================================ 
Episode #316: Fly Me to the Moon 
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23 April 3035
Kanto Plain, on the former site of the city of Crystal Tokyo 

	The helicopter slowly lifted off, heavy under its large payload of
injured.  Sailors Orion and America had spent most of the night with this
particular rescue unit, and now as dawn broke over the landscape they could
see more clearly what had happened to their home.

	The devestation was total: not a building was left untouched.  A
full nine-tenths of the city had been completely leveled, and much of what
had survived had fallen to the ensuing fire and tsunami.  Perhaps most
painful of all was that the Crystal Palace, shining symbol of Neo-Queen
Serenity, lay in ruins.
 
	"My God," said Orion at length, saddened beyond belief.  For a
fleeting second, she thought she would be better off dead.
 
	"Yeah," replied America somberly.
 
	Most of coastal Japan looked like this.  The bombs set by the Allied
Forces had gone off spontaneously, without any warning whatsover.  No-one
would ever know which lunatic had decided to detonate them days after the
truce had been signed ending the war.  It could have been Cabot or Ronowski
or Rostov, or the other three leaders for that matter.  It could have been
their subordinates.  It could have been anyone on Cabot's staff; in the
aftermath would come word of a major security leak in her office.  The list
went on: the bottom line was that there were far too many suspects.  For all
it mattered it could have been some random fanatic who hit a lucky code: the
results were the same.
 
	The bombs had lain in wait as part of Project Titan, near the
subduction zone, the place where the Pacific plate slid under the Japan
plate.  After the truce, the Allied leaders had been relieved that the plan
wasn't necessary . . . outwardly, at least.  Psychological profiles were
already being drawn up on the few potential suspects.  It did seem a bit
suspicious in retrospect that none of the Allies had seen fit to notify
Crystal Tokyo of Titan until after the fact.  Whoever it was that found the
activation codes, he or she put them to not so good use.  The result was the
single greatest release of seismic energy ever recorded.  Two dozen
thermonuclear bombs, each with yields in the megaton range, had gone off at
once, setting off the biggest earthquake in human history.
 
	The results had to be seen to be believed.  First the ground shock,
then the resultant fires, and then most terribly the tsunami which Sailors
Orion and America had escaped only by happening to be on high ground, along
with a few thousand others.
 
	Sailor Orion frowned, the first of many.  'Such destruction,' she
thought. 'Nothing is worth this, not in a rational universe.  Perhaps it
isn't so rational after all.  In that case, it would be perfectly acceptable
to go mad.'

	It would take a year of therapy to defeat such thoughts, but that
would come later.  For now, the helicopter skimmed over broken buildings. 
This was the lucky area; the tsunami hadn't penetrated very far inland due
to the natural landscaping of the city, and so all this particular suburb
had dealt with was the fire and quake.  The former had been tough; much of
the district was burned.  It was also the neighborhood in which Sailor Orion
had grown up.  She had already seen to one important detail; her parents
were safe and sound, even if their home was destroyed.

	"Where will they go?" asked Sailor America as she pointed to a small
group of survivors making their way east on foot.

 	"Refugee camp four, I'd think," replied Sailor Orion, pulling a
handlink from nowhere.  With the city's nonessential AIs out of commission,
and the remaining essential ones working overtime on logistics and related
problems, her handlink had to work alone.  It took three seconds longer than
usual for an answer to come up.  "Yes, four.  Only a couple kilometers,
they'll make it easily." She put out of her mind the millions who hadn't
made it easily, all those who had died in the city, those along the east
coast of Japan, and those along the rest of the Pacific Rim who had also
perished.  Vancouver-3 had survived, but now was surrounded by floodwaters.

	Sailor Orion leaned out the window slightly, the wind ripping at her
skirt and bows.  Peering down, she could just make out a small figure.  Her
fuku marked her as a sailor senshi, and her shoulder pads as a super, yet at
the same time the color patterns didn't match any of the planet senshi. 
Therefore, it had to be one of the newer super senshi, specifically Sailor
Hyades.  She wondered what Hyades was thinking.

***

	"Screw it all," muttered Sailor Hyades.  She looked up at the sky,
where another helicopter was racing off to some other destination.  She
glanced back down at her boots glumly.

	When she had become a super sailor senshi, it had surprised her as
much as it had surprised anyone.  She fully expected to die then, with
Allied missiles landing all around, her command virtually annihilated, and
cut off from home.

	"I wasn't at all sure what was going on then," said Sailor Hyades to
the figure beside her.  "You ever been electrocuted?"

	"No," replied the figure in a disdainful male voice.

	"Okay, okay, just asking."  She puffed a sigh.  "Anyway, that's what
it felt like.  No warning, just this shock through my entire body."

	"Did it hurt?"

	"Damn right!"  Sailor Hyades had no compunctions about swearing. 
"Felt like I was going to die . . . then again, that was just what I
expected.  Then everything went white, and when I came back to reality,
things were . . . different."

	The figure pondered this.  "No warning, then, and just a feeling of
difference afterwards?"

	"Yes.  But the most noticeable feeling was responsibility."

	"Hm?"

	"Responsibility."  Sailor Hyades looked down at her white-gloved
hands.  "Before I even knew that my power had been multiplied, I knew that I
had far more commitments.  We do, you know.  From now on, we super senshi
are going to be the first sent to trouble areas, the first on the line, the
first to be put at risk."

	"That bothers you?"

	"It scares me like nothing ever has."

	The figure looked off in the distance for a bit.  An abandoned
building looked about to come down, and as they watched it did, crumbling in
a cloud of dust.  Sailor Hyades twirled a strand of purplish-blue hair.  "I
wonder if the planet senshi felt like this, back when they broke out."

	The figure held back a chuckle.  "Not hardly."  The figure's voice 
took on a wistful air.  "They were young then, and even after nearly two 
years of being senshi I don't think they realized what had truly happened.  
Do you think Sailor Saturn knew she was able to destroy the world?  Do you 
think Sailor Mercury knew she could flood Tokyo if she had wanted to?"

	"She could?"

	"Yes, although she didn't realize it for a few centuries."  Artemis
took a breath before continuing.  The cat had somehow been appointed to
guide this particular senshi, as she was one of the very first of the new
supers.  As the wunderkind of the thirty-first century, they would need all
the help they could get.  "The point is that they didn't really know what
had happened, only they could do a better job of defeating lemures.  You, on
the other hand, are in a far better position to deal with it.  So what shall
you do?"

	Sailor Hyades sighed, her mind unconsciously echoing a predecessor. 
To the normal Sui, good-bye.  "Save the world.  What else did you expect?"

*** 
 
	Neo-Queen Serenity sat in a green tent.  She had insisted upon it;
her subjects were for the most part living in camps like this while those
few buildings that remained were checked to see if they could hold more
people.  She would not elevate herself above them, not now when her people
needed to unite more than ever.  Her home had been destroyed as well, after
all; only a bit of an assist from Sailor Pluto had kept her and her little
part of the Palace intact.
 
	"I failed."  It wasn't something Serenity said often: she wasn't sure 
she had ever said it at all.  But it was certainly apt now. 
 
	"Serenity . . . don't go on a guilt trip now," warned Sailor Mars. 
Her face was smudged from rescue efforts; she had gone the past day on
willpower alone.  The two were the only ones in the tent; Endymion and the
other senshi were out overseeing the recovery.

	"I have every reason to.  If I had surrendered-"

	"If you'd surrendered, you'd be dead, and don't deny it.  Not even
you could buy the rigmarole from the Allies that they just wanted you to
abdicate.  They wanted you dead, and they would have stopped at nothing to
accomplish that."

	"And what if they had?" retorted Serenity.  "Would it not have been 
better if I had died, if so many others would not?"

	Sailor Mars bowed her head, holding in the tears.  "Serenity, a
world without you isn't worth living in!  When will you see that?" She
grasped for words.  "You've got something in you . . . a spark, a flame that
makes everyone around you that much happier, that much more alive.  That
flame is worth dying for, Serenity-sama.  Otherwise I wouldn't be wearing
this uniform."

	Serenity sighed.  "So it is this argument again?"  Sailor Mars
managed a wry grin and nodded, and the queen smiled faintly.  "Somehow you
make me happy when I think all is lost, in a way that . . . ." She trailed
off, and when her voice came back, it was all business.  "I have work to do,
now.  I think I'll have to give another speech.  It won't be as good as the
last one . . .  but it's necessary."
 
	Sailor Mars gaped.  She couldn't remember the last time Serenity had
used so many contractions in one sentence, and Serenity seemed to notice
this.  "There are some changes coming."
 
*** 
 
	The queen took the podium, her hands shaking slightly for the first
time in centuries.  Behind her stood all the planet senshi including Sailor
Pluto, whose face was filled with sadness.  Serenity knew they were the most important words she would say in her 
life, and she'd thought about them long and hard.  It didn't make them a bit 
easier to say, though. 

	She looked the crowd of survivors in the eyes.  They'd gathered
here, in front of the remains of the Palace, much as some of them had
gathered the previous day and an eternity ago.  "People of Crystal Tokyo,
citizens of Japan, members of the human race: over the past several months,
this planet and its people have been put through the sorest trial we have
ever faced.  This war, the War of 3035, has resulted in hundreds of
thousands dead, millions wounded, and through this latest tragedy, an entire
city destroyed.
 
	"Through it all, you the people of Crystal Tokyo have persevered to
a degree that has not been seen before in history.  For this I thank you."
 
	She looked down at her hands for a moment, then looked back up. 
"Yet in the final analysis, I have failed you." She plowed on through the
cries of denial; the crowd of survivors wouldn't hear of her taking the
blame.  "I have failed you, and while the past must remain the past, I can
do my best to repair the future.
 
	"Crystal Tokyo is no more.  I do not see how my recreating it will
be worth the time or energy, and I honestly do not know if I have the power
to do so.  Perhaps this is not the best place to rebuild." She managed a wry
smile despite the tears now streaming down her face.
 
	"For rebuild we must, and rebuild we shall.  But not on Earth."
Behind her, the row of sailor senshi gasped, with a single exception: Sailor
Mars simply nodded.  Somehow, she'd known this was coming. "Not on Earth.  I
think recent events have shown that Earth isn't exactly rolling out the
welcome mat." Few there recognized it for what it was: Her Majesty's first
use of a contraction in public since she was a girl named Usagi Tsukino. 
Later on, historians would say that it was in that instant, and only that
instant, that she first made the decision that so overshadowed everything
else that day.
 
	"I hereby announce that in one week, all Crystal Tokyo government 
services will be moved to our bases on the Moon.  I myself will move to the 
old palace of the Moon Kingdom.  All who wish to accompany me may do so." 
 
	Sailor Jupiter turned to Sailor Mars and murmured, "You saw this
coming?"
 
	"Not until now," she lied.
 
	"Plans will be made for the restoration of the Japanese islands to
their original, pristine condition.  In fifty years, there will be no sign
that we were ever here, and the confederations of Earth may do with the
territory as they wish.  In the meantime, we will not stop on the Moon.  I
hereby declare it a major goal of my Navy to seek out and find a new home
for the Moon Kingdom.  I have ruled these islands and these people for a
thousand years, and perhaps it is time to give someone else a try.  Perhaps
the Allies should be given what they wanted so dearly.
 
	"Therefore, I abdicate the throne as Neo-Queen of Crystal Tokyo, and
leave my successor and rightful heir, Princess Usagi Small Lady Serenity, as
the new Queen, effective immediately.  I have every confidence that she will
do her best to implement my plans as already outlined, and that she will do
a far better job at governing and protecting you than I have.
 
	"I have . . . I have one last thing to say," she continued, plowing
through the disapproval and shock.  "In this long time, you have supported
me to a degree unmatched in human history.  I again wish to . . . to thank
you, from the bottom of my heart, for everything you've done, and for those
who did everything up to and including the final sacrifice, all for your
nation.  Be proud." Through the tears, she managed a smile.  "Transfer will
begin tomorrow.  See you on the Moon."
 
*** 

	Queen Serenity II stood, startled.  It seemed totally impossible
that this could be happening so soon!  This wasn't supposed to happen now,
she was supposed to gain the throne after hundreds more years.  Granted,
with a chronological age of over nine hundred and a physical and mental age
in the mid-twenties, one could say that she was overdue.  At the same time
she felt an inescapable feeling of rightness.  This was the time, this was
the place.  Neither chance nor fate but a queer combination of the two had
brought her to the stage.

	Nervously, she went to the podium and blinked under the gaze of the
crowd.  The former Queen sat off to the side now, resting and ceding the
show.  Technically the pink-haired Queen held all the power now.  All she
needed to do was to accept it.  There was still a choice, though.  If she
didn't want to be Queen, in theory that meant that the throne reverted to
the next-in-line: Endymion.  It seemed terribly unlikely that her father
would accept, though; he wasn't cut out to rule an empire, but to stay by
his wife.  She cleared her throat.

	"Good afternoon.  I am Queen Serenity II.  You may not know me well. 
In the past few hundreds of years I've been keeping a low profile, but
things are different now, I suppose.  I think my mother has already summed
things up as best she can.  In fact, I have little more to add, other than
to say . . . ."

	She trailed off.  Just what did she want to say?  'Hi, I'm your new
queen, enjoy my reign,' simply wasn't viable.  Neither was simply walking
away; she wasn't that type.

	-What should I say?-

	-Say what comes naturally,- came a voice.

	-And you are?- she asked dubiously.

	-I'm you.  I'm the voice that keeps you up at night, thinking about
how to run a nation.  I'm the voice that soothes you after you've made the
tough decisions.  I am, in short, your conscience.-

	-And you're always this concise?-

	-I can be.-

	-Good enough.-  It would be a tough road ahead, and Serenity II
decided that she needed all the help she could get, even if it was just a
fragment of her ego, and even if it was something more.

	She looked up at the crowd that hung on her every word.  "It's a new
day.  Let's make the most of it." She smiled, and it was a smile that,
difficult a feat as it was to achieve, outshone the smile of her mother.

***

	Late-afternoon on the day after Crystal Tokyo died. 
 
	It seemed irrelevant to Sailor America to hold a press conference as
ordered by the higher-ups.  If the media, or what remained of it, wanted any
information about what had happened, they had to do nothing more than wander
around.  There was more than enough suffering: no need for her to serve it
up for them.
 
	The winds blew briskly around the makeshift podium, though; the tent
she and thirty assorted press personnel were under had no sides.  'The wind
and the sky still remember,' she thought.  'They remember what was done to
us.' Now, she had to explain once again that Serenity remembered as well,
and was taking her people away to make sure they never had to face such a
thing again.  Halfway through the conference, she quit. 
 
	"Sailor America, if-" 
 
	"That's it."  She dropped the handlink which had all her notes on
it, and it clattered to the ground.  "There's no point.  See ya." She walked
out, ignoring the uproar she caused.  Passing through a restricted area
marked with yellow tape and thick ropes, she came to a sandy slope.  After
awhile she managed to pay enough attention to realize that it was a beach;
she hadn't known her tent was so close to the sea.
 
	She made her way to the Pacific, her high heels sinking only slightly 
into the mud left from the tsunami.  Idly kicking aside some seaweed, she 
came to a tidal pool.  A small fish wriggled around in it.  She crouched 
down to inspect it more closely, unwilling to sink her knees into the mud. 
 
	"Carp," she said softly.  A genetically engineered variety of carp,
actually, left over from a rather regrettable period in the 2400s where
genetic manipulation was en vogue.  The Japanese name for it was koi, she
knew, but another kanji reading for koi was love.  She had always prided
herself on the kanji she had worked so hard to learn.

	She picked up the fish, her body insulated from its cold sliminess by 
the glove of her right hand.  Straightening and standing, she looked out to 
sea, wound up, and threw the wriggling fish back into the ocean as hard as 
she could.  It landed forty meters away with a satisfying splash. 
 
	"Why did I do that?" she asked herself, barely a whisper.  She
turned around to look at the assorted broken buildings of Crystal Tokyo,
then back out to the sea.  "Was it love?  Do I love life so much that I'd
pity just one fish out of millions, to give it another chance?  Or can
anyone, anywhere, ever love again?  How can I love after something like
this?  How can I bear to crawl into bed with Jen and enjoy myself when so
many people have died so needlessly, so pointlessly?  How can I love when
all I stand for proves to be worth nothing at all?"
 
	She took off her tiara.  "Damned lot of good you've done me," she
snarled.  She reared back and made to toss it into the sea as well.
 
	"I wouldn't do that."  She stopped and slowly turned.  There stood a
familiar figure. "Hi, Jen," said Sailor America listlessly, not
acknowledging the sailor fuku her lover wore.
 
	"Hello."  Sailor Orion didn't move any closer.  "Your staff is
worried about you."
 
	"A quarter of my so-called staff is dead." 
 
	"The ones that are alive are still worried." 
 
	Sailor America replaced her tiara on her forehead.  "So they've sent
you to fetch me?"
 
	"Actually," said Sailor Orion, poking at some seaweed with her boot,
"they wanted me to stay away.  Said you needed some time alone."
 
	"Maybe they were right." 
 
	"I know you better than that."  She drew closer in the late-afternoon 
light.  "You're shaken up, aren't you?" 
 
	Sailor America didn't reply for a moment, but simply turned back to
look at the Pacific.  "I never saw a body until today.  I've seen corpses at
funerals, but there's a difference between a corpse and a body.  How can we
call ourselves defenders of love and justice if we can't defend against
something like this?  Sailor Pluto calls herself one, and she allows herself
to stand by and *let* this happen, all in the name of some lofty goal or
better good?" She turned back, and her face was marked by a single salty
teardrop.  "Why?"
 
	Sailor Orion shimmered, and Jennifer Sakachi took her place, dressed
in the shipboard uniform she had put on seemingly eons ago.  "I wish I had
some clear-cut answers for you.  Hell, I'd be glad to say 'it's all their
fault, the Allies brought this ruin on us.' But I've studied too much
history, and we can't label like that.  It's . . . oh, screw it." She was no
superwoman, she realized.  All the history books in the world couldn't bring
her to sum up the spring of 3035 in one succinct sentence, and no-one could
ever just shrug off the events of the past month, least of all her.  It was
in the past, and in the past it would remain.  One could only take care of
the future.
 
	She looked up at the full moon, just beginning to peep out from the
gathering twilight of the eastern sky: a large, white-grey ball that among
other things influenced tides.  For billions of years the tides of the
oceans had mastered the land.  Recent events had proven that man could
master the tides as well, and she had seen the dead to prove it.
 
	The survivors would be ferried to the lunar bases, and live in
buildings modeled after those built thousands of years ago when the Silver
Millennium was the greatest civilization the solar system had known.  The
senshi . . . well, now they were more powerful, and the realm of Queen
Serenity II was larger.  The senshi would have more work to do than ever,
over a larger area than ever.  There would probably never again be a meeting
of all the senshi in one place.  While they would stay together, for
separation at this point was inconceivable, the two senshi on the beach
would probably never see Earth again, not from this point of view.
 
	It was getting dark, and the stars were coming out.  Jen drew Sailor
America closer to her against the coming cold of an unknown night. Jennifer
blinked back a tear, though whether from the events of the past twenty-four
hours or the blowing sand she never could and never would say.  She looked
up at the ruins of what had once been the greatest city in the world, and
said a silent prayer for the passing of an era.
 
	"Bye." 
 
=============== 
 
	There. 
 
	This was the hardest series I have ever done, and yet my favorite. 
I can say without reserve that this is my personal favorite episode to date.
And at least now you can stop worrying about who Jen said good-bye to:
Earth.

	Thanks to . . . dear heavens.  I do believe this has been one of the
most anticipated Sailor Moon fanfics in some time, and at least on afsm, the
most popular (even if I don't exactly think it worthy of such honor). 
Therefore, I'd like to thank anyone and everyone who's ever written to me or
posted regarding this series (and there have been a lot @_@).

	I certainly don't want to start sounding valedictory too early, so
I'll cut this short and be done with it.  As a final reminder, Sailor Moon
and associated characters are the property of various people that I'm not,
and are used without permission.  Have mercy on me.  Sailor Orion, Sailor
America, and their stories are mine, however, and using them without my
permission is a very bad idea.

	Next time, we continue as we nigh well must.  Bishoujo Senshi Sailor
Orion episode 401, coming . . . sometime.
 
========= 
 
Begun: 06:59 17 June 1998 
Finished: 22:56 3 August 1998
Final draft: 19:27 18 August 1998
Second revision: 18:23 23 August 1998
Third revision: 23:07 29 July 2000
Final edit: 23:31 26 February 2001