JERRY

We were sitting on the bridge, in the middle of a pretty standard mid-shift when the intruder alarms started ringing.

"Internal security?" I asked.

"Intruder on the shuttlecraft deck, port side sir," Vok answered from the weapons officer's position.

"Shuttle Hangar, what's going on down there?"

There was a pregnant pause, followed by an uncertain ensign's voice. "Sir, there's a car in the hangar."

"Ensign, did you say a car?"

"Yes sir. It's a classic. Looks to be a late twentieth or early twenty-first century duo." Another pause. "It has a Ford nameplate."

The house finally fell on me. I crawled out quickly, and hit the security call. "Llandhe, get an honor detail to the portside hangar. Fully armed and with full Commodore's honors. Now."

I switched channels quickly. I don't need to hear Llandhe's acknowledgment to know she's on the job. I switched to all-call. "The following personnel are to report to the portside hangar immediately, prepared for full honors. Commander Layne, Commander Wright, Commander Valance, Lieutenant Commander Reid."

My choices weren't as random as they sound, but I wasn't ready to voice my suspicions just yet. Instead, I motioned to Mike and headed for the turbolift. "Kraiggearra, you have the conn."

"Acknowledged," she replied, and command changed hands.

Mike and I headed down through the core, dropping to deck five to pick up Spyik. When we arrived at the hangar, Llandhe, Ken and Clive were waiting for us.

I couldn't resist. "I suppose you're wondering why I've called you all here."

"Aye, the thought had occurred ta me," Ken said.

"If I'm right, we're about to meet a three-hundred year old legend, and you people are the best to advise me if such is the case."

That earned me even more puzzled expressions. I turned to Llandhe. "Open it up."

The door slid aside, revealing a vehicle that was even more of a classic than the ensign had thought.

It was GAY DECEIVER.

ZEB

It was hard to believe. Here we were on the hangar deck of a starship which existed as only a six foot model and assorted special effects shots back in our universe. Fortunately, it was close enough to those movies that I could recognize the officer's insignia. The Captain himself. What did we do to deserve this welcome?

He seemed more satisfied than surprised. He and the crewmembers he had following him in seemed to be forming a receiving line, but I noticed those phasers weren't movie props. I stepped out, dressed in my Spaceforce uniform.

"Captain, I am Zebediah J. —"

"Carter, commanding the space vehicle GAY DECEIVER," he finished.

What?

"I am Captain Jerry Conner of the Starship U.S.S. YEAGER of the United Federation of Planets. My First Officer, Commander Michael Layne, Chief Engineer Kenneth Wright, Alien Cultures Officer Clive Valance, Recreation Officer Spyik Reid and commanding the honor guard, Llandhe t'Reilri."

I tried to get some control of the situation. "Vulcan?"

"No sir, Rihannsu. What you would call a Romulan."

Sorry, wrong universe. I started looking for a way to get back to the Smart Girl. Without even seeming to realize it, however, the officers at my back had flanked me. They were either tactical geniuses, or they had learned to cover their backsides.

She continued, "There aren't many of us in Starfleet, and as far as I know, I am the only one to reach the rank of Commander."

Whew!

"No doubt you're wondering how we know you, Captain Carter. Or to be more accurate, how we recognized GAY DECEIVER. Perhaps you're familiar with an individual in our universe, one Robert Anson Heinlein?"

Damn you, Bob! You've done it to us again!

"Yes, I'm familiar with him..."

"So are we," he said. "Very familiar, if you understand."

"I'm beginning to," I admitted.

"Each one of the officers present in this room is something of a scholar regarding Mr. Heinlein. We are all rather well versed in the concept of Multiple Pantheistic Solipsism." He nodded to the rear of the hangar.

A Veritech fighter?

"Yes," I said. "I can see that you are." I pointed. "I'll bet there's a bit of a tale behind that one."

"Indeed there is. By the way, is the Commodore embarked?"

"Commodore?" I feigned ignorance.

"Commodore Hilda Burroughs Long, Commanding Star Yacht DORA and Space Vessel GAY DECEIVER. Surely, you don't still believe that we represent a threat to you. If we did, you know that even a hand phaser could have destroyed GAY DECEIVER before you could have made it back aboard."

"You and what fleet, Fatso?" The Smart Girl piped up.

"Point of order, GAY DECEIVER, not a threat," he replied. "By the way while you're here, download some data on heavy gravity worlders."

"Oh, she knows all about heavy gravity worlders," I said. "Unfortunately, thanks to Hilda, Lazarus and about a half dozen others, she also knows how to get under a person's skin. But, to answer your question yes, the Commodore is embarked, as is one Corporal Ted Bronson, if you're familiar with him."

The Captain and the man in the kilt exchanged glances, then smiles.

"That we are, laddy," said the man in the kilt. "That we are."

"Anyway, the Flag Cabin has been prepared if the Commodore would care to make use of it. Commander t'Reilri, if you would detail an escort for Captain Carter and his contingent."

"I would be happy to attend to that duty myself, sir."

"I thought you might be, Commander. Captain, my respects to the Commodore, and I would be honored if she would join us for dinner, along with her staff."

"On her behalf, I accept, tentative to her approval. Thank you for your hospitality, Captain."

HILDA

I have to give them this, in this universe. They treat their company nicely. The Flag facilities were some of the nicest I've stayed in in a spacecraft, outside DORA, though a bit cramped. Zeb tells me that for a ship of the line, though, they're absolutely sumptuous. Still, nothing beats a good old soap and water shower. It's a shame that Zebby didn't tell me how to get one before I dressed for dinner. I never paid proper attention to Star Trek.

"What do you think, Zeb? Do we spill the beans to them?" I asked as he fitted me into the gown the synthesizer had produced after only a couple of hours' time.

Lazarus piped up. "Never tell them anything more than they need to do the job, and keep even that to a minimum."

"You tried that once, Lazarus. Nearly cost you Maureen's rescue and seven new family members, as I recall," Jacob pointed out.

"Besides," Zeb added, "anyone being sent into a hazardous situation without all the facts is doomed to failure from the start. Remember your Sun Tzu."

"I remember him well. Crotchety old geezer who didn't like taking orders, so he learned to give them. Did I ever tell you about the time we..."

"Stow it Woody," I interjected. "You're old, but you're not that old. Deety, your district hasn't been heard from yet."

"I stick with Pop and Zebediah," she said. "If we want their help, they deserve all the facts."

"Well, Lazarus," I said, "it looks like you've been outvoted again. Let's see what passes for dinner in this universe."

MICHAEL

They made a rather interesting sight as they entered the officer's lounge, which had been reconfigured to serve as a formal dining room and conversation area. Captain Carter, ever the stickler for decorum was wearing command whites, with a commander's bar on the shoulder tab. Obviously, he was aware of the tradition that there could only be one captain on a starship. Jacob Burroughs wore the uniform of a colonel of Starfleet Marines while "Corporal Ted Bronson" had on the enlisted uniform of the Marines, with a kilt, per usual.

The centerpieces of the group however, were Deety and Hilda. Deety wore a full length gown, low in the front and high on the side, as was Federation fashion. It offset an already stunning figure well.

But, even as classically sexy as Deety was, there was something about Hilda that somehow managed to outshine her. Certainly, Hilda was not the model's ideal. In fact, she stood petite, even beside the Captain, who is just a meter point seven himself. They reminded me of Goldilocks and Papa Bear, though there was no doubt in my mind which of the two was the more dangerous. A quick glance confirmed that T'Saan was aware of that as well.

As they seated themselves, I looked up to the video pickup. "Report please, Alex."

"As expected, sir. Between them, they're as well armed as a standard planetside landing party. Watch out for Commodore Burroughs, though, sir. She's not armed at all."

"Wrong Alex," the Captain interjected. "She's armed with a husband, a son-in-law, Lazarus Long and the most devious mind in several universes, myself included."

"Why, Captain, you flatter me," she said innocently.

"Not flattery, madam. Statement of fact," he replied.

"Sir, if I didn't know better, I would say that you just insulted my wife," Jacob growled.

"Hardly, sir. Though I do apologize if you interpreted it as such. Actually, I admire a person with her ... skills greatly. After all, the Commodore's skills in dealing with ... delicate situations are legendary." 

"Apology unnecessary, Captain. Though you will understand that my wife's honor is an important thing to me."

"Of course, sir." The Captain turned to Mrs. Burroughs. "Now, Commodore while I certainly am enjoying your company, I sense that you have other reasons for being here than the YEAGER's cuisine."

"Which is excellent," Lazarus interjected. "Where in the world did your computer get a recipe for haggis?"

"With a Captain, Chief Engineer and Recreation Officer of direct or indirect Scots descent sir, it wasn't hard," Spyik said.

HILDA

"Enough small talk, Woody," I interjected. "Captain, he's beating around the bush because he doesn't want to tell you why we're here." His expression hardened. "Fortunately," I added, "I'm in overall charge of this operation, not Lazarus. Can your computer systems interface with ours?"

"Probably. Can you give my Computer Operator the parameters?"

"I can't, but Deety can."

"Very well." He pressed a stud on the table beside his place setting. "Mr. Miller, please stand by to set up a computer interface with the duo parked in the portside hangar."

Seconds passed. "Optical connections made. Standing by for communications parameters, sir."

"Mrs. Carter, if you please."

Deety rattled of several sets of numbers and code phrases that I'm sure meant something to her and the person she was talking to. To the rest of us, however, she might as well have been speaking Klingonese. Worse, since some of them probably speak Klingonese. Seconds later, the disembodied voice of the ship's computer spoke up.

"Interconnections complete. Hey, nice software!"

"Alex!" Spyik growled.

"Sorry boss. GAY DECEIVER on deck."

"Smart Girl," Zeb said, "ready for showtime?"

"Roger and rarin' to go boss. By the way Alex, you've got some pretty nice hardware yourself."

Computer innuendo. What will they think of next?

DEETY

Now it was Zebediah's turn to take the floor. He really looked splendid in his Commander's uniform. I have to say one thing for this Federation— they do know how to make a man look good. I decided to ask if we could keep Zebediah and Pop's uniforms.

"Please run the presentation, Smart Girl," Zeb said.

On the screen were the remains of what looked like a small garrison, on the surface of what looked like a moon. In one corner, there appeared to be a major structure.

"This is a major repository of historical artifacts on a planet in a universe only a few rotations removed from ours. It's one of the few to reach this level of development that haven't suffered from 'Black Hat' infestation. We sent in an agent to study the materials there, but shortly after he arrived, the city was attacked by enemy units. We sent in a unit to perform the extraction, but the fighting got so heavy that their support vessel had to pull out. As you're aware, starships of our universe and its variants don't possess the combat capabilities that the ships of this universe do."

"At any rate, they're pinned down on the surface of that moon with no way to get out without endangering the pickup vessel..."

"So you need the YEAGER to go in and perform the extraction?" The Captain asked.

"Exactly. I'm not going to blow smoke at you and say that you won't be in any danger. Even with your weaponry, you'll still be looking at a fight. The RODGER YOUNG said they were completely outclassed and they don't back down from much."

"Who are we going in after?"

"I doubt you've heard of them. It's a squad of Mobile Infantrymen called Rico's Roughnecks."

JERRY

Oh, I'd heard of the Roughnecks, all right. I didn't like the sound of facing a force that could pin them down. The Roughnecks were the best that their universe had to offer. In fact, much of the structure of our universe's Starfleet Marines is based on Heinlein's concept of Mobile Infantry. Nearly every major armored persona from Iron Man to Mobilesuit Gundam was inspired by the Mobile Infantry and their armored combat suits.

More importantly, in a way I can't rationalize, though I'd never met the Roughnecks personally, they were friends of mine. Sorry. You either know what I mean, or there's no way I can explain it.

"So," I said, "we're supposed to go in and get the Roughnecks out. What in known space is bad enough to pin the Roughnecks down?"

"We're not sure ourselves," Captain Carter said. "But they had enough firepower to ambush the Roughnecks and pin them down, and a ship dangerous enough to scare away the RODGER YOUNG without a fight."

"I see. I assume you're aware that we have no dependable spacetime drive in this universe, though there are several experimental units."

"Most of whose designers have been in jeopardy of late?" Captain Carter asked. "Traps and ambushes where the victims never got to see the faces of the ambushs' masterminds? That seems to be the 'Black Hats' pattern."

"Captain," Llandhe interjected, "there were those incidents with Grin and the Multiverse Device. Also, there was the incident with Ty'elle Dujhar and the Ultrainfinidrive, as well as the episode at Wrigley's."

"True," I muttered. "Captain Carter, do you detect a pattern in these events?"

"An all too obvious pattern, Captain. The 'Black Hats' always take action at the time a usable timespace drive is developed. Your universe has been very slow to develop the time drive because of the early development of Warp Drive, making it less of a priority. We now have reason to suspect that several 'dead' universes may be the work of the 'Black Hats'. Also, there is the matter of your military strength."

"Our military strength?"

"The 'Black Hats' abhor a fair fight, like most of their kind. Universes like this one, the Lensman universe, and others where there are powerful defensive forces able to mobilize quickly are avoided by the 'Black Hats' unless they can find agents within those universes..."

"The Klingons and Romulans?" I asked.

"No. They have a code of honor, though it is alien to our standards. More likely the Orions or the Ferengi..."

"The Ferengi?" I queried.

"Sorry, wrong time frame. You won't meet them for a long time, if any of you live to see it at all. Suffice to say, they aren't nice people."

"More to the point, how do we get there, as I asked before, to perform this extraction?"

"Very easily," Dr. Burroughs interjected. "We have a spare continua device aboard GAY DECEIVER."

KEN

A Burroughs Continua Device?

Of all the drives known or theorized, the Burroughs Continua Device is the simplest and most efficient ever built. The concept is fairly simple: if you push a gyroscope in one direction on a plane, it goes in the opposite direction. If you push it in all three directions at once, where does it go?

That's the principle behind the device. If it's rigidly mounted to a structure or vehicle, such as a duo or a ship, it takes that structure with it. By controlling the degree of rotation in different directions, you can travel to all the known planes of existence. Approximately six to the sixth power raised to the sixth power universes have been theorized to exist, encompassing many of the universes of fantasy and science fiction. There have been numerous treatises on the "chicken and the egg" theory of the multiverse. Were these universes brought into being by the creative energies of authors, artists and producers, or did they inspire these visions? No one knows. It's hard though, to imagine ourselves as the product of a writer pounding away at a low-technology word processor. The crew of the GAY DECEIVER has visited Oz, Barsoom, and the Lensman universes, as well as the universe of Lazarus Long, which they settled in. Grin'elle Kriet, a Camazotian altered surgically to resemble the inhabitants of yet another universe's Gallifrey, has visited the universes of Captain Harlock, MACROSS, and the mirror Starfleet universe. The YEAGER itself traveled to the Megazone universe to rescue Kriet from a mess he got himself into.

The TARDIS systems, however, are at best capricious, and can't be duplicated with ease in this universe. The Infinidrive and Ultrainfinidrive are both workable, but hard on man and machine alike. Algorin dilithium can convert a ship into a dimension hopper, but it only works with high speed ships like transwarp designs and dreadnoughts, and if the dilithium decomposes, you're stranded. 

The Burroughs Continua Device: now that's a dimension hopper. It draws little more power than a twentieth-century transistor radio, but it can move a starship across quantum distances of time, space and plane of existence instantly. Furthermore, there's no structural stress to the vessel it's mounted in. It's a simple device, easily constructed if you have the plans, durable, and easy to operate. Anyone can learn to operate it in a short time, and a helmsman could learn it in a matter of minutes. Of course, a road map of the multiverse comes in handy.

JERRY

It wasn't hard to see that Ken was salivating at the idea of getting his hands on a BCD. I can't say that I blamed him. It is the most efficient time-space hopper known. Still, the incidents with the Megazone universe and the YEAGER's own time-warping transwarp failure had soured me to time travel in any form. I wasn't about to do it without good reason, and good reassurances.

"Has the Device ever been tested in a ship of this universe, Doctor Burroughs?"

"Not specifically," he admitted, "but there doesn't seem to be any reason it shouldn't work as planned."

"There didn't seem to be any reason man shouldn't break the sound barrier in 1947," my XO interjected, "but General Yeager did it only after he solved several of those reasons. I don't want this thing to rip our heads off like the NF-104 nearly did his."

"Do you have a suggestion, Number One?" I asked him.

"Yes sir," he replied. "We mount the continua device in the Glamorous Glennis and use it for a short hop to test its interface with warp systems. If this is successful, we can then remount it in the YEAGER itself.

"Make it so, Number One," I told him "While you're at it, I have the perfect destination for this test hop."

"Sir?"

"McKAY is currently at the FIRST FLEET OUTPOST. We need to get word to Grin'elle Kriet about this."

"Aye, sir. Who would you recommend for this mission?"

"Put Hunter on it. He's the best shuttle jockey we've got who can go. Dr. Burroughs, how long will it take to install the device."

"Only a matter of minutes, Captain," he replied.

"Ken, get to work!"

KEN

The installation really was as simple as Dr. Burroughs had said it would be. Since the Glennis had to be remated to its warpsled, Dr. Burroughs and I took care of that while Rac was powering up the sled's systems. It was easy to interface the shuttle's navigational computer to the Continua Device's inputs while Skhraud and S'Stormok worked up a six-dimensional navigational program.

Hunter was suited up in his assault pilot's gear and waiting as we finished the final power lead hookup. The amazing thing was that the power lead measured only in the milliamp range. The device actually used no more power than a communicator!

"That should do it," Doctor Burroughs said, turning to me.

"Then let's get on wi' it," I answered. "Mr. Hunter, if ya' please."

Hunter did his complete customary walkaround, as always. It was all the more important to check out a machine which was testing new equipment. After all, this way, if there was a failure, we'd know it was not the fault of the ship. Contrary to what many think, a flight crew isn't bothered by a pilot's final checkout, since he is the man who has to hang it out over the edge, not us.

Satisfied, Hunter finished sealing up, and took his place in the cockpit. He lifted the ship out on its thrusters and moved her to the landing target. The first test would be a short hop on impulse power only.

"All you have to remember is to return the verniers to this location, but your subjective time," Doctor Burroughs was reminding Hunter over the comm link. "Also, remember to shut off your drives before translating unless you're sure of clear space at your destination. Otherwise, your engines will keep boosting at the last power setting..."

"Causin' the famous 'catastrophic departure from controlled flight.' Got it, Doc. Anythin' else?" Hunter asked.

"That should do it," Burroughs assured him. "Let's give it a try."

"Roger. Recording vernier settings for current landing bay location." There was a pause. "Movin' out under impulse power."

The shuttle moved clear of the YEAGER, finally taking up a station keeping position several hundred meters astern.

"Standin' by to activate," came Hunter's voice.

"Go ahead."

I couldn't see the moment of translation. Thanks to the brain's speed of data processing, the shuttle seemed to be in two places at once, both astern of YEAGER, and back on the landing target.

"So farr, so good," I told him. "Now let's trry it frrom warrp speed."

"Roger that," came the reply.

The shuttle moved out from YEAGER's hangar again, this time accelerating in a straight line away from us. There was a polychrome flash, and it disappeared. Seconds later, I heard Hunter's voice again, "Translating."

The shuttle instantly appeared,  on the deck, in front of us. There was a low pitched laugh from the comm circuits.

I touched the comm panel. "Brridge, this is the shuttle hangarr. All tests positive."

I could hear the elation in the Captain's voice. "All right! Get that package to the McKAY now!"

Rac tossed the courier packet into the cargo bay of the shuttlecraft. 

"Standing by for coordinates," Hunter called.

"Coordinates downloading now," Kraiggearra's voice came from the bridge.

"I'll be right back," Hunter said.

Actually, about five minutes passed before Hunter returned. To avoid paradoxes, we had told him to maintain subjective time, using only the three dimensional rotation capabilities of the BCD.

"How'd it go, lad?" I asked him.

"Piece o' cake," Hunter confirmed.

"Report ta' the brridge, lad," I told him, turning to Doctor Burroughs. "Let's get this thing ta' the bridge then."

"Aye ... I mean yes," he replied.

We went to work.

JEUSTINE

I'd never seen Hunter looking as pleased with himself as he did when he came onto the bridge. He handed a piece of paper to the Captain, who read it and chuckled.

"Not like we could, could we?" The Captain laughed.

"No, sir," Hunter concurred.

At about that time, Chief Wright and that fellow who was visiting came onto the bridge. They were pushing an antigrav cart loaded with tools and a small device. Ken pulled up the top on Kraiggearra's console and started running leads to it from the helm controls. The unit nestled into a spare area designed into the panel for future equipment expansion.

"Tha' does it," Ken told the Captain, wiping off sweat. "The navigation plotter is linked directly inta' the device, and a cutout circuit keeps us from warpin' wi' it in operration."

"Good, Ken," the Captain told him. "Now there's only one other precinct to check in..."

There was the sound of an imbalanced washing machine fighting a wounded animal, and Grin'elle Kriet walked out of the turbolift. He was accompanied by an attractive woman, with dark hair in an asymmetrical cut. At least I think they did ... He looked at the man with Ken in amazement.

"By the Eye of Harmony, it is you..." he began

The man with Ken looked confused. Ken and the Captain were smiling.

"Excuse me?"

"Doctor Jacob Burroughs?"

"Yes..."

"Rassilon, Wells, Tideman, and Jacob Burroughs..."

"So you know the good Doctor Burroughs?" Conner asked, smiling.

"A name nearly as famous as the Doctor himself," Kriet said, as reverently as I've ever seen him behave. "The capabilities of a TARDIS in the volume of a briefcase. Fantastic."

The Captain disguised his amusement. "You asked us to wait for you..."

"Yes, get your ship's doctor to put this sample into stasis immediately," he said, handing a case to T'Saan. "I'll be right back." He ducked back inside the turbolift, returning a moment later with a holocube. "Doctor Burroughs, could you call a meeting of your staff immediately?"

"That's not my privilege, sir, but I will take it up with the Commodore, if Captain Conner deems it necessary."

"I'm sure that if Mister Kriet considers it important enough to use his ... transportation system it is. I believe the Commodore is in main recreation. Communications?"

I connected the bridge to main wreck.

"Hilda, my love," the man began.

"Yes dear?" a tiny voice came over the speaker.

"There is a gentleman here who has asked for a staff meeting, and Captain Conner seems to think that it is important enough to warrant our time. Shall we meet with him?"

"If Captain Conner thinks it's that important, I'm sure we can make the time." There was a pause. "Lieutenant Reid says that he can accommodate us at the Brass and Fern, dear. Shall we meet there at," another pause, "2300 ship's time?"

All involved seemed to agree.

"Suits, my love. We'll see you then. Bridge out."

SPYIK

It was some assemblage to see. On my Wreck Deck, we had what were probably the foremost specialists in time and dimensional travel in several planes of existence, as well as, by remote, at least three computer intelligences.

"...She was the most advanced computer intelligence in her universe.  Unfortunately, her program cycle had come to an end. She was about to be destroyed by ADAM, the next programming sequence, when Max and April Vincent rescued her. Max basically downloaded her into his ship's memory, and then took over control of the Megazone and stayed with it."

"So you want a flesh body for EVE?" Commander Carter asked.

"That's it," Kriet replied simply.

"Maybe so, but even in our universe, it's not that easy to transfer a silicon entity into flesh, or that cheap," Lazarus commented.

"Perhaps not, Corporal Bronson," the Captain commented, taking advantage of the Marine uniform Lazarus still wore. "It's also pretty expensive to divert a starship of the line, its Marine complement and a flight of fighting mecha in this one, though. It seems a pretty fair trade to me."

"Indeed it would be," Hilda interjected. "The problem, though, may be a matter of logistics rather than disposition, isn't that true Deety?"

"I'm afraid it is," Deety added. "The problems are twofold: first finding suitable genetic material, and secondly, the question of true machine intelligence."

"Machine intelligence?" I asked. "That seems pretty obvious, doesn't it?"

"Does it? What is the point where algorithms and logarithms end and true creative thought begin?"

"Wait, wait a minute," interjected Kriet, rising. "There's a very simple way to settle this. Alex, patch Athene into your synthesis systems."

Seconds passed, "Set."

"Athene, sing for us. The song you sang for us then," Kriet said softly.

The room dimmed. In its center, a holograph projector showed the Megazone, floating serenely in space over the sound of the opening chords. A voice began, serene, but plaintive. The intensity shifted, mirroring pain as the ships of the Gorig ripped into the almost undefended Megazone. On a high clear chord, the ships of the BATRON, PATHFINDER, McKAY and YEAGER dropped out of warp, leaping into the fray as the video compressed time. Even to those of us who had heard it before, tears threatened. Its effect on the unprepared had to be devastating. From the other side of the room, I could see Lazarus, Hilda, Doctor Burroughs, Captain Carter and Deety all nearly stricken by it. Finally, on the last chorus, I saw what we had not been able to see before, the flash of incredible energy leaping from between YEAGER's warp drives, destroying the Gorig, and very nearly taking us with it. The music faded, and the lights came back up.

Several minutes passed before anyone spoke. I noticed that Captain Conner had again disfigured the arm of the lounge chair. Music has always had a strange effect on him, and I can't help but wonder if the song hadn't actually affected the outcome of the fight. Finally, Lazarus stood.

"Sir, I withdraw my objections. I don't believe in the infinite number of monkeys and typewriters line. It took a feeling, living mind to create that song, and it would be nothing less than murder to deny her physical existence, if she wishes it." He paused to wipe the tears from his cheeks before sitting down.

"Well, then," said Hilda, trying to lighten the mood. "All we need to do is to find a suitable set of genes and she'll be set to go."

"I've made a start on them," Kriet said. "In the YEAGER's medical labs, there are a set of tissue samples from some of the greatest singers in the Anime cluster, as well as a few from this reality. They should be a start."

"Fine, we'll get to work on them as soon as the mission's finished," Lazarus said.

"Now," Kriet said quietly.

"Believe me son, this is best done when we get back."

"Time means nothing to you and me," Kriet said intently. "Why are you stalling?"

Lazarus looked up to Alex's pickup. "Computer off."

The Captain nodded to me.

"Close all pickups, return to normal operations at my command, Alex."

"Right, boss. 'night, all."

Lazarus stood back up. "I'm not going to blow smoke at you," he began. "What we intend to do here is dangerous. Some of us are probably not going to come back. None of us may. When a computer wakes up in a flesh body, it's a traumatic experience. She's going to need someone there she knows. Someone like one of you. What happens if she wakes up and there's no face she recognizes, no one to trust. There are some forms of traumatic insanity we haven't been able to cure. Would you want her to be one of them?"

"No."

"I didn't think so. Hilda, you'd better give him your word. I don't think he trusts mine."

"Your word will do fine," Kriet said, extending his hand. They clasped, and their eyes met, in that special way that denotes a much deeper bond.

"And while we're at it, did the ship's computer produce that holo footage?"

"To be more exact, Alex, the recreation computer did. Computer on." Alex's pickup light flashed back on. "Alex, you're a star. Take a bow," I said.

"Then maybe you need to be thinking about two flesh bodies here. That was brilliant."

"Thank you sir, but I have a body," Alex interjected. "It's called the YEAGER."

Well said!" Lazarus laughed. " We've got a mission to fly!"

LLANDHE

The Captain called a council of war in the officer's lounge the next evening.

"We'll be going in in two groups," he said. "Mimick will be leading the Marauders in a flanking operation while Grin'elle, Llandhe and myself make a frontal assault after we soften them up with an orbital bombardment, if feasible."

Mike Layne was up instantly. "Sir, I cannot condone the captain jeopardizing his own safety in such operations. Certainly, there are other pilots available who..."

"No, Mike, there aren't. Llandhe, Grin'elle and myself are the most experienced VT pilots available who are also familiar with multiverse travel, and the people we'll encounter. Right now there are four qualified captains and a commodore on board. We have a very definite surplus of command personnel at the moment."

"True," Zeb interjected, "But at least two of those captains will be going dirtside with you, and I doubt that we'll be able to leave Jake behind."

"Darn tootin' you won't," Jacob said. "I want a piece of this scum."

"Phlegm," S'Stormok interjected. "Scum floats. We don't want to compliment them."

"True enough," Jacob conceded.

"S'Stormok," Conner asked, "Will you be able to check out Dr. Burroughs, Zebediah and Lazarus before we arrive?"

"Check us out?" Zebediah asked.

"On the Cyclone, a type of convertible close combat armor. S'Stormok is our training officer."

"It should be no problem, sir," S'Stormok replied.

"Very well. Unit two will be composed of Mimick, Dr. Burroughs, Captain Carter and Lazarus, Indy Jones and Glommer, plus a complementary group of marines at Mimick's discretion. Command pilot for the shuttle group will be Mr. Hunter. Any questions?"

There were none, though it was obvious that Mike Layne was not a happy man. I waited with him and the Captain while the others filed out, Ken making remarks about "not trustin' tha' bluiddy Sassenach rrrobotech mecha." Situation normal. The door hissed shut.

"Sir, I wish to go on official record as being against this operation," Mike said.

"Noted. However, I'm sure you're aware that none of this mission can ever go on any record in this universe?"

Mike nodded.

"Mike, this isn't some glory game. I'm not doing this to get my name in the history books. In fact, if we're successful, there won't be anything to go into our history books. You know about the incident at Wrigley's, and the problems Grin'elle and Ty'elle Dujhar have experienced recently. If we succeed, we'll have a dependable weapon in this universe to fight with. If we don't, there's a very good chance that my life, all our lives, will be meaningless. It's just a mission that has to be done."

"Understood, sir."

"Mike while we're down there, I'm going to need cover fire, and someone to keep the YEAGER in one piece. You, Kraiggearra, Kochab and Vok are the finest combat team in the Federation. You proved that at Black Arrow. Only this time, it's not for points. It's for our lives, and possibly the lives of several other universes."

Layne stood up and snapped off a salute. "Aye, aye, sir."

Conner rose to attention and returned it. "Mister Layne, you have the conn."

ZEB

Lazarus, Jake and I reported to S'Stormok on the Rec Deck. We were surprised to see quite a crowd gathered as well. In the center of the room was what looked like a late twentieth century sports motorcycle, though somewhat heavier. There was also a device resembling an aircraft fighter cockpit.

S'Stormok smiled and directed us to an apparatus set up on one side of the area. There was what looked like a set of electroencephalograph pickups on the table beside a computer terminal.

"Before we can train you to operate Robotech mecha, we must first program a cybersynaptic helmet, what we call a 'thinking cap' for each of you. This will allow the mecha's onboard computer to translate your thought impulses into commands that the mecha can understand and act upon. Who'd like to go first?"

I was intrigued, so I stepped up. S'Stormok fitted me with the electrodes.

"You'll experience some discomfort at first," he explained, "But it will pass. I will be monitoring you, so you need not worry about permanent injury."

I didn't notice any medical equipment. Seeming to sense my question, he explained, "A true Efrosian Warrior-Priest does not need medical instruments. The only tools we need are our own senses."

I wasn't entirely convinced, but no one in the room seemed to be concerned, so I nodded. He smiled at my discomfort, then fitted the device to my skull.

"There will be some initial pain, but it will pass. There is no shame in voicing it."

There wasn't as much pain as I was prepared for, though it was very uncomfortable. Have you ever tested a battery by touching the contact to your tongue? Imagine that sensation over your entire body and you begin to get the idea. It passed fairly quickly though, as he manipulated controls on the console.

"Be glad you have S'Stormok to burn you in," Llandhe commented. "It's a lot more uncomfortable when you don't have a Warrior-Priest's empathy to balance the controls. It helps that he's a computer operator as well. The process only takes a few hours now, where it used to take days, or even weeks to reach a balance."

"That's true," S'Stormok confirmed. "There are cases though, when a person is unable to configure a helmet, even though he has exhibited the psionic capacities which are needed. Our Chief Engineer, Ken Wright is such a case. I feel it may be because of his aversion to transformable mecha."

"Why?"

"He feels that variable mecha are not as efficient as mission-specific designs, and as such, are wasteful."

"But there were convertible mecha even on the Earth of our day," I countered. "Technically speaking, even GAY DECEIVER is convertible mecha." 

"True," S'Stormok conceded. "I think this issue is one of emotion, rather than logic." He paused a moment. "Your pattern has been programmed, Commander Carter. Commander t'Reilri will take over your training from this point while I finish with Doctor Burroughs and Corporal Bronson."

Llandhe led me over to the cycle, which I could now see was attached to a simulator gimbal. There was also a suit of combat armor beside it.

"This is Ride Armor," she explained. "Besides serving as an extremely strong body armor, these attachment points serve as latching points for the Cyclone armor's exoskeleton system." She pointed out attachment points at major plates and junctions on the suit. "Are you familiar with motorcycles?" she asked.

"I've done a fair bit of dirt riding in my time," I told her. Actually, I had spent some time with the Rapid Deployment Force, my time's RDF, though not quite as technologically advanced.

"The helmet itself reads your thought impulses and converts them to electronic signals the mecha's onboard systems can understand," she explained. "This is fairly simple in the case of the Cyclones, as their systems also pick up signals from pressure pads inside the armor which read your muscular activity. In the Valkyries and the hovertank, the control is much finer, as their cockpit arrangements to not allow the use of the pressure pads.  We won't be training you in them, though I will demonstrate them for you."

Too bad, I thought.

"Saddle up, and let's give it a try."

I climbed atop the compact little bike. Its small size and high seat were a bit disconcerting at first, but as I say, I was trained on dirt bikes, so I became accustomed fairly quickly.

"In cycle mode, the mecha behaves exactly as a motorcycle would, though with far better performance than any Terran bike you may have ridden," Llandhe told me. "It isn't until you activate the transformation sequence that it behaves differently."

"So how do I do that?"

"The easiest way we've found is to pop a wheelie, kick in a bit of jump jet and activate the transformation. Since there's less chance of components binding, the sequence generally goes easier than when your wheels are flat, though it is possible to transform from that position." As she spoke, she showed me the appropriate controls. "All right. Give it a try." she turned to a video pickup. "Alex, activate level one."

"Level one," a disembodied voice replied.

The walls in front of me became a holographic projection of a desert landscape. I started the bike as she'd shown me, and took off across the simulated plain. Though it looked clumsy, the bike actually performed quite well.

"Very good," Llandhe's voice came over the headset radio. "Now let's try the transformation sequence."

I pulled the bike back up onto its rear wheel and activated the boosters. Cleanly airborne, I engaged the transformation. The segments of the bike, as if possessed of a mind of their own, reconfigured and attached themselves to the various sockets on my ride armor. As a final step, the wheels,  swung around behind me.

And I fell flat on my can.

"Not bad," Llandhe said, still on the headset. "Most people lose their balance on the first transformation as the center of balance changes. You did manage to complete the transformation though, so even if you did go down, you'd be far from helpless."

Dusting myself off, I could see what she meant. Once I learned not to try to think through my actions, but simply to perform them, operation of the Cyclone as an exoskeleton was fairly easy.

"Allright, " she continued. "To convert back, you just go airborne and reconfigure. Remember though, to pull up hard on the front wheel after you transform. She tends to be nose heavy."

"Roger that," I confirmed. Though it was a bit nose heavy, this transformation went off with just a bad bounce.

"Now, get it back up to speed and try the transformation again," she urged.

This time I was ready for the imbalance, and though my landing wasn't perfect, it was a two-pointer that touched down at the bottom end of my legs, rather than the top one. After getting the feel of running and jumping in the armor, I leapt up and reconfigured to cycle. The transformation went well. We drilled like that for several hours. During my break, I got to see Lazarus bust his rump on transformation and Jake pull it off without a hitch. Of course, he was the one who claimed he hadn't been on a bike in fifteen years. I think I was had.

"While you fellows are resting," she said as we were getting out of our armor, "I'll give you some familiarization with the Valkyrie and the hovertank. Like the Cyclone, we obtained these designs when a member of Starfleet managed to pass through a dimensional gate into the universe where these mecha are common." 

A hologram of an aircraft similar to the old Grumman Tomcat appeared. "This is the VF-1 Valkyrie," she explained. "As you have probably guessed, it seems to be derived from late twentieth century designs, but it has some major differences." As she spoke, the engine pods seemed to sweep forward and underneath, and two armlike structures swung out to the sides, one of them holding the plane's gun pod.

"This is the GERWALK configuration, though most of us refer to it as Guardian mode. In this configuration, it's still operated as an airplane, but it has the advantages of ground-skimming and a pair of manipulative appendages."

The hologram changed again, this time forming a humanoid robot. "This is the Battloid mode. The use of a substance called protoculture in a cybernetic-organic interface allows the pilot to perform the hundreds of minute attitude corrections a second that allow it to function. Protoculture does not exist naturally in this universe, which means that we are only able to field a small number of vehicles with Robotechnology, as the science is called. In their original configurations, Robotech mecha used protoculture for power as well as for their interface. We have been able to adapt our own power systems to run them though, allowing us to conserve our limited supplies. In their own universe, protoculture powers starships the size of Starfleet's Spacedock with the power to destroy entire planets." She seemed to muse for a moment.

"Well, you can get the rest from your terminals.  Get some sleep. We assemble on the flight line at 0800 hours tomorrow."

KEN

By the time I arrived on the Hangar Deck that morning, preparations were already underway. Rac had picked out a suit of VR-038 armor and put it on, and was using it to help load out the rest of the personnel. He had volunteered to go down and serve as damage control for the team. With the firefight they were getting into, I was glad to have a good engineer with them, though I did feel uncomfortable about sending a lad of his age down.

The Stuart was a variant of the armored landers carried aboard most starships, though it had been modified to serve as a carrier for Llandhe's hovertank Deathwish. Llandhe split off from the Captain to make her final checks on Deathwish personally. Grin'elle was doing a walkaround on Sorcerer. The way he performed it told me a lot about Grin'elle Kriet.

The captain came out of the ready room in his mechforces uniform. It hurt me when he looked to the bay where Spacewolf lay, more wreckage than mecha. Rac still wasn't sure that he would be able to repair what was left of it. X-Ray One Able would serve him well, though. It had in Black Arrow, though he still couldn't admit that it was he, and not Vok, who had piloted her that day.

I heard loud footsteps behind me. I turned to Captain Carter, garbed in the Cyclone rider's combat armor. "Excuse me, Mister Wright. The Smart Girl's in the way, and I hate to get out of this armor just to move her. Could you..."

"Och, aye," I said, trying not to look too great the fool by revealing my thrill at actually getting to drive the famous GAY DECEIVER. 

"Good, she's already set to recognize you. Just move her off the active."

I climbed into the interior. It was well-worn, but also well-maintained. The seats were a dense, durable vinyl, looking and wearing like leather. All the metal was polished aluminum or stainless, or parkerized steel. There were no frills, but there was quality. Just what you'd expect from a professional pilot.

"Good mornin' GAY DECEIVER," I said.

"Mornin' sheepherder," The duo replied. "Where to?"

"Over beside the Glamorous Glennis, an' I do not herd sheep."

"Oh really. That's not what Llandhe tells me." She had spoken to Llandhe. Wonderful. Now my reputation was a shambles in two universes. 

"Oh, by the way, fold yer wings before we move out."

"Aye, aye, sir. Stand by for modular transformation." 

No. No. Not in this universe too.

LLANDHE

I could see Ken's anguished look right through GAY DECEIVER's smoked canopy. I suppose I should be nice, but it's so much fun to be mean. The captain approached.

"Are we set to go?" he asked.

"Ready for launch sir," I told him. 

"You and Mimick are in marginal command of this operation, if such a term applies to a tribe with as many chiefs as this one."

"I understand, sir," I told him. Elements help me, do I understand.

I turned to my assembled "troops."

"All right people, let's mount up!"

They moved out quick and clean, with the three shuttlecraft mounting up quickly, and Grin'elle and the captain powered up Sorcerer and X-Ray One Able. Mimick clumped into the number two shuttle, joined by Indy Jones, Grin'elle's Fuzzy companion, and my companion Glommer in the Mini-Garland prototypes, Jake, Lazarus and Dr. Burroughs. Hilda, Deety and Rac joined me, while Surok boarded the medevac shuttle. I buttoned up Deathwish and locked her into her bay.

"X-Ray One Able, clear to launch," came the captain's voice over the net.

"Sorcerer, ready," Grin'elle added.

"Welby, set," came Hawke's voice.

"Stuart, go," Gant confirmed.

"McQuade, ready to launch," Hunter confirmed to me.

"All right, people. Let's move it out."

KRAIGGEARRA

"You heard the lady, helm," Michael Layne said. "Set coordinates for translation."

"Coordinates set," I replied. "Arrival point point five astronomical units from target."

"Translation coordinates set, captain. Translation on your mark."

"Rotate at your discretion, Number One," came the captain's voice. "You have the ship."

"Acknowledged, sir. I have the ship. Helm, translate."

I activated the controls, looking up as I did so. The starfield blinked without wavering, like a clean transition in a holotape. We were in a planetary system. The stars were almost recognizable, but not exactly the same.

"Switching to alternate navigational programs," Kochab rumbled from beside me. Seconds later, the inertial guidance system locked in, keyed to quasar locations from the tapes given to us by Dr. Burroughs. "Course plotted and laid in."

"Helm," Layne's voice no longer held any of it's characteristic hesitation. "Take us in."

The translation between universes didn't seem to have any ill effects on YEAGER's performance. Apparently, there were no major differences between the laws of physics in this universe and our own. We quickly accelerated to our destination, a class K planet, much like Mars before she was terraformed.

"Tactical, scan the local area," Layne ordered.

"Scanning," Vok replied. "No vessels apparent within sensor range, but there is substantial orbital clutter and a pair of moons."

"Understood. Direct your scans to the surface and see if you can find any sign of the previous away team."

"Affirmative. Signs of neutron bomb detonations, low-yield atomics with short half-lives."

"Those are our target," Layne confirmed. "Communications, relay coordinates to the attack force."

LLANDHE

On Deathwish's screen, I could see the relayed camera footage from the shuttlecraft hangar cameras. X-ray One Able lifted cleanly, retracting her gear as the gravity plates were negated. She boosted smoothly out of the hangar to take up station keeping. Moments later, Grin'elle Kriet, in Sorcerer, slipped out as well.

Outside the bay, I could see X-ray One and Sorcerer forming up in escort formation. The three shuttlecraft lifted and moved into formation behind the fighters. Hunter smoothly pulled the McQuade into formation. We were on our way.

I don't like reentry drops. For those few critical moments of reentry, the hovertank is helpless, not being aerodynamic enough to make a gliding reentry on her own, and without enough thrust lift to muscle her way in. Fortunately, we hadn't seemed to attract attention yet. We reached atmospheric maneuvering altitude without incident.

"Extraction Leader, this is Sorcerer," came a voice over my commlink. "Request permission to perform a reconnaissance."

"Roger that, Sorcerer," I replied. "Be sure to activate your IFF and watch your back. We don't want you taken out by friendly fire."

"Affirmative extraction leader. On my way."

The VT heeled over and dropped toward the surface. We quickly lost visual track, though the heads-up display kept us apprised of his situation. The speaker came to life.

"Extraction leader, this is Sorcerer. We have a war on our hands...

GRIN'ELLE

The Roughnecks were not in an enviable position. They were surrounded by a mecha type I didn't immediately recognize, apparently protecting a spacesuited figure in the middle of the group. I did the only logical thing. I attacked.

Sorcerer converted to guardian mode, throwing me forward as I loosed several rounds from her head lasers into the enemy mechs. As they reeled, I brought Sorcerer's gun pod up to firing position.

Hydraulic fluid splattered like blood from the knee joint of the first mech, causing it to spin aside on its other two legs and tumble to the ground, still firing. A wild shot caught Sorcerer's starboard wing, and we went tumbling, tip over teakettle. With the ground coming up fast, I finished the conversion to battloid, turning the terminal dive into a diving roll, onboard computers already compensating for the decrease in power to the wingtip jets. As I regained my footing, I found myself staring straight down the barrel of one of the tripod mechs. I saw the glow at the tip of the muzzle that usually signifies a firing charge. There was no way for me to get clear.

A gout of flame burst from its side, and like its companion, it tumbled to the ground. A figure, tiny, by battloid scale, leapt in to cover me.

"What're ya waitin' for, kid?" it shouted over the open frequency. "Move it! On the bounce!"

"Yes, sir," I muttered, converting to guardian.

"What was that?"

"I said, 'Yes sir,'" I repeated.

"Don't call me that boy. I knew both my parents an' I work for a livin'!"

"Right sergeant." There was no mistaking this man's rank.

"You got your bearings?"

"Yes, si... Right Sergeant."

"By the numbers, then. Let's move out."

Keeping his jumps short and to low altitude, the sergeant moved out. After covering a few hundred yards, he turned and motioned to me. Activating the guardian's thrusters, I moved up to his position, then moved on to our next objective. Using this leapfrog strategy, we caught up with the rest of the group a few moments later.

They had been in a fight, that was obvious. All of their power suits were damaged to some extent, though most of it was superficial. There are only two types of damage in Mobile Infantry suits: superficial and fatal. The figure in the center of the group, though, looked very bad. The bright orange of his pressure suit was scorched black, and there was an emergency patch down the side. I keyed my communicator.

"Extraction leader, this is Sorcerer. We need a dustoff and medevac, stat."

"Roger that, Sorcerer," Llandhe replied. "On our way."

Moments later, I saw X-Ray One scream past, low and fast, with phasers and Gatling pod blazing. Behind her came the McQuade. It slowed slightly, pulling up just as X-Ray converted to guardian and let fly with a pair of missiles. Under the cover of the explosion, Deathwish slid from her bay at the McQuade's rear, activating her thrusters and dropping between the troopers and the enemy. In mid-drop, the hovertank converted to guardian and turned to bring its big shock cannon to bear.

X-Ray reconfigured and went ballistic at the same moment that Deathwish let fly with the big gun. Tripod legs went smashing to the ground as a bodiless mecha died.

With the enemy temporarily driven back, X-Ray went over the top in a loop, reconfiguring to guardian and dropping beside Sorcerer. Moments later, the Stuart and the Welby dropped into the middle of the outward facing perimeter. The Cyclone and power armored troops quickly joined the Roughnecks on the perimeter, as Dr. Brackett and Surok checked out the victim on the ground. Rac went to work immediately, reinforcing damaged armor, and topping off supplies in the damaged infantry equipment. 

"Sorcerer, high cover," Llandhe's voice came through my headset.

"Roger." I grabbed a double handful of sky and pulled.

SUROK

Unlike my brother Vok, I cannot appreciate battle for its own sake, though I can understand its occasional necessity. There was no logic, however, in the damage which threatened to consume my patient. It was obvious that his primitive pressure suit was in no way a threat, he carried no weapon, and yet he had been attacked more viciously that any of the infantrymen.

Captain Conner showed even more than his characteristic concern for a crewmember. I will not feign to understand his loyalty, even to those he has not met. Some have termed him a "cockeyed optimist" or a "chaotic hero," though I do not know by what criterion they arrive at these labels. I merely know that he can be depended upon, and that is logical reason for loyalty in return.

He knelt over the form of the patient, and when I rolled him over, he seemed to recognize him. "Kip?" I heard him whisper.

"Cliff, please," came the voice from within the suit. "Nobody but Peewee calls me that now."

"Cliff," Conner corrected. "What happened?"

"They got her," Cliff whispered.

"Peewee?" Conner asked.

"No. The Mother Thing."

The Captain's hand crushed the stone he had been leaning on as if it were sprayfoam packing. He paled so visibly I became concerned he might faint. Suddenly, he stood.

"Get him back to the ship, doctor."

He turned to the spacesuited figure once again, checking the seals on the emergency repairs. "Tight, Oscar?" he asked, then nodded.

I thought my patient's name was Cliff...

KOCHAB

No doubt the Boss was havin' a rollickin' ole time on the planet's surface, but we were having problems of our own upstairs. YEAGER rolled violently to one side as we took a hit from a concentrated energy beam. Kraiggearra brought us around to face our enemy. I woulda' rather stayed in bed. A Meltraendi battle fortress is not my idea of fun.

"Engineering this is weaponry," Vok spoke into his comm panel. "Stand by for Algorin Dilithium shunt."

"Belay that order," Mike said, in a voice completely devoid of its usual high pitch or hesitation. "We don't have a dreadnought to back us up if we don't take them with the first shot. We're going to have to do this the old fashioned way."

"With due respect sir," Kraiggearra pointed out, "that thing could use the YEAGER for a shuttlecraft."

"More likely a travel pod, commander." Mike acknowledged. "Attention all hands, rig for combat maneuvering. We will be exceeding YEAGER's design specifications, and I doubt that our inertial dampers will completely compensate. Secure all loose equipment and non-combatant personnel. Engine room, we will be needing emergency impulse. Helm, get us some room to maneuver."

I nodded to Kraiggearra, who did not bother to double check my entries. We got outta there. YEAGER's engines pushed us back hard in our seats, and we accelerated outsystem.

As the boss, I mean Mike musta figured, a ship that big can't maneuver very fast insystem. We were soon outdistancing it easily. Unfortunately, we couldn't say the same thing about the mecha that they were launching.

"Hull gunnery officers, stand by for point defense. Keep the FH-11's and torpedoes in reserve in case we run into something bigger."

"Bigger!" I shouted, "What can be bigger than... ...never mind."

Soon, we were surrounded by the multitude of transport sized power armor. As fast as gunnery could pick off one, two more would close with us. Kraiggearra and I made the YEAGER dance, but there was just no way to shake them all.

Several had managed to land on the hull, and were advancing on the bridge. The skin deflectors weren't meant for repeated kinetic impact. They would stand up to a few hits, and the hull itself to a few more, and then...

"Bridge, this is recreation," came Stephen Lynch's voice.

"Clear the board, lieutenant," the Boss said to Stardust. She turned to comply.

"Bridge," Lynch's voice came clearly. "Emergency all call. Repeat. Emergency all call."

For an instant, the Boss stopped, then turned to Stardust. "You heard the man, Stardust. All Call."

She flipped a toggle, and the sound of the rec deck stage filled the YEAGER, and space for astronomical units in every direction. A voice rolled over the speakers. It was Athene.

I hadn't come aboard YEAGER at the time she traveled to that other dimension to fight against an enemy armada with only the PATHFINDER and McKAY at her side, but I had heard Stephan Lynch's renditions of the song of the ship's protection system. Stephan is a great singer, but there's just no way to compare his talents to what came through YEAGER's speakers, and went out on all hailing frequencies. I could feel a surge, starting in the center of my body and rushing out to my paw tips. I could even feel my hackles start to rise. Now I know you humans talk about getting your hackles up, but when a Dilbian says that, he means it. I felt like the minds of everyone on the bridge of YEAGER had been melded into a single fighting unit.

Strangely enough, it seemed to be having the opposite effect on our enemies. Their formations became more and more ragged, and their attacks less effectual. With a quick shot of thrusters, Kraiggearra shook off the attackers who had been working their way toward the bridge.

Not breaking the spell of the music, the Boss nodded to Vok, who powered up the weapon systems. Dilbians may not be the navigational wizards that Medusans and Efrosians are, but we've got a bump of direction that won't quit. I nodded to Kraiggearra, she smiled at my relayed flight plan and sent it along to Vok. He nodded confirmation and Kraiggearra hit the go button.

The music built as YEAGER went streaking in on what looked like a ramming path to the flagship. At what seemed like an impossibly close distance, Kraiggearra pulled up, right as Vok triggered the phasers on YEAGER's lower hull, all synchronized through his station. The bridge of the battle cruiser disappeared in a flash of energy. Other phasers flared, annihilating secondary gun emplacements along the hull. We had gone in so fast that the main gun, glowing with a building charge, had not had time to react. We were only a fighter to this monster, and we were acting like one. YEAGER actually dropped so close to the hull of the enemy ship that I could see hull emplacement going past above our line of flight.

As we flashed past the rear of the battle cruiser, our rear scanners activated as Vok unleashed the power of YEAGER's FH-11 phaser batteries and photon torpedo batteries in combination. As they were expended, Kraiggearra flipped the YEAGER on her axis, bringing the forward cannons and tubes to bear.

The music reached crescendo as the engines of the battle fortress flared. Vok diverted all available power to shields as Kraiggearra and I fought to bring YEAGER about and away from that reflex powered inferno. YEAGER turned and burned, putting all the power of her impulse engines, originally intended for ships much more massive. Structural members groaned, and red telltales lighted on the structural analysis charts at the engineering station. YEAGER was struggling for a clear shot at warp entry, diving closer to the enemy ship to build up acceleration as she turned. The bow turned away from the battle cruiser, and we could see black space in front of us as Kraiggearra's hands flashed, entering warp coordinates. We almost made it, as the fireball engulfed us.

GRIN'ELLE

YEAGER was in a bad way. The enemy ship, whose fragments still spun toward the surface as we approached was out of it, but its fighters, perhaps realizing they had no way to go home had redoubled their efforts. YEAGER skewed sideways, unable to make full speed turns while protecting her damaged port side. After clearing a path to the hangar for the Welby, I converted to battloid and took cover behind the port side "roll bar" as I brought Sorcerer's Gatling gun to bear on the enemy mecha.

I recognized the enemy mecha: Quedlenn Rau suits, better know as "Quadrano" armor. A single suit, in the right hands, was more than a match for a Valkyrie.

Fortunately, there didn't seem to be any "aces" in this pack, though I knew that sooner or later, they would manage to overpower me by sheer force of numbers. Sure enough, I could feel the armor being smashed away from my Valkyrie's leg units by an incoming shot. Luckily, though, the augmentation pack armor took the force of the round, saving the delicate leg mechanisms from damage.

The suits grouped together for what I knew was going to be a "Banzai Charge." A warrior race, the Meltraendi do not fear death so long as they are able to take an honor guard, and for all practical purposes, they were already dead. As one, the half dozen fighters turned and launched at YEAGER's bare flank. I could only hope that I would delay them long enough for YEAGER to bring her hull weaponry to bear.

The Gatling gun took out two of the incoming suits before it was exhausted. I switched then to Guardian mode, destroying a third and damaging a fourth with the concentrated fire of my head and nose phasers, but the last three, even with one crippled, continued to come. I converted back to battloid, determined to wrestle them down, if necessary, to give YEAGER a chance.

Streamers of flame smashed into the sides of the enemy mecha, destroying the pair of undamaged mecha. Seconds later, the one I had damaged earlier exploded under a withering burst of Gatling fire. Moonstar came flashing into view.

"Before you ask," a voice drawled, "I can't transform her. Good thing I didn't have to." It was the voice of Hawke, the Medevac pilot. "I figured you could use some help, even if I couldn't put her to full use."

"You figured right," I answered. "Let's get Sorcerer rearmed so I can get back downstairs."

"Roger that," he answered. I jettisoned Sorcerer's now useless augmentation armor and sat down in YEAGER's waiting portside hangar.

ZIM

I don't know where they got these guys, but they were good, almost up to mobile infantry level, with a heck of a lot more firepower. I've never seen transformable equipment, though I've read reports on it. It's something to see it in action for the first time.

"Do you have a fix on their headquarters location, sergeant?" the pilot of the hovertank asked me. 

"Yes, ma'am. Got a fix on it right before they pinned us down."

"Good. Sorcerer, you are to escort the shuttle to free space, then rejoin us."

"Aye aye," the kid in the red and black fighter said. It reconfigured to a something resembling a fighter and lifted off beside the lander. 

"Let me see your data sergeant," she ordered. I downloaded it to her. The base was at the end of a canyon. They thought we couldn't call an air strike. I thought we couldn't call an air strike.

"We have a little breathing space until Sorcerer gets back, sergeant. Can you get your lieutenant over here?" she asked.

"Yes ma'am," I told her, and went over to command circuit. The Lieutenant showed up, on the bounce.

"Lieutenant Juan Rico, ma'am," he said.

"At ease, lieutenant. I need a complete report."

As several other power armor clad figures gathered around, including the orange fighter, the lieutenant told what happened. We had been making a standard extraction when the RODGER YOUNG had been driven away by an incredibly huge battleship.

"Zentraedi?" asked one of the other figures.

"Worse," the pilot of the orange mecha said. "Meltraendi from the sound of it. They're even more vicious, and harder to reason with. If YEAGER tangles with them, we may be walking."

"Well the main thing is, we've got the kid," the Lieutenant said. "If your guys make it, we're out of here."

"Negative on that, Lieutenant," the driver of the hovertank said. "The job's only half done."

The looie looked confused. So was I.

"They got the Mother Thing," the fighter's pilot explained.

"What, the pet ferret?"

"That pet ferret," one of the armored figures said, "is one of the top peacekeepers in her universe. If the Black Hats got hold of her race's technology there'd be no way to stop them."

"Just great," the looie said. "So we go in after her?"

"We go in after her. Just as soon as Sorcerer gets back here."

As if on cue, the fighter touched down. It was missing a great deal of the armor it made its initial touchdown with.

"Good lord, Grin, what happened to you?"

"We had to fight our way in to YEAGER. You should have seen the other guys."

"How bad is it?" Conner asked.

"Bad. Portside engine and phaser cannons out. Torpedoes operational through power shunts. Starboard and hull phasers still operational. Serious damage to portside superstructure, but nothing disabling."

"Combat status?"

"She can hold her own, but I wouldn't want to get into any major battles."

"YEAGER, this is Conner."

"YEAGER, go ahead."

"Status, Number One."

"Marginally operational, Captain. Most of the damage was to equipment areas, casualties are minimal and minor so far. I wouldn't care to try that again."

"Is the continua device operational?" 

"Yes, sir. We also have three-quarter impulse power and standard warp four capability."

"Three-quarter impulse and warp four?"

"Afraid so, sir. Superstructure damage from the explosion of the enemy vessel precludes greater acceleration. An ENTERPRISE would have had her back broken. Our shorter stress arm kept the explosion damage down, and Commander Kriet's arrival staved off our smaller attackers until we got phasers back on line."

"Understood. Stand by to copy orders."

"Recording, Captain," the circuit replied.

"In the event of another attack on the YEAGER, you are to utilize the continua device to return to our universe. If possible, install it aboard the PATHFINDER and return. If you are unable to remove it safely, make repairs to YEAGER and return when completed," Conner ordered.

"Sir, if we maintain real time, it may take months to get the YEAGER combat ready again."

"Those are my orders, Mr. Layne. One final command," he turned to me. "Do you have the coordinates of the enemy base?"

I relayed them to him.

"If our position becomes untenable, you are to utilize all YEAGER's available power not necessary for her own defense to destroy the structures at these coordinates."

"That's a lot of power against a ground installation, sir."

"They have the Mother Thing, Number One. If we can't make extraction, we can't allow her to be held by the enemy."

There were several seconds of silence.

"Understood, sir. YEAGER out."

"Extraction out. Marines, Roughnecks, form up on me. We're going in."

RAC

I have seen what happens when the Captain gets that look. Things get broken. Sometimes I can put them back together. Other times, even with the help of Grin'elle Kriet and the original blueprints I still have problems. Take Spacewolf, for instance. The Captain took her into a fight with a Klingon mech over double her mass. Considering what was left of Spacewolf, I doubt there was an identifiable piece of the Klingon mech.

Now we were getting ready to take a pair of Valkyries, a hovertank, a half dozen Cyclones, a set of marine power armor, Tigeran power armor and a squad of mobile infantry up against an unknown foe who had pinned down those same mobile infantry just a few hours ago, and driven off their drop ship.

I didn't know who to feel sorrier for.

The Valkyries converted to guardian mode as Ms. t'Reilri switched her hovertank to transport configuration. Since it was obvious we would be moving fast, I converted back to cycle mode, as did most of the other Cyclone riders. We rolled out.

The base was at the end of a box canyon, we knew that. That meant that they would be well defended from a frontal assault. Sorcerer boosted over one lip of the canyon while X-Ray One Able lifted up over the other. In her typical manner, Ms. t'Reilri took Deathwish straight up the middle.

"Look sharp," came the Captain's voice over the tactical net. "They're letting us get too close, too easily."

"No they aren't," came Commander Kriet's voice. "Check your one o'clock position." More combat mechs, humanoid in configuration, but not of a design I recognized, were coming down the rim of the canyon.

"Conserve your missiles," the Captain said. "Let's try to take them with phasers and hand to hand first."

With that, X-Ray One leapt skyward, transforming to battloid as it lifted. Suddenly, its leg lunged outward in a vicious snap kick. One of the mechs tumbled forward, its main sensors smashed.

Kriet opted for the indirect approach, cutting a wedge out of the hillside in front of another of them with his phasers. Tripping, it crashed into the ravine where commander t'Reilri was waiting, Deathwish in Guardian mode. Its cannon flared, obliterating the mech.

"Cycle squadron," called the voice of Major Carter. "Transform to combat configurations." I flicked a switch beside my Cyclone's throttle as I pulled her back onto one wheel and fired her thrusters. The secret to a successful Cyclone transformation is getting enough altitude for the transformation sequence to function without going so high as to make yourself a target. With the 038-LT's smaller size and lighter weight, I only needed to lift a bit over a meter at low power to perform the sequence easily.

Beside me I saw Indy Jones, Commander Kriet's Fuzzy (both his race and outstanding feature) and his companion Glommer, transforming their mini-Garlands to their battloid configuration. I have to admit liking the design. It wouldn't be much use on board ship, but a few of them could be very useful for armed reconnaissance. Perhaps I could discuss it with the Captain...

If I survived! I was so caught up in my fascination with the mini-Garlands that I didn't notice the mechs closing from our rear, trying to catch us in a pincer.

Mimick and T'aan Stahz flew past me, cutting a wide swath through the enemy mechs. Using his armor's repulsor systems, Mimick easily tossed aside the mechs, as Stahz, opting for the more direct mode, slashed at one of them with the deadly blade of his Tigeran armor. So long as YEAGER's broadcast power link transmitted power to his armor, Mimick could bring the potential of YEAGER's tractor system into a locally controllable package. I just hoped that he was keeping tabs on whether or not YEAGER had him on net.

He closed to hand to hand range with one of the smaller mechs, and it seemed for a moment that he hesitated. Surely, he wasn't fighting without the tractor link... The armor faltered, then dropped to one knee. He had gone into battle with only his armor's onboard reserves, yet he continued at full power, knowing that he only had a few minutes at those drain levels before completely depleting his power cells.

The armor struggled to its feet, just in time to catch a blast in the chest from one of the enemy mechs. It fell back, energy discharges rippling away from a hole in its chest. I could see a black fluid, not matching any of the hydraulic fluids, leaking out around the edges of the rent.

Stahz rushed to his side, examining him gently. Slapping a suit repair patch over the damage, he pulled Mimick to his feet as a missile barrage closed around them. The pair disappeared in a cloud of smoke and plasma. I could only hope that Stahz had teleported them to safety. My more immediate concern was that there was now no one covering my back as the mechs closed with us.

ZIM

"Bogeys in our six," I heard someone shout. I turned, just in time to see them closing on our tail enders. We had put the support team at the rear, guarded by the marine and security officer from the relief group. They disappeared in an explosion seconds later. 

The enemy equipment was closing with our troops when a pair of red flashes screamed between two of the forward units. With that strange whir and click that they always made, I saw one of the little fuzzy fellows' cycle reconfigure to its combat mode, firing off a round into the back of the head of one of the enemy units. 

Before the enemy unit's compatriots could react, the other, still in its cycle mode, screamed up the bank, circling to the other side of the formation. As the enemy cut loose, it transformed, backflipping across them, always staying meters ahead of their crossfire. Before the enemy units could realize quite what was going on, the Fuzzies had led the streams of following fire to intercept their own companions, destroying two of the enemy with friendly fire.

As they tried to sort out the situation, the little machines converted back to cycle once again and burst out of the cloud of confusion they had caused. "Wheee!" came the shout over the comm line. The little guys were lovin' it!

As the cycles pulled out of the way, I let go with the particle gun. These guys were even better armored than the ones we had fought earlier. Though my burst staggered one, he didn't go down. 

"Clear!" came a shout from my side. Suddenly, three of the other type of combat cycles burst through from the pack, reconfiguring on the fly. The dark blue one, which seemed to be the squad leader, leaping almost over the top of the first enemy unit, before cutting in a sudden burst of inertia-cancelling thrust which brought it suddenly crashing into the top of the mechanism. An outer shell burst, and I could see the results of the action, as the operator was splattered across the outer shell.

On the other side of the formation, one armored figure toppled an enemy with a low clip as the second leveled off with an energy pistol at the cockpit. With the explosion brought about by sudden temperature variation, the hull exploded even as the cockpit was completely disintegrated.

"Go!" came the shout of the squad leader, as he turned to another attacker. We went.

KOCHAB

YEAGER was rocked by the impacts of incoming fire. As we increased power to our weakened shields, another bolt smashed into our nearly defenseless lower saucer. A light attack ship, about the size of a Federation Corvette was battering at us with beams from a turret on its upper hull.

With the practiced, relaxed movements of a VT pilot, Vok swung his targeting director onto the bogey and fired, scattering it into its component particles. With the destruction of the enemy, he returned to awareness. 

"Vessel was a light corvette, carrying heavy particle beams. Normally, not a threat, but able to penetrate our shields in our weakened state."

"Emergency maneuvering, Helm. Bring us about. Reinforce forward shields," snapped the Boss.

I checked my station. "Inertial navigator disabled. Unable to plot a course!" I shouted.

"Continua device has auto-disabled," Helm added.

"Combat information center," the Boss called, pressing the conn communicator, "Do you have navigation?"

Seconds passed. "Negative, conn."

"Engineering. Navigational systems are out."

"Ah know!" came the angry reply. "We're workin' on it Number One!"

"How..."

"How long? I dinna ken. The circuitry's a mess. We took a hit right in the forward navigational scanner and it fed back through the system. There's no permanent damage, but the system has to be completely reset by hand."

Great. Here we were under attack and we couldn't even figure out where we were goin'. Sure, given time, we could figure out our location through astrogation, but combat maneuvering was out of the question without the navigational systems on-line.

"Relieving you, Mister Kochab," I heard a voice say from behind me. I turned to see S'Stormok, in the full ceremonial makeup of a Warrior-Priest, standing behind me.

I looked up to the Boss, who curtly nodded. I got outta the way.

S'Stormok took his position at the navigator's station, taking a moment to find the controls, much like a touch typist finding the home keys on one of the old manual keyboards.

"We are set to maneuver," S'Stormok said. I noticed his eyes were closed. Now, I decided, might be a good time to get religion.

"Get us room to fight. Best possible speed," the Boss told him.

Bronze fingers flashed over the keypads, entering coordinates at a speed nearly matching the computer's input. YEAGER wheeled, rolled and followed his input, out toward the planet's moon.

Kraiggearra followed his inputs, executing them with precision, but not happily. The navigation skills of Efrosian Warrior-Priests are legend. No one is sure if they're natural in origin, like the homing instinct of a bird, or some kind of mystical power, but it's hard to trust inputs that don't have any inertial navigation system data to back them up.

"Enemy vessels coming up from portside aft," Vok said. "They are staying in our weaponry's blind spot."

"Vok," S'Stormok said, not looking up from the panel, "are you familiar with the attack helicopter tactics of late twentieth century earth?"

"Affirmative."

"An appropriate tactic?"

"It might be..."

"Helm, stand by for close quarters maneuvering."

"Mister S'Stormok, are you certain you can accomplish this maneuver?" the Boss asked.

"Sir, we are one hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred and seventeen point three-two-eight kilometers from the lunar body, approaching at a rate of point zero-two-five-four lightspeed... mark."

"I see," the boss said. "Carry on, Nav."

"Aye, sir."

YEAGER dropped so close to the surface of the moon I thought I would scream. If the moon had had any appreciable atmosphere, even at the relatively low speed we were traveling, we would have been incinerated instantly. As it was, we were moving more like a VT in Guardian mode than a ship. The Boss' knuckles were white, but he didn't speak. No one did. One lapse in S'Stormok's concentration and it would be over for all of us.

Vok broke the silence, "Tactical reads clear. We are out of the enemy's line of sight."

Finally, we heard the rumble of maneuvering thrusters as YEAGER slowed. We were maintaining steerage, in this case an orbit at incredibly low altitude, but that was all.

Vok turned to the Boss.

"Sir, we will need a person on a ridge with a laser designator."

"Very well." He thumbed the communicator again. "Security."

"Security, aye," came Ching's voice.

"We need a sharpshooter to serve as a laser designator on the ridge. This will be a volunteer mission of course."

"Aye, sir. I'll get on it."

Moments later, the comm unit came back on. "One of the riflemen is suited up and moving out now sir."

"Very well."

On the screen, we could see the spacesuited figure moving on thrusters toward a distant mountain. In seconds, he had disappeared out of sight. moments later, the comm circuit crackled.

"YEAGER, this is Bullseye."

"Go ahead, Bullseye."

"Three bogeys coming over the horizon in a slow search pattern. Stand by for coordinates."

"At your discretion, Bullseye," the Boss replied.

Seconds passed.

"Fire one."

Vok stabbed the manual fire control and a torpedo sped out, almost following the marine's original flight path. As the screen switched to his helmet camera, we saw the torpedo impact against the hull of the submarine-like ship. There was a string of sympathetic explosions and it disappeared.

The reticle swung around to a second target. "Fire two."

The second tube fired. the shot screamed out and smashed into the second enemy ship, which was destroyed in the same way.

The reticle swung to the third ship.

"Fire three."

Vok depressed the trigger. A red light flashed on the panel. The autoloader had jammed.

"YEAGER, fire!" the voice came urgently.

Vok quickly switched the selector to tube two. As he did, we could see a pair of missiles launch from the ship's nose.

The torpedo streaked away, smashing the third ship to oblivion, but the missiles were still coming. 

"Point defense phasers," the Boss ordered.

Twin gatling phasers flashed from YEAGER's upper deck, and one of the two missiles disintegrated. The other, however, had managed to get inside the convergence cone of the upper and lower banks, the one point where neither bank was able to fire.

"Emergency maneuvering thrusters! Stand by to fire," the Boss said.

YEAGER strained to pull her nose up to give the lower bank a chance to fire, but it takes time to overcome the inertia of over one hundred-fifty thousand tons of starship. The missile continued in, directly at the forward edge of our primary hull.

"All decks, rig for impact!" the Boss shouted.

Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion, the missile, our bridge, and most importantly, the ponderous movements of YEAGER's hull. Suddenly, another figure moved into our tableau, the marine who had gone out to serve as our targeting designator. On a trail of blazing thrusters, he rose directly into the path of the oncoming missile. Taking a moment to take aim, he fired at the warhead at point-blank range. There was a gout of flame, and we saw an armored form, trailing streamers of energy and frozen gas spin past our point of view.

"Transporter room, bring him aboard. Trauma team to transporter room one."

Seconds passed.

"Transporter room, do you have him?"

"I have recovered his shell, sir," came Kordon's voice. "He died with honor."

"Understood, Mister Kordon."

I could see the anguish on the Boss' face. He had known it was probably a suicide mission. So had the marine. Both had done their duty anyway. One of them didn't come back. That happens in wars.

On the bridge, silence reigned.

JERRY

Though keeping the peace is their main profession, the crewmembers of YEAGER are professional warriors. They had proven this with their dearest blood. I had already lost, it seemed likely, two of my crew here on the planet. I still clung to the possibility that Mimick and T'aan had teleported back to YEAGER, but had no way to confirm it, and little real hope. God only knew how many aboard YEAGER had died, or were yet to die, there or on this planet. We knew the stakes though, and we were committed. Still, I couldn't help but wonder if the blood would ever wash off my hands.

Ahead, we could see the enemy base. It looked like something out of an old movie, one of those Japanese samurai epics, all high walls and armored gates. No guns fired at our approach.

"What do you think, Llandhe?" I asked over the comm link.

"It's too easy sir. It looks like we could just hop over the top of the wall and go right in."

"Looks like a trap to me," Lieutenant Rico added.

"And me," I conceded. "Llandhe, let them know we're here."

Deathwish swung about, bringing its powerful particle beam cannon to bear. Energy spewed forth, and the gate buckled, but did not fall.

"It's a lot tougher than it looks," Rico commented.

"Chain guns?" Grin'elle asked.

"Guardian mode. Nose and head phasers," I told him. Sorcerer and X-Ray's phasers blazed in unison, adding to the energy of Deathwish's second round. This time, the gate buckled inward, wrecked, but still blocking the way.

"Cover us," I told Rico. The mobile infantrymen took up positions.

Kriet, in Sorcerer, converted to battloid and grasped one side of a gate section as I did the same with the other. Deathwish converted to battloid and moved to guard our fronts at breakthrough. With a hiss of hydraulics and a groan of wrenching metal, the doors came free.

Sure enough, as the doors swung open, we could see cannons being desperately swung around to our positions from where they had been pointed upward, and would have destroyed X-Ray and Sorcerer as we came over the ramparts. Grin'elle and I laid down overlapping fields of fire as Deathwish's cannon roared, annihilating one of the gun positions. 

Seeing that the turrets had been silenced, the Roughnecks swiftly bounced to the ramparts, then dropped into the courtyard, securing it against sporadic small arms fire which bounced ineffectively off their armor. Within seconds, the area was secured. 

"Sensor scans show no life in the structures," Grin'elle said. "They seem to have gone underground."

The sergeant examined the entrance corridor. "No getting those big bruisers down these corridors," he observed. "Doubt we could even get our gear through."

"We'll have to go in on foot," Llandhe concluded. She leapt nimbly over Deathwish's side. As she landed, she seemed to go down a bit hard. Fatigue no doubt. We'd already been going full tilt for longer that a strike force should have to, and I don't know how long the Roughnecks had been waiting for relief.

I reached into X-Ray's storage bin and took out a small package. Tri-Ox compound and high energy boosters are standard combat supplies for heavy gravity worlders, but I hate to use them unless I have to. For a few hours, you're at your peak, but then you pay for it. With interest. Still, I had no choice. I jammed the hypo against my thigh while gulping down the nutritional booster. You'd think that in three hundred years of development, combat rations could at least be made palatable. No such luck. It tasted like a stale chocolate-coated landing skid, and about as tough.

"Cyclone riders, check your hand weapons and dismount," Llandhe called. "Sergeant, do you have anyone with artillery training?"

"Sure do, ma'am," he called back. "Me."

"Good," she answered, "Get up here and let me show you how this cannon works. You won't need a battloid, but the guardian mode might come in handy. The rest of you take five, but stay sharp."

MICHAEL

There seemed to be no end to our enemy's resources while YEAGER's were quickly becoming depleted. Ken and his crews had cobbled together repairs to the port engine, giving us no more speed but a bit more stability and maneuverability. S'Stormok, once relieved of navigating, had managed to reboot YEAGER's inertial navigators, but we were still far from combat ready. Our shields were only a fraction their normal strength, but we did have our full torpedo abilities back, as well as one phaser cannon and our hull phasers.

Our greatest threat now was fighters. Normally, no threat, our lack of full combat shields meant that the one which would inevitably get past our hull phasers would find no shields to deflect their usually inconsequential attacks. We were not unlike a World War II battleship without it's protective fighter umbrella. S'Stormok's "thinking cap" was set for X-Ray's interface system, and would not work with Moonstar. If necessary, Kordon could fly Moonstar as a fighter, but as he had not yet had a "thinking cap" burned in, he could not use its transformation capabilities, reducing his survivability to infinitesimal. At best, he could buy us time, which he would, I am sure, at the cost of his own existence. I did not want to have to ask for any more volunteers, but knew that I almost certainly was going to have to.

Kraiggearra confirmed my fears. "Incoming vessels, sir. Three hundred twenty-four mark three hundred fifty-five." Just over our port bow.

"Sciences?" I asked.

"Type unknown," T'Saan put in. "Apparently a carrier and a number of fighters, in excess of thirty blips distinguishable at this range." YEAGER was about to enter her final battle. 

"Red alert," I ordered. 

At Kraiggearra's station, the auxiliary fire controls, a simplified backup of the ones at Vok's station energized. S'Stormok had taken Kochab's place at primary navigation, in case of system failure, while Kochab had relieved his number two in CIC. S'Stormok removed a dagger from his boot sheath, said a few quiet words, and returned it. Had his utterances been in Japanese, I have no doubt they would have ended in "Banzai!" but, I have little knowledge of the Efrosian language.

"Back up all point defense weaponry through local fire control," I ordered. "Fire at gunner's discretion, and make them all count."

The fighters broke up, coming at us from all sides. Phaser fire flashed from YEAGER's hull, but for every fighter our fire destroyed, there were a pair still available to take its place. A group came in from our undefended upper port aft flank. YEAGER screamed as explosions wracked her engineering section. 

"Impulse is out!" shouted a damage control officer.

I thumbed the control which brought up the video to engineering. Smoke and clouds obscured the view from the camera's position. Atmosphere was evacuating through a hull rent. Fighting against the hurricane winds, I could see Ken, struggling toward it, tools in hand. Finally, the wind stopped. The hull had evacuated to vacuum. Five hundred feet away, my closest friend was facing death, and I could not do a thing about it.

He ignored the hull rent, moving instead to a shattered panel at its side. Using the probes, he restored power to the damaged controls. His skin had turned a splotched purple and red. He had exhaled as the pressure had dropped, preventing the horrible explosion of his lungs generally associated with explosive decompression. Even so, his blood was beginning to embolize as internal and external pressures fought to equalize. He doubled over, then rose, energizing the final connection. Pulling a repair patch from his kit, he moved to the hull rent.

Power restored, YEAGER swung to meet her attackers, barely destroying a second wave moving in to take advantage of the first attack. On the screen, I saw Ken collapse to the deck.

Moments later, I saw a team of spacesuited figures move into the field of vision. Less than a minute had passed. The rest of my friend's life. A pair of figures in red suits moved to press the repair patch over the hull rent, while a second pair slapped a life support field around Ken's inert form. One of them passed a scanner over him, then looked to the pickup. The sad shake of his head confirmed my fears.

Even my grief was stolen from me though, when I realized that the living's battle, unlike Ken's was not yet over. Anger rose to take its place. 

"All ahead full, Helm," I said. "We're going to take an honor guard." 

To her credit, Kraiggearra did not question her orders. YEAGER swung about and drove at full speed toward the waiting enemy. Photon torpedoes lashed out, flaring against the hull of the carrier. Phasers licked enemy hull plates, scoring them, but not stopping it. 

YEAGER rocked backward and to one side as an enemy shot ripped through her fortunately evacuated forward areas. YEAGER swung about as smartly as her damaged thrusters could move her, trying to keep her solid superstructure and operating weapons facing the enemy. While we might have managed to fight off either the fighters or the carrier vessel, in our weakened state, we could not deal with them both. We did not have much longer. Our final option was to meet our ends with honor.

Captain, I'm sorry.

Nine beams of energy lashed out over YEAGER's primary hull from behind. The enemy carrier staggered, flashed brilliantly for a moment, then disappeared in a gout of flame. The green tip of what looked like a wing, a shape not unlike a twentieth century battleship turret flashed into view for a moment, then disappeared as our rescuer moved away. For the moment, we were safe.

LAZARUS

We formed up in a skirmish team and headed into the structure, following standard leapfrog formation. The hall was less than four meters wide, with a fairly low ceiling. 

The two fuzzies in their mini-Garlands took point, since they had the heaviest armor, and the only powered armor small enough to get in. Conner and Kriet followed, along with Llandhe. Jake, Zeb and I brought up the rear. There was no resistance. It bothered me.

We proceeded deeper and deeper underground, until we came to a set of armored doors. "Standard electronic locks," Kriet said, looking up from his tricorder. He removed several tools from it and activated them. The door hissed open. The area was a cargo airlock. We entered and moved to the second airlock, Kriet activated the mechanism. The room glowed, and there was a hiss of hydraulics.

"Pappy G'in!" Indy Jones shouted, "No go! No go!"

Kriet moved to the mini-Garland's exterior tell-tales. "Neutralized."

Conner pulled his phaser and examined it. "This too." He reholstered it, pulled the Colt automatic behind it, and worked the action. Llandhe and Grin'elle pulled swords, hers an elaborate but functional Vulcan design, his a traditional Terran saber. Jake and Zeb pulled their Barsoomian blades while I hefted my saber. The fuzzies dug into side compartments on their mecha and pulled out small lethal-looking polearms, with a device like a can opener at one end. Kriet returned his attention to the door.

"Takes a little longer this way," he muttered, "but not impossible."

Moments later, the door slid aside. Conner stepped into the room and took up a defensive posture. Llandhe moved in beside him. Grin'elle checked his equipment.

"Nothing, they must have neutralized the circuitry, probably with high energy electromagnetic pulse."

"Then we do it the old fashioned way," Conner replied simply. He turned to Zeb. "There won't be any hard feelings if you want to go back."

"There won't be," Zeb replied, "because we aren't going back without the Mother Thing."

Conner nodded. We moved out.

The hallway led to what looked like a ready room. Our opponents were humanoid sized, but we already knew that. From the equipment, we could tell that they were humanoid configured as well. They were lackeys, but they weren't Black Hats. From the distance, we could hear the sound of an engine spooling up.

"Let's move it," Conner said, a new urgency in his tone. If they managed to get the Mother Thing to their home base, it would be unlikely we'd ever get in, even if we did manage to find it.

The fuzzies, low to the ground went first. We could see them moving across the hangar area, taking advantage of available cover far too small for us human-sized. We heard a scream and moved out. The fight was on.

As we burst into the chamber, we could see Glommer with his weapon embedded deep into the back of one of the enemy. The being stood twice his height, but could not turn to strike him. A second hulking humanoid moved to strike, just as the blade of Indy Jones' chopper-digger flashed. The mercenary's decapitated form dropped to the floor.

A third figure appeared in the doorway of the ship with a large hand weapon. Conner's .45 barked once, and he fell to the ground, dead before he hit. The Glaser round was common on twentieth century Earth as an ammunition of choice when lethality was the only option. He was obviously taking advantage of them.

We could see more forms moving out from docking bays at the rear of the ship. We formed a battle group, each covering the other, and moved forward. Fortunately, the energy weapon neutralizer which kept us from using our phasers and mecha seemed to cut both ways. In the middle of the twentieth third century, by the reckoning of our comrades, we were reduced to weapons that were old when I was a child on Terra.

As we closed, I could hear the sounds of explosions in the distance. It sounded like the launch tunnel entrance had a firefight going on, but I could not tell who was fighting whom, or who was winning.

Suddenly, I had no time to think. Our enemies had attacked.

The pistol barked again, four, five, and then a sixth time. Our "friends" had learned their lesson, however, and were wearing impact resistant armor. Only the last two rounds, aimed as head shots, had any effect.

Conner dropped one clip as he drew another from his belt pack. Before he could reload, a round smashed into his chest armor, driving back even his high-G form, sending the pistol skittering under an equipment locker. 

Fortunately, our ride armor seemed to protect us from their small arms rounds, and they hadn't had time to set up any heavy weaponry. Llandhe leaped forward, her blade easily slicing through ballistic cloth which would have stopped all but armor piercing shells. Low-tech solutions to high tech problems...

Jake and Zeb fought as one, backs together as the Warlord had taught them, always as aware of their sword-brother's situation as their own. Kriet fought with the style of the Heidelberg swordsmen, while Llandhe fought in the pseudo-samurai style of the Rihannsu.

Conner, on the other hand, was only using the street-brawling style best suited to his heavy-gravity physique. He simply closed with his opponents and smashed them into submission.

Llandhe had fought her way to the personnel hatch when she was knocked off-balance by a massive, polearm-wielding mercenary. She clutched her side, and fell to the ground. I could see a trickle of dark green seep through the seam of her armor. Jake and Zeb fought toward her, but their own opponents kept them rooted in the same position. Conner grabbed a sword, hefting it as it to throw, but Llandhe was between him and her target, and he could not take the chance. The alien raised his blade, and made the death stroke.

There was a sickening crunch of shattered bone, as the hand holding the blade was stopped. A single soft leather-gloved hand held the alien's arm, unmoving. The other hand lashed out, and the mercenary was smashed into the side of the ship.

Llandhe pulled herself up to one elbow, looking up into the face of her rescuer. "I never forget a debt of honor," I heard him say softly. He turned to Conner, and brought the sword up in salute. 

Conner stood for a moment, stunned. Then, slowly and ceremonially raised the blade he held into the salute position. He lowered the blade, and the figure disappeared, back into the shadows. Conner ran to Llandhe, unbuckled her armor and applied pressure to the wound as I bandaged her up.

"Llandhe," he whispered. "Was that..."

She nodded.

There was no doubt the tear was painful. Those jokes about reopening old wounds aren't idle chatter. She bore it in silence.

Confirming that she was all right, Conner took the sword up and proceeded into the ship. We could hear the sound of a very short battle, then he emerged, blood dripping from several minor wounds, his own sword bloodied. He was carrying a small form, covered in fur, in a child-sized rescue ball.

"Let's get out of here."

We stopped only long enough to manually reconvert the mini-Garlands to cycle mode and push them back up to the surface with us. Fortunately, since they had wheels, we were able to push them without power. Otherwise, we would have had to self-destruct them.

Lieutenant Rico saw us coming up the passageway. "Medic!"

The Starfleet medic checked out Llandhe and made sure old Lafe Hubert hadn't lost his touch. I hadn't. 

Llandhe pushed herself up, and staggered toward Deathwish. Conner moved to restrain her. She pushed him away.

"We have to get back to the LZ," she pointed out. "The mini-Garlands have been neutralized, and some of these guys are almost out of power. We need a bus."

There was no arguing with that logic. The Roughnecks with the lowest power supplies grabbed handholds on the hovertank, as others attached the mini-Garlands to the tow pads on the Valkyries. X-Ray One turned her Gatling gun on a tower and fired. "No more transporter interference," the captain muttered. "Let's get out of here."

"Autobots, transform and roll out," came a voice over the comm. X-Ray's head snapped about to stare at Sorcerer.

"Sorry," Kriet said. "Couldn't resist."

"Don't let it happen again," Conner said with a tension-breaking chuckle. We rolled for the LZ, a motley crew of cyclists, a hovertank with assorted "growths" and a pair of guardian mode Valkyries with mini-Garlands slung beneath.

We arrived there after a much shorter trip out than the one in. Then again, the route out was littered with the cause of our earlier delays. As we passed the site of our earlier ambush, search units spread out to look for signs of Mimick and T'aan Stahz. There were none.

"Shuttles waiting at the LZ," Llandhe confirmed from the hovertank. "They have a clean dustoff and perimeter is established."

Sure enough, everything went as advertised, until Conner tried to order Llandhe to the medical shuttle. She wasn't about to leave her post until everyone was safe aboard.

"Mister Kordon," Conner spoke into his communicator.

"Aye, sir," came the Klingo-Rihann's voice. 

"Get Commander t'Reilri to Doctor Brackett immediately. See to it personally."

There were several seconds of silence.

"Aye, sir."

Llandhe moved to protest, but she was already disappearing in the shimmer of the transporter. Kordon would have his hands full getting Llandhe to the doctor, even in her condition. I didn't envy him.

RAC

We made best possible speed back to the YEAGER. Even having heard the reports, we were not prepared for the condition she was in. Whoever had ordered the attacks on us had done their homework, for barely a shot had been wasted which had not hit a vital area. With a slightly less skillful crew, we would have had no ship to come home to. Even so, she looked worse than I'd ever seen an MIRANDA look and still move under her own power. Only the tapes of RELIANT after ENTERPRISE's final attack looked worse. The outer radiator panels were missing from the portside warp engine, and the power conduits laid open, with steamers of energy leaking from them. Our infamous skunk had been completely obliterated, with even the hull panels it had been painted on missing. The port phaser cannons were wrecked, though they looked salvageable. As we approached the rear of the ship, I could see a hull rent torn in the impulse deck, one of the only areas inhabited during battle stations which had been hit.

When the captain saw her, it was like a physical blow. Andorians are not known for our empathy, but even the most headblind would have shared his pain. His anguish was like that for an old friend, or a loyal animal companion.

Our shuttles set down, Commander Layne waiting at the blast shield for us. He held a formal pose, hands clasped behind his back, eyes locked forward.

"Status report, Number One," the captain said as he descended the ramp.

"Minimal warp and deflectors restored. Impulse at sixty percent, photon torpedoes operational. All phasers except port side cannons restored. Life support nominal."

"Very well. Have Mister Wright give me hourly reports. We'll rotate to Tertius as soon as possible."

Mister Layne's facade broke. "Sir, Mister Wright was lost in battle."

The Captain stopped cold, his face now the same carefully neutral blank that Mister Layne's had been. He stepped to the comm panel.

"Mister Kordon?"

"Aye sir," came the answer.

"You are to serve as acting Chief Engineer until you receive further notice."

"I shall attempt to honor Mister Wright's memory, sir."

"I'm sure you will, Mister Kordon. Out."

Without looking back, he left the hangar.

ALEX

Spyik had me monitor the Captain. He had no desire to interrupt his grief, but he did not want to leave him alone. He was standing at the front of the Brass and Fern, newly repaired after a near miss, leaning on the wooden ship's wheel Ken had hand carved from real wood and sneaked on board just before his last birthday. Ken had always pretended to be a pragmatist, while in reality one of the greatest romantics in the crew. He loathed transformable mecha, but knowing the Captain's love of it, became an expert in its maintenance and repair. The Captain said Ken would be late for his own funeral. If only he had been right.

"Are you there, Alex?" he asked.

"Aye sir."

"No need for formality at the moment, Alex. Time enough for that when we have to put on our formal faces for the crew. Did you know Ken?"

"I am familiar with his file, sir."

"Not his file, with him."

"Only in passing."

"He and I attended the Academy, in different branches at about the same time. We were both members of academic competition teams. Our teams were sworn enemies, but we became friends anyway.

"He was the one who introduced me to a shy little bookworm who lived with one foot in our world and another in the age of chivalry. You might have heard of him. His name's Michael Layne."

"Yes, I have," I replied.

"They used to say we were the most dangerous combination in the fleet. Mike was smart enough to design them, Ken was good enough to build them, and I was crazy enough to push the button on them." He chuckled.

"We did a few times, too. When K'Maurg tried to discredit me and keep the YEAGER from being finished, they stood beside me. Together, we beat the charges, and drove K'Maurg back across the neutral zone."

"We went on to form the commissioning crew of the hottest, most unorthodox zoo ever to have transwarp drives attached. There were times when we were ready to strangle each other, but anyone else who wanted a piece of one of us found himself facing a matched trio.

"Now there are two of us, and I didn't even get to tell him goodbye."

He turned back to the window. The Brass and Fern remained silent for many hours.

KRAIGGEARRA

After the fighting died down, Hunter strapped the "Captain America" pack of sensor and countermeasures gear onto Moonstar and took her out to look for survivors. Though he did an outward spiral from the area where T'aan Stahz and Mimick had last been seen, he was unable to find any sign, other than some blood and armor fragments belonging to Mimick which Rac confirmed had been lost during the battle. He even checked near space, thinking that T'aan might have teleported straight up to avoid a collision. There was nothing. It was as if they had simply gone between and never come back out. We couldn't prove they were dead, we just couldn't prove they were alive. After finding that T'ann had disappeared, his mate Tiasha had failed to report in. Security searched the ship, but at the end of the ship, Ching had to report that Tiasha was "no longer in YEAGER." We could only hope that somehow, she might be searching in that netherworld that only Tigerans can reach for her lost mate and our chief of Marines. I feared though, that she had chosen to join them in oblivion.

Unfortunately, we had no such glimmer of hope with Ken. He had been lost, as had that marine I only knew as Bullseye One, giving his life for his shipmates. As a Rihannsu, I could appreciate that they had died well, but my years among humans made me regret the loss of life, especially the loss of a close friend to an enemy that I had never met, and whose motives I could not understand.

We maneuvered YEAGER into the system's asteroid belt, as close as safe to a large body, and went to emissions control. The captain downgraded our alert status to wartime cruise, and I was finally free to leave the bridge.

Warlord, lying inside the door, rose to meet me. She quietly put her muzzle into my hand, and pressed herself to me. Even Otto crawled down the desk and climbed up my arm, perching on my shoulder and pressing against my face. Animals know grief, and they know when their friends need comfort. Anyone who can't recognize that is a fool.

I peeled off my work fatigues and stepped into the shower, setting it for an actual water shower. After the events I had just experienced, I needed the psychological effects of cleansing even more than the physical ones. I let the pulsing bursts of water batter the tension out of my fatigued muscles. 

I had been so engrossed, I had not heard the cabin doors open, nor heard the gentle footsteps. The door slid aside, and Spyik stepped inside, embracing me.

"No, Spyik, not now..." I started.

"No," he agreed. "Not that. Not now." We stood there for a long time, then finally toweled off and went out to the light supper Alex had waiting for us. We ate in silence. Sometimes, if you love someone, you're there for them, because that's really all you can do.

 T'SAAN

Jerry seemed ready to explode, but at the same time, strangely, frighteningly calm. He had himself so thoroughly barriered that it was nearly impossible, even for me, to read him. He had rested for a few hours after the stimulants he had taken on the planet had worn off, but had returned to the bridge as soon as he regained consciousness. 

Outwardly, he appeared calm, but to those who knew him, the signs of stress were obvious. There was none of the banter he kept up almost constantly under normal circumstances. His jaw was set, and he stared straight ahead into the viewer. His knuckles, where he gripped the command chair, were white. He did not seem surprised when the intercom activated.

"Security to bridge," came ensign Ching's voice.

"Go ahead," he answered.

"Captain, the crew of the GAY DECEIVER have disappeared, along with their vehicle."

"I see. Were there any messages?"

"Negative, sir..."

"Is there something else, ensign?"

"Sir, Commander Wright's body is missing from the stasis chamber."

Jerry slammed his fist down onto the all-call. "General quarters! All hands to battle stations."

YEAGER came to life. Relief crews flooded onto the bridge. Moments later, Kraiggearra and Kochab relieved their counterparts, dazed but battle ready.

He turned to Stardust. "Please ask Lieutenant Rico, Sergeant Zim, the Mother Thing, Mister Layne and Kordon to meet me in the briefing room. Link sickbay in so that Llandhe can hear what's going on."

"Aye, sir."

"Kraiggearra, you have the bridge. T'Saan, if you please."

We descended to the briefing room in silence. The people Jerry had called were already assembled. He quickly briefed them.

"Sir, I have no explanation for this act. Certainly, graverobbing does not fit into the profile of the crew of GAY DECEIVER."

"I doubt they have bad intentions, dear," the Mother Thing whistled.

"I hope not, Mother Thing," he replied. "Unfortunately, we have to assume the worst. Did they take any of the materials that you recovered?"

"No dear," she said, pulling a holocube out of her pouch. "This is all that I brought with me, and you can see that it is intact."

"Where did you get it?"

"I was able to recover it from the shuttle's computer just as you came on board."

"All right. Mister Rico?"

"I don't have any more idea what's going on here than you do, sir," Rico replied, "but the Roughnecks don't forget their debts. If there's trouble, we'll be ready."

"Thank you, lieutenant. I hope it won't come to that, but I appreciate your support. Mister Kordon, what is the condition of the YEAGER?"

"Thanks to Mister Wright's quick work in battle, we survive. The ship will require a major dock period, but it is operational. Remember sir, the YEAGER at half power is still more than a match for most of the starships which exist in the GAY DECEIVER's operational universe, if our intelligence is correct."

"That's what I'm hoping, Mister Kordon," Jerry replied.

"Additionally, we have completed repairs to all mecha involved in the raid. Most of the damage was superficial and confined to the areas of the mecha easily replaced. Additionally, we have fabricated replacements for the armor lost from Sorcerer's augmentation pack. We were also able to effect repairs to the mobile infantrymen's power suits, though we have no ordnance available for them."

"Mister Layne, how long to prepare the ship for optimal combat in her current condition?"

"We have been at work since the battle sir. The crew is fairly well rested, and we have completed all possible repairs," Layne replied.

"Very well. It seems that we have settled on a course of action, then. We rotate in..."

At that moment, the door to the briefing room hissed open, and Grin'elle Kriet, burst in, panting.

"They're gone!" he blurted out.

"What's gone?" Jerry asked, perplexed.

"The tissue cultures I brought back from the anime cluster! They're all gone!"

"That does it. Lieutenant, get your men ready to drop. We rotate in one hour."

We followed Jerry onto the bridge. He relieved Kraiggearra, taking back the center seat. He thumbed the intercom control. "This is the Captain. The body of Chief Engineer Wright has been stolen from our ship, and the beings we aided in their rescue efforts are now gone. We will be rotating to their universe in an attempt to retrieve them. I don't need to remind you of the condition of our ship, or our chances in a major battle in that condition. All I can ask is that you do your best."

Over the next hour, YEAGER transformed from a struggling hulk to a bloodied but unbowed warrior. One did not need to be an empath to sense the determination of the crew. The theft of a corpse is a crime in many cultures, and when that crime has been perpetrated by a supposed friend, of a friend, it is doubly heinous.

"I can't help but wonder why they left the continua device attached, though, if their intentions were not honorable," mused Layne.

"Be tough to take the bridge to get it back," Kriet pointed out. 

"This is true," he conceded.

Jerry turned to the forward screen. "Sound battle stations."

Klaxons sounded throughout the ship.

"Rotate."

The stars clicked into place. Ahead of us, we could see an ovoid ship, nearly as large in diameter as the YEAGER's primary hull.

"Weapons up. Launch all fighters!"

Seconds later, three fighters took up station keeping in front of YEAGER. X-Ray One Able, piloted by S'Stormok, and Sorcerer in guardian mode while Moonstar, piloted by Kordon, which still had the sensor package attached, stayed in fighter.

"Hailing frequencies," Jerry commanded.

"Hailing frequencies open," Stardust confirmed.

"This is Federation starship U.S.S. YEAGER. You are ordered to surrender and prepare to be boarded."

"I dinna think that will be necessary," came a voice from the other ship. "Ye already have someone aboard." The voice belonged to Ken Wright...

LAZARUS

Things like that shouldn't happen to a starship captain.

But, they're so much fun to watch.

When we got back to the YEAGER from the planet, we found out about what happened to the Cheng, and we knew that in his case, at least, we could do something about it. They had put him into stasis moments after declaring him dead, and so there was no real cell deterioration.

Unfortunately, none of us knew how their storage systems worked, and how long his memory patterns would be viable before they started to break down. We had to move fast, and we knew the debates that would go on if we tried to explain what we intended to. The morality of cloning and rejuvenation in universes which don't have them makes religion and politics dinner time small talk. Of course, to those universes, they are subjects of religion and politics, rather than simple scientific operations.

Of course, morgues are usually the quietest place around, so it was a fairly easy matter to get his chamber and move it to GAY DECEIVER. The fact that they have anti-gravs in their universe helped.

So we grabbed the stiff and headed back for Tertius. To be exact, we headed back to Tertius minus thirty years from our departure time of the YEAGER universe. Ish popped some viable cells into her clone tanks and grew a new Ken while we took the corpse forward to the proper moment and transferred the proper parts around to get a fully functional model again. Anyway, the upshot was that at the moment that the YEAGER popped into our universe, we had a fully operational chief engineer waiting for them.

We had also started growing a body for Athene, though we did not plan to quicken it until the YEAGER arrived. As we had told them, it's important for a silicon intelligence to have an organic they're familiar with and trust handy at the moment of "awakening" to give them a solid psychological foundation.

DORA dropped her shields and the Captain, XO and medical officer beamed over. I had let DORA go to battle stations, even though I knew the only defense for her was to not be in range. Though she's well-armed, by the standards of this universe, YEAGER would have cut her to scrap in moments, if that had been their intention.

They materialized in the lounge, as I had directed them, and I noticed that they weren't carrying their usual weaponry, though I did notice a spare bulge under their jackets, beside their communicators. Not that I blamed them. I'd be antsy too. I did appreciate them making the effort to appear civil. Conner nodded to me, then turned to the doctor, who pulled a tricorder and examined Ken.

He scanned Ken several times, them turned to his captain. "Genetic scans prove out sir. He appears to be Ken Wright in almost every respect."

"Almost?"

"Several minor physiological dysfunctions have been corrected, and several minor scars have been removed, including, as you'll notice, the ones he received on his hand in that cutter beam accident."

"It's me, sair," Ken reiterated.

Slowly, Mike stepped forward, and took Ken's hand. It was as if he were reading every cell of Ken through that handshake. The tears which had been unable to flow at Ken's death now rose, unbidden and unrestrained at his resurrection. He wept without shame, as Ken embraced him.

I motioned to the captain and the doctor to join me.

"Privacy circuits 'Dorable," I said. "Open again at their command."

"Roger that boss."

Though less than a day had gone by, they had a lot of catching up to do.

HILDA

The next few months dragged on forever, and seemed to fly, at the same time. After the memorial services for the YEAGER's lost crewmembers, her crew settled in to the job of returning her to her fighting trim before going back to their own universe. In the meantime, we set about to work decoding the material that the Mother Thing and Cliff had recovered from the Black Hats agents. There were some glitches getting the interfacing to work, but with the help of Yanni Miller, S'Stormok, April Vincent and the being called Skhraud we managed to download their data into the clinic's systems (we didn't want to chance downloading it into the planetary net, and the clinic computer was the only other one large enough to handle it which could be isolated electronically, if necessary). Unfortunately, we didn't really recover much more than confirmation of the facts that we already knew: that the Black Hats were backstabbers with no sense of honor or fair play. Jerry said they reminded him of a Klingon he knew.

At the same time, the downloading of the EVE program into the body of Athene Graham began. Most of her chromosomes came from the cell samples that Grin'elle had given us, but Ishtar had come up with one curve which she did not tell them about: a chromosome pair from one Woodrow Wilson Smith, a.k.a. Lazarus Long, the senior of the Howard Families, ad nauseum. A computer is functionally immortal, and she feels that if she can get a flesh body to be the same, then it is her duty as a doctor to do so.

The day finally came, though, when Ken reported that YEAGER was combat ready and cosmetically repaired, though with some nonstandard equipment. All we had left to do was to finish the final downloading of EVE/Athene and YEAGER would be going home.

The process became something of a gala event, with all of us assembled for a "coming out" party for our newest entry to the world of flesh and blood from the world of silicon. Even GAY DECEIVER, DORA and Alex, the YEAGER's computer were linked in through the planetary net. We watched a graphic simulation on one of the clinic's holoscreens. On the screen, tendrils of energy reached from the glowing representation of EVE's holocrystal to the three dimensional image of her flesh body. This was the most critical, and final stage of the process, as the actual personality patterns which made EVE/Athene a unique entity were being downloaded. Thanks to the developments we'd made since our first flesh implantations, she did not have to go through the periods of learning to coordinate her flesh body that Teena did when she became flesh.

The system glows changed from amber to red, as the final bursts of information began downloading. There were only minutes to go, when we got trouble lights. 

On the screen, we could see what looked like, contradictorily enough, a dark light on the computer-generated horizon. It flowed across the plain, taking on a dark, vaguely humanoid form, with reversed knees and malevolent eyes. Appendages, not unlike horns, protruded from its head.

"We have an anomaly in the system," Yanni Miller called out from a data terminal. "Data files are being erased."

"Confirmed," April said from a console nearby. "We have a Trojan Horse."

"That's no problem for the center," Ishtar replied, "all our data is backed up holographically, but if EVE is damaged at this point, there's no way to back her up."

The figure on the screen continued across the plain, advancing on EVE/Athene's helpless form. There was no way for us to interfere on this plain of battle with the murderous form which must have been downloaded from the Mother Thing's data solid. The anomaly, a "Trojan Horse" as April had called it, was designed to lie dormant until it could cause maximum damage.

"I'm getting a data download from YEAGER," Miller called out. 

On the screen, a new form took shape. It was a metal form, what Kriet would call a "Battloid" in white, blue and yellow. It resembled a human form, with a head similar to a Japanese warrior. It carried a shield on one arm, and what looked like a powerful rifle in the other. On its back, I could see the code letters NT-1.

"What else?" Miller muttered to himself. Conner looked at him quizzically. "It's an ALEX," Miller explained.

On the screen Alex drew his weapon and stepped between the EVE/Athene link and the oncoming entity. He raised the weapon and fired, tearing gouts of digital flesh from the creature, which kept coming. As it closed too close for the rifle to have effect, he shield charged the form, bowling it over onto its back as digitized sparks leapt out from calculated impact points. The writer of the virus hadn't counted on a program of Alex's power being in the system. It rose, extruding claws from its hands and lashed out at him. He leaped back, but not before they raked large chunks from his form.

"Hey, you're not gettin' all the fun!" a voice called out from the speaker. On the screen, a digital image of a Valkyrie fighter in the color scheme of GAY DECEIVER formed, buzzing down in its transitional mode and firing into the carcass of the intruder. 

"Wait for me!" came another voice, and a second fighter in the color schemes of DORA appeared on the screen.

The three forms circled and fired, never quite giving the virus-form time to react to one threat before being bombarded from another side by the others. There were screams of rage from the system speakers.

Suddenly, it reached up with one huge clawed arm and tore GAY DECEIVER from the sky. Her battloid/image smashed to the ground hard, animated chunks of armor flying away from her main body, obviously damaged. The monstrosity moved toward her, only to be blocked once more as Alex stepped into its path. A hatch opened on the cyberplain-mecha's forearm and fire burst forth from yet another gun unit. The DORA image moved in fast, trying to pull GAY DECEIVER clear.

The Black Hat "Demon" leaped over Alex before he could react, lashing out and tearing DORA as well. The ship's programs had heart, but they didn't have the terobytes of tactical information available to Alex from the YEAGER's main computer.

"Jack out of here, girls," the Alex program called. "He's mine."

Reluctantly, if such a word fits when discussing computers, the Cyber-battloids derezzed from the plain of battle. Alex was alone, and the soon to be born Athene's life depended on him. Confirming they were clear, Alex "leaped" to higher ground and took up a defensive stance between the exposed EVE-image and the shadow demon.

Sensing that it had the upper hand, the Black Hat program pressed its attack on Alex, smashing at him with renewed ferocity. The rifle went flying, to smash and derez, as a second blow smashed the shield that he carried. 

From her monitoring console, April looked up helplessly. Her eyes darted about the room, locking with the inhuman eyes of Skhraud, the YEAGER's chief computer officer. There was a flash of communication. In a single move, Skhraud closed one flipper/hand over Grin'elle Kriet's head, and the other over a data jack. Kriet tells me he experienced only a split-second of disorientation before realizing that he was one with Alex. Skhraud had somehow melded them, more completely and faster than Kriet would have imagined possible, even using protoculture.

Alex/Grin'elle replied to the demon's attack in kind, emptying the arm cannon into it, and punching with the other arm. It fell back, then rose, smashing Alex/Grin'elle with blow after blow. "Data destruction has resumed," Miller noted, "Data loss now reaching critical dysfunction levels." He paused. "We're losing EVE."

Skhraud's eyes seemed to glaze as he uttered an ululation none of his shipmates had heard before. The cyberplain dimmed, then darkened almost completely. Alex/Grin'elle's screen form dimmed as well, then slumped against a digitized outcropping.

On the cyberplain, a shape formed. Huge, even compared to the demon, it took substance, a glowing, metallic green. Wings formed, and a bullet-shaped prow. On that prow, a skull and crossbones came into existence. Turrets turned, blazing with the power of perhaps the greatest cybernetic lifeforce in existence. Living blue energy engulfed the demon who screamed in impotent rage. 

Conner whispered a single word, in a reverent voice, tinged with awe, "Tochiro!"

The demon summoned its dark force, lashing out at the glowing cybership. The greatest genius of his universe, however, had designed his ship to be proof against far more powerful foes. The blasts impacted impotently against the armored hull.

Sensing that he could not harm this newest arrival, the shadow demon, enraged, lunged at Alex/Grin'elle, who stood, nearly motionless on the field. As the demon committed to its attack, Alex/Grin'elle's hand dropped to the remains of the shield. As the hand came clear of it, a beam leapt forward, glowing with azure energy. With a draw worthy of a samurai, instantaneous, and yet seeming to move in a frame-at-a-time slow motion, Alex/Grin'elle neatly beheaded the demon, who fell to the ground in two pieces and derezzed. 

They took up guard position at the link between the EVE and Athene forms. The energy continued to flow, fading from blue, through yellow and finally to red. As the energy band faded between them, the mecha lifted the sword to a salute position, and, together, Alex and the Cyber-ARCADIA disappeared.

"Alex has successfully uploaded back to YEAGER," Miller reported, "And the process is completed."

Skhraud released Grin'elle from whatever procedure he had used on him. Grin'elle stretched, seeming to glow with presence, then went to EVE/Athene's couch.

There were moments of silence, as we watched the now sleeping form of Athene Graham. "Sleep patterns indicate normal light sleep," Ishtar told us. Grin'elle stroked her black hair, falling loosely across her shoulders, then, ever the romantic, bent over and awakened her sleeping form with a kiss.

JERRY

We held our "relaunch party" at the Long family compound. I was in such a good mood, I had even let Ken, Spyik and Lazarus talk me into wearing a kilt for the occasion, though my clothing processor had some trouble retailoring a dress uniform jacket to work with the great kilt. Mike, of course, wore his full dress maroons in the Starfleet standard issue style, as always.

Zeb, Jake and Lazarus were dressed in the Starfleet uniforms we had gifted them. The ladies were, of course, fashionably late. Surprisingly, Ken had actually been several minutes early. "Ah was late to everythin' in my life but my own funeral," he explained. "So maybe if ah'm early for everythin' else, I'll be late for the next one." There was a certain cockeyed logic there.

The ladies of my crew had decided to "go native" and were wearing what passed for the local fashion. To be more exact, they were wearing what was passing for formal attire. Twentieth century breakfast cereals probably had more fiber in them.

That Llandhe would wear such attire did not surprise me. One of her hobbies has always been watching men develop apoplexy when she walks into a room. I wouldn't have doubted that Kraiggearra had worn such outfits before, but never where anyone other than Spyik has seen them. What caused me to nearly drop my teeth, my drink and my composure were the choices made by T'Saan and T'Trianguli.

I never doubted that they were attractive enough to display themselves, but I had never expected a pair of Vulcans to quite do so. The designer of those outfits had to be one of the great marketing geniuses of his time, whatever time that was. I thought about tranquilizers and cold showers, preferably liquid nitrogen.

"Like a brick for your sporran?" Lazarus chuckled into my ear.

"You'll pay for that remark," I muttered.

"Probably," he agreed.

Our last evening continued quietly, until Hilda rose to make an announcement. "Ladies and gentlemen, it is my privilege to present to you, in her first performance as a flesh and blood form, Athene Graham."

A curtain pulled aside, to reveal a stage. On it, Clive Valance sat at the keyboard of a synthesizer, Stephan Lynch tuned a guitar, and several other crewmembers fleshed out the band. A spotlight snapped on, and Athene Graham, whose songs had inspired the BATRON in battle, and the YEAGER as she faced certain destruction, sang for the first time as an organic.

Though it no longer had the augmentation of a computer synthesizing the voices of the greatest singers of all time, the voice had a certain almost magical quality. I could feel power surging throughout my body, and tried to control it, before my projected aura disturbed the psi-sensitives in the room. They did not seem to notice, but the aura seemed so strong that even one with my limited abilities could see it. I have no doubt that we were joined in that moment, a magical combination as powerful as any mechanical weapon ever created. 

The song had been recorded originally over three centuries before, by a band which had had one of the longest continuous professional careers with its original members in the history of their form. The lyrics spoke of fellowship, brotherhood and being as one. It was an appropriate song for YEAGER, a ship which could only be defeated if it chose to be.

They were also appropriate for another in the room, who stood apart from the rest, beneath a flag erected by Lazarus' twin sisters on a whim. I approached him. Nodding, he handed me a glass of fine red wine. We toasted the flag, hanging there above us.

"Under this flag, we are free," I said.

"More than any other," he replied. "Keep your ideals, my friend, even when others tell you they are wrong, inappropriate or outmoded. Especially then. You are the only judge you will ever face in this life than matters."

"May you find your Arcadia," I said.

"And you yours." There was a rustling of a cloak, and he disappeared into the shadows.

KOCHAB

"Confirming system cutout on return to our launch point," Kraiggearra was saying. "System removal at your discretion."

The boss would have like to have kept the BCD, of course, and the Chief Engineer would no doubt have sacrificed half his child-siring capabilities to have taken it apart, but they understood the necessity of what we were doin'. If the Klingons, Romulans, or any of a half-dozen other races or individuals, like K'Maurg got their hands on such a thing, they'd probably manage to screw up the entire multiverse. Personally, I was glad to see it go. Besides, if we were needed, it would only take moments to reinstall it.

Doctor Burroughs opened the panel and disconnected the leads from the device. He returned it to the small carrying case it had been brought aboard in, and closed it.

"Captain, you don't know the value of what you've done. Without the extraction you made, the Black Hats would have been in possession of some of the most dangerous technology in the universe."

"And yet, if we're very lucky," the captain finished, "we'll never see each other again."

"True enough, sir. My best."

"And to you, Doctor Burroughs."

Llandhe, long-since fully healed now, escorted him off the bridge. Minutes later, she reported the departure of the GAY DECEIVER.

"So Number One," the captain said, "the clocks have been corrected, and we're now back on patrol as if nothing other than a run-in with pirates had ever happened."

"True, as far as it goes," Mike replied.

"Systems check?"

"All systems operational, though Mister Reid reports a minor problem. No one seems to be able to beat Alex in the combat simulators."

"Oh they can't, can they? We'll have to see about that at the end of the shift. Take us home, Number One."

"Aye, sir." He turned to us. "Set a course for Starbase twenty-seven. Ahead transwarp factor two."

"Course plotted and laid in," I said.

"Execute."

The stars leapt past us, but the captain was wrong. We were just going back to headquarters. We were already home.