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Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Orion 
A pretty original fanfic by LeVar Bouyer 
Episode #310: Saturn in Two Acts 
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Crystal Tokyo
5 April 3035
 
	She had to admit that their reasoning was sound.  She'd tried again
and again to find a hole in their logic, a crack in their armor.  She had
failed.  Damned if she was going to give up easily, though.  "Okay," said
Sailor Mercury, "I really think we should wait before making a move like
this.  If we give her more time-"
 
	"Time is just what we don't have, Mercury."  Sailor Neptune seemed
terminally patient from her seat.  All the planet senshi except Venus,
Saturn, Pluto, and Jupiter were around the conference room table, along with
Endymion.

	The most notable absence was Neo-Queen Serenity herself.  She sat
alone in her chamber at the very top of the palace, still maintaining the
fragile shield over the city.  Sailor Mercury had made sure that medics were
with Serenity at all times, but that was all.  Few knew the strain she was
under: for the most part, the public, press, and even a good part of the
Palace staff thought she was perfectly fine.  As per Sailor America's
recommendations, that was the way things would stay.
 
	Sailor Neptune looked around the table before proceeding.  "The war
has been on for over a week.  Not only is there no end in sight, but now
with this heart crystal business we're losing both ground, manpower, and
senshi.  We have no choice, do we?  We all love Sailor Jupiter, but she had
her opportunity, and she failed.  It's time for someone else to have a try."
 
	"But . . . but she's been under considerable difficulty, hasn't she? 
Another week, that's all I ask!"
 
	"In another week, how many more senshi, how many regulars will die?"
A simple questions, with a simple answer.  They didn't know.  The only
person who might have known was Sailor Pluto, and she hadn't been seen for
months.  "With no objections, then we'll conduct the vote of whether or not
we have confidence in Sailor Jupiter.  Sailor Mercury?"
 
	"Yes." 
 
	Neptune's mouth tightened at that, but she gave no other sign of 
disapproval.  "Sailor Venus?" 
 
	The image of Sailor Venus, who was on the Moon, nodded.  "Yes."  
She was damned if she would give up on her Mako-chan. 
 
	"Sailor Mars?" 
 
	"No."  She hated herself for it, but she simply couldn't see any way
around it.
 
	"Sailor Jupiter cannot vote, and neither can Sailor Saturn, as
decided earlier.  Sailor Uranus?"
 
	"No." 
 
	No surprise there.  "I vote no.  Pluto is absent, Her Majesty
can overrule any decision . . . that leaves you, Sailor Moon."
 
	Sailor Moon rested her head on her hands, gazing around at the
senshi.  There were some analysts who were already proclaiming her to be the
great compromiser for her seeming ability to make both sides happy in any
dispute.  No-one knew how many more centuries the present queen would reign,
but it was generally accepted that the next queen would be as good as, if
not better, than her mother and namesake.  At the same time, she was still a
sailor senshi, and it was as a sailor senshi that she was being asked to
decide the fate of Sailor Jupiter.
 
	She weighed the pros and cons.  On the one hand, Jupiter had not
accomplished the missions that had been set for her: namely, to hold off and
quickly defeat the invading allies.  Until recently, simply fending them off
had been all that was possible; now, defeat was looking more and more
likely.  Already, the strategists were looking into putting defensive
emplacements on the northern tip of Honshu, and plans were being made to
fall back to Sapporo as a last resort.  Clearly, Jupiter wasn't doing an
effective job.
 
	However, she was doing the best job that could be expected.  Jupiter 
hadn't foreseen the Allied use of the Heart Busters; no-one could have 
except Her Majesty's Department of Intelligence, and the failures there were 
too numerous to mention.  How the Allies had cracked the secret of such a 
weapon was still a mystery.

	In Hokkaido, Jupiter had had to deal with twice as many enemy
numbers as Saturn had in Kyushu, with more ground to cover, more civilians
to evacuate, over the worst terrain the Japanese islands had to offer.  One
could be charitable and say that she had pulled off a series of miracles
just to get them to this point. The question before them, however, was if
the Senshi of Death and Rebirth, the Messiah of Silence, the one who held
the most mysteries next to Pluto, could do a better job.  Sailor Moon
thought she knew the answer to that.
 
	"Your vote?" asked Sailor Neptune. 
 
*** 
 
	Sailor Mintaka came to the door and knocked gently.  "Sailor
Jupiter?"
 
	"Come in," came the tired voice. 
 
	Mintaka was a hair taller than Sailor Mercury, and was a distinct
oddity: of all the senshi, her blonde hair was the only hair to come in
curls.  She straightened her orange skirt and yellow bows before proceeding. 
"Sir," she said without preamble, "I have an order for you.  You're to
report to Earth Headquarters immediately.  En route you will meet Sailor
Saturn and transfer your command."
 
	The green eyes blinked, uncomprehending.  "What the *hell* are you
talking about?!"
 
	"Furthermore," continued Mintaka shakily, "you are hereby relieved
of your duties as Deputy Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, by the
order of Neo-Queen Serenity and recommendation of the sailor senshi." Sailor
Mintaka was crying now, not believing that she could be called upon to tell
one of the *planet* senshi to pack it up and go home.  "I'm so sorry, Sailor
Jupiter."
 
	The mind of the senshi of thunder reeled.  'This couldn't be
happening,' she told herself, 'this simply cannot be happening.  This entire
spring has been a nightmare, any moment I'll wake up and it'll be January,
before any of this madness started.'
 
	"Sailor Jupiter, I'm going to need confirmation on that.  Could you
. . . could you acknowledge the order, please?"
 
	"Confirmation of what?" growled Jupiter. 
 
	"Sailor Jupiter . . . I'm sorry, really I am, but I'm just doing my
job . . . ."
 
	"It's okay, I . . . I understand."  'The hell I understand,' thought
Jupiter.  'Relieved of my command, returning to Crystal Tokyo in disgrace,
I'd probably be better off dead!' But she didn't dare say this aloud.  By
the kami, she was a planet senshi, and as such she had an image to maintain. 
With her command gone, image was all she had.  Thus: "Very well, order
acknowledged.  I'll go to Crystal Tokyo immediately, thank you."
 
	Sailor Mintaka bowed gratefully.  "Sir," she said, and then paused,
looking about as if expecting visitors.  "Sir, I just wanted you to know
that I . . . I and some others, we support you.  If you consider the
possibilities-"
 
	"I won't," replied Sailor Jupiter in a tone that sent chills down
the younger senshi's spine.  "I won't, and neither will you.  Count yourself
lucky that I didn't have you arrested for treason when I damn well could
have.  The last thing we need is a repeat of the sailor wars, and by God, if
that's what you want I'll kill you right now, GOT ME?!"
 
	Sailor Mintaka shrank back.  "I didn't mean to imply-" 
 
	"I've heard enough.  You've done your job, now LEAVE!" 
 
	"Sorry, Sailor Jupiter."  Mintaka bowed and made her hurried exit. 
 
	Jupiter stood for a moment and stated mutely at the plain wooden
door, now closed.  Then she cried out and kicked it.  "Shit!"
 
*** 
 
	"You're certain of it?" asked Sailor America. 
 
	"Very certain.  I could hardly believe it myself," replied Sailor
Cassiopeia tiredly.  The two were on opposite ends of a communications line,
America in her office and Cassiopeia in her own.
 
	Sailor America leaned back in her chair and let out an appreciative
sigh.  Whoever was running the universe hadn't run out of tricks yet, it
seemed.  "So Serenity made a call to the bullpen.  Very interesting."
 
	"That puts Sailor Uranus in the ready position, too." 
 
	Sailor America winced.  Quite a few in the press would no doubt make
speculations about the logical conclusion: remove Saturn after a couple
days, leaving Uranus and Neptune together as co-leaders of the military.  No
matter how unlikely it was in reality, that was how the public would see it. 
That would complicate matters for Sailor America, especially with respect to
how the public viewed her relationship with Sailor Orion.  It had been hard
work convincing them that neither of them benefited from favoritism, but now
it would be double difficult.  "Hm.  I've got to speak to Jupiter when she
arrives, then."
 
	"Good luck.  After the rest of the planet senshi get done with her,
there may not be much left."
 
	"Perfect.  Anything new on the peace front?" 
 
	"No luck at all.  I've looked their diplomats in the eyes, they're
more confident than anyone I've seen before.  Either they're convinced they
can and will beat us, or they've got perfect poker faces."
 
	"We've never lost a war," said America slowly. 
 
	"Yes you have." 
 
	"Not us, Crystal Tokyo," Sailor America replied irritably.  It was
enough she'd forsaken her homeland, did she have to be continually reminded
of the fact?
 
	"Oh.  But we've never had such opponents before, either.  I don't 
think historical precedent is going to matter a damn, not this time." 
 
	"You may be right."  Sailor America lowered her voice.  "Have you
given any thought to my proposal?"
 
	Sailor Cassiopeia frowned.  "I've told you, Sailor America, I can't
do it.  It's getting harder and harder for us noncombatant senshi to stay
that way, I can't possibly justify another one unless she has a *very*
serious injury."
 
	"But the whole reason for getting her here is to avoid that, and-" 
 
	"I know that, dammit!"  Sailor Cassiopeia opened her mouth as if to
say something, but then thought better of it.  "Look . . . Sailor Rigel died
this morning, and I'm still . . . I'll talk to you later."
 
	Sailor America gasped.  "Then it was true about you and-" 
 
	"I'll talk to you later," she repeated firmly.  "Bye."  The
connection closed.
 
	"Oh Cassiopeia . . . ." 
 
*** 
 
	The booming was constant.  It had been going on and on for the past
fifteen hours, and showed no signs of slowing up.  To Sailor Orion, it was
still just as unpleasant as it had been from the beginning.
 
	"Sailor Orion?" asked a tech.  "Sailors Cygnus and Deneb need to
speak with you."
 
	She was in the communications center of local headquarters, in a 
medium-sized town a couple hundred kilometers from Sapporo called Ashoro.  
Here, under the direct supervision of Sailors Cygnus and Deneb, she was 
observing the battle and pondering improvements. 
 
	"Right now?" asked Sailor Orion.  It was close to the end of her
shift; she would have preferred that it wait until tomorrow.
 
	"It sounded fairly urgent, sir." 
 
	"Very well."  A few flights of stairs later, she was in the office
Cygnus and Deneb shared.  Sailor Cygnus wasted no time.
 
	"Sailor Jupiter has been replaced by Sailor Saturn.  You are to
report back to front headquarters for instructions.  That's all."
 
	"Replaced?" 
 
	"That's all," repeated Sailor Cygnus.  "Go." 
 
	"Might I ask a question?" 
 
	"No," said Sailor Cygnus. 
 
	"Yes," said Sailor Deneb.  She may have been one of the shortest of
the sailor senshi, but she had no intention of backing down now.  "Ask your
question, Sailor Orion."
 
	"Why . . . why was she replaced?" 
 
	"The reason we were given," replied Sailor Deneb, a bit of a Welsh
lilt seeping into her voice, "was that her efficiency had dropped to
intolerable levels.  You can make of that what you like."
 
	"I see," said Sailor Orion slowly.  So that was the game they were
playing now.  "I'll be going, then, but . . . have you spoken to your family
lately?" Sailor America had asked her to ask the Welsh senshi this.
 
	Sailor Deneb flinched.  "After the recent food riot, most of Wales
has been put under martial law, so I can't get in contact with them.  I
don't know anymore."
 
	Sailor Orion looked piteously at Sailor Deneb, then nodded.  "Good
luck," she said simply.  She bowed and left the building.
 
	Outside the door she bumped into Sailor Pyxis.  She was another of
the foreign senshi: of Egyptian descent, although her family had moved south
to avoid persecution.  Sailor Pyxis often reflected that passing the Exam
had been the most wonderful experience of her life, for it had provided the
opportunity for her to leave her war-torn continent.  She gladly dealt with
the anti-foreign senshi remarks: nothing they said could be worse that what
she had heard before.
 
	"Good afternoon, Sailor Pyxis." 
 
	"Hi, Sailor Orion."  A warm smile crinkled Pyxis's brown face. 
"Doing okay?"
 
	"Not quite," replied Orion.  "Jupiter's been replaced, and I'm going
back to report to Sailor Saturn."
 
	Pyxis shook her head slowly, her long black ponytail waving back and
forth.  "It's a crazy world out there now.  We-"
 
	She was cut off by a high whistling sound.  Orion had never heard it 
before, but her elder recognized it immediately. 
 
	"Duck!" screamed Sailor Pyxis, tackling the taller senshi down to
the ground.  She was too slow, though, and too unlucky.
 
	A stray missile had leaked through the anti-air defenses.  A quick
shot by a soldier with a manned laser cannon had disabled the missile's
engine, but at the same time knocked it off course.  Instead of landing in a
nearby stream as it might otherwise have done, it slammed into city hall,
which had been serving as the local base of operations.  Sailors Cygnus and
Deneb were unlucky enough to be inside.  Sailors Orion and Pyxis were a bit
more fortunate, but not quite.
 
	The warhead exploded, instantly demolishing the building and sending
into the air anyone and anything that was near it.  Pyxis, still clutching
Orion, flew twenty meters before crashing onto the paved apron of a nearby
tennis court.  They bounced twice and lay still as bits of flaming debris
fell all around them.  Far too late, the air raid sirens began to wail, then
stopped.  For seven seconds there was silence, except for the crackle of
fire.  Then the screaming started, as the shock wore off and the wounded
realized just how much pain consumed them.
 
	Sailor Orion woke up first.  She blinked twice, trying to make the
world stop spinning.  Slowly, it did.  Satisfied with this, she tried to get
up.  "GAH!" she screamed, collapsing back down to the ground and clutching
her right leg.  Something hurt so badly there . . . probably broken, right
below the knee.  She looked down at the leg; other than numerous scratches
and cuts, there was no outward sign of anything amiss.  Appearances could
deceive, however.  She turned her head towards headquarters.  The building
was no longer there, replaced with a mass of flames.  In a single look, she
realized that nothing inside could have survived.  Sailors Cygnus and Deneb
were dead.  Sailor Pyxis was close to it. 
 
	It was Sailor Pyxis that Sailor Orion laid eyes on next.  Her brown
face was miraculously unscarred, but her leg was twisted at a grotesque
angle, and her white bodysuit was now stained black from burns and red from
something worse.
 
	"Sailor Pyxis!" cried Orion.  Disregarding her own injuries, she
crawled towards the other senshi, her hands being cut by the broken glass
that lay everywhere.  By the time Sailor Orion got to Pyxis's position, her
palms had turned a red darker than that of her hair.  "Sailor Pyxis!  Are
you all right?" A low moan was the only response.  Sailor Orion lay next to
Pyxis, panting from the exertion.  In contrast, Sailor Pyxis breathed slowly
and shallowly.  "Sailor Pyxis . . . don't die." She knew, however, that the
African senshi had little time left.  "C'mon, we've got to get you to the
medics." The first rule of first aid, she knew, was not to move the injured,
but she feared the flames of the ruined headquarters building more than she
feared doing Pyxis any spinal damage.
 
	She took a deep breath and rose to her feet.  The shock of the pain
was like nothing she had felt before. Dimly, a remote part of her mind told
her that her leg was broken for sure.  The searing pain made her forget
that, however.  She ground her teeth together; things would only get worse
from here.  Summoning every scrap of strength and endurance that her senshi
form allowed, she leant over and in a single fluid motion scooped up Sailor
Pyxis into her arms.  Using an old meditative technique taught to all
senshi, she tried her best to put the pain out of her mind. It was only
because she was a senshi that she didn't go into shock from it all, but it
was still the greatest struggle in her mind just to keep thinking clearly. 
She didn't know how long she could last, though.

	She prayed to whoever might be listening, hoping that she could make 
it to a field hospital.  If nothing else, let Pyxis die with the aid of 
painkillers.  Such a fine senshi didn't deserve to die like this, under a 
gray sky and beside a burning red building.  She just didn't deserve it. 
 
*** 
 
	It was stiflingly warm in the medical tent that had been hastily
assembled near the strike area.  Sailor Orion was sweating visibly.  Her leg
had no cast, only a splint.  Only her more serious cuts had been quickly and
sloppily bandaged by a nurse who had taken pity on her, deciding that a
sailor senshi was owed preferential treatment against the cruel reality of
triage.  Now the redheaded senshi simply sat and waited for word of Sailor
Pyxis's condition.
 
	"Sailor Orion?" 
 
	She looked up at the girl, scarcely eighteen.  "Eiko Matsushita,
communications," she said, bowing.  If Sailor Orion hadn't had other things
to worry about she might have surmised that the girl was a fresh recruit,
thrust into her position because those with more experience had just died in
the attack.  "Yes, that's me."
 
	"Sir, it's chaos, we don't know what to make of these reports, and-"
 
	"Let me see them," said Orion tiredly.  She squinted at the
proffered handlink, then frowned and took off her glasses.  An inspection
found that there was a clear crack running the whole way across the right
lens.  She sighed, tossed aside the spectacles, and reached into nowhere,
pulling out an identical, undamaged pair.  It paid to be prepared, although
she had been fairly certain someone had told her the glasses were
essentially indestructible.
 
	Sailor Orion looked at the reports again.  "Dammit," she grumbled. 
Sailors Cygnus and Deneb had been about to order a counterattack when the
missile hit, and the Allies, sensing their opportunity, had struck.  The
defense line was now strained to the point of breaking, and most ominously,
there was a single, late report hinting that at one point the line had
already been broken.  There was no question of going to a higher authority;
the two dead senshi had answered directly to Jupiter, and with the Royal
Army changing horses in midstream, it would be futile to ask for orders.  By
the time a reply arrived, the Allies would probably be in Sapporo.
 
	No, Sailor Orion was a senshi, and as ranking officer she had to
take over the defense and prevent a complete breakthrough, using all the
ground warfare knowledge at her disposal.  Unfortunately, that amounted to
three weeks of military history class at the School, most of which she only
dimly remembered.  Sailor Orion was not a great commander, and there was no
hope of her becoming one in the short time they had left, but there was no
choice.  She put down the handlink.  "Any word from headquarters?" 
 
	"None, sir." 
 
	"Very well."  Fighting was the very last thing she had the stomach
for, but no-one else could fill her suddenly large shoes.  "As no other
personnel present exceed my rank, I declare myself to be in command of this
sector, effective immediately."
 
	"Yes, sir!" 
 
	'Enthusiastic, isn't she?' thought Orion.  "Okay, I need a list of
all ranking officers here that are still alive."
 
	"I'll get right-" 
 
	"Not done yet.  I'll also need the techs working on a new bunker far
away from here, as a command center.  I need to replace the casualties.  I
need supplies for a long engagement, a week at best if we're to turn the
Allies back.  I need-"
 
	"Slow down!" whined Eiko, "I can't get all this at once!" 
 
	"We can't slow down, we're already out of time.  First, before
anything else, get me the unit commanders, and some numbers . . . what do I
want . . . damn!" 'My brain can't freeze on me now,' she thought.  It didn't
matter to her that she'd narrowly escaped certain death just an hour or so
ago.  Now was all that was important.
 
	"Troop strengths, sir?" 
 
	"Exactly!"  'Couldn't think of the stupid term,' she thought. 
"Those, and their positions.  We've got work to do."
 
	"Okay."  A note of uncertainty crept into the voice of a girl who a
month ago never thought she'd ever see a senshi, let along one as banged up
as the tall redhead before her.  "Are you okay?"
 
	"I'm fine, don't worry about me," she lied.  She didn't even know if
she could walk, but the fuku she wore forced her to look cool and confident. 
Senshi were allowed to be scared to death, but damned if they could show it.
 
	"Then I'll get right on it, sir.  Bye."  Again bowing instead of
saluting, she popped out the door, leaving Sailor Orion alone with the smell
of heavy-duty disinfectant soap that had been a hospital tradition for over
a millennium.
 
*** 
 
	Sailor Orion stepped outside, unable to hide her limp completely. 
She supposed it would be awhile until she was able to walk normally, but at
the same time it seemed that there were more important things to attend to. 
A new temporary headquarters was being constructed nearby, but she only
shook her head.  "No," she said absently, stopping a busy engineer in his
tracks.
 
	"Pardon, sir?" 
 
	"This is all wrong," she murmured, "there's something I'm
forgetting." There was a peal of thunder, and the redhead realized just what
she had forgotten.  "THE ALLIES!" She struggled not to panic.  "Need
positions, positions . . . ."
 
	"Sir?" 
 
	"Eiko-chan!" 
 
	"Yes?" replied Eiko guardedly.  She had just come looking for Orion,
brandishing a stack of handlinks.
 
	"Where are the Allies?" 
 
	"About-" 
 
	BOOM. 
 
	"-that close, sir.  Ten kilometers!" 
 
	"That settles it, then.  We've got to run and regroup. I want all
our forces to form a kilometer perimeter around the town, we've got to give
the injured time to get out of here."
 
	"And us?" 
 
	"We're expendable.  Get moving." 
 
	"Si-" 
 
	"Do it!"  'Now,' she thought, 'before I'm too afraid to follow
through . . . . 
 
	"Okay."  Sailor Orion watched Eiko nod in reply and run off on some
errand.  Then the redhead went to the infirmary to give the order to
evacuate in person.  As she walked by a copse of trees, she tried very hard
not to think about the Allied troops just kilometers away, hiding in trees
much like these, brandishing the one weapon a senshi like her feared the
most.
 
	She grew older by the second. 


================================== 
Begun: 18:34 23 June 1998 
Finished: 20:19 5 July 1998
Final draft: 06:50 25 July 1998
Final edit: 14:26 24 February 2001