Princess Ayeka whimpered and tried to stand up.  'Ouch', thought Ayeka
as
she opened her eyes and saw nothing but a flash of many colors.  'My eyes
are
not working.'  Ayeka started to get up and found her arms were like pasta,
all soft and wiggly.  'Oh my, my arms act like my bones are made of rubber.
Where is Ryoko?'
    Ayeka tried to look around, her head seeming to wobble more than move in
the direction she wished.  Her vision was still not totally recovered,
giving
her a weird, blurry picture of the world around her.  'If I start crawling
down the hill, maybe somebody will notice...'
    Inch by inch, than foot by foot, the First Princess of the Jurai Royal
Family started to crawl over the rows of dirt, smearing her face and hands,
covering her dress in filth, as she headed for the dark, double image of the
Masaki house.

    "Listen," demanded Washu once again, holding the confused Mihoshi by her
shirt front, "I'll explain it one more time.  I detected a weapon discharge
at the carrot field, at the end of a data link of some kind, the other side
which is just beyond the moon and I think whoever fired the weapon used it
on
Ryoko because I can't feel her or send thoughts to her anymore."  Washu
yanked Mihoshi down to her eye level and said, "Got it?"
    Mihoshi, trying to talk past the shirt collar that was choking her,
asked, "You can feel her thoughts?"
    "AAAAA!"  Washu released the Galaxy Police Officer, who started to gasp
for air, and turned to Tenchi.  "Tenchi!  This dimwit has to loan me her
spaceship. I have to get my daughter back and you have to come."
    Princess Sasami looked up at Tenchi and added, "Maybe we all should go?"
    "No," said Washu, "this is too dangerous for you or Ryo-Ohki.  Tenchi
and
me, plus blondie here, because she's driving."
    "I am?" whimpered Mihoshi, pushing her two forefingers together.  "I
don't know, I keep crashing it and the people we keep running into in space
always seem to have more firepower than me-"
    "Listen Tenchi, you better go get the sword, I'll get a few weapons out
of my lab and we'll meet at the ship.  I'll retrieve it from the pocket
dimension It was parked in."
    "I don't know Washu," said Tenchi, shaking his head.  "All you have are
pieces of facts and unknown data."
    "-and my space suit still has a hole in it and Tukinojo reports the
subspace net has not been working properly-"
    "Tenchi, please."  Washu looked up at the young boy, eyes pleading.
    "But if what you say is true, it could be a trap."  Tenchi sighed and
said, "If they went through all the trouble to cloak themselves, why give
themselves away with an energy link or whatever?"
    "It's in a level of subspace not used by most systems.  The only reason
I
found it was because I was looking to begin with.  Please Tenchi, for little
old me?"
    "OK, OK."  Tenchi turned about and ran up the stairs.  "Meet you
outside!"
    Washu walked off, mumbling to herself, "MMM...the long-range antimatter
rocket launcher?  No, too powerful."
    Mihoshi turned her head back and forth, watching both of them leave, as
Sasami stood next to her.
    "Neither of them were listening to me!"  Mihoshi started to cry, "I
don't
want to go into combaaaattttt!  WAAA!"
    "Well," Sasami said to Ryo-Ohki as she carried the tiny cabbit to the
kitchen, "at least WE'RE not going."
    Nobuyuki looked up from the couch he was laying on, pushing the wet hair
out of his face and said, "Anybody care that the onsen is flooding?"

    'Just a few more feet, just a few more feet.'  THUD.  "Ouch!"
    Ayeka whimpered as she pulled up her head, neck muscles screaming, to
stare right at the porch's edge.  She slid her head onto it and tried to
follow with her arms and shoulders, but the pain was so great.  'Cry baby,
you just want to give up.  I want to rest, not give up, just rest, close my
eyes for a tiny bit.'  She lifted her arms, arms that felt like mountains,
to
dig the nails into the wood.  'Not giving up, not giving up.'
    Suddenly the door opened and Tenchi, running out of the house with sword
hilt in hand, almost stepped on Ayeka's head.  "PRINCESS?!?!"  He knelt next
to her and gently pulled her into a sitting position against him, "What
happen to Ryoko and you?"
    'NOW I can give up.'
    "What the heck happened to her?" said Washu's voice.
    "Oh my, she smells," added Mihoshi's.

    Darkness.  Darkness and pain.  Rumbling, darkness and pain.  'Great,'
Ryoko thought, 'now try whole sentences, OK?'  Ryoko tried to open her eyes,
but felt something over them.  Cold and hard, some kind of plastic.  She
tried to arch her body, but failed, finding herself completely encased.  '
What the hell is this?'
    Hello Ryoko.
    Ryoko almost screamed as the loud voice seemed to fill her mind. Not
just
loud, but large, forcing itself onto her being like a German tank trying to
enter an outhouse.
    'That hurt, you damn'-SHUT UP. I will ask the questions and you will
answer them.  To give you a reference point to work with, I will let you
understand the position you are now in.
    I am Rift, a super computer designed to be self-aware.  I have been sent
to understand Washu.  But by capturing you, I might be able to get an idea
of
her physiological makeup and powers, without the danger.
    Ryoko snorted, arching her body, or at least trying to.  'Super
computer?
 When I get out of here, you're going to wish you were up against Washu!'
    Doubtful.  The chamber has been designed to draw off your energy.  I
can't block it, but I can channel it away even faster than you can produce
it
with the gem.  Now, who gave birth to Washu?
    'Like I would tell you.'
    What is the gem made out of?
    'Don't you know?'
    Do you know who Lady Tokimi is?
    'The title to a bad Western?'
    Do you know how old Washu really is?
    'Go to hell!'
    You first.  I can set up a subprogram to ask you the questions, all 4000
of them, till you die or I decide it is not worth it.  Now, again, who gave
birth to Washu?

    Bee Dee stood next to the box where she had placed the body of Ryoko,
closing it only after making sure all the wires had been placed correctly.
When the box had closed, with a series of clanks, the seals had locked down.
Around her was nothing but darkness and the cold of outer space. Few parts
of
the ship needed light or to be pressurized, as there had been nothing living
on it before Ryoko.
    Bee Dee could plug herself into the box's control panels, if she was
interested enough to do so, but, of course, she was not.  In fact, she was
not interested in anything.  Not even the way the box seemed to boom and
shake whenever Ryoko tried to escape it.  She just stood there, eyes open,
like a doll on a stand, waiting for the next mission.

    The red GP patrol shuttle slammed through the atmosphere, leaving behind
a trail of water vapor, before it punched out of the air, into the semi-void
of space.  Tenchi, belted down into his chair, whimpered.  He was sitting
next to Washu in the tiny and very messy cabin, as Mihoshi in the cockpit
babbled to Tukinojo.  'At least the computer is driving the thing and knows
what to do.'  He turned to look at Washu, who was typing into her dark
laptop.  "Anything yet?"
    "We won't get a picture of the unknown ship till we slingshot around the
moon."  Washu smiled at Tenchi, "Of course, we'll just barely get enough
time
to see it before we ram it."
    "Ram it?" yelped Tenchi, leaning against the buckles, "You don't say
anything about ramming it!"
    "We were going to ram it sooner or later," pointed out Washu.  "After
all, Mihoshi is the pilot.  Anyway, she was right earlier when she pointed
out we're always out gunned, so I figure, while draw out the fire fight?
Ram
them and board them, right?  In and out, thank you ma'am, eh?"  Washu winked
and went back to typing on her computer.
    Tenchi whimpered, closed his eyes and held on to the seat with all his
might.  'First I watch Mihoshi jump-start the engines by kicking the
controls
and now I learn we're going to ram it. Wonderful.'
    Mihoshi voice sounded over the ship's intercom, "We're clearing the
moon!"
    Washu smirked, "One last thing to do."  She pushed a button on the
shadow
board and a tiny red light on her computer's screen started to blink.

    The alarms within Rift's sensory net started to go off.  A small GP ship
had suddenly appeared matching the design piloted by Officer Mihoshi.  Even
before the onboard computers could start to warm up the energy batteries or
open the gun ports, the ship had already cut down the distance between them
in half and seemed to be increasing speed.
    Rift was worried.  Much of the hull plates had been reduced or removed
to
make space for the sensors and scientific equipment placed on the ship's
skin.  Weapons could easily slice through to the inner workings of the
custom-built vessel.
    The targeting system complained that the ship in question was not
slowing
down and that the guns were having a hard time tracking.  It was as if the
ship planned to ram Rift's own.  Nonsense, of course.
    'Not even SHE would ram my'—Damage reports started to flow in, cutting
off Rift's thought in the middle of it forming, like a bubble bursting.
Outer and inner hulls had been holed and a million systems were complaining
all at once.  It even seemed to have lost contact with Bee Dee.  As orders
flowed out of Rift, sending maintenance and repair drones scrambling down
the
service tunnels, it started to wonder if it might be better to prepare an
information package to be sent to the masters just in case of failure.
Within Mihoshi's file her danger level was also pushed up a few more points.

    The nose of the red ship was dented here and there, but still in one
piece when it had plowed through one of the last inner hull plates, stopping
just a few feet from the floor of the service tunnel.  For a few seconds, as
the smoke and debris were sucked out of the wound, nothing seemed to happen.
Then a door swung down, becoming a very steep, very narrow ramp.  Down the
ramp, sword glowing in the twilight of the tunnel, was Tenchi, followed by a
gun toting Mihoshi.  Both were wearing plain white space suits, with tiny
lights flanking the face plates.
    "I don't see anything," said Mihoshi, as she jerked her snub-nosed laser
pistol here and there.  "I don't see any robots or guards or even a camera."
'I wish I had my laser bazooka!'
    "Strange," replied Tenchi, "we just rammed their ship and nobody is here
to greet us?"
    A smaller space suit dropped down onto the floor, landing upright, hands
on hips.  "Well," said Washu, looking about, "I don't think there is a crew.
Remember, before we stepped out I made you get into the suits because of a
lack of any air."
    Tenchi looked back up at the nose of the spaceship.  "I am amazed our
ship survived."
    Washu shook her head, "We're in a ship that has been changed for a
special mission."  Washu examined the wall, which seemed to be covered in
wires and pipes.  "I don't think combat was the main goal of this vessel and
in fact, if we had been a bigger or faster ship, I think we might of gone
all
the way through."
    "Which way do we go?" asked Tenchi, looking about, "We only seem to have
two choices here."
    Washu smiled, "Oh, I think we have a few more."  She snapped her fingers
and a large gun suddenly fell out of a hole that appeared and disappeared
within seconds.  Bracing it on her right shoulder, she aimed it at a part of
the wall that was the least covered with equipment and said, "Close your
eyes
and open you mouths."

    What was your first gender?
    'Buzz off.'
    Do you have any offspring?
    'Up yours.'
    Do you know what happen to your brother?
    'I'm an only child.'
    Your mother did have a male baby.  Do you know what-*BUZZTZ*
    'Hello?  Helllooo?  Ryoko sighed to herself and tried to relax.  Need to
try to sleep before it comes back.  Maybe a fuse overloaded or something,
but
I need to rest.  Been here for hours, days, weeks, can't tell.  Need to
rest,
relax, sleep, rest, need rest, Mom, where are you mommy, need to rest,
Tenchi, Ayeka, anybody. I don't LIKE THE DARK!'

    For the first time since it had been switched on, Rift started to feel
panic.  Not only had it lost contact with over 50% of the ship's systems and
the battle droid, but now it had lost the link with the computers in charge
of Ryoko's interrogation.  The information package, all the data it had
collected, had already been downloaded into the shuttle.  A droplet of data,
not even worth sending.  Really nothing but a message of failure, but its
masters needed to get something, even if it was nothing but a warning to
never try this again.  Still, there was one last thing it could try.
    In the aft of the ship, the engines came to life.

    Bee Dee grabbed onto the railing of the catwalk it was on as the ship's
gravity seemed to flex and ripple.  The ship was starting to move.  This did
not bother the droid in the least, as she was on a new mission.
    When Bee had lost contact with Rift, her first act was to try to link
with the network, but all the interfaces were either the wrong size or dead.
But while the Bee Dee was not the brightest house on the block, she was not
stupid either.  She knew the mission of the ship as it was part of her core
programming, so she simply switched back to the default program that she had
been running before meeting Ryoko.  She went searching for Washu.
    Below her was her target.  The little red head had just stepped into the
robotics work shop through another hole that she had blasted with her sonic
drill.  Behind her were two others that the Bee had found in her memory.
Tenchi and Mihoshi, both armed and very dangerous, stepped into the work
shop.
    "Looks like a robotics storage area," whispered the boy.  Sweat was easy
to see, even through the face plate of his suit.  Washu nodded, "More likely
a repair center."  Mihoshi kept jerking about with her gun.  "Washu, Tenchi,
you felt that, right?  The ship is moving, right?" asked Mihoshi in fear.
    But cost-effective battle droids held no sweat glands and knew no fear.
The main weapon had been turned off, as the energy link from the ship was
the
only source of power within the solar system that could fire such a weapon,
but she could still crush anybody who got between her and the target.  In
one
smooth motion, Bee Dee leapt over the railing and plunged down towards the
floor below.

    Rift made sure itself that the ship was heading towards the moon before
launching the shuttle.  The shuttle, cloaked, would enter faster-than-light
speeds shortly after the crippled ship crashed into the Earth's moon.
Hopefully, that would allow the shuttle to get a clear recording of the
event
to take back with the rest of the report.

    One second the shop had only machines parts and overhead cranes and
adjustable tables, the next there before them stood a girl in school
uniform.
 Tenchi knew she was not a real girl, not just because of her speed, but by
the way the floor had buckled under her when she had appeared.
    Before either Tenchi or Mihoshi could react Washu lowered her gun and
said, "Who are you?"
    Bee Dee locked her eyes, like twin barrels, onto Washu's face and said,
"You are coming with me."
    Tenchi started to position himself between the girl and Washu, but the
little redhead just smiled and said, "I don't think so."  Than Washu, having
already pointed the sonic drill at the girl's feet, pulled the trigger.
    The floor, already damaged by the robot's drop, gave way without any
protest at all.  Tenchi and Mihoshi walked up the hole and tried to see the
girl in the darkness below.
    "Long drop," said Washu as she slammed another power cell into the
drill.
 "Come on, we're looking for Ryoko not overacting robotic thugs."

    The box holding Ryoko started to shake again.  Than the box started to
bulge, to swell outwards, with such force that the locks started to pop off.
The systems that had been designed to ladle up any power Ryoko produced had
been off line for over an hour.  The box itself was in no way strong enough
to hold back Ryoko in a normal mood.  It was not going to hold her back in a
fit of rage.
    The box gave way, like a blooming flower of fire and hissing wires,
which
peeled back to expose Ryoko.  Ryoko, in red and black, stepped out of the
box
and snapped off the last wires from her body.
    Ryoko was a picture of deadly beauty, or female fury, or a tigress on a
hunt.  Maybe she was all three.  She sped down the tunnels, eyes glowing,
knocking aside repair drones and violently kicking down doors in her hunt.
    "WHERE ARE YOU RIFT!" screamed Ryoko as she pulled the guts out of a
robotic mover that had tried to block her way.  Now covered in oil, which in
the dark halls of the ship looked very much like fresh blood, she smashed
through another hatch.  "I will FIND you!"

    Tenchi and company froze. They had been backtracking the robot girl,
going deeper into the ship (which is what they were doing anyway).  Behind
them was a trail of broken machines, burning walls and wounded robots.
Before them had been nothing but silence till a few seconds ago.
    "Did you hear that?" asked Tenchi softly.
    "Yes," said Washu as she took a few steps more, pushing past Tenchi.
"It
sounded like my poor Ryoko!"
    "RYOKO!" yelled Mihoshi.
    Tenchi hissed at her, "Hey, don't do that! It could be a trap, a
recording!  Don't you watch horror films?"  Tenchi sighed, as the two women
were already walking down the dark hallway.
    "OK," said Tenchi as he followed, "but if I find one of you in a corner
of a room, facing the wall, I'm out of here."

    "Mom?" mumbled Ryoko as she was suddenly engulfed by the smaller red
head's arms.
    "Oh honey, are you OK?" asked Washu, hugging Ryoko around her waist, not
caring about the black oil that smeared her hair.
    Mihoshi started to cry, "Oh this is so wonderful.  We found you!"  She
pointed her gun at the floor and started to cry, the tears flowing out like
waterfalls.
    Tenchi frowned and said, "Did you just call Washu your Mom?"
    Suddenly the ship rocked and they all started to float off the floor.
    "Gravity just gave out," said Mihoshi.  "We better turn on our boots."
    "What?" said Tenchi as he started to spin out of control, trying to grab
at anything to stop himself from going up.
    Suddenly the ship rocked again and the silence became even more so.
Something in the background, some noise they had gotten use to during their
visit had stopped.
    "What just happen?" asked Tenchi as Mihoshi helped him down to the floor
and showed him how to turn on the magnets in his boots.
    "Hummmm."  Washu checked out a nearby data port and with a snap plugged
in her suit's tiny online computer, one arm still around the confused Ryoko.
Red and blue lines of letters and numbers were soon running down the inside
of her face plate.
    "Listen, I don't have time," complained Ryoko, "I have to hunt down that
damn Rift and beat the living circuits out of him!  It! Whatever!  I'll
teleport into it and force my way out like a chick cracking open an egg!"
    Tenchi made a face, "Gross.  Now all I can think of is that movie,
Alien!"
    "Well, first, it is no longer on the ship."  Washu looked up at Ryoko as
she yanked the cable out of the data port.  As the cable automatically
returned back to the spool within Washu's belt, she added, "The systems are
all on auto now.  It was moved to a shuttle.  Second, the engines just blew
up because they could not take all the stress of trying to move a damaged
ship closer to the moon."  Washu turned to face them all and smiled, "We
better get back to Mihoshi's ship now."
    "WHAT?" said Tenchi.
    "Ship go boom," said Washu, making a shooing motion, "Go back to
Mihoshi's ship."

    The trip back to the ship was not anywhere are interesting as the trip
in, but it was a lot shorter in time.  Soon Mihoshi, mostly under Washu's
and
Tukinojo's guidance, had the ship out and running, engines flaring like tiny
novas as she tried to reach a safe distance.
    "But you said it was going to crash into the moon," said Tenchi, his
body
being forced against the chair by the G forces.  "Why the rush?"
    "Well," said Washu, "I said it was TRYING. When the engines went BOOM,
they sent a backwash of energy through the systems of the ship.  Any second
now."  She pointed to the screen, showing the view of the moon.  Far behind
them, almost lost against the moon's surface, was the alien ship.
    Before Tenchi could say anything else, it happened.  The alien ship,
looking like a burnt and beat up basketball, exploded. Even as the wreckage
and glowing energy spread, Tenchi realized they were easily out of range of
the shock wave.
    "You see, I wanted us to be out of the shot of the explosion.  We don't
want to be in the recording that shuttle will be making, do we?
    "What shuttle?" demanded Ryoko, as Tenchi continued to watch the globe
of
light expand.
    "The one that launched with Rift and its data."  Washu glanced at Tenchi
and Ryoko and continued, "I got that from the ship's system when I plugged
in.  That is how I knew it was gone.  Funny, but that is the first time I
think I have ever made a computer panic."  Washu smiled, "I am SO SMART!"
    "You better be damn smart," said Ryoko drily, "because this ship seems
to
be moving faster than it should right towards the Island of Shikoku."
    "WHAT?" demanded Tenchi, tugging on his seat belt, as Washu leapt out of
her chair and dashed towards the cockpit.
    "Just kidding," snickered Ryoko.  She swiftly undid her buckles and slid
into Tenchi's lap.  "Miss me?"
    "Well," answered Tenchi, turning red.

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

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----------------
Tenchi Muyo! and related characters were created and are owned by AIC and
Pioneer.  Rift and related characters was created and used by me.  If
anybody
has a problem with me blowing up ships in the moon's orbit, I had really
very
little to do with it.  Don't sue me.  I think this story will only last one
more chapter, than I might have to write a serious one about Ryoko and
Ayeka.