Ok, there's no real change from the previous version of this prologue,
I'm reposting it simply because I am releasing the VERY much revised
version of Chapter One today, and it's been a LONG time since I've put
out any of this.

Comments are welcome, of course.


Stormwalker <dougreeves@earthlink.net> presents . . . 

Cry of the Phoenix
A Bubblegum Crisis fanfiction

Prologue
**********


26 December 2034
23:20 PM

	<Good,> Sylia thought as she visually scanned their target.  The GENOM
electronics research facility was devoid of light, meaning there were no
innocent workers to endanger; it was one less problem to worry about.
	Still, that was only one concern of many.  The mission, as planned,
depended heavily on secrecy; secrecy was not the Knight Sabers' forte.  
Her intelligence network had drawn a blank on possible defenses at the
installation.  What little information she did have came from an unknown
source.  The very nature of the situation screamed "trap".  Still, they
had no choice.  If they failed tonight . . . she didn't want to consider
that.  Fortunately, Nene's voice spared her the necessity.
	"There's the entrance," she whispered, indicating a heavy security
door.
	Sylia nodded in affirmation.  "Can you open it, Nene?"
	"Of course I can," the young hacker answered with mock indignation.
	"All right; let's go."  Quietly, the four armored vigilantes crept from
their hiding place.  Nene had the door open in seconds, and they slipped
inside.
	"Which way?" Priss asked, glancing down each of several corridors from
the entry hall.
	Nene paused a second, the silence broken only by the faint hum of her
scanning systems, then pointed to her right.  "Down there."
	"Linna, take point," Sylia ordered.  "Priss, guard the rear.  Go." 
They quickly walked down the hall, as stealthily as they could manage.  
	This bothered Sylia.  Their movements should have set off multiple
alarms by now; she'd expected to have to fight their way in.  Something
wasn't right, and variables in this sort of operation disturbed her.
	Still, they made it to the computer laboratory undetected, and Sylia
sighed in relief.  Once Nene obtained the data they had come for, they
could slip out the way they came in, and GENOM would be none the wiser .
. . she hoped.  Still, the nagging doubt would not go away..
	Moving as quickly as possible, Nene extended the data probes and
plugged into the machine.  A few seconds passed . . . "Found it. 
Pulling a copy now."
	"Very good.  Get ready to--" She never finished the sentence as alarms
suddenly wailed all around them.
	"We've got trouble!" Nene cried.  "Boomers--lots of them!"
	<Damn.> "Forget the copy!  Erase the originals and let's go!"
	"Right . . . here they come!"  Even as she finished the warning a horde
of cyberdroids burst through the far door.  "Done!" Nene called out,
then detached her data probe and ran for the exit.  Sylia made it out
right behind her, but neither Priss nor Linna could disengage from
battle to retreat.
	"Priss, go!" Linna cried.  "I'll cover for you!"
	"Right," Priss answered, crushing a boomer's head with a rocket-
boosted kick before turning to flee.  A spray of laser fire cut off her
escape, but it was abruptly silenced by the flare of Linna's knuckle
bomber.  As she neared the doorway, the focus of the boomer attack
shifted toward Linna, and the green-suited warrior quickly found herself
overwhelmed.
	"She's not going to make it," Nene whispered in horror.
	"Linna!"  Priss screamed, turning back toward the fray, but it was too
late.  The tide of android soldiers could not be turned, and it came
crashing down over Linna.  A sickening crack resounded as her hardsuit
shell was split open, and a cut-off scream was her final breath.
	"NO!" Priss screamed again, blindly firing into the boomer horde until
Sylia dragged her backward through the doorway.  It slammed shut behind
them as they ran.

* * * * * * * * *

	Sylia's expression was blank as she slumped into her seat aboard the
skycarrier; no tears fell, and no anger broke through the mask.  Only
the steady flow of blood from her bitten-through lower lip hinted at the
intensity of her agony.  One of her own had fallen.  Linna.
	<I should have known it was a trap,> she chastised herself. <No.  I DID
know it was a trap, and we went anyway.> All the signs had been there. 
A critical piece of information at a critical time.  The anonymous
source of that information.  The too-easy entrance into the research
facility.  Still, they had been given no choice.  Allowed to proceed,
that single GENOM project would have rendered all their struggles
meaningless.
	Even so, it wasn't worth the loss of one of her "children".

	Priss's head was buried in her hands, tears flowing too quickly to
restrain.  She wanted to scream, to kill, to destroy, to *hurt* every
boomer and *maim* every GENOM exec . . .  but she could not.  They'd had
to flee for their lives, and they'd left Linna behind.  She should have
stayed . . . should have died, too; she should have died *instead* of
Linna; she should have stayed behind in her friend's place.  
	Ghosts of fallen friends rose again to haunt her--all the lives that
had been stolen along the way.  Sylvie . . . and Anri . . . she had
loved them dearly.  Now Linna, too, had sacrificed herself.  Their
deaths hung over her like a dark cloud; each had fallen in her place.
<Never again,> she swore silently. <Never again.>

	Nene was in shock, curled up with her knees against her chest,
trembling in fear and pain and a thousand other emotions she'd never
really known before.  Only now did she realize just how naive she'd
been; the real possibility of death had never even occurred to her. 
Sure, the job was dangerous, but it could never really happen, right? 
Wrong.
	Linna was dead.  Gone.  Her smile, her gentle teasing, her seemingly
effortless grace . . . all lost forever.  In the blink of an eye, the
world had become a darker place.  Or maybe it had been that dark all
along, and she was just blind to it all.  She didn't know anymore.

	Elsewhere in the city, a single, solitary soul laughed silently to
himself.  The Knight Sabers were beaten; their spirit had died with one
of their number.  He had won, at long last . . . but the real contest
was just beginning.

***********
End Prologue
-- 
*************************************************************
Douglas A. Reeves <dougreeves@earthlink.net>                   
Tempest - http://home.earthlink.net/~dougreeves/             
------- The Tempest is currently under reconstruction. ------
------------- Feel free to take a look, though. -------------
*************************************************************