Operation Arrakis: Resurrection
by Josh Cochran, Majick, Prophet Kristy, and scifantasy


Kristy knocked on Sci's door. "You wanted to speak to me?"

Sci looked up from his datapad and gestured to a chair. "Yes," he said as 
she sat. "Now that everybody's healed, and I've debriefed everyone, I'm 
preparing the final mission report for Josh to take to General Cracken. 
Thayer's crash, Becki and the actors, Josh's fight with Sahhar, Brad 
planting the charges on the shield and the reactor..."

"Are you putting in the little incident with Brad and Fes?"

"For the moment, no. At the very least, not until I figure out what 
actually happened."

"In other words--"

"Never. Or, probably not. I'll ask him while he's here these next few 
weeks. I'm up to us. You told me when you got back that you had good news 
on the ABC search? Flesh that out a little for me."

Kristy raked a hand through her hair. "As you know, absence of evidence 
isn't evidence of absence."

Sci nodded. He was the only member of Terra Group whose eyes didn't glaze 
over when she went into scientist mode. "So you did find something?"

"Luckily, yes." Kristy pulled her datapad out of a leg pocket of her 
jumpsuit. "I'm still working on my report, but this file doesn't really 
need that much analysis. I had to let Arrek see it, but..."

"Right." A few taps and the translated file was in front of him. "Hm. 
Evidence of absence indeed."

"Yeah." Sci's eyebrows were raised--as much as his eyebrows ever did rise--
as his eyes flickered over the screen. He said nothing, so she continued. 
"There's not a weapons program I can think of that's not on that list, and 
I'm really a big fan of that 'aborted or canceled' phrase."

"So we can assume there aren't any. Good. I'll send that along to our 
friends in the government, just in case."

"Anything else?"

"No, that's about it," he said, tapping at his pad. "The report should be 
ready in--" An alarm blared. Sci and Kristy looked at each other, then Sci 
punched a key on his desk. "Report."

"Sharon here, Sci. Ceres and Vesta posts report a blip on sensors. Too far 
to get a transponder signal, but its vector is for Terra."

Kristy's eyebrows went up. Sci nodded. "We'll be right down."

------

"What do we have?" Sci said as he and Kristy entered the Batcave.

Sharon looked up. "It looks like a standard Lambda shuttle. Transponder 
signal..." She looked back at the computer, then up again. "It reads as a 
standard commercial shuttle. Why--"

Sci walked to a secondary station and worked at it for a few minutes. "Try 
it now." Sharon checked her computer again, and blinked. Sci nodded.

"The list of transponder codes of Intelligence craft is kept a tight secret 
here," he explained. "Separate command ID codes are required every time we 
want to run a check against them."

"That's an NRI ship?"

"Yep. Let's scramble to be ready. I'll call our friends in California, you 
start the sensor clouding."

The ship came in without incident; Terra Group and the SACUL organization 
had gotten very good at clouding the arrival of ships from outside Terra. 
Sci stood with a few of his team is the command room, watching as the ship 
landed. The moment the power was off, the door slid open, and two figures 
came out, carrying a third on a stretcher. Almost everybody gasped as they 
recognized them.

Everyone raced to the hangar floor. Sci quickly spoke into his comlink, and 
when they arrived, Kristy and Mike took the stretcher from Face and Hobbie.

Josh and Sci were left behind, and as Wes came out of the ship to hang back 
by the door, Face gave his story.

"...and Ooryl will bring Nolan and Nick back separately. We hurried, 
because of Syl's injuries. They'll be here soon."

"Good. Everyone else is all right?" Mike re-entered the hangar, and all 
eyes went to him.

"She'll be all right," he said. "Kristy's helping out, too."

"Good," Josh said, still as subdued as he had been since Baghdad. He fell 
silent again as Face answered Sci's question.

"We're all fine, and when last we saw them, Josh, Nick and Ooryl were too, 
as were the droids. Nick and Josh have all three of yours."

"Good."

Suddenly Josh straightened up, and looked at Sci. "Can I talk to you in 
private?"

Sci regarded him coolly for a minute, and turned to Face and Hobbie. 
"Please excuse us. You know the place--feel free to go somewhere more 
comfortable." Hobbie nodded, and went off to the infirmary to see how Syl 
was. Face and Mike headed to the mess. Wes, however, stayed at the ship.

Sci took Josh into one of the conference rooms. "What is it?"

"I...felt something."

"What do you mean?"

"You know that I decided I wasn't going to try to use the Force almost at 
all until I could speak to Master Skywalker?"

"Yes."

"Well, I...I felt something. In the Force. I didn't read anybody's mind or 
anything, just a general sense of the life in the room."

"That hardly seems a problem, even if you did cut back. Sensory extension 
is mild, and you didn't invade privacy or the like."

Josh took a deep breath. "I know, but...I figured you should know that I 
did that, first. I don't like the thought that I'd promise not to use the 
Force, and then go ahead and do it anyway. Anyway...there's someone else 
onboard that ship."

"What do you mean?"

"That's what I felt, when I felt the room. There's a presence aboard the 
ship still. I don't know who, but it felt familiar." Josh stared at Sci, 
his eyes haunted and intense. Sci knew the look; it was one he'd worn a lot 
since Baghdad

Sci nodded slowly. "Thanks. Want me to handle this?"

"I'd rather you did. I..."

Sci held up a hand. "I understand. Go to the control room, watch from 
there."

------

Face and Mike were swapping stories and lies when Sci arrived in the mess. 
He kept his face even as ever as he came up behind the captain.

"Face."

Face turned and smiled. "Hey, Sci. Josh all right? Mike tells me--"

"He's fine. It's you I want to talk about."

"Me?" Face's expression didn't change. Mike cocked his head and listened.

"I'm really not interested in any of our normal back-and-forth, Face, so 
here's the deal...I'll give you one chance to explain the other person 
aboard your ship, but if I don't get an answer right now, I'll start 
blowing holes in bulkheads."

Mike drew a sharp breath. Face kept himself in check. *He's bluffing. Has 
to be.* "I don't know what you're talking about, Sci."

Sci shook his head. "Your loss." He turned and walked quickly out of the 
mess.

This time Face's expression did change--it fell. Mike blinked, but then a 
slow grin spread over his face. "Did you just try to outbluff Sci?"

"Come on," Face said, as he stood.

"And fail?"

"Come on."

"You should have known better."

"Come on!"

------

Sci walked into the hangar bay and headed for the door to the shuttle. Wes, 
who had been sitting on the ramp, stood as Sci approached. "Something 
wrong?"

"Yes. Or there will be if you don't move aside right now."

Face and Mike arrived, breathless, at the door to the hangar bay. Wes 
looked at them, then at Sci. "I can't do that."

Sci shook his head. "You don't have a choice. At the very least you're not 
getting off of this planet until you do." He nodded to the control room.

Josh caught the nod, and entered commands in the computer. The hangar bay 
docking platform locked under Sci and Wes's feet, holding the shuttle in 
place, and the hangar entrance sealed.

Face sighed, then both Face and Mike inhaled as Wes pulled his blaster and 
leveled it at Sci. "You're not going to do that, Sci."

Sci looked at Wes, then the blaster, then Wes. "Insubordination and 
threatening a superior officer? That's not like you."

"You're not my superior."

"I am when we're on this planet."

Face spoke up. "Stand down, Wes. We're not going to get out of it that 
way."

Mike and Wes looked at him as Face raised his comlink to his hand. "It's 
Face. We're blown. You need to come out now."

Wes and Sci stepped back from the ramp as the door cycled open, and a 
figure began walking down.

------

He had forced it down inside of himself - and tried to act as if
everything was normal. More blood on his hands? Perhaps it would assist
in washing off that which was already there. Another ally fallen in
battle? They were volunteers - they knew the risks. Innumerable spells
of injury-induced unconsciousness, cuts, bruises, burns, and broken
bones? *He* was a volunteer, *he* knew the risks...

So he had closed it off. Gone back to normal. For, perhaps, three days.

And there she was, the woman who had handed him the worst beating of his
life, the woman who had left him for dead, the woman who had stabbed
him, poisoned him and generally done nothing in their brief association
to earn his trust.

She was two steps down the ramp when he moved past the other members of
the party. Three steps down when he was halfway across the hangar floor.
Four, and someone called out to him. Five, and she looked up - and
didn't she look tired? a part of him asked. Six, and his leading foot
hit the edge of the ramp. Six, and now she was frozen in place, turning
to face him, her face betraying no expression other than exhaustion.

Later, he would think, he was lucky. A frontal attack? On an opponent
this dangerous? Suicide. Not that such concerns had stopped him at any
point in the preceding weeks.

Six still, and his forearm finds her throat, and he drives her back into
the bulkhead, her head thunking dully against the durasteel alloy wall.

Five, for he has pushed her backwards as well as sideways, and his
blaster pistol clears its holster, the tip of the barrel fitting neatly
into the flesh of her chin. A thought flickers across his mind - I wish
I had my lightsabre! - but he doesn't carry it anymore, not since Hierce
remodelled it. Another loss.

She stares back at him, and there are running feet now. Adrenaline made
him quick, but he has maybe a second left before someone breaks things
up. Wes, he thinks, should have shot him. Why hasn't he?

And then he becomes aware of a pressure against his stomach, a blade
nestled against, in all likelihood, one of the scars that he's picked up.

And wouldn't that be about right? Wouldn't that be fitting? For this
woman, this wraith of a human who has now entered his life three times,
causing violence and pain each time, wouldn't it be fitting for her to
gut him open, maybe even kill him, just as one might think that such
times were past.

His eyes narrowed.

Who the hell did she think she was, whe he was doing so well at taking
one day at a time.

He looked in her eyes, and he knew that she thought he wouldn't do it.

He pulled the trigger.

The blaster flash was muffled by his victim's jaw, but the sound was
unmistakable, and the way she crumpled bonelessly was, he thought as he
tossed away the blaster and awaited the reaction, particularly satisfying.

------

Sci said nothing as the woman he had sent to her death walked down the 
ramp. He barely moved. Alison watched him, waiting for a reaction. Finally, 
he spoke.

"Alison, please come with me. You and I need to talk...and then I have some 
business to take care of."

"What business?" asked Face.

"Insubordination and threatening a superior officer."