Sailor X #1							Manhattan Project
								By: John Brengman

     The windows of the room let in the star-speckled night. The light of the stars paled however to the light of the nearby planet, it’s light reflecting blues and whites to anything nearby, and that included the lunar base that was home to the Luna Foundation and the operational center for the Sailor Scouts.
     The light from Earth pooled brilliantly in shafts of light shining through the windows that dominated the far wall of the control room. The rest of the room was lined with various computer stations that monitored Earth, the solar system, and various other things. No one manned the control room at this hour of the night, so the computers seemed content to hum and beep and whir to themselves.
     All of this pleased Luna, who was basking purrfully in the throbbing of the top of one of the control stations. "Oh, there are times when it is good to be a cat," was a thought that drifted lazily through her mind as she soaked in the rhythmic pulsing.
     The lights on the control panel changed to various shades of red and began flashing insistently. An alarm began clamoring for attention, and this awoke the sleeping cat. Taking one look at the control panel that had betrayed her, Luna jumped down and headed for the hallway to the residence quarters.
     Reaching Brandy’s room, Luna rushed in, reaching the sleeping girl with a quick hop from the floor to the nightstand to the bed. Quickly the cat pawed at the covers. "Wake up, sleepy-head!" Luna thought, only to be met with a hand that lightly batted her away. "Not now, Cat," Brandy said sleepily.
     Luna growled at Brandy’s use of her ‘pet name’ and bit her on the ear.
     "Hey!" Brandy yelped as she jolted awake, "what was that for?" However, by the time she had asked that question, Luna was already bolting for the door on her way to rouse the next sleeping Sailor.
     "Darn it, Cat," Brandy muttered as she began to dress…

==> * * *  <==

     "How could this happen?" Bethany inquired, her blue eyes looking worriedly toward the windows.
     "I don’t know just yet," Melissa replied, her gaze intently tied to the computer monitors and the information they were feeding her. "I’m not even quite sure where to start."
     "Ask Artemis to check for weird energy readings," chimed in a hollow voice from the windows.
Bethany nodded and leaned against Melissa’s chair. "Yes, ask that."
     Bethany checked the computer and fed in the question. The response was not promising?
     "Infinity particles?" Melissa gasped. "What are those?"
     "They are rare, dangerous, and unstable," Vanessa answered as she entered the control room while combing her long white hair. As the guardian of the Timegate, Vanessa was considered the know-it-all of the group. "Infinity particles are combined with a chemical reaction and they perpetuate that reaction. Since the reaction also generates more infinity particles, the original reaction chain-reacts."
     The others looked at each other as if Vanessa had explained it perfectly.
     Cassandra was the first to react. "Oh yeah," she quipped. "I buy it."
     An offended Vanessa was quick to go on the counter-attack. "Well, you would understand it better if you would pay attention more in physics class."
     Cassandra was not to be mollified however. She shook her long wavy red hair and her eyes angrily flashed as she growled, "The TEACHER goes too fast! I can’t keep up!"
     Melissa was about to chime in and remind Cassandra that ‘Aunt Amy’ had volunteered to help them out with the more difficult areas of advanced physics when Luna stopped the conversation with a loud whistle and, "Let’s stay focused, girls!"
     The voice from the windows replied, "What can we do about it?" Vanessa went to a secondary control panel and started entering inquiries into the computer. After a minute where all attention in the room was on her, Vanessa straightened up and turned for face her fellow senshi.  "Artemis says that whatever happened did not happen within the past day."
     "I could’ve told ya that," Cassandra grumbled.
     "In fact," Vanessa continued, "the decay of the infinity particles suggests that the accident took place more than fifty years ago."
     Dead silence filled the room as the implications of Vanessa’s statement became clear. At about that time, raven-haired Rachel entered the room. "Unless the galaxy’s going to explode, someone’s in big trouble!" Bethany glanced uncomfortably over at Rachel. Although the group did not know each other that well, one thing was etched in stone: never disturb Rachel’s sleep.
     The circumstances in this case were different.
     Sandra stepped forward from the shadows near the window into the light provided by the control room lights. "Be careful what you wish for," she said, her face somber as she pointed toward the window.
     The planet Earth was gone.

==> * * *  <==

     The conversation continued as the girls and Luna neared the chamber containing the massive Timegate.
     "Do we have any idea who’s behind this?" Sandra asked.
     "No," Vanessa replied, "but very few people have had access to Infinity particles. Queen Serenity forbade anyone in the kingdom from having Infinity particles, and even the rulers of the Negaverse were never insane enough to use the particles they supposedly had."
    "So, let me get this straight," Brandy said with an angry toss of her long blonde mane, "we don’t even know who has these particles?"
     "You have the rather annoying knack," Luna stated, "of being absolutely correct at the most unfortunate times."
     Not liking the verbal jousting between Luna and Brandy, Rachel broke in, "Ok! So, we go back in time and stop whatever happened from happening again. Sounds straight enough. My question is, if Earth was blown away fifty years ago, why are we still here?"
     The girls reached a set of metal double doors and stopped. "You may thank the Timegate for that," Vanessa replied.  "It generates a field which protects us from the timestream."
     "Oh!" Cassandra exclaimed. "Sort of like those thingamajiggies of yours…"
     Vanessa sighed. "Exactly." She pushed a few buttons on the door panel and the metal doors separated.  The room beyond the doors was dominated by a huge translucent dome-like structure built into the floor.  While the others watched, Vanessa stepped forward, raised her right hand in the air and shouted, "TIMEGATE ACTIVATION!" The ring she wore on her right ring finger pulsed then shot a green beam of light into the dome. The light washed over the dome, then shot back and enveloped Vanessa. The group waited while the portal and the senshi communicated mentally. When Vanessa broke the link, the green light continued to splash about in the dome as the portal waited for further commands. 
     Vanessa went over to a table along one side of the room and pulled several devices from the storage lockers there. When she returned, she glanced at the group. "Are we ready?"
     Sandra stepped forward. "Someone needs to stick around here in case something else happens while we are not here. Brandy, Beth, keep track of us. The rest of you," she gestured toward the portal, "let’s go." With that, the four senshi stepped into the portal, and into the past…

==> * * *  <==

Tinian Island		August 4, 1945	7:15 pm

"One scientist bet on the chances that the blast would ignite the atmosphere. 
He offered a side wager on whether it would destroy the entire world…or 
only New Mexico."

Peter Jennings, "Hiroshima: Why the Bomb was
Dropped" (ABC News, 1995)

     The staging area for a secret operation against the Japanese homeland was a small cluster of buildings grouped around an airfield on an scrap of land amidst the blue waters of the Pacific. One prefab corrugated metal building stood near the end of the airstrip, and the building was under heavy guard.
     Within the building stood a large number of storage cases, neatly stacked in columns that reached halfway to the ceiling. The cases dominated one half of the building. The other half of the building was empty except for a single bay-loaded bomb that sat upon its storage stand in an area roped off from the rest of the building. 
     A dark figure kneeled next to the cylindrical device. He had opened an access panel and had inserted a flat circular object about the size of a wristwatch. The device’s magnetic bottom easily attached to the inside of the skin of the bomb. The figure replaced the access panel, stood and looked over to two prone forms laying nearby. 
     With a slight bow to the unconscious guards, the dark-robed man murmured, "May your aim be true…although that is not really necessary. Either way, my plan will succeed."
     "Not if I have anything to say about it!" The robed man looked around franticly for the source of the voice…and found the group of senshi standing just inside the huge doors of the building. 
     "MOON PRISM POWER!" Sandra shouted as Vanessa placed a small star-shaped device on one of the boxes and activated it.. Sandra’s shout was followed by, "MERCURY POWER!",  "MARS POWER!", and "PLUTO POWER!" as the senshi began their transformations.
     Sailor Moon brought her fist down from the finish of her transformation with a flourish and said, "I am Sailor Moon, Vanguard of Justice! I will right wrongs and vanquish evil!" The light from the pyrotechnic display of the transformations faded, and a voice called menacingly from the darkness, "and you, my friend, are moondust!"
    "I am sorry I do not have an equally impressive display to greet you with," the dark-robed man said. "Allow me to introduce myself, I am Scaramanga, Master of Darkness. Now ladies, I will depart, and leave you to your doom."
     "Not so fast!" Sailor Mars shouted from nearby a stack of crates. "MARS FIREBOLT BLAST!" A searing firebolt erupted from Mars’ outstretched hand and shot angrily toward the villain. Scaramanga quickly dodged the blast that slammed into the far wall.
     "Careful now, Scaramanga scolded, "You wouldn’t want to damage such an important part of history, would you?"
     "I hate to admit it," Sailor Moon mentally said to the Scouts, "but he’s right. No beam attacks directed near that bomb."
    "Yeah," Mercury growled, "well, direct THIS! MERCURY SHARD!" A thick crystal  shard appeared in Mercury’s hand as she called upon the power of her patron planet. "Eat this, jerk!" she yelled as she hurled the shard at Scaramanga, who caught it with a grunt and crushed it in one hand.
     "You are trying my patience." Scaramanga stated. "DARKFORCE ATTACK!" Wisps of dark energy burst forth from Scaramanga, slamming into the stacks of crates, showering them down upon the senshi who tried to scurry out of the way.
     As Sailor Moon picked herself up from under a pile of debris with the help of Sailor Mars, she mentally called out, "Pluto, are those devices still working?"
     "Yes," Pluto replied. "We are still outside the timeline."
     "But I am afraid you are out of time," quipped Scaramanga, who was now floating above the bomb. "ZAI" With that command, a scorching energy bolt erupted from his fingers and stabbed Mercury who screamed and fell to the floor.
     "Mars", Sailor Moon mentally ordered, "See to Sailor Mercury." Glancing at Scaramanga, Sailor Moon noted that the villain was hovering above the bomb, but also beneath a heavy-looking utility hook. With a mental "Ah!", she pulled her tiara from her forehead. "MOON TIARA MAGIC!"
     The tiara activated with a flash which illuminated Sailor Moon’s face with a pale light. "Screwball in the side packet," she said as she threw the tiara at the chain holding the hook.. It ricocheted off the chain and returned to Sailor Moon who caught it triumphantly. The hook crashed down upon Scaramanga, who was driven upon the bomb. The hook was deflected by Scaramanga and landed a few feet in front of the bomb.
     "I thought you said no attacks near the bomb." Pluto remarked wryly as she approached the bomb. As she reached it, Scaramanga faded and disappeared.
     "Hey," Sailor Moon remarked aloud for the first time, "I was being careful., unlike some people we could mention."
     Sailor Mars just looked at Sailor Moon and smiled wickedly.
     "Finished," Pluto said as she removed the Infinity Device from the bomb. "Mission accomplished."
     "Is it?" Mars asked.
     "What do you mean?" Sailor Moon asked as she attended to Sailor Mercury.
     "What do we do about that?" Mars asked, pointing to the bomb.
     "We do NOTHING about it." Sailor Moon stated.
     "But what about the people who will die when that thing is dropped?" Mars asked.
     "What about the people who died before and after this bomb was, and I repeat WAS dropped?" Sailor Moon replied.
     "We can not pick and choose here, and we certainly can not tamper with history ourselves!" Pluto insisted. 
     "She’s right," Sailor Moon said.
     "Yeah, I know," Mars replied. "It just doesn’t feel good, that’s all."
     "I understand," Pluto smiled. "Doing what is right often does not feel good."
     "Yes," Sailor Moon said. "But doing what is right when it doesn’t feel good is what separates normal people from heroes." Putting her hands around her comrades, she smiled. "Let’s go home."

==> * * *  <==

Hiroshima		August 6, 1945	8:02 am

     A silver phoenix soared through the clouds over the southern end of Honshu. Upon the signal from the pilot, the bombardier released a single bomb which fell toward its target….

     From the future, Cassandra watched transfixed through the Timegate as the ground exploded and the atomic reaction sent its plume upward as the silver phoenix flew into the morning sun.

==> * * *  <==

     A sleepy Sandra stood by the window of her bedroom and gazed out at the lunar landscape. Illuminating the dark gray of the nearby hills, the blue ball of Earth glistened innocently. Squinting to look closer, Sandra saw that Japan was emerging from night, about to start another day. With that, Sandra quietly disrobed and prepared to return to bed.

** FINI **

		Fanfic (1999 – John Brengman and Artemis Publishing
		  Sailor X series inspired by Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon, 
( 1992 by Toei Animation Co Ltd. and based on Kodansha’s
manga production of "Sailor Moon", written by Naoko Takeuchi
		This fanfic is freely distributed. Release date: August, 1998

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