"Oh fu…"

"Kenko-chan…"

The old man was beginning to get to her. He was a great guy - he had raised her when her parents had been out working the terraformer rigs - which was a frequent occurrence even now. But the man had studied terraforming arts with the limp… wrists at the Kakita Artisan School - Planetary Sciences division. Maybe the Crane could make beautiful paintings. Maybe they could even make breathtaking gardens and planets.

But they couldn't curse worth for sh… oot. In fact, not only could they not be even the slightest bit crude, they had to go and spoil everyone else's fun.And her sensei, Kaiu Kenobi, had studied with them.

She felt sorry for the old man in many ways; here he was, a Crab working in the Engineering Corps, and crudity made him uncomfortable.

His life must be a living jigoku.

But that didn't mean he had to bring everyone else there too. "Sorry, uncle. But the fuel intake valves are completely shot. Unless we have some spares, we're going to be stuck up here for a while."

"Well," said the older man, "I suppose that means we'll have to stay in one of the nezumi camps."

The two Kaiu were currently up in the Red Mountains north of Toshi Hida, assembling the latest terraforming engine. With any luck this latest model would up the temperature and maybe even spread a little vegetation across the mountain. Give them a nice, cozy look instead of the ugly barren appearance they now had. Might make that window view at the home offices worthwhile.

That is, of course, if they ever got back. The Clan Issue rover was completely out of commission - the engine had overheated and the valves had cracked completely. It was too far to walk home, and they had nothing to repair the truck with. A few odd tools for working on the terraformers but most of that was robotic assembly. And the nezumi construction workers had their own tools with their own measurements, that couldn't hope to be able to fix a human vehicle.

So they were stuck. It wasn't so bad; the ratlings could put them up in one of their tent villages. But living with the ratlings was something she had experienced back when she was still in school (mandatory field service had been introduced the year before she had entered the Kaiu Engineering Academy, which she was still a little miffed about).

She had no desire to relive that experience, even if it was only for a few nights. What they called food was disturbing at best, and their concepts of 'personal space' were significantly off from the rest of society's. Which was fine for them, but sleeping in a room with about twenty heaps of wet fur was not Kenko's idea of fun.

"Hold that thought? I'm going to radio back to Hida and see how soon they can send someone up." So help her Amaterasu, if she had to stay up here another week… She pulled the crab clan standard issue cellular phone out of her pocket and dialled the number of technical services in the Kaiu home offices.

"Welcome to the Isawa Void Network," a light, tinny geisha's voice intoned before connecting her.A few seconds of silence and then… "Kaiu Technical Support, Kaiu Paatu speaking." She could never keep track of the tech support people; the changed at least twice every week.

"This is Kaiu Kenko, at the new terraformer site. We're having car troubles. How quickly can we get someone up here."

"Please hold." The techie put her on hold. Faint syrupy strains of 'The Girl From Kyuden Bayushi' wafted through the earpiece.

"And everywhere she goes … Hello, Kenko?" A sharp make voice cut into the muzak. Actually, it was a very familiar voice.

"Hitomo-sama! What may I do for you." She tried to sound meek, though she didn't know exactly what else to do; she had never spoken to the Clan Daimyo before, and hardly expected to on a simple distress call.

"Kenko-chan - you are needed. There are certain … matters that need attending to. We are having problems with the environmental systems on one of the patrolling cruisers and all of the rest of our life-support specialists are tied up with repairs from the Toshi Tampako incident."

The previous week one of the cities in the uninhabitable region of Hida had sprung a large leak in its dome. Many of the buildings had environmental backup, but most of those systems were near the point of collapse. "We need you to go to the cruiser and make repairs."

"Which cruiser?"

"Amaterasu's Light."

Ironically enough, the ship named after the sun was the ship stationed farthest from it. Amaterasu's Light patrolled the depths beyond Fu Leng, ready to defend against anything that entered Rokugan. It was miles from anything to speak of.

Well at least it wasn't staying in a ratling tent with an old Crane-addled engineer.

"I'm sending a transport up immediately. It will pick up you, your uncle, and a detail of forty nezumi to go out to the ship. The transport will take approximately two days, using a Void drive craft the Phoenix are lending us. Amaterasu shine upon you."

The phone caught the waning red light perfectly as it arced out over the cliff and into the ravine below. She could blame it on a technical glitch later on, maybe a mujina. She hoped it had lost sound pickup by the time she screamed.