(Recommended listening: Read or Die OAV OST, Track 12. Find it now on "KeiichiAnimeForever")
Juno, Vela and Lupus, now fully armed to the teeth with weapons and combat ready uniforms, walked briskly down the main corridor of the UMHQ control building. Their boots clicked on the glossy tile floor, and the team drew the attention of nearly every person within sight. It was natural. No one had seen the Gemini team in full uniform for almost a full year.
The team walked past a group of dumbfounded NCOs, making their way to the elevators. Juno shifted nervously as they waited for an elevator to arrive. Vela eyed her brother out of the corner of her eye. The stares from the people around them could be readily felt, like pinpricks. She knew it was making him nervous. Hell, it was making her nervous, too. The only one unaffected was Lupus, who seemed happy no matter what the situation.
The elevator doors opened, and Vela directed it to the Control Center, at the bottom floor of the compound. The elevator set off immediately, rapidly descending many levels beneath the ground. Within a minute, the doors reopened to a bustling office space with state of the art computer consoles and a giant projection of the Earth on the ceiling. This was the nerve center, the room where all intelligence from home and abroad was sent to be scrutinized and categorized. Enemy broadcasts, weapons development, troop movement; it all converged here.
The Gemini team made their way along the outer edge of the room, keeping close to the wall. The Control Room was filled with some of the greatest minds in the galaxy, human and alien alike; getting in the way of a smart person with a giant ego was not something anyone on the team wanted to deal with. The Admiral's office was ahead, at the south end of the room. Having come in from the north entrance, Juno and the team were halfway there, near the east wall.
Without warning, several alarms began to shriek and red lights started flashing around the room! Automated turrets, built into the walls and ceiling revealed themselves, and aimed toward the west wall, the Control Room's second entrance. Vela, pistol already drawn and at the ready, made her way to the source of the commotion. Juno and Lupus, caught off guard, followed closely on her heels.
At the west entrance, a poor, startled cadet stood with his hands raised and a puddle forming at his feet. He had dropped the box he had been carrying, and all eyes redirected towards it after a moment.
"Enough! Enough! Stand down, all of you!" a loud and commanding feminine voice resounded above all the rabble. A middle aged woman with jet black hair down to her shoulder blades stepped forward, cigarette in hand. "It's just one of those damned cleaning drones again!" The woman stooped down and picked up the box, opened it, and took out a miniature robot. The turrets immediately retracted into the ceiling, and all the guards relaxed.
The woman spotted Vela amongst the cubicles and smiled in recognition. She made her way through the crowd of civilian computer whizzes to the group, holding the robot in her hands. "These new cleaning drones are the newest in their line, but the new software has been setting of our alarms all morning. It's been hell trying to find the subroutine that's causing it while still getting all of my work done."
Vela smiled, then lowered and holstered her pistol. "It's good to see you too, Karen."
Karen took a long puff of her cigarette while observing the team, squinting from behind her glasses. She was the civilian in charge of the Control Room, her authority only dwarfed by that of the Admiral himself, whose decisions almost always backed hers. "It's been awhile, kiddos. I haven't seen you all in full uniform since Mizar… and we all know how that turned out."
Juno was reminded of the fact that no one on Earth besides him and his family knew that Mizar was really Barry. "You have no idea…" he muttered.
"What was that?" Karen asked. Lupus made a low growl and nudged Juno's leg.
"The cleaners were a bad idea!" Juno caught himself.
"Yeah, well maybe you can get the Admiral to do something about that. The whole things been driving me batty… you do have a meeting with him, right?"
"Yeah," Vela replied before looking at her watch. "We need to go, actually. Now. Good luck with the cleaners."
"Ugh… don't remind me." She took another huff of her cigarette before returning to her work station.
Juno led the way to the exit at the south end of the room, and Vela chuckled to herself as she faintly heard Karen cursing the Cadet who'd relieved himself on the floor. Lupus trailed behind the siblings, his tail wagging without a care in the world. Through a set of double doors, a lengthy hallway, an extensive security system and another set of double doors, the Gemini team came to a final door with a golden placard: Admiral Jensen.
Juno took a deep breath and knocked.