Outcast
(A/N) This is my first Azumanga fic. I gave Sakaki and Kagura second names because they aren't given any in the anime and I'll be damned before I admit that those are their family names. Also, as I was writing this and it's following chapters I noticed that keeping the characters in character got pretty hard, especially Osaka, who is playing a very different role in this than in the anime. If you have any advice or comments I'd be more than glad to hear them.
Now, on with the story ...
The year is 3608, man has lived in space for hundreds of years now. Reaching far from their own solar system to conquer the stars. Hundreds of planets have been terraformed and colonised, many billions of humans now occupied the galaxy. Space travel was common and the base of the economy. Nearly a thousand years back, the Federation had been born. One single government that ruled over all lawful humans. There were still pirates and crooks that lived in and around the outskirts of Federation space. But as long as people stayed within the secure boarders of Federation space, you were unlikely to run into any of them.
Captain Sakaki Ishikawa looked out the bridge window. Her ship had just fallen out of warp and was rapidly approaching the AC – 3 Space Station. The yellow sun cast hard shadows across the massive structure several dozen kilometres ahead of Sakaki's ship, the Neko-Koneko. Sakaki was wearing a captains coat over her normal cloths: dark jeans and a tight black shirt with army boots. The captains coat was a black leather trench coat that reach her knees, it had a few medals on it that had been passed down to Sakaki by her father.
The station resembled a massive diamond with three large disks around it connected by thick bridges. The hard blue metal of the station reflected the light of the sun. The station was huge, but it was dwarfed by the planet behind it, that it orbited. A large ice planet with ice caps that left only a narrow band around the equator bare of ice. One of the many planets that where in the process of climate conditioning to make it more habitable by humans.
Sakaki was heading for the docking bay near the bottom of the station. As she approached, a female voice buzzed over the radio.
"This is Space Station CS – 3. Please provide identification immediately." The voice said firmly but non-threateningly.
Sakaki sat in her chair and typed a few buttons on the console next to her. After a few seconds the voice replied. "Thank you Neko-Koneko. Please proceed to docking bay 47-B".
Sakaki took the controls in her hands and pushed forward. The ship dipped and Sakaki felt her internal organs shift as the ship's artificial gravity altered. She sat back in her old chair and took in the view before her. The planet took up more and more of the view as the long ship approached the station.
Meanwhile, deep inside the engine room at the other end of the ship.
Ayumu Kasuga inhaled the stale air, the stench of lubricants and and metal filled her nostrils. The normally spacey and oblivious girl was in her element in the engine room. Pipes, tubes, screens and consoles were everywhere, anyone attempting to do anything in this three floor tall room wouldn't know where to start were it not for the training they would have undergone for years.
Ayumu had found her calling when she was very young. She had been born in a small town on a backwater planet who's main feature was the space ship graveyard. Ayumu had spent her childhood exploring the gutted corpses of the once proud vessels. Only when she was accepted into the Federation School of Engineering, did she finally get to explore the massive engines of battleships and mother-ships.
The girl, who had failed in almost all of her other subjects and only barely passed the vital subjects, had excelled in engineering, earning herself a bachelor's degree. Not bad for a girl who had been born on a backwater planet and was considered to be less than intelligent by most who met her.
She examined a screen that gave a readout of the engine temperature and thrust. She checked things off in her head as she did a normal manual diagnostic of the ships systems. Her office was a platform above the complex system of pipes, machines and other hardware that made up the engine. Her desks were covered in small modules that she had salvaged off other ships or torn from her own ship to repair. She was wearing dark blue overalls with a pink shirt underneath, her black army boots completed the "Grease Monkey" look she wanted, although she very rarely came into contact with grease, the lubricate lines were about the only part of the ship that didn't need regular repair.
In her bedroom, near the middle of the ship, Chiyo Mihama was reading a magazine. Her job as Gunner wasn't needed at this moment, so she was taking it easy. She had the easiest job on the ship. She was only called to action when the ship came under attack or when they needed to resupply. Her job was usually only pressing a button or two and choosing what ammunition types to fire. Her second job: Supplies Officer, only came into effect when they were docked in a station or taking in cargo from the vast vacuum of space. She felt the shift in the ships gravity and began making her way to the bridge. Her attire was a simple skin tight body suit with a slightly looser top that reached just above her knees on the back and just past her waist on the front. Her suit had soles on the bottom to act as shoes.
She tapped a button next the door and it slid open. She walked along the grated metal floor. The narrow hallway was lined with dirty metal walls, the ship was old and had been through many owners since it's glory days. She reached the staircase and leaped up it, another short walk and she came into the bridge. She was greeted by a marvellous view of the planet and station. The big windows at the front of the bridge gave a good 180 degree view of everything ahead of the ship.
"Hi Sakaki" Chiyo said in her usual high pitched tone. Sakaki looked round and smiled. Chiyo sat down in her seat next to Sakaki's. They both looked out the forward window, only a few kilometres left until the station took control. "I'll be resupplying here, I've got the usual list, do you want anything special?"
Sakaki shook her head, "No, thank you. I've got everything I need" Sakaki said, in her soft, almost angelic voice. Sakaki gripped the controls again and gently pulled them towards her, the ships nose lifted and headed towards a large tunnel in the station, which had now completely taken over the forward view. As the ship entered the tunnel, there was a thud as the station took control of the vessel.
Sakaki released the controls as the station guided the ship towards it's dock. She pressed a button and spoke into her console, it sent a message down to Ayumu. "Cut the engines please Ayumu" Sakaki softly spoke. Ayumu pressed a button and pulled down a lever. The engines hummed for a second, then silence.
The Neko-Koneko was guided through a complex network of tunnels until it reached a dead-end. Two gravity tethers fired out of the ceiling of the tunnel, they connected with the ship and held it in place. The end of the tunnel split into three sections and ground open. The tethers dragged the ship into the dock, next to a platform. The ship stopped next to the platform and three more tethers attached themselves to the ship. The door to the dock slowly closed itself and a light above it turned from red to green. Several more red lights above the platform turned green, indicating the atmosphere had been restored. The ship fell by several metres as gravity was restored, but the tethers quickly pulled it back into place.
Sakaki and Chiyo stood up and made their way to the exit. Ayumu was already on her way, just coming up the stairs. She joined the other two and they departed the ship. The ship door opened and the trio were greeted by a cold gush of air. It was sweet and crisp, much better than the recycled air they had been breathing for the last few weeks.
They took the lifts up to their housing level, they shared an apartment on this station and several other stations throughout Federation space. The apartment was small and bland, dark grey walls and similar carpeting. In one corner of the room was there kitchen, nothing special either, small refrigerator, stove and a bar counter. Two bedrooms, one for the Captain and one for Chiyo and Ayumu. Sakaki's room was better furnished the other's. Pictures of family and friends on the walls, a shelf of flight magazines and books. A few toy spaceships lay on the floor and some stuffed animals lay on her bed.
She collapsed onto her queen sized bed and lay there, taking in the cold air and the smell of the clean sheets. This was her favourite station, that's why she furnished it more than her crew mates. Chiyo and Ayumu had separate beds, the room was divided into their two halves; Ayumu had a few books and magazines on engineering, her desk was covered in broken pieces of equipment that she was investigating. Her side table had a picture of her home planet from orbit and picture of her with her family.
Chiyo's side was more tidy and organised. Her book shelf was loaded with books on chemistry, biology, zoology and numerous other sciences that the youngest crew member was fascinated in. She had been landed with the gunnery job because they needed someone to do it, not because she wanted to blow stuff up. Sakaki was the captain and Ayumu: the engineer. One day, once she had earned enough money, she would devote her life to learning.
Ayumu collapsed onto the couch in the living room and flicked on the holo-screen in front of her. She flipped through the channels while Chiyo investigated the kitchen behind her, she began boiling some water for coffee. The downside of the open-plan kitchen became apparent quickly, the sound of the kettle boiling the water blanked out the sound from the TV, much to Ayumu's annoyance.
That is how the trio of freelancers spent the rest of their evening .... Meanwhile, 5 million kilometres away, a large star ship was preparing for warp.
*
The massive, three kilometre long, Capital ship The Hammer of Thor glided through space like a ship through calm seas. It's captain, Koyomi Mizuhara, was known through out Federation space as being the youngest captain of a Capital ship ever. She had excelled in commanding large vessels, but failed when it came down to actually flying a ship of any size. She had impressed her superiors enough for them to give her control of the old, but still ferocious, Hammer of Thor.
Captain Mizuhara, known as Yomi to only her closest friends, was sitting in her captain's chair. It was higher than the rest of the bridge, allowing her to look down on her crew. In front of her sat her two pilots, lining the rest of the bridge were communications engineers and support staff. The whole crew of the vessel number nearly a thousand, all under the command of their captain.
The Hammer was on it's way to patrol around a section of space that had suffered a large rise in pirate attacks. The presence of a capital ship should scare most of them away. Pirates rarely had anything above cruiser class, maybe a few battleships for the largest pirate groups, but were never seen in Federation space.
"Are we aligned?" Koyomi asked her lead pilot.
"Yes ma'am." the man replied after checking a coordinates read out on his holo-screen.
"Good. Initiate warp in three ... two ... one ... jump!" the captain ordered. On her last word, both pilots pulled a lever and the ship's engines glowed brightly and the Hammer was shot out into the inky blackness of space. From an outsider's point of view the ship would simply fire off into space, like a tracer bullet being fired into a night sky. But on board the vessel the crew was jerked back for a second. Everything outside was a blur, then a bubble seemed to form around them, the colours on the bubble resembled oil floating on water, swirling in a hallucinogenic way.
After only a few minutes of warp, the bubble collapsed and the ship fell out of warp, slowing down immensely quickly. The engines died for a second then returned to life and carried the ship forward., leaving a short trail of blue behind them. The light of the red sun in the local solar system cut hard shadows across the straight lines and sharp curves of the Hammer. The cold blue of the ship reflected the light onto a nearby asteroid. The ship's shadow and the reflected light mixing.
"Captain, five hostile ships on scanners, two cruisers, two frigates and one fighter." one of the engineers said, a large hologram of the area flickered into life in front of Yomi, she could see her own ship, the band of asteroids and the five pirates.
"Get medium beam lasers on the cruisers, dispatch Fighter Team Alpha" the Captain ordered. The Hammer tipped down to give a clearer shot at the cruisers 25,000 kilometres away.
*
Down in the underbelly of the ship, Tomo Tankino was chatting with her fellow fighter pilots in the hanger. A red light began flashing and a speaker announced: "Fighter Team Alpha, prepare for combat!"
The small group jumped up and ran to their fighters. The small fighters were Merlin class, a common fighter, dangerous in inexperienced hands, lethal in trained ones. The 15 metre wide and 5 metre long ships were hooked onto the roof of the hanger, the pilots took lifts up to a catwalk that allowed them to jump right into the their seats. The flat fighters resembled bats with their wings spread, extremely agile and packing enough fire power to take on cruisers one on one. Their largest weakness was their poor armour rating. It's shields were good enough to hold out against other fighters, but anything larger than Medium grade projectiles would pose a deadly risk if they could get a good shot.
Tomo settled into her familiar cockpit and flicked a few switches. The black glass closed and sealed itself air tight. Tomo checked herself to see if she had forgotten anything. She noticed the picture of her and her best friend had fallen from it's place on her dash board, she picked it up and stuck I back up. It was her and "Captain" Yomi on a trip to Nirvana, the tropical paradise planet near the centre of the Federation.
But now was no time to delve into memories. She punched a command into the computer and three gravity tethers fired into her ship. Her Merlin unhooked from the roof and was carried away by the tethers. She was third in the line to the hanger bay.
She attacked her radio to her neck, a tight band that held a small transmitter against her voice box. She strapped herself in and put on her helmet. Gripping the familiar controls in front of her, she readied herself for battle. All her systems where A-OK, her four guns were powering up and her engines were warming.
Her squad leader came on the air, "Time to earn that pay check boys" he said in his deep, slightly cockney voice. Tomo gave a falsely male whoop in reply, the others made their own pre-battle noises. They were carried into a dead-end, the way behind them sealed itself and the way forward opened up. The gravity tethers pulled the ship along quickly and fired it out of the Hammer. All six Merlins fell from the belly of the ship like an ancient atmospheric plane dropping it's payload on a target.
Suddenly Tomo was in the emptiness of space. "Gah! Where am I?" Tomo panicked over the radio, "It's all dark and there's stars and stuff" she said, sounding genuinely scared.
"You make that joke every time we do this, Tankino. One day I'm just gonna shoot you down onto a planet myself, I swear!" he commander said. Tomo laughed, as did a few other fighters.
"Sorry, I just didn't think space would so vast and stuff. What about this? There's crack in the dilithium crystals, captain! I've got to have two hours to repair the sh..." Tomo yelled over her neck radio in a thick Scottish accent.
"Shut up!" her commander yelled, only to be greeted by Tomo's laughter.
"Sorry, boss. Let's 'av at 'em my son" Tomo impersonated her squad captain's cockney accent.
*
The Hammer was approaching optimal range for it's lasers. The two cruisers had began approaching the Hammer, they had large missile bays and had fired several large warheads at them. "Missiles inbound, they appear to be Firefly warheads" another engineer said, a hologram appeared in front of Yomi.
"Threat level?" Yomi wasn't really worried, the shielding on her ship was strong enough to deflect anything those ships could throw at them.
"We can deflect the heat, but we aren't calibrated for the shock waves" the engineer replied.
"Lasers are within range, Captain. Permission to fire" another engineer asked.
"Permission granted" Yomi said firmly, knowing full well that those two words would end the lives of several people. Men and women with families, stories and dreams. Blown out into space, likely to never get a proper funeral or goodbye. Yomi forced these thoughts from her head, she had done this loads of times before, it was just like a game, you didn't think about them as real people just markers in a holo-gram that disappeared once she had uttered a few words.
The large laser on the top of the ship's bridge heated up and fired a long golden beam that directly hit the enemy cruiser. A blue, transparent bubble appeared around the ship, the beam was dissipated and bent around the bubble. The beam held it's target for a few seconds then the beam died.
"Their shields are down to twenty-five percent, Captain. They are calibrated for rockets not lasers, this shouldn't take long, Captain." an engineer reported.
"What's the position of the fighter team?" Yomi inquired.
"They should reach optimal range in about three minutes, Captain".
*
The squad leader of Tomo's group began dishing out targets to his men, "Our targets are the frigates and the fighter. Tankino and Jackson, you take the fighter, the rest of us will take down those frigates." he ordered.
"Righto boss" Tomo quickly replied. Tomo and Jackson broke off from the formation to chase the fighter that had zipped behind an asteroid. The sleek fighters sliced through space at five hundred metres a second. Tomo activated her targeting system that scanned ahead of her, a cross-hair jumping around her field of view until the fighter emerged from behind the asteroid.
The cross-hair attached itself to the ship and began bleeping as it tried to lock on. A clear tone indicated lock and Tomo squeezed the triggers in her controls. Several short, golden laser blasts fired from her guns and hit the fighter. It's shields flickered as they absorbed and distributed her shots across the bubble. Jackson released a volley that hit the ship too.
A read out on her console told Tomo that the enemy ship's shields were down to half.
The Hammer fired another long beam of golden death at the cruiser. This time it's shielding only lasted a second before the laser hit the hull, it glowed white then exploded, blasting the ship into two chunks spinning away from each other.
"The first cruiser is down, Captain." an engineer reported, "The second one appears to be turning it's attention towards the fighters".
Yomi sat up, her back rigid. "Those missiles could destroy a fighter's shielding in just two hits." she thought, fearing for Tomo's safety. "Quickly, full charge high lasers on that cruiser" she ordered.
The ship banked sharply to give it's side mounted laser a clear shot. The double barrelled laser heated up and fired at full strength. Two white beams hit the cruiser. The shielding didn't even try to hold out this time, the ship was blown into many smaller pieces spinning away into space, a large explosion burst from the lump of melting metal as it's reactor overloaded. But before it's death, the cruiser launched three missiles, they shot away from the cruiser. Two escaped before the cruiser burst, the third missile was consumed in the blast and detonated.
The two surviving missiles shot after their target, one of two fighters chasing another fighter.
*
Tomo's screen suddenly began flashing red and beeping loudly. The words "MISSILE LOCK" flashing in her face made it very obvious to Tomo. She pulled up and barrelled around, the missiles followed. Tomo pushed her fighter at top speeds towards to an asteroid, the missiles were gaining ground quickly but Tomo had a plan.
The asteroid was filling Tomo's view quickly as she rocketed towards it. Her computer was complaining abut the rapidly approaching rock, but Tomo ignored it. Her eye was on the distance read out. The rock was only one kilometre away now, she pulled back on her controls as hard as she could, her ship made a damn near ninety degree turn, pulling up just in time. Tomo skimmed across the surface of the massive asteroid, it's features just blur to Tomo.
The first missile couldn't compete with her agility and it collided with the asteroid, a large explosion flashed for a second then vanished, leaving only a black crater in the smooth, light grey rock face. The second missile, however, managed to pull up in time to avoid the rock. It rocketed forward and collided with it's target.
*
"A fighter has been hit" an engineer reported.
Yomi snapped to attention, "Who's was it?!" she demanded.
"Um..." the engineer was taken aback by his captain's sudden demand. "Tomo Tankino, number three. Her ship took heavy damage to the right wing but the pilot is still alive and life support is still working" he said quickly, trying to sooth his captain's nerves. No one on the bridge knew why Captain Mizuhara got so worked up about her fighters, she had kept her cool when they took a direct hit from battleship lasers, but as soon as a fighter got hurt she would get all jumpy.
"Bring up her vital signs on my screen" she ordered, the engineer punched in a few commands and Yomi's holo-screen was filled with a diagnostic on Tomo's ship and her life signs. Her ship blueprint was flashing red on the right wing, it was bringing up pieces of information that gave details on what had been broken and what was in danger of breaking.
*
Tomo was spinning, the missile blast had thrown her off balance and she was struggling to regain control. She got her ship to stop spinning, but she was still having trouble turning and her speed was limited to three hundred metres per second. Worst of all, the fighter she been chasing was closing in on her quickly.
She tried to return to the safety of her formation, but they were off dealing with the frigates.
"Where the hell are you Jackson!?" she yelled, her computer telling her the fighter had acquired lock on her.
"Sorry, Tankino. Son of a bitch is slippery. I'm on his tail but my computer won't lock" came his reply.
The enemy fighter fired two shots from his railguns, one missed but the other hit Tomo's already damaged wing, causing her to spin once more. Jackson couldn't blind fire or he'd risk hitting Tomo, but if he did nothing the pirate would surely kill her. Fortunately for him, his problem was solved when a volley of golden lasers peppered the pirate and created a fireball in his place. Jackson pulled up to avoid colliding with the debris.
"Wow, Tomo. You can't even handle one little fighter? Good thing I was here for you ... again" came the voice of the new fighter.
"What?! That first time was your fault to begin with, Kagura! If you hadn't dropped a Graviton Smart Bomb right next to me I wouldn't have had to dodge by flying into the targets of those pirates!!" Tomo yelled, trying to keep face to her friendly rival.
"Yeah sure. Why don't you limp back to the ship and I'll come see if you need someone to kiss your boo-boos" Kagura laughed, infuriating Tomo.
"I've got something for you to kiss you stupid bit..." Tomo began before being interrupted by their squad leader.
"Ladies, sort this out later, we are on a battlefield here and I need you to help me take down that last frigate!".
"Sorry, boss" Kagura replied, flying back to help gun down the last frigate who's reactor was already burning a hole in the hull.
Any advice or comments are more than welcome, please. I will try and maintain a high quality of work, but with no one to proof read it there might be a few mistakes here and there. Thanks for reading the first chapter, next one will be up soon.
