<continued from Part I>

"Catherine!" Hiro screamed over the ensuing chaos.  Fighting against a
tsunami of panic, he spotted his son, protecting the unconscious form of
Linna against the frenzy of the masses.  
    "David, son!" he gathered his daughter in his arms, as little Kyoko
hugged cryingly to his leg.  "My god!  What happened?!"
    "Mother's still back there," he took his little sister from his father.
Suddenly, amongst the wave of rapidly moving people, Hiro stood out, staring
at what used to be the food court.  
    "Are the--"
    "DAD!" David placed Kyoko on his leg.  "You can't go back there!  She's
gone!"
    Hiro started to move, handing Linna to his son before he could respond.
David was about start after him when Kyoko started crying.
    "Get them out of here now, David!" Hiro hissed at his son.  David
hesitated, and balled up his fist  He only waited for the older Yatsumi to
disappear into the crowd before starting to turn away.   At that time, the
realization of the anarchy that reigned here hit all of them.
    "Yes, sir!" David barked at himself as he struggle choked back an insult.
    "Where is daddy going?" Kyoko asked between sobs.  To disraught, and to
busy to be sentimental at this point, David refused to comment.  A vacant
escape pod sensed their presence and opened up; David piled his unconscious
sister and little Ki into the cramped interior,  "Like this, Kyoko."
    As soon as they were inside, the hatch shut, waiting for orders to
launch.  David knew the procedure.  He had done this a million times at the
Academy. Now, with his grief trying to crawl back into the front of his
mind, he was doing it for real.  No one could accurately determine the
length of time before a a rescue team would receive any distress signals and
act upon them.  Therefor, duration cyro-chambers folded out like drawers.
First, he slipped Linna gingerly into the special-care unit.  Attaching the
necessary respiratory systems and finally the cordozine hypoinjection
devices, he slid her in, carefully gauging the life support system to favor her.
    Next came Kyoko.  "Ki, Daddy and Mommy want you to take a little nap."
    Kyoko was old enough to understand.  She had always been bright for her
age, and the mention of her mother and father only brought back the tears.
David hugged her strongly, and then quickly slipped her into the second
chamber.  Her physiology is different, he reminded himself, not like an
older person.  He had to be careful.  He quickly customized her cyro
settings before manually sending in the quick-stream of ice helium.  Kyoko's
expression turned blank as her face turned lighter and bluer with preservation.
    All right, buddy, he told himself.  Let's get the hell outta here.
    He slid behind the controls of the arrow-like pod.  Carefully judging
for the movement, the eratic movement, of the virtually destroyed shuttle,
and the failsafes of the lock and launch mechanism, he flipped the safety
from the launch switch.
     NOW! his mind shouted as the switch flipped upward.  A brief flash
turned the gray-bulkhead of the inside of the pod bay door into the
chaotically debris-sparsed starfield of outer space.  Carefully, he
manuevered with the turning jets, pushing far from the shuttle.  Looking
back for only a second, he saw other pods, only about forty or fifty, reach
minimum safety distance.

*  *  *

When the Kingspin of a vessel in hyperspace "collapses," the effect of the
crash translation into normal-space is as traumatic as it is spectacular.
The shuttle disappeared in a white light that seem to nearly overtake the
escape pod.  David nearly fumbled his h hit the emergency warp-fold button.
Slamming down on the dashboard, he covered his eyes and closed them with the
force of a lion's jaw.  The pod had hit the warp threshold just as the
tachyon flushback from the kingspin collapse overtook them.  David's vision
seemed to glare white despite the fearsome ferocity that kept his eyelids
shut.  He screamed as the escape pod creaked with the strains of the spacial
and time-based forces placed on it.  It seemed any minute now that it would...
    ...then it stopped.  Silence.
    In five minutes, David opened his eyes, and slowly turned his cowered
head to the rear.  The illuminated back drop was quickly dimmed by space's
vast emptiness, the light slowly receding, and eventually disapated.  It had
been a fascinating event, one of great beauty...
    ...and even greater sorrow.
    He slowly stood, and checked the monitors.  Linna and Kyoko were in the
nominal bio-range.  He manually doublechecked the systems himself, before
deciding it was his turn to climb into bed.  Slowly and wearily, he pulled
out his cyro-chamber.  A sob that grief had demanded of him crept into his
throat, as his desperation for professionalism demanded he choke it down.
Now wasn't the time.
    They had to survive; and if not him, then his sisters.  A tear rolled
down his cheek as he programmed in the last instructions.  Then, he quickly
implanted the peripheal life-support devices in his body.  Shrugging at the
pain he allowed himself to feel, he lay back and watched as the cover closed
over him.  He would have a good...whats that?  A hiss?   Fate cheated one
more Yatsumi that day, as death claimed its own.  David had neglected to set
the default freeze time again.  As the helium iced over the cover of his icy
cell, his eyes had not yet closed to greet the hypersleep...

-------==========*****End Presode Two*****==========-------

*  *  *

+-----------------+-<The Badass Reverend of Funk Prez>---+
|    Presley H.   | Political Science / Computer Science |
|    Cannady II   | and Electrical Engineering Undergrad |
|<revprez@mit.edu>| at the Mass. Institute of Technology |
+-----------------+-<Anime Manga Development Group>------+
+     Author of Liars and Dreamers, a Robotech fanfic    +
+-------<http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/1731/index.html>-+
| MIDN 4/c A-2-2 SQD, MIT-Harvard-Tufts NROTC Battalion  |
|_|"The art of war is of vital importance to the state"|_|