Worlds and Stars

Prologue

Nearly a millennia has passed since man first breached the boundaries of it's tiny blue planet. Dreams once found only in fantasies or story books have become common place.

The human race set forth to explore the realms of it's home. The planets know as the Sol system were slow to be reached in a time when space exploration was the least thing on peoples' minds. But time went on as it always does. Small advancements were made and a man, more correctly a woman, stepped for the first time on another planet. Suddenly, the planet everyone had fought on for centuries seemed small in comparison. Mankind was unified in it's desire for exploration.

After many tireless struggles this quest had carried them beyond their home worlds and into other systems. They encountered wondrous systems, explored the limits of scientific imagination, found all manner of life to study. In all their times of searching, in all their questing for knowledge, one thing had eluded them. Sentience, intelligent life, another... something. After centuries of searching the human race had found themselves alone in the empty vastness of space.

Space Force Communications Station Nakamura - 2913. A man sits fumbling with a control console in a room lit only by the flicker of computer screens and random button flashes. He punches at the buttons giving his own form of retribution to the communication module that woke him. Managing to growl his next query, "Comma, what the heck is that?"

The familiar feminine voice of the Communications Management Array, or ComMA chirped a bit too loud for the man's pleasure. "Incoming transmission, Scout Ship Anteries."

Shaking the cobwebs from his mind at the sound of the ship's name. "The Anteries? Wow, I really dozed off this time. Comma, lock onto the signal and amplify."

A few seconds pass and the computer sends it's voice across the stars. "Signal locked. Two-way up-link activated. Nakamura Comma to Anteries, communications active, proceed."

A screen previously dark flickered to life next to the man and a blond haired woman's face appeared before him. "Hey there Carl! Ready for the morning reports?"

"Morning Lieutenant Swanson. Transmit now."

"How many times do I have to tell you, at 5 in the morning... it's Buffy. Transmitting."

Chuckling slightly, "As many times as I can get a rise out of you. In system yet?"

"Yeah, sending off the com packet before orbital insert. One of these days they're going to stop sending military ships on these wild goose chases and I might actually get to stay in bed until a decent hour."

"Oh, but then I'd have no one to pester, Buffy."

"This is true." A siren echoes through her broadcast, "Huh? What the hell?"

"What? What's going on Buffy?"

"Something big moving near the inner moon. Holy fack!"

The screen flickered and finally went dead. The voice of Comma echoed eerily in the room, "Transmission terminated at source."

"Buffy!" Carl screamed at the lifeless control board. "Comma, what happened to the Anteries?"

"Commencing long range scan." A few moments ticked by like hours and finally the Comma responded, "The Anteries is no longer at previous coordinates."

"It left? That quickly?"

There is no evidence that the Anteries' Transluminal drive was activated."

"Vanished"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Worlds and Stars
Episode 1

Aboard the Expedition class ship Homer, the crew has just received word of the events leading up to the loss of the Anteries. Sitting in the briefing room the command officers watch in silence as the final reports are displayed, hoping for some clue as to the disappearance.

The firm voice of the ship's captain echoes through the room snapping them from their trance. "Dr. Brandy Kytten," Captain Robert Lemming looked up from his chair to the Xenobiologist who had recently joined their crew. "What do we know about the system where the Anteries was lost?"

The beautiful scientist shook herself enough to look around the room. Next to her was the Homer's operations chief, Thomas Chen. Across from her was the crew's "escort." Major Christopher Ren, while handsome, more than made up for that with his contempt for scientists and explorers like herself. Moving her gaze back to the Captain, "The system has several planets capable of sustaining human life. Robot probes indicate various flora and fauna on two planets and one moon but nothing that could have destroyed the Anteries."

Major Ren cut in, "We need more information if we're going to try and save what's left of the Anteries crew. We need to recon that system."

"What are you talking about?" Brandy scoffed. "This is an exploration ship! Not a warship!"

"While I echo your sentiment Major, the Doctor is correct. While I realize time is running out to save lives we are not equipped to fight if need be."

"Captain?" Chen, quiet until now spoke softly but enough to be heard. "I've analyzed the data from Nakamura. There's no one within days of the Ophion system except us."

"Yes, we can do this Captain. Get in, check for survivors on the planets and get out. Consider this a formal request by the Space Force"

"Well then," Lemming grumbled. "I have no choice." Pushing a button on the table in front of him the navigator came on screen. "Plot a course for the Ophion system and engage at transluminal speed."

"Yes, sir."

Brandy stood up from her chair and reached across the table ready to throttle Ren. "You jerk, do you even care about us or do you just want to see a little action! What can we hope to do? An exploration ship and what six soldiers?"

"Six soldiers... and Angel" He held up his left wrist showing the watch-like device and smiled.

"Your little digital copilot slash girlfriend isn't going to mean chit if we get hit with what took out the Anteries."

"We'll see won't we."

She let her hands drop, crashing on to the table. Her eyes darting from the Captian to the Major. But, who was she kidding? The Major had out witted, out manuver and just plain out done the Captian since his arrival. Her eyes were caught by the glint of that stupid.... watch control device. She imagined how sweet it would be to just yank it off his smug wrist and snap it around his neck.... and watch it get tighter and tighter untill he turned as crimson as her hair then blue..... then black....

Ren's eyes narrowed at the smile that flashed around the edges of Brandy's tightly clenched lips. The Doctor looked ready to leap across the table and strangle him, and even the hint of a smile unsettled him. She was notorious for her temper.

Looking away from his smug face, she turned to the Captian. "Well, since my input is superficial at this point, I think I'll head back to my little lab, like a good girl." The icicles in her voice made Captain Lemming wince. He didn't like having the Doctor mad at him.

Brandy did her best not to storm out. She didn't want the entire crew gossping about her losing her temper, again. Breathing in and out, slowly, she took the transport to the area allotted to her for her lab and offices. As she passed the robotics lab, she heard them, 2 of the members of her staff, arguing..... again. Robotic verses biology. Lisa Starfire fighting with Dan Modge. Those two... always fighting. Who needed more lab time, who needed better equipment.... who was smarter. Usually, Brandy intervined, but today, she let it go. Someone deserved the satifaction of fighting it out today. And she wanted to find those files on the plant life of the planets that the Major wanted to visit. Glory hound.

Major Ren returned to his quarters with a thousand thoughts on his mind. How was he going to find out what happened? What could have happened? What if they have to fight? Why did the doctor hate him so much? This last one startled him. Why did he care? Sticking his hand and wrist into a port on the table next to the couch and growling a bit, "Angel, transfer to home systems."

A melodic voice came seemingly from nowhere and everywhere. "Online"

"Visual Interface" With that command a projection of a lithe woman with dark hair appeared next to him on the couch. "I just don't get it Angel, why does she hate me anyway? I'm only trying to find out what happened. She should be jumping at the chance to find out if there's intelligent life out there."

"Well, her apprehension may stem from the fact that the Anteries didn't fare to well and it was one of Our ships. We are not on a fighter carrier anymore Christopher."

"Damn, you sound just like her. I'm going to find out what happened. I have to..." He sat for a moment in silence with Angel starring at him. "Visual off."

"Hmph. It's a good thing you're a good pilot Major it's the only thing that keeps you alive."

Brandy sat in her office. Migrating plants, a few large mamals.. no cities or anything humans assocaited with advanced life forms. Rubbing an aching spot over her left eye, she grabbed the next batch of thin plastic sheets and began reading.

She threw them across the room. Nothing nothing nothing. They would go in blind. No significant information. No real fighting force, except for the Major and his cyber copilot. Why not just conduct long range scans and wait for big guns to back them up? It made some sense, they were the closest ship. They were also the least prepared. Major Ren thought far too much of himself and his little devices.

Walking around her desk, she gathered her documents. Her mind refusing to come unstuck from Major Ren. Dan and Lisa had stormed past her office a bit a go, the calls of Pig headed fool and Rediculous female ringing down the hall as they went their seprate ways. Doctor Kytten wondered what to do about those two. Their fights were only rivaled by her clashes with the Major.. ack.. back to him agian.

Rubbing the spot above her eye again, she sat on the floor, rereading the reports she'd flung moments ago.

Lt. Commander Cassandra Heaven ran down the hallway her fiery red hair falling out of its neatly kept bun. Passing and sometimes pushing her way past other members of the crew, she had a determined look on her face as she ran through them. Her heartbeat raced not just from the running but from the news she had just heard. Buffy's ship was missing.

"How could a ship just go missing?" She thought to herself as she made her way to the command deck. "Why didn't any one know what had happened? Why did this have to be happening to Buffy? What if I never see her again?" The last thought made Cassandra's blood run cold as it sent a shutter rippling through her body.

Cassandra's deep blue eyes fixed themselves on the door to the command room. It wasn't far now but once she got there she would still have to fight to get her way. She didn't know which ship had yet been chosen to go and find the Anteries but she was sure she was going to be on it, no matter what. Just before entering the command room she straightened her uniform and fixed her somewhat disheveled hair.

Saluting the captain as she entered she hurried to his side. " Captain I just heard about the Anteries. I wish to be reassigned to whatever ship is heading out the search mission. " She said with a determined yet formal voice.

Captain Michael had known Cassandra for many years now a friend of her fathers he had asked for her to be assigned to his ship once she finished the academy. She was just like her father he would always tell her and just like him she had a stubborn side. He knew that when she made such a request like this there was reason and he had better do as she asked or else she would find away to do it herself.

He pulled her into his office so that they could speak a little more freely. He was a good captain and knew not to show his favor for one member of the crew over another. "Cassandra, I know why you want to go on this mission but it might be dangerous and I don't know if you realize that." He looked at her with a father's eye, concerned for her well being and a little scared at what might happen to her if she went.

"Captain, Mike, I know you have always looked after me since dad died but this is something I have to do I have to find out what happen. I just can't stand not knowing what happen to her. I need to know, can't you understand that?" Her voice was strong but he could hear the desperation in it.

"All right, the Homer has been assigned to look into the disappearance, it's not a military ship so you'll have to watch yourself, but I think I can get you aboard. You be careful though and if you need any help you know who to call, right?" His brown eyes got softer as he spoke to her now more like a dear friend talking then her supporter commander.

"Thank you Mike" she said as she wrapped her arms around him hugging him tightly. Then as if all familiarity was gone she saluted once again and made her way to her cabin to pack for the trip.

Oh the Homer, Dr Kytten wakes with a short from a dream where walking plants were wearing little watch things and taunting her. Where had that come from. Plants with arms and legs, wandering aorund.... wait..

Scrambling among the reports, looking for..... yes.. Migrating plants. They looked rather like trees, thick middle trucks, branching growth on top.. they grew 2 to 4 root stalks, and frequently uprooted and moved independantly along the surface of both plants. There was no explination in the report. Just a few blurry pictures. Brandy's heart raced, the pain above her left eye receded. She dug around and found the mineral read outs for the areas the plants seem to inhabit most of the time.. Standard minerals found on earth... and a few strange, bio-reactive crystal type minerals that hadn't been catagorized yet.

"Oh shit!"

She was on her feet, then almost off them as her lower legs were numb from lack of blood flow, she staggers to her desk. "Computer, where is Major Ren?"

"In his quarters"

"Figures."

And she was off, racing down the hallways, reports clutched in her hands. This had to be it. Had to be a clue, a hit or IT. Hitting the key pad to Major Ren's quarters, over and over, dancing around with excitement. She'd found it!

Then the door opened. He looked.... different. His black hair sticking up in spikes, his blue eyes softer than the usual needle point focus they usual stabbed her with, and he was naked....... well, okay, he had on boxers, but Brandy felt her knees weaken, for a startled moment. Then she shook herself. She wasn't here to oogle the.... the... ah... brute.

"I found it!" She waved the mess of papers at him. She looked a bit like a deranged scientist, her hair sticking up infront where she's been resting against her knees in her sleep, her usually neat uniform creased and sloppy. Major Ren blinked several times at her dumbly. "I found it!!"

"Ah.. come in" He moved out of her way and she slide past him, ignoring the warm radiated from him and scurrying over to a table to spread out her data. "What did you find?" He noticed she was gnawing her lower lip when she whirled to face him.

"Read these!" She stepped over to the side, but he still brushed against her shirt front when he leaned over to read the papers. She managed not to blush, but the contact made other parts of her warm. *I am a deranged scientist.* But, she didn't move as he read. She noticed the fuzzy look fading with each glance, his blue eyes sharpening. Finally, he snorted and turned to face her.

"This is a joke? Do you think lack of sleep will keep me from running this mission?" His jaw worked a bit, clenching.

"What?"

"A joke.. on me.. your revenge...."

Her temper sizzled to life. "No.. it's hours of research!! Brought before the mighty Ren." She bowed, her head bumping his chest. "The plants, the minerals.. if it's not the answer it's the key."

"It's silly. Just silly." He laughed, scooping up the papers and handing them to her.

"SILLY?" Her voice rose to a screech. "I try to help you out and you say it's silly?" Her body began to shake, she was over reacting, but he always sent her over the top, it was like a chemical reaction when she was around him. Snatching the papers, she stood on tip toes, and began poking him in chest. "Last time I checked, buster, this was my field, not yours!" He seemed to be leanding down for a moment, she lost her train of thought... "You.... are just a pilot with a gizmo! Listen to me..." And then... she realized that if she strained just a little more.. she could kiss him, then she realized she wanted too kiss him very badly.. then she ran from his quarters, not sure if it was her or him she was getting away from this time.

To watch from the outside it would appear that the Homer had simply blinked back into existence as its transluminal drives powered down. A shining and elegant vessel that looked more like a sleek jet than the bulky cruisers of the Space Force. It's sculpted wings and forward bridge gave it a birdlike quality. The Homer swept in on the planet where the Anteries had been lost.

Major Ren sat in the cockpit of his fighter, the Run-a-muck. While little more than a piloted missile in respect to armor, it was fast and with the advent of artificial intelligence their maneuverability were increased 10 fold. That is where Angel came in she was one of the newer type 4 AI's most pilots still used type 2 and 3s. His rank garnered him to test Angel on the Homer's mission. She... and he, were about to get the best test the universe had to offer.

Still, with all the uncertainties and fears in his mind they always came back to what Brandy had said. Nonsense about smart plants and living metal. Ridiculous. Still, she had come to him, in the middle of the night no less and she looked lovely for a crazy wild-eyed scientist.

"I hate waiting. Angel patch me through to the squad." A flash of instrumentation and his display split into 5 pieces each with a member of his people. A rag tag bunch thrown on this assignment by commanders who were sick of having them. "Everyone set?"

The voice of his Lieutenant, Veronica Izumi echoed in his ears. "All ready, Ren." She smiled back and ribbed him, "we've been ready for hours now. Beginning to wonder if we'll see any action today." She was the only one who had been with him longer than this mission. The only one he trusted with his life, but there was no time for trust. Only the faith that these boys would do their job.

"I'm sure we'll see more action than we care for by the end of the day... I'm sure."

************************

Something stirred deep withing the bowels of the planet. The waves crashed over the shore with the new, frenzied rhythm of the planet. Birds flew overhead in deadly silence, while animals skittered about nervously. Something was coming, and it probably wasn't a good thing. It was what had silenced the intruders to the planet, to prevent more of them from coming. It was what now had the intruders locked safely away in a cave.

It was on the move.
************************

Aboard the bridge of the Homer Captain Lemming and crew begin to scan the area for signs of the lost ship and her crew.

The ships' ComMA interrupted them with it's crisp masculine voice. "Debris detected near the outer moon. Material is consistent with escape pods employed by the Anteries."

"Life signs?" Brandy queried quickly.

"Erratic and faint but detectable."

The Captain looked around and then to Chen. "Close and then launch the fighters to investigate."

"Aye, Sir." Turning to his console, "Major, standby for launch."

"Gray Squadron launch"

The fighters shot from the bays in pairs, falling away from the Homer like leaves from a tree, then shooting off and flaming jets.

"Gray 2 and 4 inspect the wreck, 5 and 6 head for the inner moon, 3 you're with me. Lets get a closer look at that big one."

The ships closed in and the Homer and the fighters listened as Gray 2 neared the debris. "This is Gray 2, I'm approaching the wreck, definitely a Space Force escape pod. My gawd, there appear to be," a long pause as she her voice catches in her throat. "Bodies. Floating outside the pods."

Ren turned his fighter around to get a look from his vantage the light played across the floating wrecks, he saw the outline of the bodies as they hung impossibly in space. The light played across them like metal. Like... crystal. He started and groped for the communications and managed to scream a warning. "Veronica get out of there it's a..."

Ren watched in horror as Gray 2 and 4 erupted like miniature suns before his eyes. Then in a moments, they were all under attack by swarms of metal men.

Brandy bit back her shock, her horror and began analyzing the strange men in space. Her scans ran over them again and again. "Come on, faster.. I need this faster..." Resisting the urge to beat the control panel, but gnawing hard on her lip, brown eyes scanning the numbers flashing across the console, reading and trying to compile the raw data faster than the computer even. Finally, something blipped at her.

"Bingo." She looks at Captian Lemming, "Captian, those things have been created out of a bio reactive material. Living crystiline metal. The data from inside them is shaky, the crystal structure is interferring with my scans, but what I can get seems to be plant matter with traces of animal like dna.. "

"Major, did you get all that?" Captian Robert Lemming asked, ready to relay the information to him.

The Major confermed having heard the data. Brandy still worked the numbers still being gathered. "There's some sort of signal being emitted to and from the suits.. from.... that planet." She sent the data directly to Ren's console in his ship. "And that's the source of the life signs too."

The stars moved by so quickly as Cassandra raced through space in the skimmer, a one maned shuttle made for faster then normal travel. Its cool silver haul made it look like a star that had only been then a monent ago and was gone agian just as quick. The skimmer was one of her own designes Lt. Commander of engeniering with a specialty in design and theoretical construction. She was the Marra's best engernier and though most wouldn't admite in front of her commanders they would always turn to her when things looked grim because they knew she would come up with something to help them out.

Though the stars may have been speeding by Cassandra couldn't help but still be impationent. She didn't want to wait, she wanted to be there now she wanted to know what was happening and if anything had been heard yet.

She was still 10,000 secs away from the Homer and that would take at lest an other two hours or so. But before she reached her new ship she wanted to make sure Mike's arrangements had been made soild and that when she finally made it she wouldn't just be turned around and sent back home.

Cassandra began trying to send messages to the Homer and her crew but the messages went unanswered. That only frightened her more, what if when she got there the Homer was gone too? Her heart began to beat faster as she tried different channels and wave lengths. Finaly a bit of luck struck when she would hear a bit of radio communication not from the Homer but from her fighters. The messages were scrabbled and she could only make a few words of each sentence but she knew for sure they were in trouble and she needed to hurry.

`.no we are not going to send them any reinforcements. Can you tell me of one reason why we should?'

The footsteps were muted by the special acoustic design of the corridor and seem to sink in the muted lighting. The Citadel of the Exploration Directorate was indeed an exquisitely planned craft. It was the seat of the provisionary government of the frontiers which ruled the newly-colonised zones before they could fully join the Alliance of Free Worlds.

This particular Citadel orbited a star not so far away from the place where the drama of the Homer was taking place.

Two men walked along the corridor. One was Councillor Grumman, the representative of Terra in this sector. The other was Special Directorate Envoy, second class; his name was Pala Ridd. This latter was visibly tired. He only got here recently on a translum-velocity shuttle, and didn't get enough sleep in the last few Standard Hours.

He frowned slightly at the councilor's words and carefully said:

`while it may appear the this sector is not on the Directorate's High Priority list, I would suppose you would know best how to deal with the problem.'

Grumman snorted. ` I tell you there's no reason at all. They're not nearly as important as they would like to think. If little girls and boys want to play at exploration and heroism, let them; but if they run into trouble, I couldn't be bothered with them.'

`See', he continiued `we are too few to push on with this exploration nonsense. The frontiers are really nothing but a way to occupy trouble-makers. Real humanity, now, that resides on Terra, or Sulvesis, or whatever that place you cone from, envoy..'

`Adelpha, sir'

`oh, Adelpha. Good drinks they make there, just the thing for the lonely night, no? Well, or Adelpha. You know, civilized places. Defendable, dependable, safe.'

He glanced at the taller man to see the reaction on his face. If there was any it was difficult to read. Slightly annoyed at this silent Adelphin, the stupid incident with the Homer, and the universe in general, he continiued.

`I don't want to be here, do you see? I don't care about this frontier muck; but I can't decide everything. I'm not the most important person in the Directorate Hierarchy. The Exploration Force just uses you and doesn't ask questions much'

There was a brief silence as the two walked out of the corridor into a hall that was stylish, though somewhat spartan in decoration. Grumman stopped and turned to face the Envoy.

`Anyway, I'm sending you there. Partly because it's protocol and you've got to see for yourself, and partly because you annoy me with those silences of yours.'

He chuckled at that as if it were a joke. Pala nodded slightly.

Grumman, visibly amused, did what he considered a gest of largesse next.

`You may take any of my personal craft if you like, and security staff to accompany you. Which do you prefere, the Wraith or the Rainbow?'

`Which would you recommend, Councillor?' said the other in an almost imperceptibly mocking tone. Grumman did not catch the tone; he spread his hands graciously ` I don't own bad craft, though the Rainbow is perhaps faster. In any case, do not expect to find much when you get there'

Grumman went away thinking of the day his - exile! - on this -frontier! - would end, and he could go back to his estate on Mars. The thought made him happy.

Pala stood watching him leave, glanced around the hall, smiled and went to catch up on sleep that he missed.

"Chit!" Ren thought as he listened to Brandy and Lemming. "All right, just find me a weakness." With that his voice went cold as steel and he barked out commands to his men.

"Gray Squadron Battle mode! Activate AI Interface! All Systems Ready?"

"Ready," came the echoing reply of the other pilots.

"Let's go kick some ass." The fighters shot off, shaking loose from the flurry of enemies. "Angel, scan for targets and our pilots near the wreckage." Lasers and missiles flew across the stars as the Run-a-muck flew towards the downed ships.

"15 targets are still near the escape pods, Gray 2 and 4 were vaporized."

"Target the pod's power core and fire!" Angel, responding to the command, launched two heavy missiles. Ren watched as they streaked to the target and it exploded in waves of energy taking out the metal men near it.

"Woohoo! That got them, sir" Gray 3, Sam Izumi whooped at the sight.

"Major!" the screams echoed in their ears. They looked back to see the Homer in flames.

"Everyone, converge on..." his orders were interupted as Izumi's fighter exploded from fire. "Chit, protect the Homer, at all costs."

Brandy cleared her head from the knock she'd taken as the ship had reeled from what ever had hit them. "Captian, the outter hulls are on fire... breech is possible." She pushed the display with shaking fingers. "So far, hull temp is acceptable. But we need to get some drones out there with fire fighting equipment as soon as possible."

She rubbed the sticky sweat out of her eyes, wondering why it was so thick, and continued to review the data on the enemy weapons. The screen seemed a bit dark for a moment and the ship seemed to buckle under her, but no new attack or damage reports came in. Then she saw it.. the things out there made no moves unless they were recieving the signal... "Ren..... send out a message on the frequency I'm about to send you, it will jam them.. they are puppets, if we jam them it should stop them... " Her babble was cut off, as the information was sent to the Major, and the ship seems to wobble and buckle under her, and sank to her knees. *In just a moment, I'll get up and see what's hit us now.* Unaware that the gash and bump on her head was the cause of the motion. She could hear the rest of the crew, getting ready to evacuate if needed, running emergency procedure, and she rested her head on the hard metal of her station and closed her eyes.

Half listening, half concentrating on dodging fire he managed to gasp a reply. "Right... working on it... now." In a moment the fighter was pounced on by half a dozen of the robots or whatever they were. They pulled at the ship's hull ripping his craft to shreads. "I'm tore up her guys. Gray 5 get as close as you can to the planet and jam that signal. Gray 6 switch to EVAsuit. These guys are too manuverable for our fighters."

As the ship crumpled around him he pushed his arm into a port beside his chair. "Angel transfer to EVAsuit. EVAsuit Online." The chair seemed to surround his flightsuit, cocooning him in a shell. "EVAsuit eject" The canopy blast open shooting him far from the disabled fighter. The craft exploded taking the metal men who had been tearing it apart in the fiery demise. He watched the sensors as Gray 6's pod shot from his craft. The two shells burst open and the two men drifted in space in the armored safety of the EVAsuit.

"Angel, switch to EVAsuit Battle Mode" Thrusters fired and weapons deployed on arm and shoulder mounts. Ren and Gray 6's pilot Jimm rocketed along the hull of the Homer, smashing into the enemies attacking the ship itself. Taking shots at close range to avoid further damage to the ship. They manage to take out quite a few before they stopped moving all together.

"Wooohooo.. we did it! Way to go Doctor." Expecting a reply but only hearing static Ren adjusted his communication system and tried again. "Doctor Kytten? Brandy?" In a panic, thinking the bridge destroyed he found a place where the auto repair panels had not been able to repair a breach. He slipped inside and engaged the manual sealer. Then running through the corridors with mechanically enhanced speed he raced to the bridge. Most of the crew was either unconcious or dead. Commander Chen's body lay in a pool of blood where his head used to be. "EVAsuit Safe Mode" The armor and weapon systems retracted back into the large backpack assembly and he shrugged it off his shoulders, letting it drop to the deck. "Brandy? Captain? Anyone alive in here?"

Finding Doctor Kytten pinned under the Comma console made him wish he hadn't removed the EVA. Pulling it up enough to pull her loose he laid her down on the deck and pulled up her eyelids, which immediatly slammed open.

"Ouch! What do you think you're doing? That hurt!" She scoulded him.

"You were unconscious, I was checking to see if you were dead."

"Well, obviously I'm not. Did it work?"

"Yes." At that moment a energy discharge erupted from the planet taking Gray 5 out in an instant. "Guess we spoke to soon"

Another blast hit the Homer and it began listing towards the planet's atmosphere. Ren jumped into the navigation seat who's previous occupant was also dead. "We're not going to be able to pull this out... we're going to have to land... or crash. He looked at the damaged Comma and shrugged. "Angel, tell Jimm to get his arse in here or he'll be stuck in space."

The craft righted itself enough to keep it from burning up but not much more. Jimm's EVAsuit darted inside a airlock before it got too hot to approach. Ren slapped the button for the intercom hard. "All hands prepare to ditch!"

So it had worked. From the looks of the bridge, nothing else had.

The Major checked the Captian. "He's alive."

Brandy felt a surge of relief. "Let's get him out of the rubble and find the other survivors...." Then she saw Tom... her heart turned into a rock for a few beats, but she swallowed and grabbed at one side of the Captian, and with Ren, began dragging him away from the worst of the wreckage. Even though she staggered and wobbled as the edges of the room greyed now and again, he didn't quarrel with her. He had to be doing most of the work.

Together, they went back. The communications officer, Ashlynne something.. she was alive, but hurt. Brandy managed to pull her out from under her station when Ren lifted it, and drag her to where they had the captian. The pulling making the ache in her head worse and the blood began to trickle from the gash in her head again.

Jimm entered the bridge as Brandy leaned against a wall for a moment to gather herself, head spinning, fresh blood irritating her eye. With a nod, he took over and she began tending to her friends. She did as he asked, preparing to ditch... hoping against hope not to die.

The once elegant Homer fell from the sky tattered and torn. The sleek bird shaped hull broken and smoking, shaking itself apart as it fell barely controlled to the planet. Falling to the planet that had seemingly done all of this to it in the first place.

They had no choice, they could not escape the wretched grasp of the globe. They knew their only hope was to survive the crash and survive until help arrived.

Something watched as the crippled vessel glided down, shaking as it dropped.

"Arm primary missile systems!" Everyone turned for a moment to see the Captain rousing back to consciousness.

"What good will that do?" Ashlynne managed to ask what they were all thinking.

"Don't you kids watch the old vids? Trust me, whatever we are fighting against, it's best it thinks we are dead. Course that maybe true in a few moments, but it's worth a try."

They slid aside as the Captain took the controls watching puzzled but trusting in the experience of their leader and friend.

Something watched as the ship pitched into the ground. Plumes of smoke, ash and dirt erupted from the ground where it went down. Another intruder destroyed.

It was darkness, smoke and pain. Slowly, she became aware of red lights blinking in the haze. Her eyes adjusted. Captian Lemming was moving in his seat, unbuckling and groaning. Ashlynne was also moving a bit. Jimm was accually out of his seat and helping her.

Brandy's hand felt a bit numb, she tugged on it, and it was tugged back. "Glad to see you awake again. Not getting enough sleep off the job, Doctor?"

He was holding her hand... and mocking her. She mananged to wrestle her hand out of his as Jimm came over and began working on the buckles of her seat. "My sleeping habits are none of your business." Getting out of her seat, proud that she didn't wooble, she moved over and joined Ashlynne staring at one of the few consoles still working. "Any other....... survivors?"

"Yes.. we have crew reporting in from lab sector, med facilities, repair bays, the galley and a few from quarters around decks. It's going to take a while to round us all up." But the sheen of tears belying her calm, professional voice spoke of just how few there were left. They were ravaged.

"Have the ones that are able search for the injured in their section, have everyone head to Med Labs. They are at the heart of the ship, let's hope they are still in good shape." Captian Robert Lemming was six shades of white, but in command as he gave Ashlynne her orders.

Brandy ignored the desire to sit and cry for fallen friends and focused on her mission. Find everyone, get them to Med Lab and get off this planet before it came for them. Her eyes wandered over to Ren, looking proud, even blacked and smudged. She felt a spark of anger. She clung to it. She used it to drowned out any other spark she might have been imagining she felt.

Time to get to work. Time to face what was left.

The Rainbow silently appeared out of nowhere above the Nakamura, a surreal pearl-grey shadow with one transcolour line along its length. Councillor Grumman did not own bad craft, that was true. It was a refitted Starchaser, the best light navy craft, capable of insane speeds, refurbished to satisfy a king and safer than a bunker.

Pala was alone inside it. He was sitting in the pilot chair, eyes closed, seemingly resting. He did not touch the control buttons while the ship positioned itself to enter the Nakamura's gun range zone. Thin wires ran along his arms and into tiny ports that opened on his shoulders and his neck. The entire ship was wired directly into his nervous system. That way he could fly it, even though he had no training as a pilot.

He was currently busy downloading any relevant information into his brain over the UniNet, an ansible communications system that linked all the computers of the Directorate. There was little of use however.

The great matt black crates he brought with him were slowly being autounpacked. The Shapeshifter AI troops were being assembled and brought to functionality. No one needed to know of them, not the Citadel, not the Nakamura. Pala wasn't even going to dock; he just needed to report his arrival.

The Nakamura did not respond to his first call. The Nakamura systems must have recorded his message anyway but he wanted to speak to someone living. He repeated the call. The ship was still silent.

It took far too long until someone finally responded.

The voice was suspicious and frightened.

"This is Gerard Reese, Nakamura Comm officer. Ship and crew, identify yourselves.'

"This is Directorate envoy Pala Ridd, requesting information on the incident'

"Directorate' the man on the comlink chuckled ` you're too late. We're done for, unless the entire Navy of Terra is trailing behind your craft'

`I am afraid no reinforcements are arriving to the area within a reasonable timeframe, officer. What is the situation?'

Reese laughed harder `I should have gone with the rest. I should have gone with the rest. We should have, hear me, Trish? It's all your fault you bitch' and he laughed again `you know envoy, go home. There's nothing for you to do here'

The woman who must have been Trish replied then `Envoy, sir, he's drunk, ignore him. Yes we are the only people on board besides captain Carl who is incapacitated and is in the infirmary. The rest mutineed and deserted. The Homer, an exploration vessel, had went down over the planet some time ago.'

`Do you intend to keep the Nakamura in this position?' Pala asked.

Trish was startled "What do you men do I intend to? I'm meant to, am I not?'

`Well, seeing how the rest of the crew have abandoned ship you may legally evacuate it on grounds that you have insufficient staff to maintain it or return the craft to the nearest base. If you do leave, please leave your beacon satellites here, and activate their tracking systems. I will be going on an unplanned mission to the wreck site.'

`Sure sir. Only I expect we will still be here when you return. If.'

Pala frowned slightly.

"This is Directorate Envoy Pala Ridd interrupting Comm contact.'

The Rainbow started its engines smoothly and shot off towards the planet, behind which the crescent sun appeared, heralding the start of a new day for those stranded on the surface.

As the skimmer came into close proximity to the missing ships last location and the supposed location of the Homer. Cassandra found herself alone in the stars. Running scans she could tell that there had been a battle and the debre that was left over was only of fighters from their side.

They must have advanced technology or just stronger ships to not have taken any damage in the battle. Cassandra's mind raced as she tried to think of where the rest of the ship had gone. Had they retreated? Were they distorted? The planet, Cassandra's eye lit up, as she looked down that the mostly barren planet. That had to be the answer where else could they have gone. Scans of the planet brought back strange readings for life signs. The scans said that most every inch of the planet below had some sort of life sign though the computer could not make out what kind of life form to classify it as. Trying to narrow her search she began to only look for humanoid life signs.

"There" she exclaimed as she found a few faint signals wavering on her screen. They'll need some more help then what I can give them, she thought to herself.

"Captin Michael of the military ship Hades. Do you read me?" The line had a bit of static on it but she could tell it was going through. After a few more calls she began to get concerned but then just as she was loosing hope a familiar voice came over the comm.

"Yes, we read you Lt.Commander Heaven" Mike's voice seemed very official so she knew he was not alone in the command room.

"Captain Michael, we need help at the sense of the missing ship. The Homer has went down on the near by planet and I'm only getting faint life signs." Cassandra tried to stay as focused and logical as she could. " Please send help or come yourselves."

Cassandra ended transmission after that last sentence hoping it would show the dierness of the situation. Her next thought was of how she could get to the planet and hopefully not run into what ever sent the Homer down.

Pala shook his head as he eavesdropped to the woman on the commlink with the Hades. The Hades was a capital ship and no doubt obeyed Grumman or one of the other cowardly councillors. Unless they would disobey orders.

He momentarily debated if he should signal or engage the little skimmer in front of him but decided against it. He would just track her, but no more. She was none of his concern.

The Rainbow flashed past the skimmer on a high - energy manoeuvre, and then shot around the moon, ran around it twice and slipped into the atmosphere, fading from view and scan systems as it descended. It headed towards the spot that appeared blank on the radar..

Dr. Brandy finished putting a splint on Lisa's arm. The head of Biological Studies looked dazed. Next to her, sat the head of Robotics. Dan and Lisa had not let go of eachother's hands since reaching med labs with 2 other survivors. "It's not broken, more like a dent. But you still need to be careful. When we get out of here."

How would they get out of here? Brandy feared that any ship coming to their aide would be trapped as well. Unless the jammers were still working. Then, maybe... She swallowed down a wave of dizziness. She had a mild concussion and vaguely remembered her head slamming down on her instrument panel at some point. It had split open a gash on her forehead and blackened up her eye as well. But, there was so much to do. As long as she kept moving, she could ward off the weakness that wanted to over take her. So many of the survivors were too hurt to help, a simple head knock was not good enough in Brandy's mind to make her stop.

Major Ren stopped her on the way to put some items back on ruined shelves. "When are you going to sit? You look ready to fall over."

As if to prove him right, her legs woobled under her.

"I am fine. I have work to do.. Don't want you to think I sleep on the job." She knew she could not push past him, so she walked around him and then headed back to check out Dan.

Clinging to Daniel's hand, Lisa watched Dr. Brandy finish checking him over, bandaging the gash on his other arm, and the puncture in his leg.

She could feel her hand trembling in his firm grip, and she blinked back the tears that threatened. There was no time for crying right now. The panic that had threatened to overwhelm her since the first strike on the Homer was gradually easing.

Her greatest shame was that she had not thought of the ship or its crew. At the first hit and in the subsequent confusion and melee, her only thought was Daniel. What if her last words to him were ones spoken in anger?

That she would have regretted eternally, although eternity seemed to be a very short time here on this planet. She had been at odds with the handsome Robotics head from day one. Forced to share lab space and limited resources, Lisa often felt that her department's needs were overlooked in favour of robotics. She privately admitted that part of her anger toward Daniel was not truly aimed at him, but at the superiors who placed more of a priority on his field of expertise.

But all of that had fled her mind at the screaming vibration struck the Homer. Her heart leapt to her throat, and her first thought was Daniel. Paying no attention to the intense pain in her arm from where she had been thrown against the table, limping on an ankle that barely supported her, she hobbled into the hallway, eyes burning from the acrid smoke. Forever seemed to pass before she approached Daniel's quarters...only to find him unconcious. He was bleeding from a gash in his upper arm, and a piece of jagged metal stuck in his leg.....

Tears filled her eyes as she fell to her knees beside him and stroked his cheek. His eyes, intensely blue, popped open and he stared at her, his expression mingled anger and pain, softening at the sight of her tears.

"I love you," Lisa blurted out, not thinking of the ramifications. Not thinking of anything except the overwhelming relief at finding him alive.

A static-filled announcement to prepare for crash landing came through on the comm...Lisa helped Daniel to stand and, supporting each other, they moved to the bed alcove. Lying together, bracing as well as possible, the Homer was down before they realized it...staring into each others' eyes, Lisa's green meeting Daniel's intense blue, the rest of the world faded away.

When the last shudders of the ship died away, Lisa and Daniel moved together toward the med lab, supporting each other. They joined the other survivors who hobbled, crawled and walked to the medical facility. Dr. Brandy was there, ready to treat everyone, disregarding her own injuries.

Taking a deep breath and giving Daniel's hand a squeeze, Lisa released him and stood.

"Dr. Brandy, how can I help?" she asked.

The sensors went blank. Pala sat in the pilot's chair, stupidly staring. He felt he was blind or deaf or something, the tired brain completely mistaking the ship's sensory data with his own. He breathed out and tried to re-establish the course. The sensors went on again, and then abruptly as before failed. And then again.

He sighed and disconnected himself from the tendril system. That was very unfortunate. He could not fly the craft any more. He switched to autopilot.

The scan came to life once again and told him there were no more blank spots on the hemisphere map. Then suddenly it showed two. Then one, but in the opposite direction from where he was heading.

Clearly the Rainbow was blind in the damned place. He then thought if he had made a mistake going here and not signaling the skimmer. Maybe this was something too tough for the Directorate tech to tackle. Maybe.

It was wiser not to panic, he decided, and re-tendrilled himself to the auto-pilot, retaining marginal control over the craft. The tendrils slid in easily along the by-now well defined channels, but it felt like a violation nonetheless. He was used to it, however.

Then, immediately, the security subroutine flared a signal. There were unidentified objects approaching the Rainbow at a dangerous angle and velocity.

He paused his breath. That the Rainbow was helpless and unarmed was beyond question, but he did bring something just in case something like this would happen. The AI troops were already unpacked, and stood behind him, each an exact replica of himself, equipped in Special Space - Infantry power suits. He was commlinked to all of them, a sort of pilot that flew eight at once. He just had to concentrate on thinking about it, and it would be no problem.

Then the Rainbow`s scanners picked up a signal that was clearly a human craft; not a navy craft or a vessel he'd recognise the signature of, but human nonetheless. It must have been the Homer.

He decided to make a run for it, not directly for it but in the vicinity. The Rainbow had to be safe, his only ticket off this place. He ordered - thought, more correctly - the troopers dropped out of the bay door. They flew alongside the ship which was going slowly, the autopilot hampered by faulty scan systems.

Then the dots appeared in the sky, dark silver on purple, and at once an invisible beam of energy struck the reinforced left side of the Raibow, and then it's sidewing. He cursed and set it for a straight - down course that would end in a seeming crash near the Homer. The troopers split in three groups, two guarding the Rainbow, three going off sharply to the left and another three straight for the approaching things. The attackers seemed to be still concentrated on the Rainbow, not registering the danger that the troopers might pose them; the Rainbow shook as another charge just barely missed it.

The first three troopers swept out the plasme whips, a quantum - particle - excitation based weapon, much like what the enemy was using, and attacked first at range and then again closing in. The front two attackers vapourised while a third survived the attack and fired on the trooper closest. The trooper morphed to shrink and received most of the attack on the armour's second skin, which smoked away into a wisp. The trooper, unharmed, swept with his weapon once again and destroyed the enemy.

There were four more that he was aware of. He hope to bring the other three troopers to confront them from behind, so to distract the enemy he charged the first three at the nearest one. It shot and missed; the troopers took it out; the other three attackers shot, all at once, at one of them.

A section of Pala's brain groped and scraped blindly to try to register the trooper that was now ash and pulverised metal. He cursed, and then groaned because he was bringing the battle too close to the Homer. He turned the Rainbow a little to take a wider turn before making contact with the ground.

Just then the three he was maneuvering around appeared behind the enemy, and destroyed them using the short-range eradicator handguns.

"Hooray for Autoaim' he thought.

He quickly recalled the troopers towards his craft, finished his landing maneuvre, and then sent the Rainbow's escape pod at max velocity at a direction totally different from where he was heading. He set it to send help calls at the most intense volume at all available frequencies, and then sharply turn its course to head out of the planet's atmosphere. A costly decoy he thought, but perhaps necessary.

He left one of the troopers to guard the Rainbow as it camouflaged itself against the background - one of the things Grumman was very proud of to have on his craft. The rest he took with him as he got into the remaining suit of armour and plasma-jetted towards the Homer.

With Lisa taking over for her, as she had almost fallen on the woman when she asked where she could help, Brandy sat at the data port in the Med Labs, slowly filling the data crystals with as much information as she could claim off the system in it's distroyed state. To sit felt good. Her legs were a bit woobly.

The computer bleeped weakly and she changed crystals. Then, her chair turned, she put her hand out, suddenly gripping fabric. There was Major Ren with a first aide kit. "Are you trying to kill me?" Her voice didn't sound angry enough to her, breathless and excited..... but she was not breathless to be this close to him after avoiding him since the crash, not excited by his hand on her waist, holding her in her seat. She refused to be.

"Just let me fix that eye up a bit, Dr Kytty, then I'll be out of your hair." He accually knelt before her, his face hovering inches from hers for a moment and she cursed herself for noticing.

It's the knock on the head. That and I've always been too fanciful. Yes. The sting of him cleaning the small cut made her gasp. "It's not so bad. You were lucky."

He put a covering on it, but instead of standing, he stayed there. His blue eyes digging into her brown ones. "Y-yes. Very lucky. Now I need to get this data saved. So the next ship won't have to be lucky." She realized she still had a handful of his shirt and let go. "Sorry."

Still he hovered. She found herself leaning toward him again.... and him leaning into her.

"There's something landing out side!!!" Jimm's shout broke the spell. Blinking, she grabbed the crystals, not look at Ren and slide off the chair... Time to see what was next.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Worlds and Stars
Episode 1

Interlude

Aboard the Scout Ship Anteries a lone body stirred on the dark and lifeless bridge. Despite her broken and bruised body, the blond haired woman rose back to the communications station where she had been sitting. Moaning while trying to focus on the blurred console she joked to herself, "Anyone get the registry on that asteroid?" She paused to look around at the empty bridge, "No. I guess not. Bridge to Captain Vaughn. Bridge to Captain Vaughn." She waited for several moments and received no reply.

Staggering to the AI station she plugged at some keys until a masculine voice responded to her commands. "Anteries Online."

"Anteries, what the hell happened?"

"Unknown Lieutenant. All sensory systems went offline when the enemy weapon hit us. I was blind for lack of a better term, Ma'am."

"That's okay Anteries, why hasn't anyone come to investigate the bridge and where is the Captain?"

"I've accessed internal sensors, Ma'am. There is a severe hull breach on decks three through five."

"The crew quarters? My gawd, but it was third watch. Everyone was..." Staring in blank horror for a moment then shaking herself back to reality. Her voice came in between light sobs. "Anteries, who's left?"

"I've located 10 distinct life signs besides your own. Most are concentrated in the drive section. I am attempting to reroute communication systems to contact them. It will take some time, however I cannot at this time locate a viable access from the bridge."

"So we sit here, in a dead ship with the ghosts of 42 friends haunting us."

"Ma'am, further scans indicate no other command officers survived the blast. It is my duty to note your temporary field commission to Captain per Star Force regulations."

"Great! I command a ship of specters. Wait a minute..." She took a moment for the first time to glance out the forward display which Anteries had brought up when he came online. "Where are the stars?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As everyone who was able rushed for the hatch to watch their latest visitor Christopher grabbed Brandy by the arm and pulled her back into the room.

"What is the matter with you?" She scolded him. "We have work to do and not much time to do it."

"Hey, I guess I've learned rushing headlong into whatever is out there might not be such a good idea."

"Well," she lingered in his grasp for a moment and then ripped her arm free. "It's about time you got something through that thick ego of yours."

His head fell and she could see a bit of the hurt in his expression. He sighed and stared into her eyes. "I'm just glad..." He straightened up realizing he'd let the moment overtake him. "Anyway, as for saving your life. You're welcome." Pulling her into his arms he pressed his lips to her own. Her eyes went wide as she was startled not only that he was kissing her, but she was kissing him back.

He released the kiss and pulled away from her, turning at a brisk pace down the corridor after the others.

Brandy felt a sharp stab of disapointment as Ren broke off and left her. The kiss had been so much more than she'd dreamed it could be. His lips warm and firm..... Snapping herself out of it.. She finally heard what he'd said .... she was WELCOME for him saving her life? She was welcome? The data crystals cut into her palm as outrage warred with desire.

But that moment of hurt.. when she'd snapped at him before caught her. Maybe there was more to Christopher Ren than she'd thought. She felt herself softening toward him for a moment, then she shook herself. There was company coming.

Brandy headed down the hall. The Major was a distant figure to her. Still, her heart did this funny thing when she saw him agian......

Pala was feeling dizzy. The small army of robots he piloted became increasingly difficlut to control and he was considering switching them to AI pilot; the Homer was already close, however, so he could hold out a little more.

He could locate the survivors by the results his suit's scans sent him. There were a number of them, too much for the Rainbow to carry outside. That was very very bad. If only the Nakamura was still there he could make a few round trips - what was he thinking that wasn't his mission at all, he thought, and quickly chased the thought away. He long decided that he wasn't going to carry out the Directorate's original plan but instead assist in the rescue.

So, a few round trips. In that space of time the Homer would have to defend itself against an unknown number of dangerous enemies. Even with the technology he was bringing, which could help boost the combat capabilities of those trained as fighters and soldiers, they stood little chance. And Rainbow could well not survive the escape, let alone the return.

Still, he got himself into this and now that was the only thing to do. His travel pack brought him close to the Homer; he landed, his troopers in a semicircle around him; he called the Homer over the commlink. He wanted his arrival to be at least impressive, and maybe even impressive enough to give the Home crew hope.

Brandy watched the ship land. It seemed unharmed but a little out of control. The air outside was thin, but breathable. It was a pretty ship. But it didn't look like a fighter. She heard Christo---- Major Ren curse. Then a few AI suites landed as well. Good, AI suites had jamming capabilities. This could work, this could work fine.

Waiting, she tucked the crystals in her suit pocket. In the middle of the crush of people, she was aware that HE had moved to stand behind her left shoulder. Perfectly rediculous to be so aware of him. It had been one brief, meaningless, causal, hot and stirring kiss. Anything else was her imagination.

The man getting out of the rescue ship was very unexpected. He was not a fighter pilot. He was clearing a .... well.... beaurocrat. A very handsome one at that. He aproached the outter hatch, and Captian Lemming opened it for him, surprizing him a bit.

"Doctor Kytten?" Lemming looked for her and she wove her way through the crowd to him. "This man is going to have to make trips to take us off this planet, do you have the frequency to jam the enemies suits on those crystals?"

"Yes, captian. I've got most of the data from our encounter on them."

"Good, go to his ship with him, load up your data and lets get the worst of the wounded out of here."

Trudging over to the new ship, crystals clinking in her pockets, listening to Lemming and Ren bark orders... So brief a stay, what a shame.

At the excited announcement of the arrival of the new ship, Lisa looked involuntarily at Daniel, catching him watching her with a smile. She smiled back, ducking her head, quickly finishing the bandage on the last of the wounded and praying it would hold until they got to safety.

Rising, she found Daniel standing behind her. She turned to him, stepping into his waiting embrace.

"We're rescued," she whispered.

"I know." Daniel pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead, hugging her near. Lisa relaxed for a moment in his arms before pulling back slightly.

"What are you thinking?" Daniel asked, catching the vaguely distracted look in her eye.

"We're going to be leaving. And this is an unexplored planet...." she eyed Daniel speculatively.

"And you're thinking that you might have time to gather some samples before we're taken away?" Daniel finished the thought.

"They'll take the most severely wounded first. We won't be until the third or fourth trip at least. Let me grab a few sample containers..." Slipping free from Daniel's arms, Lisa grabbed a small medical bag, filling it with empty vials and dishes. Returning to Daniel's side, she was alarmed to notice the blood soaking through the bandage on his leg.

"Daniel," she said. His gaze followed hers.

"The movement broke it open. Dr. Brandy said that the puncture didn't hit the artery. I'll be fine. It doesn't even hurt that much. You wouldn't deny me a chance to see the local vegetation, now would you?" Daniel's tone was mild, but his gaze was challenging. Lisa warred between wanting to demand that he stay here and rest his leg, and wanting him by her side.

Giving in only because to do otherwise would cause an argument that their new-found love might prove too fragile to cope with, Lisa nodded acceptance. She handed Daniel the medical bag, and slipped her shoulder under his arm.

"If you're coming with me, the very least you will do is lean on me."

Daniel's lips quirked into a smile. "That I can live with," he said.

The skimmer shook as it descended at high speeds. The heat from the decent warming the inner haul just a bit above normal but this ship was meant for space travel and not for flying the in the planets atmosphere. Cassandra knew she had to do it though, she had to find Buffy no matter what. The Homer was her only lead so far and she knew she had to get to them if she wanted to have help in finding her beloved.

As she passed the clouds that she could see the Homer's wreckage on the barren ground below. There was another ship as well near it, not a fighter ship or by the looks of it much of a rescue ship either. The ground was coming up quickly to met her and she could just make out what seemed to be people standing waiting for the Homer to open it's doors to them. A semi circle of men in some kind of suits and someone else, a man it looked like though not in the same type of armor as the rest. It didn't matter who was there she was going to make her way onto that ship no matter what. She wouldn't let anything stand in her.

The skimmer gave a bit of jerk as it landed hard on the rocky ground. The jostle undid the little bit of hair that had been still up on her head. Cassandra fiery red hair now fell down around her, it fell to the mid of her back with it's waves of shinny redness moving like the sea back home. Cassandra made her way to the bay doors and as she opened them the air being let in pushed her hair behind her to relieve her tight fitting uniform. Her well in dowed bosom heaved slightly as she took in this new air. Her long and slender legs carried her well as she moved to meet this another visitor to the Homer. She took with her only what she had to, the documents of her transfer, a small bag of medical supplies that she had and her own equipment for trying to salvage anything of use from the Homer's computer.

*********************************
Rage. They had attacked her children. The had destroyed her link with them. they had slaughtered them. And now. Now they had set foot here. They dared traverse this place, when it was not theirs to traverse. They pulled her children from her, killing them. The were ignorant of their ways. Leeches. Virus'. Worms. They moved their way across the galaxy. Hurting her sisters. Raping them. Conforming them to their ways. But she was still in touch with the old ways. She knew how to manipulate the forces of the planet to her will. As manipluate she did. So. They dared step on her soil. Lets see how much they enjoy this paradise...
*********************************

Some unknown distance away, the earth shook under Lisa and Daniel's feet. Slightly at first. So very slight. But the tremors grew until they were in a full blown earthquake, ripping open the freshly sealed wounds. Reupseting the crash site. They ran outside, away from the falling debris, using each other for support. Moments later a crack in the ground opened beneath the ship, swallowing it whole. As if supernaturally, it then closed back up; not as if it were new, but enough to know they would never get the ship remains out again. It had been buried.

Dr. Kyttyn and Major Ren felt the shakings, but that was the least of their worries as a horde of moving plants swarmed towards them.

Cassandra too, felt the shaking, but was untouched.

The survivors from the first crash, Buffy and friends, felt nothing.

Pala stared in disbelief as the planet did something he never believed possible; He was still standing in front of his small troop of Shapeshifters. He glanced wildly at the survivors and at the debris lying over the newly-closed earth, then at the running plants;

He turned his Comm unit to full volume and shouted to the survivors and crew; he then ordered the the AI troopers to take off the Space Infantry Suits, so that the poeple could wear them. If they hurry they could make it to the Rainbow, he thought, no matter the stupid flora and fauna. The Troopers than started morphing, turning into four-limbed aircraft, like fantastic star flowers, guns at every arm. The outer layers of ther armour hardened to form a surrogate of armour, tougher than their usual skins. They immidiately shot off into the air and flew over the plants, frying many with plasma-wall devices, but not many enough, and then going for a second round. The plants seemed to shitter and expand, and then fired energy beams at the craft, which kept evading them, but just barely.

By that time, the Doctor, the Captain,the two survivors from the rest and the military-looking man got into the suits and were helping others worse hurt; seeing they were ready to follow, he shouted once again and plasma-jetted to the Rainbow; The craft went for one more round and then followed him. S6 suits, six survivors, he thought. What a mess

Christopher walked to the small cargo area of Pala's ship. The others heard him mumbling to himself but ignored it. He was always talking to that watch of his anyway. He unloaded the supplies Pala had offered to help and gave them to various members of the crew. Then he found it. "Here it is, Light Environmental Speed Suit Mark... nine?" Clearing away the dust from the old numeral IX to make sure it wasn't a mistake. "I don't know who this guy is... but he has some amazing toys."

"Christopher," Angel chimed at his mumbling. "There is no such suit in production. The Mark IX was considered too great a threat to the human pilot."

"Well, I'm looking at it right now and it's a beauty." Caught up in his discovery, Ren didn't even notice that another ship had landed, he did however notice it's pilot. "And so is she."

"Pardon me?" Angel asked perplexed. "You really must fix the sensors on this wrist unit. I can't see a thing."

The Major didn't respond he was dragging the surprisingly light crate towards the newest ship. He dropped the crate beside himself and managed an official greeting with only a minimal amount of drool. Seeing his rank Cassandra saluted her superior and she had to linger there a moment for his eyes to track back up to her head. With a slight blush he saluted her back. "Hello Commander, I've heard of you though the reports obviously didn't do you justice.. You're an engineer of some merit, correct?"

"Well, yes... have you found out anything about the Anteries?" She fumbled a bit, trying not to grill the Major.

A bit shocked by the rejection of his charms he straightened and replied flatly, "No, we were attacked rather quickly. A trap in fact. It's a good thing you showed up here. Our last engineer, lost his head."

Cassandra started to reply as Brandy walked up to them, steaming as she watched Ren drool over this newcomer. Her remarks were lost in the tremors that began to rock the ground.

Ren saw the hoard approaching them... quickly. He ripped open the case and pulled the pack over his shoulder. "Angel, activate battle suit."

"Christopher, this is too dangerous."

"No, those are dangerous! Do it!" Angel responded and the armor enveloped his body. He reached down to grab the helmet and placed it on his head in one fluid motion.

He turned back to the others and spoke, but they heard two voices speaking in unison. "Get to cover, have Mr. Ridd get his robots to help us." With that Ren's armor shimmered from silver to black and ran off towards the advancing creatures.

Ren plowed into the weird plant creatures with a vengence and precision to rival any fighter. The armor slid down, past his hands to form long sickle-shaped appendages. Slicing through then at lightning speed. He was aware of all his surroundings from the ships getting ready for lift off to the fighters overhead. He slammed into the enemy hacking them at every front but there were too many. They broke past him and the fighters. He was aware of the wholesale slaughter of his former shipmates, helplessly pinned in by the creatures, blasting and cutting away at the nearly limitless numbers.

Brandy fumbled with the controls. They weren't difficult, just not the same as her lazor cutter or any of the lab tools she was use to.

"Come on, damn it, you have six degrees... this should be easy.." Hitting some button, the suit came to life around her... Then the plants hit her hard. She managed to find one or two of the guns, and put up a decent fight, but she was untrained and went down... hard under the unslaught.

The suits sensors, Angel and Ren all registered Brandy go down at once. The sum of all his human rage and the pinpoint accuracy of Angel flew out in a massive static discharge from the suitpack. The creatures paused for a fraction of a second, but Ren had already given most of himself over to the link and sprung from the tangle with unprecidented speed. The shadowed form faded to blend with the sky as it rocketed towards the fallen Doctor.

"You Bitch, work!" If she noticed the cursing she was doing, the doctor gave no notice, she used the puny guns she had managed to figure out so far. "Stand UP! ARGH!" She could see the flashes of the warnings, see the little blasts of flame from the damage.

Looking up Cassandra saw the approaching hoards of plants, watching as Major Ren flew into action she herself wasn't far behind. Reaching into her bag of equipment she pulled out the one thing that Mike had insisted she take, her energy riffle. She was one of the best marks man on her ship but then being raised in the military and by a fighter had that effect on a girl. Pushing at the girl who had come up behind Major Ren she moved her behind the line of fire. Standing in front of her Cassandra began to fire at the ever-encroaching plants. Her aim was good, her aim was great taking down everything she hit, but for everyone she took down the vast numbers never seemed to dwindle. As the plants were hit she noticed something strange. The ones not vaporized by her riffle were being pulled back into the plant, their bodies almost becoming part of the ground beneath them.

"Thats it!" Her voice was loud and strong as she spoke but still it was feminine some how. Turning back to the young woman behind her Cassandra's eyes were fierce like a storm were flying inside of them. " Get down and find some cover" she told the young woman too late. She had put on one of Pala's suit and was buried under attacking creatures.

Cassandra had one more trick up her sleeve, reaching into her bag again she pulled out what looked like a simple glass ball. Throwing it as hard as she could into the center of the approaching hoard it exploded into a thousand pieces bringing with it a shower of liquid oxygen it's tiny drops of water like liquid freezing everything it touched. Thousands of the plants frozen in place like ice cravings with one last shot of her energy riffle the whole mess of plants exploded into a fiery ball of flames. Nothing seemed to be left but scorched earth before her.

They were all damn stupid, he realised in panic. Instead of helping him escape with their lives intact they just lost time and....

He suddenly realised he wasn't really wanting to die. He was already out of his suit, but he still had the persoanl armour and the bounce-shoes on. Just good enough for a quick trip outside.

He tumbled out of the second cabin entrance, and ran towards the man, Lemming. He was probably a pilot. He needed one to take him off planet, and the rest could go to flames.

The shoes brought him in great leaps right to where the beleagured captain was trying to fend off the creatures. Pala used the one-charge plasma whip, withering those closest, threw it away, and hit Lemming with the impact of his entire body going very fast.

The man stumbled and fell. Pala got out a pistol-shaped object and pointed at him.

'You're going to the ship. Now' he said 'i need you to fly the damn thing out of here. If you won't cooperate and will try to stay and die with the rest i will disable you and take you with me and try to fly the thing on my own. And if we ever get to a directorate centre, be sure you'll suffer.'

The man was speaking, but Pala didn't listen. He just switched off the suit with his Key control and pulled off the plasma-jet. Strapping it to his back, he grabbed the man and flew towards the Rainbow.

There were enemies blocking his path. His weapons were used up; he breathed deeply, then hoisted the stil-helpless Lemming in front of him, and charged at them with the full speed the thrusters could produce. The feeble attaack the creatures made was not effective against the armour Lemming wore, and the impact knoked them to the ground. Regaining direction, Pala made it to the ship.

He pushed Lemming inside, and removed the suit. Freed from the restriction, Lemming swung at him with his fist. Pala barely dodged, and then fire into the captain's arm, paralysing it.

'Now' he said slowly, 'Get in the seat'

"Get in the seat' he repeated almost hysterically as Lemmingrefused to move. Finally the man got in.

Pala instantly made the chair straps bind him. Then he tendrilled the pilot into the ship's system, watching in grim sympathy as the tendril pierced his flesh to bind itself to his nerves. It was painful, Pala knew.

Then he tendrilled himself into the pilot control system. This is so illegal, he thought. I would get 20 years back on Adelpha for something like that.

He thought about it, and forced Lemming to take off the craft. The Rainbow whined softly and was up in the air. The pilot was good, he thought as he puppet - played him. Excellent instincts.

Now to gather up the robots and force-rescue those who he still could..

Cassandra had made her way to where one of the disabled suits was. Hitting the outside control the suit opened to reveal a young woman inside of it, a very beautiful young woman at that. Grabbing her hand Cassandra pulled her out from inside the suit.

"We've got to get out of here for now" Cassandra's voice was forceful and she knew it could be hard at times. " I have a ship near by come on and we can get as many of the surviors left that will fit on my ship.

Cassandra knew she didn't have a big ship but it could hold at lest 15 people with most of its cargo expelled. Mike would be here soon, she just knew it and he could take the rest of the wounded crew as she went off to find Buffy. There was nothing more she could do for anyone here but try to get them off the plant and pray that Buffy was still alright.

Slightly draging the young woman with her Cassandra gathered up all the people she could find near her and put them on the Skimmer. The engines roared as she brought them to life. The flare from the take off took another hundered of the plants with her when she took off. A smile crossed her lips at the thought of them burning and if she thought for a minute that something had happen to her Buffy she would be back to finish off the planet.

So this is it. Now we see if we live or die.. he thought, feeling tired suddenly.

The robots - now almost all AI - controlled, far from his brain centres, were they still there?

They were surprisingly. He let out a yell of praise for the computer engineers, and then ordered the sleek planes to change into robots...

Two got destroyed while they transformed and lost their armour; the other four made it. He swore, and ordered them to dive for the suited humans. One just barely missed coming to the aid of the woman scientist - Dr.Kytten her name? - who was rescued by Cassandra. The others were more succesful, swooping the survivors from the ground and into the Rainbow's hold.

He did not even bother with Christopher Ren. In that suit he was as safe as any one else, but equally likely to be a lot of trouble. He was sure that his survival was not going to be his merit. The Rainbow made a few lazy sweeps over the mayhem, and once all the survivors were picked, soared upwards. The Robots, totally out of Pala's control, chased the enemies until they were destroyed one by one.

He felt the blood sing in his ears measuring the beat of the universe. He felt elated in a sick, helpless way. He looked at Dan and Lisa, and at the rest, most still dazed, but now getting better. Then his head swam and he fainted, just jerking himself out of control over Ren in the nick of time.

Inside the small skimmer ship, the communications display lit up before Brandy and Cassandra. They were confronted with the face of a young woman. Brandy recognized it as the 'face' of the Major's AI. The eerie dual voice of Christopher and Angel echoed through the cockpit. "Help me. I... We are in danger." The image waivered and seemed nearly as confused as the two viewing her. "You must save him. We have buried my consciousness to protect us." The girl seemed to shake herself and the voice was only the girl. "No, must stay seperate. He's hiding in the Rainbow's systems. His mind nearly lost to me. Hurry, please save me." The two voices merged once more into a horrible scream and the communication ended.

Brandy's face went white. "Christopher?" She turned to the lovely young lady who had saved her. "I can jam those damn plants so they won't attack. Then, we take the Rainbow down and get the Major out!" She didn't sound ragged, though that's how she felt as she quickly relearned the console. "No weapons systems, no problem." She cranked the jammers up and watched the plants wilt. "I love being smart."

She and Cass made a swoop, the other red head blowing the now still plants to merry hell. "Buckling in, dear, this might bump a little."

And then, they were on course to force the Rainbow down.

Cassandra knew her ship wasn't as big as the other but it was faster and it could take just about anything. Flying in close to the Rainbow she brought the Skimmer down on top of the Rainbow, tilting the Skimmers engiens up so that they could force the other ship down. It was a bit of a fight to get past the size of the other ship but the Skimmer's engiens were stronger and finaly brought the other ship to the ground once again. Hitting one of the consoles energy cables shot out of the bottom of the Skimmer locking themselves around the Rainbow in a net form.

Looking over at the other young woman sitting next to her " That should hold them for a while but I think I better call for back up before we try to get in there."

"Captain Micheal are you out there?" She knew that he would be there, those stupid counslers thought they could tell the military want to do. The military was bound by different rules then politics and if this little diplomat who was inside the Rainbow thought he could get away with kidnapping and not have to stand up for it he was saddly mistaken.

A moment later Cassandra heard a familiar voice over the comm system. " Lt.Commander Heaven are you there? We're in orbit right now, will you be needing assistance?" Mike, Cassandra thought to herself. A soft smile crossed her ruby red lips and her whole demener seemed to change, to grow a bit softer. "Well I don't think we need help coming up but we do have some hurt people here and one diplomat who needs to be put in the brig." Her voice was steady as always but then with a sence of tenderness her continued " Thanks for coming".

The flight up was hard on the engiens pulling two ships at once but they finaly made it up to the awaiting ship. Doctors and military personal swarmed the Rainbow, taking the diplomat in custody and taking Major Ren to the infermeray. But they still didn't know anything more about the Anteries and that worried Cassandra.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Worlds and Stars
Episode 2

Major Christopher Ren lay strapped to the bed. He was surrounded by monitoring arrays and equipment. They had managed to extract his body from the Rainbow with a fair amount of ease. The strange AI girl had guided them through removing the links and shutting down the suit. They were not able to remove the helmet interface as his mind was still swimming in the connection between his brain and Angel.

The projection of the computerized autopilot hovered over him trying to release his mind from the link. She still heard his voice in her mind but it was like hearing someone next to her now. Before it had been a fight to stay a seperate entity. This suit was dangerous, yet very powerful. Though she was afraid for Christopher's life, she craved to have that link again. As she knew he did as well.

Lisa Starfire walked into the medical bay to check on some of the samples she and Daniel Modge had collected. She glanced over at the man in the bed and wondered why they were bothering with this man who had gotten so many of her friends killed. It was curious that the computer was still online. It had been hovering over his body for the last four days. "I'm sure this level of devotion in a computer would fascinate Daniel." She mumbled to herself then went about her experiments.

Doctor Brandy Kytten wandered in the room sometime later. She seemed to be lost in half a dozen ideas and thoughts as she nearly knocked over a tray of supplies. Grabbing the tray and staggering away from it with a lack of her usual grace. She managed to take two more steps before another tray went crashing to the floor.

This seemed to create a stir in the Major, he pulled at his restraints and Brandy rushed over to release his arms. She watched as his arms rose and he removed the helmet. He turned to look at Angel standing close at his side. He managed a weak smile and turned slowly to gaze into Brandy's eyes. They were such a welcome sight. He was so worried about her, but she was alive. His head was still swimming but he focused on one thought to stay conscious. "She's alive." He didn't realize he had spoke this but it didn't matter. He continued to look at her and managed to speak, on purpose this time. "Hey."

Brandy's legs had been unsteady for the past 4 days. Instead of feeling better, she'd felt worse and worse as Ren had laid there. With his AI hovering over him. She had wanted to be at his bed side.. but felt like she was in the way. There was work to be done. Plant and soil matter to analyse.

Now.. she approached the bed. Amazed that he was looking at her and talking to her. Looking down on his face, a bit thinner than before, she felt such relief flood over her. As if it belonged to someone else, her hand stroked his face. "Hey." Was that her cracking voice? "Quite an adventure you led us on, Major."

"Yeah, well, you looked.... like you needed some excitment." He smiled, his eyes digging holes in her. But she relished it. His beautiful blue eyes had been haunting her.

"I was sure... you were gone forever." She felt his fingers tighten around hers and wondered when they'd clasped hands.

"Sorry to dissapoint you."

"I'm use to it." And then she did it. She placed her lips against his and kissed him, pouring how glad she was to see him moving into it. Then she was gone before he could blink agian, a few of her tears on his cheek.

Cassandra had been waiting impationately for the last four days for any reports on the planet that was below them. They had moved to a safe distance away and had put some blockers in the atmosphere so that the crystal beings couldn't attack again. Pouring over charts, reading and rereading the print out of the last transmtion from the Anteries. She still coudln't find anything yet to even show that the Anteries had been attacked by the planet. If their was a battle some other message was sure to have made it out before the ship would have went down, but nothing. It was as if the space around them had just opened up and eaten them whole.

Cassandra was weak from lack of sleep and food but how could she eat or sleep knowing that they knew nothing and were no closer yet to finding the Anteries or Buffy. Laying her head down in her arms, Cassandra's red hair fell over her like a blanket covering her and comforting her from the world. Maybe just alittle rest she thought as her eyes closed, just alittle rest then I'll go over this all again. Before she could finish the though she was asleep. Her dreams were restless, images of attacking plants and of the Anteries blinking out of excitence. She was awaken sharply by a messanger telling her that Major Ren had pulled out of the AI and was going to be alright. She didn't quiet know why she cared if he had or not but she was relieved. Perhasp she was relieved because he might be able to help find Buffy? She had been thinking of him off and on though. He was handsome and always ready for battle both things she liked about him. Trying to push the thoughts of him from her mind she went on reading. There had to be something here or in the samples it was just a matter of time.

Clutching the information from the latest batch of tests on the samples, Lisa walked throught the corridors toward the chambers she shared with Daniel. Even with as few survivors as there were, space was still limited enough that they were asked to double up...they weren't high enough in the command structure to merit individual rooms, and besides, with their new-found feelings for one another, and the narrow escape from death on the planet, neither was willing to let the other go too far out of sight.

If Dr. Brandy hadn't ordered Daniel to bed after catching him hobbling to the med lab with her, he would be at her side right now.

She pondered the AI unit. She knew Daniel would be fascinated. He had been working on a way to introduce AI into the robo-mechs that he designed. Currently, the input of a human was required to operate any of the bots that he designed, but with AI, there would be less risk to humans. And it could have averted this latest disaster. Send a troop of AI-enhanced bots to the planet surface for the prelimnary investigation, and land a human exploration team only when it was safe.

But she knew if she told Daniel about the level of sophistication shown in Maj. Ren's AI, he was going to want to go investigate immediately. And he still needed to heal. Her own arm ached ceaselessly, but she has not lost the blood, nor received the bump on the head that Daniel had.

Lisa shook her head, realizing that she'd reached her door, buried in thought. She pressed her palm against the plate inset in the door, waiting for in to scan the whorls on her hand and admit her to the room. The door chimed softly as it opened. She had hoped that Daniel was asleep and wouldn't hear the door...but that hope was for naught. Even constrained to bed, Daniel was not sleeping. He had a mobile reader and was sifting through information crystals containing the preliminary test results, popping them into the reader one at a time, and frowning at the information within.

Lisa moved over and sat on the edge of the bed. Daniel looked up, giving her a distracted smile that made her heart flop in her chest.

"Dainel," she said flatly. "You are bad. You were supposed to be sleeping. You will never recover if you don't get some rest and let your body heal. And if you don't get well, then we....."

She trailed off, arching an eyebrow. Daniel reluctantly handed the mobile reader over, and the handful of info crystals, snuggling down in the bed. Lisa leaned over and brushed his lips lightly with hers.

"Now if you promise not to get over-excited, I want to tell you about Ren's AI unit."

Brandy sat at the borrowed desk. Compiling the report she was suppose to be giving in 3 hours. Her mind was not co-operating. It was stuck on the warm, responsive kiss Christopher had given back to her.

"Oh hell." She hadn't had a decent night's sleep in days. She was ragged to the core. She did not want to give this presentation. She knew what they were considering. Subdue the plant life with the jammers and mine the bioreactive metal. Finally, the report a mess on the desk, she rose, and slipped into Med Labs.

She just watched him, from across the room... sleeping normally. He'd almost killed them all, save her... then almost been killed himself, then lost..... He was more trouble than she could handle. Running a hand down one of her crimson braids, she snuck out. Missing the blue eyes cracking open and watching her.

Lisa set the mobile reader and info crystals aside.

"The AI unit that Major Ren has...I think it displays more than programmed intelligence,'" she said, leaning close as if fearing being overheard. "It hovered over him the entire time he was unconscious."

"Well, his mind was intertwined with it," Daniel said. "That's not necessarily so odd. A little sophisticated, perhaps. You and I don't get the top-of-the-line models that someone like Ren does."

Lisa laughed. "You're a man. all right."

"Did you ever doubt it?" Daniel reached to her, taking hold of her shoulders and pulling her in to him.

"You. Need to get some rest," Lisa said. "And I didn't mean it that way. I meant...that AI...it was acting like a woman in love. It had the same expression that Dr. Brandy did looking at Ren."

"Dr. Brandy?" Daniel asked. "She seemed to be trying to avoid Ren."

"She's trying to avoid her feelings," Lisa said. "Believe me, I can recognize the signs. After all, it wasn't so very long ago that I was trying to avoid thinking about my feelings for you. And failing miserably, I might add."

"What made you change your mind?" Daniel asked.

"The thought that I might never see you alive again." Lisa snuggled down into the bed beside Daniel. "Now close your eyes and get some rest. I'll stay right here beside you."

The information crystals, with the latest results, lay forgotten on the desk as Lisa closed her eyes. Listening to the soft sound of Daniel breathing, she fell asleep.

Ren marched down the hall half of his mind lost in the kiss, the other half detached and determined. He strode into the brig and waltzed past the guards with ease. He slammed the control pad on Pala's cell and it slid open. Pala rose to meet him, but Ren covered the length of the cell in two steps and smashed him with a hard right to the jaw.

Pala fell to the floor and rubbed his jaw in amazement. He was even more astounded that Ren reached out his hand and helped the Envoy to his feet.

Ren smiled at him a bit, "Now that we've settled that, I need your help. We must get someone to help out here."

"It's useless." Pala scoffed at him. "Grumman will never believe what we found down there. Intelligent plant life? Hell I don't believe it half the time."

"What would it take?

"Live samples. It's the only way he'll believe you." He paused in thought. "Perhaps one of the more mundane lifeforms. Even the ones controlled by the hive mind should be enough."

"Right," He thought about this new information. Pala noted he looked more like he was 'processing it.' "We have a few teams down there now. I will task them with capturing one of the minor plants.

In a few hours time they had captured one of the metal men. The vessel itself was completely destroyed, but the creature inside survived. A craft returned with it to the Hades while other teams attempted to capture more.

Aboard the Anteries the crew watched in horror at the scene outside. A giant plant-like creature with a dozen tendrils the as long as the ship itself floated above them. It had wrapped around the ship and was beginning to puncture the hull. There was literally nothing they could do but sit and watch.

The Anteries AI spoke flatly. "Captain, the creature has tapped into the auxilliary computer system and has accessed the cargo hatch." They watched as something unknown and completely alien floated into the bay. "It is attempting to access the main computer."

"Anteries, reroute all suit AI's into the computer and knock that thing out." Buffy ordered. "It must be using some hacking intelligence to break in so easily."

"AI pilots are approaching the new data stream." There was a long pause and Anteries spoke again. "They're dead."

"What? Who?"

"The AI programs Ma'am. They're gone. Wiped out."

The ground shook and light poured in from above. The creature had somehow accessed the flight controls and was moving the ship up and into space.

Buffy looked and saw the surface of the planet below. It was the one they had been orbiting before all this started. Sensors indicated there were Space Force units on the ground. "Attention!" She yelled over the command net. "All hands, the ship has been captured. Self-destruct protocols are active. Abandon ship."

She turned to Richard and looked into his eyes. "Get everyone out of here. They'll be safe with those troopers. I have to destroy this ship."

"But Buffy..." He tried to plead but she cut him off.

"That's an order, trooper!"

He saluted slowly and sighed knowing she was right. "Yes Ma'am."

She watched as the escape pods feel to the ground below then turned to the task at hand. "Anteries, activate auto-destruct." She walked over to a compartment and pulled from it a Mark IV Battlesuit. It was heavy but it was her only way off the ship. Most of the pods were destroyed before and the crew had taken all that were left.

"Auto-destruct activated."

Strapping the wrist control module on and walking to the main console she plugged in to the AI port. "Download Anteries"

"With all due respect Ma'am, I am a very old type 2 AI and not even programmed to fly a battlesuit. What use am I to you?"

"You're the only AI left on the ship. Besides, do you want to end up like the others?" She felt silly scoulding a computer but she had little time for debate.

"I see your point, Ma'am. Transfering... Wait. The self-destruct has been aborted."

"Well, turn it back on." She couldn't help but yell.

I can't it's locked me out. It's accessing navigational charts. Attempting to delete." The voice paused. "It's searching for something. It stopped. I've deleted all the files."

"Good, lets get the hell out of here." She powered up the suit and blasted her way out of the ship. They were just inside the planet's orbit and she could see a Star Force ship in the distance.

As they watched the Anteries float away, her AI chimed in Buffy's ear. "I've analysed the data that was accessed by that creature. It was searching for something. It was searching for and found... Terra."

When a race wanders the galaxy for centuries finding nothing but barren rocks and unintelligent lifeforms a despair begins to set in. However, this is only one of many of man's emotions. Another driving force for the human is paranoia. Plain, unadulterated fear.

One of the shapes that this fear took was in the weapons they built. The Space Force was highly overpowered for the creatures they encountered in thier travels. The fighters, ships and suits were mere toys in their arsenal. They had developed weapons of mass destruction so incredible that they could obliterate an entire planet.

The Anteries had one such weapon.

Buffy watched as the weapon sailed to the planet she had ordered her crew to escape to. She had sent them to thier deaths. She tried to radio any of them. She hoped to hear the voice of her old friend Richard Storm. Anyone. She had to warn them.

The weapon nearly as long as the Anteries herself was, broke into a thousand pieces that spread themselves around the tiny globe. Buffy screamed and pleaded and cried over the communications network as she watched each piece drop into the atmosphere and explode in the air. The sky turned red and pink and purle. It would have been a wonderful site, but she knew what was happening beyond the serene beauty of the blasts. The planet surface was being blanketed with scorching plasmatic fireballs. Nothing would survive.

"Richard!" She screamed one last time before slipping into shock. When the Hades picked her up later she was mumbling but her eyes were a blank stare.

The crew of the Hades watched the scene unfold. Then watched as the Anteries engaged it's transluminal drive and disappeared in a trail of light.

Mike had called Cassandra over her personal com system as soon as they had seen the Anteries rise up off the planet. Her mind was running wild with thoughts. Is Buffy still on the ship? Where is it going? Why hadn't they been able to find the ship on their sweeps of the planet? Too many thoughts clouding her mind all at once, she tried to push them all to the back of her mind. Her first and for most thought was of Buffy and making sure she was ok. Running to command deck she heard over the com system that the life pods had been used and were drifting to the planet now. A wave of relief swept over her as she could see Buffy softly drifting to the planet below and being all right after all. The next thing over the com nearly made Cassandra go weak in the knees from fear and disbelief.

"The Anteries is attacking the planet below with netrongic flares. " The cold voice said.

She couldn't breathe, she couldn't move, the images played out in her head so quickly. The last one on the ship would be the captain, she knew that from protocol. He had sent his crew out in the life pods then. "Oh my god" she thought to herself. Then he turned the ship on his own crew as they made their way to the planet below. He had turned his ship on Buffy! Cassandra fell back against the corridor wall her body shacking slightly beneath her. She tried to steady herself but to no avail she fell down the floor, her back sliding down the wall her palms hitting on the ground.

Every emotion filled her at once, sorrow, regret, and loss. She was as numb as she could ever have been in her life. The world was just a hum around her, a blurring vision of nothingness.

The air was broken by the cold voice over the com system. " Survivor jettisoned and adrift above atmosphere moving into pick up."

The words cut through her like a knife and it hit her all at once. Anger, hatred they filled her to the point of bursting. The only one left alive was the captain he was the one in the suit hovering there in space. He was the one to blame and he would be the one to pay, he would pay for taking their lives for taking hers. Cassandra rose from her slump on the floor and moved with determination to the bay that was collecting the bastered of a captain. Moving to the front of the room as she entered she saw the figure lying on the floor. Still covered in his suit, afraid to steep out of it and admit what he had done. But Cassandra was ready was ready for him, she was ready to give out her own punishment to beat him to a blood pulp and if no one stopped her she would take his life just as he had taken her loves. Quick and ready she only waited to look into those eyes for one moment before she started on her rampage.

The figure stood up and started to remove the helmet of the suit. Cassandra was standing straight in front of him her eyes fixated on that helmet on those eyes behind it. Her face turned to horror as she saw those eyes that had always looked on her with love and grace. Those eyes that were the softest blue, those eyes that belonged to her love. Cassandra couldn't speak at first she could only stare on in horror and amazement.

"She isn't dead" she thought to herself. She wanted to be more relieved but the other thoughts came to her. " If she isn't dead then she was the one who did it, she is the one who killed all of them." She couldn't stand to look into those eyes another moment and without a word turned her back on her love and left.

Brandy barrelled into Cass. Neither had been paying mind where they were going, lost in thought.

"Oh damn, I'm sorry!" Brandy started to go on.. but stopped. Cass looked ready to either kill or cry. "Are...... are you okay?" She put her hand on the other woman's arm and felt the tension racing along her nerves.

"I don't know yet."

Brandy frowned for a moment. This woman had saved her life. Dragging her out from under certian death. Sliding her arm through one of Cass's rigid ones. "Come on. You saved my life. I owe you a cup of coffee. And while we drink it you can think or talk, it's up to you."

As they moved down the hall, Ren caught sight of the two red heads, one short and dark, one tall and flame like, moving together, arm in arm and his heart stalled for a moment. What was Brandy doing walking like that with someone else?

*************************
She searched the incapacitated ones for information. Why did they wish to know her? She searched their data banks through the minds of her children. They activated something that would destroy its self. Typical. They sought to destroy everything. Ah, here it was. Terra. They're home planet. Beautiful. A marble of blue and white in the sky. They had spread across it like a plauge, with no regard for the planet beneath them. She would be doing all her sisters a favor if a few of these vermin were destroyed before they could do more damage. Still.... she sent more plants up to the broken one, to collect the humans.
*************************

Buffy's eyes widened at the sight of more plants approaching. somehow though, these weren't as threatening. Almost, almost as if they were an escort of some kind.

*************************
But would she follow???
*************************

Cassandra didn't know what to think just yet. She was relieved that Buffy was alive but at the same time she couldn't handle the thought that she had killed all those people for no reason. Staring into her cup of coffee as she sat with Dr. Brandy she knew she wasn't much of a companion or conversationalist. Her thoughts were flooding her with emotions and feelings and she couldn't yet tell where each one came from. Looking up for a moment she found Brandy's eyes on her, staring at her then quickly looking away. She seemed to blush a bit at being caught watching Cassandra. A smile creep across Cassandra's lips as she saw the blush of Brandy's rosey checks.

Brandy was a very attractive woman with her dark red hair and semi pale skin tones. An all around well rounded woman indeed. Brandy sipped her coffee lightly, bringing the cup up to her lips and ever so lightly pressing them to the cup. She didn't know why but this seemed to help her. Cassandra was still reeling from the incounter with Buffy and she knew she still had yet another one with her to come. She had to know the truth even if it hurt but for now she was content to drink some coffee and watch as Brandy pretended to not be watching her.

She was such a mystery. Why had she jetted off to join them in the first place? Who was she looking for? That was the rumor. Brandy knew she was caught staring and blushed. This woman had saved her, had rushed in and helped extracted Ren from most of the network.

Setting her coffee down with a clink, Brandy took a deep breath. "Ready to talk yet?" She gnawed her lower lip, and blushed harder. "Sorry... I'm prying.. curiosity and all that.. heh, makes me a good scientist, but a very nosy person."

Cass gave her a weak smile. "You seem like a very nice and caring person to me so far."

Brandy continued to worry her lip with her teeth. It was a nervious habit she just could not break.

Ren, searching out Brandy to inform her of his capture of specimens for her, could not believe his eyes. There she was. Drinking coffee, making soft, melty brown eyes at Cass and nibbling her lip.

Striding over to the table, Ren leaned over Brandy, casting a shadow that forced her to gaze up at him.

"Ren! What are you doing out of bed?" Brandy felt her heart wrench in a not unpleasant way at the sight of him leaning over her. "Are you trying for a relapse?" She pointed to an empty chair at the table. "Sit before you give me a krink in my neck."

Cass watched them. Brandy seemed.... not angry.. but not happy.. just terribly confused. Cass could totally understand what she was feeling. She leaned back. Deciding that she did not want to get burned by the stray sparks now floating in the air.

"Now, my Kytty, I've got good news for you. Don't start with the snarling yet." He looked like a kid with a really good secret.

"They found the common sense center in your brain and turned it on?" She frowned at her self.. Stop snapping! What is wrong with you? Taking a deep breath, she started to appologise, but he cut her off with a deep, rumbling chuckle.

"Now, Kytty, put way the claws! I've got wonderful news. I went out and got you a present, for saving my life..... " He leaned in close to her and almost lowered his tone enough to be a whisper, "and for that sweet kiss..."

"You what?"

"I got you a present... a specimen. Alive. Of the plant."

"You did? How.... oh god you didn't put a suit back on so soon?" The worry that broke in her eyes, and the watering around the edges gave him a funny feeling in his stomache.

"Kytty.. just say thank you... or you could kiss me?"

"Christopher.... ah...." Gnawing her lip, torn between thanking him, kissing him and screeching at him for risking his life in a suit so soon... she decided on thanking him.. "Thank you.. so much."

Then she got up quickly.

"Where are you going?"

"To see my specimen.'

Then she was gone.

He stared blinking for a moment at the fleeing doctor and repressed an urge to run after her. He slowly turned back to the woman left at the table. "Well, I got a thank you at least." He gave the girl a sheepish smile. "So, what the hell were you doing in the Ophion system?"

"Nothing." She stared at her cup. "If you'll excuse me Major."

Cass ran from the room and he watched yet another woman leave. "Gee Angel, I must be loosing my charm?"

"Naw you're as sweet as ever Christopher. We just have a deadly unknown alien headed towards Earth."

"Oh," he chuckled. "Can always count on you to help my ego."

Cassandra had been holding this back for a while but she couldn't any longer. She stormed down to corridor after locating Buffy's quarters. That Buffy hadn't asked to share quarters with her was infuriating enough. She hadn't even spoke a word since being rescued.

Slamming the pad next to her door. She heard the chime inside and the eventual reply. "Come in." The voice was flat and a bit shaky but it was her love, no the woman they had found. Cass wasn't sure she knew who this woman was anymore. And noone would tell Cassandra what happened.

She walked up to Buffy and slapped her hard across the face. "What the hell is wrong with you? Why did you kill all those people?"

Buffy's head lay slumped to the side for a moment slowly moving back towards Cassandra but never meeting her gaze. "I... I tried to save them. The creature... it killed them. Nearly killed me. It... it's going to Terra. It's going to kill us all. I'm going to kill us all"

"What are you babbling about?" All Cass's pent up rage would not let her hear the sobbing cries of her lover. "Why are you killing them, why?"

"I killed them, I killed Richard." Her sobs were full blown tears streaming down her face.

"Damn right you did!" She slapped her again and this time Buffy went down, falling onto the bed. She jumped on top of her prepared to take vengence out for all the people who had died on that planet. She pressed Buffy down on the bed pulling at her.

Buffy managed to struggle back, not knowing why she was being attacked but not caring either. She pulled Cass's shirt over her head to hold her arms at bay but the more determined Cassandra slipped free and ripped at Buffy's own clothes.

She turned Buffy over and stared into her eyes ready to smash her fist into Buffy's face. "Yes, kill me." Buffy cried. "I ordered them, tried to save them. They died because of me."

Looking into her love's eyes, Cassandra finally saw the hurt there. The self-loathing and pain the loss of her crew must have caused her. Pulling Buffy into her arms she kissed her softly and held her for quite sometime.

They made love that night, happy that they could at least be together during this hell. In the morning, Buffy had told Cassandra all that had happened. She had even confessed her trist with Richard.

They mourned the loss of their friend together and held each other until it was time to get back to work.

Relieved to have worked things out with Buffy, Cassandra's out look on life was a bit roser this morning then it had been since she came to this mission. The fear of the impending doom still lay over her but she could at lest smile for the first time since she had heard of Buffy's disappearance. Buffy for some reason still hadn't wanted to move into her quarters with her but she wasn't going to force the issue on her. Cassandra was just happy to have her back in her life and though it hurt at bit that she had been with someone else. Cassandra knew they had an open relationship and could be with other people if they couldn't be together or with the others permission but for some reason it still hurt this time. Perhaps it was just that she had missed Buffy so much and that pain was still inside of her for the moment.

Walking down the halls to the med labs to see what that beautiful Dr. Brandy had found out about the plants. Cassandra didn't look much like herself at all right now. Trading in her fleet uniform for something a bit more comfortable today she was wearing a long and flowing all most see through dress that cut very low in the front. It's soft blue color reflecting her eyes in such a way that would make any man go weak in the knees but it was also Buffy's favorite dress of hers. For all the trouble she had caused in yelling at and attacking her Cassandra thought the lest she could do was look nice for her and maybe make them dinner tonight. Her hair was down and in waves of red it framed her face nicely. As she walked to the labs everyone seemed to give her a second look. Not sure if she was real or if she was a ghost of someone they had lost. She did have a haunting looking about her in a beautiful way. Entering the door to the med lab she stood there for a moment untill with out saying a word she caught the eye of Brandy. Brandy herself was looking quiet pretty herself today. Her hair up nicely and out of the way showing off her long and slender neck. The curves of her body soft and smooth in her semi tight uniform. She seemed to look Cassandra up and down not sure who she was at all for a moment then it can to her and she almost didn't believe her eyes. Was this the same cool and calm person she had just had coffee with the night before?

Brandy grabbed Cass's hand, her brown eyes sparkling like a polished Cat's Eye stone. "Come see this!" Dancing in front of Cass, her crimson hair trying to escape the hasty but tight bun she'd put it in this morning, Brandy dragged the woman toward a pen with a tree like thing in it. It was about the size of a large dog with out all the armoring. And it looked far less human shaped.

"This thing is so.. amazing. It can hear.. it even has an orifice for eating.. not a mouth but a .. well.. it's the start of a mouth." The rest of what Brandy said flew by at ninety thousand light years an hour, untill she took a deep breath, hugged Cass and squealed, "It's just amazing!" Then she hopped into the pen. "Now.... watch this!"

Cass watched as the creature ate, drank and seem to purr for Brandy. "It's completely nonaggressive, which proves my theory that someone else is behind all the attacks!"

Behind them, they heard a strangled, angry, very male noise... "BRANDY! Get away from that thing, it's DANGEROUS!" Ren's eyes were nearly buldged out of his head.

Then Brandy giggled.

Cassandra watched Brandy and thought of her as a sort of a fairy or sprite. Running to and frow all the time talking up a storm and letting her emotions run over her with little trouble. She buzzed about the room and in her higher then normal voice tried to tell Cassandra all about everything she had just found out. Though some of it was interesting the rest just sliped passed her and she made no fight to try to remember it.

"Most definately a spirited one" she thought to herself as she watched Brandy jump into the pen with the creature.

Cassandra gave alittle smile as she saw Brandy giggle over being scolded. Ren had entered the room and he was attractive as ever. He demanded a respect and authority Cassandra like that about him. She was used to being the strong one and though she enjoyed her role in life she had always wanted to just let go and give herself over to someone else. That was her secret fantasy, not even Buffy knew of it.

"Hello Major Ren" Cassandra said with a bit of a smile. Her voice was different then they were both used to hearing it. It was soft and sweet almost like a melody of some mystierous song. She was being flirty and she knew it. She had been flirty to both of them. Not being hindered by structure or taste she liked both male and female company.

Her attention was pulled back to Brandy as she climbed out of the pen. She had begon talking about the plants and all of the wonderful things she had found out. Ren moved more into the room but still kept his distance a bit. Cassandra could sence that he felt a bit strange with the two women in the same room together. He had seen them walking arm and arm then a bit later having coffee together. He wasn't sure what to think of the two of them. Both beautiful and attractive in different ways. Standing beside each other they were as night and day so different but yet both were wonderful to behold.

Cassandra tossed her hair lightly to the side and leaned over the counter to get a better look at the charts that Brandy was showing them now. Her low cut front giving a peak of her well rounded breastes. The time went on like that, listening to Brandy go on and on about the plants. Cassandra's mind started to wonder a bit in small fantasies but still she looked as if she were listening.

Staring and watching at Brandy play with this... thing. He looked on a bit out of his element. While he was certainly not minding the company of the two beautiful women, his thoughts turned to the hijacked Anteries on it's way to Terra.

Envoy Ridd and the Captain Mitchell had been trying to convince Grumman to divert ships back to Earth but the man simply didn't believe what was going on. The Hades had begun pursuit but the small scout vessel was far faster.

"Well, I..." He stammered for a bit as Cassandra bent close to Brandy and he got a view of her backside. "I need to be going back to see what Pala has planned once we actually get to Earth."

"Okay, but don't you wanna hold it?" She scooped up the plantoid, cuddling it against her breasts. Ren's eyes seemed to be looking at the creature, but the started, blushing look on his face suggested other wise.

Cass just smirked and reached over. Picking up the thing, her fingers brushing against Brandy's smushed boobs. The Doctor made a little noise.. not a protest but a kind of a surprized coo at the brush. It kind of made her tingle.

Ren's eyes were glued for that moment of contact to Brandy's breasts. Ideas and half formed fantasies raced through his head. Then Brandy, face flushed, spoke again "Now, what we need to do is determine exactly how this cute little guy is turned into a killing machine."

Thoughts of leaving the room fled Ren's mind as he watched. His initial fear overcome by another more primal sensation. He wandered close and then behind Brandy looking over her shoulder. "Yes we should get to work on this right away. I'll stay here and we can all put our... " He stopped lost in another fantasy. "heads together."

Cassandra looked at the Major and couldn't help chuckling softly. Oh he's the jealous one. "Well, Major. The doctor and I were talking about this and I was going to help her with any thing she might desire." She put a sultry emphasis on any and desire just to get his goat.

"Well," He gulped back a reply. "Perhaps, we'll figure this out together."

Brandy felt hot and cold all over. Ren was so close and Cass was smiling at them.... not even the churping of her specimen could detracted from the heat generated by those two. And she felt like she was right in the middle. She supressed a little shiver, but goose bumps still broke out over her.

"Ah.. well... I think the little guy has had enough excitement. He's in for a lot of poking and prodding soon, so, let's go have some dinner, shall we?" She turned to look at Christopher, startled at how close he was to her. "The Mess will be pretty full, or I could cook something?"

His eyes rolled over her, noting the goose bumps and other protuding parts, Brandy quickly turned to find Cass smiling and eyeing Ren and her as well.

Brandy knew she was eating them up with her eyes too. Cass simply looked stunning in that blue dress and Christopher... he just looked good too. She could feel heat spreading through her body as she tried to look casual.

"Well? Where shall we eat?"

Cassandra knew she was being bad but when had that ever stopped her. She knew playing with the two of them wasn't quiet fair as they didn't know what they would be getting into but the chase and game were just too good. Not to mention that both of them were so yummy in thier own rights. Noticing the goose bump and how Brandy's chest seemed to tighten a bit at the heat in the room Cassandra smiled lightly that playful and sensual smile that Buffy had come to love. Then she remembered, though it was fun with these two nearly fall over themselves at the sight of each other and at her she had other plans for dinner.

"Did you say dinner?" She spoke in the soft tone her voice sweet and full of sensuality. She moved her right hand to her neck and tilting her head slightly she moved the hair that had fallen infront of her. As she did her body became even easier to see through her dress. Trailing her hand down her neck and continuing it down her side till it rested at her curving hip.

"Oh, I'm so sorry but I already have plans for dinner. I didn't even realize the time. What is it they say, time flies when your having fun?" Giving a bit of a wink to Brandy and her lips forming another one of those sensual smiles. Looking over at Ren for a moment she gave him the same smile.

"Maybe we could try to get together agian some time." It was dirceted to both of them but she said it in such a way as both of them felt it was just for them and no one else.

Looking at Brandy she said " Do you think your up for an all night work sesion? Maybe we could meet up agian after dinner? Well if you want to just give my comm a ring and I'll come on up." With that Cassandra turned and moved gracefully out of the room. Her body showing even more from the back then it did from the front. Each line of her body could be seen through her dress and she knew it. A toss of the hair and she was out the door and gone.

Cassandra hurried to meet Buffy in her quarters she had been planning this for most of the morning and didn't want to be late for their first date since she had been back. Cassandar couldn't wait to tell her all about playing with Major Ren and Dr. Brandy. She didn't take it to really be a game she knew people feelings were real and not to be played with but how she loved to flirt. If she did get interested she would first have to get permission from Buffy then she would see if she wanted something more for one or both of them.

Looking into Dr. Kytten's eyes, Christopher became lost in her face. He stared at her for a moment and managed to shake himself free enough to speak. "Sure, dinner would be great."

She smiled at him and hugged him quickly. "You are a brave man," she chuckled. "I might just poison you."

The two walked down the corridor to Brandy's quarters. Her hand slid across his shoulders and down his back. It brushed lightly against his own hand and she felt his warm caress as there fingers linked together. She felt a bit odd walking down the hall like a couple of school kids, but really didn't care.

By the time they reached her door they were actually walking side by side with their arms wrapped around each other.

Her quartes seemed small. She constantly seemed to be brushing against Ren as she worked in the kitchenette area. They cooked in silence. Heating the prepackaged food items Brandy kept for fast dinners. His hands touched her back, her shoulder, and once traced a path down her neck with his finger...

She ate with out tasting the food. He'd captured her fingers with his during the meal. His thumb caressing the back of her hand. Brandy could feel the heat in her cheeks and spreading through out her body. She wondered if he was tasting his food either. He hadn't looked at his plate once. His blue eyes were melting her with the heat they contained in each glance.

"Let's sit on your couch, Brandy." He tugged her from her seat, and she realized her plate was empty.

"Alright."

Christopher was smiling as he sat on the couch and pulled her down, making her fall across his body. Then, he kissed her. Not a fleeting stolen kiss like they'd shared before. This kiss went on and on, into new territory between the both of them. Brandy knew she didn't want it to end. She opened her mouth to him and kisses him back.

The next morning, they lay beside each other, kissing and cuddling for a few moments more until the telecom beeped.

"Brandy? Are you there?" It was Lisa, and Brandy was really late now. "Damn it where are you?"

She moved to where the telecom would only show her face. "Hi, Lisa. I'm on my way. I just slept in."

"I can tell, your hair is a mess. Doesn't really matter anyway, you're the boss." She laughed a bit and ended the transmission.

Cassandra had stayed up all night waiting for Buffy to show up but she never had. Cassandra was noticeably upset as she made her way to her work bay the next morning. She was in charge of theatrical design and construction and though she didn't have much to do right now as that she was waiting for some news to work with on these plants. She felt better in her bay surrounded by her tools and machines. The Skimmer had some repairs that needed to be looked at from its ruff landing on the planet, not to mention the pull from carrying the two ships up to the Hades afterwards. Cassandra fished out one of the shiny tools from her chest and started to work. She was just going to do a little work she thought to herself but she never did just a little work. By the time she looked down at her com again five hours had pasted. She had pretty much finished repairs to the Skimmer. Patching up the minor damage to the haul didn't take long at all and reconfiguring the laser net though slow always made her energized. She loved to work alone, that was why she had the bay all to herself. No one worked under her unless she needed help and rarely if ever did she say she needed help. The peace of the quite room had always comforted her and brought her back into balance but this time for some reason she wanted more. She wanted someone to be there with her.

Everything had happen so quickly over the past few days. Her world had once been organized and perfect, well as perfect as she could make it. She had known certain things to be true and had never doubted them. Now everything was in doubt and she felt troubled by this. She had always known that humans were the only life forms in the universe, she had always known that she loved Buffy, and she had always thought that Buffy loved her too. Now she was being proven wrong at every turn it seemed. They weren't alone in the universe and though her feelings for Buffy were still true she feared that Buffy no longer shared those feelings. Emotion started to over whelm Cassandra has she sat there thinking of everything that had passed in these last few days. Her soft blue eyes filled slightly with tears and she wept lightly into her own sleeve. This was the first emotion she had shown in so long the tears stung her eyes. She was glad to cry this one time to cleanse herself of everything and perhaps start anew.

Sitting alone in her quarters, Buffy curled under the blankets. She tossed and turned but it was far too early to be going to bed. She pulled the covers over her head to bring blackness to her sight but she was very much awake.

Her tears streamed down her face and she heard the voice of the Anteries' AI near her head. "Captain, don't you have a date with Miss Heaven tonight?"

"Don't call me that." She snapped. "I'm not a Captain. I got promoted by you, on a ship I destroyed, with a crew that I killed."

"As for Cassandra, she's better off staying as far from me as possible." The AI started to protest but was cut off by a sharp command. "Anteries, off!"

Brandy's tummy rumbled for lunch. She called Ren, but he was in a conference of some sort. Frowning, hungry but not wanting to eat alone, she called Cass. The com rang for abit. Finally, she answered.

"Cass! It's Brandy!"

"oh... hello there." She sounded kind of deflated. Brandy felt guity for not calling her last night.

"I'm sorry I didn't call you last night. I sort of lost track of time, but I was wondering if you wanted to come to lunch? I'm starved!"

Cass hesitated. Then shrugged. "What the hell. Mess fine with you?"

"Sounds good, see you soon! Where are you?"

"I'll come down to the lab, I wanna see the plant again."

Agreeing on 10 minutes, the women hung up.

Cassandra stood up and tried to make herself look at lest semi presentable before heading off to Brandy's lab. She had stopped crying about an hour ago and had just been sitting there in the silence of the room ever since. Not thinking, not feeling, not knowing what the future might hold for her at all. She wasn't much in the mood for fun and games and she didn't have the energy to be flirty with Brandy right now. She didn't even know why she had said yes except that she wanted someone, she wanted company of some kind.

Cassandra made her way to the lab with little effort or excitement but then what excitement could come untill they knew something of the plants and of where the ship was going. Her mind wondered here and there as she walked but it always returned to the one constent thought in her mind, Buffy. Cassandra missed her so much though when ever she tried to reach her, her AI had said she was unavailible. Cassandra felt shunned and hurt that Buffy wouldn't want to be with her. She knew the past few days must have been hard on Buffy but that's all the more reason to let Cassandra in so they could comfort each other. She had went from lossing her to finding her to lossing her agian in another way. It drove a pain deep inside of her. Pushing it to the back of her mind she entered the lab. Brandy was looking delightful as always her red hair down and loose today. In the same lab coat she always seemed to have on that opened in the front and showed a bit of her cleavage from the top of her uniform. Cassandra knew she was beautiful but today she barely seemed to notice just how beautiful she was.

Brandy was shocked at how rough Cass looked. Her eyes were haunted and her whole body posture was just wracked. She wondered where the happy, flirty woman from yesterday had gone.

"Cass? Are you okay?"

The little plant guy bleeped at Cass and trilled at her.

"No.. I probably shouldn't have come and rained on your day."

"Nonsense. Come on, we are going to lunch. The Mess is having a sinfully fattening lasagna and dessert... Let's go stuff ourselves and talk. You don't look like someone who should be alone, and I don't feel like eating alone." Once agian, linking her arm through Cass's, she began leading her to the food. "What's happened overnight? Did something bad happen at dinner?"

They got to the door of the lab when the Plant gave a trilling scream and began writhing.

"What the hell?" Cass gawked and Brandy dropped her arm and grabbed an instrument.

"He's getting a signal agian. With out the translator device we removed from his ear nub... the signal seems almost painful to him." She turned the minijammer on, the plant became placid again. "Poor fella."

Brandy took some data on the signal permiting the air unseen, Cass got into the pen and rubbed the plant's trunk, he purred for her. He's leaves curled and uncurled. He seemed quite content with his little world.

"We should name the little guy." Cass spoke up.

"Name him? What should we name him?"

*********************************** There was one alive. Her child. Her child was still alive. Those, those creatures! had her child! They hurt her child!
She called out, but recieved no response. They jamed her signal, her link, and it hurt the child. They had taken out the device that allowed her to understand what they said, and she could not hear. Her child wriethed in agony, and she ould do nothing. Not even sepuku...
Enough. She knew where her sister was. She knew that pain her sister was in. She would rid the world of this evil. She, and her children.
Stately, she called them to her, and they gathered around her. On the opposite side of the planet, blocked from all sensor scans, they rose through the atmosphere, and quietly drifted towards her sister.
***********************************

Buffy wandered the corridors of the ship. She was nervous. She had been trying to ignore Cassandra's constant attempt to see her. She had failed and was making her way to Cassandra's quarters, though she had made several detours so far. "Come on girl." She hesitated and confirmed her desire. "If she's willing to take the risk, so should I."

She neared the med bay and unexpectedly, heard the voice she knew so well. Creeping up to the open door, she peaked her head inside. There were the Doctor and Cassandra. Moving around and giggling at something she couldn't quite see.

She watched a bit longer until suddenly Cassandra embraced the Doctor and she managed to hear what was said. "Oh Brandy, thank you so very much for today. I'm really glad to have found someone..." the rest trailed off as Cass turned away.

Buffy ran back to her quarters. None of the crew she nearly barreled over getting there could figure out why she was crying.

Captain Mitchell and Envoy Ridd stood in the conference room waiting and talking uneasily when Major Ren walked in the room. He sat in a chair at the table and plugged his arm into a socket. His AI appeared in a chair next to him and the other two sat as well.

"Captain, still no responce from Terra?" Ren asked hopeful.

"Actually, they have responded." He let out a rough grunt. "They think we're out of our mind. Think we are suffering from the same dementia which effected the Nakamura. They don't even believe the Anteries went down, but a story concocted by space sick Nakamura crew members."

"Envoy?"

"Yes, pretty much the same situation here. I've been turned away at nearly every door." He gave a wry smile and continued. "It seems we are a political liability and have been written off."

"You said nearly every door?"

"Yes, I do have a few loyal friends, for lack of a better term, who may be able to help us. A person who I know only as Aoshi is working on a secret project, code name BELIZEAN. They may have enough resources to slow the attackers before the Earthlings wize up."

"Yes, the Earthlings are a crack team of the best pilots in the galaxy." Ren's mind wandered at his days back on Terra when before he had been booted from thier ranks. "Once they realize what is happening they should be enough to stop a single scout ship."

Brandy was frustrated. A few kisses here and there. That was it. she had hopped for more. But Christopher was busy with the Administration of Terra. Brandy tried to be busy with her work, and with straightening out Cass's love life. This Buffy girl was hard to track down when she wanted to be. But dang it, SOMEONE was going to have a good romance.

With that thought, she tried to get back to work. The Plant snuffled around the lab, having been declared safe, he was unpenned to wander about. Brandy Watched him, wrote a few more notes.. .. her fingers idly dialed Christopher's comm... It beeped over, and she left yet another message for him almost automatically.. not realizing she called him Major rather than Christopher in her distracted message.

"Major, if you aren't busy around dinner, give me a ring and maybe we can do something. Hm... Oh.. bye Major." She clicked off and got down on the floor with the Plant. Carefully, she mimicked a few moments and took notes on how he responded.

It had been over a week since she had seen or heard from Buffy at all. No matter how hard Cassandra tried to see her to how many messages she would leave for her Buffy was never there. At first it seemed only that she was still upset about the loss of her friends and crew mates but this was far to much to be just that. Something else was wrong but Cassandra just couldn't put her finger on it. Of course not being able to talk to Buffy about it was driving her a bit crazy as well. Buffy wasn't only the love of her life but she was also her best and closest friend. Cassandra felt a double pain of loss in this, she wasn't just loosing what she thought of as her one true love but she was also loosing the one person she would have turned to for comfort and help with her problems.

Cassandra had spent the last week in and out of the company of Brandy. She was a wonderful woman to spend time with and once or twice Cassandra had found herself thinking of more then friendly thoughts of her. Brandy was very attractive and some times Cassandra wondered if she really was fully straight the way she would kiss Cassandra on the cheek near her lips or how she was always holding on to her. Cassandra mostly dismissed it as a friendly person but sometimes when she was alone again at night she would think of it and wonder. That wondering kept her from thinking of Buffy and that was a good thing right now. When ever Cassandra thought of Buffy she would feel weak, scared of the future and most nights would cry herself to sleep. Brandy was a good distracton from all of that. Brandy had been poking around in Cassandra life asking alot of questions as of late. Cassandra had told Brandy about Buffy and how much Buffy ment to her. After that conversation Brandy was always interested in hearing any new news on the "eternal lovers" as she put it. Cassandra had started to doubt if that phrase could really be used for the two of them any more. At one time yes, they were eternal lover and Cassandra thought that time would never end but now she wondered.

Cassandra lay half naked on her bed, the sheets just covering her enough to hide the most private of places. Looking up at the ceiling she couldn't think of anything for once. She just stared blankly up and let her mind wonder free of thought. Listening to her own breathing was so relaxing and it had been ages since she was really relaxed . Everything was so quiet and peacefully untill the door chimmed. It startled Cassandra a bit and she thoughts to herself " Who could be coming here at this hour?". Wrapping herself up alittle more in her sheet she headed for the door.

"Who is it?" She asked while fixing the sheet around her body so that she wasn't as revealed as she had been just a moment ago.

"It's me, Brandy" Cassandra knew it was as soon as she heard her voice.

"Come on in but I warn you I'm not dressed in the "approperite" uniform" Cassandra giggled alittle at herself as she said that and hit the key pad to let Brandy in.

"Well what brings you here this hour?" Cassandra asked. As she asked she could tell that Brandy had something on her mind but what it was Cassandra just couldn't tell.

Smiling at Cass, trying not to blush at the nearly naked woman, Brandy entered her quarters. Suddenly her brain storm to win Buffy and Christopher back seemed like a silly idea to wake Cass with.

She was smiling at Brandy and the doctor realizes she'd been staring. Alot. "Oh, I'm so sorry... I didn't realize you were... ah.. " Her hands moved a little to indicate the sheet around Cass. "I can come back later."

"Oh no.. Let me grab my robe, we are all girls here after all." Cass walked back to her sleeping area and Brandy sat on the couch. She is so pretty... I wish my hair was lighter like that... Blinking, she tried to ignore all the other thoughts than flooded in after that, about the drape of the robe, and the strange attraction she was feeling. Cass was in love with Buffy. Brandy was.. though aggravated at him, in love with Christopher.. She and Cass couldn't do anything, it was impossable... yeah.. She was just imagining things.

Cass walked back in, wearing a silk robe that covered even less than the sheet had and Brandy swallowed a bit. "Ah, nice robe, where did you buy it?"

Grinning, reading Brandy quite accuarately, Cass reached for the tie, "Want to try it on?"

Cassandra wasn't quite sure what she was doing or what she was saying for that matter. Brandy had come here in the middle of the night and with the looks that she was giving all Cassandra could think of was that Brandy was starting to realize some attraction to her. Cassandra wasn't all to sure what to do now. A release from all the pressure and someone to hold would be nice. Brandy just sat there speechless as Cassandra asked her about the robe. Cassandra felt a bit embrassed for asking the question now that Brandy was acting as if she had never heard of anything so strange. Moving closer to Brandy Cassandra sat on the couch next to her.

"You know I didn't mean to startle you with that." Cassandra's voice was a little shaky as she said that. Maybe she shouldn't have sat so close to Brandy, maybe she should go and put on some more clothes, maybe this was just too much for both of them. Cassandra mind raced all of these thoughts at once.

Brandy stared at Cassandra in her black robe that fell slighty off on her right shoulder. Cassandra's pale skin looked as porclien next to that dark and fine color. The silk of the robe was like Cassandra's skin both fine and almost perfect. Brandy could tell that Cassandra was starting to rethink her invitation. Cassandra blue eyes at first fixed on Brandy's were now drifting down and away. Cassandra stood up to leave, perhaps to change agian, perhaps to just get away, Brandy wasn't sure of which. With out thinking Brandy reached up and grabed Cassandra's wrist giving her alittle tug as to say, please stay. Cassandra looked down at Brandy and thought to herself, just curling up with her for one night would be alright. What would in the harm of taking alittle bit of the heartack away from us both? Cassandra returned to Brandy's side on the couch. As she sat down her robe fell alittle more off her shoulder to almost expose her pale breast. Brandy reached over with her delicate fingers and let them trace down the lines of Cassandra robe. Running over the silk of the robe and sometimes touching the tenderness of Cassandra's own flesh. Cassandra couldn't help but give alittle shiver at Brandy's touch. It felt so good and Cassandra could imagen the sensation of just letting go with her. Closing her eyes for a moment Cassandra let the sensation of Brandy's touch run through her.

The door chimed and Captain Mike Mitchell bade them to enter. The door slid open and Buffy and Lemming stood in the doorway. "Majors, please have a seat."

Buffy winced at how he had refered to her. In the old naval tradition there could be only one Captain on a ship. But she was barely a captain anyway, let alone a Major. "Please, just call me Buffy, Sir."

Everyone nodded in agreement, accepting the informality due to the losses that she had suffered recently. "We are nearly in range of Terra and the Anteries should just beat us there. We have plenty of fighters for a few extra pilots. I'm sure Commander Heaven's Neferti Squadron will need all the help we can give them."

Pala Ridd looked across the table, "Unfortunately, I'm not much of a pilot but I think I may be of some assistance when it comes to contacting Terran forces."

Christopher nodded his agreement. "Indeed, I will be suited into a fighter and I think you are the only one with the political pull we will need to wake people up from thier sleep. The Terrans are soft and will be slow to act to something so outstanding. Just try to use a little better judgement than the one that led you to kidnapping."

Buffy chuckled a bit and then stopped amazed that she was laughing at all. It had been a while. She looked at the slightly older Major Ren and looked him over a bit. "Well sir, I'm not the best pilot but I'm looking for some payback. Count me in."

Lemming gave a grunting nod as his reply.

Feeling rather like she was outside of herself, watching someone else, she leaned forward toward Cassandra.. and to her surprize, Cassandra leaned toward her too. At first, it was a shy kiss.. tightly closed lips pressed together. When Cassandra placed a hand on Brandy's cheek, the kiss changed a little.

Brandy felt like she was free falling. The image of Christopher shimmered in the back of her mind, but the kiss was so unexpected, she didn't want to stop it, though she wasn't sure where she wanted it to go.

Christopher looked at the band of soldiers. Each was determined to win, though not all for the same reason. "This will have to do," he thought to himself. Then rising from his chair, "Well let's do it then." His mind wandered to Doctor Kytten. He felt bad for not being around for her, but she simply didn't want to grasp what was at stake here. He wondered for a moment what she was doing tonight, but let it pass and focused on the task at hand.

Casandra's head was swimming, what was going on with her and Brandy? Cassandra could barely grasp that they were now at this moment kissing. How did this happen? She thought to herself. No matter how it happen she was enjoying it. Having someone close, someone who was touching her, someone who was making her forget the troubles of the past few weeks. Cassandra wanted to surrender herself to these new feels or this new touch but somewhere inside her she knew she couldn't. She could never really love anyone else but Buffy and she had come realize this more and more as the troubles and trails of the past weeks had unfolded. She wanted to pull back to stop but something inside her keep move forward with it. Something inside her couldn't what had been started this night.

Cassandra's fingers ran along Brandy's jaw line tracing her delicate features with her long fingernails. Cassandra didn't want to move any closer, she didn't want to force anything on Brandy if something was to happen she didn't want Brandy to regret it later or feel she was pushed into something that she couldn't handle. They had all had enough of that for the time being. What started out as a timid and shy kiss soon turned into something more, a passionate kiss that gave Cassandra soft tingles. Cassandra knew she couldn't take it too far with Brandy both of them were in love with other people and would feel too much guilt if they let themselves give way too much, but this was alright. They both needed to be held tonight, they both needed to be touched, there was nothing wrong with find comfort in one and other for the time being.

Brandy leaned in alittle closer and layed her hand on Cassandra's cheast just under her right breast. She had made the first move but Cassandra was still alittle under sure as to what would happen next.

Blushing fiercely, feeling weak kneed and foolish, Brandy reflected on the last hour with Cassandra. The kissing, the touching.. it had been nice. But, where had it come from? They both loved and missed someone terribly. Cass more than Brandy, since Buffy seemed to be active avoiding her. So, Brandy was left to feel that she'd taken advantage of Cass's need for affection.

Rubbing her forehead, she continued to her quarters. Aching for Christopher and hoping she had not ruined her friendship with Cass forever.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Worlds and Stars
Episode 3: Terra

Brandy stood infront of the vid, fidgeting as it hooked up to Christopher's console. Of course he wasn't in. She'd kind of hoped he wouldn't be. This was going to be so hard, but she and Cassandra agreed. They'd confess, they'd get it out in the open and things would be better. Brandy was wracked with guilt, she'd been mildly sick for days over it. She knew she looked pale and was a little sweaty, there were dark circles under her eyes, but she knew what she would say, she hoped. And then she could start sleeping again, stop avoiding Christopher... Feel normal again.

The machine bleeped for her to leave a message. She swallowed hard and begain. Her stomache rolled and she placed her hand over it to keep it settled.

"Christopher.. I'm so sorry. Something has happened... it was really unplanned. I mean... I would never have done this on purpose, I swear!" Her stomache heaved and she lurched a bit. "I... I don't want to lose you. I love you.." Her stomache heaved more urgently. She visiable shuddered, her face paling. "Oh, Christopher.. there's more I wanted to say, but.. I feel sick... I'm so sorry, please.. forgive me."

Then the good doctor fled to the bathroom and releived herself of the donut she'd had for lunch. She leaned up agianst the toilet, shaking, realizing that she'd never really confessed as to what had happened and feeling the coward for it. Which prompted another round of vomitting...

The last few days had been so hard for Cassandra. The nights had been long and the days seemed to go on forever. She was full of a guilt for what her and Brandy had done but at the same time she was scared to tell Buffy. The greatest fear came from what Buffy might do when she found out.

They had just started talking again after their long seperation. Would she be ruining everything if she told Buffy that she hadn't been able to stay faithful to her? All Cassandra wanted was freedom from this feeling of guilt and inward hatered. Buffy hadn't been faithful to her in the hard times but that didn't mean she deservered to have the same thing done to her.

Cassandra had made up her mind tonight was going to be the night that she would tell Buffy. This wasn't going to eat her alive any longer, she was going to be free of it if it ment she would loose Buffy she would have to deal with that later.

Sitting in her quarters waiting for Buffy to appear she worked out what she would tell her. The truth, what had happen and how bad she felt about it. Just as she was working out the end of it the door opened and Buffy walked in looking as beautiful as ever. Wearing a light colored dress that clung lightly to her body and highlighted her eyes. She was smiling just alittle bit at Cassandra, it was nice to see her smile after all the hard things that had happen.

"Buffy, I have something I need to talk to you about, alright? Why don't you come over here and we'll have a nice dinner and we can talk."

The door closed behind Buffy and the two of them spent the night locked up in Cassandra's quarters. The next morning they seemed to both have a new light in them. A fresh out look and their openly embracing attitude was a drastic change from the way they had been since Buffy's return.

Project Belizean Research Facility
Former NORth America Defense Command Headquarters
Terran Protectorate of Wyoming

The lone figure crouched a few feet from the silent watch guards. The black clad man reached for a panel on his wrist and the dark form shimmered into the darkness. Using the chameleon-like powers and incredible strength of his suit, Aoshi scaled the cavern and crawled along the ceiling right past the two watchmen.

Dropping silently behind them and pulling a device from his satchel. Tossing the small marble between the two men both turned their heads to the sound and froze. Specifically tuned to the actuation computer of the guards suits, the device immobilized the armor leaving the men trapped inside.

Aoshi moved toward the door and keyed the sequence that would open the door. It slid open with a light whirl of air and he slipped inside, the door closing behind him once more.

He slipped past the other security measures with years of familiarity and stopped over a small missile silo, used for central ventilation. Perched over the edge, he stepped off and plummeted into the darkness. Switching power from the cloaking mechanism to the anti-grav unit his fall slowed until he hovered a foot above the floor. He floated towards the wall and pulled a cutting laser from a hip pouch and started to work on one of the walls.

When the hole was nearly cut he pulled three more of the marble-like devices and kicked at the metal and felt it give beneath his enhanced strength. He dropped inside and immediately tossed them at the three guards without stopping to look at the results. He knew it worked.

He strode to a command panel and keyed a sequence of numbers. A small retinal scanner emerged from the console and he removed his face plate and put his eyes to the lens.

The computer scanned and then replied. "Command Recognized. Akuro Yoshi. Belizean emergency launch countdown. 10 seconds."

Ten men in armor burst into the command center, the leader screamed in desperate horror. "My gawd, Aoshi. What are you doing?" The count down continued over the base intercom. "You've doomed us all."

Aoshi turned to the man who had been his friend for so many years. "No Jim, this may be the only thing that can save us." With that he pushed a button on his suit and it fell off his shoulders falling to his feet. "I know you have to arrest me, but look at me and tell me I wouldn't do this if we weren't already doomed"

Jim looked at Akuro for a while as the grim visage of his old friend turned his stomach with terror. "Okay, I'm listening."

Far away an old ballistic missile rocketed deep into space.

Christopher ran through the corridors towards Brandy's quarters. He had so little time before they would be in Terran Space. The rest would be prepping for combat launch and he needed to get ready as well. However, the message he had received was disturbing to say the least and Pala had assured him that this Aoshi person could delay the creatures.

As he slid around a corner he nearly smashed into Buffy and Cassandra in their flight suits. Their incredibly cheerful expressions made him stop in his tracks for a moment before he continued to run.

Buffy and Cass stood in the hanger and watched as the tech crews and pilots busied themselves with preparing the fighters. Since it was Cassandra's squadron she didn't have to help the techs. In reality, none of the others were required to do so either, but they all babied their fighters and didn't trust the technicians completely. Cassandra however had the ship's Chief Flight Tech Marco Simian slated to work on Buffy's fighter.

Surprisingly enough, the diminutive Tech was working on Cassandra's ship instead.

"Hey Monkey Boy," Cass teased the Tech as she crept on him. "What the hell are you doing to my ship?"

Sliding out from under the fighter and glancing at her while smearing grease onto his coveralls. "Hey Cassie, you're beginning to sound like the rest of the fighter jocks here."

"Aw, ya know I trust ya with my life Marco. But I have some little extra's on that thing. Don't want you getting hurt." She chuckled a bit and moved closer to Buffy. "You've met Buffy before right?"

Buffy smiled and nodded.

"Of course, Who couldn't remember her?"

Cassandra chuckled as Buffy blushed. "I agree." She produced two wrist AI units from her pocket and held them out for Marco. "Here are Anteries and Erik, they should help with the prep of our ships."

"Great, I'll plug them in and they can run the pre-flights while I double check the external systems..." He hesitated under Cassandra's glare and stuttered. "on Buffy's ship of course."

"Thanks Marco." Buffy bent over and kissed the tech on the cheek.

It was Marco's turn to blush as the three of them when to work on the ships.

The Major sounded the bell on Brandy's door. After no answer came he pressed the code to open the door and ran in. He heard a horrific sound coming from the back room. As he burst into the bathroom, he found Brandy in a less than flattering position over the toilet.

Gulping back a horrible taste in his throat he managed a weak, "Hi, honey."

Brandy blinked, and then blushed. "Oh, Christopher... I didn't think you'd get the message so...... fast.. can I have a minute." Feeling a bit silly there, paying homage to the god ralph.

"Er... ah.. yeah." He shift from foot to foot for a minute. "Are you going to be okay?"

Standing, she nodded. "Yes... I didn't mean to be so... dramatic, but we need to talk. Just, give me a moment to clean up a little.. please?" And gather my nerves. Being highstrung came with a price, an easily upset stomache.

Nodding, he left, his face pale as her's. Did he know? Splashing water up from the sink, she could only hope she would be the first to tell him.

Christopher sat on the couch fiddling with a pillow and generally feeling like his skin was going to crawl off him.

"Are you sure you're alright?" He called after Brandy still worried.

He wondered now more than ever what news she had for him.

Feeling slightly more together, her insides knotting up once again though as she walked to the couch and sat next to him. Her fingers laced up together till the knuckled shone white through the skin.

"Well, Christopher, I truly don't know how to say these things to you. I mean, I need to. Keeping it to myself is killing me." She took a breath as his hand covered her's then. "I... I mean Cass and I.. she.. well.... we have been spending a lot of time together... With you busy with the plans to save Earth, which is so important, I understand that! And her Buffy.. avoiding her for some reason, well, we just were spending time together. .. as friends. I swear. But.. one night..." She looked at him, he had an oddly releaved, but confused look on his face. "Oh Christopher... we kissed and.. there was a little ..... but not That.. just.. and I'm so sorry.." She trailed off. "I love you. I swear." His hand was still holding both of hers.

Christopher jumped from the couch and rose above Brandy. The sum of all his rage and sadness burning through her. His voice cracked as he screamed, trying to hold back tears. "How could you do this?" Not stopping to allow her to reply he faltered a bit as he struggled to hold back his feelings "We've only just been learning to trust one another. You know how hard that is for me. Now you tell me.."

Brandy stood and grabbed his hand. "Christopher, I just," her voice trailed off as his free hand smacked her across the cheek.

They stood in silence for an eternity. Both their eyes locked in anger, hurt and fear. Christopher pulled from her grasp and walked out the door.

Brandy melted onto her couch. Her entire universe seem to shatter as he left. Her cheek throbbed. It had been a million times worse than she'd thought. He'd not only dumped her, he'd.... he'd.... the bastard had hit her.

She'd come, crawling to him. Begging for forgiveness and he'd hit her? Who the hell did he think he was? She could have just kept it to her self, hidden it away, but no, she wanted to be open, and honest and he'd hit her.

Regret, sorrow and love were smothered by the heat of anger. And she clung to it. Her spine straightened. Who wanted a man who would hit her? What if she'd accually had sex with Cass? She leapt up, began pacing. Feeling more alive than she had in days.

He wanted to dump her? Leave her? Fine. It was all her fault, she didn't denigh it. But he hit her! That was just uncalled for. She steamed and fumed, whipping up her anger.

Her vid chimed. Lisa was calling. She was a bit taken aback when Brandy snarled her greeting at her. But her news was welcome. Ninurta was budding, it looked like Lisa and Brandy were going to be aunts. Almost without thinking, she dialed up Christopher's vid to share the news, only to cut it off as she realized what she did. Instead, she threw on a lab coat and headed to the lab.

Christopher strode down the hall towards the hanger. His hand touched his wrist link to Angel and barked into it. "Angel that ship had damn well better be ready when I get there. I want to blow the shit out of something soon."

It was amazing. Ninurta reproduce asexually. He had not one, but 3 pods. Lined up on his back.

"Wow, Lisa! When did this happen?"

"You didn't notice? The pregnancy is quite advanced. We should have little ones here before we know it." Lisa looked reprovingly at Brandy. She'd not been good at her job for weeks. Lisa was tired of correcting mistakes.

"No, I'm afraid I completely missed the start of this. Thank the Goddess for you, Lisa. I know I've been a mess..."

"Yes.. and what happened to your cheek. That looks like it might bruise a bit."

Brandy's eyes went icy. Lisa took a step back. "Just a fall. Nothing to worry about now."

Lisa nodded. But she was still very worried about her boss.

It had been a couple of days since Cassandra last cheecked in on Brandy to see how she was handling all of this. She hadn't even had time to tell her how well things worked out with Buffy. Now that Buffy was busy with her fighter Cassandra thougth it was a good time to look Brandy up.

Looking over and giving a call to Buffy before she left the hanger she told her " I'll be right back. Need to look in on Brandy and see how things went on her end." Buffy gave her a soft look of understanding before turing her attention back to the fighter. It was so nice to see this side of her again.

"I must be the luckiest person in the universe to have someone so understanding and caring." Cassandra thought to herself as she walked to Brandy's quarters. Chimming at the door no one answered to her calls. "Must be at the lab" was Cassandra next thought.

As she got to the lab she could tell something exciting was going on inside. Maybe things with Christopher hadn't been so bad? Walking in she gave a smile to Lisa and walked up behind Brandy. "Hi Brandy, how you doing? "

Cass was there! Brandy felt a surge of happiness that her friend had come to see her. After everything that had happened, she and Cass had managed to keep their friendship in tact. Turning, not thinking of the bruise forming on her cheek, Brandy faced Cass with a hard, but happy smile on her face.

"Cass, our Ninna is going to be a daddy.... or a mommy.... it depends on how you look at it... since he will be giving birth, isn't that exciting?" She saw Cass's eyes widen, and lock on her face. Looking out of the corner of her eye at Lisa, Brandy guided Cass away a bit.

"What happened?" Cass's voice was a bit shocked.

"It's nothing. Don't worry about it."

"He did it?"

"Shhhh.. I don't want it getting around. Please, Cass. Yes.. it was even worse than I thought... it's definately over, and he definately hit me and ... well.. you know what? I still feel better than I have in days." Though, her eyes seem rather empty and sad to Cass. "How about you? Should I be ducking Buffy for a bit?"

"I'll kill him or at lest give him a bruise or two to match the one he gave you. How dare he hit you! I don't care if it was our fault he has no right to hit you for it. Just wait till I get my hands on him"

Cassandra was furrius, her eyes had lighted up with a pure rage inside of them. It was quite noticable to anyone who was looking at her that she was now pissed. Brandy tried to calm her down and told her it was ok and that she was going to be alright but Cassandra didn't hear an of it. Cassandra was on a mission now to find Christopher and give him a piece of her mind as well as her fist. This wasn't going to be a pretty sight when the two of them ran into each other.

"CASS, Please!" But the other red head was out the lab door. "Ah shit." She considered calling the Major. But would he even look at a message from her? Maybe she should call Buffy. She dialed up the pretty blonde pilot. Her warm smile reassured her that Buffy and Cass had fully worked things out.

"Buffy! You have to stop Cass!"

"Brandy? Why? What's wrong?"

"She's going to get into a fight with the Major... I'm worried about her." Brandy was wringing her hands slightly. She should have put some make up on her cheek.

"What's wrong with your face?" Buffy was peering closely at the screen.

"I'll explain later, just please.... don't let Cass run into Christopher till she cools off."

Buffy nodded, her eyes curious, but Brandy logged off as fast as possible to avoid any explainations.

"A lot of fuss over a bruise from a fall, Brandy." Lisa's sardonic voice behind her made her flush with guilt.

"You know what it's from then."

"Yes. And I'd beat the crap out of him too if I could." Lisa's voice was harsh. "Here are the test results you wanted."

"Thank you. And Lisa... it really was my fault.. I betrayed him. But, please know, it will never happen agian, I'm going to change quarters, and untill that request goes through, I'll just change my access code, but I don't think he'll come back...." Her voice dropped, "he hates me now." She knew her anger was slipping. It was her worry over Cass. She buried herself in work, she'd prick up her anger later. She could feel the edges of her shattered heart, and she needed an quicker escape for now.

Lisa, looking grim, called up Dan.

*Christopher was seething. His rage was uncontrollable and everything was a blur as he walked down the corrider toward his ship. Tears stung his eyes as he thought of Brandy's betrayal. He fiercely wiped them away and hardened his emotions until his face was merely a grim mask showing no emotion at all. Suddenly his watch beeped and he stopped to read his message. It seemed that an important message awaited him at his quarters that required immediate attention.

"That is strange..... why didn't I receive the message straight through..." He muttered under his breathe. He sighed and changed directions and headed toward his quarters instead.

As he walked in he quickly felt something was..... wrong. Something was different about his room. He stopped in midstride and looked around the darkly lit room.

"Lights." He commanded and lights instantly turned on throughout the room. His eyes widened in shock as he saw a figure of a man sprawled out on his couch lazily grinning at him.

"Hey there old friend. Long time no see." The man said grinning widely and twirling a dagger in his hand. "Don't look so surprised Chris. I told you I would find you again someday......"

"Is that really you Sly? I only know one person who has mastered the ability to have the stupidest grin on their face all day long..."

The mans grin falters and he frowns, "Hey now! Is that really the way you greet me after so long?" He pouts and flicks his dagger in the air and catches it by the tip, then throws it at Chris's head.

Chris catches it deftly and tucks it under his belt and smiles. "It is great to see you buddy. I wish I could greet you in a happier way but I'm just not feeling that great right now...... I see you still have the habit of throwing knives at people?" Chris laughs and walks over to the couch.

Sly stands and gives Chris a giant bear hug and relieves Chris of his knife. "I only throw them at you buddy. You are the only one who can handle it that I know of....."

Chris coughs and pummels Sly on the back. "Let go of me, you are suffocating me!"

Sly sets him down and goes over to the bar and pours himself a drink. "What's on your mind Chris? When you walked in you had a weird look on your face..... wanna talk about it like old times? Women trouble again?(*Sly winks*) Remember those fun times we had when we were younger......"

Chris sighs and wonders what the heck is going on that his good friend has suddenly appeared before him after 10 years and on such a hectic day! He looks at Sly on the couch who sits watching him rolling his knife over his fingers deftly.*

She and Lisa ran the DNA tests again. And again. The results were horrifying. Though their plant buddy was harmless when not under the control of.... whatever it was, he was a deadly foe when used. Far from the home planet, it might seem that the enemy's resources of Planty minions was limited. Ninurta was proving that to be untrue.

The pods on it's back were not made of just his DNA. Infact, his DNA made up a bare 45% of the matter. There was DNA from corn, wheat and other plant like things that he'd been fed in the baby's dna. Some from the ferns scattered around the lab, even a little from the african violets Brandy raised in her quarters. If these things got to earth... got close..... they coudl slowly take over. If even one landed... Brandy and Lisa were both pale as they called the Captain.

"I'll pass the information on." He looked grim.

"We have to stop it as far out from earth as possible!" Brandy punched her desk. "You need to get in gear, not pass out information!"

"Doctor Kytten.. You are a Xenobiologist.. but I am the soldier here. Let me deal with the planning, you just gather your little bits of information." And he signed off.

"Egotistical bastard!" Brandy flung a chair across the room. Lisa, use to such outbursts, had already moved out of the way. "I'm going to call the Major.... no.. you should, Lisa."

"You made the discovery, you should inform him." Lisa's face was placid.

"You really aren't going to make me face him.. not right now!"

"Yes, I am accually." And Lisa left. She could not beleive that even after the Major had struck her, the Doctor was still so inlove with him. She left the room, hoping that confronting him would some how loosen the hold he had over her friend.

Brandy stood, stone still. Then, an idea came to her. She didn't have to talk to the Major at all. She'd call Angel, Christopher's computer bimbo...

And she did, she was amazed at how the AI grasped exactly how urgent the information was and how she agreed that the captian's casual reaction was stupid. Breathing a little easier, she signed off with the AI, knowing it was buzz Christopher for her.

Oh well," Major Ren gave Sly a sheepish look. "I've just been a little foolish lately."

"Lately?" Sly jabbed not having any clue what Christopher was talking about but sure it was just another of the Major's sexual debacales."

"Oh shut up." Ren smiled.

"Who is it this time? The Captain's daughter? His Wife?"

"It's nothing." Chris spit the last words out with such venom that Sly actually flinched.

He was saved by a chime from the Major's AI-link. "Christopher, I have some news"

Angel relayed all the information Brandy had given her, carefully omitting the source.

Sly stated what they all felt. "Oh, hell."

Angel paused for a moment trying to figure out who had spoken. "Oh, hello Sylvester. Unfortunately, we are moving at top speed to earth. I really don't know what else we can do."

"You're right. We..." The Major's voice trailed off. "That's it. Cass's little ship is faster. Come on Sly!"

Sly and Ren walked with renewed purpose down the corridors searching for Cassandra.

As Cassandra charged down the corridor her communicator beeped and she answered it with harsh determination. "What?" She continued, even faster, mad to be interupted.

"Cassie, dear." Buffy hesitated a bit, "You need, er I mean, I need your help in the fighter bay."

"Get the Techs to help you."

Buffy tried to take control of the conversation, but she was never good at that. "No, you need to come down here. This is all messed up. I just can't deal."

Cass growled as she nearly ran. "Brandy told you to stop me didn't she?"

"Uh... yeah huh."

"Figures, Cass out."

Turning the corner that would lead down the hall to Christopher's quarters Cassandra saw him. He was with some other male and he had a strange look on his face. Was he glad? He had a smile on his face.

"That self agrogent bastered, he's so proud of himself that he can hit a defensless woman. " Cassandra thought to herself as she got closer to the Major and his friend.

"Cass, I need to talk to you" His voice was a bit excited and rushed but it also had an undertone of something else in it. Cassandra really didn't care what he had to say to her or how his voice sounded. She knew what she wanted to say to him and it would be said with a one two punch and maybe a few more swings before she stopped.

They were just about to met in the hall way when Christopher put up his hand as if to take her left arm in someway. With a fist made tigh in her right hand she let her anger swing out at him. Nailing him with a right uppercut to his face. Pushed back by the force and noticably shaken by the punch all he could seem to do was stare at her.

"That will teach you to hit woman who can't defend themselves against you and if that wasn't enought I'll be more then happy to give you a repeat leason." Cassandra's voice was sharp and harsh. The anger in it was more then apparent to anyone who heard it. "I don't care if she and I did something wrong, YOU have no right to ever hit her! You have no right ever hit any woman here, do you hear me? And if I ever hear about you hitting anyone else on my ship I'll make sure you don't ever forget my next leason."

With that Cass turned on her heel and started to walk away. Anger still filled her but that punch had made her feel alittle bit better. And what was he going to do anyways? Tell the captian? Cassandra giggled to herself at that thought. Telling her surigant father that she had decked him. He's only question would be what did he do to deserve it like he most have. Oh well it didn't matter to her anyways Christopher could scream to the heavens or maybe he might even try to fight her. That thought brought a big smile to Cassandra's face. Fight her, she was the best fighter on the ship and no one would dispute that. Cassandra had nearly reached that hanger to check on Buffy when Christopher and his little friend had caught up with her again.

Yelling after her " Cassandra, wait I need to talk to you."

Sitting in her lab, going over her reports, Brandy wondered if Christopher had gotten the information in time, if Buffy had stopped Cass, if she was ever going to eat again.

*The whole while that this had taken place Sly had been leaning against a bulkhead watching. He had calmly flicked his knife back and forth from hand to hand even as the strange woman had punched his buddy on the face. He knew Ren could handle himself......

After the whole scenario had finished Sly walked over to his friend and put a hand on Chris's shoulder that was shaking in rage. "Take it easy buddy. Care to tell me what that was all about?"

Chris turned to face him and spewed out venemously. "I don't want to talk about it right now. Back off!"

Sly's face turned grave and he answered back calmly. "From what I understand it seems that you hit some woman on this ship? Now unless you explain this situation to me right now I will have to act on those few facts I have and beat some sense into you. You know better than to ever raise a hand to a woman, and you KNOW how strongly I feel about not ever hurting a woman. You remember what happened when I was a kid....." At this Sly sheathes his knife and widens his stance and brings his hands up.

Chris stares at Sly. Sly's eyes are burning with such fierceness that it momentarily takes Chris back to when they were younger and were out cruising the local bars in a South Carolina. He doesn't remember how they ended up there but one night they were sitting in a bar getting pleasantly drunk together when Sly noticed a fat bellied farmer backhand his wife and tell her to go get another beer. Chris remembers to this day the look Sly had in his eyes as he turned to him and said, "Watch my back."

Then Sly stood up and walked over to the man and said to him, "It is not polite to hit your wife like that, I would appreciate it that you apologize and promise me that you will never do it again."

The table of men all guffawed and slapped their knees in amusement. Then the man stood up, weighing a full 100 pounds more than Sly but still having to look up at him, (Sly being 6'5" and all!). "Oh yea, and who is gonna make me?" The man answered and burped in Sly's face sending a wave of nasty smelling breathe straight into Sly's face.

After that moment all hell broke loose in that bar. The last thing Chris remembered was he and Sly standing back to back in the center of the bar with about 10 bodies lying around them in pools of their own blood and a circle of uncertain men standing around them. The men were nervous to advance and Sly was laughing madly and jeering them forward calling them cowards who only beat up women to raise their self esteem. Eventually they walked out of the bar and never looked back otherwise they would have seen the broken tables and broken glass everywhere and men laying on the ground moaning in pain.

This all comes back to him in a flash. As quickly as it arrives it leaves him again. Chris sighs and nods his head to Sly. "Ok, I'll explain it to you. Here is what happened....."

After explaining it all Sly nods his head and says, "I still don't approve of you hitting her man, you know that. But I think being knocked around by a woman is punishment for you. I am sure that hurt your pride more than anything. Now, what is that womans name who just taught you the lesson I would have done myself if I had known.....?

"Her name is Cassandra." Chris responded.

"Ok, I'm gonna go talk to her man." He turns toward where Cass walked away and runs down the hall toward her yelling. "Cassandra, I need to talk to you."

Back in the lab, Brandy waved Ashlynne through to go see Lisa. The two had been bonding since Brandy had been so busy bonding with Cass and neglecting her other friends. Hero worship was partically to blame. When Ash came running back out, teary eyed, Brandy could not fathem what was wrong.

"Lisa's down.... she's kind of puffy, I can't..... I can't...... I can't find a pulse!"

Brandy was in the other room, where Lisa lay, she could see shallow breathing the faint tick of a pulse in her neck. "Ash, hit the blue button, it's linked directly to medlab, tell them it's a code blue level 1 emergency, and we need an oxygen and defib machine STAT!"

Ash stood there trembling for a moment, wondering if she should ask what button again... she couldn't remember, but when Brandy began CPR as Lisa stopped breathing, she flew out and pushed the red intercom button, buzzing the whole ship with her teary choked message. "Level one.. code blue.... Dr Kytten's lab..... HURRY! She's not breathing, we need team.. and oxygen and a defib machine!"

In the bay, Cass turn on heel and ran past Sly and Christopher on her way to the lab, the Major was white faced and Sly was confused.

Chris and Sly stood alone in the corridor again. "Shit." Christopher yelled for anyone who cared. "We don't have time for this. One life for millions is not the bet I'm placing."

Chris looked at his friend and begged for the forgiveness Sly would always have for him. "Listen Sly, I did something really stupid. I deserve to rot in hell alone for what I did to her. But I love her. I need her. Please, take her this disk. I've got to go save our race."

With that he slammed the disk in Sly's hand and ran toward Cassandra's skimmer.

He prepped and launched the small ship before anyone had time to stop him. He was in such a hurry to start the transluminal drive he didn't notice the his own fighter fly into the small cargo bay.

In a flash of light, he was gone.

*Back in the lab, Brandy waved Ashlynne through to go see Lisa. The two had been bonding since Brandy had been so busy bonding with Cass and neglecting her other friends. Hero worship was partically to blame. When Ash came running back out, teary eyed, Brandy could not fathem what was wrong.

"Lisa's down.... she's kind of puffy, I can't..... I can't...... I can't find a pulse!"

Brandy was in the other room, where Lisa lay, she could see shallow breathing the faint tick of a pulse in her neck. "Ash, hit the blue button, it's linked directly to medlab, tell them it's a code blue level 1 emergency, and we need an oxygen and defib machine STAT!"

Ash stood there trembling for a moment, wondering if she should ask what button again... she couldn't remember, but when Brandy began CPR as Lisa stopped breathing, she flew out and pushed the red intercom button, buzzing the whole ship with her teary choked message. "Level one.. code blue.... Dr Kytten's lab..... HURRY! She's not breathing, we need team.. and oxygen and a defib machine!"

In the bay, Cass turn on heel and ran past Sly and Christopher on her way to the lab, the Major was white faced and Sly was confused.

*Sly took the disk and just after Chris took off down the hall he heard the message over the intercom. "Level on.. code blue... Dr Kytten's Lab... Hurry! She's not breathing, we need team... and oxygen and a defib machine!"

He thought for a minute and then grabbed a young womans arm who was running by. "Where is Dr Kytten's lab. You heard the announcement, and I need to get over there asap to help them out." The woman began giving him directions, "Go down 5 corridors, then take a left onto the elavator, go up 2 floors then follow the dark red lights on the floor, make sure not to follow the light red ones because that will take you to the botanist's greenhouse. And..." Sly threw his hands up and began walking in the direction she had first given, "You are going to take me there ok??" She nodded weakly and they headed off to find Brandy. Sly had the disk gripped firmly in his hand.*

Ten days.

The Earth sat like a blue swirled pearl out her lab port. Dr Brandy wondered where the last ten days had gone. Lisa has been out of Med Labs for five now. Her allergic reaction under control. Ninurta was going to pop any day, confined to an Isolab to avoid anyone else having the same reaction Lisa had had. Cassandra had let the Major run off in her ship... he was missing, the alien was missing, everyone was fairly certian he and it had been distroyed by the Belizean. The disc Sly had forced on her lay on her desk, unviewed. Sly's assertion that the Major had said he loved her, well, it was rediculous. If he was dead, he'd died hating her. Her bruise was just a yellowed spot on her face now, almost healed. She really didn't know what to do with herself. She took data, avoided the Aoshi charater who was reading all her files to catch up on her research, and stared for hours at that disc. Maybe she'd look at it tonight.

The shuttle bay was empty as always and in the dark with only alittle light Cassandra had been working hard for days now on a new ship. Reconfiguring the haul and addin on some special little details that only she would know about for now. She still couldn't believe that the Major had run off with her ship. She had been beating herself up over it since he disappeared with it. Partly because most assumed he was dead now and partly because she couldn't believe that he would stupid enought to take her ship. She knew it was the best ship that he could take but still the though held little solice for her. She had put her blood, sweat and tears into that ship. It had been her project for nearly 5 years and now it was gone.

This new ship will be even better she would tell herself but still there was a loss in her about it. Brandy had been very distant since the Major's disappearance. Cassandra wanted to go to her and try to cheer her up but Brandy was even alittle cool to her. Buffy had tried once as well but was merely given a smile as Brandy excused herself to leave. The lab seemed to be the only place she would go anymore and Cassandra knew it wasn't healthy for her. Her and Buffy were going to try agian tonight to get her to at lest come over for dinner. Just to get her out of her quarters and that lab would be an improvement at this time. Buffy should be on her way there right now to ask about dinner.

"I hope she comes she needs to be around other people right now." Cassandra thought to herself as she contiued work on her new ship.

I am not depressed!" Lisa had been harassing her the last 2 hours on how depressed she looked. She was just.. worried about Earth. They had to figure out how to configure the scanners to scan the entire freaking planet for signs of the plantie minions, but she still hadn't found one thing about the make up of the plant animals that would be a good ping for the scanners.

"Sure you aren't," Lisa stood, with her arms crossed over her stomache, glaring. "When was the last time you had a meal besides a few nibbles of donut? Hell, when was the last time you ate a donut?"

"This is very important work! You can't say I'm neglecting my job, it's progressing very quickly. But it is very stressful."

"So, you don't miss him then? Don't dream about him? Have you looked at the disc yet?" Lisa's eyes were soft even as her words tore into Brandy like a million blades. "And when was the last time you hung out with Cass?"

"Lisa.... I'm not depressed. I just need to get this done. I know... he's...... probably dead. I think about him, but... it was over, okay? As for the disc, it's probably just.... nothing, but.. I'll look at it.. okay?" Sitting down, picking up the latest scan reports. "Now, I really want to get back to work." And she shut Lisa out.

The thing that was known as Belizean floated through Terran space barely able to navigate the drifting through the blackness. The artificial lifeform hid from his creators, not sure of their reasons for releasing him after so many years.

Belizean had watched the new ship arrive. It was a Terran ship, much larger than the first two that had emerged from transluminal space. The first ship had attacked Belizean. Unable to comprehend these events Belizean returned fire, rending the ship. Many silver humanoid fighters had swarmed around the machineman.

When he was about to overwhelm the fighters, the second ship had appeared. A small skimmer craft, it fired and Belizean reacted, pouncing and tearing the ship to pieces.

A small fighter emerged from the ship cruised towards the bigger ship, firing everything it had into the hull.

Belizean finished off the remaining silver robots and contemplated this new ally. However, as Belizean moved to help the valiant fighter a beam of light shot from the larger ship, vaporizing the fighter.

With renewed vengence Belizean rammed into the scout vessel, punching through the hull, destroying it from the inside.

As he watched the ship in it's death throws, it seemed to shimmer from existance for a brief moment before exploding in a fire ball that lit the Terran night below as bright as the sun.

Brandy had told Lisa she was going to the Mess for lunch. Instead, she was in her quarters, sitting in front of her computer console, staring at the disc as if it were a thing of evil. Could she view it? God help her, she needed to see what was on it.

Sliding it in, the 5 seconds it took to load seem to be a lifetime. Then, his face came on before her. Her hand went out and touched the screen. He was wearing the outfit from the day she'd confessed... She almost didn't hear what he was saying at first.

"Brandy, I'm so sorry that I... I'm sorry. I should not have hit you or stormed out. I love you so much, it just hurt so badly to think of you with someone else.' His eyes, they were so blue, and he'd been gone 10 days... "I know it's been hard on you. I've ached to hold you, but I just didn't tell you and I'm sorry for that too. We need to talk, face to face, and work this out, I don' want to be without you. I know I want you in my life forever, and what happened today, we can start over. It's out in the open. I love you, and I want to be with you, but first, we have to beat this thing." His face grew so serious, Brandy's heart twisted. "You are going to say I'm rushing off to glory again. But you know, in your heart, I have to act now. I just don't know if we can beat this. But I will save us. I'll make sure there is a world for us to live. I just have this feeling. Nevermind, just pre-battle jitters I guess. Never felt so scared for my life before" He gave a dry chuckle, and Brandy felt the tears start. "Besides, I've got Angel, right? I love you. I will be back for you." And then he was gone again. Just a blip.

"Christopher..... no.... " Her head falling to her desk, she sobbed, her hand making clutching motions at the screen...........

Buffy walked with Cass towards Brandy's quarters. Buffy had came from the command deck and had been talking with the Senior officers and the android thing called Belizean. His story had been a horrible end to a sad tale and she feared what the news might do to the Doctor.

As the door opened, Brandy was wiping tears from her eyes. Both women rushed to comfort their friend. After sitting down Buffy had Cassandra getting them drinks from the kitchenette. The two listened as Brandy told of the message on the disk.

Buffy and Cassandra looked at each other, grim at the confirmation their words would give to Brandy's fears.

Brandy lay on the bed. Buffy and Cassandra had left an hour ago after 3 hours of crying, hand holding and comforting. They were both worried that she hadn't cried as much as they'd thought she would. Their friend was usually an emotional powder keg, going off with big booms, the quiet tears and lack luster acceptance troubled them.

And now, alone, Brandy's tears dried up completely. The disc was snuggled to her breast. She felt like her heart was freezing up. Knowing he was dead didn't hurt as badly as she'd thought it would.

She suddenly sat up. No no no.. he said he'd be back and... and he had Angel.... he had Angel... that useless mechanical whore... Brandy slumped, her heart feeling like a stone in her chest. Her life was gone.

Lisa hesitated before knocking on Dr. Brandy's door. Still slightly weak from Ninurta, she had barely left her quarters in days. But when Daniel brought word back...news of the major...she knew she had to see Brandy. To see if she was okay.

She knocked gently.

"Brandy? It's Lisa. I just heard. Are you okay?"

Buffy had been forced to put on her "Major Hat" as much as she hated the idea. But the world was at stake and she wouldn't let anyone else die because of her inaction. The Terran government was slow to act despite most of their defense force being destroyed in minutes.

The creature Belizean had been taken into custody by Aoshi, presumably to return him to the cell he had been imprisoned. Buffy didn't believe that the creature that had proven to be so powerful to them, had been so easily destroyed.

Cassandra was working on some new ship with weapons to combat the enemy. Buffy had assumed temporary command of her squadron until she was finished. Cassandra was one of the best pilots, but she was a better engineer and needed to work on other things.

It was awful to have to leave her again after all that had happened. She couldn't think about the past now. She and the other fighters had been launched to scan the Terran system. The planet itself was quite large, even for ships as fast as thier fighters. Combine that with the original and artificial moon. There was alot to cover and they didn't know how much time until the enemy would show itself.

Brandy let Lisa in. Her eyes were red but dry.

"Are you sure you are okay?" Lisa touched Brandy's shoulder but Brandy just gave her a hard smile.

"Yes, Lisa, I'm fine. Dandy. He died heroically, what more could he want. Glory all around." Brandy waved a hand in the air. "But, I've got an idea... Buffy said she was transported to a pocket in space, remember?"

Lisa nodded. "Yes, with out stars..."

"What if it wasn't IN space. What if she'd been transported into a large cavern.. in side the planet." Before Lisa could protest, Brandy grabbed some sensor read outs and data. "There were several earthquakes on Terra just after, and I mean nano seconds after, the creature and C-ah.. the Major disappeared. What if.... the presence was building a cavern, or remodling some... " Lisa nodded and came around.

"This area is prone to small quakes but theses were huge.... " Lisa smiled. "This could be it, I'll start scanning the area for plant minions."

"Too many plants there. We'd never be able to determine what was what."

"Oh, no no no! I found something!" And Lisa explained about the light chemical hormone trail, unique to the minions. Brandy nearly exploded with sinister glee.

"Well, let's light this bitch and clean house then."

Lisa smiled at Brandy's excitement, trying not to let a hint of trepidition show on her face. True, the results were positive. But it was such a slim hope.

But a slim hope was better than none. She brightened. The confidence in her tone came from a deep-seated knowledge that her figures were right, and that Brandy's theory was sound.

"We'll find him," she said. "We'll bring him back to you."

Buffy was leaving again and no matter how Cassandra tried to concentrate on her work she just couldn't. It had only been a couple of weeks since she had went missing and now she was leaving agian to the unknown. Cassandra knew she had to do it but the stinking feeling in the stomack just woudln't go away. What if something happen agian? What if the creature attacked and Buffy wasn't here or even worse what if Buffy was in the creatures way agian. Thoughts and noises raced again and agian through Cassandra mind. She could barely hear the other people in the room as she went about her business.

The new ship was almost complete but still needed soem test runs and maybe a few more "adjustments" on it. The energy net she had put on the last one seemed to work pretty well so course it was now standered with anything she would make. She was also designing a new form of weapon that could send bursts of matter/energy through solid matter to destroy hidden objects. It was taking longer then she had hoped but configuring for different dencideds was a bit tricky. She hoped it would be up and running by the time the creature showed itself agian.

*******************************
She writhed angrily. Did they think they could defeat her so easily? Now she had one of their own to torment. Just as they'd taken one of her toys. She watched him, sagging against his viny bonds. unconcious. Her plant minions were out, gathering samples to make more of themselves. They'd taken many losses... and she was out of crystaline materal, so the new minions would be more vunerable. Her only hope, to make so many that the flesh beasts were trampled under them. Deep in the cave she'd created for herself, she sighed. Some of her power was fueled by that same substance. She would be weaker till she found a substitute.
*******************************

A form shimmered to life over the scattered belongings of Major Ren. Angel looked around at what he had gotten them into this time. He was tied up and looking none to happy about his predicament.

Apparently, the alien life form was unable to understand artificial life and had neglected her entirely. She would have to stay out of site to keep herself a secret though.

Manifesting her qausi-physical form, she bent over and picked up her storage module. She looked at it a moment and strapped it to her wrist.

Running a quick diagnostic she found the power cells nearly full. Still, her physical form drained the module horribly fast. She would only have a few days and then the power loss would cause serious damage to her progr... No, she couldn't think like that now. She had to find away to save Christopher and this was the only way.

Hissing a bit, she reached her animal creature. Loomed over him. He glared at her angrily.

"Whoooooooo do you thiiiiiiiiinnnnnk you are to commmmmmmmme to my worrrrrrrrld and touch mmmmmmy spaceee... Vile.... animmmmmmmal creaturrrrrre, eatttttttttting my planttt chilllldren..." The speach was almost painful to her. But she'd learned it. "Annnnnnnd looook at yoru worrrrrrrrlld.. hurrrrrrrrt.. dirrrrrrrrtyyyy frrrrrommm you... Iiiiiiii willlllll fixxxxx... Oh yessssssssss."

And she would. Five of her minions were already carrying offspring. The others would soon be ready as well.

She scanned. Lisa scanned. They knew they'd found the pocket. The enemy had to be in there. Now, how to distroy it, with out distroying their world. She was buried deep in the planet.

The military guys were all eager to bomb the area. But, would the bombs reach the target or merely do surface damage. Surface damage would not do it.

Dan joined the team. His robotic expertise would help. A smart bomb? Another android? Time was running out. Where was Christopher?

Dan and Belizean had been working in his lab for what seemed like days. They had found a way to link the android directly into a fighter or shuttle. It would allow them a rescue ship with unparalleled maneuvering capabilities.

When new spread over the ship, Cassandra had immediately volunteered her newest creation. It was a miniature dropship capable of delivering a single squad of troops to any terrain. Or it could fight it's way into hostile territory to rescue one crewman.

That was exactly what it was going to do. Brandy and Lisa had found it odd to be studying there own planet after years of training in alien life and planets. However, they had located a series of caves barely large enough for the dropship.

Buffy and Cassandra had the fighter squadron ready in minutes. Everyone of those pilots was in "man down" mode and wouldn't rest until he was safe.

"This is Anteries," Buffy's copilot sounded over the tactical network. "All fighters, launch."

Sly's fighter rocketted from the bay and he whooped across the tacnet. "Yea ha! We're coming to get ya Chris!"

Cassandra and Belizean sat in the dropship as the fighters launched. Belizean had strapped himself into the controls that Dan had devised. Dan came back from the engine bay with his final modifications complete, and strapped himself into a seat to monitor Belizean condition.

Brandy and Lisa burst into the dropship with a determined look. No one questioned them as they took up the weapons and communications console.

Then, the ship flew out of the bay after the fighters as they fell toward the planet.

Angel stood over the equipment and worked at it carefully, tearing the Major's gear apart. She got the device in her field generated hands to work after some patchwork of items from the fighter.

It blinked silently and she buried it in the rest of the gear. The signal would lead anyone who got close enough, right to them.

Brandy and Lisa fed data to the fighters. Brandy's stomache was tied in knots. They had to be close. She could almost feel him.... But she wouldn't think about that.

Buffy dropped fast toward the entrance Brandy and Lisa had located. The wing of fighters in formation behind her own craft. Each pilot was in his most maneuverable craft and carried the heavy battle suits for hand to hand combat in the cavern. They were armed to the teeth and were ready to take out this plant bitch.

"It's payback time!"

Cassandra had been working secretly with Brandy on the new addition to her ship. The beam canon that could shoot through solid matter with out doing any damage to it but would destroy the object behind it. It was calibrated strictly for the main plant form and if all else failed they would use it to kill the evil thing.

"Ok now crew, we have to keep all lines of communication open incase we can find some signals coming from below. Also Brandy keep your finger ready to push the button if need be. We can't let this thing live no matter what the cost." Her voice terrible a bit when she said that. Buffy was going to be down there and the thought of her being lost with that thing, again, it almost made Cassandra cry out. Calming herself down she knew she had to keep a level head for this. Pushing the comm system button she patched into all fighters. "This is how it is going down. Try to save the captain if you can but the main objective is to kill that creature. I will give you a five-minuet count before I send down the big weapon if it looks like we need it. Good luck to you all and come back safe."

Buffy listened through the announcement but knew the last message was directed at her most of all. Setting the picture of Cassandra up in its normal spot just above the right corner's edge Buffy prepared for the worst.

Brandy was shaking a little. The beam cannon was a massive weapon. It would blow a hole in their world. But, better that then have it taken over by the plant creature. Yes.

One screen glowed with the image of Christopher from the disc he'd made for her.

A plant minion wandered toward the source of the homing signal and Angel jumped from her hidden position. It was unarmored and had a grotesk inhumanness to it. It shook on it's two legs and many tendriled arms lashed out at her.

Angel concentrated on a modification to her program and her forearms and hand changed into blades of force. They surged with a enhanced version of her holofield.

The minion nearly had her as she stabbed the minion in the chest and it slumped to the ground. More minions, alerted by the death of the first pounced her.

Angel whirled with all the combat knowledge of several millenia dumped in her processor. She slashed each minion to pieces but each one that fell brought a dozen more.

Her image faded in and out as the power cells were drained by her activity. The blades began to loose their effectiveness and she switched to normal hand to hand fighting.

Angel crumpled under the onslaught. "Save him Doctor. Hurry."

The wrist module dropped to the ground as she faded away, a minion smashing it under it's heavy foot.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Worlds and Stars
Episode 4: The final battle

Buffy ducked into the cavern, squadron and Cassandra close behind. They stuck together, maneuvering in the tight spaces. Cassandra and crew almost slammed into a cavern wall but the precise corrections of Belizean and Cassandra together saved them from instant death.

Armored plant soldiers streamed from hiding places jumping the fighter escort and tearing into thier hulls. They traded blast back and forth, sustaining heavy damage but obliterating most of the resistance.

Buffy caught a flash on her scanners and it registered as a emergency recovery signal. It was the Major, it had to be. "Neferti wing, this is Neferti Two. Transfering coordinates of the Major's signal beacon. Lock on and blow away anything that gets in your way."

Lisa's voice chimmed over the tacnet. "This is Lisa on Neferti One, recieved. Lead the way Captain."

Cassandra chuckled over the line. "Go kick some ass love of mine."

Brandy sagged on her desk. They'd found him.

Nightshadia ripped Major Ren's limp form from the wall. He slumped in her giant vinelike arms. A smaller vine thrust in his mouth, dumping a stimulant into his body.

Nearly instantly, Ren's eyes popped open as the toxin raced through his body. His heart pounded as if it were about to explode from his chest. Ren got his first long look at the plant thing. It resembled a human female in the torso and head. It's 'hair' flowed about and seemed to dissappear into the caverns around them. It slithered on one giant slug like appendage, torso rising from it like some botanical centaur. It seemed to grow arms at will. Two attended to other duties while one shook Christopher in it's grasp.

"Why do they come for you? Why should they? They could kill me now and save their planet." Christopher looked puzzled at Nightshadia. "Answer me!"

"Friendship. Loyalty. Love." Christopher rasped, using his voice for the first time in days. "Those are the things that drive us and will be the end of you."

"Fool! I have lived for countless millenia and have never needed such idiocy."

"Yet a few people, only a few years old, has managed to inspire such rage in you?" Christopher toyed with the creature. He realized his mistake as it once again, tossed her against the wall. He glanced over at his scavenged ship and then he saw the smashed module. "Angel?"

Brandy fed the raw data into her computer and sent out usable facts to the fighters going into the cavern. She felt rather superficial. Rather....... 3rd person. Yet, her whole life was in there.

Following the others in the cavern Cassandra was glad that Belizean was part of this mission. Her piloting skill was good but the caverns walls were close and tight. The ship darted back and forth as it came closer to the center of the large cavern. Soon they would be close to the Major and maybe after that Brandy would smile again.

Buffy and Sly flew side by side, blasting the plant minions in their path. The rest of the squad caught the stragglers but Buffy and Sly were driven, leaving little for the others to battle.

Then, the minions were gone. The fighters accelerated deep into the caverns homing so close to the Major.

Buffy realized too late, that they had gotten considerably ahead of the shuttle. The cries for help echoed over the tacnet as something huge appeared on Buffy's sensors.

"Sly," Buffy barked over the radio. "Get Major Ren, I'll go back for the shuttle."

Buffy's fighter turned end for end, thrusters firing. The antigrav unit groaned in protest at the impossible maneuver, but Buffy pressed forward. The ship shook as the other pilots wake nearly tossed her against the cavern walls.

Buffy got a glimpse of the huge plant beast that had clasped the shuttle in a multi-tentacled grip. The brown and green monstrosity faded away as Buffy's fighter was consumed by a dozen armor clad minions.

The odds kept mounting against the fighters. It was looking like the beam cannon was going to hve to be used.

Fingers shaking a bit, she found a weakness in the huge creature attacking the shuttle and relayed it to the fighters. IT was hard to tell exactly what was going on. Maybe it wasn't as bad as it seemed from where she stood. But her heart kept twisting with each new flood of data sent to her. She calculated a new frequency to jam the minions and began broadcasting it. She hoped she'd found it in time.

Buffy smiled as the minions began to break away. They didnt' stop like before, but they were confused.

Bolts of death loosed from Buffy's fighter, cutting the disoriented enemies to pieces.

Brandy's voice cut through the tacnet. "All fighters, I have a possible weakness to the creature attacking us."

Buffy flipped the switch for visual communication. "Sorry, Doctor. I sent the rest of the boys for the Major. Thanks for the help though.

The fighter ducked amongst the minions, and moved towards the creature. She looked for the opening that Brandy had shown her but the minions were coming around. Laser fire tinged the tail section as she dived towards the shuttle.

Brandy sat helpless at her console. The numbers looked okay. But she knew they were getting hammered out there. The traffic coming over the comms was wild. Brandy's heart was twisted tight in a fearful knot. Buffy had seen Ren, but she'd not been heard from after that, everyone was getting swarmed, and the captain was warming up the beam cannon, despite Brandy's hysterical pleas for him not to, to give them more time.

"Oh please get out, get him and get out." She was whispering to her self, her commlink having been disabled by the Captain after she'd called him a few blue names for telling his weapons officer to warm up the beam cannon for use.

"Beam cannon ready sir!"

"Fire it!"

"Nooooooooooooo!" Her hands crashed uselessly against her station. "No no no!" The count down.. Then all comms from the rescue mission went dead. No static, nothing. Just still, dead air. "Buffy? Cass.. Christopher..." Brandy waited. 10 minutes passed. Brandy could not stay there any longer, sobbing, she threw herself through the door, almost knocking some jr lab assisent on her ass, as she came in to tell her something.

Dead, because of her weapon, because of the Captain, because of the desire to explore. All the people she cared about. Sobbing wildly, she ran through the passages to her quarters, and flung herself on the couch, where she could see the glowing image of Christopher from the message he'd written to her. "Oh god, you're dead, you are all dead!" Slowly, the crying stopped, she felt herself go blank, pulling deeper and deeper into herself.

How long she sat, in the dark, staring at his picture, she didn't know. It didn't matter. The Captain was going to have her tossed off his ship for questioning his orders during battle. Christopher was dead. Nothing mattered.

The warm hands sliding up her arms, to her shoulders almost didn't register. The lips on her neck either. But when his voice whispered in her ear, "My kitty." Brandy spun around. He was there, battered, an eye swollen shut, but he was there.

"Oh god, I thought you were gone forever!" And she grabbed him around his neck and sobbed into his chest.

He stroked her back, trying not to wince. "It's all okay now." When she clutched him tighter, he let out an involuntary gasp of pain.

"You should be in sick bay!" Brandy stood up, pulling him carefully with her. "Come on, mister." She tried to sound scolding, but she was nearly laughing with joy.

"Yeah, Cass and Buffy could use the company, I'm sure."

"They made it to?"

Christopher smiled. "Yes, they did."

"Thank god!"

Arm in arm they went to Med Lab.

Recent visitors to Worlds

Current Discussions