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From: Vivian Darkbloom <vdkblm@skyhighway.com>
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Subject: {ASSM} Jasmin (part II)
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Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 14:10:05 -0400
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                             Jasmin (part II) 

                          by Vivian Darkbloom 

   I just didn't get it. Several hours had gone by, and I was poring 
   over the pages of information on cryogenics my PDA had retrieved 
   from the Galactranet, as I monitored the status displayed on the 
   screen next to the sarcophagus. 

   My mind avoided the obvious explanation. More than avoided: 
   dodged, denied, defied, and decried. But in the end, there, 
   still, it was. 

   Even the thought of Darvo setting foot in this cryo-chamber 
   filled me with disgust. But the idea that he had removed the 
   regulator, it didn't make any sense. 

   Not that he had any qualms about cold-blooded murder, literally. 
   But the Noxgothians had specific injunctions against the 
   execution of someone in cryostasis, dating back from the early 
   days. Problem back then was it subtracted too many from the 
   countless numbers of souls they needed for toil and labor in the 
   fields and diamond mines, and in the dismal trenches of several 
   dozen wars the Imperial Coalition had begun in the name of 
   religious purification. 

   And if the rules had changed, you can be sure I would have heard 
   about it. A key to survival in these times is keeping up with the 
   bizarre and complex set of technical laws and regulations set 
   forth by the Inquisition. 

   Whether one agrees or not, by understanding the regulations and 
   the ins and outs of their various arbitrary boundaries and 
   clauses, one can often find a means to avoid some of the less 
   desirable consequences. 

   And indeed, the Inquisition has regulations against capturing a 
   ship while there is still a live individual on board. That is, an 
   individual who either possibly had been or possibly could be 
   converted. Never mind whether said individual understands English 
   or not, the question has to be put to them (in the very fashion 
   that it had so recently been put to me) and at the very least the 
   relevant party has to be conscious in order to make the choice. 
   Those are the rules. 

   I agree, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Pretty bleedin' 
   ridiculous, in fact. 

   But what that meant was, that by eliminating the living 
   individual, the ship would default into becoming property of the 
   Imperial Inquisition. 

   Surely, I countered, an autopsy would reveal the cause of death, 
   and point to the obvious suspects. 

   Unless there were to be no autopsy. Or unless the blame were 
   shifted to the hapless underlings now (most likely) on their way 
   to claim possession of the ship. 

   No question, Darvo was a madman. Even among members of the 
   inquisition, there was debate whether his strategies were 
   effective, or whether they did more to diminish the credibility 
   of Noxigoth by promoting righteous moral outrage at the 
   intolerance of the church. Not to mention that the inquisition 
   itself was illegal in some places. Syrene, for instance. 

   Syrene, yes. A starsystem named for its most inhabitable planet, 
   which in turn was named for some beloved person, place or thing 
   back on the planet Earth. The planet Syrene was nearby to here, 
   and there I had several friends who might possibly be willing to 
   assist in such a time of dire need. 

   Urgency nagged. Time was short, and I had to get out of there, at 
   least in person, but with any luck taking the ship (and with even 
   more luck, its occupant) with me. I had to find a way to repair 
   the Sabre's propulsion systems, and quickly. 

   But I couldn't, in good conscience, abandon the cryogenic thawing 
   to an automated process. Even if it hadn't been an outrageously 
   beautiful and sexy young girl, it wouldn't have been right to 
   risk something going wrong. A life was in my very hands. 

   Again I cursed, profusely, at length, and in a variety of obscene 
   idioms, the events of the day, the inquisition itself, the 
   listless state of the ship I found myself on, the infuriatingly 
   snail-like pace of the thawing process, and various events from 
   the past and future which might have interfered, or might be 
   going to interfere in any way, shape, or form, with my past, 
   present, or future happiness. 

   Falling silent again, my mind blanked out, so I continued to read 
   up on cryogenics: 

   Items to check for when the subject awakes: 
     * Mental functioning - is the subject disoriented, or do they 
       have a clear idea of where they are and why they are there? 
     * Memory - can the subject remember such information as their 
       own name, the names of objects in the room, the alphabet, the 
       color of their own eyes, and so on? 
     * Activity level - does the subject seem pale and lethargic, or 
       do they quickly regain their former level of energetic 
       activity and complexion? 

   If the subject fails to perform any of these items with an 
   acceptable level of proficiency, waste no time in seeking 
   professional medical help, immediately. 

   Great, I mused grimly. Since it's not available, let's hope we 
   don't need that. 

   Remember that the process of awakening can be jarring to the 
   subject, so it's best to create a soothing and safe environment 
   for the event to take place. Quiet, relaxing music, for example, 
   can go a long ways to contribute to the harmonious sense of 
   well-being, and help to ensure that the re-awakening goes as 
   smoothly as possible. 

   Soothing music, I wondered. I thought about how much less 
   soothing the music I listened to was than that of my parents' 
   generation. 

   And here was someone who had been in Rip-Van-Winkle-land for a 
   little over two centuries. I figured the most soothing thing I 
   could find would be something which, to her, would be 
   sufficiently jangling to cause neural overload and permanent 
   mental disorder. Unless I dug through the archives to find 
   something of her era, two hundred years ago. 

   Did pre-teen girls listen to bubble-gum trash pop music, even way 
   back then? I scratched my head, imagining unrealistically that 
   back in those rustic times they all read poetry in multiple 
   languages and listened to the most erudite of sophisticated music 
   steeped in the classics of all ages of recorded human history. 

   "Uh-uh," she began to stir. 
     ____________________________________________________________ 

   When the thawing process had reached a certain point, the display 
   screen had recommended covering the subject with a blanket, to 
   avoid "unsettling emotions resulting from undue modesty." 
   Tenderly, I placed my hand on her forehead. Yes, quite warm now. 
   Her cheeks were silky-soft under my fingers. 

   She yawned, stretched, and blinked. Then sitting up halfway with 
   a start, she glared angrily at me. 

   "Jasmin McCloud," I spoke her name quietly, soothingly. 

   "Yes," she replied, and continued to glare. "That's me. So who 
   the hell are you?" She glanced at the two empty cryo-pods. "And 
   where the fuck are my mom and dad?" 

   Hmm. A bristlingly unkempt space-wolf like myself was not likely 
   to be a reassuring sight to the reawakening subject, but there 
   was not much to be done about it at the moment. 

   I went down the checklist. "Hmm. Mental functioning. Jasmin, do 
   you know where you are?" 

   She rolled her eyes. "Yeah!" with an inflection that filled out 
   the phrase something like "of course, dork-brain!" 

   "Can you tell me where you are?" 

   "No, I asked you first. Who the fuck are you, and what the hell 
   are you doing on my family's ship?" 

   Something told me that I would not succeed in convincing her to 
   recite the alphabet. 

   I sighed. "I wish I could tell you more, love. Your mom and dad 
   must have departed, I don't know when. The ship was 
   malfunctioning, so they probably left to get help or repairs. 
   You've been in cryogenic stasis for two hundred years now." 

   "Two hund-" Her mouth worked. "But we were just making a simple 
   flight from Capricorn to Syrene. It shouldn't have taken more 
   than ten years." 

   It was my turn to gasp. "Ten--" I put my head in my hands, 
   feeling the weight of the ancient civilizations. 

   "What?" she demanded. 

   "You can make it now in about ten days," I said. 

   "No way," she protested weakly. 

   "Two hundred years is a long time. The galaxy is a very different 
   place now. Look, I found some of you clothes in the drawers in 
   one of the bedrooms, so I'll step out for a minute while you get 
   dressed." 

   "Pervert. Going through my underwear." 

   "Thank you, but this is no time for compliments. We have to get 
   ourselves at least, and preferably this ship as well, out of here 
   before the Inquisition returns." 

   "And don't get any ideas!" she shouted after me. "I'm a lesbian, 
   you know!" 

   I departed the room, unplugging my PDA and carrying it with me to 
   begin on the next task, namely finding an uncorrupted copy of the 
   corrected Sabre's operating software to download. 

   I was flipping through hyper-pages and humming a catchy little 
   melody to myself, when I felt the cold muzzle of a disrupter 
   pistol against the back of my skull. 

   "Hands up, buster. Move it!" 

   I complied, casually amused. 

   "You lied to me. My parents didn't just leave on their own 
   accord. Otherwise, they would have come back for me." 

   "Unless one of the systems that malfunctioned was the ship's 
   beacon, and they couldn't find their way back." 

   She considered this. 

   "Look," I continued. "I guarantee you that the last place I want 
   to be right now is on board this ship. As soon as I get this 
   rattle-trap moving again, I'll be glad to get off at the nearest 
   planet we can find, leaving you to your own devices. If, that 
   is--" I smirked, "-- you can figure out how to fly this thing." 

   "Look, mister --" 

   "Xithnous," I filled in. 

   "OK, Mr. Xithnous," 

   "Actually it's not Mr. Xithnous, it's just Xithnous. It's not my 
   last name but my first name. Well, actually it's both my first 
   and last name, because it's my only name. My parents were a 
   little strange, see and ..." 

   "Shut up." 

   "Well I was just explaining..." 

   She angled the disrupter against my skull meaningfully. "Look Mr. 
   Xithnous, or Sithmouse, or whatever you want to be called. I've 
   completed five years of training in flight strategy and combat at 
   the Capricorn military school..." 

   "I see. And while we're on the subject, I was wondering how you 
   planned to fire the disrupter while the safety latch is still on. 
   And don't worry, you can't undo it without knowing the 
   combination. I'll give you a hint -- it was my last girlfriend's 
   birthday." 

   "You had a girlfriend?" 

   "Don't sound so amazed. It may happen to you someday." Her jaw 
   dropped. "You did say you were a lesbian?" 

   She stared at me incredulously, and then bless her heart, not 
   trusting me at all, she pointed the gun away from me in order to 
   verify what I had just said, that the gun wouldn't work. Gingerly 
   she pulled the trigger. 

   A blinking red holo-projection popped up. 

   AUTHORIZATION ERROR 
   Please enter combination. 

   "Funny thing to do with your girlfriend's birthday," she mused. 

   "Ex-girlfriend," I corrected. "Well, for the entire time we were 
   going together, I couldn't for the life of me remember her 
   birthday. Then, by the time I had finally memorized it, we broke 
   up. So I didn't want to waste all the effort I had put into 
   memorizing it." 

   "Why did you break up?" 

   I considered, recalling to mind the whole affair. "Basically I 
   think the reason she broke up with me was because I kept 
   forgetting stuff that was important to her. Like, for example, I 
   guess it was mainly because I could never remember her birthday. 
   Chicks are funny about stuff like that." 

   She smiled. "Yeah, I know what you mean." 
     ____________________________________________________________ 

   She had lowered the disrupter, and now was staring at the date 
   displayed on the lower right-hand corner of my PDA's main 
   holo-screen." 

   "Is that clock right?" she asked. 

   "10:43 A.M. February 14th, 2412," it read. 

   "Looks about right," I said. 

   "Our flight took off in January of 2211," she trailed off in a 
   distant voice. 

   "Long time ago," I said. 

   Her face filled with pleasant reflections "I like that number. 
   2211. My friends are so jealous. I'm going on a trip across the 
   galaxy." 

   Her smile lingered for a while, before it gradually faded. 

   "Must have been a special year," I offered. 

   "More than two hundred years ago." She was trying to comprehend, 
   to get her mind around it. Almost angrily, she cried out. "Now I 
   bet my friends are all dead. Lucy and Evan, and Jane..." she 
   sobbed. 

   Gingerly, I reached out and drew her near to me, enfolding her in 
   my arms. Now unleashed, her sadness flowed uncontrollably. 

   Aside from the physical hazards, I was starting to see why 
   cryogenics had declined in popularity. 

   "And then," she sniffed and smiled ironically, "then, I wake up 
   on February 14th." 

   "Must be a special sort of day," I offered. 

   "Valentine's day," she mumbled under her breath. 

   I swore, clapping my hand to my forehead. "Dammit, I knew there 
   was something familiar about that date." 

   Tearfully amused, she looked me in the eye. "You know, you're 
   goofy, but cute." 

   Resignedly, she unhanded the disrupter, and plopped it into my 
   palm, handle first. 

   "Thanks," I said, accepting it. " `Preciate the compliment. Oh, 
   and by the way," 

   "What." 

   "There's a message for you on the comsystem." 

   "Can you show me it?" 

   "Does this mean we're friends now?" 

   She smiled, playfully. "We'll see. Just don't forget I had combat 
   training." 

   "And I trained as a pacifist resistor," I threatened back. 

   She gave me a look. 

   We walked back out to the bridge, and her eyes widened, face 
   flushed. 

   "Look, are you sure you're OK?" I asked. "Coming out of 
   cryostasis like that can be stressful. If you need to lie down or 
   anything go ahead." 

   "No," she said quietly. "I'll be fine." She stepped up to the 
   console and rapidly flicked a series of switches in an apparently 
   familiar sequence. There was a small popping sound, and a few 
   sparks flew from the console. 

   "Whoa," she jumped back. 

   "It's not working," I commented. "I have to download the 
   corrected operating software. There's a patch available, but it 
   looks like it might be a hassle to install, and loading entire 
   operating system into an application thread on my PDA will only 
   take about twenty minutes..." 

   "Twenty minutes?" she asked incredulously. Then she whispered: 
   "It took them two days to load it." She was staring at the date 
   displayed on the ship's console. 

   "So where's this message?" she demanded. 

   I punched a few buttons on the side of the console that was still 
   operational, and we got back to the window I had seen before. 

                     Message for Jasmin. Read now? 

   I stood aside as she clicked on `yes.' 

   "I hope you know what the security code is," I said as the next 
   screen popped up. "Would you like me to leave the room?" 

   "No, that's OK," she said, punching a series of buttons too 
   rapidly for me to follow. 

   The harsh letters of the security screen faded, and were replaced 
   by the dynamic motion of recorded video. At first, a giant, 
   jolting, distorted out-of-focus hand filled the screen, 
   apparently adjusting the camera angle, and then the hand receded 
   as its owner sat back far enough away from the lens to behold in 
   proper proportion. 

   Two adults, male and female, were sitting together on the exact 
   same padded black leather chairs now in front of the console, in 
   the very room we stood in. Both faces in the video were smiling 
   reassuringly, but both showing signs of being emotionally on 
   edge. 

   "Hi Jasmin," began the woman, voice filled with obvious 
   affection. "This is your mum and dad. We wanted to be sure you 
   got this message in case don't see you. I mean... if you wake up 
   before we got back." 

   The date at the bottom of the screen, in squarish line-drawn red 
   letters read: "March 12, 2221." Ten years after their departure 
   in 2211. 

   "We've arrived in the vicinity of the Syrene starsystem, but 
   there's something gone wrong with the ship's console, so we've 
   gone off to get help, to get it fixed." 

   Her dad broke in -- "Don't worry dear. We'll be back to get you 
   as soon as we are able." 

   My heart was heavy at hearing those words. They hadn't realized 
   that the beacon wasn't working. That the navigational computers 
   were offline. They didn't know they wouldn't be able to find 
   their way back. Her mother, brow furrowed, was concentrating on 
   remembering something. 

   "There was an important message I was supposed to give you," she 
   said. "they told me long ago. The H.G. Wells spaceport." 

   My jaw dropped. "Hold it. Put it on pause for a sec." 

   Brushing a tear from her eye, Jasmin did as I said. "What?" 

   "The H.G. Wells spaceport. Syrene." 

   "So? What about it? I never heard of it." Her voice wavered with 
   emotion. 

   "That would be because it was only completed less than a year 
   ago." 

   She shrugged. "So?" 

   "So how did your mom know about it back in 2221?" 

   She was silent. "Didn't H.G. Wells write a book called `The Time 
   Machine?' My mom read it to me when I was little." 

   Impatiently, she punched "play," and the images came to life once 
   again. 

   Her father frowned at her in irritation. "I don't know what's got 
   into you, Alice. There's no such thing as the H.G. Wells 
   spaceport. You're just going to confuse the girl." He faced the 
   camera again, smiling nervously. "We're heading off in the 
   shuttle toward the planet called Syrene." He fretted anxiously. 
   "We wish we could take you with us, but with the ship's systems 
   all askew like this we figure it will be best not to initiate the 
   awakening sequence." 

   "...And your visitor," her Mom continued, "I forget his name, but 
   it starts with an X. You can trust him. He's a worthy friend." 

   Her father turned away again, frowning. "Alice, hush." He waved 
   at the camera. "Don't worry Jazzy, we'll be back for you in a 
   jiffy," he said with gleeful hubris. 

   Her mother was crying now. "Good by dear. Don't forget, we'll 
   always love you." 

   The image faded and went blank. 

   Jasmin turned to me, face towards the floor, and collapsed into 
   my arms, sobbing and shaking uncontrollably. With frantic 
   futility, I put an effort into soothing her mussed hair, but 
   wound up just holding her tiny body close to mine as her emotion 
   poured forth. 

   After what seemed like centuries, the tears and sobs began to 
   ebb, and the warmth of her youthful flesh pressed against mine, 
   my shirt soaked from her lachrymal flow. 

   "Does your name begin with an `X?'" she queried. 

   "Xithnous, yes it would." I spelled it for her. 

   The information filled her with a mysterious calmness, and we 
   stood together, our bodies gently close. The sweet stillness of 
   her childlike breathing brushed softly against my shirt pocket, 
   and her fingers absent-mindedly traced the shapes of my 
   shoulderblades. 

   At that inconvenient moment, the intercept monitor I had set up 
   screeched annoyingly. 

   "What the hell is that?" she asked, with obvious irritation. 

   "Intercept monitor. I have it set up to warn of any Imperial 
   ships headed in this direction." 

   Reluctantly, we broke apart our embrace, and she watched while I 
   punched several buttons and gestured in the air to bring up the 
   monitor display. 

   It would have been too far away to detect any ordinary ships, but 
   all standard-issue Imperial vessels were equipped with a 
   specially encrypted tracking device, so that the central command 
   center would be able to monitor each and every move at all times. 
   Supposedly, the tracking was encrypted, but the underground had 
   cracked the codes long ago, and most non-Inquisition ships 
   nowadays had some sort of similar Intercept monitor to warn of 
   approaching Imperial cruisers. 

   "What's it say?" she asked. 

   "Three ships. Recon configuration, with medium battle array. 
   Should arrive in approximately ... 4.2 hours." 
     ____________________________________________________________ 

   The tension in the room palpably increased. 

   "Didn't you say it would take only twenty minutes to fix the 
   controls?" she asked. 

   "Well yeah, twenty minutes to pull in the patch from the 
   Galactranet onto my PDA, but from what you said a full reload 
   into the main console would take several days. Looks like I had 
   better go for the patch, which would load more quickly but looks 
   like a it will be a hassle to install." My heart raced, and 
   brushed drops of perspiration from my forehead. "Gonna be tight." 

   She shrugged and sat down in the black leather console chair to 
   watch as I went to work. 

   It was one of those tasks that would have been stressful even 
   without time pressure. The added urgency didn't make it any more 
   pleasant, and it took all of my willpower to force myself to 
   assume a measured pace, to execute each step with verifiable 
   certainty. There would not be any time to go back and fix 
   mistakes. 

   Twisting my fingers in the air, to turn the holo-knob, scrolling 
   to the spot in the history matrix where my last search for intact 
   version Sabre DX-42 OS was stored. Poring over the results, I 
   punched the points in the air to bring up a search dialog, and 
   dragged it to the side for better visibility, punching in another 
   key phrase to search for while I scanned the page in front of 
   me... 

   Some time later, I heard gentle music drifting from one of the 
   corridors that branched off from the main control room I sat in, 
   and I turned to see that she had left. I stopped the busy-ness of 
   what I was doing for a minute to listen. 

   Solo harp in the distance, as if bridging across a yawning chasm 
   in the ages of time. It started, there was a mistake, and it 
   stopped, then started again. Now continuing beautifully, 
   flowingly. An ancient Celtic air, it sounded like. Now I heard 
   the sound of singing, floating gracefully like a bird taking off 
   in slow-motion mirrored in a still lake below. 

   I let my shoulders relax, and my mind go blank momentarily, felt 
   myself yearning for my flute that had been left behind on a 
   distant planet some time ago, for the hours to spend in leisurely 
   strolls through luxuriant twists, turns, and curves of melodic 
   hills and valleys. 

   I sighed, returning to the treadmill, the perpetually scurrying 
   chipmunk-wheel of infinitely aggravating nitpicky little details. 

   Glancing at the clock, it was already under three hours they 
   would be here. 
     ____________________________________________________________ 

   Truth be told, my ability to repair that which was broken is one 
   of my most magical skills. I wouldn't want to claim that I enjoy 
   the nail-biting suspense, but there was a certain amount of pride 
   when I saw that it was complete with a little over an hour to go. 

   I held my breath, turned the final virtual holo-valve to allow 
   the current to flood back into the console, and the whole thing 
   lit up, like a glowing city at night. 

   All over the ship, different systems that had been out of whack 
   for several centuries sprang into motion, blinking, emitting 
   quiet beeps and clicks, and correcting the skew, tightening the 
   slippage, emending the drift. 

   Only after she reappeared on the deck did I notice silence that 
   had replaced the harp music. 

   "You play very beautifully," I remarked, as she sat down in the 
   chair to my right. 

   "Thank you." 

   "Of course, I couldn't hear very clearly, from way out here. 
   Sometime I would like to listen close up." 

   She smiled. "If you had, you wouldn't have thought I played so 
   well." Her hands flew over the controls as she brought the 
   engines back to life. "What's going on with the airlock?" she 
   asked. 

   "Oh. My escape pod." 

   "You'll need to bring it into the main shuttle bay," she said. 
   "It looks like the landing shuttle is gone." 

   "Wow," I said. "It looks like you really do know how to fly this 
   thing." Better than I could, right now at least, I thought to 
   myself. These controls were arcane and archaic, and there were 
   half a dozen things it would take me precious time to puzzle 
   over. 

   She shrugged. "Told you." 

   "Look, can you get us out of here? We have some time still, but 
   these these location coordinates are not the right ones for us to 
   be occupying right now." 

   "Sure, I can. But it won't do any good to go anywhere if they've 
   placed a homing beacon on the ship." 

   I clapped my forehead with my palm. "Of course. Duh. Why didn't I 
   think of that?" 

   "Girls are smarter," she said. "You could go have a look for it 
   while you're bringing your escape pod into the shuttle bay." 

   I bolted upright and strode towards the hallway I had come in. 

   "You might want to take this along with you," she said, holding 
   out a universal directional signaling detector, an old one about 
   the size of a box of candy. 

   I was about to tell her that I had one the size of a business 
   card ... that I had left on board my now-nonexistent ship. 
   Sighing, I accepted her offer. 

   "And don't forget to bundle up," she called after me. "It's cold 
   out there." 

   It took me about fifteen minutes to find it, and I felt silly 
   holding this huge old piece of antiquated electronics. But it the 
   detector did work, and sure enough there was the homing beacon, 
   an ugly tapering cylindrical thing about the size of a soccer 
   ball, colored dull grey, stamped on the side in blood red with 
   the emblem of the Inquisition, and with the classic flashing 
   light on the top pulsing about once a second. It was lodged in 
   the crease between one of the decorative fins and the hull, but 
   fortunately the robotic arms the pod was equipped with were long 
   enough to reach it, and I could disable the adhesion field easily 
   with a dissolution algorithm I had come up with long ago for a 
   similar purpose. 

   No sooner had I pulled the pod away from the ship, than the ship 
   itself began to move, slowly. My heart pounded with anxiety. She 
   wouldn't just leave me here, would she? 

   The comscreen flashed to life, filled with her lovely face. "No 
   offense dude, but I'm going to speed things up a bit by rotating 
   the shuttle bay doors in your direction. We only have twenty 
   minutes left, so you better get your tail back in here." 

   "I guess I'll toss the beacon away into space," I said, as I was 
   about to do. 

   "How about we launch it using the catapult, simultaneously using 
   a punch-thrust to set off towards Syrene? That way, if they 
   happen to detect a brief burst of thruster blast, they'll 
   attribute it to that. Plus, the catapult will give us complete 
   control over the direction and velocity, unlike a random toss 
   with robotic arms. " 

   "Right," I said, meekly. "Just what I was about to say." 

   "You're a really lousy liar," she said. "And you know what else?" 

   "No." 

   "Girls are smarter." 

   I cursed wordlessly. 

   The open doorway of the shuttle bay appeared in front of me, and 
   with a light tap on the thrusters I found myself inside. The 
   doors promptly closed behind me. 

   Once the pressure had equalized, she slid open the inner access 
   door, (she had been watching through the square portrait-sized 
   window) and helped me disengage the beacon from the robotic arms. 
   It wasn't too heavy, light enough for one person to handle. 

   "Here, let me get that," she said, "You'd probably drop it and 
   break it." 

   "Hey," I protested. 

   She opened the door to a nearby transport chute and tossing the 
   nasty artifact of the Inquisition inside, and selecting 
   "catapult" from the menu of buttons arrayed alongside as the door 
   slid shut, and there was a soft bumping sound as nasty thing was 
   whisked off to its destination. 

   Silently, we both hurried back to the bridge, where we sat as 
   before, I on the left and she on the right. Her hands flew across 
   the controls. 

   "Syrene," I said. 

   She nodded. "Once we're moving, If they get within radar range, 
   they'll see us," she said. 

   "Let me handle that," I replied, already gesturing in the air 
   over the PDA, sliding and toggling and twisting the virtual 
   controls and panels. "Just get us the hell out of here." 

   She blinked. "OK." 

   "Cloaking field," I explained." 

   "Oh. Well, Here goes a quick blast to send us in the direction of 
   Syrene, as I launch the beacon in another direction." 

   "You should send it away from them, not towards them, so it will 
   take longer for them to catch up with it." 

   She smiled wryly at me. 

   "Why do I even bother?" I asked. 

   "You're goofy," she said, "But cute. OK, here we go." 

   I sat back in my seat, bracing myself for the jolt, but the 
   counter-thrust gravitational damping was perfect, and I didn't 
   feel a thing. Damn, these Sabres were built right. 

   We both watched on the display as the nasty old beacon flew off 
   to vanish in the stars, and meanwhile I worked to get the 
   cloaking device up and running. I had never used it on a vessel 
   as big as this one, but the same basic principle scaled up just 
   fine, and once I flipped the virtual toggle to power the cloaking 
   subsystem, and we were apparently, no longer apparent. 

   "Those things still spook me out," she said, watching me. 

   "What, the holo-controls?" 

   "Is that what you call them? Waving your hands in the air to make 
   stuff work." Her movements got all flustery to illustrate. 
   "Weird," she said. "It's going to take me a while to get used to 
   them." 

   After a good ten minutes or so, the three Imperial vessels 
   noticed the change of course, and set off faithfully in pursuit 
   of the beacon. 

   Apparently, our disappearance was successful. 

   Completely drained and exhausted from the days events, I stumbled 
   off to find something that looked like a guest bedroom in order 
   to collapse in sleep. A glance back, I saw her starry eyes 
   twinkling as she sat watch over the bridge. Then again, she had 
   spent plenty of time resting. 



  ------------------------------------------------------- 


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