Chapter 12
Introductions

Keroro had a hangover the size of a planet. Not a small planet, but a medium-sized, gas giant of a planet. The insistent knock at his door pounded through one swollen ear tympanum and out the other. The sound wasn't the problem. The door wasn't the problem. The way the sound jounced his brain against his swollen menanges was definitely a problem. Slowly he opened sticky, bleary eyes. "Come in." he croaked without so much as shifting on his bed.

The knocking continued.

Keroro rolled over and out of the bed and immediately dry-heaved into a nearby waste basket. That drinking game with that new frog, What was her name? had gone on and on until just before midnight. They'd called it a draw. He remembered that much. He had no idea how he'd returned to his room, but he remembered that much. He looked in the mirror, straightened his cap, snorted some breath freshener and with his best game face stalked over and flung open the door, which was still sounding knock after knock after knock at odd intervals.

"YES?" he bellowed as loudly as he dared over his hoarse throat, "Who the..."

"Senior Airman Hanene reports, sir!" the aquamarine frog in the flight cap and pleated skirt snapped to attention, with her feet properly stepped and her eyes precisely gritted. She saluted crisply and brightly. "Don't you remember me, sir? Last night! Twenty shots? Chasing each other around the Holiday Tree shouting battle sounds?"

Keroro saluted back with little care and less energy. The nerve of her looking so damned lively, and alive, and living and...damn, I need some coffee, I'm starting to sound like Tamama. Bloody female metabolism.

"Oh, I know what you're thinking, sir. It's not metabolism. It's three of these." She offered him three gelatined caplets.

He took one and studied it: held the pill up to the light, sniffed it with his clotted nose, and finally asked, "What is it?" once he concluded that it was neither transparent nor smelled of anything other than gelatin.

"It's vita-amine Beta-six. Give it two hours and all your... err... symptoms will be gone." Hanene explained with a wry smirk, "And if you don't mind me saying so, sir, you look like you need your symptoms gone."

Keroro accepted the proffered tablets and dry swallowed them in three massive gulps. He trudged across the room to his bureau and exchanged his tasseled sleep helmet for a more professional one. He dragged himself to the other end of the room, flicked the cut-off switch for the teleporter and opened his mini-fridge and removed a liter of imported bottled water from some place called Cal-i-for-ni-a. He chugged down the water and then removed another bottle. As he was breaking the seal he noticed Hanene still standing expectantly in the threshold. "You may enter, de arimasu," he growled.

Hanene stepped firmly and confidently over the threshold of Keroro's exclusive domain. She stomped the ground once and the meeting desk flipped from the depression underneath the carpet. She took a seat in what had once been Giroro's preferred chair. She tucked her skirt chastely over her knees and hooked her ankles over one of the rungs. "I was only an Airman First Class before this assignment," she confided to Keroro, "But in an efficiency only the Keronian Air Patrol can explain; they inexplicably bumped me an extra grade. Did you have something to do with that?"

Keroro shook his head and instantly regretted the action. He shuffled over to his seat at the head of the table and did not so much sit upon it as flop into it. He lolled his head back, which gave him a perfect view of the ceiling tiles and gave Hanene a splendid view of his throat. "Kero", he groaned, "I've no idea how that happened, but it sounds like something KAPish."

"So, I've read the expeditionary forces procedures manual on the journey from Regula, but I truthfully have no idea what my duties are here with your platoon? No-one would even tell me why a flygirl was assigned an expeditionary forces posting."

Kero, it is unusual, but not exactly unprecedented, thought Keroro. "What were your duties at your last posting. What were you trained to do?"

"I was trained in aerial reconnaissance and target acquisition, sir." Hanene replied promptly. "That means..."

"You find things for us to shoot at and then tell us when we've shot them." Keroro sighed. I cannot imagine a more useless female to send us. She looks almost bored, as if nothing I could say would excite her in the least. Like she's heard it all. Twice. De arimasu.

"I'm not useless, sir," Hanene protested. "I also have clerical abilities and... other talents from my heritage."

"Kero", the Sergeant considered. What might be her other talents? Those legs are nicely muscled, but those grape-colored eyes? He shuddered and the thin scar-scratches over his nostrils itched. Grapes... "Perhaps you should begin by meeting the team. Once you meet them; we'll see where you fit?"

Hanene nodded placidly. You'd be surprised where I fit. "I memorized your dossiers on my way down. You are Keroro, Sergeant. Your father is in the officer corps and it is rumored that you recieved this posting despite misgivings on the part of both headquarters and the Imperium. You have had over three Keronian cycles to invade Pokopen and have thus far produced no tangible results."

Keroro growled. It's all true, but I don't necessarily want everyone to know.

"Your platoon is composed of four members, in ascending order of rank: Tamama PFC - little more than a mascot - who was dumped on your team before his training was complete. He requested your platoon as first posting and for some reason, unrecorded ,you agreed."

We needed a fifth and he seemed harmless and eager. Keroro snorted, I was like that once. There's something of me in Tamama in me or there was, before I came here.

"Zeroro..."

"He prefers to be known as Dororo now." Keroro interrupted with a smirk. At least everything isn't in the records.

"Dororo", Hanene corrected herself, "Lance-Corporal, mother and father are serrvants to a very wealthy and powerful Keronian family. His six older brothers have all served and died in the Keronian military and his one sister is alive and a tree-doctor with the Planetary Services corp. He removed himself from the platoon in protest after arriving on Pokopen. He reputedly has a deep love of this planet and you filed reports indicating he has actively refused to participate in missions. He was to be your Special Ops and Assassin assignee."

True enough, Keroro agreed silently.

"Then there's Kururu, who has been promoted to Sergeant-Major and inexplicably reduced in rank several times over his career. He was originally slated to the mobile infantry and was implanted with an energy molder, even though he shows no aptitude for launching said projectiles. He was transfered to technical services and now serves as your technician and resident inventor. He..."

Resident arsehole, Keroro corrected silently.

"... has an extensive record for insubordination, fraternization, desertion, and violation of morals and ethics codes. Finally, there's..."

Here it comes, thought Keroro.

"Giroro, Corporal, your close quarters and heavy weapons combat expert. Like most of his specialty he has full control of a subspace storage and retrieval mechanism. After an unexplained attack that drained your supply of medical nanites, the Corporal deserted and has not filed a report since..."

"Technically he's on leave. He had ten years worth of leave saved and..."

"Technically", Hanene amended, "He didn't ask permission, nor did he file any of the correct paperwork. He simply left: absent without leave for more than 15 Keronian days is desertion. You have made no effort to find him."

"If Giroro doesn't want to be found; you'll never find him. Before our invasion he was on the seventh mercenary contact group in a place called Columbia. He was also part of several successful covert invasions. He was a valuable asset." And I miss the arrogant jerk.

"And now he's gone." snorted Hanene.

"And you're his replacement. Technically you've the same rank, but I don't see how Headquarters expected you to fit into a first contact, ground assault team. I don't know how," Keroro sighed, "they expected you to replace Giroro."

"I'll endeavour to do my best, Gunsou-san." Hanene promised: At least I won't desert the platoon. "Well with your permission sir. I'd like to unpack my duffel in the barracks until I find more comfortable quarters? Then I'll go out and meet the team."

"Go right ahead. You access the base by..." Keroro explained, but at his first words of permission Hanene had risen, crossed the room and engaged the hidden stud that activated the teleportation bridge secreted in the refigerator. She opened the gasketed door and stepped through to the brink of the swirling portal.

"Airman!" Keroro croaked sternly. Hanene poked her head back through the gap in the nearly closed door. "How will you find the rest of the platoon?" he inquired with an angled lift of his brow.

"I wouldn't be much good at target acquisition if I couldn't find three frogs, now would I?" Hanene smirked.

He nodded, but the aquamarine female had closed the door and vanished. His headache had slightly cleared and the alcoholic ache in his muscles almost had vanished. Call it a first mission, he giggled, Let's see how well she succeeds to find anyone without even a map. Just in case... I should call everyone and tell them of Giroro's alternate's arrival. He lay down and closed his eyes and awaited the relief the B-6 had promised. In a bit, after my eyes focus.

----

Why? Why? Why! thought Mois petulantly as she packed away the Christmas decorations. I should have destroyed this world when I came home, she swore. Then none of this would have happened, but I couldn't because Uncle was in the healing pod and I wouldn't be able to move him and then Giroro vanished and left me all alone, and I went to sleep because I didn't know what to do and the infosys wouldn't tell me and it's all the Imperiums' fault for wanting to conquer this dangerous little mudball when I could just break it open and end it all, but then Uncle would die too and I cannot kill Uncle. It's all so confusing!

She sniffled. The ribbons for the tree had been repurposed from the "Great Grape Celebration", as Uncle called it and I needed a party to clear my head, but it never happened because someone hurt Uncle and Giroro and now Headquarters ruins Christmas and sends us this... this... this... "Blue Bitch," she muttered under her breath.

"Creamy Aquamarine." a silky voice behind her corrected.

The voice jolted Mois out off her scattered reverie. She put on her sweetest sweet-lil-ol-me face before turning to confront her interruption. "Hiya Hanene! What do you mean?"

"I'm not a Blue bitch." Hanene continued. "My mother was from the Ninja clans and my father was a yellow-cream. I'm how the genes turned out," Hanene pirouetted so that her battle skirt flared. "I kind of like the result. Don't you?"

"But shouldn't you be a green like Uncle then?" Mois blurted, "And isn't that a skirt?"

Hanene looked down at her skirt, "Not jeans as in pants. Genes as in genetics. Surely you know the difference?"

Mois nodded, but Hanene was convinced that the blonde Angol had no idea of what she spoke. "Anyhow," Hanene offered her hand and Mois shook it with a mock smile. "I look forward to working closely with you."

"Me too!" said Mois brightly and she resolutely and dismissively turned back to folding the Christmas wrapping paper; she dug her hands into the box of tinsel and foam angels. Sparkly, she thought. She could still feel Hanene behind her, but refused to look at her.

"Where might I find...," Hanene paused in thought to sort the names of the platoon, "Tamama Nitouhei?"

"Try Momoka's 'palace'", Mois primped, "He hasn't checked in."

"Map's in the DB?" Hanene queried with a lift of her brow.

"Maybe?" replied Mois sweetly. She spared Hanene a sharp glance. "You could say, I've never looked and we all know how to get there."

More art by Luna Obraz

For a split second Hanene's eyes bore into the Angol's. While the pupils of one constricted, the other's dialated. Mois felt a sharp pain in her hind-brain, and she felt as though she could not turn, could not look away from those probing violet eyes. The tableau held and Mois' shoulders turned and then her hips, so that she completely faced the frog.

"Ahhhh..." breathed Hanene, "I see now. So that's the way it is." Hanene fixed the blonde form-shell of the Angol with another deep gaze, then turned on heel and left.

Blue Bitch, thought Mois as Hanene glided away.

Annoying Angolian, Hanene swore silently as she strode purposely through the storage sliding metal door.

The door slid closed and separated the females.

----

Tamama squared off. He planted his left foot behind and his right foot in front, then he hopped and switched stances. "Begin!" he commanded.

On the other side of the room the auto-manequins rose. One had the visage of "the woman" and the other the face of a certain demon-haired Pokopenian. They moved mechanically as befitted mechanisms: they bowed then fell into fighting stance. The first dropped into the attack pose of the ancient Angolite fighting discipline Omnite and the second assumed a guard posture in the Pokopenian Akido form.

Close enough, Tamama thought. Kururu did a fair job. Much better than taping faces to the chest of stationaries. He motioned the auto-manequins, "Come Challengers!"

The auto-manequins advanced on him and Tamama went into motion. He jumped prodigiously and spun in the air, with each turn he gained momentum. He stuck out his left foot at precisely the correct instant to strike the Mois-quin's left shoulder. The auto-manequin lost its balance and flailed over to the left as it went down. Simultaneously, metal fingers of the right hand arced towards his belly in a gutting stroke. Tamama grasped the right wrist firmly, flipped the arm over and sat squarely on the reversed elbow. Metal creaked and gave way and the arm bent unnaturally and splintered.

Tamama had no time to admire his handiwork. The Natsumi-quin's foot was arcing towards his head. He jumped straight up and the foot sliced air where he had once sat. Tamama executed a midair flip and twist. His feet came down piledriver straight onto the Mois-quin's chest and dented it firmly. Flashing LEDs indicated the breakage of three ribs and a probable cardiac arrest. The Mois-quin was marked out of the combat.

The Natsumi-quin was already shifting balance to the other foot: the kick foot became the balance foot and the former balance foot kicked PFC Tamama squarely in the side. She has never done that before, he observed as he was airborned by the attack. Kururu said they could learn my technique and adapt though. He splatted unceremoniously into one padded wall and slid to the ground. He rolled over to see the Natsumi-quin stalking toward him. She had, in her own mechanical way, the same detestable confidence of the Pekopenian upon which she was modeled.

Tamama filled his mind with rage. He looked into the metal visage, with its glowing red jewel eyes, and thought of the similarly colored oak eyes of the Pekopenian. He thought of the satisfaction he saw in them everytime she stomped Gunsou-san. He thought of how she'd broken his own jaw. He thought of the slight scars on Gunsou-sans perfect features. He summoned all his anger and hatred and shame into a single killing rage. From within Tamama's chest there rose a moan, that lengthened and volumed into a wail as he gritted his eyes and flung back his head.

The Natsumi-quin reared back to deliver a killing kick to his head.

"IM-PA-A-A-A-A-CT!" Tamama screamed and brought his face down. A beam of pure anger emerged, formed and columinated on the implant on the back of the undifferentiated jaw-bridge, and spat passed his rolled-back lips. The killing lance of energy shot under the Natsumi-quin's swinging foot and through the knee of the supporting leg. The Natsumi-quin froze, mid-kick, and toppled. The sexless machine bounced twice upon the hard floor. The severed leg, still in a thigh-high kick boot, sparked from the detached end.

The Natsumi-quin started to rise onto its hands and over its shoulder Tamama could see that the Mois-quin was also struggling to its feet. He braced himself for a second onslaught. His mind was working furiously. Kururu said they have weaknesses, but I don't see them yet!

"Master Tamama," a familiar baritone voice interrupted the frog's thoughts. "You have a visitor."

Tamama panted and with a slight trace of annoyance shouted, "Challengers halt!" The mechanical apparitions stopped and righted themselves to parade rest as much as missing and bent anatomy would allow. At Tamama's further command they marched or hopped away and secreted themselves back in their respective storage modules. The Natsumi-quin stopped only to pick up her severed calf. Tamama turned and galloped over to Paul.

"Me? A visitor?" his young voice chriped in curiosity. "Who is it?" He brightened - his eyes sparkled, his cheeks flushed as a wide smile spread across his face. "Is it my Gunsou-san?"

Paul coughed politely and shook his head ever so slightly, without disturbing his regal attentiveness, "She calls herself Senior Airman Hanene."

Tamama slumped in dissapointment. "Aw, that must be the newbie sent to replace Giroro-san." He moped for a moment over to the weightbench and sat with a sigh before waving his hand in a dissmissive manner. "Go ahead. Let her in."

"I let myself in, thank you," Hanene's smooth voice announced as she slipped past an annoyed and now dutiless Paul. "That was a very controlled Impact," Hanene observed, with a nod to the tightly focussed smoking pit in the far wall. "I was told you lacked any reservation with your attacks." She sauntered over to the weightbench.

Tamama dismissed Paul with a nod and hopped from the naugahyde of the bench's bed. The dark teen-frog dabbed at his sweat-slicked forehead with the towel he slung around his neck. "Hello, Senior Airman-san!" he chirped, "I have trained hard at my control." He nabbed a bag of potato chips from the collection of snacks by the weights bin, ripped open the seal, and stuffed a double handful into his mouth. "Wha' brings oo here?" he mumbled mannerlessly around the crunching mouthful.

"Nothing much," she replied as she made her way over to him. "I just wanted to introduce myself to the platoon personally."

He dipped into the bag and added a second mouthful to the already half-chewed first mouthful. An Impact required a high energy volume and Tamama was anxious to recharge. "'S nice to mee' oo," he rumbled through the additional mouthful of chips. He held out a salty, grease-covered hand to shake.

Hanene winced as bits of chewed chip flew everywhere. Who knows where that hand has been? "Honestly, Nitou-kun, is that any way to talk to someone? Especially of higher rank?" she admonished. She nabbed his chin in her hand and wiped the errant bits of snack crumbs from his face with one of the flaps of her cap. "There now. Much cleaner."

Tamama flailed just like any child would when being made to hold still for a face wipe. "Mou, you're not my mother! Lemme go!"

"No, I'm not. But your mother would have done the same, am I right?" she released him and gave his head a fond pat. "I can also tell that your mother must be very proud of you for becoming part of a well-known platoon at such a young age."

Tamama blushed and fidgeted under her praise. Something stroked the inside of his skull as he looked into Hanene's eyes.

"What's going on in here?!" came a sudden furious question from the doorway. "What are you doing to him!" Momoka barged into the room. Her purple eyes were tinged with crimson. Her hair levitated away from her scalp. The air around her crackled with static charge.

Hanene merely looked up at Momoka with the same bored countenance she had reserved for Keroro. She glanced at the Pokopenian up and down, assessing her. "Oh, good morning to you, miss," she pronounced. "I was merely introducing myself to my new comrade-in-arms," she explained. She removed herself from the doe-eyed Tamama and approached the electrically-visaged girl. "I am Senior Airman Hanene," she said and added a perfect formal curtsy.

Momoka's anger was thrown off-guard by the calm that this new blue frog exuded, as well as by her manners, and Momoka's sinister persona reeled back, replaced in an instant by her shy facet. She returned the curtsy with her own. Hanene watched and deepened her own curtsy so that her head was in the end lower than Momoka's.

"It's nice to meet you," Momoka husked, pleased at Hanene's proffered sign of respect. "Tamama told me that there was to be a new frog to be sent here," she remembered. "But I had no idea it was to be a female. I'm sorry for my earlier outburst."

"Not at all," Hanene smiled to show that there was no harm done. "It is natural to be protective of your friends."

Momoka casually sat on the bench of a shoulder press machine and asked, "Did you enjoy your journey to Earth?"

"Pokopen..." lisped Tamama helpfully around yet another mouthful, this time of pretzels. The empty bag of potato chips lay discarded at his feet.

Hanene sat on the floor before Momoka. "I'm not sure which was worse. The trip up from Regula prime in a shuttle with eight drunken Regulans, one of which couldn't stop wagging his tails in my face and all of which smelled like rotting dung OR the trip down from orbit here. The navy flyboys let me out only long enough to unstow my duffel and then they packed me into another pod and shot me into the atmosphere here. Most of the time in between I spent packed into a tube cold enough to force me into hibernation - that was a three month nightmare: feathered tails swishing in my face and the constant smell of dung."

Momoka listened respectfully. Part of her decided she liked this intelligent and sensitive frog, but was afraid to say so, while the other part admired the straight talk and bravery, and seethed at not being able to declare it. "Someday we'll have to take you to Daddy's island. We finally got the weed problem under control and it's beautiful again. Maybe next spring?"

Hanene nodded. "I would indeed enjoy that... Ms... Ms..."

"Oh, I'm so sorry! My name is Momoka."

"I would indeed enjoy that Momoka-san." Hanene nodded respectfully. She remembered the name from one of the mission reports. Something about this Pokopenian being centrifuged into two distinct personalities and then re-integrated in some sort of bathing ritual. No wonder she seems to be of two minds. This one could definitely be a threat to the invasion - money, power, and a base of operations. Best to be careful. The aquamarine frog sniffed suddenly. The air smelled of frigid mint with just a touch of something metallic. She remembered that description from one of Giroro's reports. She turned to look out one high window and could see the ominous clouds rolling over the nearby forest. "Oh, darn. There's one of those blizzards coming."

She rose, backed respectfully away from the still munching Tamama and the now confused Momoka, who were both blinking curiously.

"I would love to stay and chat a little longer," Hanene explained, "but I must return to base and settle my quarters before the snow comes. It was nice to meet you both," she bowed deeply to them both before turning and trotting out the door.

----

Koyuki and Dororo fixed each other with the ten click stare of the communications jutsu. They were oblivious to the snow gusts, which blew around them like a swarm of stinging needles. The were oblivious to the falling temperatures, which iced the ground and chilled the blood. They were oblivious to the ten centimeter sway of the cables that were strung from one tower to the next. They were oblivious to the hum of the transformers above their perch. They felt, saw, and heard nothing. They tasted and smelled only each other. For all the attention they paid to the environment, they might as well have been basking in the hot summer sun.

This is the way of the ninja. Dororo explained, there is no cold. There is no hot. There is no wind. There is no snow. There is only reality and reality is first how you perceive it. As it was in the summer when you felt no heat, so it is in the winter and the opposite extreme.

So, extremes cannot have an effect on us? Koyuki inquired with a raise of an eyebrow. "Certainly if we stay out here we'll soon freeze?"

"With your eyes, Koyuki, and your mind," Dororo admonished, Not with your mouth...

Oh, yes. I'm sorry. I forgot. Koyuki closed her eyes meditatively, shutting her mind off from Dororo's.. She reached within herself. There were embers within her: a burning - deep and slow and passionate. She nursed the embers into a fire and then stoked that into a blaze. A bonfire grew within her and the snow clinging to her face and hair, to her skin and the metal pole melted. Water dripped from her and trickled downwards, freezing as it quitted her skin and crystalizing the moment before the wind blew it away. Her body temperature ticked upwards degree by degree.

Very good, Koyuki. She tries hard does she not, clan brother?

What? My eyes are closed! she opened them both with a nearly audible click and almost tumbled from her perch.

Next to her Dororo was almost similarly unsettled and unseated.

In front of them hovered a sky blue skimmer and on the skimmer was the most beautiful Keronian that Koyuki had ever seen. Koyuki evaluated her silently. Her limbs were spindly, as were all Keronians. Her eyes were shaped like almonds with high arches, and her eyelids fell at half mast. The irises were almost purple, almost violet, which was usual, but those windows to her soul weren't what made her particularly lovely. What is it? It's your pelt, Koyuki decided, you're the most beautiful color I've ever seen.

Koyuki put a hand out to steady Dororo, who had assumed an offensive posture with his Katana drawn. With Koyuki's hand upon his shoulder he relaxed by degrees. He calmed, but his sword remained unsheathed. Finally, his eyes spoke, Who are you? I know not your color, nor your clan.

The creamy-aquamarine intruder locked eyes with Dororo."My mother was of the blue clan just as you are but my father was...", came her velvet-soft reply. The words were to Koyuki's ears reminiscent of a warm spring day, and even though her internal heat was ebbing and the snow was once more clinging to her skin; the words warmed her.

Dororo was not impressed by the voice. He winced and his eyes crossed. He shook his head violently and almost lost his balance again. "I care not of this! Who are you?" He bellowed over the wind, which seemed to have chosen that moment to switch from a panting dog gust to a roaring tiger rush.

"I'm Senior Airman Hanene."

"Why do you disturb us?"

"I did not wish to disturb you. I made it my mission to introduce myself to my new platoon formally. I happened to see you and hovered up to say 'Hello'."

How nice of her, thought Koyuki. She smiled at Hanene and was unsurprised when the creamy aquamarine face returned the gesture. Unlike the late and unlamented Giroro, whose teeth were carnivorous daggers, or Dororo and Keroro, whose teeth were tiny molars and needlelike pegs, or Tamama who had no differentiated teeth at all; Hanene's teeth were a collection of perfectly aligned needle-sharp incisors. She had two less pronounced cutting fangs and a less exensive collection of molars. Pure omnivore, thought Koyuki. Idly her tongue explored the misplaced eye tooth in her own mouth. I'd love to meet her orthodontist.

She abruptly was returned to her own reality; Dororo snorted a grunt, which was the first time Koyuki had ever heard such a coarse sound escape his nostrils. "Then say it, and begone. You are interrupting our training." Dororo snapped. "This is a private time."

Hanene nodded. She nodded first at Dororo and then at Koyuki. "I look forward to working with you, Lance Corporal Dororo," she said formally. "I greet you, Koyuki." Then she nodded once more and with a barely unnoticible twist of a delicately strong hand on one control knob, Hanene spun the skimmer out and away. She traced a looping s-curve to the ground then kicked in the afterburner and sped at head height all the way down the block in the direction of the Hinata house. In the twinkling of an eye the snowstorm had swallowed her and the tiny craft.

The high tension tower overlooking the fields at Kisshou Middle school was silent once again.

"Why did you do that, Dororo?" protested Koyuki. "She seemed... nice."

"Do not trust half-breeds, Koyuki. The blue clans are pure, and there is honor in purity. There is no honor in breeding..." Dororo spat. "that!"

Koyuki shook her head. She closed her eyes so that Dororo could not see her thoughts. Froggy racism. I never thought I'd live to see the day. I don't care. I think she's lovely... Koyuki reached inside herself and sought her inner fire again and let the warmth settle over her in wave after wave of body heat mixed with something else... something... Beautiful...

Already a half-click away, a skimmer settled into the backyard of the Hinata home. Hanene dismounted - away from the skimmer's inclement weather protection bubble, she shivered. Nevertheless, as she trudged through the rapidly accumulating snow and inched open the sliding glass door; she found herself smiling back at the distant high-tension tower tops. "I'm beautiful, Koyuki?" Hanene considered, and could not help but agree. "Yes, I am, but I'm more than just a pretty face."

----

Hanene could only wonder at the tiny speakers set into the corners of the control room door. Their only purpose seemed to be to open said doors with an affected swish when her palmpad granted her entry. At least Keroro thought to have me entered into the security system, she mused, or maybe Mois did it. No matter... she braced herself for one or the other to be in occupancy, but the expansive hall was empty. Her only previous view of the control room had been of a smashed and shattered wasteland, windstrewn with paper and salted with fragments of glass. The Keroro platoon... My platoon, she corrected herself... had obviously been busy. The main base was a sharp contrast to the barracks. The broken monitors had been replaced as had the conference table. The floor had been polished recently and the tiles showed not even a scuff mark. The trim of the consoles was black matte and the silver highlights shone. Not a scrap of paper was in evidence. The local dust bunnies had starved to death. Someone's good at housework, she smiled and nodded.

She oiled into a seat that was built for someone much larger and made herself comfortable. Probably the Angolian handles communications? Hanene leaned into the console and tapped keys. On the monitor she observed a seam appear in the roof of the Hinata home. A subspace radio parabolic reflector rose through the slit, opened like Morning Glory and pointed its petals into the deepening dusk. Servos whined until the relativistic stamen pointed, and then arc micron by micron, tracked a single point of "empty" sky.

Hanene donned the headphones and operator's boom microphone. She spoke at a whisper and trusted to the signal amplifiers to do their proper work. "This is Blue Sky to Headquarters. Blue Sky 71 calling Headquarters. Come in Headquarters. Are you there Headquarters? Over." She keyed her handprint into the encoder and set the scrambled message carrier to repeat at intervals until answered. The message, even at subspace speeds, would require many minutes to flash to the distant satellite outside Sol's gravity well, require many minutes more to be packeted and relayed through hyperspace, and then would require an equal amount of time to be reassembled at Headquarter's end. Most of the wait, however, would be consumed by the shuffle through the bureaucratic Keronian switchboard. Her mission identifier would have to be matched to her encoded biometric data, then matched to an official, that offical summoned to the link, the official verified and secured, the link verified and secured, but once secured and locked to channel, the conversation would be nearly instantaneous.

In signal class Hanene had once asked, "How can a converstion across millions of light years be instantaneous? That violates basic physics and general relativity!"

The teacher had answered, "I'd tell you, but your head might explode."

"Try me." Hanene remembered challenging.

"Pure Fricking Magic." had been the response.

Yup, Hanene reflected, as she spun a twist of her hair around her fingers, Pure Fricking Magic that the Generals at headquarters can even run an intergalactic military under the weight of so much red tape!

A Pokopenian hour clicked by and then a second piled upon the first. Hanene lounged in the seat. She played windpaddle with a self-adhesive note, blowing the scrap skyward and then mentally timing how long she could keep it aloft before her lungs emptied. Fliers need excellent lung capacity. She kept practicing until she fell into a hyperventiliation induced slumber.

The third hour was just electron ticking over the digitals of the display chronometer when a voice , thick with too much grog and not enough sleep, husked into her earspots, "Blue Sky 71, this is Headquarters. I am Third Adjutant to General Demoro. What is your status?"

Hanene was instantly awake. Her eyes flicked from closed to open before settling to their usual half-flag. "This is Blue Sky 71. I have arrived at Basecamp Keroro. I have met the team. They are as we suspected - indolent, distracted, and disorganized. They lack any semblance of discipline, and from what I seen, have ignored the mission objectives. What are my orders?"

If the Third Adjutant to General Demoro had any emotional investment in his words, his deadpan delivery returned neither principle nor interest. "We had feared this was the case. After careful analysis of intelligence reports, we have identified the most dangerous Pokopenian element. We wish this element neutralized."

The screen cleared and the image of the Third Adjutant was replaced with an image of a smiling Pokopenian girl. As the video played she stamped, kicked, and otherwise pummeled Hanene's fellow platoon members. Keroro's head was flattened against the wall until it smushed. Tamama's jaw splintered from a well-aimed kick. Dororo was chased up a tree and rocks were thrown at him. Giroro's nose bled at the girl's mere touch. "I am familiar with the target," Hanene said.

"We want her neutralized by any means possible." The voice repeated. "Headquarters out!"

The screen clicked to blank before Hanene could respond.

----

Hanene wandered the corridors until she spied signs for the barracks. There were four beds with perfectly straight, hospital corner military-issue sheets. At the foot of each was a lock box. The sheets were all dusty with disuse. The lockers had no locks. No-one had slept here since the beds had been made and probably since the base had been carved from the bedrock. Hanene tossed her duffel on the bunk and wrinkled her nose at the cloud of dust that rose. First things, come first. she thought. She roughly pulled one of the sheets down and sneezed at the resulting cloud. This time, more carefully, she rolled the sheets - cover, top and pad - downwards to form a tube of sheet and grime.

Question is: where do I take this? The incinerator? If this were Keron; I'd just hang them outside until the rain washed them clean. She patted the exposed mattress and smiled thankfully that no dust rose. At least I can keep the mattress. Hanene slung the dirty sheet and bed pad over her slight shoulders and toted the package down the hall and wandered aimlessly until, quite by chance, she found the stairs down to the pool and steamroom. She brightened. "Steamroom, that's it!" she cackled.

She padded down the steps and entered the steam room, which was arid and cool and showed little sign of use. As dry as the air is on Pokopen, I'd expect they'd practically live in here. Hanene hung the sheet from one of the towel racks and stretched it across to the other. She tied off all four of the corners and alternately pushed the two racks until the sheet was suspended above and in front of the steam vents. She clapped her hands together and rubbed them clean of encrusting dirt. She walked outside and sealed the door behind her. She twisted both the heat and humidity knobs hard over and watched as both dials climbed from subteranean Pokopen-normal to Keron surface-average. The windows of the steamroom were already white with mist, beads were forming and ruvlets of water were trickling downwards. She set the timer for 5 hours and set her mobile-communicator's timer alarm to match. She turned on heel and toe and, refreshed by her ingenuity, jogged two at a time back up the stairs.

She turned the corner at the top and came face to face with herself, albeit reflected and distorted by a huge pair of swirly, reflective lenses. Her half-lidded eyes rose at their centers. Her pupils widened. She looked from the flat yellow brow, down the wide yellow nose, passed the gleaming white overbite to the bobbing apple of the throat. Down. Down. Her head lowering: the hunched shoulders, and the potbellied stomach. She found her gaze had wandered all the way to his feet and her head was bowed. She inhaled a shuddering breath and felt her knees tremor, then craned her head back up to look him in the lenses again.

I never thought he'd be this handsome. His file doesn't do him justice. She dropped one leg behind her, lowered her gaze again to his feet, and fanned her skirt in a hasty curtsy. "Sergeant Major Kururu!"

He half-grunted an unintellible response and pushed passed her to the stairs. She watched him disappear down the steps. An involuntary sigh caught in her throat as she straightened from her prostration. Her mind raced: the smell of him, his color, his slick skin, and those mirror-shaded eyes. I wonder what color his eyes are? She thought, and resolved, as she turned down the hall to the bunk room, that someday she would know, but this is going to be a hard nut to crack.

----

Kururu padded down the stairs. He passed the steam room on his way down to the pool. He desperately needed to feel clean after four hours atop the greasy innards of the mecha Keroro had ordered him to create for Giroro's replacement. That task on top of programming the base controls to respond to her had put him in a foul mood. He hadn't known her, but already he had hated her. And then to meet the little frog-bitch? He swore silently. That was worst of all. I'll have to bring her down a peg or three for putting me to all this trouble? He giggled at the thought.

A puff of steam escaping the seals of the steam room caught his attention. He padded back to investigate. The controls were set high enough to boil flesh from bones, and the timer stood at nearly five hours. Someone must be awfully steamed, he giggled. He stood on his tiptoes to peer into the foggy window.

Inside two sheets were absorbing the fine mist and by stages discarding their dingy appearance. Small ruvlets of muddied condensate were creeping down their surfaces. One trickle was even meandering slowly across the floor to the drain.

"Clever," he said, then he thought of the aquamarine female in the corridor. Could she? This? Naa-a-a-a-h. No female is this smart!

He resumed his trudge down to the pool and the hot tub and relief for his aching joints and muscles. Still, not a bad idea. I'll have to try it sometime.

----

As Hanene unpacked, she forcibly removed all thoughts of the yellow hacker frog from her consciousness. The thoughts were too distracting: daydreams, fantasies, even some that were rated for mature-frogs-only. Instead she bent her brain to her will and considered her orders from Headquarters. How can I neutralize a female of another species, who has defeated a whole platoon on many occasions? she wondered. She hummed as she unpacked her duffel into the storage locker.

First came the fragiles, all individually wrapped in layers: her lifelens with night- and infra-vision attachment were on top, then the boxed set of six micro-fusion initiators, which were all deactivated. Next came the collection of blank info-crystal rods and the recorder-with-a-thousand-jacks.

I could record Natsumi's every move with these, but what would that gain me? she thought.

She dug deeper into the duffel bag and pulled from the cloth abyss a single tracker crystal. I should have brought more than one of these, Hanene derided herself, but next is the prize.... she reached inside and removed her birthday gift from her father: within a hollow force-ring crystals floated on seeming fluid. It was hers. Her device. And to be frank, I have no idea what it does. she spared herself a single laugh. "Ha-ne-ha-ne." enough of that.

How will any of this help me subjugate that Pokopenian? she wondered. Giroro would know. He has fought these creatures before now and he knows this one particular creature better than anyone! She unpacked through the rest of her kit in quick order: skirts, vests, a formal, emergency medical supplies, survival gear, okay, why did I bring the desert stuff, I knew I wasn't going to Tatooine. Shelving and stowing all the gear required much more time and energy than removing it from the bags. She heard Kururu, she presumed, pad back past the barracks door and some hours later the timer alarm on her mobilecom warbled a merry tune. She recovered her sheets from the steam room, which were indeed clean and comfortably damp. She fitted them over the mattress, huddled underneathe her insulating survival blanket and fell instantly to sleep.

----

Giroro straightened the tie of his suited, salaryman-equin and considered his reflection in the restaurant's restroom's mirror. He turned up his NMP field as high as he dared and exited into the crowd at the bar. There was still some fringing about his skullcap flaps, he noted as he caught his reflection in the polished chrome of a lottery mending machine. Not that any Pokepenian stared at him; quite to the contrary, few seemed to be looking his way at all.

In such a populated city as this one, everyone might have a field too? He considered and then discarded the proposal as outrageous. The Pokopenians of this city are merely adept at ignoring one another.

His contact was reclining in one booth with his too long legs drooped across the seat. His long, thin face drooped over a long, thin menu. His long, thin eyes darted back and forth across lines of text and skimmed the images. He hailed a waitress with one long, thin finger and ordered fish and chips through his long shark-slash mouth. He was a Doradoan: scaly, finned, with a long pointed snout and gills pulsing behind the seals of his environment suit. Nevertheless, he looked quite confortable as he toyed with his glass of salted water and paused now and again to admire a Pokopenian woman as she strolled down the length of the bar.

Giroro slid into the seat opposite the semi-aquatic foriegner. He cleared his throat and the alien regarded him dully. Nicitating membranes clicked upwards to wash the fishy eyeballs. He rasped, "Greetings Keronian. What mus-s-s-t you be about?"

Giroro returned the greeting blink. He leaned close and talked low, "I need my Keronian military credits exchanged for local currency and I need a motivator impeller repaired."

Inside his suit and behind the NMP field the alien's tail swished thoughtfully. "Always down to business you frogs. You take no time to sample the local cuisine." The fish's bulbous eyes followed the swaying hips and pendulous mammaries of another waitress. He sighed contentment, then swished his tail once again. He seemed to be calculating. Minutes ticked by when he finally announced, "I can exchange your MC-s-s-s at the local rate of 11 to 1. You won't find a better rate."

Giroro nodded. Of course, I will not find a better rate. All the invaders have gone to ground since this country fears illegal aliens. He felt for his subspace pocket and found it still followed him. cold and comforting. There was ammunition inside and enough weapons to defend his tree fort should the shadowmen ever choose to invade him. He could not pawn his arsenal for cash; if he hoped to defend such an onslaught. "I shall take the rate," Giroro said softly. "What about the motivator?"
The waitress brought the alien an appetizer: green vegetable flecks swimming in a coagulated soup of yellow cheese. The bowl was formed of yeasty sourdough bread. The scent of so much concentrated rancid milk-fat made Giroro's nose itch and he reached for a napkin. He sneezed hard and examined the mucus for a hint of blood, but there was none. The fish was already slurping impolitely at the soup. His lips fluttered over the spoon's broad bowl.

"Ah, now there be the shedding scale my froggy friend. I will have to import a motivator and it won't be cheap." He pointedly jabbed the spoon Giroro's way.

Giroro asked the obvious question in the obvious way. He crossed the mecha's arms over the ridiculously broad chest. He leaned back against the seat. He braced himself for the bad news and croaked, "How much?"

The fish told him.

Giroro calculated. That amount is a few 100,000 more than I have saved my whole career, but again what choice do I have? "Order it. And I'll need something else."

The alien spooned another few mouthfuls. His lips fluttered. "What?"

"I need employment." Giroro said.

The fish guffawed. His gills worked merrily behind the suit's fabric. Eventually he calmed enough to answer. "Now, with th-aa-a-t I cannot assist you, but there be plenty of wor-r-r-k in the City for-r-r-r a man with fortitude and drive. May I make an obs-s-sservation?"

Giroro nodded.

"NMP fields blow scum. You need one of these." the fish appraised. He reached under his seat and removed a briefing case. A single metal loop of chain links, a little larger than Giroro's natural chest, lay on a foam cushion. A bejeweled collection of power guides and other components he didn't recognize hung at the end. "It's the latest out of the Megi cluster. An NMP field just makes you socially invisible by making the Pokepenian mind see what they think they want to see, but if you interact with a Pokopenian they see you as you are."

Giroro nodded. He knew this limitation all to well.

"This goes one better. It fools the Pokopenian mind into thinking you are one of them even if you do interact. It won't work on electronic devices, but other than that, ver-r-r-ry useful."

Useful indeed. Giroro tried to appear non-chalant as he considered. Does it even work? I've never heard of this before now. He pondered, fully considering that the device could be a flim-flam, a charlatan's fakery, when suddenly he realized that the fish must be using one himself. How else could he order from the wait-staff and flirt with the females unless he didn't look like a suited fish? Pokopenians may be oversized apes, but they aren't that stupid. "How much?" Giroro grunted, his enthusiasm well-hidden.

The fish named a price only roughly double what an NMP field cost, new.

Giroro nodded his assent.

"I will deduct the appropriate amount when we transfer your credits. You can cha-a-a-ange into it before you leave." the fish burbled affably. He quite loved when he made a sale. "Here," he added generously, "try the soup, bad might it smell, but taste good it does."

Giroro picked up his spoon from the yet unused place setting and dippered a spot of the loathsome concoction out of the alien's enormous bread-bowl. Yes, he reflected, but at what can a professional dangerous man find work? He spooned the cheesy goop past his carnivorous teeth and sucked it onto his tongue. He found the taste slightly salty and fishy and not half so rotted as he expected, though he nearly choked on the slime of the cheese.

Not bad though.

----

Keroro shuffled the papers at his desk. Before him, above his wide-screen television, hovered a tiny spatial disturbance, a wormhole, or as he liked to call it "the magical emergency paperwork transporter" - used by headquarters to teleport extremely important written order to field leaders. Only two sheets of paper had arrived via the spatial eddy and both had demanded an immediate reply, so the wormhole had remained open. The rest of the paper had arrived in the more traditional manner. His platoon had emailed him and he had printed their missives. Save Dororo's, whose report had simply fluttered down out of the ductwork.

One by one he read the superficial impressions of each platoon member of their new arrival. Dororo said she was untrustworthy and warned of her "hidden agenda". Tamama babbled that she was overbearing "and like my mama". Mois complained merely "she uses big words all the time. She is, you could say, too clever for the river". Kururu's page was a stream of complaint over how much extra tech work she was causing. No-one had any suggestion how she might best be utilized. Despite the words no-one said "get rid of her."

Keroro sighed, that, I guess, is for me to decide? How do I feel about her? Oh, heavy is the role of the leader! What would father do? He'd accept her over the recommendations of his platoon. He'd make her work somehow. And he'd consider that, despite the odds against her, she hadn't fucked up her first "mission". She'd found and greeted every member of the Keroro platoon. He might even add that "her hangover cure had worked wonders on my aching head and body"?

He tapped his pen upon the desk, twirled it in his fingers like a baton and finally signed the acceptance on her orders. He carefully folded the orders into an airplane and, with practiced aim, chucked the paper into the wormhole. The floating scrap would be transported across the billions of light years and land, somehow, on the correct desk of the correct bureaucrat at Headquarters.

Two-way intergalactic wormholes aren't cheap, he thought, someone must want those orders responded very, very badly.

He considered the next scrap of paper. It was a warrant for Giroro's arrest for desertion. All he had to do was indicate that in his opinion Giroro was never returning and sign and the MPs would go searching for the red Keronian warrior. Ah, my old friend... Keroro smiled. This time you get a free ride.

He checked "No" with a flourish, signed and hoop-shot the wadded paper into the wormhole.

----

Giroro's stomach complained as he exited the rotating doors of the restaurant and entered the flow of foot traffic on the pedestrian access. His gut was full of greasy fish, greasy potato and greasy cheese. He'd never tasted so much frying fat in his life, and all of it had smelled slightly rancid - peanut, corn, canola, safflower, even animal lard. He felt queasy, but tottered down the road toward the bus-stop. The Doradoan had logged into the Internet, registered an account for him, and transfered the exchanged sum into it. Giroro had watched with some unease as the number of digits in his Keronian Military account had sunk to zero, while the number in the newly established Earth account barely budged. The card he was handed would work in any Cirrus ATM, or so he was promised. He was wearing the new and improved you-look-like-someone belt around his waist underneath the man-equin's chest. The fish had guaranteed that even hidden, it would still work.

He still needed a job, and he mulled over the problem as he walked towards the transport stop. It would be so easy to just roll into a ball and dart home, but perhaps a small red missile would attract too much attention.. and where would I put the suit? The technobiological components of mecha did not fare well in subspace. He jingled the tokens in his pocket. "At least he gave me transport fare," he murmured.

The bus stop was 10 blocks away. Giroro turned his back to the stiff wind and soldiered towards it. In the night following Christmas, the weather had turned unseasonably warm and almost pleasant. The snow had melted until not even slush remained. His sensitive nose detected salt from the roads and sidewalks, grease and meat from the carts of the ever-present sidewalk vendors, the putrid stink of uncollected trash, the malty odor of so many bundled Pokopenians - so many half familiar and unfamiliar scents - and then borne on the wind, he caught a whiff of a very familiar scent: Pokopenian fear.

He glanced to his left. At the edge of the traffic was a dark green transport. The dome was smooth and bubbled. The edges were rounded and appropriately curvy. The interior was padded leather. The roughly dressed male passenger sat facing away from him at an odd angle. Across from him a female Pokopenian was saying something and from the look of her lips, she was repeating the same words over and over again. He strained over the traffic noise to her them.

Female begging? "Please, please... don't hurt me, don't hurt me. I'll take you anywhere you want to go. Please don't hurt me!"

Male anger: "For the last time bitch, shut up and drive! I'll tell you when to stop."

Perhaps this is a training exercise? thought Giroro. The female seemed genuinely afraid and he could scent male aggression and a fair amount of sexual interest even through the transport's tightly sealed windows. The pair seemed calm and unmoving though. The light turned green as a signal for the transports to progress. He had only seconds to decide.

Her hair was long, red and tied in almost childish ponytails. There was moisture at the corner of her reddened eyes. They were pleading in his direction and he felt the gaze, slowly turning to face the flow of traffic, wrench at his hearts.

His decision was easy.

He crossed the parking strip at the edge of traffic in two prodigious steps. The mechanical hands were reaching out almost against his will. With a single punch and a mighty crash, he thrust both fists through the safety glass. Tiny shards sprayed, but the glass retained its shape. He grasped the male by his thin shoulders.. Rip! Through the shattered glass. Flip! onto the hood of a parked transport.

"DON'T YOU HURT MY NATSUMI!" he roared.

He was on the male in a second. There was a firearm in the male's hand that was dispatched by the expedient snapping of the radial bones at the wrist. Crack! Crack! The gun discharged into the ground as it fell from nerveless fingers. The undamaged hand arced towards Giroro's head. The blow was deflected and Giroro struck twice. His earspots rang with the satisfying crunch of facial bones and the glorious celery snap of a rib. There were screams around him, but Giroro didn't hear them. He continued to slap the male until blood flowed sticky over Giroro's hands and the male slumped unconscious.

The next words he heard were "Freeze! Don't move!"

And so he did not. He let go of the male. A smear of blood trailed as the carjacker slumped onto the hood. He was still breathing.

"Hands on your head!" came the barked orders and so Giroro did as he was told. He felt a gloved Pokopenian hand take the Mecha at the forearm. The tactile foam conducted to him the sensation of a frigid metal manacle being slapped onto one wrist.

There was the sound of a transport door opening and then he heard the female scream, "No! Wait! Don't do that! He just saved me!" There was a pause and the click of heels, then the unfamiliar, un-Natsumi-like voice spoke again. "That one jacked me, and he rescued me!"

Giroro felt his other wrist being cuffed by a manacle. He felt the jingle of a thin chain between the manacles and knew the mecha could break it without a second thought. He could snap the links and run, abandon the mecha and thunder-roll home, but he knew he could not roll all the way back to his sanctuary under the tree. The men with the manacles would come. They would bring the shadowmen. He might die in a blaze of glory... Why was I so impetuous?

He knew "why" and allowed himself to be spun about. He stared slightly up into the eyes of the taller, blue-suited Pokopenian wearing an odd, blue, para-military hat with sharply pointed corners.

"Lookit what we got here Frank?", scoffed 'blue clothes' to his similarly-appointed partner, "A genu-ine American Hero..."