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Universe #2 The Time of Rage by Ewen "Ryoga" Cluney DISCLAIMER: Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki and the characters, places, etc. therein are trademarks of AIC/Pioneer LDC; this work is not intended to be a challenge to any such ownership, and may be distributed freely, in unmodified form. Author's Note: The main character in this story is Commander Sarnd, an officer from the Galaxy Police. He appears in episode #4 of the OAV series (the cat guy), and again in episode #13 and is killed in the beginning of Tenchi Muyo! In Love. In it, he tells Mihoshi the story of his first real case, when he and his partner confronted a powerful entity known as Rage... ------------------------------------------------------------------ Mihoshi stood in the lobby of the Commander's office. She wasn't sure just why Commander Sarnd had called her, but it had to be important. Who knew? Maybe there was some important assign- ment he had for her, something top secret that only she could do! Or maybe... maybe he was attracted to her and wanted to tell her in secret! But he was a Thurnian and she a Kizakan. And he was so much older than him, and it would be so... so weird!. "How embarrassing!" she laughed, nearly bouncing up and down without even realizing it. The secretary looked at her, and sighed. "Detective Mihoshi, you can go in now." Mihoshi turned, and tripped, yelping feebly as she did so. "The Commander will see you now." It took a moment, but Mihoshi picked herself up, and stepped into the officer. The Commander regarded her with his yellow cat eyes, and sighed. "Sit down, Detective." Quite nervous, Mihoshi managed a salute, and sat down in the chair set in front of the Commander's desk. "Do you know why I asked you here?" he said, picking up a folder, thick with papers. "Umm... no sir." "This is regarding your last case, Mihoshi. Ordinarily Kurata would debrief you, but I have a few things to discuss with you, especially since this was your first assignment." He held up the folder. "This folder contains all the documents relating to the case, excepting your report. Do you know what these papers are, Mihoshi?" She shook her head. "Roughly half of these are general complaints. The other half are damage claims." "Oh." Sarnd set the folder down, and took a sip of coffee. "I would ask you where you learned to pilot a shuttle like that, except I know that it was at the galactic police academy, so instead, I'd like to know how you messed it up so badly." "Well, sir," she said, beads of sweat forming on her brow. "I only made a few little mistakes..." "Like crashing into a space station? Or panicking while wielding a high-powered proton cannon?" Mihoshi couldn't think of anything to say to that. "Since you obviously need to know a bit about what real police work is about, I want to tell you a story." Mihoshi calmed down a little bit, and looked at him hopeful- ly. "A story? How fun!" Sarnd sighed. "This story isn't all that fun, but it is true. Now listen, and listen good; I want to tell you about my early days as a GP officer." Sarnd had come to hate the Vertix system. It consisted of a white dwarf star with twelve planets, one of which had a small mining colony on it. He had long dreamed of joining the Galaxy Police, to be out there in the field, stopping criminals and fighting the enemies of justice. Instead, he was partnered with a veteran GP cop and sent out here, the middle of nowhere. The Sol system would be more exciting, if only because of having to occasionally deal with Juraians. Sarnd and Fushikan sat on either side of the cockpit of their shuttle. Where Sarnd was a hulking Thurnian with a mane of brown hair, Fushikan was a black-haired Kizakan of average build. While Sarnd had only been on the force for a year, Fushikan was a veteran, having been a detective for the past 20 years. Both of them felt they had been wronged in being given this assignment. Sarnd had been fresh out of the academy, one of the best in his class, and Fushikan was one of the best on the force. Out of sympathetic angst, the two of them got along famously, although the majority of their discussions contained numerous insults to the guys in the "Eggbeater", the massive, oddly-shaped space station that served as the central command of the Galaxy Police. It was an average day on patrol, which meant it was inces- santly dull. Sarnd looked at his control cube. It was a pink cube about four or five inches across. When you grabbed one side and twisted, a joint would form out of nowhere for a brief moment, and then would be gone once the turn was finished. The cube was a relatively new technology, only recently made a part of the standard equipment of a GP officer, and Sarnd had yet to see why; the most he could ever get the thing to do was materialize a cup of coffee or, if he was doing really well, accidentally cause dimensional anomalies to appear in the ship's hull. The cube was supposed to be capable do advanced dimensional manipulation, but no one had ever bothered to explain to him how the hell he was supposed to do that, much less why. The instruc- tion manual used entirely too much scientific terminology (dimen- sional physics wasn't exactly his area of expertise), and classes on the use of the cube had yet to be administered. Sarnd turned the cube over in his hand, looking at his reflection in its faces, then finally crammed it back in his pocket. "So," said Sarnd, "where are we, exactly?" Fushikan sighed and looked at the readout. "We're approach- ing Vertix XII, another routine sweep." "They're having us do another sweep of the insignificant lump of rock!" The Kizakan nodded. "You got it. More bureaucracy. But at least we're getting paid for all this." Sarnd thought about his last paycheck, and frowned. "Kind of." He was glad he lived on a spaceship most of the time with the money he was getting; he couldn't afford much otherwise. Sarnd looked at the ornament hanging just in the middle of the forward viewport. It was a tiny, cartoony feline creature. He hated it, and Fushikan knew it. Fushikan always said that the ornament was a reminder of his old partner, a Thurnian named Drell. He said if Sarnd ever got to be as good as Drell, he could do whatever the hell he wanted with the ornament, but until then, it would stay. They had done a lot of stranger things to their shuttle too over the past year. Together, the two partners had killed the obnoxious personality of the ship's AI unit, so that it wouldn't talk to them all the time. Neither of them could stand the stupid thing, so getting rid of it was something tacitly agreed upon and carried out with brutal efficiency. The tiny shuttle came down for a look at the minute plane- toid that passed for Vertix XII. Of all the worlds in the Vertix system, it was one of the more worthless ones, barely the size of an average moon. "Um, sir?" Sarnd looked at Mihoshi and sighed. Damn rookies. he thought, and then amended, No, Damn Mihoshi. "Yes?" "Um, why are you telling me all this?" Not sure why he should bother continuing, Sarnd rubbed is wide nose. "Maybe you could listen and find out?" 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k(h] c6A|Y:_+UAϋTc=聘ͬ͹ꮴw6UO TgA#1.@U#m1ag~/=d>uT4 ׵ʢ6OZ]j mtm#ުS =oQ [{6YǟSK݁TPɁ-jC񧄱g;0%y/[7%"z".c6H]Ǭ|{=썑nq75)٫{vԐK ^jYt,F_2t A6I9ڣSғl;U,#Ҁ R7t|>Q.~84G|Sa, !<:gGVRw6؈܉A xwPd ]z׍,ܲ`S{]ں9]T9?ԧ{DW?:_ ޛq]]iv!Qp"sԱN;T)O'.J3&C^0 i/>fBLY1٣Y- О߽+c;|=^GјxzFIZha!u)㒸/͍֖JOL8gY}ql[6^$U?Î>a)|_ ~a l||l0=+0SL"Ծ<;\ x}I|c3'ˉn9]==;ebk78Gf·dguw;g@CD]?0oh yeah." On Vertix XII there was nothing. Well, practically nothing. The planet had some deposits of nickel, ice, and iron, and might be mined some day. There was also a remote scanner unit stationed there. It was a solar-powered unit, run by an AI, which monitored the planet. Fushikan's hands played across the control console, and a moment later the ship's computer responded with "Crosslink estab- lished." On the viewscreen the image of a standard galactic AI's head unit appeared. "Greetings. Enter authorization code now." Sarnd sighed; he hated the passcodes in the GP. It seemed wrong somehow, to be accessing top secret data, and say things like "and they all lived happily ever after" to get to it. But the eggbeater boys weren't about to change. He cleared his throat, and gave his authorization and password. "Authorization code Sarnd 00420083. Password begins now; 'humpty dumpty sat on a wall'. Satisfied?" The AI nodded. "Access granted. Hey there, how's it goin'?" "Just transmit." growled Fushikan. "Very well. Initiating datapulse sequence..." On the surface of the tiny planet, something stirred. It glowed a terrible red, to match the anger that permeated every fiber of its ethereal being. Suddenly, the screen went to static. It took both of them a moment to realize the implications of this. Either there was some kind of interference, the AI was malfunctioning, or the AI had been destroyed. Sarnd jumped to the communications console. "Unit 0752! Respond!" he barked. "Damnit, you stupid hunk of metal, respond!" Suddenly, the computer's alarms began going wild. Both of them scrambled to see what the hell was going on. "I'm getting a massive energy reaction!" called Fushikan. "Source unknown, type uncertain. We might just be in deep shit." Sarnd looked at the scanners. Whatever it was, it was big, and it was powerful. And it was close; very close. Sarnd gripped the controls, and hit the deceleration thrusters hard. Both of them were held in place by the gravity webs in their seats, but a number of small objects around the shuttle were thrown around the cabin. As they slid to a stop, a glowing crimson form sped past them. More warnings came on from the computer, about the poten- tial danger of the situation. This was too much for the two of them to handle. Sarnd activated the communications console, and activated the hyperwave unit. A moment later, he was in contact with headquarters. "This is detectives Sarnd and Fushikan reporting. We have an emergency situation. An unknown, hostile energy form is present in the Vertix system. Requesting backup as soon as possible." Obviously inexperienced and a little panicked, the operator he'd reached worked furiously at her console. "Um, oh no. This is bad." "What!? What is it?!" "I regret to inform you that the closest ships are a week away at top speed." "So what the hell are we supposed to do?" Just then, the ship veered again; Fushikan was at the con- trols, doing his best to avoid whatever it was. The tech's superior walked over. "Remain calm. We will dispatch help as soon as possible. Until then, do the best you can, run if you have to. I'm afraid that's all we can do for now." The officer sighed. "Good luck. You're going to need it." The screen went blank, and Sarnd landed his fist on the console. "Damn! What are we supposed to do?" "Well," said Fushikan, "one thing's for sure, we can't outmaneuver this thing forever, and I seriously doubt we could outrun it in a hyperspace corvette, much less this tub." Enraged, Sarnd armed full weapons systems. The shuttle was a standard patrol model, and equipped with a pair of photon cannon turrets, plus a small battery of missiles. Sarnd set the turrets to auto-track, and fired at the thing. The shots simply passed through. "No good." he muttered with frustration. He had to think. How did the GP usually deal with this sort of thing. He had heard stories about the criminal Kain, which had taken a joint effort between the Galaxy Police and Jurai to capture in subspace. If this thing was comparable, they were screwed in a big way. Sarnd looked at the scopes. It looked like a great, amor- phous mass of red mist, with two glowing points for eyes. And it was gaining on them. Sarnd looked at the rear of the cabin; a red glow was coming over the rear section of the ship. The two glow- ing, hateful eyes appeared there within the cabin. A voice, in Sarnd's mind rather than his ears, sounded. I AM RAGE. "Fushikan, I think we have a problem!" Fushikan paused to glance backwards and cursed. Sarnd looked at the engineering console, trying to think of something. The power flow control system was easy to operate, and he tried redirecting power to the drive system. With life support at minimum, gravity generators offline, and several other systems shut down, the drive output was more than tripled, and they quickly outran the creature. Fushikan turned to him and smiled. "Good work. Now all we need to do is keep this up for the next five days." Of course, the power generators would give out after 72 hours of this kind of abuse. "Well then," said Sarnd, "we have a maximum of three days to come up with a solution to this predicament." "Right, Sarnd. Always the positive thinker." Fushikan en- gaged the automatic pilot, and stood up. "I suppose you've heard about the only comparable case I can think of -- Kain." Sarnd nodded gravely. "But if this were as powerful as Kain's supposed to be, we'd be dead already." "That's true, but it might be similar in nature, meaning that we couldn't possibly destroy it with anything here." "Kain was trapped in subspace, right?" Fushikan nodded. "In the Subspace Network. But we have no such capabilities, even with the help of the mining colony." There was a long pause. At last, Sarnd turned to the con- sole. "Computer, evaluate situation, estimate chances of survival and suggest possibilities." The AI poked its robotic head out. Although it no longer had a personality, it was still quite functional. "Based on available data, chances of survival are negligible, and I can provide no possible means of attempting to resolve the situation." "Useless." muttered Fushikan. "As I thought." "Computer, theorize as to why the entity was unaffected by laser fire." There was a pause, after which the AI replied. "Uncertain. Photon weapons are known to have limited effectiveness against non-solid targets of any kind, but the composition of the entity is unknown. Possible spirit entity, meaning that it must be attacked using a weapon that functions through either subspace or the astral plane." "Not completely useless," said Sarnd, "but most definitely discouraging." The question was, how the hell were they supposed to fight a spirit? Such entities were insubstantial, capable of passing through solid matter, and frequently possessed psychic capabilities. Their shuttle simply wasn't equipped to deal with such things, mainly because of their rarity. If they plotted a course to rendezvous with the GP ships that were coming, the generators would burn out two days earlier, leaving the entity, Rage, a full day to find and kill the two of them. "As I see it, we do have one advantage over this thing." "Oh?" "It called itself Rage. I could feel the hatred radiating from it. The, well, the rage. Anything like that is not likely to have much in the way of self control. It's anger will cloud whatever little intelligence it might have, and it could easily make mistakes." "The question is, what mistakes would it make. If you're right, it's going to pursue us single-mindedly until it either catches us or sees something else to kill." The two of them sat down, and thought. The question was, how to hurt something that would have to be attacked from subspace. It would be really nice to have a graduate from the Science Academy here -- one of them could disintegrate the average spirit creature with a gesture. For that matter, a psychic would be nice too. The shuttle's FTL drive used a subspace inversion system. Neither of them really knew that much about it, but is was sup- posed to surround the ship with an energy field that caused it to be shifted the tiniest bit into subspace, causing the normal reaction drives to be able to propel the ship about a hundred times faster. Such systems were normally reliable, although when they malfunctioned, the effects could be catastrophic. They reasoned that it might be possible to use the drives to affect Rage in some way. There were three problems with attempt- ing to do so, however. Firstly, the drive system had a number of failsafes, which would have to be disabled before any such tam- pering might be attempted. Second, they didn't really know what they would do with the drives, and third, any screw-up could easily kill them just as surely as Rage would. Getting help from the colony was not an option. It was a strictly civilian installation, populated entirely by Kizakans and Thurnians, and neither of the races was known to possess psychic or other such powers. A Juraian warrior would be helpful in this situation as well. Not that they were likely to encounter one in this century. "Where could we go that it can't?" asked Sarnd. "What do you mean?" "Well, maybe we could lure it somewhere that would be dan- gerous for it to go?" Fushikan looked at the console, and pressed a few keys. "Hmm." He began looking through libraries. "You might be on to something, you know. According to the databank, spirits have been observed to be affected normally by gravitational effects. If we maxed out the structural integrity field, we could go inside Vertix IX, the gas giant, pretty deep. The gravity might just be enough to trap it." "It's worth a shot." The two of them got ready at the controls. Fushikan made a wide turn, and then plot a course straight for Vertix IX. "It'll take about twenty-three minutes to get there." He announced. The two of them were too nervous for words, and remained silent the entire time. Fushikan watched the readouts. Sarnd glared at the kitty ornament. The shuttle plunged into the surface of the gas giant, and the creature followed, just as they thought it would. The view- ports showed only flashes of green and orange, and colors in between, but they could feel that Rage was near. Its very presence made them anxious. This time, it was the structural integrity fields that received the bulk of the ship's power output, so that the tiny shuttle could withstand the massive pressure and incredible gravitational forces that were gripping at its hull. They contin- ued to plunge deeper and deeper, and after more than a minute, they came out the other side. Once there, they hit the boosters, and sped away from the planet. "I think we did it." said Sarnd, looking at the rear scope. "Don't make assumptions." Within the planet, Rage fought desperately against the gravity that clung to its ethereal form with such strength. It pulled itself out past the surface partly, then slipped back in, but kept fighting, and pulled out again, and finally freed itself from the planet. "Damn!" Sarnd's fist slammed down on the console. "Now what are we supposed to do?" Fushikan looked at him, and sighed. "Try something else. That's all we can do." Sarnd closed his eyes, and nodded. Fushikan was right; they could never give up. That was the one and only certainty in this situation. "An attack from subspace..." Sarnd walked to the back of the cabin, and fished out the control cube's instruction manual. He had yet to learn the subtle nuances of the cube's operation, but, no time like the present. "Let's see," "You're not thinking of trying to use that damn cube, are you?" Fushikan snorted. Sarnd ignored him, and kept looking in the manual. Finally, he found the section on subspace, and began reading furiously. The cube could shift one person into subspace if desired, but doing so was not advisable, because of the risk of becoming lost there, possibly permanently. Sarnd decided it beat the risk of being killed, definitely permanently. The sequences for this weren't all that difficult anyway. Theoretically, normal attacks made while in subspace would affect spirit creatures. "I've got it." Sarnd went to the cargo area, and pulled out a battlesuit. The GP battlesuit was a flexible armor suit, which provided incredible versatility of movement, full environmental protection, and powerful armor protection, as well as a multi- energy blaster weapon in the hand. To this he added the heavy proton cannon, which was to be used only in extreme circum- stances, and an antigravity pack for greater mobility. Suited up and equipped, Sarnd stepped back into the cabin. "You're nuts." said Fushikan. "Listen. With the cube, I can go into subspace, and attack from there. I need you to slow down and match speed with it." Fushikan looked at him gravely. "You're really going to try this. I can see that there's no way to dissuade you." He punched the controls, and the creature loomed closer. "It's only a kilom- eter away." Fushikan said at last. Sarnd nodded, and pulled out the cube. Sarnd had never been in subspace before, and what he had heard about it wasn't good. Subspace was a level of existence in which the effects of inertia are virtually nonexistent, and the gravitational constant is different. What few bothered to tell you about was what it looked like. It was black. A blackness that surrounded you, that seemed to try to get into you. A blackness that left you disoriented and scared. But Sarnd knew he had more important things to worry about. Apart from himself, there were only two things he could see; a faint image of the shuttle, and the great red mass, which seemed to be far more solid now. It was as though here it existed fully, whereas its appearance in the physical world was a pale reflec- tion of this. Sarnd readied the proton cannon, its capacitors quickly reaching full, and fired. A barrage of proton bursts struck the great red thing, making black holes where it struck. He took one hand off of the cannon, and activated the suit's multi-blaster. The weapon automatically scanned and chose the most effective setting for the target, and after a second, a barrage of green energy bolts flew forth from the hand of the suit. The combina- tion stopped th