🚀 go-pugleaf

CONTINUED FROM PART ONE...

     The light of dawn was beginning to show over the edge of the horizon.
Wayne had come up once, but had left without disturbing the two, who sat,
still staring out over the city. The subtle glow of the roof lighting made
everything look rather eerie.
     "Marie?"
     "Yah?"
     "You know... You probably think.. the way I trailed off earlier, that
my parents got killed in the war. By the Invid." Ray said, quietly.
     "Who else was there?" Marie asked.
     "Our own people. I'd thought their ship got destroyed, until I got
assigned to it. My dad was a Beta-fighter pilot assigned to an Icazuchi
Command carrier. My mom was in Tech services, a mecha engineer, and she
worked on his squadron's fighters, mostly, so they saw a lot of each other.
During one massive engagement, their ship got shot up really bad, and got
transferred back to spacedock for repairs. That sector of space was pretty
quiet, so the techs were taking their time, until word came the ship was
needed _now_, because there was major trouble. So the techs rushed. They
had to jury-rig a lot of components, but the ship worked, and it actually
held together. They were just finishing loading it up, when some idiot
spilled his drink on the controls. Now, you know the cliche movie thing,
where the tech spills his drink on the keyboard and something goes bang?"
     Marie nodded. "Yeah -- there are a lotta flicks like that; we had a
cable feed back at the Hive, so, yeah, I know what you're talking about."
     Ray shrugged. "On any normal Robotech ship, nothing would happen --
the systems are multiply redundant, and it's not likely the coffee would
damage anything _anyway_. But, it managed to trickle down to a rigged
control line. This is the story, I don't know for certain... But this
triggered all the pressure doors inside the ship to open. At any other time
except during loading, this _still_ wouldn't have had any effect, but all
the external doors were open for equipment loading, etc..." Ray paused.
"So... the whole ship was open to space, for over a minute until the
emergency overrides kicked in. Close to 8000 people were sucked out into
vacuum. All of them, except for a couple maintenence techs in the holds who
had on their vacc-suits, died."
     "And your parents?"
     "They were just moving in to a two-person room allocated to them...
The rush of air leaving the ship sucked out all their stuff, too." Ray
stopped again, as if gathering strength. Marie would have sworn she saw a
tear trickle its' way down the pilot's cheek. "I used to have a picture..."
he said, quietly. "But... I never _knew_ them. Since they were in
space-fold most of the time, they only aged a few days for every month I
aged... And I only saw them when their ship got transferred to the planet I
was living on, which was rarely. They died, and I had barely even spent a
week with them..."
     "I'm... sorry." Marie said quietly. She was amazed at the swirl of
emotions she felt -- sadness, for some reason a bit of fear, and, although
it pained her to admit it, there was a small part of her that felt a bit of
sadistic pleasure in seeing this man, who was supposed to be her enemy,
suffering.
     "But what _really_ gets me..." Ray said, a hint of anger in his voice,
"Was those little _shits_ in the PR department, who tried to make it as if
this had never occurred, because of the 'threat to morale', or some crap
like that. They wouldn't even tell me! _Me_! My own _parents_ died, and
whoever I asked, they just sort of hemmed and hawed about it. I assumed
that their ship had been destroyed on a secret mission, and that no-one
could tell me because of security reasons. So I signed up for Veritech
pilot school, and somehow managed to pass. And that was fine -- I thought I
could 'avenge' my parents, somehow, by blowing away a few Invid. I would
have never thought anything was wrong, until I got _transferred_ to the
ship _I_ thought had been blown up, with my parents with it. I started
asking questions, and got a high-ranking officer come down and tell me that
to continue would be a bad idea. That same day, I ran into one of the techs
-- you know, the ones who survived the disaster because they were already
working in vacuum. He was the last one, all the rest had transferred out.
He told me all he knew, which was pretty much everything. I raised a
fuss... and was going to be transferred, permanently, to the crappiest
assignment my C.O. could turn up. When I fell through the dimension gate, I
was on what I knew was going to be my last mission."
     Marie sighed. "I _still_ don't understand how you humans can do this
to each other..."
     Ray smiled wanly. "Just hope you never have to learn..." He stood,
suddenly. "I'd better get on my way. I don't feel comfortable hanging
around in a base owned by a supervillain, anyway..."
     Marie stood up, too. "Ray... All those times that we fought... I.. I'm
sorry. I was doing what I thought was, y'know, the thing I had to do... I
know better, now."
     Ray nodded. "Ah, if you need a place to stay, y'know, I can probably
work something out with Jake..."
     Marie grinned. "You shouldn't offer things like that -- I might have
to take you up on that..."
     Ray shrugged, grinning a bit, too. "Well, I'll see you around..."
     "Yeah, you will..."

<----->

     The world faded in and out. It was actually rather neat, Shana
thought. Although I thought being dead would be slightly more interesting
than just a view of white ceiling tiles.
     Ceiling tiles?
     _Ceiling tiles_?!
     "I'm not dead!" Shana exclaimed, then had to surpress a yelp of pain.
That's right. I got shot. From behind. _Lots_. Mental note: no more
exclaiming.
     "You ok?!" she heard someone ask. Garber? What was he doing here?
     "Where..."
     "You're in the hospital extension I had built into TONN-Miami. You
were pretty close to the edge for a while there..."
     "I'm in Miami?" Shana groaned. "Yuck. No wonder it's so hot. But...
Last thing I remember was... Ultima!! Did you get her?!"
     "Well, ah, in a manner of speaking..." Gerbre said. "Are you ok?"
     "I feel like my back got used for a dartboard..." Shana groaned, "Ow,
geez..."
     "At least you're alive..." Gerbre said. "I had to use pretty much
every high-tech medical gadget that I could scrounge up, and use up some
pretty hefty favors, too."
     Shana blinked, peering at one of the large, display-laden carts that
sat around her hospital bed. "Oooh... You even brought the machine that
goes 'bing'!" She chuckled, but trailed off as it brought on a fresh wave
of pain. "owchie..."
     "Just rest -- don't exert yourself..." Gerbre said, concerned, lightly
resting a hand on her shoulder.
     Shana nodded, then thought for a moment. "Hey! Was that actual
_concern_, Gargle?!"
     Gerbre blinked. "Er, well, ah..." he said, suddenly standing up. "I've
got to, ah, go check on what the PR department has been doing."
     "Gerber!" Shana said, before he could leave. "Were you waiting in here
all this time?"
     Sir Gerbre blinked. "I... Yes. I was... worried... that you wouldn't
make it..."
     "You _worried_?"
     "Well, ah... You're a, ah, skilled leader, and it would be bad for
TONN if you died, you see, so, ah, I wanted to make sure you would be
ok..."
     "Mm-hm." Shana grinned.
     "Really!" Gerbre protested.
     They were silent for a moment. "Thanks..." Shana said, quietly.
     Gerbre grinned charismatically. "Hey, no problem..."
     "Just... promise me one thing, ok?"
     "Sure.. anything."
     "Anything?"
     "Anything."
     Shana's eye narrowed. "No more trying to conquer the world."
     Gerbre sputtered. "Wha.. wha.. I... hrrr... Ok. I promise."
     "Coolness."

<----->

     Marie wandered down one of the nearly-silent hallways in the depths of
TONN-Miami, headed for the equipment locker and her battlearmor. She'd
collect it, Wayne, and maybe some transportation, and then be on her way.
     She stopped, suddenly, and whirled, hearing someone step into the hall
behind her.
     "Tornado..." Shannon said, her voice icy.
     Marie winced. This was the last thing she wanted to have happen -- to
be forced to rehash the past, again.
     "Thanks for your help against Ultima." Shannon began. Marie looked up,
hopeful. "You may not have gotten in trouble for what you did back in Bob
City, but if you think that we will _ever_ forget, then you're wrong..."
     Marie nodded sullenly. She was tired of thinking about the past, and
there was no way arguing would convince this mage that Marie was anything
but guilty. "I'm... sorry..." she said, quietly.
     Shannon sighed. "Killing is wrong, but since you technically didn't
commit a crime (or so says the Fed), you're just going to have to live with
yourself." She glanced away, for a moment. "We've... all done things...
things that we'd change or undo if we had the chance... But the past is
gone, and we can't bring it back. We can only try to better the future, to
balance whatever evil that has been done."
     "But... every time I tried to be a hero, it didn't work!" Marie
protested, "I tried to do good, but it didn't work!"
     Shannon shook her head. "You don't have to be a superguy to do 'good'.
Just do what you can -- nobody has a right to ask from you more than that."
Shannon looked at Marie. "Besides, I doubt you could fit in your armor --
have you been eating a lot?"
     Marie blinked. "Er. No, not really."
     Shannon raised an eyebrow. "Hrm. Hang on, let me check something." She
muttered under her breath the words to a simple spell. Her magic reserves
were still extremely low after the battle and the healing spells she had
been called on to do afterwards, but she had enough for this. Hmm...
Interesting...
     Shannon quirked an eyebrow. Motioning to Marie to stay put, she
wandered into a nearby office, wandering out with a few books.
     "Er.. what's up?" Marie asked, confused.
     "Read these." Shannon said, handing the books to her.
     "'Pregnancy and you'?" Marie asked, amused. "Thanks..."
     Shannon shook her head, equally amused. "I'd ask, but I probably don't
want to know... Force Ten's shipping out, so I've gotta go."
     Marie nodded, peering at the book. Ooh, neat! Pictures... Eeep!

<About a day later>

     Shannon sighed. Everyone was back together in Force Ten HQ. Well,
except for Roger. And Crossbow. Tealeaf and Melbaman had gone back to
Britain to recover, hoping that a vacation would restore some of Tealeaf's
powers.
     "So." Shannon said, trying to get a handle on this leadership thing.
"What do we do now? Roger's gone, and taken most of his tech stuff with
him. He did leave us the plans for a new Team Vehicle, but I don't know who
we're going to get to build it. But I think that we should get back to the
training schedu-"
     "I'm sorry, but I can't stay around." Prizm said, quietly.
     "What?!" Shannon gaped.
     "I.. always thought that heroing would be, y'know, fun..." Prizm said,
"But... I don't know if I can deal with more stuff like what just
happened... And I don't want to be a burden on you guys..."
     "I was kinda thinking of going back to school..." Fractalman said, "I
mean, my powers aren't incredibly useful, and I'd rather be doing Calculus
than laps around the Force Ten Indoor Track anyday.."
     "What about the rest of you?" Shannon asked.
     "I'd kinda thought I'd be goin' back tae Britain, y'ken.." Sanka said,
"I mean, th' States're nice an' aw, but I miss my 'ome..."
     "Ha'Veluri's got this great idea..." Burnout said, "He wants to put
together another crew and see if he can get his hands on a ship! He wants
me to come, too, to see if it'll jog my memory!"
     "I'll stay!" Floyd offered. Shannon glared at him.
     "You all want to leave?" she asked, quietly.
     The members of Force Ten looked at each other. One after another, they
nodded.
     Shannon sighed. "Well, I have to tell you something... I only joined
because I wanted to help Roger out... Now that he's gone, I don't really
know if I want to stay, either. I mean, you guys are great to hang out
with, but I've got my own life, you know..."
     Burnout blinked. "So this is the end?" she asked.
     "Aye..." Sanka said, quietly. "I' looks loik it..."

IS THIS THE END???
WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO RAY??? MARIE??? FORCE TEN???
WILL GERBRE TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD AGAIN, ANYWAY???
WHAT HAPPENED TO CROSSBOW??? ULTIMA??? ADMIRAL MORGAN???

IT'S NOT OVER 'TIL THE FAT LADY SINGS, AND I DON'T SEE ROSEANNE ANYWHERE
AROUND...