Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ Sailor X ❯ SX19: Infiltration (The CYBERWAR series) ( Chapter 19 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Sailor X #19 Infiltration

By: John Brengman

Edited by: Thomas Schell

The Luna Foundation

A group of shapes shimmered into existence in a storage room. Storage
crates nearly filled the area and water dripped from a leaking pipe
somewhere in the distance. The figures spared quick glances to ensure
that the room was secure, then they gathered around their leader.

"So," Sailor Mars said. "What's the plan?"

"Well," Sailor Moon replied as she nudged the nearby metal open just
enough to peek outside. Turning back into the darkness, she said,
"Each of us is carrying two standard explosive charges. The object of
this game is to get as close as we can to the Luna Foundation's fusion
reactors and plant these charges on or near the coolant lines. The
explosion..."

"Any explosion like that will overload the reactors..." Venus broke
in. "And the moon will be blown..."

"Straight to Hell," Sailor Mercury finished.

"Yes," Sailor Moon said with a slight sigh.. "Jupiter, Mars, and
Venus, you'll group up and head straight toward the nearest reactor.
Mercury and I will take a more scenic route and try to draw whatever
they have left to us."

"Danger, violence, and bloodshed," Mercury murmured. "Just the way I
like it."

Sailor Moon glanced at her watch. "It's about time. Let's go."

With murmured approval, the Sailors quietly entered the hallway
adjoining the room that had been their hiding place.

"I hope they'll be alright," Sailor Venus murmured worriedly as Sailor
Moon and Sailor Mercury dashed down a different corridor than the one
Jupiter had decided on taking.

"I'm sure they will," Jupiter replied simply. "We don't have time for
that now. We have to get underground."

"Why?" Sailor Mars asked.

At that point, the lights flickered, then died as the hallway behind
them exploded in flames.

==> * SM * <==

Aboard the Serena

"Electro-magnetic pulse in five seconds," Amy reported from the
science station.

"Steady on the helm," Sailor Neptune said as she spared a glance at
the man at the controls. She listened as Amy counted down the final
seconds until the pulse's emission.

The second after Amy said, "one", the computer displays on the Bridge
winked out. The only light in the room came from the metal-encrusted
surface of the moon.

"What the Hell..." Neptune grumbled.

"I thought this thing was Y2K compliant," Uranus grumbled as she
tapped controls in a vain attempt to get some response.

"Engineering to Bridge," came a voice over the comm system.

"Bridge here," Neptune said as she stabbed at the button. "Please say
you have some good news."

"Well," the engineer replied, "the good news is that we're not dead in
space and we do have access to some systems. The bad news is that we
are not nearly as EMP-proof as we should be, and as a result, most of
the ship's computer connections are disabled. "

"They won't have enough spare processor chips to get the entire ship
running," Amy reported.

"She's right," the engineer agreed. "What do you want us to get to
first?"

"Work on restoring engineering control and weapons," Neptune said.
"We'll need those first."

"Actually ma'am," the engineer said. "You have torpedoes now. All you
have to do is get to the forward torpedo room and manually launch the
torpedoes."

Neptune glanced at Uranus. "Sounds like a job down your alley." Uranus
nodded silently and headed toward the door.

A few minutes later, torpedoes began raining down on the surface of
the moon.

==> * SM * <==

"That's why," Venus replied as she bolted down the corridor with her
fellow Sailors, her face lit by the reddish glow from the emergency
lights "Sailor Moon left orders with the ship to start bombing the
surface."

"It's another way of tricking the cyborgs," Jupiter said as she ran.

Two guards rounded a corner ahead of the on-coming Sailors. Both
raised pistols toward the women and one yelled, "Stop!"

"MARS FIRE IGNITE!" Both men were engulfed by the flames and dropped
to the floor.

"Tell me two things," Mars demanded as the trio continued to run.

"And those are?" Jupiter asked.

"One: why do we have air to breathe here?"

"The same reason we can breathe on our own moon," Venus replied. "The
shielding over the palace keeps an artificial atmosphere in place."

"What's your second question?" Jupiter asked.

"Why are there still guards here?"

"We apparently didn't get them all," Jupiter answered.

"Hold it!" Venus said as she skidded to a stop at an intersection.

"What is it?" Jupiter said as she stopped behind her friend.

"Look," Venus said as she pointed. Down the short corridor to the
right was a large open area. In the center of this, what looked to be
miniature coal cars proceeded past in a quiet and orderly manner,
their silvery metal surfaces glinting in the glow of the emergency
lights.

"The monorail?" Mars asked.

"Looks like it," Venus said. "And if this place is built like our
palace is, we'll be able to take that all the way to the engineering
section."

"I'm way ahead of you," Jupiter said as she ran toward the
slowly-moving cars.

A blast of fire sheared away the cameras that were spaced out every so
often above the narrow walkway in front of this section of the
monorail. Jupiter spared a glance at Sailor Mars.

"You think they'll notice?" Mars asked.

A distant thunder could still be heard as a torpedo from the Serena
slammed into the surface of the moon.

"Hopefully if Sailor Moon and the others are doing their jobs,"
Jupiter replied, "they either don't notice or think that the cameras
were shorted out by the torpedoes."

Sailor Venus quietly studied the passing cars. Suddenly, she tensed,
then leaped from the walkway into one of the cars. The other Sailors
quickly followed suit.

"Get down!" Venus hissed as the cargo cars entered a dimly-lit tunnel.
"There's probably more cameras along the way.

Hidden in this way, the three infiltrators crept into the heart of the
Luna Foundation.

"What's the timer set for?" Venus asked as Sailor Jupiter placed the
explosive charge in a spot where the coolant lines ran behind a wall
conduit.

"Thirty minutes," Jupiter answered.

"Are you sure we'll be able to get out in time?" Mars asked. "It took
us longer than that to get here."

"Yes," Jupiter answered, "but we're not leaving the same way we came."
With that, she began to concentrate on the Bridge of the Serena.

A blast of lasers ripped through the hallway. Sailor Venus and Sailor
Mars turned to face the soldiers who had attacked them. The remaining
laser bolt had exploded against the ceiling near Sailor Jupiter. A
torrent of metal crashed down on the warrior.

Three quick shots downed the guards and the two women turned back to
help their friend. As they helped Sailor Jupiter to her feet, she
winced.

"It's broken, I think," She said.

"Amy will fix it once we get back to the ship," Mars said, the fright
of being shot at in her voice.

Jupiter had started concentrating again, but frustration crept across
her face until with a sigh, she opened her eyes. "I can't do it," she
said. "The pain is too much."

"Try again," Venus replied urgently. "Fight the pain."

"Okay," Jupiter said as she closed her eyes. Finally, the Sailors
could feel a tingling in their hands and feet. "I've got it," Jupiter
shouted. "JUPITER TELEPORTATION MAGIC!"

The three Sailors disappeared.

==> * SM * <==

They re-appeared next to the monorail as a convoy of cargo cars
rumbled past. A stray laser shot above their heads told them they had
again been detected.

"I thought you said you `got it,'" Mars yelled as she returned fire.

"Oh," Jupiter shouted back. "Sue me! In case you hadn't noticed, I'm
in pain!" None of that stopped her from blasting a guard with her
pistol.

"This way!" Venus shouted, pointing to a nearby door. Mars took a
final shot at the remaining guards, then leapt up and ran for the
door, covering Sailor Jupiter as she too limped for the door.

As soon as Mars ducked through the door, it swished shut behind her.

What they saw stopped the Sailors in their tracks.

The room they were in was dimly-lit with large spouts which discharged
a heavy fog that clouded the floor and kept the room at a cool
temperature. Various machines emitted green lights from their control
surfaces as they worked and this light mixed with the fog to create an
almost otherworldly feel.

Metal tables that gleamed from the pale light were spaced out evenly
along the edge of the room, arranged perpendicularly to the walls and
in between the machines. Another table stood just off to the left of
the Sailors. Around all of the tables, machines beeped and blinked as
they processed information. Laying on the tables themselves, were to
bodies of women all of the Sailors recognized.

"Queen Serenity!" They yelled in unison as they rushed to the side of
their beloved ruler. The machine at the head of the table dutifully
monitored the queen's vital signs. All of the indicators were safely
in the green. Sailor Jupiter set about trying to figure out the
controls, while Sailor Venus examined the brace-like device that
covered the area from the abdomen to the upper thigh. Large tubes
connected these devices to inverted pyramid-like machines which were
attached to the ceiling.

Sailor Mars voiced the silent question within Sailor Venus' mind.
"What is this place?"

Sailor Jupiter glanced at the nearby beds before she went back to
studying the control panels in front of her. "It's probably the
cloning facility," she replied quietly. "It's where they get the
cyborg Sailors from."

Sailor Venus touched a button on a control panel nearby. A diagnostic
display appeared. "Look," she said. "This thing extends inside Queen
Serenity! It's harvesting her like a crop! Two hundred-thirty-seven
eggs collected, two clones made, one clone active..."

"I found it," Jupiter said. "There's an emergency procedure. It purges
the harvested eggs and cuts life support. At that point, we should be
able to revive them. How much time do we have?"

Sailor Mars checked her watch. "Just under twenty minutes."

"Okay," Jupiter said. "Sailor Venus, the red button to the far right,
tap it twice, then turn the knob left of that panel to zero. Start
reviving the rest of them." Just then the brace that covered Queen
Serenity began to pull away. It was pulled silently to the ceiling,
slowly withdrawing from Serenity's body. The extraction tube glistened
dimly with secreted fluids as it too was pulled out. Almost as soon as
the alien device had pulled itself out of Queen Serenity's body, she
awoke, her eyelids flickering momentarily before fixating on Sailor
Jupiter.

"Where..."

"You are safe," Jupiter replied gently. "Just hold still for a
second." The quiet whirring in the background told Jupiter that Venus
was well on the way to reviving the rest of the women.

Mars stepped back as the door indicator flickered yellow for a brief
moment. "I think someone is trying to come in," she said.

"How do we get out of here?" Venus asked as she rushed to the side of
the table upon which Ten'ou Haruka's prone form was laying.

"We're going to try teleportation again," Jupiter replied. "Mars,
blast the controls on the door."

"Will do," Mars replied, and soon the door controls were a smoldering
ruin. "That should keep them out for a bit longer."

"Everyone, just gather around me," Jupiter said. Venus helped Kaiou
Michiru to her feet and shepherded both her and Haruka toward Sailor
Jupiter. Quiet questions of where they were and why were they naked
were gently quieted. Again, Sailor Jupiter fixated on the Bridge of
the Serena, and concentrated on keeping that image in her mind.

Finally: "JUPITER TELEPORTATION MAGIC!"

The Sailors and the rest of the group were vanishing just as the
guards broke into the room.

Too late.

==> * SM * <==

"Well," Amy said as she entered onto the Bridge, "our guests are
comfortably asleep. After a few hours of rest, they'll be ready for a
few answers."

"I hate to ask," Sailor Venus said from the communications station,
"but what do we tell them?"

The silence that answered her was almost deafening. Then Sailor
Neptune straightened herself in the captain's chair and answered:

"We tell them the truth. They are this world's version of the Sailor
soldiers. Warriors who fight for love and justice. They are heroes in
a world that's going to need them very soon."

The slight smiles from those Sailors in the room told Sailor Neptune
that they too thought that was the best course of action. For now
however, there was more pressing matters to attend to.

"Time to detonation?" Neptune asked.

"I set the timers for thirty minutes," Jupiter replied. Neptune
nodded.

"There are thirteen minutes left," Sailor Mars said.

"Noted," Neptune replied. "Continue orbital bombardment."

Silently, Neptune reached out to her comrades still within the
recesses of the Luna Foundation. "Please come home soon."

Fanfic ©2000 - John Brengman and Artemis Publishing

Sailor X series inspired by Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon,

© 1992 by Toei Animation Co Ltd. and based on Kodansha's

manga production of "Sailor Moon", written by Naoko Takeuchi

This fanfic is freely distributed. Release date: January 8, 2000

Release: 3^rd Edition: February 11, 2001