Final Steps

                            By:

                         Fox Cutter

12/17/96:

I stood in front of the small observation window of my base
in Earth's asteroid belt, slowly sipping at a glass of
Rithen tea. Through the glass I could see the twinkling of
my native stars, and a few floating rocks some hundred plus
miles away.

The lights in the small room where down low, and not
interfering with my view through the window. I had been
standing there for the past few hours, going through at
least five cups of tea already.

For a few seconds light flooded into the room. It came from
the hallway, as someone opened the door. I didn't move, but
just waited for the door to close. When I did, I was forced
to blink my eyes a bit, letting them readjust from the flash
of light.

As my eyes came back into adjustment to the light, I saw
another reflection in the window. Standing next to me, was
Oriana, looking a little haggard, and like she had just
gotten up.

"Hello Oria." I said.

"Fox," She said, "it's the middle of your night, you're
almost always asleep right now. What's going on?"

I frowned a bit. "I haven't sleep in the past four days,
maybe a quick nap for a few minutes every now and then.
Other then that..." I shrugged.

She shook her head, her hair flipping around a bit. "That's
not good for you."

I sipped my tea. "I'll survive."

Grabbing my shoulder, she turned me sideways. Looking me
right in the eyes, she said, "Talk to me Fox, what's going
on?"

I shrugged away. "I already told you what happened. What's
going on here is finding a way to make me disappear from
Earth, without faking my death."

"That's why you've been staying here?"

I nodded again. "Ya, I've been bopping back and fourth from
Earth a lot to do this, it's safer from here."

She nodded a bit.

"What are you doing here anyways? I didn't think you would
want to get involved with this."

She fluttered her ears a bit. "Fox! Of course I wanted to
help you."

"I... thought not. You've been spending so much time jumping
around, and back at your home, I kind of got the idea that
you where going to move back or something."

He face fell a bit, then suddenly wrapped her arms around
my, and pulled into a tight hug. "Fox, I'm sorry! I've been
working on a gift for you. I almost had it done when all
that stuff with the HammerHeads happened, and some of it
spoiled. I had to get most everything again."

I smiled a bit, and hugged her back gently. This helped to
bolster me a bit, as I had been spending most of my energy
to hold the pain back until everything was finished.

We stood like that for a few minutes, until she pushed back
a bit. "I almost forgot to tell you, the Brothers want to
talk to you."

I nodded, finishing off the last of my tea. "Ok then, lets
go see them."

* * *

"So the plan is," Jock said, sitting back in a chair, "we
tap into your Earth's major computer network, and using a
hypospace transmitter, we send it to a communications laser
going through a fold, and there you go. You communicate
through the link, talking to all the people you need to, and
convincing them your still on Earth. At the same time, we
send a bio-drone down with a supped up teleport curtain. The
bio-drone will fake you moving, and set up shop someplace
else."

I nodded a bit, humming. "Two main problems, one is the lack
of band-with on the type of hypospace transmitter you will
need, so as not to be detected by Earth technology. Second
will the fold here, in the base, be able to stay constantly
open for the com-laser, and not cause the Earth one to
blow?"

Rhan rubbed his bill a bit. "The band-with problem is
expected, but on the fold, no. We can't keep the one here
open like that, but we weren't planning on using it. We
intend to use the third fold.

"It's safe to leave the equipment in open space?"

Rhan fidgeted a bit. "Not exactly. The fold is located in
it's own base of sorts."

I leaned forward. "What do you mean?"

"Ah... well. We investigated the third fold when we started
building the base. We found it was in it's own base, in a
moon around the fifth planet in the system, Jupiter I think
it was called." Rhan paused for a second. "The base appears
to not only be striped, but the room with the fold has no
apparent exits at all."

I nodded. "How do you know it's stripped then, it could be
inhabited and you just couldn't find them."

Jock chuckled a bit. "We took out the flitter on the test
run, and had it equipped with a sounder system. We checked
it out, what's left of the base had a few collapsed
hallways, and no movement at all."

I groaned, "I wonder if this base has any defense systems
that's still active. That could explain what happened to the
probe."

Rhan shook his head. "No, the surface seams to be volcanic
and sulfuric. I doubt there is any surface entrance."

"It's on Io." I said.

He nodded. "Yes, that the name the computer gave."

Jock spoke up again. "Though if you want to look for who
destroyed the probe, you may want to check your own moon.
Remember, we found evidence of life there when we moved your
fold."

I shook my head. "For some reasons, I doubt ancient ruins
have anything to do with this."

Rhan grumbled. "The complex we found was not ancient. There
was a large amount of radio waves and even some hyperspace
communications. It was all originating at one point on the
moon, and set up in such away that it was undetachable from
Earth."

I rolled my fingers over each other. "And you have a picture
of this?"

Jack tilted his head. "Not entirely. We have two frames of
what looks like some sort of base at the origin point. It
was just a flash, and if we weren't looking for it, we would
have never found it. It's covered in some kind of cloak, it
must have just cycled when we got it. A one in a million
change."

I let out a breath. "Can you point out where this base is?"

They both nodded in unison.

I punched a few buttons on the table where were sitting
around. The top cleared, and changed into a map of Earth's
moon. The Brothers looked over the map carefully, then both
of them stabbed a finger down in the same place.

"Here, right here." They both said, still in perfect sync.

They where both pointed at one crater on the front side of
the moon. I pressed a few more buttons. "It's not something
that shows up." I said, looking over the enlargement.

"It's right there in center of the crater, hidden, as I
said." Jock stated, pushing his glasses back up on his bill.

I hit another button on the table. Quickly the name of the
crater was printed out under image. I blinked, seeing the
caption.

"Tycho," I whispered.

"You know it?" Oriana asked, walking from the side of the
room, where she had been standing.

I nodded. "Ya... ya I do." I turned to Rhan. "Please,
_please_ tell me you pick up some kind of traces of magic."

The looked at each other. Then Jock spoke up. "Smothered in
it."

I actually felt myself pale. "How long will it take to get
the flitter set up to get to Earth."

"Three or four days." Rhan said.

I balled my fist up, and bounced it on the edge of the
table. "Get it set up, and start on a high-ban com-laser."

The looked at each other. "That will take days."

"We'll need it."

The Brother and Orian looked at me. "What are you planning
Fox?" Oria asked.

I leaned back. "If I'm right, something a lot more safer,
with faster results." I smiled, and hoped I was right.