Taeon sat down at the pilots' table in the mess hall.  The
lunch, which could well have be their last meal, was barely a
step above boot-camp quality.  Either the current shift cook was
a substandard chef or exceptionally sadistic.
     Almost everyone was at the table, except for Ryo who was
still in the mecha bay, and Katana who was in CIC with Captain
Neben planning their next move.  Taeon picked up his fork and
poked at what he assumed were mash potatoes.
     "Careful with that meat loaf," said Allen.  "Mine tried to
get away."
     "This is meat loaf?" asked Taeon still poking at the gravy
covered mass. "It looks like mash potatoes."
     "I thought it was really bad lasagna," said David, looking
down at his plate.
     "Enough," interrupted Destiny as he took a bite of black
beans. "This is far better than what most front-line trench
troopers get."
     Taeon motioned to one of the orderlies at the serving
station.  "Hey, private," he said.
     "Yes, sir?" he asked.
     "Dr. Chrome wants some lunches brought up to the tech crews
in the mecha bay."
     "Right," grumbled the orderly.  He wiped his hands and
stepped back into the kitchen.
     "Oh, good job Taeon," said Allen.  "Now the tech crew will
get food poisoning and die, just like us."
     "I said enough," growled Destiny.
     "Sorry, sir," replied Allen.  "Just trying to keep in good
humor."
     "If you don't mind me asking, sir," said Lynn, "what's your
problem?"
     Destiny looked over at her and sighed.  "This battle -- it's
the damnedest crazy, most impossible piece of bureaucratic
nonsense that I've had to put up with."  He sighed.  "But yet, I
know this is a cause worth dying for.  I saw that super-mecha
down there...  We all did.  We know about that super-tech those
scientists cooked up here, and then destroyed for fear of its
terrible power.  We can't let a madman like Briggs get it.  I'd
give my life a thousand times over to insure that it never
happens."
     The room had fallen silent.  All eyes were turned to
Destiny.
     "My God," he continued.  "I've seen the terror and
atrocities our own government will commit to get an edge.  I've
been their puppet; their scapegoat.  I can't imagine what Briggs
would do to get an edge.  But no more...  The war will end here.
Here at Arcturus we shall decide the outcome of history.  A
billion lives depend on us.  Will there be another fifty years of
war or shall we pave the way for a new golden age of peace and
enlightenment?"
     "Well, I don't know about you," said Allen, "but I think
we're terribly out numbered.  I mean, we have ten mecha,
discounting the two political officers who I doubt will be flying
combat.  That leaves eight mecha.  Eight mecha verses that
armada!"
     "I'd hardly call it an armada," said Vista.  "That fleet
consists mostly of scout ships.  They probably have no more than
fifty mecha total.  So, if each one of us takes out five or six
enemy mecha, we'll be fine."
     "What about the ships?" asked Taeon.
     "Oh, yeah," said Vista.
     "This ship only has a couple of beam cannon turrets and a
point-defense grid," said Taeon.  "I'm not sure if she can hold
out against thirty ships, even if they are scout ships."
     "We'll just have to hope the ITR fleet arrives in time,"
said David.
     "There are to many variables in this equation of war," said
Taeon.  "I don't like it."
     "Thirty minutes to jump," blared the intercom.  "I repeat.
Thirty minutes to jump."
     "You'd better start liking it," said Allen.  "The equation
is about to be resolved, with or without you."
     "I'd like to resolve the equation myself," said Taeon.  "But
first I need to nail down a few unknowns."
                            *   *   *
     Taeon knew it was a shot in the dark, but he had to try.
Dr. Palovich had explained to him that visions of the future were
not something to summon or call upon.  Quite often when
attempting to peer into the future one will utterly and totally
fail.  The key is to open one's self to time and space.  If an
event of immense proportions lurks ahead, it will reveal itself.
It may not be what you seek, but no mortal man can control the
fates of the future.  This Taeon knew.  With the peace and
tranquillity like the silent void beyond the bulkheads, he sat
quietly in his quarters and meditated.
     He emptied his mind of thought and embraced the darkness;
the eternal vale that separated the past from the future.  A cold
chill fell across his body and the hairs upon his neck rose with
an acute sense of imminent danger.  Fear, thick and black as tar
melted around his consciousness and penetrated deep into his
being.  Had he not been trained, he would have been awakened,
screaming, by the terror that this dark premonition foretold.
     The utter blackness of the void faded to red.  Crimson red.
Blood red.  The blood turned to fire and stunk of death.
Screams, at first far away, slowly increased in octave until at
last they blasted into his soul, shirking in battle-crazed panic.
     A brilliant white sphere appeared in the chaos of fire and
blood, then exploded into full view.  The flash faded, and Taeon
watched as ships, dozens of ships, exploded in fiery destruction.
Thousands of lives vanished in the blink of an eye.  Such loss...
Such terrible lose.
     The loss was upon him; it tore into his heart, ripped into
his soul and shattered the last fragment of hope that he carried
there.  He saw a face... But the image eluded him... He knew not
who it was.   The form was blasted to hideous ruin, obliterated
in the wake of destructive energies.  Terrible anguish howled
within his being.  In one instantaneous moment he saw the past as
it could have been, the present and it should be, and the future
that would never become.  Before his psychic eyes, the future
exploded in a mockery of fate.
     Taeon tore himself from the abhorrent vision and into the
refuge of liner time and space, back into his present being.  He
found himself soaked with sweat and panting for breath.  But he
was no longer in his quarters.  Instead, he found that he had run
nearly all the way down the hall.
     "What the hell..." he panted.  He had never heard of
something like this happening before.  Sleepwalking, maybe.  But
visionwalking?
     The door to his immediate left hissed open.  "Taeon?"
     Taeon looked to his side and saw Lynn standing there.
"Uh...  Yeah?"
     "You look... Tired."
     Taeon nodded.  "It's hard to explain, but I was having a
vision of the future, and... well... I guess my body started
moving around by itself."
     "Oh," said Lynn. "Do you want to come in and sit down?"
     "I don't know..."
     Lynn smiled and brushed her hand through her short, black
hair.  "Come on.  I want to hear about your vision, if that's all
right."
     Taeon followed Lynn back into her room.  Begin a non-com as
she was, her quarters were a bit smaller than Taeon's, but seemed
somehow larger.  Maybe it was the fact that she had accumulated
less stuff, or maybe it was the large mirror on the wall.  "It
wasn't a very good vision."
     Lynn sat down on her bunk and leaned back on her arms.  "Was
it about the battle?"
     "I hope not," said Taeon.  He let himself fall back into a
small chair next to the dresser.  "It was bad.  Real bad."
     "I don't know much about precognition.  Can you see real
events or just get a feeling of what it's like?"
     "Sometimes," said Taeon.  "Sometimes you feel the future,
sometimes you see it.  Sometimes it's so damn real you can taste
it...  Taste the fear, hear the screams, feel the blood running
down your face.  Sometimes... it's so real..." he covered his
face with his hands as flashes of future memory echoed through
his mind.  "So real.  And you know there's nothing you can do
about it!"
     "Hey," said Lynn, softly.  She touched Taeon on the arm.
"I'm sorry.  I didn't know it was like that..."
     "No," said Taeon as he collected his wits about him.  He
closed his eyes and tried to muster a smile. "It's not always
like that.  Only when there's a powerful event on the horizon."
     "This next battle?"
     "Yes," said Taeon.  "This next battle."
     "But who's to say that has to be our future?" asked Lynn.
She stood up and motioned to the outer wall.  "If we know what
the future might become, why can't we learn from it and change
things for the better?"
     "It's not a possible future," explained Taeon.  "It is the
future.  Don't you see?  You can't change the future for the same
reason that you can't change the past.  It is part of space-time
itself.  In a way, it has already happened.  We are liner beings,
moving slowly though the moments of time and space.  We remember
the past and not the future only because we are moving one way.
A few of us can glimpse fragments of that future, and in those
instances we can sometimes feel what it is like to have space-
time merge into one infinite moment.  It is truly terrifying, and
it's times like these that I curse myself forever having delved
into these powers.  There are things we are better off not
knowing.  And the future is one of them.  But..."
     Lynn blinked and sat back down on the bed.  "But what?"
     Taeon took in a deep breath.  "The future is gone."
     "Gone?" asked Lynn.  "I've heard rumors, stories about
divers having trouble seeing into the future, past the end of
this year, but I heard it was simply an anomaly and nothing to
worry about."
     "You heard wrong," said Taeon.  "The future is not there
anymore.  I haven't seen it myself, but my sister Xandra says
that she has."
     "Attention," blared the intercom.  "All personal to duty
stations.  We are preparing to make the diver jump to belt
coordinates.  Stand-by."
     "I guess this is it," said Lynn.
     "Welcome to the future," replied Taeon.
                            *   *   *
     "We might as well move into the briefing room and settle
down," said Ryo, as they all took their seats.  "Seems like we're
always here."
     "Well, they say combat is ninety percent preparation and ten
percent perspiration," said Taeon.
     "Huh?" asked Allen.  "What kind of a moron said that?  I
don't sweat in combat.  I laugh!"
     Major Falcon swiftly entered the briefing room and
approached the head of the table.  "Well, we're here."
     Ryo glanced around and licked his upper lip.  "And?"
     "Nothing," said Katana.  "Nadda, nil, zip, zilch, zero."
     "What?" demanded Ryo.  "That's impossible!  We..."
     "Be reasonable, Lieutenant," said Katana.  "If the moon did
jump to these coordinates, it probably took a standard orbit and
could well be on the other side of this solar system.  Or it
could have jumped again.  Hell, it might not even be in this
system at all."
     "Well, now that that's settled, let's get the hell out of
here," said Taeon.  "No sense in sticking around, eh?"
     "But why would they orbit in a class III asteroid belt?"
asked David Pollux.  "That's suicide!  Sure, it's got a mean
distribution density of about a kilogram per one hundred cubic
kilometers, but even at that they would hit five or six large
asteroids per orbital year."
     "Thank you Professor Pollux," said Katana.  "But they could
have jumped out of system, or somewhere else in this system."
     "Then why take the risk of jumping to the belt?" asked
Vista.  "It's a slim chance, but still possible, that they could
have smashed into a large asteroid, or come out dangerously close
to one.  It doesn't make sense."
     "Look," said Katana.  "All I know is that they aren't here
and the GSC fleet is on its way.  We've got a couple dozen sensor
pings bouncing off our hull.  They know we're here and will be
right on top of us as soon as they make their jump.  I don't want
to be around when that happens."
     "What's the range of our sensors?" asked Ryo.
     "We can make astronomical surveys of the entire system,
which takes a while, using optical imagining and radar ranging.
Our primary sensor suite, however, is reliable only up to point
one AUs.  We should be able to detect a moon from a hundred AUs.
Hell, we can see large asteroids on the other side of the belt,
but none fit the parameters of the Arcturian Moon listed in our
database."
      "Maybe we should circle around the belt for a while," said
Taeon.  "Could be it's obscured or hidden..."
     "That's it!" said Ryo.  "They've been developing advanced
full-spectrum cloaking systems, right?  What if they cloaked the
moon?"
     Katana raised her eyebrow.  "A cloaking system that could
block all sensors and optical observations?"
     "It was on that holodisk," said Ryo.  "The data was damaged,
but the stats said it was capable of cloaking everything."
     "Almost everything," said David.  "You can't cloak gravity.
Mass is directly related to the warping of space-time, thus
creating gravity.  Even if the object is invisible, its gravity
will be there."
     "I don't know," said David.  "A large amount of energy can
simulate mass to generate artificial gravity.  The same can be
done to counter the gravity of mass."
     "The energy required to completely cloak the mass of a moon
is beyond anything conceivable," said Katana.  "What are you
getting at, Lieutenant Gunn?"
     "Well, we can detect gravity, right?"
     Katana nodded.  "Sure.  If we're falling, there's gravity.
Simple."
     "I mean with sensors.  See, if we detect a large gravity-
well with no apparent source, then that must be the cloaked
moon."
     Katana nodded.  "An interesting idea, but I don't know if we
have anything to detect gravity at long range."  She turned back
to the display screen and punched a button on the console.
"Major Falcon to the bridge."
     "Captain Neben here," said the Captain as he appeared on the
screen.
     "Captain, we have an idea.  Lieutenant Gunn suggests that
the moon could be cloaked.  Can we detect gravity-wells?"
     Captain Neben nodded.  "It is difficult to detect gravity at
a distance, especially if there are no objects to observe.  We
have some delicate and sensitive equipment used mainly for
measuring local graviton particle count.  That should tell us if
a large gravity-well is nearby."
     "You might want to check it out," said Katana.
     "It will take a while to get the measurements," said Neben.
"And we don't have long until that GSC fleet arrives at our
position."
     "Understood," said Katana.  She switched off the console and
turned back to the Guardian Squadron pilots.  "Well, it looks
like we'll be hanging around a bit longer.  But if we don't
detect anything, we'll be getting out of here, ASAP."
     "In the meantime?" asked Destiny.
     "We wait," replied Katana.
                            *   *   *
     Taeon closed his eyes and tried to relax, but the images of
terror yet to come were waiting for him beneath his eyelids.  He
couldn't get the sight of it out of his mind.  Something terrible
was about to happen.  He hoped beyond all hope that they would
not find the moon and would jump out before the GSC engaged them;
but in his heart he knew it was pointless.  The future was set.
There would be a battle and the price would be unbearable.
     "Taeon," said Katana.
     Taeon opened his eyes and saw Ryo and Major Falcon as they
walked by.  "We're heading up to the bridge.  Captain Neben
thinks he's found something."
     Taeon stood up and glanced at Major Katana.  He made a quick
salute.  "Ma'am?"
     "At ease," said Katana.  "Lieutenant Gunn thought you might
be able to sense something."  She shrugged.  "Hell if I know."
     "Okay," said Taeon, "I guess it's worth a shot."
     He followed them out of the lounge and through the various
corridors and lifts of the ITR Stinger until they at last came to
the bridge.
     Captain Neben was sitting in his command chair talking to
some ensign about fine tuning the sensor suite.  She nodded and
went to work at her console.  The Captain turned around and
greeted the mecha pilots.  "Major Falcon.  Good, you're here.
And you brought the diver with you."
     The diver, thought Taeon.  So now he was some kind of sensor
system, huh?
     "What's the word on the well?" asked Katana.
     "We found one," explained Captain Neben.  "Ensign, put the
visual up on the screen."
     "Yes, sir," she replied.
     An image of space appeared on the main screen.  It was
filled with a surprising large cluster of asteroids.  Though they
were in the belt, asteroids were supposed to be few and far
between in the vastness of the great astronomical distances.
     "We picked up a large, unaccounted for gravity-well in this
area," said Neben.  "At first we thought it was due to the large
number of asteroids, but that is only the effect, not the cause."
     "What do you mean?" asked Taeon.
     "The asteroids are orbiting something," said Neben.
"Something big and invisible."
     "The Arcturian Moon," said Ryo.
     Neben shrugged.  "Maybe.  Could also be a microscopic black
hole.  They're pretty rare, but cloaked moons are even rarer.
We've taken a holding position about a hundred thousand klicks
from the center of mass.  Even at this range we are well within
the grasp of the object's gravity."
     "We should move on in," said Ryo.  "Try to get under the
cloaking field.  Maybe then we could scan the surface.  On top of
that, we'd be invisible to the GSC fleet!"
     "Not so fast," said Neben.  "What if it turns out to be
micro black hole?  I'm not too keen on having my component atoms
turned to spaghetti and ending my existence at the other end of
time in some God forsaken negative space dimension."
     "It's not a black hole!  Where's the accretion disk?" asked
Ryo, motioning to the screen.
     "There is a large accretion disk of space dust, debris, and
asteroids.  You can't see most of it because they are fine grain
particles.  They could be orbiting a moon or singularity.  We
don't know."
     "Great," said Ryo.  "Have you tried to send a transmission?"
     "Yes.  No reply."  Captain Neben turned to Taeon.  "Can you
sense anything?"
     Taeon shook his head.  "Not at a hundred thousand klicks.
I'm not that powerful."
     Neben frowned.  "Oh well.  I suppose..."
     "Captain," said another officer suddenly.  "The GSC fleet
has appeared out of diverspace eighty thousand klicks off our
stern."
     "My God!" said Neben.  "Go to red alert.  Charge up all
weapons systems.  Helm, bring us around asteroid N-76 for cover."
     "What?" asked Ryo.  "But I thought they were still at the
edge of the system!"
     "Relativity, Lieutenant," said the Captain.  "Our in-sys
sensors can only scan normal space objects at the speed of light.
It takes light twelve minutes to reach us from where they were,
but it only takes them two seconds to make the jump."
     "Damn it!" exclaimed Ryo.
     "This is no time to worry about the physics of space
combat!" exclaimed Katana.  "Get to the mecha bay, now!"
     Ryo, Taeon, and Katana rushed off the bridge and down the
hall.  "When's our fleet due to arrive?" asked Ryo, as alarms
blared combat alerts.
     "Two hours, hopefully," said Katana.
     "Two hours?" asked Ryo.  "Can we hold out for two hours?"
     "It'll take at least an hour for them to close the distance
with us," said Taeon.  "Maybe we should jump out and retreat.
Let our incoming fleet deal with the interlopers."
     "That's not even an option anymore," said Katana, as they
rushed into a lift.  "We'd have to get out of the gravity-well
and that would take an hour.  The GSC is closing half that
distance and would intercept us before we had a chance to jump."
     "What if we went the other way?" asked Taeon.
     "And run into a cloaked moon or singularity?  No thanks."
     The lift doors opened and the trio ran into the mecha bay.
Destiny and the others were already getting prepped for combat.
"Get suited up, in you mecha, and ready to hit space in five
minutes," ordered Katana.  "Dr. Chrome!"
     "Yes," said the old scientist as he looked up from whatever
work he was tending.
     "Status of the mecha?"
     "We are ready to launch, but we haven't had time to test the
new equipment..."
     "Fine, fine," said Katana.  "You're the biggest brain this
side of the Empire.  I trust you got it right.  Come on!  Let's
move!"
     The mecha pilots scrambled to get suited up.  Ready to go,
they rushed back into the mecha bay and headed toward their
titanic war machines.
     Taeon felt someone touch his arm.  He turned around and saw
Lynn standing there beside him.
     She smiled.  "Good luck."
     "You to," replied Taeon.  "Good luck to us all."
     Lynn smiled again and started toward her mecha.
     Maybe, thought Taeon.  Just maybe, when this battle's over,
he would ask her...  Taeon shook his head.  There would be time
enough when it was over.  "I'll be watching your six," said
Taeon.
     Lynn gave Taeon a thumbs up.  "You watch my tail, soldier.
I'll watch yours."
     Through all the fear and darkness Taeon felt around him, he
suddenly saw a glimmer of light, a beacon of hope.  The future
seemed right again, and perhaps, just perhaps, peace at last
awaited him.
                            *   *   *
     In less than an hour the GSC forces had closed the distance.
First to come were the faster recon scout ships.  They posed no
threat, other than the advance sensor and electronic warfare
systems they carried.  Ryo watched his sensor screens as the
Stinger dispatched the small ships with it's array of anti-ship
cannons.  The blasted remains of those ships, along with a few
scattered asteroids, would be the only cover out here in the deep
black sea of space.
     "Here they come," said Katana after another ten minutes had
elapse.  "Captain Neben reports that their sensors have detected
four more corvettes, two caravels, and two frigates.  They've
launched mecha, twenty in all."
     Already outnumbered, thought Ryo.
     "They've split into two groups, probably trying to flank
this asteroid from either side.  Gray, Firewolf, Pollux, Juno,
take the first group.  The rest, follow me.  We'll take the
others."
     Confirmations flooded through the channel as the eight mecha
broke to attack.
     "My team," said Katana.  "Switch to channel three.
Destiny's team, stay on two."
     "Understood," said Destiny.
     Ryo switched his comm channel to three, and powered up his
newly install ZD-Omni electronics suite.  The 360-display system,
which encompassed the entire spherical cockpit with one large
displace screen came to life.  In his control seat, he seemed to
be floating in the vastness of space, his view unobscured by the
floor, ceiling, or walls.
     He watched as the large asteroid rolled away below him.  To
his left was Taeon, in his Storm Giant, and Allen, in his Raptor
X.  Flying in front was Katana Falcon in her Ironclad Mindancer,
equipped with a new, super-tech holoprojector system.
     Not surprisingly, Ryo was the first to detect the enemy
squadron.  With his advanced sensor suite, the eight targets
showed on magna-scan first, then IR.  In the distance, far ahead,
the targets were nothing more than seven computer enhanced
glowing red specks, two Neo-Morays, an Ironclad Moray, two
Gallants, and two older model Gallants.
     "Here they come," said Ryo.
     "Roger," replied Katana.  "Stand-by."
     Ryo moved his hand over to the electronics control panel and
tuned up his sensor jammers.  With luck, those jammers would give
the enemy mecha hell when targeting him, or at least make him
harder to detect.
     "They're in a V-formation.  Go to Delta strike pattern and
attack." said Katana.
     A huge chunk of twisted scrap from one of the destroyed
corvettes rolled past, and Ryo pumped his main thrusters to full
power.  "Lotta wreckage out here," he said.  "I say we take
advantage of it."
     "Watch out for hypervelocity shrapnel," reminded Katana.
     As Taeon took one end of the formation, Allen and Katana
took the middle, Ryo dove his Maelstrom down to his end, heading
toward a large, burned out corvette gunship.  The ship was gutted
from bow to stern but would provide superb cover, as long as he
wasn't impaled by a lose structure pylon.
     The enemy mecha were closing.  Zooming in on their position,
Ryo saw the Ironclad Moray and a Gallant maneuvering to take
cover in another piece of some blasted scout ship.  Three others
headed toward Allen and Katana, the last two moved off to engage
Taeon who was heading into a dangerously dense cluster of
wreckage and small asteroids.
     Allen dodged around a tumbling asteroid and opened fire with
the Raptor X's thermo-electric lasers.  The beams arced out and
drilled into a Neo-Moray, which Ryo's IFF system had labeled as
NM-2.
     Ryo swung around the debris and positioned himself to fire.
For now, the GSC mecha weren't attacking him.  He was pretty much
out of range.  Even so, he targeted one of the Neo-Morays, NM-1,
and locked on with his mass driver cannon.  He pulled the trigger
to fire.  With perfect symmetry his mecha squeezed the trigger on
the huge, multi-ton rifle.  A number of the devastating scatter-
shot shells coughed out, blasting open and spread dozens of
supersonic metal balls toward the target.  However, the range was
too extreme, and the attack had little effect.
     Ryo prepared to fire again, but on his sensor screen four
new Mindancer mecha suddenly appeared near Katana's mecha.
     "What the..." said Ryo, then realized it was the false
sensor shadows of her mecha, generated by the holoprojecton
system.
     Ryo grinned as he watched a Gallant open fire on her, only
to miss as its energy beams lanced through a ghost mecha.  The
images flickered for a moment as the attack volley passed, then
maneuvered around, further confusing any attempts to locate the
true target.
     Katana quickly revealed which one of the Mindancer's was
real as she opened fire with her autocannon rifle, strafing one
of the Gallant's with deadly armor piercing rounds.
     As she did, much to Ryo's dismay, the sensor shadows
vanished.  "Dammit!" exclaimed Katana.
     "Say again?" asked Ryo, wondering what was wrong.
     "Fire control system shorted the holoprojector!  Last time
I'm trusting Dr. Chrome."
     Not his fault, thought Ryo.  He was rushed.  But what if his
electronics suite and sensor system failed...
     Neo-Moray, NM-2, swooped out of the starry void and
unleashed its powerful rail razor cannon.  Katana tried to dodge
her mecha out of the way and succeeded to some degree, but
several of the devastating rounds drilled into her Mindancer
blasting off one arm and taking her primary rifle weapon with it.
     "Idiot!" screamed Katana as she launched a volley of six
smart missiles.
     The rockets closed the distance and in a chain of fiery
explosions the Neo-Moray was totally destroyed.
     "Hah, hah," laughed Allen.  "Let's crunch metal!"
     Ryo smiled.  What a guy.
                            *   *   *
     Taeon spun around and fired his supernova lance at one of
the attacking Gallants.  The thick beam of nuclear energy blasted
through the Gallant's Vulcan rifle and obliterated its right arm.
     "Eat that, Coalie scum," said Taeon.
     The wounded target replied by launching one of its deadly AI
guided smart missiles.
     "Geez," said Taeon, activating his mecha's missile jammers.
"Not these!"
     He grabbed the controls and dove his mecha down into a
floating chunk of ship wreckage.  The missile streaked past, but
started to turn to make another attack.
     The second Gallant, an older model by the looks of it,
launched another missile.  His Storm Giant's jammers did their
work, and the missile veered suddenly off course and exploded
into the twisted scrap below.
     "I'll deal with that one later," figured Taeon.  He targeted
the already wounded Gallant and fired his supernova lance again.
     The energy beam stabbed into the mecha's leg and sliced up
through the torso.  Severed in two, the Gallant floated quietly
for a second then became a blazing sphere of fire.
     "Scratch one," he said.
     The AI guided missile came back down determined to end its
single purpose life on Taeon's Storm Giant.  Taeon rolled his
mecha over and fired its leg boosters, maneuvering himself into a
burned out area of the space wreckage.
     The missile, not equipped or programmed to maneuver in such
tight quarters, slammed head on into a structure pylon and
exploded.
     Shrapnel showered across the Giant's force shields, but did
little more than cause it to sparkle and glitter a bit.  His
mecha touched down on the wreckage surface and Taeon allowed the
computer to control the delicate sequence of vernier and retrojet
firings necessary to keep his mecha steady.
     He was now wedged tightly in the wreckage that appeared to
be part of a ships command superstructure.  If this had been a
standard scout ship, the bridge should have been about two decks
up.  Of course, it wasn't there.  It had been totally blown away
as had the rest of the ship.
     The other Gallant attacked with its Vulcan rifle, but
Taeon's cover was good and the stream of explosive bullets only
scorched the already fusion-baked wreckage.
     "C'mon," said Taeon, "get a little closer..."
     Taeon watched as the Gallant's flight path took it down to
the wreckage he was hiding in.  The mecha touched down on the
blasted surface and readied its Vulcan rifle for action.
     Taeon launched his Storm Giant out of the crevice and
unleashed his supernova lance.  The beam exploded into the
Gallant's left leg, destroying it.  The mecha stumbled back, it's
verniers firing frantically to keep it stable.
     The indicator display for the supernova lance read 'Stand-
by: Charging.'  Taeon grabbed his controller.  "Charge!  Cursed
mega-weapons!"
     The Gallant, having launched off the structure, fired a
missile at Taeon's stationary mecha.
     "Drat!" screamed Taeon.
     Caught off guard, he scrambled to resequnced his missile
jammers, but it was too late.  The rocket blasted through his
force shields and drilled into his Storm Giant's ironclad armor.
     Taeon aimed his main gun at the fleeing target and squeezed
the trigger.  A pulsating beam of destructive energy surged out
and tore though the Gallant's frail metal body.  A split second
later, it turned into brilliant ball of fusion fire.
                            *   *   *
     The two enemies who had taken cover behind some scrap now
reappeared and launched toward Ryo's position.  What had they
been waiting for, he wondered.
     He looked down at his sensor screen.  A new blip was
entering the area.  "A Titan..."
     "Say again?" asked Katana.
     "Titan, inbound," said Ryo.
     "I'll take 'em," said Allen, as he opened fire on a Gallant
with his mecha's main thermo-electric blast.
     As the fiery remnants of the Gallant tumbled away, Allen
blasted off toward the incoming Titan.
     "Allen, you're crazy," said Ryo.  "You're in a Raptor X.
Let me get him."
     "Hey, a Titan's nothing I can't handle," replied Allen.
     Sure, Ryo thought to himself.  He blasted away from his
cover and launched toward the Ironclad Moray.  As he did, he
watched Katana fire the last of her missiles, a swarm of fifty
alpha mini-missiles, at target NM-1.  The mecha was saturated in
a brilliant firestorm of explosions.  The burning remains of the
Neo-Moray cartwheeled away as arcs of plasma energy surged around
its chassis, cast off from its ruptured fusion plant.
     Katana's Mindancer became a black silhouette against the
massive fireball of the mecha's exploding reactor.  "I'm heading
back to the Stinger," said Katana.  "All my ordnance is expended
and my main gun's destroyed.  Can you boys hold this sector
down?"
     "No problem," replied Ryo.
     "I'll rejoin you as soon as possible," replied Katana.  Her
Mindancer turned and rocketed back toward the frigate.
     Ryo leveled his mass driver as the last Neo-Moray closed in.
"Eat this," said Ryo and fired the massive gun.
Though the mecha's thrusters were at full, he still felt the kick
back from the powerful electrogravitic accelerator system.  The
flood of shotgun-like shells blew out spreading their swarms of
titanium "bowling balls" toward the approaching Moray.  They hit
home and tore mercilessly into the mecha's body.  But the rounds
failed to penetrated the thick, ironclad armor.
     "C'mon, die!" screamed Ryo.
     The Moray answered with only the end of the gun barrel and a
deadly rail spike.  Ryo jerked his mecha to the side and the
round missed, drilling into the burned out structure behind him.
     "Amateur," muttered Ryo under his breath.  "Where'd they dig
up these pilots?  This guy's worse than a rookie!"
     "Yeah, but there's a whole bunch of them," said Taeon over
the channel.
     Ryo prepared to fire again, but the Moray's thruster system
suddenly miss-fired.  It's back exploded in a blossoming ball of
fire and the mecha vanished in a cloud of evaporated metal.
"Man, must have been a good hit after all."
     "They don't make 'em like they used to," said Allen as he
engaged the Titan.
     The Titan wasn't really heading toward any one of them; its
flight path was more or less in the direction of their frigate.
Nevertheless, Allen fired his two plasma lasers as he came around
a tumbled asteroid.  The beams sliced into the thick armor doing
little more than charring the blue and red paint job.  The Titan
slowed down and turned toward Allen's insignificant Raptor X
     "Hmmm, I think I made 'em mad!" said Allen.
     The Titan causally swung its 30cm rifle toward the Raptor X
and fired.  Allan dodged to the side, and the shell slammed into
the small asteroid turning it into a fiery shower of pebbles.
     "Pull out, Allen!" screamed Ryo as he launched toward the
gothic metal warrior.  "That thing'll tear you to shreds!"
     "I'm not worried," replied Allen.  "I've got him this time."
     The Raptor X's chest opened up, and energy surged around the
thermo-electric arrays.  A brilliant flood of energy erupted
forth and drove into the huge mecha.  As the firestorm cleared,
the unfazed Titan flipped down its shoulder mounted heavy pulsar
cannon.  Energy built up within the core of the killer weapon.
     "Uh, oh," said Allen.  "That didn't seem to work..."
     A stream of pulsating particle energy ripped into the Raptor
X, but Allen's mecha stood vigilant.  The Titan's missile bays
flipped open and launched a swarm of ten heavy missiles.  The
rockets saturated Allen's mecha with explosions.  The Raptor X's
left arm was completely destroyed as was the same leg.  The rest
of the mecha fared a better, but its armor was blown off like
leaves.
     "Ghhaaaargh!" screamed Allen.
     As Ryo closed in, he typed in a set of commands on the
electronics warfare console focusing his sensor jammers on the
Titan.
     "Let's see how you fight, now," said Ryo.
     The Titan looked around, scanning the area for the
interloper who dared to jam his sensors.  As he did, Ryo
announced himself by opening up with his mecha's shoulder mounted
hailstorm cannons. The massive Gatling guns unleashed their storm
of projectiles showering the Titan with thousands of bullets.
     "No, I said I've got him," said Allen, firing again with his
mecha's main blast.
     The flood of energy drilled directly into the Titan's 30cm
rifle.  The gun was completely destroyed, as was the mecha's
right arm with it.
     Angered, the Titan turned its attention back to Allen.  The
pulsar cannon unleashed another fury of punishment, but Allen
dodged his mecha to the side in time.
     "Damn, Mercer," said Ryo.  "Maybe you don't need my help."
     "No go," said Allen.  "That blast drained the last of my
fusion cells. I guess I could start kicking him with my remaining
leg..."
     His primary weapon now in effective range, Ryo leveled out
and stabbed the huge gun toward the titanic warrior.  "Get out of
here, Mercer," said Ryo.  "You need to get your mecha fixed...
and your head checked."
     "Will do," said Allen.  His Raptor X pulled out and blasted
off back toward the Stinger.
     "Need any help?" called Taeon.  Without waiting for an
answer, his Storm Giant blasted off from the wreckage and headed
toward the Titan.
     "We'll see in a sec," replied Ryo and fired.
     The gun kicked and spat out its river of metal.  As the wave
of projectiles swept over the Titan, its armor peeled off in
great sheets of twisted metal.  Explosions tracked across it's
body blasting away the mecha's other arm, destroying the pulsar
cannon, and tearing off the head which housed the mecha's sensor
systems.  Fire and sparks exploded out of the stripped torso and
all power readings on the mecha's dynamo reactor core went dead.
     "Well, they don't all go out with a bang," said Ryo.
     "Too bad," replied Taeon. "I always got a kick out of that."
     "Guardian Squadron," came Captain Neben's voice over the
channel.  "Those heavy ships are closing fast.  We're pulling
back, but a wing of GSC mecha has out flanked our position and
are blocking our escape route.  Our point-defense guns are
effective, but we can't hold out forever."
     "This is Gray," said Destiny.  "All mecha regroup at my
position.  Pollux, Juno, head back to the Stinger and take
position as escorts.  The rest, follow me.  We're going to swath
a path for the Stinger."
     Ryo and Taeon converged with Destiny and Lynn.  David and
Vista headed back toward the Stinger while they took flight
toward the next wave of incoming mecha.
     "I'm picking up two Neo-Moray's and a Gallant closing at
high speed," said Ryo.  "Wait... what the hell is that?"
     Ryo watched in terror as three radar invisible forms swept
across the visual image of the two Morays and Gallant.  The jet-
black humanoid-shapes could scarcely be differentiated from the
abysmal void behind them.  Only the gleam of sunlight against
metal revealed their existence.
     "There's six mecha out there," said Ryo.
     "What?" asked Destiny.  "I count only three."
     Ryo tuned his advanced sensor array.  He switched from radar
to infrared.  Still nothing.  Ultraviolet... Nothing.  Magna-
scan...  "I got them.  Anyone with magna-scan sensors, use them.
We've got three stealth mecha out here."
     "Roger," replied the others.
     Suddenly Ryo's sensor screen filled with static.  The
computer struggled to correct.  "Dammit!  They have sensor
jammer's too!  What are those things?"
     "I don't know," said Destiny.  "But I don't like it.  Kill
'em all."
     Ryo switched on his missile jammers and rocketed up to a
floating chunk of scrap.  "I have a really bad feeling.  Stealth
mecha with full spectrum jammers...  If Briggs gets his hands on
the cloaking system, he could make an army of mecha which are
totally invisible to everything!"
     "Then let's make sure that doesn't happen," replied Destiny.
He aimed his L-Geimour's fusion staff and let loose with a
destructive beam of energy at one of the stealth mecha.  He
missed.  Destiny missed!
     "I can't even see those things," said Taeon.  "But I can see
the Gallant."
     The Storm Giant blasted a pulsating beam of energy toward
the Gallant.  The Gallant dodged and launched a smart missile
back at Taeon.
     Taeon grabbed the controls and struggled to dodge away, but
the rocket wasn't so easily fooled.  It homed in on Taeon's
active sensor pings, exploded through the force shields, and
ripped into the Giant's armor plated head.
     "Taeon!" called Ryo.
     "I'm okay.  The blast didn't make it though the outer armor.
     Ryo spun his Maelstrom around and prepared to fire.  But one
of the Morays had the jump on him.  Its chest missile bay flipped
open and three heavy plasmeon missiles rocketed out.
     Ryo's hand danced across his electronics control panel, and
the three missiles spiraled harmlessly away.  While he was at it,
Ryo tuned up his sensor jammers to give the new super-high-tech
mecha a taste of their own medicine.  "Why aren't those new guys
attacking?"
     "Maybe they're flying electronics packages," suggested
Taeon.
     "I doubt it," replied Ryo.
     Taeon drove his Storm Giant toward the Gallant and slung his
supernova lance over his shoulder.  He drew the enhanced beam
sword and the weapon flared to life.  The Gallant prepared to
fire its Vulcan rifle, but Taeon brought down the energy blade
and cleaved through the weapon and the mecha's right arm.
     The Gallant's chest missile bay opened and fifty alpha mini-
missiles blasted forth ripping into the Storm Giant's shields.
The shields lit up with the multitude of explosions, but not one
rocket penetrated.
     "Tough luck, buddy," said Taeon, and swung back with his
beam sword.  The weapon gouged through the torso and vaporized
the human pilot inside.  "One down, and a whole lot more to go."
     Destiny swooped down and aimed his fusion staff at one of
the Neo-Morays.  He fired, and the pulse of fusion energy tore
through the mecha's head disintegrating it.  "But not nearly as
many now," said Destiny.
     The L-Geimour grabbed the staff in both hands.  Energy
surged around the weapon, focused into a tight beam, and ripped
into the Neo-Moray's torso.  Explosions ripped through the mecha
as it was torn open by a monstrous fireball.
     "I've got movement," said Ryo.  "Those stealth guys are
moving out... Dammit!  I wish they would quite jamming me!  It's
so annoying!
     The second Neo-Moray blasted a rail round at Destiny.  The
projectile ripped into his mecha's torso armor and shattered the
metal like glass.
     "That's it," said Destiny.  "Now I'm pissed!"
     Destiny flipped his fusion staff around and a blade of
plasma-fusion energy vented out the end, turning into a deadly
energy blade.  He slashed the plasma halberd across the flight
path of the approaching Moray.  The blade dug deep into the
mecha's chest and struck its core antimatter energy plant.  The
mecha exploded in the brilliant white fireball; the energy and
twisted scrap washed over Destiny's mecha as he passed through
it.  "Damn it!" screamed Destiny.
     The L-Geimour had only taken superficial damage to its outer
ironclad armor.  Destiny ejected the charred, twisted remnants of
his outer armor, revealing the still unscathed L-Geimour mecha
underneath.
     "Lynn, watch it," called Taeon over the comm.  "I think one
of those stealth guys is on you!"
     "I see him," replied Lynn.  She sprayed her V Raptor's laser
rifle at the black form, but missed.
     The sleek black mecha leveled some sort of rifle weapon and
opened fire.  Green pulses of energy screamed out and ripped into
Lynn's mecha, tearing though her laser rifle and left arm,
destroying both.
     "Ah!" screamed Lynn.  She leveled her right arm and launched
out all three plasmeon missiles.
     The rockets slammed into to the stealth mecha, but exploded
against some sort of protective energy field.  None made it
through.
     "Get out of there, Lynn!" called Taeon.  He punched his
thrusters up to full burn and rocketed toward her position,
heedless of the other foes.  He put away his beam sword and
flipped out his supernova lance.  The weapon blared to life as he
opened fire, but the stealth mecha's powerful shields and armor
deflected the pulsating beam.
     "He's got shields!" yelled Taeon, throwing his gun back over
his shoulder.  He reached his mecha's hand down to retrieve the
beam sword,  "but shields can't protect from point-blank melee
attacks."
     Ryo spotted the second unknown mecha swooping in behind
Taeon's Storm Giant.  "So, they've got shields, eh?" he thought
to himself.
     He played his hand across his weapons control board,
bringing up the munitions system for his mass driver.  Equipped
with three different ammo drums, scatter shot, incendiary, and
shaped-charged armor piecing, he selected the SCAP feed.  A
second later, the weapon gave him the green light, indicating the
new ammo had been loaded.
     "Let's see your shields deflect this," he said and fired the
gun.  But the stream of bullet's missed the stealthy target.
"Damn jammers!"
     The enemy mecha spun around and opened up with its primary
weapon.  The green energy pulses tore through the Maelstrom's
shields with ease and drilled into his mecha's left leg and
torso.  "Geez!" screamed Ryo.  "Their energy weapons cut right
through shields!"
     The third stealth mecha came up from under Taeon's mecha and
let loose with a stream of shield piecing energy pulses.  The
rounds peppered the Storm Giant, ripping into his arms, legs, and
torso.
     "Ahhhh!" screamed Taeon.  He ignored the other attacker and
brought back his beam sword to attack.  "Lynn!  Get out of here!"
     "I can't!  My thrusters are damaged!" she screamed back.
     The black mecha's shoulder mounted missile launcher's
blasted out a swarm of half a dozen missiles.  The rockets
exploded into Lynn's mecha at nearly point-blank range.  Her V
Raptor was consumed in a firestorm of blinding explosions.  A
heartbeat later, her mecha vanished in a brilliant red flare of
it's exploding dynamo reactor core.
     "No!" screamed Taeon.  "God, no!"
     The black mecha turned to attack Taeon as the shattered,
burning scrap of Lynn's mecha swept over it.
     Taeon's beam sword exploded to life.  With a battle-crazed
scream, he brought the weapon down on the deadly foe.  The blade
tore through the enemy's shields with ease and sliced down the
mecha's body, bisecting it in half.  Arcs of electrical energy
surged around the destroyed war machine, but Taeon swung again
slicing the mecha into quarters.  It exploded in a luminous
sphere of brilliant white energy.
     "Lynn!" he cried over the channel.  But no reply came.  None
ever would again.
     "Now we know how to kill them," said Destiny.  Energy danced
across his fusion staff.  "Let's take 'em down!"
     Suddenly, Captain Neben's voice came over the comm.  "We're
under heavy attack... Need assistance... Repeat..." his voice cut
off with a surge of static.
     "The Stinger!" exclaimed Destiny.  "Our fleet should be here
any minute.  We have to hold them off a bit longer!"
     "JT," said Ryo.  She was on the Stinger.  If the Stinger
sank...
     Destiny swung his plasma halberd into action.  He slashed at
one of the stealth mecha, but it dodged aside and opened fire
with its deadly pulse gun.
     While the enemy was occupied with its attack on Destiny; Ryo
opened fire on it with his mass driver.  The SCAP rounds tore
through the mecha's shields and exploded against its armor, but
it only singed the surface.
     Still stunned by Lynn's death, Taeon didn't see the third
attacker.  The mecha sprayed his Storm Giant with repeated pulses
of nuclear particles.  The energy rounds stabbed through his
force shields and into the Giant's body.
     "Warning," blared the computer.  "Critical damage to all
areas."
     "No you don't," screamed Taeon.  "Not in this life, or any
other!"  He fired his thrusters and shot toward the attacking GSC
mecha, beam sword in hand.
     The other mecha, who was engaging Destiny, opened fire and
strafed its energy pulses across the L-Geimour.  Energy stabbed
into the mecha's body, blasting apart the fusion staff and
destroying both arms.
     "I can't let them take the ship!" screamed Destiny.  He
launched his mecha full throttle toward his attacker.
     Ryo readied his mass driver to fend off Destiny's aggressor.
But he couldn't get a clear shot.  The wounded L-Geimour was too
close to the stealth mecha.
     "Destiny!" called Ryo.
     Destiny didn't reply.  His mecha crashed head on into the
enemy, driving it back toward a tumbling asteroid.  At that
instant, the enemy shoved his pulse rifle into the L-Geimour's
chest and unleashed a torrential rain of nuclear fire.  The
energy beams exploded into the L-Geimour's body, and ripped clean
out the back.
     "Ghaaaah!" screamed Destiny Gray.
     A split second later, the L-Geimour's ruptured reactor core
exploded, consuming both Destiny and the stealth mecha in the
new, miniature sun.  The expanding fireball crashed through the
asteroid and exploded again, showering the space battlefield with
burning pebbles and twisted metal.
     "Good God!" screamed Ryo.  "Destiny just bought it!"
     "Ryo!" yelled Taeon, rearing back his energy sword to attack
the last stealth mecha.  "Take him down!"
     Ryo drew his mecha's energy scythe and rocketed toward the
GSC mecha to assist his last friend.
     Taeon may not have needed the help, thought Ryo, as he watch
him swing into the mecha, gouging a massive slash though its
chest.  But the enemy mecha fired back, blasting half a dozen
shield-penetrating rounds into his Storm Giant.  The attack
destroyed the last of Taeon's ironclad armor and dug deep into
the innards of his mecha.
     Ryo came down with his energy scythe and cleaved off the
mecha's left arm.  The deadly rifle went tumbling off into space,
and the enemy mecha was left practically defenseless.
     As Taeon made another strike, lobbing off the mecha's sensor
head, Ryo sliced into its torso.  The mecha slide in two, severed
at the waist.  As the Maelstrom and Storm Giant lifted away, the
high-tech mecha vanished in a fiery ball of energy.
     "The Stinger!" said Ryo.
     Taeon watched his screens as they cleared a tumbling chuck
of debris.  There, in the distance, was their frigate, blazing
like coal in a blast furnace.  Energy beams from distance
warships raked its hull as missiles peppered the shields and
armor.  Two full wings of GSC mecha were closing ready to
finished off the frigate.
     "Stinger, this is Ryo Gunn," said Ryo.  "Can you reply?"
     "Ryo!" came Katana's voice.  "The Stinger's bridge has been
destroyed.  Captain Neben's dead.  We're doing all we can to hold
off the GSC, but I don't think we can hold out!"
     "We're on our way," said Taeon grimily.
     Just then, the starry sky filled with dozens of sparkling
flashes of light.  Sensor readings went off the scale as a
multitude of new ships appeared from out of diverspace -- the
Imperial Flagship Vigilant, escorted by the assault carrier Sri
Lanka, personal command ship of General Avenger, and countless
other cruisers, frigates, and corvettes.
     Ryo checked the IFF signals. "It's Admiral Steele's fleet!"
     Hundreds of mecha launched into space, flanked by hundreds
more missiles and energy beams, all aimed at the now terribly
outnumbered GSC forces.
     A dozen stars were born and died all in a matter of seconds
as the Vigilant and Sri Lanka spat out merciless volleys of
deadly retribution.  Ships sank.  Mecha burned.  Men died.
     The burning remains of some blasted mecha spiraled past Ryo
and exploded on impact with an asteroid.  "The time for
retribution is at hand!"


Written and Directed By
Mark Chase

http://www.meta-earth.com

Copyright 1998.  All rights reserved.

Casting By
Mark Chase

Starring
Ryo Gunn         -  Mathias Russ
Taeon Toshio     -  Jonathan Fuller

Other Characters - Mark Chase
Destiny Gray
Lynn Firewolf
Allen Mercer
Vista Juno
David Pollux
JT
Dr. Chrome
And Everyone Else

Mecha Designs
Maelstrom      - Mathias Russ
Storm Giant    - Jon Fuller
Raptor Series  - Mark Chase
Gallant        - Mark Chase
Neo-Moray      - Mark Chase
L-Geimour      - Mark Chase
Cobra ATM      - Mark Chase
Titan          - Mark Chase

(all mecha were constructed under
the Mekton Zeta© RPG system, by
R. Talsorian Games, Inc)