====================================== Episode #123: Preparations for Battle Reel 1 ====================================== Sailor Orion drummed her fingers idly on the armrest of her chair. There really wasn't much to do right now; they couldn't leave, since they would then lose the trail of Number Two's ships. Staying, however, was quite boring. This system had four planets: a barren ball of rock just a few million kilometers away from the primary, another planet that was in a rather auspicious position, but didn't have any water, and two gas giants. She'd lead all the exploration expeditions she could think of, but the planets really weren't too dissimilar from their counterparts in the Solar system. Thus, she was quite bored when the call came up from Engineering. "Sir," called out Kim, "Engineering reports that the tracking device is ready." "Already?" "Yep, they're working on getting coordinates for the Dark Kingdom ships right now. They say that they'll be ready in just a couple hours." "Great," sighed Orion. She turned to Sailor Moon, who was standing next to Vanessa. "You know what this means?" "We've got a patent pending?" joked her first officer. "No, it means that as soon as we get a fix on where those ships went, we're going after them. We could be in a battle situation very soon." "And we're not now?" "Humor me, Sailor Moon." The pink-haired senshi frowned. "There's not a whole lot of time left for humor, captain." Orion sighed. Why did her first officer have to be so damned right? "I've got it," said Eric as he rushed onto the bridge, flanked by a couple of rather enthusiastic engineers. He brandished a handlink and tossed it to Kim. "That has the coordinates of where Number Two's ships went." "Which," noted Antares, "may not necessarily be Selenite's home base." "No," said Sailor Orion, shaking her head, "she's got to be there. It's the only possibility that I can reasonably consider. If she's not there, then she's close to it." "So," asked Sailor Moon, "do we Fold?" It was a purely rhetorical question. The engineers were already on the way back down, and the Trio was making preparations. "Attention all hands," intoned Sammy, "prepare for Fold operation in four minutes, say again four minutes and counting." A clock on the wall clicked and began counting down. The volume of the room increased by a bit as the threesome began speaking orders into their headsets. Orion spoke into hers as well. "Engineering, the moment we defold, I'm going to need the Gertie warmed up. Can you handle all that?" "Certainly, sir." "Good." She reached down to the control pack on her hip and switched to another channel. "Infirmary, stand by for possible injuries, okay?" "With all due respect," came the reply from Dr. Sampson, "I know what to do when the Fold notice goes up." "Just making sure," and then she switched the channel off. Glancing over to Sailor Moon, she saw that her first officer had made similar preparations. "Sir," said Kim after awhile, "I've made some slight modifications to the coordinates. Apparently, they're too close to a rather large gravitational well for comfort, so I've moved it about five AUs from original. Is that okay, sir?" "Completely, Kim. In fact, I should have thought of that. Thank you." She hadn't anticipated the spacing of planets and ships on the other side of the Fold. One couldn't Fold inside a ship or planet or anything. It was a basic tenet of the underlying theories. If you tried, you'd be 'pushed' out and reappear right next to whatever you'd tried to Fold into. When Folding, matter couldn't overlap. However, there were no rules against Folding *next* to something, and it was entirely possible that they could Fold right into the sights of a hostile ship. The move of their defold coordinates several million kilometers away was a decision Orion should have made automatically. She looked over to Sailor Moon. "Are you sure you'll handle this?" Moon managed a smile. "Come on now, I'm a princess. A little thing like a Fold shouldn't hurt." "Good." "Fold in one minute!" *** Chibi-Jen wandered on the bridge, clad in a rather small but still baggy black jumpsuit. She had to admit that coming out in the open about her existence probably wasn't the best of ideas. For one thing, there were the clothes. She'd been rather used to wearing whatever she wanted, and now being required to wear the regulation black uniform was a pain. Also, there was the attention being lavished upon her by Sailor Orion. Or rather, the complete lack thereof. She knew that the captain had other things to deal with, such as the upcoming assault on Selenite's planet. She also happened to know exactly what the results of the attack should be, so she wasn't particularly anxious. But there was the plus. She now stood unchallenged on the bridge of H.M.S. Pleiades, and while the ship wasn't exactly spoken about in the tones one used when talking about Santa Maria, Nautilus, Enterprise, or other naval firsts, it was still a notable thing. She'd been in the midst of history for the past three years, though, and she'd like nothing better than to get out of it. That wouldn't be happening until this was over, though. "Chibi-Jen! What are you doing here?" asked Orion sharply. "What do you-" "Um, captain, I think I'll handle this." Sailor Moon bent down next to the little girl. She had a fairly good idea of why she was there. "Um, can you . . . er . . . that is, transform or . . . ." "No." "No?" "Nope." For once, Chibi-Jen wasn't cheerful. "Heavens knows I've tried, but I don't think I've got the senshi gene." "Nonsense," said Orion, who happened to be listening in. "Fold in ten, nine, eight-" "It's been proven that latent senshi abilities are a dominant trait!" "By who?" asked Chibi-Jen mildly. "-five, four, three, two, one, zero." The soft gonging began, and then stopped. Sailor Moon grimaced momentarily, then recovered. "Sailor Orion, may I note that all those studies are based upon a single case, namely mine?" "Well . . . ." "Well, there you are," said Moon, finishing Orion's statement. "But . . . it's not fair!" "Is it not? It's not fair to be doomed to your fate at the start, without having the slightest bit of say in matters? It's not fair to be told from birth that you've *must* be Sailor Moon, that you *must* fulfill your destiny? I'd say that this is Serenity's luckiest relative yet!" The bridge fell silent. Sailor Orion didn't know what to say. 'She's been holding that in for so long,' thought the captain. "Is that how you really feel?" It was a long time until she answered. "I . . . I guess so. I just want my niece to have a choice, that's all." Orion put a reassuring hand on Sailor Moon's shoulder. "She will. She will if I have anything to say about it." She intentionally hardened her expression and spoke more loudly. "Now lets get to work, people." *** "Defold in five, four, three, two, one, NOW!" H.M.S. Pleiades dropped back into reality about five astronomical units from a star which had previously had only a catalogue number, but which now bore the proud name bestowed upon it by the ever-imaginative crew. "Sir, we're now in the Dante system. Damn," said Sammy, who rarely swore. "We're pretty lucky, sir. We aren't detecting any ships within visual range, and . . . I think I've found Selenite's planet. If I'm right, it's on the other side of Dante right now. I doubt there are any DK ships around, not right now." "'Not right now' being the key phrase," said Orion tightly. The screens showed Dante blazing away, a yellow star that was edging towards red. Whatever the outcome of the coming battle, it was clear that astronomically speaking, Dante wasn't long for this world. Vanessa, an amateur astrophysicist, agreed. "I give it another four or five hundred million years." "Right," said Sailor Moon. She looked at a corner of the screen. "Um, Kim, can you magnify section G-6?" The requested part of the picture was blown up, and they could see a gray ball. "Sailor Moon?" "I don't think so," said Vanessa. "More like a really small planet, about twice the size of Luna." "Hmph. Can we use it to hide?" "We should. We're still waiting on the spectrometry reports, but preliminary results say that it should be opaque to radar waves." In other words, yes they could hide behind it. "Good. Maneuver us to about four kilometers above its surface." "Aye." *** Sailor Moon had fought long and hard, but finally she'd managed to convince her captain. Moon's contention had been that they would soon be in enough danger, and therefore Sailor Orion should stay on the bridge. It hadn't been easy, but she'd gotten her to agree. Sailor Moon wasn't too sure that it was such a good idea, though. "So," said Sailor Moon, "you've piloted these things before?" Kim permitted herself a quick sarcastic grin. "Once or twice." "Good. Now-" "-am I familiar with the course and mission plans?" Moon was taken aback. "Um, yes." "Yes. Ready to leave whenever you like." Sailor Moon stood behind Kim, who was in the cockpit. Behind Moon were the eight others who were going with them. They had an extremely perilous mission ahead of them: at close range, inspect the large fleet Selenite had to be preparing. The plan, like so much going they had going into the system, was jury-rigged. They would whip around the sun, picking up enough velocity to coast through the midst of the fleet, and then shut down everything but life support and sensors. They would then float through the fleet, taking pictures and readings of both it and the planet on the way through. The flaw in the plan was rather obvious. By shutting down the engines, they would be at the mercy of luck and Newtonian motion. Unfortunately, only the latter could be predicted by computer. There was a very good chance that one of Selenite's ships would cross their path, and they wouldn't be able to avoid it. The hope was that by flashing through without emitting any energy, the fleet would pass the shuttle off as a stray asteroid. The top officers had argued over it, but it was decided that it was the best way to avoid detection. They all agreed that surprise was one of their few advantages, and that they had to make full use of it. Thus, they couldn't betray knowledge of their presence to Hell. Not yet. "Right," said Moon after pondering these things. "Let's go." *** "Shuttlecraft Virgil is on her way out, sir," said Vanessa, looking nervously over to Kim's usual station. "Very well," said Sailor Orion, sipping a cup of hot chocolate. Chibi-Jen had suggested it, saying that it calmed her down in the future. At first, Orion hadn't known quite what to make of that remark, but she'd eventually decided that it couldn't hurt. For her part, Chibi-Jen was sitting in her aunt's usual seat looking idly at one of the clocks on the bridge, one that measured total time from the time they'd left Earth. "You've been out here a long time," said Chibi-Jen. Orion didn't answer. *** The worst part of the trip was the journey to close to within a couple million kilometers from Dante. There was nothing to do during that time but calibrate their instruments, look through heavy shielding at Dante, and worry. Sailor Moon didn't like it at all; she'd much rather be rushed into it all at once rather than just twiddle her thumbs and wait for the action. "ETA, Kim?" Kim made a strange noise, somewhere between a frustrated sigh and a scream of anger, and then composed herself. "It's hard to say, sir. It depends on how intense the stellar radiation gets." "Best estimate?" "Four hours until we intercept the Fleet." "Great." *** Four hours later, Sailor Moon had nearly driven the rest of the shuttle's occupants insane with her prattling and nervousness. "Okay," said Kim, "I'm going to shut off power now. Are all instruments ready?" A chorus of confirmations came from the back of the craft. "Good. Cutting in five, four, three, two, one, zero." The craft went dark and eerily silent. Due to basic mechanics, they wouldn't stop, but carry on in a straight line, neither speeding up nor slowing down. It would get rather cold, though. The crew had anticipated that and wore heavy overcoats in addition to their rather warm jumpsuits. Sailor Moon insisted that her fuku insulated against the cold, but a jumpsuit and coat had been stowed away anyway. Kim went back to the rear of the craft and grabbed her coat. Pulling it on, she looked over to their commander. "You're sure you won't need a coat, sir? It's going to get down to minus twenty before we can turn the power back on." "That's okay," said Sailor Moon, checking one of the flashlights strung along the corners of the ship. "My mother handled the cold at the North Pole, I certainly can take it out here." "As you'll have it, sir," said Kim. She zipped her coat, then buttoned it up to her chin. As additional insurance, she pulled on a wool cap, gloves, and a muffler. She looked more like she was going to go play outside in a Crystal Tokyo snowstorm than preparing to make detailed observations of a Dark Kingdom ship. The rest of the crew was similarly attired. It made moving around difficult, but it kept one warm, with good reason: cabin temperature was already down to three degrees centigrade, and breath was condensing everywhere. She booted up a battery-powered computer, one of the largest electronic instruments they carried. It weighed just under ten kilograms. She began punching up routines painstakingly programmed earlier, designed to make the most use of the time they had. The readings began to come in. *** On a Dark Kingdom ship, a rather low rating noticed a blip on his sensor screen. Based on infrared readings, he decided that it was an asteroid. He alerted his superior, who alerted *his* superior, and so on. Eventually, it got to the captain, who reported to the commander of what was known as Sector Three, a random chunk of space above Hell. The commander simply issued a warning to all DK ships to watch out for yet another piece of junk. Then he got back to the important business of preparing for the upcoming conflict with Sailor Orion. *** Sailor Moon was in a pickle. The main reason was that she didn't have anything else to do. She was just the supervisor; everyone else was taking readings of the ships they passed. She simply stood over them all, and froze. 'I won't feel the cold at all,' thought Sailor Moon bitterly. 'What the hell was I thinking? I'm freezing to death here!' She walked over and checked the small mercury thermometer that some forward-thinking engineer had thought to place on the wall. The mercury was close to the bottom of the bulb, just below the minus thirty degree mark. Sailor Moon repressed a shiver and looked out a frosty window. The ships were out there, but in the blackness of space they could only be seen as rather shadowy shapes that blocked out the stars. It was the fact that she could see them at all that worried her. That she could see so many with the naked eye alone certainly wasn't a good thing; it almost insured that Selenite's fleet numbered in the hundreds, possibly thousands. And precisely what could they hope to accomplish against a force of that might? 'That's what we're here to find out, my dear,' she thought to herself. She shivered again, and her teeth began to chatter despite her efforts to the contrary. She swore silently and eyed the coat hanging on an outcropping on the wall. She found herself wondering idly how it would feel to be cocooned in a nice, warm, fuzzy garment like . . . no, she wouldn't do that. A Tsukino never backed down. Four seconds later, she decided that family honor could take a flying leap, and grabbed the coat. "Took you long enough," said Kim from behind her scarf. The black scarf hid her smile as she watched Sailor Moon hurriedly pull on and fasten the coat. "I believe you'll find it better if you detransform as well. You'll get the insulative properties of your jumpsuit as well." Sailor Moon merely gave Kim an icy stare. "Thanks a lot." "Just trying to help, sir." "Well, I can't detransform, not when there's the possibility that I'll have to bail us out with the ginzuishou. Do you have a spare scarf around here?" "Yes, in the second storage locker down behind you." Kim turned back to her work, but continued to address Sailor Moon. "Couldn't you just use your crystal to warm things up around here?" There was a pause. "Really, Kim, I'm disappointed in you. Surely you'd know that the ginzuishou emits much the same signature as the shuttle's power supply." "Magic isn't one of my strong points, sir. Thirty-two degrees, two minutes, 5.00439 seconds," she added, speaking over to another woman, who scribbled the numbers down. "Sir," she added after a time, "we've got some preliminary findings about the size and strength of the fleet." In the cockpit, audible to all, an alarm went off. "Proximity warning," muttered someone. "Calm down, people," said Moon. "There's not a lot we can do about it. It's only a code yellow, and in any case if we did an engine burn, they'd be all over us. You were saying, Kim?" "Okay." She took a deep, cold breath. "Okay, surrounding the planet with more or less equal coverage are 8543 ships. Many of them are probably good for just one interstellar trip, but that's all they'll need." Sailor Moon was still a bit behind. "There are *how* many ships?" "Eight thousand, five hundred forty-three. Shall I break them down into their classes? Four hundred fifty light cruisers, three hundred transports-" "That's quite enough. We'll save that for the briefing back on Pleiades. What are they packing?" Kim sighed, and the cloud of condensed air that expanded from her scarf lingered for several long seconds. "What *aren't* they packing, sir? They've got everything, lasers of every frequency, warheads, some nuclear, perhaps even some grapeshot, but we're not sure." "Damn." Even the grapeshot could be deadly if fired at sufficient velocity. "And they're all carrying these kinds of weapons?" "Not all, sir. In fact, quite a few of them appear to be support ships. But there's more than enough fighting ships to give us trouble." "Estimate?" "About sixty percent." Moon made a noncommittal monosyllable. It was bad news, but good news at the same time. Most fighting forces had huge support divisions, sometimes outnumbering the actual combat troops by four or five to one. By putting most of her manpower in fighting ships as Selenite had, she was broadcasting that she was gambling everything on getting Earth in one fell swoop. Whatever damage they could do would greatly increase the chances of Serenity's fleet back on Earth. Assuming, of course, thought Sailor Moon, that they've gotten word of all this. There had never been any response to their desperate signal some months ago. "Sir," said Kim, "it looks like we'll be clearing the fleet pretty soon. We can flip the power back on in about two hours." "Good. Start stowing your gear. We've got to get back to Pleiades with this." "Aye, sir."