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Episode #103: Leaving the Nest  
Reel 1  
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	BRRRRIIIIIIINNNNNNGGGG!  
 
	In a darkened room, slowly and stealthily, a hand reached out from
under the covers and slapped the pestilent alarm.  Suddenly, the head of the
owner of the hand popped out from its warm cocoon.  A smile creased her
face, at both the love of the 31st century for such archaic devices, and one
other thing which had just recently begun to please her.
 
	"I'm going to be a Sailor Senshi!" said the contralto. 
 
***

 	Jennifer Sakachi looked about the room, trying to see if she had
missed anything of importance.  For the past two hours, she had been busily
packing her bags and boxes, filling them with the paraphernalia of seventeen
years of living: her favorite books, a plush bear, figurines of the senshi
that had been a staple of every young girl's toy collection, a battered
handlink to the SI, and her favorite, a copy of Sailor Pluto's _A History of
Japan, 1900-3020_.  Or rather, the index.  The entire fifty-three volume set was
already packed and on its way to the Tsukino State College, more commonly
known as the School.
 
	She paused, cradling the index in her hands.  It had been a birthday
present, an inheritance really.  The previous owner had intended to give it
to his son, but the son died of injuries suffered in the Second Sailor Wars. 
So the volumes, history of those same wars included, had been given to a
close friend, who just happened to be Jen's mother.  Her mother, in turn,
had given the whole lot to Jen on her tenth birthday.  An unusual gift for
one of her age, but she had been interested in history back then.
 
	She smiled.  They would never know, but that volume, not any latent
abilities, had turned her on to history.  Before, her interest had been a
sort of fad, and without it she probably would have moved on to something
different.  But the mysterious Pluto's dry texts fascinated ten-year-old
Jen, and made her want to find out more.  So she had.
 
	She went to the library, and got more books, more in depth, for even
fifty-three volumes wasn't enough to give a full measure of 1120 years of
history.  She read of the tumultuous twentieth century, the near-death of
Earth in the twenty-first, the pivotal events of the twenty-second, all the
way to the events still fresh in the minds of many: the Black Moon, the
coming of Chibi-Moon, and the tragedy of Castor and Pollux.
 
	By the time she had advanced to the point of packing her things to
go to the School, she had built up a knowledge of history that quite
overshadowed her peers.  She had read the gamut, from Mesopotamia to Crystal
Tokyo, focusing on the Senshi's reappearance in the late twentieth.
 
	It was all in her hands, the stories of men and women (usually
women) who had lived and died, shaping the world.  and now she was going to
be one of them.  Assuming, of course, that she made it through the School. 
Passing the Exam was in no way a free ticket to receive the fuku.
 
	Snapping herself out of her reverie, she tossed the volume on the
bed.  She'd read through it on the way to the school.  True, most people
would consider reading an index the driest of dry reading, but for her it
was different.  It was going through reminders of things she had read.  It
was, she decided, a quick review of humanity's latest millennium.
 
*** 
 
	It was mid-morning, and Jen was saying her first good-bye. 
 
	"Well, Jen-chan," said Kanomi, "I wish you the best of luck at the
school."
 
	"Thanks." 
 
	"Oh, and Jen?" 
 
	"Yes?"  They stood outside the Sakachi's modest residence, while
Jen's father and a couple of his brothers packed the last few things into
the car.  In a few minutes, it was off to the school, where she and her
parents would say good-bye, and where she would have to get her acclimated
to the most intense school on Earth.
 
	"I just-" 
 
	"Wait.  Aren't you supposed to be in school right now?" 
 
	Kanomi blushed and brushed one foot with the other.  "Um, actually,
in a manner of speaking . . . "
 
	"And you're doing this just to say good-bye?" 
 
	"Err, that is . . . " 
 
	"Kanomi-chan!  I'm touched!  Really!" 
 
	They hugged, in a moment that had the movers "aww-ing." 
 
	"Now Jen-chan, no flirting with guys on first sight, okay?" 
 
	"There aren't any guys." 
 
	"Well gee, you don't have to be so serious all of the time!  I mean,
you're the history freak, you know what happens to terminally serious
senshi!
 
	"Well, no one really knows enough about Pluto, Uranus and Neptune
are pretty good, Pollux . . . okay, I see your point."
 
	"Good!"  Kanomi was positively beaming.  "Now have fun!  Just
because you're going to be a senshi-"
 
	"Assuming I graduate." 
 
	"-assuming that you graduate, doesn't mean that you have to live the
life of a nun or something."
 
	"Fine, fine, I'll get out." 
 
	"Good.  Now get along; your parents are waiting." 
 
	"Okay."  Jen began to run over to the car.  The last words from
Kanomi that she heard were:
 
	"Don't do anyone I wouldn't do!" 
 
	Jen jumped in the car, and with little hesitation they sped off to
the remote school.  She began composing an essay on the malapropos
similarities between Venus's twentieth century persona and Kanomi's current
one.
 
	Kanomi composed no such essays.  She merely watched the car pull
off, and stood for a few minutes.  In many respects, Jen was her only
friend.  Kanomi's parents had lived on the moon for her entire life, helping
in the archaeological digs that had continued unabated for hundreds of
years.  Coming back, she had found that social cliques formed far faster on
Earth than on her closest sister.  Jen had been her only peer similarly left
out of the loop, due to her burgeoning interest in history, and the two had
become fast friends.  Kanomi had always thought that Jen had something
special, that she was destined to be something more.  She had always seen
herself as a foil to Jen somehow, serving to accentuate her superiority. 
And now she'd gone and passed the exam.

	Of all the humans on Earth, Kanomi knew her friend better than
anyone.  Kanomi knew that Jen would get her own starship, and that would be
the end of their friendship; mindcasts were the only form of communication
not subject to the light-speed barrier, and personal messages were frowned
upon.  She only hoped that Jen took care of herself.  After all, she had
learned many lessons first hand about the vacuum.
 
	It got very cold and lonely in space. 
 
*** 
 
	It was anything but cold and lonely at the School when the Sakachi
clan, three strong, pulled up to the security checkpoint.
 
	"Party?" asked the guard. 
 
	Jen blinked; the guard was a full fledged senshi, complete with
fuku.  For them to waste a precious senshi to guard duty illustrated all to
clearly what the Powers That Be thought of the assets within.  Her father
replied.
 
	"Sakachi, party of three." 
 
	"ID?"
 
	After a bit of scrabbling, the necessary cards were given to the
guard.  "Shame about these cards, isn't it?" asked the senshi.  She seemed
to hate having to swipe them through the scanner; she'd much rather be on
some sort of active duty.  "What with everything going on out at the border
and all."
 
	Jen's father muttered something noncommittal. 
 
	"Oh, well everything checks out."  She handed the cards back over to
him.  "Enjoy." She craned around to see the back seat better.  "So this is
the candidate, eh?  Good luck!"
 
	"Thanks!" 
 
	They continued around the driveway to the door of the school.  Since
they had been expected, a couple of male porters waited to carry Jen's
possessions, or at least those that she had either chosen or been allowed to
take with her, depending on importance.  A striking young woman in a
business suit also waited and spoke with the Sakachi as they stood outside
the car.
 
	"Now, the arrangements have already been made; you should have
received the documents last night, correct?" Jen nodded her confirmation. 
"Good, now if Jen-san will just come inside when she's ready, we can get the
formal registration out of the way." And with that she drew away, knowing
from experience that the final good-bye at the doors of the School was one
of those things best left unobserved by outsiders.
 
	Alone, the three stood uncertainly for awhile, not knowing with
which of a million different things to say.  So they simply looked around at
their surroundings.
 
	The School was rather nice looking, and had nothing of the citified
air about it.  In fact, it had been located hours from the Crystal Tokyo
metropolitan area for precisely that reason.  The School looked very
pastoral from the adjoining road; many passers-by mistook it for a farm, and
those who happened to draw nearer assumed that it was some sort of private
estate.
 
	Which, in a way, it was.  It was a very exclusive place; one hundred
students maximum per year, an equal number of teachers and tutors, and a
support staff of fifty.  Add to that the actual senshi who dropped in from
time to time to teach special courses, and you had a population of about
275, on the average, with a student-teacher ratio most schools could only
drool over.  Nothing but the best . . . including several tennis courts,
indoor and outdoor tracks, playing fields of all descriptions, a nearby
lake, Olympic swimming pools . . . and those were just the recreational
areas.  The actual residential and academic resources could, and did, fill
an entire book.  Suffice it to say that if students at the School wanted for
anything, it wasn't because of a lack of material.
 
	Nothing was too good for the students.  After all, they would be
entrusted with the defense of Crystal Tokyo and all of humanity against
anything and anyone.  True, the Senshi, all two hundred and ten of them,
hadn't fought a non-human foe since the Black Moon War, but the price
of peace is eternal vigilance.  And even without youmas, there was still the
human element.  The lesson of Sailor Pollux had been hard-learned, and
separatist movements within the Kingdom were always to be watched.
 
	So they stood, looking around the buildings that made up the School,
which were a curious amalgam of Classic, Romantic, Baroque, Rococo,
Neo-Classic, Modern, Abstract, and a dozen other architectural styles.  This
interested Jen; she would have thought that the builders would go for a more
predominantly Greco-Roman style, considering the mythological roots of many
senshi names.  She continued to distract herself, trying not to think about
the task that still lay before her.  Her attempts were thwarted by her
father, who had decided to bring things to a head.
 
	"Well, I guess that this is it."  Which it was: for the next year,
she would not be allowed any visitors, nor would she be allowed to leave
School grounds.  The resemblance to a military school in this department was
quite uncanny.  "I guess I'll be seeing you next at graduation."
 
	"Yeah."  They left unsaid the fact that while seventy-five would
enter the School, history dictated that over fifty percent of all students
flunked out before graduating.  Last year had been extraordinary; a failure
rate of seventy-six percent that had left a mere handful of senshi, almost
all of whom had been immediately put on active duty in the fleet.
 
	"Jennifer," said her mother, "I know that this has come up so fast
on us; seems like yesterday that you were just any other teenager.  I know
this is hard, but don't get too big of a head.  Yes, you're the best
according to the Exam, and you'll always be the best in our hearts, but it's
a big universe out there, and . . . ." She turned away, fighting a furious
battle with her tears, knowing that she would fail.  "Please, just do your
best.  You've made us . . . you've . . . it's been . . . oh god!"
 
	And the tears fell from three sets of eyes, as they embraced for the
last time as Jen Sakachi and family.  If all went well, the next time would
be as a sailor senshi sworn to defend and protect the Queen and all she
stood for.  After a few minutes, Jen finally drew away.
 
	"Well, I'll see you around?" she asked, wiping the tears away.  Her
parents nodded their assent.  "Great!" she said, showing a lot more
confidence than she felt.  "Drive home safely!" With that, she turned on her
heel and entered the School, while her mind screamed at her to turn around,
go home, and enjoy being a teen for the last time.
 
	Her parents watched her go, watched her open the door, watched her
enter, and listened to the slam as it closed automatically.  There really
wasn't anything else to do; the rest was up to Jen.  So they walked back to
the car and pulled away.  As they did, they noticed another car pulling into
the School's drive.  Apparently, another parent was going to say good-bye to
his or her girl.  Their own loss too keenly felt, they never looked back.
 
	That was probably the central reason why they never saw the other
car, with mother, father, two brothers and one of Crystal Tokyo's best hopes
for a Sailor Senshi, explode into flames that rivaled the noonday sun.