added the video to 'zoom in' on the action...


----------------

"Welcome to jurai Empire 24, where we bring you live media coverage of all the daily events 24/7 or 101/5 for are new Amarain members of the jurai empire. broadcasting over every channel across the star systems, we go live to a very special meeting with Queen masaki who is able to comment after the terrible loss of her beloved, former emperor Azura..."

"Helloooo small and caring people!"

Everyone who saw it were greeted to beautiful, large and almost puppy wide eyes made by a woman with well blue groomed hair and welcomed everyone who watched it in such a cheerful and over emotionally friendly voice that if she wasn't the most powerful woman in the empire then she would had instead had been seen as a raving lunatic.

"After the terrible, terrible, terrible departure of my husband, the council have thought long and hard to who should fill the throne, till I intervened and told them that my dear sweet Ayeka." Her voice sweetened even more upon making the message directly personal "and if your seeing this dear then mommy says hi!"

On cue, a sweetly timed recorded  'ahhh'

"Now let us show you cherished people whose stars are aligned to the empire a programme detailing the achievements of my sweet daughter that have moulded her to be the suited heir you will come to know and of course, LOVE!!!"

the screen split vertically, the left showing Masaki smiling and gesturing to the footage and to the right, documented footage starting with ayeka as a child walking on all fours smiling to the world, then as her footage of her growing older were shown so were her merited achievements of nobility and respect to others. Starting with the minor and domestic; from meeting hospital staff and openings of the Hurai advanced hospitals, meeting various cultured aliens, smiling. Shaking hands, they showed the upmost respect to each other.

 This further moved to more complex and significant factors, still shots of Ayeka in a traditional jurain uniform looking proud beneath the a potrait of the jurain goddess that ayeka apparently drew.

Apparently

Then it moved onto slow moving jurain troops, again of various cultures all smiling and standing side by side as equals, always looking out to something. Music played with powerful lyrics made by the sound of an old but strong juarin saying 'I won't back down' every solider looked to something with hope and confidence, as if they at last saw that inspiration they were looking for to carry on. And then the screen went black only with gold letters appearing making up a sentence. 'Every generation has it's hero' before adding on:

'Hers is no different'

Then came the final image, that of Ayeka standing tall and proud with her smaller sister at her side, a faithful servant (whose scrawny and pitiful image looked questionably like ryoko to those who knew better) and in the background the images of those troops appeared. The whole clip moved the Jurain Queen to tears of joy and went on to say something till out of character, a large screech of forced change in transmission added a unholy sight. Misaski mouth lost its jaw at seeing it; she saw something whatever it was on top of a young woman she refused to believe was...she just refused to believe it.

'Call me Jabba, Bit-(translation error) !'

And so it went on, Misaski stared with horror crying out of her eyes and lips' trembling before the screen showing her was cut off and the 'footage' itself came in full wide screen. It had a title at the top: Porn Wars: A new pimp in force. With a clock clicking down 262hrs and so many minutes and seconds with a small red interactive button at the side for 'bonus features'

Yet no one more was more shocked at this then the jurain behind the idea (the idea before this 'interruption' came in) Jerrico, a high noble lord who earned the great honour of directing the campaign for Ayeka's bid for empresses (even if they didn't get in touch with her for a while along with other matters) he was happy till he saw this.

The pale white face cannot hide the dread he had come to see before him.

"...get that thing off our screens...GET IT OFF!" He fretted, the men at the controls at the broadcast were already trying to even before he said it and their response was simple.

"we can't, it's well, it's hijacked all frequencies, including audio...and all across the empire!...it's tied in to military channels included!"

"are you sure?"

He was pointed to a split screen image of a jurain commander with the 'image' shown at his side.

"What is going on?!" He demanded, "I can't even send a message to my kids without this accompanying my messages! Even the supernet is hijacked by it!"

Jerrico was speechless, lost, his eyes looked for something, a quick fix or better yet a way out.

"Well you see we can't, we can't even unplug it as somehow all the channels and such have been hacked into by an outside factor."

"It gets worse sir"

"How?" Demanded Jerrico, whose eyes shifted to the far room, one jurain who saw him turn was quick to flick off the red 'interactive' button ( ) before Jerrico could notice. The Jurain who broke the news hesitated but finally uttered the words that made Jerrico shriek.

"It's by a premium line as well"

 "...you mean, the whole empire is caught on some 'speed pay dial?' thing?"

"given the rate and how it hijacked on the channels, especially those accessing their accounts on the supernet is all being erm...drained of money, already we could face liable lawsuits against 178 colonised worlds, 20 alien membership worlds just by loss of their bank accounts alone...estimated cost of not censuring this from children along with other trivial matters gathering up to..." The spokesman saw the screen, his voice became down beat at what the supercomputer gave as it's answer.

"It erm...gave up estimating the cost of lawsuits when it calculations went past 900000000, 00000000, 0000000, 000000, 0000, 000, 00"



"And with another 262hrs to go?! Were losing money and owing it as well?!...wait? how can the people even think of suing us!...and on that amount?! It's already twice as much as Ryoko was once meant to own for wrecking our homeworld!"

Somebody barged in through the doors, Jerrico had a idea who it, he turned with a pleading smile.

"Your majesty, I can explain! This wasn't-"

"EXPLAIN?!" roared out Misaski, her face showed polar personality then it did in the camera and as her hands were already choking jerrico, her eyes were split at who was to blame, she certainly seemed infuriated by her daughter at least. "WHERE IS SHE?!"

"Er...presumably at earth, though as we kept saying we have been having trouble getting to her, ACK!"

"Then that is were we are both going! Come on!"

Jerrico, without dignity, yelped as with by a single hand by the Jurain queen was dragged across the floor with ease to any Jurain ship ready to get her to earth where a few 'mother-daughter- words were to be exchanged.

[Senkusha]

"AHHHH!  TURN IT OFF!", Mihoshi yelled from the bridge.

Everybody's head tuned and everyone followed Kiyone to the bridge in a scramble.

"What is going on up here, Mihoshi?", Kiyone questioned, but then turned a shade of green seeing the footage playing on the view screen.  Ayeka gasped and grabbed Sasami, locking the door to the "lounge" in back.

"My my...princess, I didn't know you had it in you.", Ryoko teased on deaf ears.

Tenchi just tood there gasping, with a nosebleed as images poured off the screen.

"I can't shut it off WWAAAAAAAAAAA!", Mihosih wailed.

"Hit the main switch.", Kiyone growled.

"I did!  Twice, and I flipped the main breaker, but it still didn't shut the transmission off!", Mihoshi blubbered.

"Well then I guess there is only one thing to do.", Washu proclaimed, as she took out her holo-computer.  Typing in a few commands in something that looked like an old style Unix mainframe, she typed in long commands strings with dozens of command arguments.  Everybody focused on her with intent as she was about to announce what she was doing.

"Well, WHAT IS IT?!  WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?!", Kiyone yelled angrily.

"This.", Washu replied.  All of a sudden the power went off line, and the ship exited hyperspace, a short alarm blirted as the computer wasn't expecting to eject from hyperspace so suddenly.  Everyone flew against the front with the sudden loss of the inertia dampening system.

"AHHHHHH!", many screams were heard as they all lunged forwards, crashing into the consoles in the front.  Ayeka, who was holding Sasami tightly with her hands over her eyes and mouth, also went flying into the bulkhead doors they had just locked behind them.


"Now all I have to do is restart the system...", Washu said, typing in some more commands.  After a minute nothing happened.  Only the glow from Washu's holo-computer lit a small area of the room.

"Well, that's strange.", she said with a cocked head to the left.

"What?", Kiyone exaperated, with a tone of dread.

"It didn't work.  It looks to me that the data stream as comprimized the entire ships' system grid.  We're stuck here.  There apparenelty is no way to disable the transmission either.", Washu said before being cut off by Kiyone.

"What do you mean we're stuck here?", Kiyone threatened.

"I mean it's like a virus.  Whoever is behind this, has literally cripped the entire Jurian network.  Everything has come to a stand still, only letting this transmission through.  According to these data readings ---", Washu said and then dropped her jaw.

"What's wrong", Ryoko said, knowing that if Washu had this look, something was terribly wrong.

"--- This is going to be on the air for another..........two-hundred-sixty-one hours, fifty-eight minutes, and twenty-six seconds.", Washu said.  "We don't even have life support online right now.", she said gravely.

"Well, then first things first.", Kiyone said taking charge.  "We'll get life support operational"

"Okay, that shouldn't be that hard to override the internal systems of Yagami, but then we'll be stuck here adrift for......a very long time", she said, attempting to calcuate the number of days..weeks that they'll be unable to move.

"Why?", Mihoshi naively questioned.

"Becuase, the entire network has been hijacked by this transmission.  Not even navigational bouys can send thier telemetry.  It's all being blocked---jammed.", Washu said.

"We'll think of somehing later.  Right now, we've gotta get this bulkhead door open!  We can't do anything until we can get through there, and Ayeka locked the door!", Kiyone vented angrily.

"Why not just open the door like this?", Tenchi said trying the door, without success.

"Becuase there's no power to the lock...it's all hydrolics based.  No power, means no access.", Kiyone sighed.

(Meanwhile back aboard Tashiko's ship....)

"Emergency deceleration in progress....", a message flashed on his console...which Kamado / Kimberly wasn't paying attention to.

All of a sudden all the contents of the cockpit came flying to the front, includeing Kim and her "guest".

"AHHHHHHHHHH!", she screamed from insinct.

[EK]

 "Huh?"
   Shiori shook slightly at the sudden voice and nervously turned her head, knowing she had been found. However, when she looked into the bright red eyes of a little girl, she was more confused than worried. 
   The girl looked to not have even reached over ten; yet she was in this ship, a military X-wing. Maybe she was traveling with someone else, perhaps her father. She cringed slight; this was going to be good.
   "Um," she began, breaking the tense silence between the two, "How 'bout just acting like I'm not here and not tell the main pilot, okay?" The girl gave her an angered look then, her eyes reflecting much fire in the crimson orbs.
   "I fly this ship, first of all!" she exclaimed heatedly, giving a scowl. Shiori couldn't help but smile and shook her head. The girl was cute when she looked angry like that. It was a shame that they were on different sides.
   The girl didn't seem to particularly enjoy her large grin, giving a harsh glare at her. "Who are you?" she demanded, quickly grabbing her by the shirt.  Unfortunately, it didn't have much of an effect on her account as she stifled her laughter. The girl was trying so hard to convince her that she was the captain; it was so cute!
   The young girl released her grasp from her, sighing irritably. Shiori relaxed against the wall before her hand rubbed up against something cold. She cocked her head slightly to the side, quickly catching notice of the small can. Puzzled, she picked it up, reading the label before quirking an eyebrow to the self-proclaimed 'pilot.'
   "Were you looking for this?" she questioned slightly as the girl's eye continued to glare dangerously in her direction. Seeing the small can, she quickly made a jump for it, but when the ship did a sudden lurch forward, both unwilling lunged forward, crashing into the cockpit area with a resounding 'thud.'
   Shiori slammed her back harshly into the seat, groaning as brown liquid steadily poured from the can discarded only a foot from her. The girl landed uncomfortably on her stomach, knocking the breath quickly out of Shiori.
   She gasped for breath as the girl sat up, grumbling under breath, somewhere along the lines of 'what now?!' before moving over to the counsel of the ship. As Shiori sat up, achingly rubbing her back, she took notice that the girl wasn't lying when she said she was the pilot of the ship. 'Now, that certainly isn't right...' she grimaced under her breath.
   When she sat up, the girl was typing rapidly on the keyboard, obviously frustrated about something. Why had they stopped anyway? Shiori stood up and casually strolled behind her, curious on what she was doing.
   "Yagami?" she yelled out, her voice now expressing more confusion, "Officer Kiyone? Anyone? What's going on?!" With no response, she sighed grudgingly, taking a seat in the first pilot chair.  Silence soon filled between the two as the girl seemed to be calming herself down.
   Shiori couldn't help but wonder how a little girl was piloting a military ship. No army would do that, yet there she was, obviously operating the ship with a GP officer (apparently). She took a seat in the back pilot seat, frowning at the girl before her.
   "So," she began quietly, trying to steer away from the fact of her being a stowaway, leaning over on the seat in front of her, "what's a girl doing piloting an X-wing with beer in the back?"
   The girl ignored her for a moment as she got up and proceeded to mess with the counsel once more, trying to get in contact with her companions. Shiori shrugged; maybe she was just ignoring her, but it certainly was strange for even such a young girl to have her hands on alcoholic drinks. 
   Of course, she seemed to be quite busy with the communication system to mess with her. She carefully slid to the extra chamber once more, shuffling around the area for more of the cans. She picked up the six-pack from one of the corners, now holding only five thanks to the sudden stop of the ship. She pulled one of them from the back and opened it. She wasn't much for beer, but at least it was a stiff drink for what was going on with her life right now.
   "Give that to me!" The yell had come unexpected on her part, making her nearly drop the can in question. She smirked in the girl's direction, leaning against the wall. She might as well do something for the girl's health. After all, it wasn't the best habit for a girl to be a drinking.
   "I don't think so," she bit back, taking a sip of the beer. As soon as the bitter liquid hit her tongue, she cringed slightly. She forgot how cheap the taste of beer was to her.  Most of the pirates took fancy to whisky, so she didn't have to worry about it.
   "See?" the girl obviously noticed, "You don't even like it. I just need a sip." She gave a sweet innocent look in way to plead with her. Shiori quirked an eyebrow slight, puzzled.
   "Now, why would you need it?" she pondered and the girl sighed. She gave a reluctant look in her direction before shaking her head as if convincing herself to explain something.
   "You're not going to let me take a drink until I explain, aren't you?" Shiori nodded, smirking slightly at how uncomfortable the girl was. This certainly was a peculiar situation to be in, but it may be useful later on.
   That thought quickly changed when she saw the girl move like lightning, quickly landing a punch to her stomach. She fell to the floor, grasping for breath while coughing, watching the girl grab the beer cans and retreating to the cockpit area.
   She couldn't believe it, but she had just lost to a little girl.

[Senkusha]

Kimberly made her move seeing that the other girl was momentarily preoccupied.  She lunged with an assult speed, quickly landing a punch into the other girls' gut.  She fell, releasing the hold on the five-pack.  Kim quickly grabbed the free falling can and ran up to the very front, but tripped on some debris that had flown out of the "hold" from eariler.  She flew airborn, watching her four of the five cans errupt into a sticky, foaming eruption of beer as it landed over the windshield of the cockpit.  She tightly held the single can left in her hand as she landed face first onto the oozing mess of beer that was now covering the "deck".  As a result, she also slid a few feet until she crashed into the foot pedals under the command chair.

"Ooowww.", she moaned.


(meanwhile aboard other ships...)

"Sir!  Shortly after this.....garbage commadeered our communications system, we have located that GP ship.  It has dropped out of hyperspace, and appeared to be sitting adrift.", a flight officer said to the Admiral aboard the Star Destroyer.

"Perfect!  They've probably felt the full force of the attack.  They should be helpless by now.  Set a course and kill on sight.", the Admiral ordered.

"Yes sir!"  The officer responded, but in his head, he questioned what was going on.  It was almost as if the Admiral knew of this transmission.


(Aboard the rebel fleet...)

"General! Those two star destroyers have changed course, and are heading right towards Tashiko's current position.  ETA, about 4 minutes.", a flight officer reported.

"Prepare for battlestations!", he ordered, an alarm blared in the background.  Crew scattered, running to thier stations...


(Aboard Yagami...)

"Okay, now PULL!", Kiyone commanded the group.  They had managed to pull the door opened about eight inches.

"Sasami, can squeeze through this opening?", Mihoshi asked.

"I can try.", the blue haired girl said, as she tried to squeeze sideways through the opening.

"EEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHHHHHHH!", she groaned, but finally managed to get through.

"Okay, great!  Here's what we need....", Kiyone started instructing.

"Okay, I think I can do that.", Sasami said, squeezing back through the door.

"Excuse me for a moment.  Me and the Princess are going to have a little .... chat.", Ryoko said, as she phased through the door.

"Come with me, Ayeka.", she said, grabbing ahold of the once proud princess, dragging her off to a back room away from ear shot of everyone else -- especially Sasami.

"Now, would you mind explaining what happened on that screen?", Ryoko pressured....

[EK]

Damn! Everything is on a roll today, isn't it.  Short post, again! Shorter than the last two actually. Sorry, Senk! This tis crazy!
______________________________________________________________________
   Her breath was still staggering when Shiori stood up, gritting her teeth, enraged. She would not be bested by some child!  She quickly rushed after her, ready to pounce on the little girl, but stopped when she saw the girl in a pile of beer mess on the floor. She shook her head, looking away and covering her mouth before the laughter could spill out. She didn't have to worry much.
   She stepped over to the fallen girl now sitting up with the only can still relatively full of its liquids.  She gave a triumphant grin, kneeling down to her level and outstretching her hand. She had no time to play with girls right now.
   The girl stood, glaring at Shiori intensely, not willing to let go of the slightly opened can.  Shiori sighed; she wasn't going to give up the beer easily. "Believe me, this is for your own good," she sneered, before quickly swiping for the can. The girl stepped back and the familiar 'creak' of the pedal reverberated in the room.
   Much to her luck, the ship suddenly turned to the left, knocking her off her feet and barely loosing her grasp of the can. The back of her skull slammed against command chair and she yelled out, wincing as the girl slid against her knee from the beer all over the floor. Shiori then lost her balance and slipped along with her as the ship soon turned upside down and crashed onto the ceiling (cockpit window), landing stiffly on her shoulders with the beer from the can spraying all over the two soldiers.
   Before she could recover, however, the ship turned once more, pushing them to the right like rag dolls. While they slid, the girl quickly dug her knees and made a break for the can, but Shiori quickly move her wrist, unfortunately spilling more of the drink.
   As they landed against the right, the ship finally turned right side up, crashing her stomach side on the floor with the girl beside her on her back.  Shiori quickly got on her knees, realizing that, somehow, she still held onto the beer can.  She shook it slightly, noticing that there was still some of the liquid still remained as well.
   'Well, that beats the impossible,' she thought off-handily before a small hand shot for the can once more. She quickly moved it out of the girl's reach, growing bored of the hasty fight. As the girl jumped for the can, she only switched hands, frowning at the girl. "Quit this," she mused exasperatedly, "You're not getting the beer."
   The routine repeated for a few minutes with Shiori dominated with her just barely trying. It was a wonder how the girl was piloting a ship when she was a lot shorter than the average person. It just seemed a little strange—a lot of it was quite strange.
   The child stopped her jumping when Shiori switched the can to her right hand for about the fourth time and slammed her foot down on hers, causing Shiori to yelp and subsequently drop the beer can right into the girl's hand.
   The girl smiled triumphantly but dashed into the chamber as Shiori lunged for the girl. She landed hard on the floor, missing the girl as the doors to the chamber clammed shut. The hard tackle only reawakened old pains, as she groaned, rubbing her head tenderly. 'This is gonna be a long day,' she thought grimly as she got on her knees, soon feeling the knot on her head.

[Senkusha]

The door closed shut with not a moment too soon, Kimberly heard a thud on the other side of the door as she sat back and leaned against the bulkhead.  She reached over and grabbed a small flashlight that was laying on the floor and flipped it on.  The blue haired girl studied the can intently.

"Finally....", she paused, "I can return to my normal self.", she proclaimed.  She raised the can to her lips, opening them just enough to allow for the smooth, bitter liquid to pass, catching every drop that would come.  She continued to lean further and further back.  Nothing.  Still nothing.  Finally, a lone single drop tapped her tounge, as she laid as far back as her neck would allow.

"Huh?", she righted her self and swished the can, only to heard nothing.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!", She screamed in agony, and threw the empty can against the far wall.  She got up and scronged around for her spare set of clothes, finally finding them on the top shelf, she pulled them down with a tug, and the neatly folded black set of clothing came crashing down on top of Kim's head.

"What was I thinking, putting this on the top shelf!", she cursed herself.

Holding out the clothing in front of her, she sighed, "I never thought I'd see the day that I'd be wearing this."

She stripped off the red, beer soaked outfit she was wearing and dried herself off with the few remaining dry pieces, then she slipped on the new set of black underwear, and the short, black dress, complete with a single red striping down the side to match the conformatiy of the Cyquin Republic Uniform.  It even had a column of fake silver buttons going up the torso, while the lower portion hung loosly down above her knees.  She put on the matching black boots, which came a couple of inches above her ankles.

She stared down at herself and nerviously gulped.  She really didn't like to have to wear this thing. 

********** Flash Back **********
It was actually a gag gift from his comrad, Reiko, the only person he had confided in, after his...accident occured.  He laughed of course not believing him, and so Kamado showed him.  His response at first was shock followed by some stiffled laughter, and then he told him 'not to worry about it'.  A couple of days later, Kamado entered his room to find the gift blue and green wrapped box, complete with a silver bow, laying on his bunk.  There was a single note scribbled on it:

"In case you ever need it.
HA HA!"

After that, he vowed that nobody would ever find out about his curse, and he would do whatever it took to guard that secret. 

********** End Flashback **********

Tears rolled down her cheek followed by a couple of lone sniffles.  She had to hold herself together.  She'll turn back soon enough...somewhere she'll find a cure...somewhere she'll find something bitter.  She looked upwards, and wiped the tears off her face.

Maybe Officer Kiyone has some coffee aboard their ship?, she thought to herself.

After a quick sigh of renewed faith, Kim opened the door and stepped out, and headed towards the command chair taking care not to slip on the remaining spilled beer.  Most of it had drained into the subfloor, and vented out into space in a lovely display of ice crystals

Saying to her passenger without noting where she was, "I'm going over there.  You can tag along if you'd like.". Kim had a great deal of frustation in her voice.  That kind of tone that spoke volumes to the effect of, "Don't push me.", Her eyes, almost look as though she had been crying, as they were puffy and red, and she choked a bit as she talked, from the large lump in the back of her throat.

"We need to get out of here before those Star Destoryers find our position.", she commented as she approached the flight controls.

[EK]

    The tense silence was near unbearable as the girl came back in the cockpit area. She seemed more somber than when she went in there; it was safe to presume that the beer can was empty though a girl at her age wouldn't sob over that.  Maybe she didn't know exactly what was going on with the situation at hand.
   "I'm going over there..." she monotone, though she seemed to hold a tired tone to it, "you can tag along if you like." She glanced back dangerously in her direction, gritting her teeth in a threatening pose, "Don't push me." Though it was used to intimidate, she only felt guilty for the situation, however responsibility she had to maintain as an adult.  She could tell that the girl had been cry, her eyes light red and puffy. 
   "We need to get out of here before those star destroyers find our position," the girl muttered before typing away at the flight controls.  Star destroyers? She gulped nervously at the thought.
   "Um," she started, taking a seat in the back chair, her hands fidgeting nervously, "Maybe we got off on a bad start." The girl averted her eyes and she suddenly remembered that had a problem: she was in the empire. She frowned slightly, knowing that if she gave her real name, it wouldn't be good once the separated. "I'm Kinshi, you?" She scowled as the name came out of her lips. She knew that she was probably going to regret that later.
   "Kimberly," she mumbled, sighing slightly as she continued working. The girl, Kimberly, was probably getting in touch with her friends in the red GP cruiser.  "What were you doing on my ship?" Shiori saw the question coming though she wondered if it was good to tell her that she was trying to escape from space pirates. Shiori shuddered at the thought, placing her chin on the chair in front of her. Silence enveloped the two, tense and unnerving in her standards.
   "Well..." she started finally, closing her eyes to gather her own thoughts, "I came in here to escape from getting shot and to get—" she stopped, sighing. Maybe it wouldn't be good to tell her. Most of them were probably dead from the attack, so would they care?
   'Well,' she surmised mentally, nibbling on her bottom lip, 'the worst that could happen be that I would be thrown into space, suffocating in a slow and painful death.' Kimberly casually turned her head, quirking an eyebrow curiously. "I was trying to get away from bandits for ransom," she finished finally, sighing.
   The girl, in turn, sighed, a little flustered by the sudden news. "You mean bandits are after us too?" she mustered, scowling at the thought. Shiori shook her head quickly, wringing her hands.
   "No, no, no," she rambled hurriedly, "I do not expect you to get involved. They're only after me, so if it comes to them chasing after, how unlikely it is, you can—" The girl stopped her by placing a hand in front, sighing with a shake of her head.
   "Yes, that would be that smart thing to do," she mused, making Shiori gulp once more nervously, "but I'm not inclined to do that. It may be an issue, but you need help. I'll just drop you off where we're going and you can figure things out from there."
   Shiori finally let out breath in relief, leaning back on the chair as Kimberly continued to fiddle with the controls. She had free passage for now, but if she were to find out who she truly was, that may turn out to a different story. She shrugged her shoulders. Best to leave things as they lie for now. "Thanks..." she mumbled, frowning at the beer mess on the floor.

[Senkusha]

Kimberly finally finished entering the command script into the computer.  A few moments later, the ship thrusted slowly over to the Yagami and gently touched with the starport docking tube.  The console indicated that the two ships have been docked, and the shield generator kicked on with a humming sound.  Statistical information indicated that the shields were at 500% thier normal charge, and it also indicated that the docking bay door was unresponsive on the Yagami.

"Great.  It looks like I'll have to do this the hard way.", she muttered grabbing a crowbar looking device from under her seat.  She once again entered the storage chamber, and climbed up a ladder that had dropped down from the ceiling.

"Come on, Kinshi.  Let's see if they need help over there.  I assume you know something about the workings of space ships and such.", she said almost sarcastically.

She didn't wait for Kinshi to follow her up the tube.  Instead she climbed up to the hull of the Yagami and forced the docking door open with a quick twist of her tool.  There were no lights on the Yagami and it was hard to breathe, and very stuffy.

"It looks like lifesupport isn't functioning.  That should be our first priority.", she yelled down.  "Now where would that be?", she mumbled to herself.
(On board the Yagami...)

A loud screeching sound of metal was heard coming from the back of the room.  A small beam of light poured out from the opening, and then a blue haired figure climbed out.

"Kimberly?  Is that you?", Kiyone said.

"Yup.", she said dryly.

"I'm sorry we can't greet you personally, we're all trapped in the front portion of the ship.  Sasami is back in engineering trying to get life support back online.", Kiyone said appolgetically.

"Oh, okay.  Who's Sasami?", Kimberly questioned.

About that time Kinshi appeared out of the hole as well.

"Sasami is the little blue haired girl you saw back on the planet.", Mihoshi blurted in.

"Oh, okay. -- ", Kimberly said, but was interrupted by the KABOOM sound of a laser bolt hitting the hull.

On board Kimberly's ship, the console reported hostile targets:  Two Star Destroyers had just exited on top of thier position, and opened fire.
(On board the Command Star Destroyer...)

"Sir, we have arrived at the correct point, and have found the X-wing.  More importantly, we have found the GP cruiser, and it appears to be disabled.  Currently the X-wing is docked with it...so they will be unable to escape us this time.", an officer reported.

"Excellent.  Destroy them!", the Admiral yelled.

"Right away, sir.", he paused.  "Firing control......Fire at will!", the officer commanded.

About that time, green laser bolts errupted from the 15 forward facing turrets, a few of them hitting the X-wing, but most of them were missing altogether.
(Back on the Yagami...)

"Um...we have a problem." Tenchi said as he looked out the window.  "There's a couple of Star Destroyers, and it looks like they're not too happy with us being here."

"We need shields!  Otherwise we won't last very long out here.", Mihoshi stated.

"No, we need the hyperdrive, so we can get out of here!", Kiyone argued back.

"Okay, you said that Sasami is getting life support, right?  Where's the hyperdrive engine, and the shield generator?  I'll fix the hyperdrive, while maybe Kinshi here can work on the shields.", Kimberly suggested.

"Shields are in the left rear area, opposite of the life support.  Hyperdrive is located in the next door region, next to life support.", Kiyone said quickly.

"Okay, let's go.", Kimberly said, grabbing Kinshi's arm and running towards the back.  About then another laser bolt hit the hull.

Thirty seconds later, the two girls split up, Shiroi rushed to the shield generator only to find there was no power to work with.  Meanwhile, Kimberly squeezed through the ajar door to meet with Sasami.

"Hi, how ya doin'?", Kimberly said with haste.

"Good.  Life support will work once we get the power generators working. ", Sasami said with a smile.  Another two laser bolts hit the hull.

"Where's the power generator.  Please tell me it's linked with the Hyperdrive engine, like most normal ship designs.", Kimberly said.

"Yeah.  It's actually combined.  Kiyone once told me that the two systems were integrated, because the hyperdrive engine produces too much power, and if it's not used, the engine will overheat and burn out.", Sasami lectured.

"Okay.  Let's get to work.", Kimberly said.

"But I don't know how to fix that.  It's too complicated!", Sasami paniced.

"Don't worry.  I think I can fix it.  Just show me what you know.", Kimberly said.  Another laser bolt hit the hull.

"Washu said that there is a virus in the main computer.  If we disconnect the computer with the communications system, we should be alright to turn the power back on.  It's a large handle...much like a giant fuse switch.", Sasami commented.

"Okay.  That must be it.  ..... And this looks like a communications system.  I'll just yank this out.....like......this.......EERRRRRRRR!", Kimberly struggled pulling, but not having her normal 'manly' strength, she couldn't do it.

"Sasami, help me pull this out....", she grunted.

Sasami grabbed Kimberly's waist and the two girls struggled to seperate the two systems.  After much tugging, the two girls were finally successful, flying backwards towards the floor, Kimberly landing ontop of Sasami.

"Oww.", she moaned.  Kimberly got up and assisted Sasami up.  Then the next challenge was turning  the master power switch back on.  The only problem was that both Sasami and Kimberly were too short to reach.  Each girl tried jumping up to get it, but it was just barely out of reach.

"I've got an idea!", Sasami said.  Stand on my shoulders, and then you can pull the switch!"

"Awesome idea!", Kimberly said excitedly.  Another three laser bolts hit the hull.

Kimberly climbed up on top of Sasami and was able to easily reach the handle.  Standing on her tippy toes, she could flip the switch upwards into the locked 'online' position.  The familiar sound of the main engines powering up and lights turning on made both girls relax, as they both tumbled down to the floor.

"AAAAHHHHH!", they screamed.

"We've......got to go.......help........need shields.....!", Kimberly forced out, since Sasami somehow landed on top of Kimberly.
(Back on the Star Destroyer...)

"Sir, GP cruiser has been reduced to 45% integrity.  The X-wing still registers at 100%!", the officer reported to the Admiral.

"Keep firing!  I want those ships destroyed!", the Admrial yelled once more.
(On board the Rebellian command ship, Tyderious...)

"General.  We are about to exit hyperspace. -- ", a deck officer reported, but was cut off by another officer barging in.

"SIR!  Our reconessence team has returned and things have been analyzed.  You may want to read this.", the Lieutenant shoved a packet of paper at the General.

"Can't this wait?  We're about to attack!", the General snapped back angrily.

"No sir.  There are very .... interesting findings.  We were able to crack Tashiko's data-computer and we found some rather strange personal entries.  We also recovered his pack that he always has with him.  The contents were most intreguing.", the Lieutenant reported.

"Very well.", the General sighed in frustration, and skimmed the first couple of pages.  "What??", he said in disbelief.

"Sir we have exited hyperspace.  There are two Star Destroyers, that are attacking the GP cruiser at this moment.  Scans indicate that it is severly damaged and most systems are unoperational!  I read no life signs aboard the docked X-wing, current systems are at 135% shield capacity and decending quickly.", the officer butted in to the conversation.

"Okay, open fire!", the General barked, then turned towards the Lieutenant, "We'll conduct a formal review-- After this battle, understood?"

"Yes sir!", the Lieutenant responded quickly.
(Meanwhile back on Yagami...)

"So they forced you to do those things.", Ryoko said to a crying Ayeka.  She had pulled her in and she rested Ayeka's head on her shoulder.

"Not to worry, we'll get back at them for tormenting you like that!", Ryoko said charged up ready to kick some butt.  (The first laser blast hit the hull.)

"What the heck was that?!", Ryoko said, dropping Ayeka, and teleporting to the bridge.

"What about me?!", Ayeka yelled from behind the closed door.
(Aboard the Star Destroyer...)

"SIR!  A fleet of Rebel ships has just entered our sector.  They have opened fire!", a officer reported.

"Return fire, but keep focused on that GP ship!", the Admiral barked.

[BSEK]

Rem walks into the locker room from doing her daily exercises. Rem sits down on the wooden bench next to her locker, she is holding her towel in her and then she put it on her head. She starts to daydream for a few seconds. She looks up at her locker and she sees something. It is a note. Rem gives a confused look at the note wondering what it could be about. The note says:

The GP Cruiser Yagami sent out an emergency data burst a short time ago in the Nafuto sector.  As you know this region of space is heavily used by Pirates and other low-lifes.  We are concerned that the Yagami may have been disabled and has been compromised.  Your mission is to get to the Yagami and offer any support needed and make sure that nothing has been compromised.

There will be no transmission contact for this mission, since all of our communications systems have been infiltrated by a complex video virus.  Under no circumstances are you to interface with the Empirical Network, for if you do, your ships functionality will be disabled and overwhelmed by this virus.

Be on the look out for Pirates and other System Lords that maybe a threat. We unfortunately can not provide you with any back up, as all of our forces are currently deployed trying to disable this virus.

Best of luck.  You'll need it.

Rem narrows her eyes as she is reading the note and while she is reading the note, she takes the towel off her head and puts the towel on the wooden bench.

"Who gave me this note...?" Rem says to herself with wonder

Rem looks around the locker room to see no one is in the locker room. Rem looks back at the note.
"And this is so random, I knew something was wrong again."  Rem said to herself

Rem changes out exercising attire and gets into her GP attire. Rem locks her belongs up and walks out of the locker room. Rem keeps walking in the hallways, Rem turns the corner and sees a GP Officer whose hair is lime green and his eyes are sky blue. He is slightly muscular and athletic built. His skin is slightly tanned and he is wearing his GP attire. When Rem turns the corner to see him hitting another woman, Rem walks passed the man and keeps walks to where she was walking to turn the corner and when Rem hears a loud crack behind her. Rem stops with a confused look.

"What on earth was that?" Rem said to herself as turn her head

Rem turns her body to see what was to going on behind her. She gets a flat look, the man she walked passed earlier that was hitting on the woman. It seems the man has been slapped by the woman he was hitting on earlier. Rem put her hand on her head.

"The idiot, that is what happens when you on a woman." Rem said to herself when she is upset

Rem turns back around on keeps walking and turns the corner. Rem walks a few feet and then she turn into her office/bedroom. The room has a desk and on the desk is a picture of her and her foster parents and next to the picture is a cup, the cup has long and short pencils with pens and a little bit under the cup are packs of papers and on the other side of the desk are some files that are neat and organize and next to the files besides the packs of papers there is a computer and on the left side of the room, there is a window with a rolling chair next to it and beside the rolling chair is a little table, and on this little table where is a little lamp. On the other right side of the room is there is a queen size bed. The bed is nicely neat, the back of the top part of the bed, the pillows are white with a red line across each pillow. Below the pillows the sheets are neatly folded, the sheet that you can see is a red sheet is neatly folded and below the red sheet, is the outer sheet is white with a red line going down the outer sheet and at the ended of the bed. Another red sheet that is that had been fully folded. At the bottom of the bed is a rug that is variety of things on it and on the other side of the room is a dresser. It has been a few minutes since she walk into her room. Rem is sitting on her bed. Rem is daydreaming until she hears a knock at the door. Rem's eyes lock on to the door as she is sitting on the bed. Rem gets up and walks up to the door, and opens the door a crack to see who is at the door. It's the guy with the lime green hair from a few minutes ago. But what does he want?


"Yes, can I help you with something?" Rem says with her normal voice

"You are starting your mission tomorrow, I came to give you good luck with your mission." The Guy with the lime green hair said

"Umm...? Thank you?" Rem says in a confused voice

"Well, good bye." The Guy with the lime green hair

The guy with the lime green walks away happily. Rem watches the guy with lime green hair turn the corner. She knows something is doesn't feel right to her about that man, she narrows her eyes.

"There is something about him that is very unusual."   Rem says to herself

Rem closes the door and lock the door and as she closes the door. The man said something that about the note she got in the locker room.

"And how does he know about the note...?" Rem says to herself wondering.

[Slade]

Kurdeto, Admiral Kurdeto sir!...sir?"

The officer forced open the door with the emergency commands, stepping in with caution, and flinching back at the horrid stench within Kurdeto's quarters. Holding his nose with his fingers, the admiral trudged through a floor that was inexplicably littered with remains of junk food of various kind, the floor littered with so much stuff that it was beginning to mould to each other, if kurdeto wasn't careful, this scene would be his new carpet. Still the officer trudged through.

"Sir?" he said with a squawk of his voice, sounding weird by the pinch of his nose, the smell was so bad, the odour so intense his eyes were beginning ti water badly. Below he noticed a box saying 'merciless triad pizzas' Stepping over it and staring hard into the dimly lit setting, he turned round the corner with a hand on his gun just in case, fearing to see something foul. Some unforgiving alien bounty hunter perhaps or worse.

Only nothing could be any worse then seeing a perverted look of Kurdeto in glee at a freshly hot pizza, opening his trousers with enough space to insert the hot food above his thing to give it the desired warm up. It was too much for his officer to see, he freaked out,, casting his hands over his eyes, Kurdeto suddenly snapped into awareness, realising he was seen, threw the pizza away thinking simply it would save his dignity.

"Admiral Kurdeto?! Why would you-Oh my" Then he saw the TV screen, a naked purple princess who looked quite appealing in a way if it wasn't for the fact she was bent over before a naked Ewok??? The officer's face went white at what he saw,, was this what was exciting his admiral?! Kurdeto quickly put a gown over him, and despite tripping over rubbish after rubbish grabbed his officer and dragged him out of the quarters before retreating back. Suddenly the officer remembered his reason to going in there in the first place.

"Admiral, sir"

"Look I need to get back to seeing the programme; otherwise I'll miss the eleventh trial she must endure to save jabba!"

"er well, sir" He coughed, hinting him to forget the film "In regards to the purple haired woman, we believe we may have found her, the one called Ayeka"

"Really?" 

"However the admiral following her wants her dead"

 

 Kurdeto wasn't practically strong but he knew how to shove a man afar quite as he scrambled with his gown to the communications.

"what is that dumb@$$ playing at?" He growled "His name and ship !"

The officer quickly gave Kurdeto what he wanted and again, ignoring the whole policy of secure communications, tried putting himself through to the ship. The screen on his panel was still black, no signal was beiong intercepted then finally as the flashing controls displayed, Kurdeto received a response from his demands, an electronic audio, itched in a heavy tone saying simply: I'm sorry but the admiral of this ship is busy and has no intrest with you, we hope you get the message so you don't call for a second time, thank you.

"...."

Kurdeto paused for a moment to take in the refection till his silence was broken by his own outrage at being shunned by an answer machine of all things.

"What is wrong with people these days ? Why can't I be given some respect? I took down jurai! A system so advanced that not even washu can decode! Do you know what that makes me?"

The officer beside him decided to inquire on that comment to give the impression threat the admiral was not half barking mad and was talking to his officer rather then himself, it was an attempt that convinced little.

"gifted sir?"

"No! That not even Washu is my EQUAL!!!"


-----------------

AFAR in space
-----------------

Whilst working on trying to fix whatever it was that was well, spamming the ship, the sonic screwdriver washu was using to tweak the hardware of the mainframe now unstripped and pieced together one by one slipped from her working fingersas she was left to pause.

She could have sworn she had heard something.

-----------------------
Back with Kurdeto
-----------------------

"Sir" Said a navigational recruit, young and full of ideal called out him, Kurdeto asked what it was.

"Sir, we have a incoming transmission"

"f it's from the merciless Triad's, tell them I'm not paying for the pizza delivery, they were late and their food cold!"

"erm...it's actually from Jabba"

"JABBA?! Put him through then you idiot!"

The main screen that stood in front of the deck showed a pic of a indestigushable mass of manky soil, till it turned it's rear from the screen to show something even more grotesque...Jabba's face.

"fbgsaeykfwef fdferyffgyefj. Fvgdfefhjdfeferjfasdjkfgkljghuibfgtywecfrtgrt"

Translation: Where is my bi(translation error)

Kurdeto swallowed and spoke, leaving the monitor screen to translate his words to him, just as the screen was having a job in translating jabba's.

"Were having...problems, we are getting to her but I have the conquest of jurai to sort out if you don't mind..."

xdhcbldfdsftydbsdrlasyugfrdemgfuhbghir  vvfdgtnftbtnb   ndghbtyujnti lujndtrhgrkd  gfftn khlfjiogny gfklibg tntji lbgf duea hentaicle!

Translation: Of course I mind! it's clear you cannot find reclaim her...so I brought in some new aides...Captain Tentacle!

"Not THE Captain Tentacle" Stuttered Kurdeto with shock.

"I always wondered where these weirdoes were hiding, back when we had an emperoer" Muttered one officer quietly.

Kurdeto snapped back quickly to the giant slug.

"Now hear me, I may be a bit side tracked but all I'm asking is for some time"

sdfsgtbthsdf zxyejd sdfhtusdsaefhsawd fhguw vidjjti ghsd hhdf sht dnhaa rhetssghjsdweydf fdfjdhjf trejshet hsdzang habgeytsud hgsewshutdde hhytsfuehdsddr.

Translation: No

"Oh come on" Begged Kurdeto childishly, hoping Jabba didn't know about Ayeka being targeted for dead by an insane admiral "I can bring her in without them"

"Sir, may I remind you we have orders to tow in the disabled Jurai warships"

"SHUT UP!"

sdhjsdtjdoyhfusttfhssdffkfrfvjkgo eyubfj sdade hdfusjmgom fjurnvjf jfhg herudfggjkehhfne hfyutnd

Translation: You may work for the empire but scum like you still work for me. Do your little 'empire building' but if Captain tentacle needs help, then you will assist.

The screen went blank and Kurdeto could only sigh at the trouble he got himself into now, Captain tentacle, leader of the 'pleasure force' oh they were a force to be reckoned with, jabba's favourite underworld hardcore actors with some formidable powers but it wasn't their powers, their absurd fashion dress of Tentacle's right hand man lieutenant Ecchi but the fact their impressive strike cruiser was in the shape and design of a---a...no words could describe it. All that anyone needed to know was that you would dread to be the one who says it's struck the rear, for once he felt sorry for Ayeka and her friends, if only for a moment.

[Senkusha]

(Aboard the Yagami...)

Main lights came on, and the ship corrected it Attititude with the Z-Axis.  Kiyone quickly jumped to the pilot's seat and reviewed the system scans.

"Oh, this isn't good.  Hull integrity is down to 32%, life support is only registring at 7% operational capacity, and we still have no shields!  The hyperdrive engine is online, but it will take several minutes for it to generate enough power to make a sucessful jump!", Kiyone reported.

Washu commented without looking away from her current project, "How much power does the hyperdrive need to operate at all?"

Kiyone thought for a moment, and then Mihoshi blurted in, "35% power is the minimum operational power level to activate a hyperspace window.", she recited as though she read it out of a text book.

"How much power does it currently have?", Washu asked, again without looking up.  Another laser bolt struck the hull.

Kiyone glanced at the system display.  "We have 27% power, right now", she reported back and hesitated.   "You aren't suggesting that we make a blind jump are you?"

"What choice do we have?", Washu replied, still working with the screwdriver looking device on some new mechonized thing.

"That's CRAZY!  We could end up outside our own galaxy....in the middle of a star......in a black hole--", Kiyone started shouting, and was cut off by Mihoshi who again sounded like she was reading a text book, "--Or we could get trapped in subspace for all eternity.", she said with a finger raised.

"Oh would you SHUT UP!", Kiyone screamed at Mihoshi in a raged anger--panic.

(Meanwhile back near the hyperdrive of Yagami...)
"Come on Sasami, we've gotta get the shields up!  Where's Kinshi!", Kimberly almost yelled, grabbing Sasami's arm, and dragging her behind herself.

"Kim!?  That's the shield generator...right there!", Sasami shouted, pulling back on Kimberly's hand.

"Okay, so where's Kinshi at?", she muzed.

"KINSHI??", Kimberly called.

(Aboard the Imperail Star Destroyer...)
"Admiral, the GP cruiser is at 8% hull integrity.  They will be finished off in about a minute.", a flight officer reported.

"Most excellent!", the Admiral sneered.

"...But, our own status reports that our ship is down to 63% from those Rebel attack force.", the flight officer concluded.

"We'll take care of them shortly.", the Admiral glared out the window to see the battle.

"SIR!", another officer paniced, "...The.... The GP Ship.....It's....GONE!!"

"What!?", the Admrial barked.

"It just vanished!", the officer concluded.

"Fine!  Focus our attack on the rebel ships.  Maximum fire power!", the Admiral yelled angrily.

(Aboard the rebel command ship...)

"General, the GP space cruiser has entered hyperspace....I think.", a lieutenant reported.

"That's great news!  Where are they enroute to now?", he questioned with optimism.

"I ... I don't know, sir.  The computer is making comuptations now, but it will take a while before we re-establish our link with Tashiko's ship again.", the Lieutenant reported.

"Okay, get us out of here.  Set a course for....Jurai.", the General ordered.

"Jurai?, sir?", the flight officer questioned.

"Yes, I have some quesions that need answering.", the General responded calmly.

The fleet of ships entered hyperspace, leaving the two Star Destroyers behind.

(Aboard the Star Destroyer...)

"!", the Admiral cursed, slaming his fist into a console.  "Use every resource to find that ship!  Follow that fleet if you have to!", the Admiral yelled.

[BSEK]

The next day Rem is getting ready to go on her mission and puts anything in her GP Cruiser and she walks into the locker room and walks up to her locker to find a note on it again. She narrows her eyes and takes the note off her locker.

"Dear: Rem

Meet me in my office. We need to talk.

From: Your Boss"

Rem gets three blue lines going down her face. She is scary on what her boss needs to tell her. She keeps doing what she was doing before she got the note and when she gets done getting what she needed to get and she locks her locker up and walks out of the locker room and she starts walk to her boss's office. She starts to daydream.

...:FlashBack:..

Rem is up against the wall, her eyes widen in fear. She sees flames all around her she has just seen her parents get killed by Jurai Guards. She looks down to see her mother hand over in blood and then she looks up to see father lying in front of her. His eyes are open. She watch is the life within his eyes disappears. Tears are starting to form, she keeps looking into her father's lifeless eyes. She looks up from her parents to see the Jurai Guards looking at her. She sees them coming after her. She gets up and doesn't stop for anything, while tears are flying off her face. She looks behind her to see if the Jurai Guards. She turns head back.

"I...I...I'm sorry..." young Rem said to herself

Rem turns the corner to a dead ended, she hides behind a trashcan scary of her mind. The Jurai Guards stop at the corner and look around.

"Did you see where she went?" Jurai Guard one said while sees what is around.

"No, I didn't see were she went." Jurai Guard two said while turning his head to Jurai Guard one.

"Hmmm... She has to be around here somewhere."  Jurai Guard one said.

Both of the Jurai Guards walk away and looking in another place to look for Rem, Rem is scary, and in fear of the Jurai Guards so, she stays behind the trashcan and while she is behind the trashcan, she starts to talk to herself.

"I...I'm sorry mommy and daddy... I'm sorry..."   She sniffles

Hours later, a GP officer walks passes until he hears some sniffling from behind the trashcan, he gets a confused look walk slow to the trashcan to see a little girl behind the trashcan.

"Hey... I'm not going to hurt you. It's okay..." The GP officer says as he put out his hand

"....................." Rem says nothing as she grabs his hand

He picked her up and she gets a confused look as he picked her up. The GP officer walks back to the GP Cruiser. His partners turned their heads to him and Rem. When he gets closer to the ship, one of his partners says.


"Where did you find the girl?" GP Officer two said in questioning voice.

"I found her in the dead ended under the street." GP Officer said

"Has she said anything to you?" GP Officer three said as he look down to the girl and smile at her.

"No, she hasn't..." GP officer said with a sad look and then sigh.

"Where are your parents little one..?" GP Officer two said as he bins down to Rem.


"...Their up there..." Rem points up to the sky

All three GP Officers look up at the sky and they get a frown on their faces, they look back down to Rem with a sweatdrops.

"Well, can't just leave her here..." GP Officer said with a sigh

"We'll take her with us..." GP Officer two said cheerily.

"Sounds like an idea to me..."  GP officer three said as he close his eyes.

"Oh! By the way, what is your name little one?" GP Officer said with a questioning voice as he looks down at her.

"M...M...My name is Rem Tsutsuku." Rem said in a sad little girl voice.

"Well, you are coming with us back to the GP." GP officer said as he closes his eyes and smile at her.

"Ummm...... Cool..." Rem said under her breath

...:End of FlashBack:...

Rem snaps back from daydreaming and walks into her boss's office, she walks up to his desk and sits in a chair in front of the desk. She looks up at her boss, her boss gives a deep sigh and says.

"Rem, I'm assigning you to a partner. He is a highly skilled gunsman. I want you to meet, Zimro Kitsune!" her boss said with a twitch mark on the back of his head. Rem soon turns her head very slowly to the door and her mouth opens and her eyes go wide eye. She turns her head back to her boss.

"May I ask why you assigned me to HIM!!?" Rem said as she points to Zimro and Zimro gets a confused look at Rem.

"Well, he needs to stop hitting on the women here. So, I assigned him as your partner." Her Boss said look up for the newspaper.

"What did he have to put me with a pervert...?"  Rem said to herself as she was twitching her eyebrow, as she was doing that she feels a hand on her bottom.

"Oh no, he just touch her bottom..." The boss said as he closes his eyes from hearing the loud crack noise in front of him.

"YOU PERVERT!!!!" Rem said as she stormed out of her boss's office.

[EK]

Well, I'm back, finally! My damn laptop crashed right when I finished the damn post!   Plus, I've had other needs raving at my back. My cat's seriously ill and meh buddy wants me to finish my latest chapter in my fan fiction before fans eat my head.
   ....It's a long story.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   "KINSHI??"
   Shiori wasn't sure if it was the call that gave her a headache or the fact the last tremor landed her against the wall. She rubbed the back of her head, achingly; today had to be the worst luck for her—physically, anyway. She stood up, idly brushing herself off of her recent injury. It seemed to be fine; compared to the other messes she had incidentally taken up with.
   She looked at the engine room and paused for a moment, 'What was I doing here again?' The next bolt immediately remembered her and she quickly shot back to reality.
   They were in trouble.
   She rushed over to the control booth and began to fumble with the chords, clumsily working through it. She noticed that it had been a while since she had to do something like this, even when she was in service with the Empire. Last time, she recalled, was probably around in her teens—definitely not helpful.
   Yellow or green? Her mind raced as nothing would come to mind; she would have to wing it, much to her dismay.  At the final switch, the shields cut on, protecting them from the latest assault. Shiori sighed in relief, sliding against the nearest wall to the floor with her legs outstretched.
   She closed her eyes lightly, trying to block out the sounds from outside, only focusing on the fast pulses beating in her chest. When she thought about it, she certainly was lucky when it came to life or death situations; however, how she got into them was greatly the opposite. It had been countless times that she barely escaped the cold hands of death with her left wondering how was she here?
   Shiori parted her lips and whistled a soft tune; nothing she knew, just something that came from the top of her head. Hopefully, they can get out of here, but it was out of her hands now.
   They were nice people; it was a shame that she might have to hunt them down once she got home. Now that was a dreading thought, but it was unpreventable. She needed the money, or she wouldn't be able to do much of anything for her family.
   Shiori idly dug her heel into the tile, staring worriedly at the ceiling above her. What was her family doing right now? They probably thought she was dead by now, so where had that money gone?
   Her train of thought abruptly ended when she hear the hard stomp of her newest companion, Kimberly. Shiori tilted her head over to the doorway, sighing as her suspicions were confirmed with the other girl (Sasami, she thought her name was) standing beside her. The girl looked concerned.
   "Oh, were you calling me?" She feigned innocence, earning the scowl of Kimberly. She smirked in response as Kimberly rolled her eyes agitatedly.
   "You can hold off the sarcasm," she remarked coolly, beckoning her to follow. "Let's head back to the bridge to see what's going?" Shiori thought she caught something that the fiery head girl muttered under her breath, but it was too inaudible to catch it.
   Whatever it was, she could guess it was because of her late timing. Shiori shook her head with a grin, getting to her feet and trailed the two children.

[Senkusha]

The three girls continued to walk towards the bridge.  Sasami was leading the other two guests through the maze of hallways and doors.  Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a food dispenser from the kitchen.

"Um, Sasami?" Kimberly asked hesitatingly.

"Yes?"

"Would you ... happen to know if....if there's some coffee... or ... " Kim paused, slightly turned her heard and peaked out of the corner of her eye towards the other girl, and with a whisper she finally said, "or maybe a beer or something?"

"I think so, but I think Ryoko would be the person to ask," Sasami giggled, "she knows that kitchen like the back of her hand."

Sasami pressed her thumb against the scanner to the right, and the bridge door slid opened.

"Remind me, which one is Ryoko?" Kimberly spoke softly to Sasami.

"Yeah, whaddya want?" Ryoko jerked her eyes towards Kim, with her head propped up on her arm which was resting on a small table in front of her.

"Miss Ryoko.... I was --" Kim started, but was cut off by Ayeka.  "Miss?..... MISS!!  She's no MISS!  She's a--"

"Hey now, you two.  Don't get started on my ship.  Got it!?", Kiyone threatened while turning her chair around to face the two new girls.  "I've gotta say thank you for saving our skins back there.  Another couple of hits, and we would have been space dust.  I do have a question for you two though.", She spoke without interruption, or a chance to respond.  "Any idea why there was a Rebellian fleet that just happened to pop in on our location?  More importantly, why were those Star Destroyers attacking us?", she glared at the two visitors.