January 19, 1999

					                         The Fall of Gabriel
							The next episode in the ongoing saga of

									Shogo
								mobile armor division


								     By: Ron Adams


The final moments:

	Sanjuro extends his index finger to the bright red button labeled "Zoom". The whole windshield transforms into a larger point in the distance. The aqua circle and red crosshair find its target. The target is a small being. Not a mouse or and ant, but a human. From almost a 500 feet away, a small man is found in the crosshair of the giant armored robot, or MCA. The 50-foot tall man-like machine is quite the site to see. The MCA steps to the left to get a better shot, one shot that's all that it should take. The view through the zoom lens is not a very pretty, Ryo is stepping back and forth, trying to avoid the foot long bullet that will soon end his life.

	"Ryo Ishikawa, lets make this one clean and quick" Sanjuro says into his voice sensor. Sanjuro pulls the trigger, and the 12-foot sniper rifle mounted on the MCA's arm makes a muffled pop, the bullet flies at supersonic speeds, and rips through Ryo. He gets kicked back against the wall 4 feet behind him, and slides down it. A trail of blood follows his path. "It is over now, no more control Mr. Ishikawa." Sanjuro says to himself. He looks over to his brother, with hopes that he is alright. "Toshiro, are you alright?" Sanjuro asks with a worried voice.
	"I I think so." Toshiro says in a half conscious monotone.
Sanjuro breathes a sigh of relief as UCA ships fly overhead. The United Corporate 
Authority, has been such a strong factor in finding this Mr. Ishikawa, and now he is dead. There will be no more worries about the deadly KATO energy, or galactic control by Mr. Ishikawa's underlings. sThe uplink with The UCA flagship Leviathan crackles. Sanjuro turns his head towards the uplink. He sees the face of his girlfriend and intelligence manager, Kathryn Akkaraju.
	"Way to go Sanjuro, we got the Shogo fleet on the run, how is Toshiro".
	"Good, for spending the last year a sock puppet." He says sarcastically.
	"And how about you my love." Kathryn asks in a sexual voice.
	"Let me sleep on it for a week, then I'll get back to you." He says. The uplink crackles again, and this time Kura, his lost fiancée, and Kathryn's sister, 
speaks over the link. Her voice echoes inside of his MCA.  She speaks to Sanjuro through a radio frequency patched through the Leviathan.
	"Good work commander, I will look forward to debriefing you." Kura speaks in a soft voice with sexual overtones.
	"Watch it you little hussy!" Kathryn's voice cracks over the uplink. Old times seem to be back again. Sanjuro smiles as he listens to the sisters' bicker with each other. His face smiles and he realizes the only major problems in the near future will be which girl to choose from. His current love, or his once thought for dead fiancée, who he was going to marry, maybe both. The future will be bright again, and the future of mankind is secure.

The next few moments:

	Sanjuro sees the UCA Transport ship LZ Minotaur appear out of the clouds. It looms over head for a moment, and starts to set down on the platform. He runs his monolithic MCA into the docking bay, and the ship quickly starts to climb back into the sky. Inside, the roar of the engines is dulled. Sanjuro starts the shut down process of his MCA. The soft gravity couch inside the MCA is suddenly very appealing place to sleep. A quick nap won't hurt a bit. Two hours later after what seemed like a nights sleep, Sanjuro steps out of his MCA, and walks to the door labeled "Main Corridor", the paint appears worn and beaten. In the main corridor, a few technicians are walking about busily. The window facing the stratosphere is quickly changing from light blue to black. The LZ Minotaur rockets towards a massive ship high above the planet Cronus. This ship is the UCA Leviathan, it dwarfs any ship in the galaxy. The LZ slows down, flying in a large arc as it comes closer to the Leviathan. "Docking initiated, please standby." Crackles over the intercom. One of the many docking stations on the Leviathan starts to open. The LZ moves in gracefully, and touches down, the airlock hisses as the pressure equalizes. "Docking complete, please show you ID card at the Leviathan, thank you"
Sanjuro walks across the umbilicus and shows flashes his ID card. He enters the Leviathan. Sanjuro then heads directly to his quarters, debriefing will not be until later. As he walks down the maze of hallways, many people familiar, and not so shout words of praise in his direction.
	"Good work commander, you did a smash up job" some technician barks at Sanjuro.
	"Sleep, need sleepy, me want sleep." Sanjuro slurs to the Technician. 
As he walks down the hall, a few other people make remarks about his "good job", and "excellent ability", he just ignores the comments, and ends up at his quarters. The ID Card is passed through the access reader and the door opens. Sanjuro flops on the bed and closes his eyes.
	"I deserve this so much."
His body sinks into the bed, and his muscles go limp. If anyone didn't know he was 
sleeping, they would take him for dead. The intercom makes a loud beep three times. 
Sanjuro moans, and looks towards to intercom near the wall.
	"Sorry to interrupt you, but the debriefing has been rescheduled earlier than was intended." A voice says.
	"What vile soul dares to interrupt my nappy time!" He says loudly.
	"Uh, sorry, its me, Kathryn." She says.
	"You sound funny on the intercom, can I sleep now?" He says.
	"The debriefing has been rescheduled to now." She says quietly. Sanjuro moans again, and tries to throw his shoe at the intercom. It lands with a thud one 
foot in front the wall. His arm falls back on to the bed. "Come to Central Diagnostics, I will meet you there." She says with a hint to laughter.
	"Ok, but you will pay for this." Sanjuro mumbles.
	"What?" 
	"Never mind" Sanjuro says.
The door opens and Sanjuro hobbles out, and down the hall towards Diagnostics. His head looks towards the floor, and his pants are sagging. After the four hour debriefing, Sanjuro again hobbles back to his quarters. Along the way, the ships bar looks interesting, so Sanjuro stops for a drink. The normal bartender is missing, and in her place is a new young woman. Her brown hair and small figure are easy on the eyes. 
	"Hey there, are you the new bartender?" Sanjuro asks.
	"Yeah, I'm replacing Carla."
	"Well then, isn't that nice, my name is Sanjuro, maybe I'll see you around."
	"Yeah, I hope so." She says with a smile. Sanjuro gets up with a large smile on his face, and goes into his room. Outside the window, on of the moons around Cronus glows a bright orange. Sanjuro falls on to his bed, and falls asleep before his head hits the pillow. Two hours later his eyes open up to the sound of Kathryn's soft voice. It sounds like wind blowing through the trees.
	"Sanjuro, wake up time, come on now, time to get up. It's late." Sanjuro looks up into her eyes, she is staring right into the depths of his soul. She 
bends down and their lips touch, her soft lips open, and their tongues dance in unison. He has waited two days to experience this, and he had yearned for Kathryn's touch. Suddenly he backs away from Kathryn and the surprised look on her face hurts Sanjuro. She knows what he is feeling. "Its Kura, isn't it?" Kathryn speaks softly.
	"I don't know, things are different now." Sanjuro says. Kathryn looks down at the bed. I guess since she arrived I have had these feelings again. I somehow feel like I am normal again. I am me again." Kathryn's face started so show signs of sadness, she didn't cry at first, but the expression on her face showed the deep hurt. Her brown eyes started to close and the tears that were growing in her eyes started to fall down her face. Each tear represented a day that her and Sanjuro spent together. Each tear that fell off her face landed on his shirt. Sanjuro reached out to Kathryn, and touched her shoulder, she looked over to it, and kissed 
it. He pulled her closer to himself, and she pressed her face into his chest. His warmth flowed into her body, it felt like he was giving energy to her, and it was going to help her through these tough times.

	On the other side of the ship, Kura was in the main intelligence room alongside her father. This was one of the few rooms in the ship that only 6 or so people had been in. The Intelligence Room is the place that the UCA commanded all information that was of any significance. Only the most trustworthy or elite members of the UCA were ever allowed into this room. Kathryn Akkaraju was the head of Intelligence, and Kura was a elite tactics engineer, they were often found in the Intelligence room. Examining a specimen of KATO energy taken from the planet below, her and her father were discussing means of fairly controlling the energy so the galaxy would not have to fight over it. The large monitor on the wall switched from a view of the outside of the Leviathan in space, to the inside of a single cell from the KATO energy source. It appeared to be alive, but it contained a light source from within the cell that reacted to any sort of magnetism. When a magnet was placed within 3 microns of the cell, the electricity given off by the cell would equal the amount of electricity that New York City needed in a month.
	"This is unbelievable, how could I mean." Kura stuttered.
	"Kura, think before you speak." Admiral Akkaraju spoke in a clean and concise manor.
	"Now I know why Gabriel wanted to control all of the KATO in the galaxy. What if he had gained control? If he had, we all would have had to pay huge taxes just to get the energy." Kura said.
	"That is why we had to get it back, now we can distribute it freely to everyone who needs it. We now need to spend our efforts towards more present matters." The Admiral said. Kura turned and faced her father, her face lit up with a look of excitement and curiosity. Kura had waited in jail for a while back on Cronus, and now she was ready to be back on duty. She missed her favorite MCA, the Andrea Predator.
	"What matters?" she asked.
	"Since the KATO energy has been returned to the general public, many of the original settlers of Cronus have started planning to return to their homes and businesses. There is a problem though, a few Militant rogue groups have resurfaced on the planet again. They claim to have control of the planet. If we send down a strike-force, they say that they will give much opposition." Akkaraju said.
 	"I thought they were destroyed by Gabriel?" Kura suggests.
	"The information on that is known only by the Main Intelligence Officer, Kathryn, get her up here." The Admiral orders. The intercom walls throughout the ship suddenly come up with a new message. The beautiful female, with a soft voice appears, and issues a short announcement. 
	"Could the Main Intelligence Officer, Kathryn Akkaraju please report to the Intelligence Briefing room." Back in Sanjuro's quarters, he and Kathryn are talking about the past. Kathryn's eyes are wet, and the makeup on her face is smudged. Her feelings towards Sanjuro were still strong.
	"We did have some good times together, didn't we?" Kathryn asks.
	"Yeah, we did some crazy things. Remember that time when Toshiro told you the gym teacher wanted to see you, so you went down to the gym. Then I told Baku the same, and when you guys met each other in there, Toshiro and me locked the doors. You guys missed two classes!" Sanjuro laughed.
"You guys did that!, I can't believe it!. You asshole!" Kathryn laughed. Her face had a large smile on it, and her laughter sounded like she was a schoolgirl giggling. The announcement wall in Sanjuro's quarters changed from a picture of space, to a young woman's face.
	"Could the Main Intelligence Officer, Kathryn Akkaraju please report to the Intelligence Briefing Room." 
	"Damn it, now what?. I guess we will have to talk later." Kathryn said. 
	"Are you going to be ok?" Sanjuro asks meekly.
	"It will take some time, but I will be ok. I think that we both needed each other, and it was more of a support thing than real love." Kathryn says.
	"We helped each other." He responds.
	"Ok, well, I have to get to the Intel room." Kathryn says.
	"See you later." He says.
	"This isn't over yet." Kathryn says. Kathryn walks out of the room, and down the hall. The door closes, and Sanjuro falls back on to the bed. His eyes close, and he dreams of his old house, old computer games, and low ping.