Skysaber's Choice

Part Seventeen

by Jared Ornstead

=====

	The Pheonix Mage was alone.
	Well, mostly alone. He turned to face Sailor Venus. "Well Mina, it
looks like it's just you and me once again."
	"And Lita makes three!" Cried out the loyal Scout of Jupiter, coming
up on his other side. Still, the prognosis didn't look good. The Scouts
had arrived to do battle, found out their enemy was an army of giant,
mutant cockroaches, and all of their carefully made plans vanished like
morning dew on the desert savanna.
	The situation looked hopeless. Susan, normally the most calm and
collected of the Scouts, had freaked when seeing their enemy's new
youma. Pluto had freaked *big* time. Although the Mage had not known
it, she had a weakness for cockroaches that bordered on phobia. Her
losing her presence of mind had undone the Scouts who had no liking for
the nasties but ordinarily more sense, and when the roaches turned out
to absorb direct magical energy (taking their first wave of attacks and
morphing from one foot long creepy horrors into thirty foot ones)
disorder had turned to rout.
	 Jared had plunged in among the enemy, performing the trick which had
slain two thousand ghouls in a few seconds. He'd run the length and
breadth of a huge swatch of the enemy line, covering over two miles in
the space of a heartbeat, performing a technique known merely as
Whirlwind Attack because it could seemingly strike everywhere all at
once.
	There were outright craters from where he'd hit the roaches, craters
dotting the whole two mile stretch in a ribbon fully twenty feet wide
from where he'd slammed power blows into literally *thousands* of the
creatures, crushing the pavement or walls beneath them.
	But causing no damage to the foe.
	Apparently the Negaverse magic enhanced their natural abilities and
those roaches took no damage from blunt attacks, which included his
hands in spite of their mystic training. If he'd only known he would've
done the same with swords, but haste makes waste in this case. Because
of the immense strain he could only do that particular attack once each
day,  since their magic made them immune to blunt attacks, there went
his martial art barehanded attack sequence.
	"You know," Jared said, holding swords from which gore now dripped
from recent attempts to hold the tide back. "Realistically, I should
realize that against a million or so of these guys they're *going* to
wear me down. But frankly I give no thought for that other than how it
would effect *you*. Odd what being immune to fear does to one. You
might have been better off if you'd fled."
	Sailor Venus shook her head, clinging to his side where they perched
on the corpse of one of the thirty foot roaches, while a tide of the
smaller ones milled about, and would presently reach them. "We wouldn't
last long without you, Jay-chan."
	"Jupiter Thunder!!"
	Both other heroes looked to where Sailor Jupiter had directed her
attack against the side of a large building, which came crashing down
on the street. The Pheonix mage was about to inform her that if his
open hand attacks wouldn't hurt them a building wouldn't do much more,
when he saw her idea. Grabbing both Lita and Mina in his arms he leaped
to the bridge the crashed building had created and from thence to other
safe perches until they were at the edge of the tide of refugees.
	It looked to be almost a million people, carefully herded here and
trapped. Soon the roaches would start to feed, and they'd have one of
the worst slaughters in recorded history. Some Dark General was
obviously floating somewhere gloating over all of the dark energy the
despairing crowd's feelings were putting loose.
	Venus looked at the crowd and shrugged, turning a fatalistic face
to her hero. Her eyes sparkled a bit and she sang a line from a play
they'd done in their collected dream. "What do you do when the going
gets tough and the journey is rough, what do you do?"
	Lita gave a chuckle that showed she wasn't about to give up yet,
responding to the line. "Courage take! For goodness sake. And when
you're out of courage and you're ready to break..."
	Both Scouts joined together in chorus. "You've got a father and
mother, sisters and lover. Pulling together we can work it out!"
	Jared shook his head ruefully, but the crowd was panicking less,
staring at them in awe. Anything that cut that dark energy would
potentially hurt their enemy, if only just a bit. So he joined in their
song. "All alone, we just can't make it. By ourselves we fall behind.
If we lift and pull together, we can help each other climb!"
	They might've continued, but at that moment Serena came popping out
from the crowd, hefted in Nodoka's arms so the tiny group could clearly
see her, and the little squirt was saying something."
	"Big brother! Big brother! Call for help!"
	His neurons were failing to fire and didn't process that request
immediately.
	"Oooh! Hey, yeah!" Venus contributed. "Try a monster summoning or
something! It can't hurt worse than we already are."
	~True...~ he allowed, setting the Scouts down and shooing her back
a safe distance. The crowd of refugees was steadily creeping back
before the tide of roaches, so as he was standing a little closer to
the things he had plenty of room in which to work. ~Might as well go
for the highest I can cast.~ He reckoned, crossing his arms and
summoning the spell energy.
	Serena inhaled as BIG a breath as she could summon and interrupted
his spell by singing aloud over the terrified heads of the crowd.

"Who are these children coming down?
Coming down like gentle rain through darkened skies.
With glory trailing from their feet as they go,
and endless promise in their eyes?"

	Venus and Jupiter met eyes, then stepped up behind him and sang.

"Who are these young ones growing tall, growing strong?
Like silver trees against the storm?
Who will not bend with the wind, nor the change,
but stand to fight the world alone?"

	Long ago, so far past in events (and because of their dream perceived
time) that he'd long ago forgotten it, the Pheonix mage had cast a
spell at the foot of Rae' shrine to summon a horde of Unseen Servants.
It had not failed as he'd surmised.
	As a D&D character he'd acquired quite a host of followers, up to a
small army in fact. The spell had brought them to his presence and
caused them to remain hidden in the back of events. Thus "Unseen"
Servants. Some part of that force had manifested when he'd cast that
wish, as Skywing Studios, but now a little something different
happened, as 'Unseen' was canceled from that gloriously.
	The Pheonix Mage had a glorious vision as his summoning spell ripped
out of his control via the girls' singing, a vision that was shared by
all as the clouds lowering above their heads suddenly came alight with
fire and as a heavenly appearing host descended to do battle with
darkness, those followers rained down in a glorious cascade, trailing
luminous streams of light as they glided in to stand among the startled
Japanese.
	These Heavenly Forces also sang, *thunderously*, the next lines of
that song.

"We are the few, the warriors, saved for Saturday!
To come the last day of the World!
We are they on Saturday!
We are the strong, the warriors, rising in our might
To win the battle raging in the hearts of men on Saturday!"

	While the Pheonix Mage's jaw dropped, almost torn from his lips came
the following phrase, as the Mage looked to the two Scouts to have
remained with him. Seizing both he placed a hand on each bottom and
raised them high, seated on the palms of his hands as he cried.

"Strangers from a realm of light, who have forgotten all.
The memory of their former life, the purpose of their call!"

	Mina's voice rose solo and crystal clear over the host, the villains,
and the refugees with Lita and Serena soon joining in beautiful
harmony.

"And so we must learn why we're here, and who we really are.
We must learn why we're here, and who we are!"

	The Scouts who were with him raised their voices in chorus as they
jumped down, taking the Mage's hands in their own and raising them
high. Both their voices rose to a backdrop of silver garbed soldiers
descending on winged horses and pearlescent wings. 

"We must learn why we're here, and who we are!"

	By now enough of the trailing warriors had touched down they began
to form into ranks and units, with snarling tigers racing ahead of rows
of elvish archers whose arrows rained down sleeting death among the
ranks of cockroaches while chrome-armored knights spurring winged
unicorns came down in a flanking action upon the foe.
	The front rank of elvan soldiers twirled their blades in a marvelous
display of skill and casual agility before falling upon the roaches and
butchering them right and left, while arrows pierced the unengaged
ranks and huge tigers tore upon the swarms of roaches and ripped
through them with savage efficiency.
	The entire army came marching out, as from the skies lowered a
magical battleship that also bore a decent resemblance to a Juraian
tree ship done in the form and style of Dr. Clay's Ladyship. A
battleship the Mage had built and mostly forgotten about because he'd
never completed its game stats.
	It was one of those projects he'd always wanted to finish.
	One thing was certain. It was the mobile base of his army of loyal
followers, and they continued to descend from its sides in a glowing
host of magical soldiers, armed with armor and flaming blades of fury.
Gliding for all the world as a gentle rain trailing clouds of glory to
stand on the turf of battle and hew apart cockroaches like scything
wheat, already opening wide holes in their entrapment line.
	Thus their words came with greatly increased impact in spite of it
being the chorus.

"We are the few, the warriors, saved for Saturday!
To come the last day of the World!
We are they on Saturday! 
We are the strong, the warriors, rising in our might
To win the battle raging in the hearts of men on Saturday!"

	This time the host *didn't* stop singing, but went on. The archers
had pierced certain of the ranks of roaches so that even an unarmored
man could flee through, and now moved to different targets as his
magical battleship's artillery began to rain down balls of fire upon
the roach youma holding their position to the sides and read of the
crowd they'd enveloped and previously held trapped. A trap that grew
increasingly meaningless as archers shifted to new targets and began to
devastate more of the seemingly endless lines of roaches, all the while
the forward troops had punctured through and now split into two groups
to press back the ends and force the openings wider.
	Jared was struck by a curious fittingness to the words as his
golden-mailed elvish troops wielding swords ablaze with fire (an easy
enchantment once you learn how) struck more forcibly against the ranks
of swiftly dying roaches.

"In our sun-bright armor we march forth to conquer all!
And with our swords ablaze with fire, we watch the darkness fall!"

	Serena, sitting on Nodoka's shoulders within the eyes of all the
crowd, stood upon this shaky perch and proclaimed. "Moon Power!" What
followed them was the appearance of her Sailor Moon wand and a
transformation sequence FAR more modest and less nudity intensive than
the Scouts had been regularly using around *him.*
	Jared began to suspect that it was because they rather *liked*
flashing him. Though he cared enough to cast a Limited Wish that her
secret identity remain a secret, to interfere with anyone recognizing
Serena through the sequence.
	Then again, she posed atop (a REALLY very stunned) Nodoka and
challenged the soldier by repeating her favorite line. 

"But first we must learn why we're here, and who we really are!"

	Serena stood tall atop her aunt's hair and melodiously sang the words
while both her arms spread in a plea to heaven.
	At this point some of the *crowd* joined in singing the chorus lines,
picking up bars as stabbing weapons and followed with an assortment of
sharp debris and knives, moving to face the roaches who had been about
to slaughter them, who were now devastated by arrows, granting the men
courage to face down the assault and actually cease being victims to
use their numbers!

"We are the few, the warriors, saved for Saturday!
To come the last day of the World!
We are they on Saturday! 
We are the strong, the warriors, rising in our might
To win the battle raging in the hearts of men on Saturday!"

	The crowd of Japanese citizens had long outnumbered the roaches, but
a people that were conditioned to ultimate obedience, and disarmed in
the face of what was thought to be unbeatable force wouldn't even think
to try defense.
	This time it worked.
	So long as what they used was sharp, once they'd begun to defend
themselves their efforts were quite successful. The tide of roaches,
unmanageable to even the Pheonix Mage, began to be slaughtered within
minutes between the loyal followers and the crowd.
	Mina's voice rang out again solo, singing slower to conclude the song
on an almost contemplative note as the victory became more assured.

"Who are these children coming down?
Coming down like gentle rain through darkened skies.
With glory trailing from their feet as they go,
and endless promise in their eyes?"

	Jared examined the tactical situation. He knew his followers, and
they were *very* well armed, outfitted because he hated to lose any of
them. Within were a thousand, two hundred paladins, and an equal number
of tiger cavalry, each armed with a special magic ring that he'd
learned to mass-produce and, now that he thought of it, would be of
*great* benefit to the Sailors, as it allowed one to shape it into any
hand held melee weapon one was able to use - and have it be magical.
	Actually, in the hands of paladins, those weapons were universally
enchanted to be a type of device called a Holy Avenger, and dang nasty
to anything they didn't like - which was the stuff of evil...
	Which just *happened* to be what they were fighting.
	Archers in rows formed up and loosed waves of arrows fit to darken
the sun, over the heads of charging knights on resplendent warhorses.
The handful of thirty foot roaches were the target of preference for
the knights, and so those went down in the first wave, then the
paladins were hewing about themselves with fury and vigor, holy swords
ablaze. It was to be a short battle from this point.
	It seemed that the use of magic objects against them did not allow
the roaches any chance to absorb that magical energy, and as the
knights and tiger-mounted cavalry beside them both wielded some rather
impressively enchanted blades. Together they cut a hole in the ring in
a second location and the advance of the roaches collapsed. Now it was
just a matter of hunting down their routed enemy and slaughtering them
in droves before they got very far. With the paladins able to Detect
Evil those roaches couldn't hide. They were as good as exterminated.
	He could leave the fight to them with no worry.
	Jared began to scan very lightly for the dark general that had to
be behind all of this. Then he turned around to address his Sailor
Scouts and his jaw dropped with a shout of horror frozen on his lips.
	Just as Queen Serenity cast the final spell on the last Scout,
causing Mina to lose all memories of her Jay-chan.

***

	Grey had been having a difficult and trying time. First he was
assumed to be one of the bad guys and when that was clearly wrong there
was the fact that simple weapons such as he had were insufficient to
deal with the problem at hand, though he'd tried. It felt like holding
back an avalanching sand dune with a toothpick, though. However much it
helped wasn't immediately noticeable.
	Out of the corner of his multi-optic eyes his sensors were tracking
Nuku Nuku in her equally fruitless endeavor to smash the bugs flat, and
they weren't having any of it (in spite of the major property damage
done trying). Luckily the bugs were having an equally hard time
catching or hurting the catgirl, and the lack of success of the
legendary android was mollifying his own lack of real impact.
	Motion sensors trilled a warning over in that area. Normally he
would've ignored it. In the mess of frightened civilians milling about
he was getting constant readings. However *this* one was hovering a
steady twenty yards above the nearest building.
	Grey spared a glance while three roaches did their level best to bite
through his legs under the gore dripping blade of the firefighting axe
he'd appropriated (no need to waste ammo when an axe did just as good
if not better). Let's see: Dark General, cape, white hair, it could
only be Malachite.
	Grey deployed the rail gun and hosed the general briefly with about
seven bursts of hyper-velocity depleted uranium rounds for the railgun.
The first stream of liquid silver put a blast directly in the back of
the cloak, causing the general to squawk like a duck encountering a
shotgun blast. Six other bursts streamed through the Dark General's
cape, leaving tattered rags to flutter to the ground accompanied by
motes of glittering dust. Somebody even gave Nuku Nuku a pair of
scissors and she was now zipping around snipping the legs off of roaches
by fifties, turning that tide around her.
	The cyborg went back to the task of killing roaches, feeling
considerably better about his lot in life. 
	Suddenly, he felt the strangest surge.

***

	Jared found himself stopped in the midst of slaughtering evil by the
horror he had found. Queen Serenity had taken her Scouts back, and he
could see it clearly in their eyes that not one of them would ever
again remember him and now their eyes reflected him not at all.
	The Pheonix Mage almost powered up to attack the treacherous Queen,
but halted when he realized that to do so would instantly make him the
enemy of the brainwashed Scouts.
	"Oh, you are a wicked, *wicked* woman." The Pheonix Mage mourned,
denouncing the Silver Queen even as his troops went onward slaughtering
roach youma.
	Queen Serenity's magic energies faded from the spiral they'd twisted
about Sailor Venus, completing the obedience and memory spell she'd
cast, one which was obviously better than the best countermeasure that
he could manage. She grinned in the way of those totally clueless to
the wants and needs of others. "I'm sorry, Mister Mage, but I cannot
have any of my Scouts giving their loyalty to anyone other than a
member of the royal house. I'm sure that you understand."
	Jared met the uncomprehending gaze of Jupiter and sorrowed, shaking
his head as he announced to the Queen. "You have taken that which was
most precious and dear to me and I have never done anything to hurt
you."
	The royal woman favored him with a regally pitying glance. "You had
undercut my authority." She said simply.
	"And what use is power save to serve others?" He answered, shaking
his head and trying desperately not to shiver and shake with rage. "No,
Silver Queen. By my definitions, what you have done qualifies as evil
of the most treacherous and lowly sort. Ordinarily you would earn my
ire and I would do everything in my power to fight you. According to
the Rules Of Law I could even join with Queen Beryl to fight you, as
assisting evil to destroy evil is allowed so long as no innocents or
good are harmed. *BUT*," he replied before the entourage around her
could go into wind up. "You're hiding behind a shield of those I most
love." He scanned the lineup of Scouts, now all in an array prepared
against him. He finally couldn't bear it and looked down, taking a
shuddering breath before he went on.
	"And so I must bid you sayonara. I shall not fight you. But never
again shall I assist you, nor even willingly look upon you. I shall
take what is mine and leave you to perish and die or prosper by your
own wit and industry. And know that if you ever should seek me out I
shall employ Every Power That I Possess To DESTROY You!!!" He said with
clenched fists and heated venom as he finished the last phrase.
	The Scouts all clustered about their Queen, wondering what the man
was so upset about. To look at them that way almost destroyed him, but
was made of sterner stuff. With a gesture of angry contempt he turned
his back and raised a hand, summoning a Worldgate and reaching for the
device that would call his army of followers into a retreat. Already it
was his plan to somehow drown the sorrow and banish the anger
threatening to canker his soul. He was supposed to remain a hero,
though the urge to strike out and just start killing startled him with
its intensity.
	"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!"
	Jared identified the voice as Rini's and didn't pause in his steps,
cloak swirling about him as he marched toward the Worldgate. Serenity
croaked some phrase that sounded like "Wait." and still he ignored her,
striving so hard to restrain the urge to attack that he remained
focused on his goal instead to leave. Someone rushed to him and he'd
almost backhanded her with lethal force before he'd identified who it
was.
	As much as he tried not to let anger rule him, this was a case where
it transcended his control and all he could think of was to get OUT of
there to where he'd no longer be quite so tempted to see blood fly.
	Yet Serena meant no harm, though it was obvious she didn't know him,
the concern in her eyes put a pause to her steps. Guided by her
pointing arm he gazed back just in time to see a grieving Queen
Serenity employing all of her magic uselessly to try and save little
Rini from vanishing, and it didn't work. The Spore vanished just like
she'd been erased.
	Jared suddenly, intuitively, understood and began to laugh, his anger
transforming to some relief in a knowledge of an unlooked for revenge
unexpectedly fulfilled. It diluted the rage enough for his control to
reassert itself, though it was a bitter laugh.
	"YOU!!" The Queen rounded on him.
	Jared was too helpless with reaction to even speak, and went on
laughing, knowing what he did about and finding her response a hoot. It
was the guy appearing in the gap between them that caused Serenity to
stop her intent of disintegrating the Mage with a Cosmic Moon Blast.
	"Queen Serenity," the man dressed like a Musketeer addressed the
Silver Queen. "Why do you seek to punish the innocent?" Before that
retort could earn it own ire the man went on. "For is it not your duty
to see *Justice* done?"
	The Queen reacted almost as if slapped. She was about to demand that
Nebula leave, he had been forbidden to attend the Royal Court when she
had dismissed him as a consort. Then she realized that he had somehow
been present at the time she'd teleported everyone with ties to the
Silver Moon back to her palace. As *she* had done so, and he was
clearly here in his role as the Knight Of Duty, then he had a right to
be present. For now.
	This realization calmed the Queen somewhat, and she nodded somewhat.
"Very well, Nebula, go on." Somehow in the last little while this odd
gathering had been removed to the palace in the center of the restored
Silver Moon. Almost idly the Queen restored those magics that gave the
moon a self renewing atmosphere and transmuted the layered ice into
air, freeing up the structures Jared's reversed fire had restored. With
a pulse of her power even the plants again began to be stirred to life.
	The man bowed to the Silver Queen and spoke. "Truly, your
granddaughter was lost by a fool's selfish quest for power, but it was
not the mage's doing. What sentence would you pass on the scoundrel who
destroyed your granddaughter?"
	Queen Serenity drew a *very* stern visage about her and reached to
a high stand by her throne, drawing up her wand of office. The crescent
Moon Wand began to glow as she pronounced. "Our law requires he be
punished, yet I would exercise mercy. So long as my granddaughter is
restored to me I shall let the scoundrel go unharmed, but I declare the
person who did this shall hold no station in the Silver Moon kingdom
forevermore!" Her eyes darkened, shooting daggers at Jared while the
Moon Wand continued to glow. "And if she be *not* restored this day, I
pronounce a sentence of death."
	Jared howled and lost muscle control, falling down. He was favored
pityingly by all of the Scouts as a *most* reluctantly redeemed
villain. While he was so caught between a pain of loss and rebound
reaction at what he knew that he became helpless, laughing even at his
own immense pain.
	"When is this sentence to begin?" The former consort inquired.
	The Queen smirked. "At sundown. Let him have time to put his affairs
in order."
	The man dressed as a Musketeer sighed. "So it must be, for you have
chosen your own fate, Queen Serenity. This man you see before you is
not your enemy, but according to the proper flow of time was to have
been the father of your granddaughter. It is you who sought to banish
him, and your efforts were so successful that your beloved
granddaughter could never come to be. It is YOU whose selfish quest for
power ended in the loss of the granddaughter you so dearly love. By
removing and sending away her father, erasing him from the heart and
mind of her mother, she was destroyed."
	Queen Serenity had gone several shades paler, yet had retained her
cool. "I would see some proof of this. Pluto, go..."
	A future Sailor Pluto faded into being right alongside the Pheonix
Mage, helping the man to stand in spite of the noticeable bulge in her
tummy, and finding her own amusement when the mage saw and she
indicated the responsibility for her condition was his. He fainted dead
away, and she almost had time to laugh before sobering and growing
*considerably* colder than even her formerly usual face and voice.
"Yes, Queen Serenity, I am here. I had isolated myself in a bubble of
time when I saw you ensnare the first of the Scouts. It is as Nebula
has said. It is you who are responsible for little Rini's ceasing to be
in this stream of time." The green haired Scout leveled a direct glare
at her Queen, ignoring the startled gaze of her younger self. "We are
now once more on course to the absolute destruction of this timeline
and all who dwell therein. Once more you have succeeded in putting to
death the *entire* Silver Moon Kingdom."
	The Queen flinched terribly.
	All of the Scouts took a step back from their Queen in shock. The
poor, abused mage chose this moment to awake from his faint and went
out like a light again when Pluto told him softly as an aside that this
was their second child.
	Nebula bowed and disappeared, saying. "My duty here is done."
~Besides, you forbade long ago that I should walk these halls, lest I
influence my daughter unduly.~
	Future Pluto stood tall, letting the obvious state of her pregnancy
upset her not at all. "I should never have permitted this man to raise
you from the dead. But now, the man you owe your very life to, you
couldn't wait to dispose of, and as a direct result all of time is
lost. The last vestiges of your kingdom end here."
	Future Pluto took her garnet capped staff and tossed it to the ground
in a gesture of finality, and whose crash incidentally woke Jared up.
He'd been having a rough day and it *wasn't* getting easier.
	Pluto caught him up on events.
	Queen Serenity sat down in her throne like the legs had been cut out
from under her.
	Jared started looking around, searching for a way out from under the
renewed wards over this place so he could again cast a Worldgate, and
wondering sorrowfully if he could spend any time with Pluto before the
motion of the time stream erased this version. There wasn't anything he
wanted *less* than to watch these guys he loved annihilated, and didn't
know a single thing he could do about it. He couldn't remain, and
doubted Serenity's spell would vanish just because she'd banished
herself. Her magic still wasn't something that he could face yet.
Leaving him with Scouts who not only *did* not, but COULD not come to
know him (he'd been able to read the weave of that spell she'd put on
Venus). Without their trust he could never regain what he'd lost,
(their love) and didn't wish to remain around the lovely, breathing
reminders of what he could no longer have. No wish at all.
	"Wait."
	It took no small amount of courage for the Queen to say that. Jared
paused, looking back. Serenity had drawn herself up, shouldering the
look of a woman in tragedy but willing to persevere in spite of that.
"Jared Saotome, you are to remain."
	"For what?" He asked simply, cocking his head. "There are other evils
to fight, and other allies. Perhaps the next set won't turn on me the
first opportunity they get."
	The Queen was surprisingly passive at this rebuke, and bowed her
head. "I am still Queen here until sunset, you will obey me until
then." He was all caught up ready for a 'why should I' when she went
on. "If you wish for me to allow you to regain what you have lost."
	He stood instantly frozen. 
	Future Pluto hid a grin and vanished, having reclaimed her staff and
unobtrusively taking the two moon cats with her.
	Queen Serenity spent a moment composing herself in grief, though
those with the perception could tally up the hours she'd later spend
crying over the whole thing. "I declared that no one outside the royal
house should have the loyalty of the Scouts. So therefore by my own
words I must admit you to have my granddaughter back."
	He lost most of his intent to leave, yet remained wary all the same.
She had proven FAR too dangerous, and willing to do this once she might
find a way to do it yet again once this present threat had passed,
dooming them all as there would *always* be another.
	Yet perhaps this was a game he could play. After all, she was losing
considerable power at sunset. If *he* was royal and she was not, this
had possibilities.
	Serenity rallied enough that she went on. "But first you must prove
yourself worthy of that honor, as it has never been bestowed before
now. In part because we have never asked. It was enough for the royal
line to have consorts." Her enigmatic face concealed the thoughts. ~In
part for other compelling reasons.~
	He cocked his head calculatingly, trying not to seem too eager for
this blessing, the love of his friends, to be restored. Though it was
something he just couldn't hide. "Tell me what I am to do."
	"Tell me about Mars." The Silver Queen commanded.
	Jared smirked, producing a laser pointer and photographic display
of the planet. "You see here the planet named for the Roman god of war.
A red surface primarily of iron oxide, otherwise known as rust..."
	"No." The Silver Queen commanded, glancing aside at Sailor Pluto.
"I wish to know of the Mars Campaign you'd spoken of in hints and
references."
	Jared inhaled and looked about the room. If the Silver Moon had a
recording system this would be on it. Still, he had never been that
fanatical about obeying the rules and never personally felt that
mission should be classified. But in spite of all that it felt wrong.
He spent a long minute in agony and turmoil over it, then caught Mina's
curious yet impersonal gaze.
	"What do you want to know?" He concluded finally.
	The Queen smiled softly. He would've gotten offended but for the
grief there. Still, he felt compelled to add. "I owe these people
friendship, if not loyalty. Please do no harm to any of them or treat
this information lightly."
	Serenity gestured acknowledgement of this and that he should go on.
Yet Jared still wrestled with what he could only view as a betrayal.
Then a lightbulb came on over the young man's head, and he regarded her
more perkily. With a short bow, he began. "Silver Queen, you are the
ruler of this solar system, which encompasses Earth as well as other
planets?"
	Surprised, she gave a nod.
	His grin was back with more genuine feeling in it. "Well, I guess
that places you in a position above the United Earth Government that
gave the charter that founded the group that established the security
that classified that assignment. As you *also* lead the system defense
force (which I don't think you should do, frankly, as, though you've
got mercy and all that kindness stuff down which makes you a great
ruler in peacetime, or so I've heard, those aren't the same gifts you
want in someone to lead a war. But anyway), that would grant you a rank
equivalent to Marshal in the RDF which outranks my piddly little
Captain self, and so you've got both the clearance to hear this and the
rank to demand it. Ahem."
	Jared found a seat on a short marble pillar and settled in for a
tale, feeling both some pain and a surprising level of release in
relaying this. The secret had been bottled up for too long and was
finally coming out. "Well, it all began on my part the day before the
graduation ceremonies of Veritech Flight Academy. I was called to the
office of the senior officer of the academy along with a friendly rival
of mine. I was veritechs and he was in destroids, but this didn't stop
us from being close competitors. Both of us were not only the best but
almost exact opposites in every way that can be expressed. I was a
master of a highly combat oriented martial art called Flying Tiger Kung
Fu, while this friend of mine was a Drunken Style Kung Fu master. The
creases on my uniform pant legs were so sharp you could shave with them
and this guy, well if he ever changed or washed a single uniform, or if
he even *had* more than one, I never knew of it. But we *were* the
best."
	He gave a short chuckle. "You can just ask any of the thousands of
Zentraedi we later killed if you want confirmation of that."
	The pilot sat cross legged on his pillar and diverted his attention
out of the rank of glittery windows toward the beautiful Earth hanging
resplendent in the distance. "Like all the rest of that base, when the
call came for us to report, we were officially on a day off before the
ceremonies that would graduate us. Interrupting myself in the middle of
a party me and my dorm mates had been having, I used a martial arts
technique called Mystic Invisibility to vanish out of plain sight in
the middle of them and used an array of techniques collectively called
the Art of Stealth to sneak past sentries and get myself over to the
office. The only reason I *did* so was that it was something of a
double contest with my rival. He would use his tracking skill to find
me or try to beat me to anything where we both were summoned. In this
case it was a tie. I got there just as he was crawling out of the
ventilation ducts into the briefing room." 
	The veritech pilot sprouted a wry smirk in remembrance. "I can
*still* remember the commander's face on seeing the contrast betwixt
us. Me in my 'crisp so clean it shined' and him with mold and
ventilation dust dripping from his recent escapade. It wasn't the first
time he'd seen it, either, so there was some longsuffering mingled with
that face he made. To cut out the useless frivolities he made us an
offer to be assigned to a special unit, higher pay, more action, better
equipment and perks, the only catch was we couldn't tell anyone about
it and, as a result of that, our families were to be notified that we
had died in training accidents." The expression of pain that crossed
his face was very well hidden. "We both accepted. No sooner had we done
this than we were informed to take our bags (which had been packed for
us during this briefing) and told to report to a docking bay where we'd
never been, and not even been *close* to the entire time we'd spent on
that training base. In there was the finest veritech I'd ever seen and
the best destroid as well. These were not only new from off the
production lines but had an expert team go over them with a fine tooth
comb, if they hadn't been built specially that well in the first
place."
	The pilot grinned somewhat and focused back on the Queen. "Before
flight training I had worked on experiments and prototypes, never very
pretty. All sorts of wires hanging out and bulky monitoring gear and
stuff. During the Grand Battle I'd had a hand-me-down that had been
rebuilt a couple of times and still had stains in the cockpit from how
the *last* pilot had met his end. Then in flight training where they
made us 'official' pilots they had only the dregs that could be scraped
up and weren't terribly well repaired. Joints were stiff and half the
controls were only partially functional. Some built in equipment didn't
work and the seats might as well have been torture devices. Here were
some of the finest mecha ever built and they were *ours!* I spent a few
minutes just enjoying the feel of the seat cushions, and the controls
were so smooth I may as well have been in Heaven. My buddy felt much
the same, going over the destroid of his choice." His eyes grew less
fond in remembrance and then a trifle more dark. "Then trifling details
began to hit us, like they were both painted flat black without
markings and were strapped into orbital launch sleds. I don't think
I've seen an orbital launch unit for a destroid before or since, and
neither had my companion, but there was one there. We had a minute to
stow our belongings before we were ordered to make our launch, and it
*wasn't* that standard control people in the tower I'd grown used to
training there who gave the order OR our flight clearance. In fact with
one thing or another they had arranged for the entire base to be
looking the other way as we took off so that I doubt more than four
people saw us, total."
	His eyes twinkled yet his face dropped lower towards the floor.
"That, I'm afraid, was a prosperous start to one of the longest brushes
with death I have ever heard of any men surviving. Internal guidance
packages of those boosters led up straight to an orbiting debris
field." He glanced up and met various female eyes. "You have to
understand that Earth had just, and only just, barely survived an
attack by an armada of billions of space warships. The entire solar
system was just a mass of floating wrecks and smashed war machinery
from the fight. Unexploded missiles and whatnot soaring so far up into
the uncountable realms that I don't know of any number large enough to
express an estimate, to say nothing of all of the unknowns associated
with a galaxy-spanning armada, all of the weird stuff they might have
had knowing or unknowingly, and the basic yet still dangerous hazards
of what radiation and ordinary clouds of particles can do all on their
own. And to top it all off, this debris field had been deliberately
mined to detect and eliminate intruders."
	He chuckled. "And that was the SAFE part of the trip. Anyway, after
many threats and warnings about how without those guidance routes
through the mines would've blown us so far into oblivion you'd have to
look up our parents' hospital receipts to tell if we were even born, we
arrived at an orbiting space station." His expression cleared more
brightly as he looked more closely at the Scouts surrounding the Queen.
"It was posh, very posh. You could tell no expense had been spared
creating that thing. It was slick and so polished that the toilets
would fog if you breathed on them. The whole station gleamed like a
trophy that never got any work done except cleaning dust off itself."
There came a much drier chuckle. "Which wasn't too far from the case.
But we arrived, and after landing our mecha were seen to by a deck crew
that looked like their clothing and tools had just been pressed and
steam cleaned moments before, while we went off to a briefing."
	The pilot inhaled and exhaled very slowly and deliberately, calming
himself for what was to come and setting his shoulders against it. "The
commander there congratulated us on being inducted into Shadow Force,
an elite special ops group meant to carry all of the worst and toughest
assignments in the RDF, and do so without being noticed. They gave us
new uniforms, all black, no insignia save for rank (and that could be
hidden by a foldable pocket tab). With the uniforms came our crew
quarter assignments and after a brief settling in talk we were free to
find our way to our new homes."
	Again he inhaled and closed his eyes. "I'm glad our stay at that base
wasn't that long. We weren't even there a full day before our first
mission assignment came and we were off, and as I said, I'm glad. It
seems every word or gesture from every other person there was a pecking
order contest. I was straight out of camp and I had more combat
experience than some of those guys, and I could take any three of them
in or out of a mecha, but every one of them took the time to put me
down. I *hate* folks who grow so interested in status they forget what
they're supposed to be doing. It's the same thing my mom found among
the scientists, where it didn't matter how good, knowledgeable or
effective she was, only how many little badges and trinkets of worldly
praise she'd collected that *said* she knew alot or was good at her
job. And sadly the best people at collecting those little trinkets are
also the *worst* about actually doing their jobs!"
	Serenity frowned ever so slightly and the Pheonix Mage found he'd
been staring at her and diverted his gaze away, then chuckled. "You
know, I am hardly qualified to say that anymore, seeing as how I've
three times been awarded the Defender of Earth star, which is the
highest form of badge or trinket the RDF is capable of offering, and I
am one of only two people to ever receive it more than once, the other
being my friend." He laughed and struck a tear from out of his eye.
"And to date one of only six people to receive the medal *at all!* Two
of whom were on my team at Mars. So outside of our small little group
that precious little trinket has received practically no claimants, in
spite of all the heroism during the war."
	He leaned back on his precarious seat. "But on to the subject at
hand, my friend, my buddy and rival, whose callsign was Ursine or the
Black Bear, had the curious ability to whip up a party out of
practically nowhere. In spite of being on station less than a day and
not at all well received by our fellow pilots he put together the Major
Social Event of the Decade to honor our graduation and it was so well
attended we had to leave not only our quarters but that part of the
station to get any sleep."
	He chuckled. "Actually, we'd missed most of our own party. It'd
hardly even started when we went to their arcade and blew a few hours,
then when we stopped back by we saw what we *didn't* want to
participate in, grabbed our things and left." His eyes lightened and
his smile returned. "But that's okay. I slipped into sick bay and used
a cot there, while I believe the Bear found himself a good roost in a
garbage pile somewhere." 
	He focused a sharp eye on the Scouts and their Silver Queen, judging
their reactions to what he was about to say. "Did you know they used a
quad style dormitory approach to the quarters? Four bedrooms, two baths
and a common room with attached kitchen. Ursine and I roomed with two
cute girls also stationed there. Frankly, I don't remember what their
duties were or their names, only that one of them invited me to her bed
the moment she'd first met me, and the other gave an identical offer to
the Bear." Jared was carefully judging expressions here, and was
disappointed at the complete disinterest he found there - no emotional
ties at all. He sighed. "I turned her down, of course. I simply don't
do that sort of thing. Not without wedding rings. The bear was more
gruff about turning his offer down, but then he was more gruff about
everything he ever did, so that's not odd. Slovenly on the outside but
pure as gold at the center." He smiled and cocked his head slightly to
the side.
	"I don't drink either, and neither did the bear, and without drinking
or sex there wasn't much we wanted to be involved in up there." Jared
paused, suddenly introspective. "You know, it never struck me before,
but a Drunken Style master who didn't drink? Odd. But he never touched
the stuff, yet it seemed he could reek of alcohol on command." The
redhead shrugged. "I had to turn down the advances of a nurse to get a
place to sleep in sick bay and I believe my friend had a similar
repeat. There are times when I really wonder what was up that somebody
in power thought it was so important to seduce us, but they failed."
	The pilot stretched and yawned and winked an eye, declaring
pompously. "As all shall fail who try to ensnare my body without first
offering her heart. Ahem, but I guess all that is a tangent. Still, I
wonder what the Shadow Force command was trying to *do* to us, because
seduction is an espionage control tool and that was an obvious setup.
But in spite of our not drinking the guests weren't as temperate and
that place was a mess. Luckily our flying orders came the following
morning and we, the two of us, were to leave immediately to relieve
Mars Base."
	His lips quirked a sardonic grin. "So someone else got caught
cleaning up that mess, which was a fair trade as neither my friend nor
I had any part in making it. Anyway, the order came and I vanished and
under maximum stealth made my way to the briefing room, while my friend
used his ability to track me. Fortunately this time I succeeded and got
there a few seconds ahead of the bear dogging my footsteps, where we
were given our orders to set out, and that our mecha had already been
prepared. Frankly it was a good thing neither of us had unpacked."
	The pilot's face darkened. "The problem, of course, was how to get
there? It took a ship *months* to cross the space between Mars and
Earth under normal drive, and our little craft were too small to even
consider such a thing. The answer came provided, of course. They were
going to strap each of our mecha into its own fold device." Jared's
face came up and he seemed very relieved to deliver this next bit of
the story, at the same time touching an old wound doing it. "They gave
us all the assurances that this was the standard way they traveled,
perfectly safe, did it *all* the time, and of course I'm looking
through records a few months after the fact and discover that not only
were they lying through their teeth, but these had been special fold
probes prepared BY MY MOTHER to perform experimental hops in system to
see why the original space fold device aboard the SDF-1 had failed, and
give us some data as to how to avoid those catastrophic failures in the
future. Also, these were the very first of their kind and this was to
have been their very first use. The Shadow Force goons decided this was
the *perfect* way to deliver two pilots and their mecha to Mars."
	He smiled and some of his gladness returned. "Thankfully, my mother's
math was very, very good. The extra weight of us strapped to the probes
shot them off-course by a half a million miles, so close to Mars that
we could detach and be there in under an hour, but astronomically
speaking only a fly speck away from having been fossilized in the
planet's dead core. Naturally we knew nothing of this and were happy
that it worked so well and got us so close to target."
	There came a strange glint to his eye that was hard to decipher. "It
was the first time human made fold devices delivered anything anywhere,
not to mention live personnel. Oh, and on the preprogrammed return fold
back to Earth both probes vanished and were never heard from again.
Thankfully, we were on Mars by then, but I do wonder at how casual they
were being with our lives."
	He leaned back on his perch, uncoiling somewhat and trying to relax,
not even aware of his strain in going through that admission. "Arriving
on Mars, we had to go in outside of our own radar scopes at Lisa base
and find ground a ways away. Shadow Force had given us the location and
codes for a bolthole. That was ingenious and fairly useful, actually.
It saved us from being easily found by our enemies and thus harder to
attack, though it *did* have the drawback that it was almost impossible
to defend the base properly. Our bolthole was in good shape, a mecha
garage with repair tools, and spartan and dusty yet serviceable living
quarters."
	He glanced up to see how his audience was taking this. "Originally
there had been two bases built on Mars, by opposing sides right before
the great Global War. As they knew they were probably going to fight
each other they'd included weapon systems and scattered boltholes for
the upcoming action. When the fighting started on Earth they'd quite a
long delay before it caught on Mars, because both sides suddenly
realized they'd quite a bit invested up there and could lose it so
easily. But the war eventually spread, as they are wont to do."
	His lips quirked a grin. "Our new home was a hole in a rock wall that
could only be entered by a mecha pointing  communications laser into an
unobtrusive pinhole in a rock and then transmitting the correct
passcode. It was practically invisible from the outside when the door
wasn't open. The one we entered hadn't been used since the whole system
had to be abandoned, you could tell by the things in the cafeteria and
officer's club. The posters in there were as old as I was, and the
music in the sound system, the records in the bolhole's admin office,
everything you ran into in that place told of how swiftly it had to be
abandoned so long ago. The Shadow Force people at Lisa had snuck in
spare parts, missiles, some equipment and supplies, but hadn't ventured
beyond the garage."
	Jared shifted his position in his seat, now perched crosslegged on
the pillar. "You see, both our bases on Mars were built back when the
earth was preparing for the Global War, and those boltholes included
because of the anticipated fighting. Then, when the war spread up
there, both bases were subjected to low orbit neutron bombing,
rendering them uninhabitable by the radiation levels. They had to be
evacuated, and the boltholes never got used as intended." He grinned.
"Both sides thought that they had this great plan to take the other
base without destroying its equipment, and both sides were sure the
other side hadn't though of it, and so both lost." 
	He sighed, growing introspective and hugging his knees. "Mars Base
Sara *and* Mars Base Lisa had been so irradiated they could no longer
support life. Some men were to have been evacuated, but the escape
ships shot at each other and I don't know of much of anyone who
survived. They'd never included radiation shielding of the level they
needed for fear of tipping the other side off to their plan, and each
wound up with near total losses. After the crash of the SDF-1 and
during the war with the Zentraedi, the battlefortress made an emergency
trip to Mars responding to a distress call. It was faked by the aliens,
who'd set a trap, and the bait was the equipment and tools still left
at our bases. General Gloval made a stop at Sara base because that's
where the phony distress call came from and also the base of the side
he'd been on during the earlier war. When the aliens pulled their trap
Sara base was annihilated and the SDF-1 ran out away from Mars as fast
as her disabled engines would take her."
	The pilot grew more distracted and less involved in this part of the
tale. This was all background data anyway. "After the Great Battle,
some of the remaining RDF personnel were sent to Mars to reinhabit the
remaining base there: Lisa, the one belonging to the side that killed
my father. Unfortunately, the crews had been there only a few weeks
when they found the giant aliens had crashed by the thousands on that
planet and were a great threat to their survival. The ship that'd
dropped them off was called back, but it would take weeks to come pick
them up and they weren't liable to last that long."
	Suddenly he acquired a cocky grin. "Enter us."
	The redhead leaned back and began to enjoy his tale. "Fortunately,
the bad guys during the Global War had been experimenting with giant
mecha even before the arrival of the SDF-1. What they had wasn't a
patch on what we later developed, but it was enough of a start that the
hangar bays of those boltholes still fit the new mecha. We unloaded a
chest full of new tools, and that was it. It was us against an army
with the Lisa base as the stakes."
	He shrugged. "We were settled pretty quickly as neither of us had
really unpacked from leaving school. Then we went out hunting bad guys,
and we found 'em." The redhead shook his head in memory. "*Boy*, did we
find 'em!"
	Drawing his knees up to his chest he addressed the Sailors. "For
those of you who don't know much about the Zentraedi, they are a race
of human clones expanded to fifty feet tall and trained exclusively in
fighting. Their ignorance of anything aside from war is what enabled us
to beat them in the last few battles of the First Robotech War, as they
weren't able to deal with singing, boys and girls together, or any
aspects of ordinary culture and life. We'd just broadcast a girl rock
star and kill them while they tried to deal with the shocks of a lovely
voice and a short dress. And they were ignorant of technology as well,
many of them could never replace a battery in a flashlight until you
described how. The Masters who had created them automated everything.
When those machines ran out the giants simply didn't know what to do.
If their rifle jammed they'd get another or do without, as even
something so ordinary as clearing a jam was beyond them."
	The young man sighed into his knees. "The reason they classified
everything there so deeply, apart from the secrecy we worked under, was
that the Zentraedi on Mars were adapting."
	He gauged the girls' reaction with his eyes. "The first group we ran
into had taken parts from human mecha they'd destroyed and fitted them
for their own use, something no giant should *ever* have been able to
do. All of their equipment was in tip top shape, as fully repaired as
if it had just come out of a factory, fully loaded as well, and none of
them were doing without anything at all. They each had mecha. There
wasn't a footsoldier among them and even the pilots carried full
personal armor and firearms inside their cockpits. We met a dozen of
them not all that far from our cave and they gave us a few surprises as
we toasted them. Then they just kept coming and coming, and..." He
chuckled. "We learned the value of stealth that very first fight, as
there didn't seem to be any end to their reinforcements. The heavy
cannon from some of our nastiest destroids had been built on as
additions to their war machines, and that wasn't the worst surprise."
	Again he scanned his small audience. "Hundreds of their warships had
crashed on that planet, and they were repairing them. More than that,
somehow, from somewhere, they had produced Robotech terraforming
machinery. They'd set up thousands of little factories producing
molecular and field changes that were steadily turning that dead ball
of rock into a breathing world. My friend and I were very, *very* good.
We killed something like two or three *hundred* of those guys in our
first fight in spite of all their changes. But it was a drop in the
bucket. We ended up slinking away, damaged and out of missiles, using
the crashed machinery we'd shot down to shield us from their flybys as
we snuck off to get repairs."
	The pilot sighed again. "I want to stress to you how very good we
were. The marvel of Robotechnology is the blending of human skill with
mechanical ability, and we were both masters of our martial art forms.
The enemy required something like six on one odds merely to have a
decent chance to hit us. We were blurs we could dodge so fast, and our
return fire could kill one of them every few seconds. Our primary
limiting factor was how much ammo we had, and we didn't often miss. The
Bear slaughtered whole fields of their battle pods, wavering drunkenly
as he did so (remember, he practiced Drunken Style), and I took on as
many of their flying mecha as I'd ever seen in one place outside of the
Grand Battle. It was only the second wave that included fully four of
their dreaded female power armor, the flat out nastiest Zentraedi
combat machine earthlings ever faced, and I took them all out within
seconds, then the waves after that and the waves after those. I think
it was after the fourth wave that we decided we weren't getting
anywhere. There were fields of downed mecha around us by then and they
just kept coming. Our armor was badly beaten up and we were low on
firepower, so I hid inside the hulk of a downed fighter pod and reduced
power to standby, while my friend (who was farther distant, having
greater range) trundled away until he found a cliff to hide under. By
bits and pieces we made our way away to hide in our hole and fix up the
missile craters and beam gouges in our mecha's armor."
	The pilot smiled. "Did you know we took a prisoner? It's true, I
punched through the shield of her power armor and hauled her out before
it crashed, then knocked her out and snuck with her back to our hidey
hole. Only her personal environment armor had saved her life from the
atmosphere-less environment, but when we'd gotten her back we found to
our surprise our little bolthole had the machine necessary to reduce
her to human proportion. So we did. Then a Zentraedi patrol appeared
outside and kept zooming closer and closer to our location. They were
so near and getting nearer that I had to race outside to take on three
FPAs (female power armors) in my damaged and unrepaired veritech, and
vanquish them before they could make a sound over their radios. After
taking two more prisoners of those three we found that their
environment armor included a tracking device that had never been
included in any Zentraedi equipment before. We'd nearly died because
the personal armor our first prisoner had worn brought them to us.
Luckily we got in touch with command at Lisa base, and an agent there
sent us the location and codes for another bolt hole, where we
relocated, dropping the three girls' shredded armor off at the battle
site where we had first beaten them." His eyes were a little wide and
he was shaking his head. "To find that already Zentraedi were out there
salvaging the wrecks to take back and repair."
	The head came up a little more boldly. "From there the fights kind
of blur together. I'd tell you numbers if you had any chance of
believing them. Doing the impossible became our daily fare, and the
stunts we pulled to stay alive would've been considered suicidal by
anyone not so deep in the mire that death was never more than a
heartbeat away anyway. They declassified parts of our flight recorders
in order to make training and motivational films, though to the best of
my knowledge nobody ever was able to duplicate half our stunts or even
*wanted* to. Diving a veritech through close canyons to evade a missile
barrage'd be considered by most more dangerous than the missiles, but I
did it more times than I can say, and I had to. Those FPAs would launch
a hundred missiles at me at a time once they'd identified by my plane
who I was. After our second mission we'd mixed Martian sand with a
clear base paint and repainted our mecha to the local camouflage color
just to have an extra chance to stay alive. I learned how to apply the
Art of Stealth to a veritech despite the fact that it can't ordinarily
be done, and that wasn't the biggest trick we pulled."
	A sharp glint of cocky pilot began to show through. "We were putting
each other in for every kind of commendation and medal that existed,
and because we had the evidence to back it up we were even getting some
of them. They turned down over half the requests just on the general
principle that no one should get so much so fast and *still* I walked
away with more braid than half the generals you'll ever see. Not to
mention we'd been keeping the promotion board up at night increasing
our ranks. I don't know that anyone anywhere had ever gotten promoted
so fast."
	He shook his head gladly at the thought. "I became the most decorated
pilot in the history of the RDF, and there were pools running as to the
shortness of my lifespan, 'cause even with the secrecy we were
*supposed* to work under the reports we were sending back were so chock
full of vital, detailed information and ground breaking material that
it was getting out anyway." His smirk reappeared. "And since we'd been
uncovering scientific facts about the powers behind our enemy my mom
soon got to see those reports, learning that I was both alive and not
expected to remain so."
	A smile began glinting. "I had no idea what was going on toward
earth, but at some point we were no longer reporting to Shadow Force. I
assume their station was destroyed unknowingly by some of the fighting
still going on, but I don't know. All I *do* know is that somewhere in
there we began reporting through the regular command channels again and
I'm not even sure when or how that happened, but I'm glad."
	He sighed and shook his head. "It was a wild time for us. Every so
often they'd allow R&R for us. My discipline slipped and the Bear
acquired some, though not much. The first time they allowed us to take
a breather, using a Martian modified thruster jet to grab some down
time at Lisa base, we were both so wound up our party became a major
production number. I literally danced on the ceiling and that was TAME.
I think Bear actually managed to pick the lock on some officer's
quarters and left some practical jokes that still live on in infamy. Of
course by then we were both officers ourselves, but it was good luck we
flew home before the cards were all in and the posse arrived."
	His eyes grew glad just thinking on it. "Not that we did anything
destructive, but we'd taken to breaking the laws of physics so long ago
that we couldn't stop once it came time to wind down. Our second trip
to Lisa base also turned out to be our last, and only the start of
things to come." He chuckled and grew a smile, leaning back. "In point
of fact that was when things started to become more interesting."
	Jared inhaled deeply and let it out, feeling good to release all of
this. "We got two extra veritech pilots shipped in, new recruits like
us, and the prisoners were helping around in our hidey hole, having
acclimated nicely in a short time of movies, dancing and careful
instruction in human ways. We took more prisoners and were blowing away
the enemy in fights where we were pulling maneuvers that you ought to
see only in special effects. Our flight recorders became some of the
most popular motivational films back on earth, and we busted up some
assaults on the base in between harassing the enemy and repairing our
mecha. Sometime in there I got a wing blown off by the hottest female
ace I'd ever flown against. That was the closest I ever came to being
shot down. She took out that wing and froze a leg, forcing me to land
as my thruster's couldn't sustain me. But my hands worked fine and I
ripped open the armor seal of her cockpit and yanked her out of her
seat, knocked her out with a blow and slid my veritech right into the
cockpit of her own mecha and piloted it home."
	By now he was finally noticing that we was getting wide eyes and
gaping mouths from his audience. He smiled. "The veritech was made to
duplicate these giant warriors in size, and I used that in ways the
designers never thought of. I'd have my veritech wear the enemy
uniforms to slink in and spy on their bases, always leaving a huge
explosive behind of course, and there were times when I'd even pilot
their mecha, using my veritech to fit in their pilot's seat and work my
controls to get my veritech to work *those* controls to fly the alien
machine. But I digress. We got home, started repairs, sent back our
reports, and were running short on reload missiles armor and things so
we asked for a supply drop. We were told to wait for it, and in the
meantime go to Mars base for some R&R. So we stuck our new prisoner in
the sizing chamber, got that procedure going, then hopped in an old
aircraft that had been converted to thrusters and left in a corner of
the bolthole. It was tricky to fly then because the Zentraedi were
making more air all the time and by then we even had small breezes
blowing about, which turned into huge gusts unpredictably and without
warning, but we managed."
	The pilot smirked. "As our days were full of fighting, by the time
we got any R&R we were so wound up we almost went insane blowing off
the steam that'd built up. Like I said, we made only two trips to Mars
Base before it was evacuated again by the same transport that had
dropped those personnel off to reactivate it. Zentraedi activity was so
high around then that the transport had been turned around and was
burning extra thrust to come back and pick them up again. I don't
remember much of our first trip other than I blew every high score in
every video game they had but one, and that I danced on the ceiling. I
think the four scores above me in the veritech simulator got there when
some hacker cheated. We also danced and ate real food, got all the
wholesome entertainment we couldn't hiding in a hole in the ground. The
second trip was more memorable because we never even went near the
arcades. I forget what the others did, but I'd gone straight to the
beautiful botanical gardens and started singing. I sang like my heart
would break, and lost myself in it. Someone on the command deck
overheard and patched me in to the entire complex, and I'm told I sang
so well I hypnotized everyone there." He chuckled a bit. "Which turned
out to be a bad thing because I was not a half hour into this when the
Zentraedi attacked. Although, I remember right after my first song,
before I *truly* mesmerized myself and everyone else around me, a guy
acting like he was a black market type approached me and gifted me with
a harp he'd found under circumstances he failed to share. It was
pretty, with strings made from multicolor beams of light, and I played
marvelously on it. I've also kept it with me from that time ever
since."
	The mage turned pilot and superspy reached behind him and took out
a full size floor harp from out of stuff space, upon which he gazed
fondly and his fingers lightly touched the strings. "I learned a little
later that this is a Cosmic Harp, a truly powerful toy used by the
Robotech Masters to...."
	A light came on in the Mage's eye, and he stroked the strings evoking
a beautiful trill of harmony. "Well, let me show you." He began to play
a beautiful if wordless melody, adding a wry quote. "I *told* you I was
a devoted Minmei fan."
	And then he began to sing, playing on the Cosmic Harp.

"There's magic in the air tonight, 
The moonlit stars are burning bright, 
Your face glows by the candlelight - 
It's all because tonight's the night. 

Now hold my hand and take this ring 
As we unite in harmony. 
We can begin to live the dream, 
The dream that's meant for you and me... 

To be together 
For the first time in our lives 
It's us together. 
As married man and wife 
We'll be together from now on, 
Until death do us part - 
And even then I hope our heaven lasts 
Forever. 

I promise to be always true, 
Until the very end with you, 
In good times and in bad times too 
I know that we can make it through. 

As one united we'll be strong 
Because together we belong. 
If I could sing to you a song, 
I'd sing of love that won't go wrong, 

If we're together 
We'll make a brand new life for us together 
As married man and wife 
We'll be together from now on, 
Until death do us part - 
And even then I hope our heaven lasts 
Forever. 

We'll stay together from now on, 
Until death do us part - 
And even then I hope our heaven lasts 
Forever. 

I know forever we will always be 
Together."

	Serenity's brow furrowed. That wasn't magical, still, the effect was
quite...
	"JAY-CHAN!!!!"
	Jared was swiftly buried under a pile of eager Sailor Scouts with
shining eyes and renewed memories, knocking over the man and his harp
in a joyous avalanche of hugs.