***The Hills of Time***
                 ***By George Pollock, Jr.***

                       ***Chapter 1***
                ***The End of the Beginning***
   
   The Sigma Narse system was swallowed in white light. 
   "MOTHER IN HEAVEN!!"
   Slowly, one by one, the planets disappeared.
   "RABBY, HARD ASTERN!! FULL SPEED!!"
   As the ship turned, the white death started to fill the Star Leaf's main 
screen, even from the Solnoid ship's position at the edge of the system. 
Closer in, larger ships -- Solnoid and Paranoid -- faded into the light and 
were gone.
   "ALL HANDS!! BRACE FOR LIGHT SPEED!!"
   In the whiteness that approached them, dark specks appeared. Debris. 
Pieces of planets. Shards of spacecraft.
   Bits of bodies.
   Rabby called out, "Light speed in five seconds, Eluza!"
   "PUNCH IT NOW!!"
   Rabby's hand never reached the ignition keypad.
   What had been the aft section of Journey's flagship spun furiously far 
ahead of the white light. It hit the Star Leaf's port wing, ripping it off in 
sparks. As the wing tore off its stern mounts, it opened up the engine room. 
In one piece, the repression furnace was ripped from the ship. Plasma spewed 
backward from the Star Leaf and shot the furnace far astern.
   In red hellfire, the furnace exploded.
   The shock wave shot the gutted Star Leaf and the mangled wreckage farther 
ahead of the white death. The lighter wreckage spun forward faster, gouging 
holes into the ship's belly. Explosions sprouted from the ship's stomach.  
One belched forth pieces of the ship's Bronz-X combat robots.
   The forward catapult doors sprang open under the onslaught of metal and 
fire. The escape vessel Blossom was exposed.
   Death was waiting for it.
   The port wing's nose stabbed the Blossom in the middle, knocking it off 
its mounts and igniting the Blossom's fuel tanks. For a few seconds, the 
explosion channeled itself through the Blossom's thrusters. The wreckage -- 
the last of Journey's flagship, the wing, the Blossom -- separated from the 
Star Leaf, carried far forward by momentum and the Blossom's thrusters in 
their death fires.
   Then the end.
   Blossom immolated itself.
   The Star Leaf reared up on the shock wave, exposing its damaged belly to 
the concussion and debris. Screaming, glowing metal scarred the ship. The 
upper half was spared.
   From behind, the white death strained toward the Star Leaf. Then, like a 
predator tired of the hunt, it started to fade. The leading edge of the 
explosion dissipated, spread out.
   When it hit the Star Leaf, it buffeted the ship, then washed past it.
   In a shower of stardust.

**********

   "Rabby!! Patty!!"
   In the smoke and dim emergency light, Eluza Ortiz stood up weakly as she 
called out. She had regained consciousness to find herself at the stern end 
of the bridge, balled up against the doors. She apparently had been thrown 
over the back of the command chair and flung six meters. Her whole body 
ached.  "Catty!! Shildy!!"
   Her head swam. She touched the back of her dark-pink-haired head. A surge 
of pain needled her. She brought her hand back. No blood. Mother in heaven, 
she thought, let it be only a bruise. Please don't give me a concussion now. 
"Spea!! Amy!!" Someone moaned amid the smoke. "Who's there?" Eluza cried.
   "... 'Luza ...?" Eluza saw an overturned station chair. Dear Mother, she 
thought, those had been anchored in tracks in the deck. From behind the 
chair, Rabby Ciera stood up slowly, dazed.
   Eluza rushed over. "I'm here, Rabs." Rabby swayed, and Eluza caught her. 
"Steady, girl."
   "Captain?" It was Catty Shoumen. The lavender-haired android stood up, 
dust falling off her body from where a ceiling panel had smashed onto her. 
The panel would have crushed an organic Solnoid. "Captain, are you all right?"
   "Got a headache. Help me find the others."
   "Aye."
   Eluza guided Rabby to the command chair. "You all right?"
   The redhaired first officer grimaced. "Feels like someone used my head to 
hammer nails ..."
   "Know the feeling. Any other injuries?"
   "Left arm hurts."
   "We'll look at it later. Rest here for a moment."
   "Gee ... as opposed to where ...?"
   Eluza smiled. If Rabby's sense of humor had survived, there was hope.  
   More moaning and coughing in the smoke and half-light. Shadows started to 
move. One seemed to support another. "Who's accounted for?" Eluza called.
   "I have Patty," Catty said. She led the dark-haired operations officer by 
an arm. Patty Wellington was doubled over and coughing. Catty sat her down.
   "I'm here!" They turned to see intelligence officer Spea Holgren limp from 
the smoke. "Mother, what the hell hit us?"
   "Don't know yet," Eluza said. "Where's Shildy and Amy?"
   "Here, Captain!" Catty called. She was moving debris. Beneath it was the 
body of a tall woman with long black hair. Shildy Beausoleil. She seemed to 
be lying on top of something, her right arm shielding it.
   Eluza went over. "Shildy ..."
   A moan came up from the body. The head moved slightly. The arm slowly 
withdrew. Where it had been, they saw Amy Rusnokova's long light-brown hair. 
The young nurse had been shielded by her older sister. Catty sat them up 
gently.
   "All right," Eluza said. "That's everyone on the bridge."
   "That's everyone on the ship," Rabby corrected.
   Eluza nodded. "True. We were a skeleton crew this time. And all the 
fighter crews were launched. Any serious injuries?"
   Aching ribs and limbs. Bruised faces. "My arm still hurts, if that 
counts," Rabby noted.
   "All right. Amy, check everyone out. As soon as everyone's up to it, we 
need to know the ship's status. We seem to be on emergency power.  Check your 
stations when you can."
   Rabby spoke quietly. "Both sides used Planet Destroyers, didn't they?"
   Eluza turned around. "Looks that way ..."
   "Journey ... That insane bitch ..."
   "Her flagship was in the front lines, Rabs. I think she just paid in full 
for her sins against us." Eluza paused. "... And against the Paranoids ..."
   Rabby looked at the captain. It was the first time she ever heard a 
Solnoid speak sympathetically of the Paranoids. "You ... all right, 'Luza?"
   Eluza smiled. "Got hit in the head. Maybe that's it. You feel OK enough to 
check out systems?"
   "Only if I don't have to use my left arm ..."
   The captain chuckled. "I promise. Let's get to work."

*******

   "Patty, tell me the bad news first."
   Patty sat at the dimly lit ops station. She hit one keypad again and 
again, each time getting a negative-response tone. "Captain ... that might 
take ... some time ..."
   "Then tell me the good news."
   Patty looked down for a moment. When she looked back up at Eluza, the 
captain started. Patty had the expression of someone who couldn't accept that 
something horrible was going to happen to her.
   "Captain," Patty said quietly, "there is no good news."
   The com in Eluza's headset broke in. "Spea to captain."
   "Eluza here."
   "Captain, I'm at the emergency airtight door that leads to engineering. 
From what I can see through the window, we ... have no engine room left. 
There's a big hole to space where the repression furnace used to be. Mother, 
it's a mess ..."
   Patty gasped. "Toil!" she whispered. "Ail ..."
   Holy Mother, Eluza thought. The helperoids. Because of the skeleton crew, 
they had been in the engine room, monitoring performance and executing 
engineering commands.
   Oh, Mother. Oh, sweet Mother above ...
   They're gone ...
   Spea's voice came over the com again. "Damn, it's cold down here ..."
   Eluza forced herself to focus. "Understood, Spea. Head back to the bridge 
and assess damage as you return."
   "Aye."
   Eluza sighed. Two more friends gone. Lost. She looked at Patty. The ops 
officer's head was bowed. "I'm sorry, Pats. Truly I am."
   From Patty's unseen face, a whisper: "... The 'bots ... My child ... Damn 
war ... Damn them all ..."
   Eluza leaned forward. "Yes," she said quietly, "damn them all. But ... I 
need you here with me now, Patty. Please."
   Patty straighted slowly. Her eyes were moist. She took a breath. "Yes, 
Captain ..."
   "OK ... We ... apparently have no main power source left."
   "Um ... right. Life support is on emergency power. The higher autonomous 
functions of Computer OX-11 are dead. We lost internal sensors and monitors. 
I get no response from the Bronz-X or Blossom bays. No shields. Automatic 
defense is offline. We're on automatic backup systems at half power from the 
emergency batteries. Those won't last forever."
   "What about sublight?"
   "Not good. Spea signaled me earlier that half the sublight drive room is 
just ... gone ..."
   "Any chance for repairs?
   "For the sublight? None." Patty closed her eyes and shook her head. 
"Eluza, we ... might be able to fix a lot that's broken, but I don't think 
it'll matter. We have no power other than the batteries to run things. Unless 
we get outside help ..." She looked at Eluza.
   The look of the damned.
   The captain tried to divert Patty's thoughts. "We're not dead yet," she 
said softly, touching the ops officer's shoulder. "See whether you can extend 
the batteries' life. Life support and communications are priorities."
   A small smile. "Yes, ma'am." Patty turned slowly back to the control 
panel. In the corner, a tiny red readout displayed a countdown.
   Battery life.
   Ten hours.
   9.99.99.
   9.99.98.
   The com again. "Shildy to captain."
   "Eluza here."
   "Captain, the airtight door to the Blossom bay is sealed." A pause. "Eluza 
... the Blossom is gone."
   Everyone shot a glance at the captain. Eluza took a slow, deep breath to 
compose herself. "... Understood ... Return to the bridge when you can, 
Shildy."
   "Aye."
   Silence. Eluza saw the others looking at her. Questions in their eyes.
   Questions of death.
   She sighed. "OK, people ... we still have work to do. Get to it. We might 
still be rescued." She didn't care whether they believed it. She had given an 
order. 
   She hoped it would keep their minds busy, as well as their hands.

*********

   Catty had a tactical schematic on her screen. Eluza saw that like all the 
displays, it glowed with only half its normal brightness. Sometimes it 
flickered. 
   "Captain," Catty said in a low voice, "my hearing is above Solnoid norms. 
I heard Patty's assessment."
   Eluza answered just as quietly. "Keep it to yourself for now, Lieutenant. 
Report."
   "External sensors are relatively undamaged. Their transformers are deep 
inside the ship, even though the emitters are on the skin. The transformers 
are failing. They're a big drain on the batteries. We cannot run them 
continuously in the long term. It'll be cutting our own throats, as far as 
life support is concerned."
   Eluza smiled. "Nice of you to care about the rest of us, Catty ..."
   "Captain, my organic components need oxygen to survive, too. In extreme 
emergencies, I can operate on five percent of Solnoid oxygen needs for a 
short while, but I will stop functioning totally when the environment gets 
too cold."
   "We all will."
   "Yes, that's true ..."
   "What can you get on sensors now?"
   Catty turned back to the display. A template showed the Sigma Narse system 
as it was. In the center, a glowing, fuzzy field covered most of the planets' 
orbits. The debris field left by the Planet Destroyers. "I am detecting an 
extreme amount of debris, of course. Also much radiation, with both Solnoid 
and Paranoid signatures. Electromagnetic disturbances across the spectrum."
   "Any transponder signals from our other ships?"
   Catty tapped a keypad but got the negative-response tone. "No. But I would 
point out, Captain, that sensors are on half-power. That's all the gain I can 
get. The display shows a wide extent of the damage because there's so much 
debris for even weak sensor frequencies to reflect. A smaller signal like a 
transponder, even from our biggest ships, might not register. Not until they 
were practically on top of us."
   Eluza thought. "What about ... Paranoid signals?"
   The android looked puzzled. "Paranoid ...?"
   "Yes. The ways things are, would we detect Paranoid transponder signals? 
Even masked ones, after autodecoding?"
   "I ... suppose. Again, not until they were close. Paranoid signals are 
usually run into the automatic defense system, which sounds an alert."
   "I know. But autodefense is offline." Eluza sighed. "Catty ..."
   "Captain?"
   "I want you to disconnect the Paranoid-detection program from autodefense. 
Reprogram it so any Paranoid signals appear on your display. We'll need to 
know immediately if any of them show up. Keeping the signal linked to 
autodefense while it's down won't do that. And we'll discuss how long to run 
the sensors in a little while." She smiled. "If all else fails, we'll start 
looking out the windows ..."
   Catty watched the captain depart. The android had overheard Eluza's 
earlier comment on the "sins" committed by Journey against the Paranoids. Why 
the sudden strange interest in the ancient enemy? 
   Catty knew of Capt. Eluza Ortiz through the Catty central database. Her 
late sister, the Catty from the original Star Leaf, had transmitted her 
account of her brief service with Eluza. She spoke of the then-first officer 
admiringly -- if with a touch of deep sadness for Eluza's fate in Mission 21.
   The Catties thought they knew Eluza.
   But she had suffered a blow to the head, this Catty noted.
   Mother Nebulart, she thought, I hope she's not losing her mind ...

*******

   Amy was running a medical scanner over Rabby's left forearm. Eluza saw 
that the nurse had improvised a splint from wires and metal debris. "Report," 
the captain said.
   Amy kept scanning but shot Eluza a glance over the top of her oversized 
glasses. "She has an extended fracture, Captain. If the commander had landed 
on her arm with her full weight, it would have snapped clean. But the angle 
of her fall gave it only a glancing blow. She was incredibly lucky."
   Rabby rattled the splint. "Damn, I feel lucky today ...," she said dryly.
   Amy continued, "I think she'll be fine. I'll treat her arm with the 
osteo-regenerator in the med room later."
   "What about the crew in general?" Eluza asked.
   "Right now, I'd say we're pretty banged up but not so bad that we can't 
function for now. I still need to scan you, ma'am."
   "Later, if I can spare a minute. Too much needs to be done right now."
   The 15-year-old looked concerned. "Captain ... what's going to happen to 
us?"
   "We're going to ... do everything we can to get through this, Amy. Just 
focus on helping the others for now." Eluza looked at Rabby's splint. "Can 
you move with that all right?"
   Rabby moved her left arm up and down, then rotated her wrist. "Not totally 
painless, but it seems OK." She studied the wire-and-metal splint, then 
grinned. "Hey, I'm turning into Catty!"
   "I heard that ...," Catty called from across the bridge.
   Eluza and the others chuckled quietly. "Lieutenant," Eluza finally said, 
"turn your audio gain down, please."
   "Aye, Captain ..."
   Amy said, "Captain, I'd like to check the med room. When I tried to 
interface with the medical database from my pocket scanner, I got a negative 
reading."
   Eluza nodded. "Make it so. Report your findings." 
   "Aye." Amy headed off.
   "How's your head?" Eluza asked.
   "Better, but not much," Rabby said. "What's our status?"
   Eluza paused, then looked around the bridge. When she turned back to 
Rabby, the first officer saw concern in the captain's purple eyes. "Not good, 
Rabs," Eluza said softly. "Not good at all."
   "How bad?"
   "Name any system on this ship. It's either not working or on half-power. 
We have no chance to regain main power, batteries won't last forever, we 
can't move and we can't leave the ship." She paused. "Rabby ... unless we're 
rescued, we're in for a long, cold sleep. Again."
   Rabby closed her blue eyes.

*******

   To sleep in cryofreeze.
   After the destruction of Chaos, Rabby and Patty had linked their fighters 
and programmed them for deep-survival mode. Rabby remembered taking the 
hypospray out of the pilot's survival pack.
   Infinizene 248. The drug that a pilot hoped she never had to take. 
   There was no guarantee you would ever wake up from it.
   She recalled contacting Patty on the com for the last time. "See you in 
the morning," she had joked.
   "Yeah ... you, too ...," Patty answered. Then a pause. "Rabby?"
   "Yeah?"
   "Did we do the right thing ... sending Rumy and my offspring -- the 'male' 
-- to Terra?"
   "Patty, the Central Guard will never look for them there. It's the planet 
that lives on its own. It's sacred. What we did might have been a sin against 
Terra -- I don't deny that -- but if the Central Guard ever learned they were 
there, then tried to take them off by force, it would be blasphemy. The top 
brass -- even the Council of Elderwomen -- wouldn't protect them."
   Silence over the com. "Will those two be all right ... down there?"
   "Gonna be OK. Gonna make it." Rabby paused. "Patty ... we have to start 
cryofreeze ..."
   "... I know ... One last thing?"
   "Sure."
   Silence. Then, "Rabby ... thank you ... for being my friend. It kept me 
going. Through everything ..."
   Rabby felt a tear in the corner of her eye. "Thank you ... friend. I'm 
honored to know ... a beautiful soul ... like you ..."
   Over Rabby's com, silence.
   Then, softly, Patty sobbed.
   "Patty," Rabby said gently, "let me hear the hypospray. Please."
   A sniffle. More silence. Then, "... OK ... Goodbye, Rabby ... I love you 
..."
   "The Mother bless you, Patty ..."
   Silence.
   The sound of a keypad being pressed.
   Silence.
   A muffled hissing.
   Silence.
   Rabby listened. "Patty?"
   Silence.
   "Patty?"
   Silence.
   Rabby's tear fell down her cheek.
   She sat in the cockpit, motionless, empty. 
   Alone.
   At last, she slowly uncovered a secured keypad on the control panel. She 
pressed the pad. A small display lit up: "Cryofreeze in 20 seconds. Inject 
Infinizene 248 now."
   It started a countdown. Rabby watched the numbers change. Finally, she 
pressed the hypospray to her arm.
   A muffled hissing.
   "Love you, Patty ... Love you ... Lufy ... Love ... you ... all ..."
   The numbers faded.

*******

   A nothingness of 10 years.
   Rabby and Patty were found a decade later by Capt. Catty Nebulart's ship, 
the Sardis. The ship that found Eluza comatose in her stasis coffin on the 
same flight.
   About the same time, Lufy had been found frozen in her Struggle Suit at 
Alpha 12 by the ship on which she first met Spea, Amy and Shildy. 
   New friends. Second chances.
   Extremist factions within the Solnoid military loathed that Chaos -- which 
would have been the new Solnoid homeworld -- had been destroyed by their own 
people. To protect the original Star Leaf's survivors, Nebulart hid the 
crew's role in the Chaos affair.
   Nebulart had arranged for Eluza to be promoted to captain, with command of 
her own ship. A new Star Leaf. Rabby and Patty would be her two senior 
officers. That way, they could watch over one another -- and had an entire 
ship to defend themselves with.
   And upon learning of Lufy's rescue, and recognizing the Attacker's special 
abilities, Nebulart had Lufy seconded into the intelligence service. She 
could use someone like Lufy.
   But the Star Leaf's survivors knew nothing of that.
   To them, Lufy had been dead for 10 years.
   And so had they.
   "Rabby, are you listening to me?"
   The first officer started.
   The wrecked bridge of the Star Leaf. Eluza was looking at her quizzically. 
"You went somewhere, didn't you ...?"
   Rabby nodded. "Chaos. The thought of freezing in space. Sorry."
   "I know. And you know I sympathize. But like I told Patty, I need you here 
with me now."
   "Yes, Captain."
   "OK. What's the status of communications?"
   "Well ... The best way I can put it is we're half-screwed."
   "Can you be more ... specific, Commander ...?"
   "The automatic distress beacon is working. But it has its own emergency 
transmitter, which doesn't allow for voice transmission. The main transmitter 
doesn't seem to be working. I can't get even a half-power reading on it. It's 
like talking into a dead board. Backup is dead, too, from what I can tell."
   Eluza sighed. "Shildy and Spea reported a lot of damage on their way down 
into the bottom of the ship. No telling what got torn up down there until we 
check thoroughly. Can we receive transmissions?"
   "I don't know. I get a lot of static, but that could be background noise 
from space. I honestly can't tell whether we can get transmissions until 
someone actually calls us."
   "If anyone calls us ...," Eluza mused. "No matter who ..."
   Rabby looked puzzled. " 'Luza ...?"
   "Rabby ... I've told Catty to disconnect the Paranoid-detection program 
from autodefense." She saw Rabby's surprise. "Autodefense is down, anyway. If 
we detect a Paranoid ship, it'll show up on her
monitor, just as any Solnoid ship would."
   "I don't understand."
   "In our situation, we need to consider every option."
   "Options ...?"
   "Assistance from the Paranoid, for one."
   The first officer's eyes widened. She leaned back slightly from Eluza. 
"The Paranoid ...?"
   "If it's possible."
   Rabby breathed hard. "Captain ...," she finally said, quietly but very 
pointedly, "may I speak to you in private, please?"
   Eluza paused, then nodded. "All right. Let's go outside."

***********

   It was cold in the corridor. Shockingly so. Eluza saw her breath steam out 
as the bridge doors closed behind them. The hull breaches must be closer than 
she thought. 
   She feared that a crew breach might occur in a few minutes. That depended 
on what happened next.
   Mother in heaven, she prayed, help me through this.
   Rabby spoke first. "Request permission to speak freely, Captain."
   Damn you, Rabs, Eluza thought. You never call me "Captain" unless you're 
frightened or angry. "Granted."
   "I feel it's my duty to point out some recent behavior of yours that makes 
me question your fitness to command."
   Oh, she's going by the book, Eluza thought. She crossed her arms. Partly 
to keep warm. Partly to keep an appearance of control. "And that is?"
   "You earlier expressed implicit sympathy for the enemy."
   "I pointed out that the war has had victims on both sides. I think that's 
true."
   "You now want us to disconnect our early warning program from autodefense. 
You say it's because you hope the Paranoid will assist us."
   "Yes."
   "The Paranoids don't take prisoners, Captain."
   "Under normal circumstances, no." She paused. "These aren't normal 
circumstances."
   Rabby looked askance at Eluza. "Captain ... why do you want help from the 
Paranoid?"
   Minefield ahead, Eluza thought. Had to be careful. "Commander," she said 
slowly, emphasizing the subordinant rank, "my first duty is to this ship and 
its crew. I want to get help for them from anyone willing to assist." She 
looked hard into Rabby's eyes. "Solnoid or Paranoid."
   The first officer crossed her arms now. "... For the record ... you 
suffered a head injury. Amy hasn't scanned it yet. Is it possible ... your 
injury might be affecting your judgment?"
   Eluza sighed. "I understand that's a possibility. I don't think I've 
become irrational. I instituted all damage-control protocols as required. 
That included having the nurse scan the most-seriously injured crew members 
first. I will have her scan me when the first opportunity arises, but I feel 
I am in control of my faculties."
   Rabby shook her head. "Eluza," she said quietly, "let's talk as friends 
now, OK ...?"
   "All right."
   "... After all this time ... after all these centuries of fighting ... why 
would you think the Paranoids would possibly want to help us?"
   "Because," the captain said, "if the destruction we just went through is 
as bad as it seems, maybe ... maybe ... there are Paranoids left who are just 
as orphaned as we seem to be. Maybe they can still fly, but they'll soon 
realize they're alone. I hope that will make them open to helping us. They'll 
see they're not alone. That may be a powerful incentive."
   "A lot of 'maybes' in there, 'Luza," Rabby said.
   "I know. And we should be prepared to defend ourselves if the ship is 
boarded by hostiles. But if, Mother willing, the hand that reaches to help us 
is Paranoid, I can't afford to slap it away. For the ship's sake ..." She 
paused. "... And for the crew's sake, I can't."
   Rabby bowed her head. "We might ... still be rescued by our own people ..."
   Eluza nodded. "Mother, I hope so. But we need to accept something, Rabs." 
The redhead looked up at the mention of her name. "It was clear this was 
going to be an apocalypse. The way Journey was acting, I feared it would end 
like this. We Solnoid threw everything we had left into this fight. And we 
lost it. We on this ship survived here because we were on the edge of the 
system to pick off Paranoid reinforcements and stragglers." She paused. "I 
requested that duty ... to try to save us if the worst I feared actually 
happened. And it did. ... If that's cowardice ... I'll confess it to you, and 
you alone, now ..."
   Rabby looked at her friend. "No," she finally said, quietly. "If you know 
the madhouse you're trapped in is going to burn down ... you might as well 
stand next to the door ..."
   "Rabby ... We need to consider the possibility that we on the Star Leaf 
might be the only Solnoids left alive."
   The first officer looked down again. "That's ... a big thought ..."
   "Do you agree it's possible?"
   "... Yes ..."
   "All right," Eluza continued. "One more thought. One I mentioned before. 
We need to face it, and I'll need you to help me prepare the crew for it: 
When the batteries finally go dead ... and if we aren't rescued ... we 
freeze."
   Rabby said nothing.
   A long silence.
   Then she shivered.
   "Captain! Captain Ortiz!"
   Eluza started when her headset crackled into life. "Eluza here. What is 
it, Catty?"
   "Captain! There's a Solnoid fighter approaching us!"

TO BE CONTINUED