Chapter 1
Yone (pronounced Yon-A) Getsuei flipped a lock of sleek, black hair out of her face. It really irritated her how it always swung down in front of her eyes. 'That's gonna kill me someday…' she would think to herself whenever she would be forced to deal with the rebellious hair. She never had it cut any shorter though, she didn't really know why. Hair, though, was the least of her worries at the moment.
Yone continued piloting her V-12 Vulture through the endless debris of what had become known as the Terminal Point, the 'Point' itself covering many hundreds of miles. Her Uncle had told her not to come here, had in fact specifically ordered her to avoid this one area of space in particular. The Terminal Point was the most debris-filled area that anyone knew about. At least anyone Yone had ever known. It was filled with potential dangers of all sorts. There was space rock aplenty, ranging from tiny showers of small pebbles to giant, asteroid-sized chunks. It took an amazingly skilled pilot to navigate the natural obstacles alone, and coupled with the threat of mercenaries, smugglers, and scavengers, it was a risk that few adventurers chose to take. Such hazards as these didn't even show up on the radar of her thoughts, for Yone had complete faith in her ability as a pilot, and with good reason —— she was by far the most skilled pilot in her whole clan. This, however, did not give her the confidence of her Uncle, or for that member the leaders of her clan. So, in response, she was forced to come to the Terminal Point unknowingly. In many ways, this is much more dangerous, for if she crashed (which was all but unthinkable in her mind) she would be stranded, lost forever in an area where her whole clan didn't even know she was at. Yone has and doesn't think about any of this as she pilots her Vulture around the space debris, not all of it rock. One can see pieces of jagged metal, among other relics of a long-gone past. These are not what she's searching for though, and she continues deeper into the cluttered void.
Yone's eyes peer out of her Vulture's view screens, showing all her surroundings. Her job is to collect valuable resources for the clan, and as such her craft reflects her task. It is cylindrical in nature, with two, multi-purpose arms extending out of the front. The craft is powered by a number of thrusters located on various, strategically-located areas of the craft. Being the scavenger craft that it is, the only weapon to speak of is a single machine gun right above the front of the vehicle. It is rarely used, and is hidden inside a compartment. Yone knows her ship inside and out though, and if it came to combat, she would be much better suited to using her high speed and mobility to get out of a situation.
Her hands automatically react to the obstacles appearing out of the gloom around her, using her eyes, her ship's sensors, and her own Newtype senses. She's a Newtype. This doesn't strike her as anything particularly amazing, the majority of people are Newtypes, that's how it's always been as far as she's concerned. The word itself is nearly extinct. So far she hadn't found much of use today--a few useless scraps of long-destroyed ships, even an artifact that she at first had believed to be the torso of a mobile suit, but had turned out to be a rather large piece of colored scrap metal. But she kept telling herself, the deeper she went in the more potential for reward.
If only her Uncle would allow her to come out here with a full squad. That would really be an opportunity. With three more members they could cover nearly three times what she alone could do. Her Uncle though, would never allow something so dangerous. The man was more worried about the danger than the rewards. But he was their Tactical Squad Leader (TSL), and unless she took it up with the higher-ups that wasn't about to change any time soon. Yone's unhappy train of thought vanished as the rapid beeping of one of her ship's energy sensors was triggered.
Now that she had come in so deep it was very difficult to see anything at all, she was piloting solely by the two beams of light her craft had. This one, energy reading instrument was beeping even louder now, trying to get her attention off of her main course and venture around an especially large chunk of rock. Yome eagerly read the readouts that depicted a reasonably strong energy pulse coming from around the asteroid. It was by no means strong, nothing was in space with the constant presence of the accursed Minovsky Particles, but that meant nothing. The fact that she had a reading sent her mind soaring, seeing as it was the first time in all her scavenging that she had found such.
'Could it be a stasis pod??' She wondered, imagining the wealth of information her clan could sell and profit from, then her mind soared higher. '--Or even possibly a Mobile Suit!' she thought this last part with growing anticipation. Scraps of antique Mobile Suits were routinely brought in, but one that still had an intact power source? Worth much, much more. Her clan could use every weapon it could lay its hands on regardless. Yone's mind continued to envision continuingly more fantastic possibilities as she veered off course, rounding the curve of the asteroid, coming closer and closer to the source of the emissions. Into her viewscreen came what appeared to be scraps of Mobile Suits', looking rather new actually. She grabbed several of the larger pieces in her craft's hands, storing them safely in the storage space hidden in another section of the space vehicle.
At long last her highly-focused beams of light came upon a small, red pod of sorts that was jammed into the space rock. Her mind stopped in mid-thought of finding a long lost, secret space colony and came back to the present. She felt disappointed for only a moment--this was still a valuable find, and she needed to secure it doing as little damage as possible. Stretching out her the large, mechanical hands of her craft, she grabbed onto the red pod.
It was stuck in the rock pretty firmly, and she had to work carefully for fear of damaging this antique anymore than it already was. After a few minutes of gentle prodding and twisting, it finally began to give way, first slowly, and then coming out all the way. She brought it up closer to her viewscreen, examining it from the dim light. She couldn't be sure, but it looked like this was a Mobile Suit escape pod. Most of her clan's models didn't have an escape measure at all for their pilots, it was fight and win or lose and die. There didn't appear to be too much outward damage. The red paint of the pod had been largely scratched off, and there were numerous large burn streaks around it.
'Looks safe enough…'she thought dismissively, moving it back around and gently placing it in her cargo hold, closing the door after she placed the hand inside. The excitement began to bubble up inside of her. She wanted to repressurize the cargo hold and go see what she had discovered right away. She forced herself to be realistic though. If she left now they would certainly be hit by some sort of space debris or another.
'Guess I'm gonna have to get us out of here first….' she thought as she turned her craft around and headed back towards where she had entered the Terminal Point.
Nearly three hours later, now successfully out of the Terminal Point and the danger of space debris, Yone let her craft drift in free space. In the back of her mind she knew she was supposed to go straight back to clan headquarters, but she was dieing to know what exactly she had found, and could not resist the temptation of the red pod. The cargo bay was now fully repressurized, the filtered air filling the whole area. She took off the helmet to her gray suit, laying it down next to the control panel and walked back to the bay doors. Pushing a few buttons, it opened up for her, and she found herself staring at a beat-up red pod. She walked around it once, then twice, examining it for identifying marks. Most manufacturers had some sort of identification mark, or number, even clan-made Mobile Suits had a symbol of some sort. It could be hidden behind one of the large black burn streaks or have been scratched off, so Yone gave up, circling around to the front, where she could see the outline of the opening.
"Anybody in there?" she called loudly as she rapped her gloved fist on the pod with a smile. There was no chance there was anyone alive in their anymore, Mobile Suits hadn't traveled through the Terminal Point since she had been living, and therefore she reasoned that this pod was easily over 16, her age.
'Time to get down to business,' she thought to herself as she unhooked a small, handheld device from her belt and magnetized it onto the pod. This device would short-circuit any locking or self-destruct mechanisms this thing had on, should at least. Yone pressed a few buttons rapidly, pursing her lips into a thin line of total concentration as she continued.