Unconscious Freakshow littered the ground as
a very confusing tableau spread itself out in the old 5th Column base. Two
nearly identical figures traded blow after blow, dodging kicks and punches
aimed at each other by split second adjustments at speeds other fighters would
find all but impossible to manage.

Rainbow Flash grimaced as she swept a high kick at the other fighter's face, only for the dark purple and gold clad fighter to duck under, rising up into a punch aimed at her solar plexus that was almost fast enough to make contact as Flash shot backwards, bumping against a wall from the speed she'd flown backwards to dodge.

The other fighter wasn't hard to predict, but that in and of itself was the problem. She was wearing Flash's face, as well as the dark hued version of Flash's normal hero costume that she'd put together after Jackie'd noted that the speedster couldn't sneak past a comatose Hellion if she'd tried. And Flash had to admit that, on this crazed alternate of herself, the colors definitely looked to fit the villainous figure that Nance had painted her as on their first meeting.

***

"Arrest me?" Flash squawked in indignation.

The agent regarded her coolly from behind reflective government issue sunglasses, though Flash could see a hint of irritation in his expression. "Don't be coy, Rainbow Flash. The robberies out by the Great Lakes. The technicolor explosion in Arizona that nearly killed several hundred people when it scrambled every aeronautical navigation system for five hundred miles? You may think that no one noticed you, that we were all too dumb to connect things only your powers could do to the incidents, but then you have the gall to show up in Paragon City and pretend to be a hero?"

Flash's hackles had been raising for most of the conversation, but Nance's acid tone had driven her over the edge. "I didn't do any of that. Go ahead, asshole. Try and arrest me and see how it works out for you."

Nance's face twisted in a slight smirk. "Somehow, I figured you wouldn't come quietly. That's not your style, is it? I've got several hundred agents that can swarm this spot the minute I give the signal. Do you really want to cause an incident like that? Or were you hoping for one?"

Flash snorted, settling to the ground from where she'd unconsciously started hovering, before taking a faint defensive stance. "Bring ‘em on, Jackboot. I think my self-defense case will stick a lot more than your wild theories."

Nance's hand hovered for a moment, about to raise, when his phone rang. The agent glanced at the caller ID (Adair, J, Flash noted), before answering. If anything, the government agent's face became even less pleased as he listened, before he nodded once and hung up. "Fine. It looks like my superior believes you and thinks that this whole thing must be the result of some other you," he said, sarcasm practically dripping from the end of the sentence. "Personally, I've heard "it's my Praetorian double!" excuses far too many times in the last year, but in this case, it's not my call. You want to clear the books with S.A.M., however, we're going to need to find this other you. Otherwise, I don't have any other suspects."

Flash's fists tightened slightly, but she sighed, settling her stance back into a more neutral one. "Fine. But don't think I'm particularly happy to be helping you out, jerkface."

Nance's smile looked about as amused as Flash felt. "On that point, Rainbow Flash, we can agree."

***

The investigation had led through an entire gang of Freakshow that apparently answered to Flash's evil double, as well as another good double of herself that apparently had trailed her evil double into Paragon. Flash hadn't really thought through the implications of so many versions of herself across the multiverse, beyond the fact that she was obviously upping the average awesome level of reality by existing so many times across it. However, when she'd met her impostor, Flash had been surprised to find that not only did she fight as well as Flash did, but that her powers were identical as well. Which had led to this standoff.

"This dance has been rather amusing, Flash, but I really do have better things to be doing," her double hissed as she pressed the attack. "Don't worry, I'll make it quick. You can die and then all the people you care about will be left to my..." she laughed nastily "...mercy. But I'll take care of them. You can trust me on that. Especially the cowgirl. She'll be delicious."

And for a split second, Flash's double found herself looking at where her opponent had been. A second later and she was careening across the hallway, hitting the floor every couple feet as Flash used her evil twin as an impromptu skidboard before jumping off as she slammed into the other wall.

The darker Rainbow growled as she stumbled to her feet, even as part of her boggled. Flash hadn't been anywhere near that fast before. How could they have misjud-

Her thoughts were cut off as a rapid series of kicks sent her stumbling backwards into a sloppy guard as Flash hit her, blurring in her vision to the point that the darker fighter couldn't even reliably see her opponent at all, reacting more to the air pressure of Flash's rapid strikes than anything she could see.

A single missed blow was all it took and the fight was over, dust rippling out in a shockwave as the force of the blow sent the darker Flash slamming into the wall. Flash walked over to her double, before kneeling down and picking her up by the collar. "Who the hell are you, and why are you trying to steal my face?"

"The face doesn't matter," her double coughed, even as a sickly green glow bathed them both, causing Flash to drop her and take a step back. The double pushed herself to her feet even as green flame flickered around her, burning away the purple jumpsuit first, before continuing to sear away flesh, feathers, and hair. Inhuman, faceted eyes locked with Flash's as burnt, twisted black chitin and replaced human skin, gleaming fangs coated in toxic green saliva forming words that no longer sounded remotely human as a viper's tongue shaped them. "And as to who we are...the first of many."

The twisted mockery of human form rasped a laugh as it took in Flash's expression. "Yessss.... you see what you have uncovered. We are everywhere, and you can trust no one. When the time comes, all will bow before Her. In
the meantime...enjoy your victory. We are legion.
You'll never find us all."

The twisted creature laughed even harder as the flames flared, consuming it, and leaving the room plain and normal again. If it hadn't been for the singed place where her double had been standing, Flash would almost have chalked up what she'd just seen to taking too hard a hit to the head.

"-ash, come in! Rainbow Flash, this is Nance. Report on your status!"

"Flash here..." she said, shaking herself. "My double's gone."

"Define gone."

"She set herself on fire when it became clear she was going to lose, and just disappeared. I dunno if she's dead or not, but she's not here anymore," Flash said flatly.

"I... see. I hate this city some times."

"Tell me about it," Flash said, but her heart wasn't in it. She couldn't help but hear the echoes of the thing's last words.

You'll never find us all.

***

The omnipresent buzzing and chittering as green flame flickered over hard black stone and glistening green slime reminded her of home, but the comfort was only faint as the drone prepared to report on her failure.

The twisted black throne of stone and webs at the far side of the room stood in shadow, only the drifting of the blue gossamer hanging over its edges indicating that its occupant was even there, the black of her Majesty's armor blending perfectly with the murky shadows.

"My Queen... we regret to inform you our mission...has failed. The hero was tipped off. She came for us and forced us to reveal ourselves. We beg your forgiv-"

The drone never saw the enormous black jaws within the sudden flare of green fire. She simply ceased to see anything as they severed her body at the waist, chewing the remains for a moment before the liquid darkness slithered back to the form on the throne.

"Hmm... we forgive you, my loyal drone. The distrust you may have fostered in one so loyal is the best that could be hoped for, given your failure. Your knowledge shall be passed on to the rest of the Swarm," She hissed as Her claws tapped at the edge of throne's arms. "Attendant."

"Yes, your Highness? " a drone said, scuttling out from a hole in the wall.

"Inform the rest of My will. We are to divide, and then we shall conquer , " She hissed, even as emerald eyes cracked open to look at the
floating image of the city hovering amid green flames before her. "And have them be alert. I will have need of a Proxy if I am to attend to this Myself."

"Yes, your Highness."

***

Jackie had once thought she would do anything in order to see her kinda-sorta girlfriend stay still and quiet for more than three seconds. However, as the country girl walked out onto the balcony of the apartment that Flash called home, the wind whistling around her on its way through Steel Canyon's chilly New England night, Jackie had to admit that watching Flash look out over the night in a silent brood was just plain unnatural. Still, nothing to it but to do it... "Hey."

"Heya. Bit cold out here for you," Flash said quietly, glancing over her shoulder, before stiffening slightly as Jackie wrapped her arms around the other woman's waist, her tension plain in how her wings stiffened. Jackie just held the position, as new and odd as it felt to her, until the flier's nervousness calmed. Jackie wasn't sure what she was supposed to do in this situation, but something was bothering Flash... and that meant it bothered Jackie too.

"What's wrong?" Jackie asked. "You're as jittery as a horse sitting out in pasture before a thunderstorm."

"I dunno what you mean," Flash said, getting a look from Jackie.

"Flash, y'keep that up, and maybe people will stop thinkin' I'm the worst poker player in our group," the country girl noted.

"...I guess so," the flier said with a faint laugh. "....promise you won't think I'm crazy?"

Jackie turned Flash around to face her, aware somehow of how important the seemingly flippant question was. "You've got my word."

Flash looked uncomfortable at how serious Jackie had said that, but after a moment of silence, the flier started to talk again. "It all started when this guy, Keith Nance, tried to arrest me..."
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."

That's Dull, Perthshire, Scotland, and Boring, Oregon, USA - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/ho ... 19712.html]they're becoming twin cities.

Does anyone care?
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

Would anyone be opposed to my doing a short story or two of my fenspace counterpart going up into space?

http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=92572]Exactly what it says on the tin...
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

All chapters up to the attack on the construction site have been reworked, so look for the new ones instead of reading the old ones.

I have been working on this story for nearly a year, hitting multiple writer blocks and turning towards other stories in the meantime. But finally I have the majority of the story out. Hope its still interesting to read, tell me what you think.

The story is beginning in Summer 2017, so this is before CI had more than a few scraps of the Normandy started.

#################

Two men were sitting on a console in the large control room of ESA in Darmstadt.

“You think we will be able do this?”

“Yes, I think so. As long as the governments back in Brussels don’t do something stupid, we will go through the mission as planned.”

“Do you think the US will protest again?”

“No, they did not protest that much when we finished the fourth ISV.”

“Is everything assembled at our depot?”

“Yes, the last checks were completed three days ago. All astronauts have been send up and everyone is just waiting for the ‘go’ signal.”

----

In the year 2016 the growing fleet of Interplanetary Space Vehicles of ESA and JAXA had been sent on several smaller missions to Venus and the Belt. The longest mission had been the voyage of the ISV Nobu Shirase around Saturn. ESA had called it an endurance test and dropped a number of scientific satellites around the planet, but called the ISV back home soon after.

But after this none of the spaceships had left ESAs space depot again. Some people said ESA and JAXA were tired with senseless flying around. Others said, the EU governments were not willing to pay for it anymore.

But the second step on ESAs “10 year plan to conquer Brussels” began exactly as the last step. In the middle of a storm of reporters, camera flashes flickering off like lightning without thunder.

ESAs press speaker and the representative of JAXA were grinning into the cameras, it was time to hit the naysayer with another club on the head. And he would hit them hard!

“Welcome ladies and gentlemen.” he started with a smile.

“In the last six months since our flyby mission around Saturn there have been voices that said the cooperation between ESA and JAXA has burned out. That we are without a goal to reach. Today you are here to learn that nothing could be further from the truth.”

He looked to his Japanese colleague, which continued.

“When the Thor Heyerdahl came back from Mars, we had proven that the solar system is still open for exploration, even without Handwavium. But as important as this, we also showed everyone the potential of Fusion reactor JAXA provided for the spaceship. After we returned several governments approached our consortium to see how fast we could build a reactor to supply electrical power to them. There was only one problem. The supply of Helium-3!”

Several reporters nodded. The debate about Nuclear Fusion had heated up since the first prototype of the Honda Fusion Reactor two years ago, but died down soon after. The problem was that to get a pure aneutronic fusion reaction, you had to use pure Helium-3 as fuel. Digging over thousands of squaremiles on the Moon to mine it was out of question, so the only source were some Fen who did the insane job to dive into Jupiter to get it.

And nobody wanted to make their power generation totally dependent on the goodwill of a few Fen.

“We all know the discussions about Lunar sources of Helium-3, but to say it again, it will not happen. The Moon is not empty anymore, and the amount of Helium-3 in the dust is just too small.”

The ESA press speaker nodded to his colleague.

“12 months ago ESA and JAXA contacted their governments for a proposal to fix this problem. Since then, we have shipped hundreds of tons of steel and ceramic up to our orbital depot, together with the finest hightech our countries can provide. A group of forty astronauts are waiting in orbit to begin the largest space mission Europe and Japan have ever done before.”

The room was filled with quiet murmurs now while everyone was trying to guess what was going on.

“This evening, the Thor Heyerdahl, the Leif Erickson, the Nobu Shirase and the Ferdinand Magellan will depart from our depot and will be heading for Saturn. They will be carrying the first pieces of equipment to set up a permanent space station there, where some of the brightest engineers of our countries will live. If everything will go according to plan, we will deliver the first batch of Helium-3 within 24 months.”

“Why Saturn? Isn’t this awful far away?” one of the reporters asked.

“There are three places where one could mine Helium-3 in the solar system if you don’t want to dig through millions of tons of lunar rocks. Jupiter, Saturn or Uranus.

Uranus is too far away for our current ISVs, we cannot get there and back without refueling, which make missions much more dangerous.

Jupiter is a lot closer than Saturn, but it has also a much higher mass, which makes it harder to get into a low orbit and back out of it.

The decision to build the station around Saturn was made as a compromise between distance and depth of the gravity well. The fact that one of the larger Fen factions have their capitol there makes it a safer neighborhood too.”

----

“Darmstadt Control, this is the Thor Heyerdahl. Mission checks are done, all four ships are reporting condition green, we are ready for the first part of the mission.”

“Thor Heyerdahl, here is Darmstadt Control. Mission countdown restarted at T minus 15 minutes, prepare for launch sequence.”

After the flight of the Thor Heyerdahl ESA and JAXA had decided to change the design of their new space ships. Armed with the data gathered during the long flight, several small changes had been made in the engine section of the ship. Simultaneously they had cut the Thor Heyerdahl into four parts, connected by large docking rings.

As her sister ships, the Heyerdahl now were made up by an front crew section and an aft engine section. Depending on the mission different cargo or carrier modules could be placed between crew and engine section, together with one or multiple modules for carrying reaction mass.

All four ISVs had been equipped with a large cargo and a single reaction mass module, which allowed each of the ISVs to transport a total of one hundred metric tons of cargo to Saturn. And each of them was filled with equipment up to the limit.

‘And that’s just the first part of the cargo. We will have to come back to get the second part afterwards’ the captain of the Thor Heyerdahl thought.

‘When we are finished, the new station will be twice as large as the ISS. I wonder how many Fen owned trucks were necessary to carry all this stuff up to the space depot. If this mission does not succeed, it will be one of the most expensive failures in the history of spaceflight.’

Fenspace owned surface orbital transportation had made spaceflight a lot cheaper than a decade ago, but this expedition was still expensive as hell.

But pushed by the increasing oil and gas prices and the sometimes less than reliable sources for both the EU and Japan were looking hard for other energy sources.

The radio speakers went active again.

“Thor Heyerdahl, this is Darmstadt. You are green for leaving orbit, we expect you back in two months. Gute Reise!”

----

The Thor Heyerdahl felt crowded for the first time of her life. The ship had more room for the crew than any other hardtech spacecraft before, but with a full crew of ten people on a voyage that would take nearly a month it was not really that comfortable.

But the crew agreed with each other that it was better than any spacecraft they had used before, especially with the light gravity during the flight. No worrying about hovering hot water or dust, no need to discuss whats up and down when you meet, just like old Earth, only lighter.

Luckily ESA and JAXA had provided their ISVs with a sophisticated computer system which could also be used for entertainment. The fact that all four ISVs were within milliseconds communication distance of each other helped too, 40 people were more than enough to spent time during the flight. Everyone knew that things would get much more stressing as soon as they arrived in orbit around Saturn.

“It somehow feel strange” Captain Eric Hunt said, “building a space station more than a billion kilometers away from home. A few years ago we had to give the ISS away because it was too expensive without the US and now this.”

Sarah Meier chuckled. “Without the Fen owned surface to orbit transports we could never have done it. Or without this strange tech catalog they published. But who cares how we did it as long as we are DOING it. Its not good to leave most Earth based spaceflights to the military.”

“And the elevator might change the whole game again in a few years. A century old dream coming true, and we are around to see it.”

“I will believe it when we get the money for it, the whole project is still incredible expensive. But if our mission is a success, Brussels might pay for it. I just hope the US really got over all their crazy protests, the last thing we want is an armed US ship looking for us.”

Eric Hunt shook his head. “I don’t really worry about this, there are enough Fen up here who consider this their territory. If the US starts to protest against our project with more than diplomatic notes, we will have lots of voluntary ships to deal with them. That’s one of the reasons we are going to Saturn, the Warsies up there keep the neighborhood safe.”

Sarah suddenly grinned. “What do you think will they say back home when they discover the kind of help we organized for building the station?”

Eric chuckled.

“Its all in the reports of the ESA to Brussels. One of the guys showed me the page where it says ‘Costs for Fen support’. They never asked about it, maybe the amount of money was too low to be important.”

“I bet they will demand an explanation for it.”

“It’s not my problem” Eric replied and shrugged. “We will be far away from home, the guys at home will easily manage this. Its not that they would stop the mission anymore.”

----

A video stream activated, showing a small cockpit with a lot of screens and buttons. The camera showed two people, a men in an ESA coverall and a woman wearing a Fen spacesuit. On the edge of the screen a third seat is visible, another woman in ESA coverall is keeping an eye on the console in front of her.

“Good morning ladies and gentlemen, this is Maico Tange.

I am speaking today with Mr. Eric Hunt, captain of the spaceship Thor Heyerdahl. Mr. Hunt, how are you feeling now that you finally arrived in the orbit of Saturn ?”

Eric Hunt smiled.

“It is a great feeling coming here and enjoying this incredible look of Saturn and its rings. I mean, when I joined ESA, the thought about going to the Moon or to Mars was ridiculous. And now we are here in the Orbit around Saturn with 40 astronauts. That’s incredible!”

Maico nodded.

“Yes, of course. I don’t think any hardtech spaceship except the ISV Nobu Shirase during its flyby mission ever got that far. So what do Europe and Japan are doing that far from home?”

“We were sent to Saturn to setup a permanent station here. Both Europe and Japan are still looking for a clean energy source, we think that the same fusion technology used for the Thor Heyerdahl could also be the key to the energy problem.”

“So you are here to look for Helium-3” Maico replied, “that is quite a challenge without any involvement of Handwavium. Unless the restrictions for your civil space agencies on Earth have been lifted for this mission.”

“No, they have not been lifted. You are correct that this mission might be a greater challenge to ESA and JAXA than any before, but I am sure we can do it. We have all the basic parts with us to start with the station, and will get two additional supply runs in the next twelve months.”

Maico raised an eyebrow.

“That’s quite a lot of material, twelve hangars full of building materials. Tell me, where around Saturn will your new station be floating, I expect that quite a few of my viewers will be interested in watching you building it or visiting you later.”

“The station will be underground in the Saturn moon Pan, inside the rings of Saturn. Its the closest place to the planet where the station is protected from stellar radiation and meteor impacts.”

“Pan?”

“The closest moon of Saturn, a block of ice maybe 30 km in length. As soon as we arrive there and get the fusion reactor of the station up and running, we will begin to melt holes into the ice to put the station into. This will make extending the station later much easier than on an asteroid and still gives us a lot protection.”

“So that’s why all the catgirls are waiting here for you?”

The camera turned to a window of the Thor Heyerdahl for a moment, showing the large space station of Catgirl Industries floating in some distance. When it turned back, Eric Hunt is grinning.

“Oh, we just hired them for a bit support during the first setup phase of the station. It gives us a place to live while we are working on Pan and makes the whole mission a lot safer.”

“Of course,” Maico answered and turns towards the camera.

“So ESA and JAXA will be quite busy building their new ice station on Saturn in the coming year. This is Maico Tange, hope to see you on my next interview.”

Somewhere, a billion kilometers away from the Thor Heyerdahl a man switched of his TV set and grabbed his phone.

“Get me the Director General of ESA... yes, now... no, I don’t care if he is at mission control at the moment, get him to a phone... NOW!”

----

Three humans were sitting around a small table.

“Are you sure they arrived on Pan?”

“Yes, I am sure. The news report of Maico was accurate.”

“Why the hell did she not corner these bastards about the water theft?”

“Who knows, maybe she believes they will play by the rules? She is just short-witted, of course they will play by the rules for the first months.”

A girl with green hairs nodded. “First their space station, deep enough in the ice that we don’t know what they are doing there. Then the whole infrastructure to dive into Saturn, which accidentally looks like fast robotic jet fighters. Soon they will just start mining everything in the Saturn rings when nobody is looking at them, or maybe just arm the station!”

“It is time that someone tell this damned Danelaw nations that wrecking one planet is enough!”

“See if you can’t contact your friends from Green Fist, we might need the hardware support they promised to make sure our message is easy to understand!”

----

It took just a few days to move the small fleet of ships over the rings and into the orbit of Pan. Now they were carefully heading towards the small moon ahead, the spacestation of the catgirls still behind them.

Being careful was just normal. In the end going into any of the rings would not do as much as damage the rings, but utterly destroy a ship.

A few years ago the maneuver would have been suicide for any ESA vessel. Going over the ecliptic, fly over the rings of Saturn and then get into a gap a few hundreds of kilometers wide to meet a moon? Impossible!

But the fusion powered engines had made all previous mission plans of ESA and JAXA obsolete. Now it was just a matter of being patient enough.

And then there was the incredible view. Floating just a few hundred kilometers above flat surface larger than anything a human being could comprehend easily. Every planet, every moon, even the sun war a curved object with a horizon, but the rings just looked endless. An infinite ocean the Thor Heyerdahl would dive into soon.

Eric Hunt wasn’t sure if it looked magnificent or frightening.

All four ISV were floating just above the large ball of ice with the name Pan. The engines had been switched off and they were experiencing freefall for the first time in a month.

“Okay everybody, the boring time is over... you all know the plan, lets get the cargo out!”

A number of floodlights on the outer hull of the ISVs activated, bathing the icemoon in a white light. The crew began to open freight doors of their ships and soon a number of huge cylinders were moved out of the cargo bays by the large telescope arm of each ship.

While the rest of the crew were checking the status of their cargo, Eric and nine other astronauts were slowly moving over the surface of the moon. Landing on the moon would not be difficult, its surface gravity was nearly non-existent. But burrowing the station in the ice would be not that easy without being thrown into an orbit around the moon.

He carefully landed on the icy surface, careful not to loose his balance. The positioning system of the nearby spaceships guided him quickly to a featureless point on the ice where he put down the anchor he was carrying.

The anchors were a simple construction, three claws to temporarily attach it to the ground and chemical fuse that would heat it above the ice melting point and provide the gas pressure to push a two meter long pole into the ice. No electronics, no motors, just pure mechanics and chemistry.

Eric just had fixed his anchor to the ground and lit the fuse as he saw a movement next to him.

Just a few meters away, a small machine with a few blinking lights on the surface was floating, slowly circling him and the anchor. The machine looked up at him and wiggled happily back and forth, then turned to its examination of the anchor.

“I think we have a toy from the Fen on the moon” Eric announced through his intercom as he watched the drone, “can someone fire up the main radio and ask them about it?”

The machine suddenly looked up, shivering back and forth while Eric could hear an annoyed hissing in his helmets speaker.

“It understands our radio and its not amused about being called a toy” Eric added quickly, looking a little bit worried to the little machine in front of him. Was it dangerous?

“Mr. Hunt, I got someone at the space station, the say the little thing is an Exocomp. They’re going to send someone over to collect it later, you should just ignore it. If it interferes with your work, you should scold it!”

Eric shook his head and looked back to his visitor. “You heard it? If you interfere with our work, I have to start ranting.”

The Exocomp just nodded happily and continued his observation.

‘No wonder Fen are considered insane by some people. And its contagious too, I am already talking with a small machine directly out of a Scifi Movie’ Eric thought and got back to work.

----

Eric Hunt was laying on a couch, relaxing from the long hours of work on the ice moon. Somehow he had to thank this genius back home who decided to hire a Fen space station as a sleeping place for their mission.

They had made good progress today and planned to get the secondary fusion reactor of the station up and running tomorrow. But then the long hours of work had been over and they had moved away from the moon to the huge colorful space station.

One moment they were still floating in freefall, trying to get to the stations airlock without loosing the grip on the long cord... and the next moment gravity was increasing, allowing them to easily stand in the open airlock. Air had been streaming into the room and they had finally taken of their helmets.

A group of catgirls had welcomed them, showing them the closets where they could put in their life support backpacks and then lead them to the next module.

“We have built a module for your current stay, hope we forgot nothing in your rooms. If you notice something missing, just tell us and we will put it in while you are working on the moon.”

Eric smiled and thought about the short tour on their new ‘home’ for the next months.

Full Earth gravity...

A crew of catgirls and crazy robots to ask for help...

Rooms large enough to stretch yourself without knocking something over...

Hot showers for everyone!

Showers were normally something precious during space missions. It had been worst on the ISS, because both of the limited supply of water and the zero-g environment. At least the solar panels had delivered enough energy for heating.

The flight with the Thor Heyerdahl class ISVs had been better because of its constant acceleration and the unlimited energy. And on Pan they even would have lots of water, and a huge amount of space to use. At least after they got the necessary parts to increase the size of the station.

Maybe he should ask the catgirls what they payed for construction materials, getting unwaved steel would be perfect for their new station when the workshop was installed and running.

Eric smiled, maybe it was a good time to go looking for this kitchen the catgirls had talked about.

---

The work on the ice moon had begun again. Eric Hunt looked back one more time to the space station that was still floating above in the sky and then turned towards their working area.

“Okay, we all talked about it during the breakfast. Group 1, get the reactor online, we need the energy soon. Group 2, check the equipment for the tent, we need to set it up before we start digging. Group 3, you come with me and check the anchors from yesterday, after this we put in the rest of them for the tent!”

The three groups split up and Eric headed to the group of anchors he had used to fix one of the containers to the ground, carefully moving along the rope lines they had put between the anchors yesterday.

The first day of work had been crawling along slowly. Pan had surface gravity, but not much of it. It could hold a screwdriver on the ground if you put it there carefully, but one bad step and you were on a hour long trip over the moon. They had done all the work at the first day with zero gravity backpacks, which made any work a painfully slow process.

“Anchor four is still fixed, seems ESA delivered good hardware” someone said over the radio. Kevin was again a little bit faster with his zero-g skills than the rest of the crew.

Eric Hunt smiled and carefully checked his first anchor, which didn’t moved a bit. “Anchor one is fixed” he announced, and looked for the next one as someone called him.

“Mr. Hunt, it seems your little friend is back again!”

Eric looked around and instantly saw the small drone that hat watched him yesterday. Or maybe another one, he had learned the catgirls had more than one of them at the space station. ‘Talk with them like with an intelligent pet cat’ one of the catgirls had told him.

“Ah, there you are again” he said with a smile, “you know the deal... looking is okay, interfering where we are working is not.”

The Exocomp carefully pressed himself against Eric’s suit and purred over the radio, then went back a few meters and hovered close by, following Eric as he moved to the next anchor. If everything would go by plan, they would be ready with the anchors for the tent tomorrow evening.

“Mr. Hunt, I cannot find one of the spare anchors. I am sure we had all of them accounted for yesterday, but one of them is missing!”

‘So much for the plan’ Eric thought.

----

Somewhere else.

“Where the hell you have been? Just taking the truck and leaving for nearly a week is not what we agreed upon. Get in quickly!”

“Sorry, you two were away and I had to act quickly.”

“What do you mean, quickly?”

“I got a reply from my friends of Green Fist. They were worried about all the things we reported and they said they might have something for us. Directly from the lab of an unmentioned Mad.”

“And you had to take the truck because... ?”

“Because they said it was a little bit larger, the perfect tool to deliver our message. You two have to see it yourself!”

All three of them quickly moved to the trucks cargo trailer.

“Wow! Look at the size of that thing!”

“What the hell is this monster?”

“This my friends is our packet delivery service. A self-contained mass accelerator that will allow us to hit the European bastards with an awesome punch from far away.”

“How far away? I mean, they have all this catgirls buzzing around, we don’t want to get caught five seconds after delivering our message.”

“Far enough, the catgirls don’t have a lot of long range ships to find us. We sneak in, deploy and program the weapon. After a few hours of calibration, it will fire.”

“Are you sure it will even hit them?”

“It has to hit a fucking Moon! Of course it will hit the target.”

“If you say so.”

----

Somewhere, in an empty supply modules on Jenga was a strange meeting happening. The module was new and would not be used by the catgirl inhabitants for quite some time. There was still some infrastructure of the module missing, Serina had said the Exocomps had too many other things in mind at the moment to finish it.

But in one corner of the module, behind a few solid steel plates which would cover the floor in the coming months a small group of Exocomps was floating around a long pipe... one with an ESA logo on it.

Eight Exocomps were rushing up and down, showering the device with low powered sensor beams from all kind of angles, shivering in excitement from time to time.

New tech!

New tech they hadn’t seen before!

New tech without Handwavium!

A puzzle.

A new puzzle!

The had to solve it!

The catgirls had told them that their guests did not wanted them to help with their work, and that they should not interfere with it. It was a selfish thing to keep the work for themselves, but there were not all that bad. And luckily they stopped working at some time, which had given the group the possibility to get this artifact without interfering with their work!

After a few hours, they were finished with all their measurements and moved their work to a small and secret playground on the Grid. They had learned over the years from the catgirls that it was quite fun to work with simulations.

You could only topple a large mountain of Christmas packages once, but you could do it as often and as spectacular as you liked on the Grid.

Quickly a virtual copy of the sensor data they had gathered appeared in front of their virtual avatars. The Exocomps activated a physics simulation and added water as the ground.

Then they watched the staff sinking in the waves of their simulated ocean.

Something wasn’t right.

Cold... much colder... much much colder!

The simulation started anew, this time with a ground of ice below the staff. It stood on its tiny legs, until one of the Exocomps pushed the button at the top, activating the chemical mix inside.

Ice began to melt... and after a moment the simulated staff fell to the side.

The Exocomps were puzzled, viewing their sensor readings of the astronauts work on the moon again. Just as they decided to start another simulation run, Cortana's avatar suddenly appeared over them.

“What the hell is going on here” Cortana thundered.

The Exocomps were shocked, one of them quickly vanished the simulated artifact and tried to look unsuspicious.

“Do not think I have not seen what you did here. How did you get such a good reading on this anchors... wait a moment, you did it?”

Cortana began to trace the connection of the Exocomp back, which quickly lead her into a very new module. It took her a moment to a few cameras and upload the firmware for them.

“How could you? You have stolen from our guests!”

That confused the Exocomps for a moment. Hadn’t the guests said that this were the place for their spare parts? How could borrowing a spare part be wrong?

Cortana sighed about the communication between the little drones.

“You will give it back immediately, and you will do it in person. If they ban ALL of your kind from their working area, it will be your fault.”

Their brothers might be banned from the icy moon too? Suddenly the Exocomps were a bit worried.

----

“... as expected in my last progress report, the work on Pan is continuing smoothly. Since the tent is up we are able to liquefy ice and refreeze it on the surface, so we can get the necessary holes for the first station modules.

Contacts with the Fen pet drones is still alternating between annoying, funny or useful. While they are hanging around the construction site to watch us, they are always eager to carry some tools for us or capture things and even two of my crew, who lost ground contact and were flying away from Pan.

When the second part of our equipment arrives from Nova Paris, we will have already burrowed the first modules in the ice. I expect to finish phase two of the project with little or no delay and continue installing the second batch of modules.”

Eric Hunt looked over his progress report for the beancounters at Earth for a last time. Even here, a billion kilometers away from Earth it was impossible to escape the paperwork completely.

He sometimes wondered how the Fen would have built this station, most likely it would have been something very crazy. Or maybe a floating city like in Star Wars above the clouds of Saturn.

He sighed, whatever it would have been, it would have got artificial gravity of course. Thinking about this for a moment, he opened the document again.

“I would also like to forward the request of multiple crew members to allow the addition of a waved gravity generator to some of the modules. I talked with several Fen over the last week, according to their knowledge it should be trivial to add an electrical powered one to a module.

As part of the ‘Environmental Systems’ it would most likely be completely free of strange side effects. One generator per module would also allow us to regulate the gravity in each module on its own, which is necessary for some of the production technology we want to install.”

He nodded to himself and pressed the ‘send mail’ button, then stand up and left his apartment to join his crew members in the canteen.

“Ah Eric, good to see you... we had been expecting you meeting us here a few hours ago, that much paperwork left?”

Eric nodded. “I always thought that being an astronaut would allow you to leave all this paperwork back on Earth, but the damned bureaucrats have got an upgrade for their procedures.”

Everyone on the table chuckled.

“And yes, I asked them about the gravity generator. Most likely they will declare me insane and unfit for command. But maybe they will see the benefits of the idea. Transfering from this station to some hole in an ice moon with practical zero gravity doesn’t sound great.”

Sarah sighed. “Don’t forget to mention the nice cafeteria here, and the wonderful showers they have installed in our rooms. I asked one of the catgirls about the showers, did you knew that they don’t even used Handwavium for them, except for some filtration module in the bottom?”

“What do you want to say” Eric asked suspiciously.

“Oh, we have the job to build up the station, but we are also allowed to expand it later if necessary. The only restriction we currently face is that Handwavium is not allowed inside the station.”

“Yes, we all know that...”

“What's about putting one additional box of steel into the ice, one that is NOT part of the station? If its not part of the station, we might get away with ignoring some of the rules.”

Eric shook his head. “Everything we build with the materials we have is part of the station. I am sorry, but this is not going to work.”

Sarah just grinned.

“Oh, I think I know a few engineers who might be willing to build us an additional module for the moon. Without using up ESA or JAXA supplied materials, but with artificial gravity and hot showers!”

“They will just shoot us when we get back to Earth” Eric just murmured, trying to ignore the discussion Sarah just started at the table.

----

While the work on Pan went ahead as planned for the next days, they were not the only group planning for the future of the Saturn moon.

Somewhere in the darkness, light seconds away from the huge ringed planet called Saturn was a black platform, placed there by an unremarkable waved truck. After hours of calibrating its orientation through analysis of incoming light from stars and planets, the computer on the platform finished its preparation phase and switched to a second set of commands.

The platform suddenly emitted a flash of green light as it dumped energy from its waved capacitors into the weapon array. Within the blink of an eye, a small metallic projectile was accelerated to an incredible speed. Moments later the cooling system failed and the computer shortcutted its own capacitors, which instantly blew the whole platform into tiny pieces. But its payload was already racing towards its target.

For nearly an hour its flight wasn’t noticed by anyone.

Seconds before the projectile hit it target, it was finally seen. A group of Exocomps had chased a small block of ice of the rings a few hundred kilometers away from Jenga and one of them recognized the moving dot on its infrared camera.

‘TOY! Lets catch it!’, the small drone thought and its companions quickly reoriented to look for their new prey. They quickly estimated the distance, only to be disappointed that the little dot on their optics was that far away.

‘Oh, too far away’ they thought sad, ‘maybe a friend can catch it?’

Then they all suddenly flinched.

Whatever it was, it was fast... very fast. And it was going to hit home!

Their shock hit Serinas consciousness a few milliseconds later. While her mind ran distributed on all the Exocomps, she normally did not payed that much attention to most of her little children.

But now most of the Exocomps on Jenga suddenly froze for a moment as a priority alert raced through Serinas mind, forcing her subjective time perception to slow down. It took just a look through all of her eyes outside the station to verify the course and speed of the incoming threat.

She ignored a curious word from Cortana, Jenga’s other AI was still working in normal time.

Jengas radar emitter began to charge up, but it would take a few milliseconds until the first pulse. A second command woke up the stations point defense laser guns, but Serina could already see that most of the turrets would take too long to get out of their parking position.

“What the hell is going on” Cortana asked, finally getting in sync with Serina just as the first radar pulses reflected back from the incoming projectile.

“We have a kinetic impactor incoming for the working site on the moon” she replied focused, “small projectile, but moving at more than a percentage of the speed of light. I think we will get off one shot at it.”

The eyes of Cortana's Grid avatar widened. “Do we have something to intercept it?”

“No we don’t, it was so small I saw it just half a second ago. Two hundred milliseconds until I will shoot it with one of our lasers, the others are in the wrong position. Not enough time to warn anyone.”

Cortana frowned.

“Make sure everyone is ready for a rescue mission, I hope the Daneverse astronauts will survive.”

The timer ticked down to zero and a blue pulse of light raced outwards and hit the incoming projectile, vaporizing most of it instantly. Normally that would have neutralized any projectile easily.

But the projectile was only a fraction of a seconds away from hitting its target, so the superheated metal vapor had no time to dissipate. A whole section of Pan’s surface flashed bright white as the icy surface was vaporized.

In a certain way, the laser had turned a sniper weapon into a shotgun. But a shotgun was still a lethal weapon.

...but has it been done well?

"Harry Potter and the Transfer Student from Midchilda", anyone?

[size=smaller](Yes, I'm looking for recommendations.)[/size]
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

Hogwarts Great Hall, September 1st 1995

The Sorting Hat had finished its song, but before McGonegal could call up the first of the new students there was rumble and a pop and a small pile of dirt appeared under the three-legged stool it sat on, suddenly enough to make the Hat bounce in place a bit. Leaning closer, she was quite taken aback when it suddenly declared, "GRYFFINDOR!"

The more so when a second voice added, "Grip a what?" in a broad Brooklyn accent, and for that matter without the hat's mouth-like tear moving. Thus the normally unflappable Deputy Headmistress merely looked on in amazement as a pair of white gloves supported by grey arms poked out from under the brim and felt around for a few seconds, before picking the hat up to balance against a forehead and two long, wide-splayed ears. "Eh, what's up, doc?" the owner of said voice, gloves, arms, and ears asked, before shimmying up out of a hole that had somehow bored straight through the seat of the stool and producing a carrot from somewhere behind his back. He munched on it while looking around at the Great Hall and the many curious students and staff waiting at the long tables. "My, my, dis certainly don't look like Coney Island... I knew I shoulda' toinned left at Albuquerque."

Gathering her composure, the teacher drew herself up into a more dignified posture. "Indeed not, this is Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and I am Professor Minerva McGonagal, Deputy Headmistress and teacher of Transfigurations. At the moment, however, I was attempting to introduce the new students to be Sorted into their houses," she added, with a quelling wave of her list.

"Ooh, Magic?" asked the newcomer, impressed. "I know some transfinaglin'... like dis! Alakazoot!" Having finished his carrot and tossed the butt end with the greens back into the hole, he drew another (nine and three quarter inches, carrot with a D. carota sativus heart core, quite crisp - a well balanced carrot, good for all purposes) and gave it a twirl and a jab.

The list in McGonegal's hand grew a bit longer and a new name appeared. "Bunny, Bugs?" she read aloud.

"I already told you, this one's a Gryffindor," the Hat said irritably. "Go along now and sit at the table with the red banners, I've got a lot more Sorting yet to do tonight."

(later that evening, in the Headmaster's office)

No matter how much of a surprise his appearance might have been, McGonegal was too fair-minded to deny that the school Register had accepted Bugs as a student, and likewise that the transformation he'd done on her list was well above first-year work. That did leave the question of where to actually place him, however.

"Oh, I loined magic from Da Amazin' Ali-Bahma," Bugs explained. "All kind of innnterestin' spells - here, he can tell ya!" Pulling the Sorting Hat off its shelf, he flipped it over and reached inside, leaning down to fit his arm in nearly to the shoulder before incanting "Roota boota zoot!" and pulling out a rather tall man in a black suit and turban, quite podgy about the middle, who looked confused for a few seconds before focusing on his conjurer.

"Ze rabbit?" he exclaimed, a bit fearfully.

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled with amusement, but he calmly asked, "You would be The Amazing Ali Bahma then I take it, who taught this talented young... fellow, to perform such skilled transfinaglatio- that is, Transfiguration?"

Ali Bahma looked back and forth between the Headmaster and the rabbit, blinking and making inarticulate noises, before being pre-empted by Bugs once more.

"Oh, he taught me lotsa magic, ain't dat right Ali? Like conjurin' a pie!" Bugs rolled up the fur of his free arm and waggled the fingers theatrically. "Nuttin' up my sleeve!" he announced before plunging it back into the Sorting Hat. "Roota boota zoot! See, a fresh cherry pie, still warm from da' oven. Tell 'em how real it is, Ali!" he crowed, before smashing it in the tall man's face. Ignoring Ali Bahma's indignant sputtering and the way he just got redder even as he wiped the remains away, Bugs delved again into the Hat, this time climbing half into it as it hung in the air where he'd been holding it in order to pull out a large wicker basket. "An' den dere's dat trick wit' da swords..." he he continued, reaching in a fourth time before pulling out the Sword of Gryffindor. "Ooh, dis is a nice one."

Anger blown away by the memory of his last round in the basket and not about to go through that again, Ali Bahma cut into his supposed student's patter. "Zat's right, he's all trained up, just needs ze hat, ze owl, and ze stuffed alley-gator to be ze proper wizard. Bye-bye!" Before any further indignities could be inflicted on him, he waggled his own fingers at the still-floating hat, incanted "Rooty zoot zoot!" and jumped for it, pinching his nose shut with one hand before diving back in.

Giving his best batty-grandfather smile Dumbledore said, "Well, that settles things I should say. It's far from the first time an older, independently taught student enrolled to brush up in his OWL year. Minerva, I trust you can instruct the house-elves in expanding your fifth-year boys' dorm accordingly."

(. . .)

There needs to be some Umbridge in here, too, protesting the inclusion of a "subhuman" student and getting thwarted in humorous ways each time she tries to interrupt, but those details are not resolving for me except for Bugs' aside after one of the more spectacular ones, "I do dis kind'a thing to her all through da picture."

And, of course, there's the interactions between Bugs and the Trio, Bugs and Snape, Bugs and (shudder) the Twins...

Bugs is pretty much a by-the-numbers Trickster Folk Hero, when you get right down to it, and if there's one thing Harry desperately needs, fifth year more than any other, it's a non-pushy/overprotective mentor in the heroing business and the ability to find a bit of fun even when the situation looks bad.

Opinions on the bunnybunny?

- CD, still not back on his own machine... getting an anti-static workspace togehter was more idfficult than expected, and procrastination has set in too...

EOF
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

House Raising - 10/Jun/2012
Mid Spring, 2008, Luna.
Can you raise a house on the Moon?  If most of the bits come from Earth, is that a 'house falling'?  That doesn't make much sense.  But, if the Moon's above the Earth, it might still be 'raising'.
This and other nonsense went through Brains head, as he sat on the Lunar surface, looking at where home would be.  On land he owned.  On the Far Side of the Moon.
He'd spent nearly two months, over-working to get his plans and materials ready, since his 'day trip' up here.  Fortunately these days he'd the help of Brainless, who honestly seemed to enjoy the more structured (dare he say 'simpler'?) bits.  Though he'd almost nudged him out of his cottage workshop, to the one on the 'SS Champ'.
He'd come up with a new variety of 'paint'.  This took transparent mylar film used for a lot of his work and both strengthened it and made it convert about 25% of the light passing through it into electricity, while still making it almost invisible.  UV and IR too.  He'd treated the mylar pressure dome, the one he'd used to avoiding waving the clay pit, with this.  After tests he thought it ready for Moon duty.
Resources was a major problem[1].  Theoretically handwavium must be capable of transmutation of elements, one reason he thought it was benevolent femtotech[2]. But, that was a can of worms he wouldn't open, just for his own convenience.  The results could be so horribly messy that it'd make juggling anti-matter look user-friendly.
The big problems were nitrogen, for his air, and carbon.  Oxygen was no problem.  Hydrogen was solvable if that mythical Lunar water was actually exploitable.  Otherwise it was asteroid mining time.  That'd give him water ice, and carbon, and he could hope enough nitrogen.  In the short-term he'd enough power to distil nitrogen out of Earth's atmosphere, and bottle it, or stock-up on ammonium nitrate.  And charcoal.
He'd waved the 'Recyclosaurus'.  Sometimes handwavium seemed to like silly things, and this was one of them.  An immense vegetarian dinosaur head and neck, currently attached to a bare frame robot body.  Uran called it "Nom Nom"[3], and insisted it was male.  He'd just slot in the cargo hatch of the 'SS Champ' and his chemical 'stomachs' reprocessed just about anything he ate, into useful feed-stocks.
Brains hadn't much use for Titanium, Aluminium, Magnesium, or even much Iron, at the moment, but something would probably come up.  Some nice stone walls for the garden were worth thinking about, and he'd need to make his own soil.  Plants in tubs would be a good start.
He looked over at the faint distortion where Nom Nom had been dug into the lunar regolith.  He seemed to be making good progress, the measures to stop lunar dust wrecking his works were holding.  That'd been a pain to fix.  The stuff got in everywhere.
Nom Nom's companions, the twin giant Beaver robot builders were doing well.  Following behind they took processed material and built then sealed underground walls.  Brains had named them 'Castor' and 'Pollux', but Uran said one should be called 'Teddy', though she wouldn't explain why.
A few more hours and they could seal the area where the dome was going to be raised, and stop relying on stored power.  The ship itself generated some power, of course, from energy it absorbed rather than diverted around, and the newly installed image system could provide a trickle, too.  Neither had a big enough cross-section, though.  Until he got the deep heat sinks installed this place'd show-up like an infra-red beacon to anyone who scanned it from orbit.  It was a risky time.
Uran had offered to help with the work.  But, the first part was mostly supervision, and he'd prefer to give her opportunity to play, rather than be bored.  He thought she was finishing reading "Harry Potter", at the moment.  Dipping into engineering and technical works when she wanted some diversion.  She seemed a competent programmer, but the subject didn't seem to interest her, in general.  Vehicles also didn't seem to catch her fancy, so she probably wouldn't become a 'Gearhead'.
'Ting!'  This time, unlike on the day trip, he'd brought a way to communicate with the others.  The display showed Pollux was saying they'd completed the first, outer, circle.  It'd seemed sensible not to make them too smart, and that'd worked so far.
Time to go down into the basement...
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

Uh... Terr? Is there something you haven't been telling us?
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."

So... I finally got around to watching the first few episodes of "Legend of Korra."  And so far, it's looking like a worthy successor to ATLA.

But... not far into the first episode, there was a moment of truly epic trollage.  Or shouting-out.  Or... well, it's one of those things that manages to be more than one thing at once.

The scene in question (and those of you who have seen the episode probably already guessed what I'm talking about) is when Katara is asked by one of her grandchildren, "Whatever happened to Zuko's mother?"  Which most ATLA fans know was supposed to be a major element of the originally intended followup series, before the decision was made to go with LoK instead.  
And Katara replies!  "Oh, that's the most amazing story--" and BAM!  Cue interruption by another (and more highly caffeinated) grandchild, and the entire topic gets dropped never to be seen again.

I screamed.  I literally screamed "oh you magnificent BASTARDS, I can't believe you DID that!" at the screen (it helped that I was home alone).  I can't recall the last time I managed to howl with rage and LMFAO at the same time at this intensity.  I had to hit pause and give myself a few minutes just to get my brain back in order.  For a moment there, just a moment, I actually thought they were going to do more than simply troll us on that question.  And it worked b/c it came completely out of nowhere with zero setup... and went back to nowhere almost as fast.

UnbeLIEVable.