Disclaimer: I don't own either of the two intellectual properties that have been melded into one here today, those being Macross Frontier and the Fate Stay/Night franchises, and certainly don't have the intent to make money of this piece of work, only the intent to make some people smile.


Chapter 4: On Your Marks


The large type Vajra loomed large beyond the carbon-glass separating the four of us from space. It waited there, choosing not to strike, instead simply appearing to stare us down. It was at that point Ranka broke the silence with a fearful scream and positively bolted back behind Saotome, grabbing a handful of his shirt in the process. Given the fact that if the Vajra broke through the bubble viewport we were all going to suffer an oxygen deprivation related death, I wondered how that could possibly make her feel any better. Even as that idle thought crossed my mind, I opened myself up to my magic circuits – I was in a battlefield now, so it was time to play serious.

With that particular thought in mind, I scanned the park. Emergency protocols on the Frontier fleet dictated that there be at least one entrance for an emergency shelter per hundred square metres of floorspace (one of the good things about fleet based life was the fact that there were redundancies for almost every conceivable occasion), so by rights there should be a slightly more secure spot around us. Sure enough, barely ten metres away, the distinctive alternating red and black pattern indicating an emergency shelter was tattooed onto the floor.

Saotome, displaying his usual coolness in combat, stood there with his mouth hanging open. I sighed and opened my mouth to direct everyone towards the shelter, even as the Vajra raised one it's limbs to contemptuously shatter the metre of carbon-glass between it and us, but was interrupted as I spotted a trio of VF-25's pull out from underneath our field of view, riding trails of blue fire. The lead Messiah was clearly Ozma's VF-25S, clad in an Armored FAST Pack. The Squad Commander completed a transformation to battloid mode as he closed on the target, colliding rather unceremoniously with the large Vajra and using his momentum to propel the (apparently) surprised Vajra away from the bubble viewport.

Seeing as the immediate threat to our oxygen supply was gone, I shut my mouth. I watched on as Ozma's VF-25S drew a bead on the still flailing Vajra with his gunpod and peppered it with shells. In a similar fashion to the battle earlier, the shells did almost nothing in the way of real damage to the large type Vajra, but the constant impacts, flashes and smoke appeared to temporarily stun the red creature.

In the meantime, Mikhail and Luca had blown past the immediate battle, opting instead to get some distance as their loadouts dictated. Mikhail could no doubt pop the head off the alien creature but needed a fair bit of range to do so safely. I actually hadn't seen Luca in combat, but typically recon variable fighter models were never frontline units, so I wasn't really expecting him to get involved with the melee.

The large Vajra recovered quickly when the Squad Commander finished his initial burst, and responded by propelling itself forwards and swinging it's clawed forelimb at the chest region of the variable fighter. The strike was good and sent the commander variant Messiah reeling. Oddly enough, despite the violence happening out in vacuum, the only sounds I heard were a pair of twin gasps as Ranka and Sheryl voiced their shock at the results of the strike. I chanced a glance at both girls – Sheryl was staring at the combat but slowly backing down the stairs (whether she was frightened or merely sensible I couldn't guess, as she was still facing away from me) and Ranka tried to edge futilely further behind Saotome. Saotome himself narrowed his eyes in response to something happening in the melee, so I turned my attention back to space, where Ozma's Messiah was now grappling the creature.

What I wouldn't give to be patched into the comm right now. The mass of metal and carapace continued to roll in space as both the Squad Commander and the Vajra he was grappling struggled to gain an upper hand. Surprisingly, there was no support fire from our support destroids on the docked Quarter. It was probably a safe assumption that the government was having troubles pulling it's finger out and authorising fire support – an assumption quickly proved as Luca's green Messiah pulled around in a flare of of vectoring thrust and transformed to GERWALK mode, levelling it's gunpod at the grappling combatants. I shook my head. The targeting computers on the Messiah were definitely a step above the standard VF-171, but a standard Howard GU-17A 58mm Gatling gunpod definitely did not have the kind of precision for the kind of shot Luca was trying to make.

Ozma was clearly struggling in the melee with the Vajra – the greater mass of the creature didn't really help when trying to overpower it by strength alone. As they wobbled around in space, the Vajra began spitting imitation cannon shells from it's wrist mounted weapon. It was definitely time to start heading towards the emergency shelter now – the way Ozma and the Vajra were throwing themselves around, it was only a matter of time before one of those random bursts of imitation shells tore a hole through our protection. Even as I made that conclusion, a shuddering rumble reverberated through the floor, no doubt indicating the imitation cannon shells igniting a fuel line somewhere near us.

"Guys," I began, all business. "I don't want to alarm you too much, but this isn't a very safe place to be right now."

Sometimes I don't know why I bother. Neither Saotome, Ranka nor Sheryl seemed to pay any attention to me, choosing to instead gawk at the melee. I forcibly grabbed Saotome's shoulder and spun him around to face me, shaking him out of his stupor.

"Take Ranka over to the emergency shelter over there," I told the kid, indicating the shelter behind us. He stared at me, furrowing eyebrows and tightening eyes drawing a picture of defiance on his face. Saotome opened his mouth to argue instinctively against me, but then his brain must have caught up with him. His mouth caught open, he glanced out at the flailing melee, and he must have finally realised the mortal danger he was in. The blue haired kid gave me a grudging nod. I let go of him and turned to get Sheryl down to the shelter when I stopped. Sometime in the few seconds it took for me to get Saotome heading in the correct direction Mikhail's blue variable fighter had disappeared. An out of place reflection betrayed his rough position to me - an antenna nest slightly more than two kilometres down the hull of Island One. Without thinking I found myself Reinforcing my eyes, the increased contrast and sharpness easily allowing me to discern his firing position within the cluster of metal.

Before I could blink, a flash of light split the vacuum. Mikhail's sniper round found the head of the creature, punching a hole clean through it despite the incredible difficulty associated with shooting into melee. It was hard not to grin with satisfaction – despite my initial misgivings about having children in the squadron, it appeared both Luca and Mikhail definitely were aware of what they were doing in this company. Saotome looked disgruntled as he digested what just happened. "He hit the thing," the kid exhaled, a sliver of resentment in his otherwise awed voice. The Squad Commander's Messiah relaxed it's grip on the motionless alien, backing away to observe Mikhail's handiwork. I allowed myself to relax too, exhaling slowly as I closed my magic circuits.

Big mistake.

A twitch along the Vajra's forearms was the only warning Ozma got before the headless creature forcibly grabbed the manipulator arms of the Messiah. With a twist and a heave, Ozma was sent spinning away from the Vajra. Sheryl winced at the toss, apparently feeling some sort of sympathy for our would-be rescuer. She upgraded the wince to a muted scream as the Vajra levelled it's wrist mounted imitation cannon at the out of control variable fighter and peppered it with small explosions. The Squad Commander's variable fighter was slow to recover, but given what I knew of Ozma there was little doubt he was injured, not shaken.

The Vajra must have decided that now was the chance it needed to get out of its unfavourable position. It wheeled around - whether or not it was looking for an escape route or attempting to attack us, I couldn't tell – but as it did so the creature's tail carapace came into contact with the carbon-glass above our heads. A loud crack heralded a change in Sheryl's posture, and panic scrawled itself over her face in large lettering. Above our heads the carbon glass was spiderwebbing away from the point of impact and it would only be a matter of milliseconds until –

A whistling sound cut off my train of thought as the atmosphere sped past us, heading out towards the new hole in the viewport where space was trying to enter Frontier itself at the cost of our air. I turned towards Saotome. "Get in there now!" I roared, trying to lift my voice above the rising volume of the gale. To his credit he didn't waste any time, dropping his heel hard to engage the emergency opener. As he swept the stunned Ranka up in his arms, I was already turning towards Sheryl, who was heading towards the shelter as fast as she could in heels and her tight dress.

It was nice to see that someone had finally found a sense of personal danger, pity it was so late to manifest that it was nigh on useless. I closed in on Sheryl, who was starting to struggle as the volume of the wind rose to a roar of outrushing atmosphere. Truth be told, I was starting to struggle a little too, but I had methods of compensating for that so I wasn't worried about myself in the slightest. Sheryl, on the other hand, was still wearing panic on her face, though the set of her feminine jaw implied a certain amount of determination as well. The galactic fairy stumbled – in response I automatically lowered my hand to stabilise her.

"Don't touch me," she belted out as she corrected her footing, the look on her face even more determined than it was before. I withdrew my hands silently and we made it the rest of the way to the emergency shelter as fast as we could. As we arrived, Sheryl shot me a wary glance for a reason I couldn't fathom. In response I pointed at the hole in the floor.

"Get in," I ordered, injecting the tone of command into my voice. Sheryl flushed, held down the front of her dress (I guess that's why she gave me a funny look earlier) and jumped down the hole with a short scream. Jumped, while wearing heels. With a ladder right there. I quickly peered down the hole after her. Instead of the broken leg I expected to see, I saw the galactic fairy crawling away from the landing zone fairly steadily, and even had the nerve to give me a shaky wink as I dropped down the two metres and landed with a dull thump next to her. As soon as my boots rang off the metal floor Saotome slammed his hand down on the emergency seal button, causing the trapdoor above my head to slam shut.

"Well, that was fun," I commented dryly to no-one in particular.


My initial sarcasm aside, the situation inside the shelter turned sour in a hurry. As the adrenaline wore off, Saotome collapsed against the wall opposite Sheryl, dragging an attached Ranka down into a somewhat compromising position. Neither seemed to care. Instead of joining them, I scanned the room, taking stock of our situation. It wasn't ideal, but there was a lot more going for us in here than there was outside. Oxygen, for starters. The emergency shelter itself was simply a circular corridor about two metres wide by two metres high, with bulkheads sealing off both ends of the corridor to giving us about eight metres of length. To be honest, it looked more like a service tunnel than a shelter. It wasn't a huge stretch of the imagination to assume a place like this was actually such a tunnel, doubling as a shelter by sealing those bulkheads when the external shelter access button was activated.

"What the hell was that?" Sheryl exclaimed, a touch breathlessly.

Saotome didn't bother making eye contact with the strawberry blonde diva. "Like I'd know," he muttered derisively. "Ask Mr-military-provider over there, he does."

Sheryl turned to me, the question in her eyes. "If you don't already know, that classified information," I told her shortly, and Saotome snorted.

"Fat lot of help you are," he grumbled. "Damn," he continued, talking to himself. "Saved by him again." No doubt the young blue haired boy was referring to Mikhail, who'd technically driven off the larger Vajra. Saotome turned to stand up, but found the movement impeded by the younger Lee sibling, who was firmly latched onto his school shirt.

"Move it," he commanded grumpily. When she didn't move he softened his tone somewhat before continuing to prod her verbally, thank goodness. The last thing I needed now was for Ranka to freeze up more than she already was - the green haired girl was acting as though she was in a state of shock. Despite several attempts to pull herself off his shirt, she was failing miserably.

"Come on Ranka, easy now," I encouraged the girl. Saotome was rapidly wearing through his thin patience, at least if I was any judge, and almost immediately after I spoke opened his mouth to give the poor girl a blasting.

"Come on alrea-" he began angrily, but finally met her eyes, which were tearing up and clearly displaying her fear and shock, and let his words die. The kid had some serious empathy issues if it took him this long to work out that Ranka was in shock. Briefly I wondered if tossing him out the emergency exit would save our lives down here. Sadly, I doubted it.

Ranka finally managed to free herself with an exaggerated cry and attempted to convince us she was fine with an overly excited cry of "I'm alright!" I refrained from commenting (seeing as I wasn't sure I could say anything that wouldn't display my disbelief at that statement). Saotome gave Ranka a long stare usually reserved for patients in psychiatric wards.

Sheryl, on the other hand, piped up from next to us. "Can't you tell a couple of scared girls that you'll protect them?" she demanded in a voice that clearly showed her lack of faith in our abilities at being men.

Saotome, predictably, rose to the challenge. "Shove it!" he shot right back, hammering a fist on the metal behind him for emphasis. "If the situation let me, I'd say it all you want!"

I was quite unsurprised to find that the blue haired student was just as candid with a galaxy wide celebrity as he was with me.

Sheryl Nome, apparently supremely unsatisfied with the answer, turned to bring her full regal bearing down on me. "And what's your excuse Mr-military-provider?" she demanded of me, the disdain in her tone suddenly levels higher.

I shrugged, letting her attempt to browbeat me using her celebrity status flow off me like water off an umbrella. I wasn't Zentraedi, after all. "He's mostly right," I replied, in a considerably more civil tone than Saotome had managed. While I could deal with the Saotome's posturing and anger by mostly ignoring it, if the young boy managed to fire up Sheryl, me and Ranka would be stuck in a verbal crossfire that neither of us wanted. "We're a lot safer in here than we are outside, at least for the moment. And my name is Shirou Emiya, thanks for asking."

Just because I had to be polite, doesn't mean I was going to let her walk all over me.

She eyed me askance, but thankfully didn't blow up like Saotome would have. "Well, lets at least get out of here. Mentally speaking, it seems like we could all benefit from that," she responded haughtily. I silently thanked Alaya that despite the diva's tone, she was at least able to keep her feet on the ground and keep sight of our short term survival goals.

"That's impossible," said Saotome, calming down a bit. "This is a real emergency bolthole. It's completely sealed off from the main dome."

Sheryl shot a panicked glance up and down the length of the shelter. "You mean we're stuck in here?" she warbled out, her pitch higher than I was used to hearing. Ranka squawked incoherently from her spot near Saotome – the possibility must have only just hit her. "What do you think Shirou?" she asked me, using my first name with a casual disregard for what I considered good etiquette. Sure, I was on a first name basis with a lot of my new co-workers, but they weren't Japanese. There was a reason Saotome was Saotome to me. "Is he wrong, or can you call out on some military channel for rescue?"

"Firstly," I replied in a level voice while flicking up a finger, "I'm not in the military and have no sway with them whatsoever. I'm part of a civilian military contractor." I put a second finger up. "Secondly, I don't have any communication gear on me in any case." Sheryl look slightly disappointed at that, as though having someone in a uniform was an instant get out of jail free card (or an instant get out of emergency shelter free card in our case).

"Thirdly," I finished up by raising a third finger, "Saotome has been living here his entire life. I only got here two weeks ago, I'm not as familiar with the emergency systems as he is."

"Could I be be stuck with a more useless pair of men?" she said with a condescending sniff.

"Well how about you?" I asked levelly. "You're a major celebrity, surely you have some kind of panic button?"

She coloured. I got the feeling I wasn't going to like her response.

"I was trying to go undercover so I didn't take my trackers," the strawberry blonde diva muttered, her haughtiness drained at having been called out. I met her eyes; they were defiant still, despite the change in tone.

"Right," I concluded abruptly. "So you're stuck with two useless men, and I'm stuck with a useless celebrity. Looks like the only useful one here is Ranka then." It took a real effort not to roll my eyes and sigh; all we were doing right now were winding each other up, no matter how correct I might have been. Regardless, morale was everyone's problem, so I changed the direction of conversation. Truth be told, it wasn't entirely a random change of direction.

"Well Sheryl, I bet you weren't expecting this kind of excitement when you arrived." I began after a minute or so of silence. I was probing her to try and determine if she knew more about the Vajra than she let on; but I didn't care so much about her reply so much as I cared about her subconscious reactions to my question.

I was disappointed.

"I wasn't expecting anything like this," she replied, having calmed down somewhat. She met my eyes evenly, and none of her actions indicated she was lying to me. No glance away to the left, no tapping of the foot, no checking her pockets. "If I had've known we were going to get attacked here I would have cancelled my tour," she groused quietly to me. I nodded sympathetically. If she was innocent then there was no point in making her suspicious of me by pushing further. If she wasn't innocent then she probably would have read that question as one of casual curiosity. Or so I hoped.

"Ah well, at least you'll be heading home soon enough," I said to the room at general. Ranka pulled herself out of a wilted slump to nod with enthusiasm, desperate to jump on any good news. Saotome grunted in agreement as he loosened his tie and undid a few more buttons from the top of his shirt. It hit me then that another test to see if Sheryl was possibly calling the Vajra would be to see if the attacks maintained when she left the fleet. My initial thoughts told me that Sheryl wasn't directly involved at least – she was genuinely scared earlier out in the park and didn't seem to be hiding anything.

The galactic fairy undid the front buttons on her coat and stood up, showing off a strapless crimson dress underneath. I shrugged out of my S.M.S. jacket, wiping some sweat off my face as I did so.

"Geez, it's getting hot," Sheryl complained, fanning herself down with her loose jacket. I raised an eyebrow - personally I didn't think it was that bad now that I had my jacket off.

Oh, damnit.

I hadn't paid much attention to it earlier, because I have a fairly high tolerance for temperature variations, but it was getting hotter. In an emergency shelter that meant one thing – the air recirculation wasn't working. I barely had time to expand on that thought before the shelter was violently rocked, presumably by an explosion further up the hull of Island One. Sheryl, the only person on her feet, wavered for a second before the combination of heels and short dress threw her balance off.

To make makes worse for us, the power chose that moment to go out, throwing the room into pitch blackness for a second. There was a slap and a thump as Sheryl finally completed her fall then the room was bathed in a dull red glow as the emergency lighting kicked in.

Well, I can say this for the galactic diva; she has a great back.

Sheryl was sprawled over Saotome, having apparently fallen on him in the dark. She wasn't the only thing that had fallen as well. The top of her dress had come down as well, and no doubt Saotome was getting a good eyeful. Sheryl groaned as she pulled herself off Saotome.

"Geez, what was that about," she grumbled, apparently unaware of Saotome ogling her assets. Luckily for her, Ranka was there to raise the alarm with a squawk of "Sheryl-san!" as the normal lights came back on. The diva looked around for a second in confusion then finally realised what the three of us had definitely already noticed (how she didn't feel it slipping off as she fell I have no idea). From almost directly behind her I couldn't see her expression as she pulled her dress up, but

Saotome's look described it all for me.

The poor blue haired kid looked on wide eyed with the look of a man who knew it wasn't his fault but was going to end up with the blame for it anyway. Sheryl's open hand descended upon his cheek at high velocity, giving him another red mark to match the one Ozma gave him earlier. As Saotome was recovering from the shock, Sheryl swung around, aiming another slap at me, which I adroitly avoided. She swung again and I hopped a step back.

"If you keep that up I'm going to see more than just your bare back," I warned the young songstress.

"You just saw my body in person," she insisted, still swinging at me. "You must pay the price! It's quite a bargain, if I do say so myself."

I kept dodging her strikes – it wasn't hard, she was telegraphing each slap quite badly. Saotome had recovered from his shock and was clearly of the opinion that such a service didn't match the cost.

"It's overpriced!" The blue haired boy spat out, still nursing his cheek. Him piping up like that caused Sheryl to stop mid swing to glare at him, and I made care to give myself a bit more distance while she was distracted. "You show most of it off on stage anyway!"

A faint red stained Sheryl's cheeks as she realised the accuracy of his words. She wasn't backing down though. "That's not my private life. This and that are different!" the strawberry blonde girl insisted. Fortunately for me, she seemed to have given up trying to exact a toll from my flesh in favour of attempting to hold the dress up at a modest height. "Keep your lecherous eyes of me, pervert!"

I wasn't sure how she was reading his eyes, because all I could see in them was open anger and defiance. "Who are you calling a pervert?" Saotome shot back, full of righteous fury. I found myself agreeing with Saotome; he didn't exactly pull down the top of her dress. Regardless, we were now in a rather deteriorating situation.

"You are, you damn kid!" came Sheryl's reply, her voice rising a few decibels.

"Shut up, you damn exhibitionist!"

Behind the bickering pair of kids, Ranka was looking around frantically – for what I had no idea. Her eyes lit up though as she found it, and with a short "Ah!" she shuffled over to her left. The gasp attracted the attention of Saotome and Sheryl, who swung around from their argument to glare at Ranka. I'm sure my curious gaze didn't help much either, but Ranka gamely managed to hold her nerve and smile back at the three of us.

"I-is anyone hungry?" I'm sure she wasn't really feeling the energy she put into her voice, but she was trying. In a rare moment of sympathy, I felt like applauding the young green-haired girl – she was trying to defuse the sour situation in her own way. In her lap she was holding a pink lunch-box with a 'Nyan Nyan' label on it – that must have been what she was looking for earlier (where she had hidden it earlier I have no idea, I hadn't seen it on her at all when we were up in the park).

"I brought along some snacks from my work," she continued. "Nyan Nyan's famous steamed tuna buns!"

Steamed buns were a Chinese food that had been brought to Japan long before I was born, so I was fairly familiar with them. When I was a child I had often enjoyed the mixture of meat and dough, and my stomach panged for a second as I remembered the taste of them from simpler days. Ranka popped the top of the lunch-box as we leaned over, the hostility in Sheryl and Saotome's faces replaced with curiosity. Stacked neatly inside was a pair of steamed tuna buns, the shape matching almost exactly the memories of my youth.

For some reason though, the chef had somehow gotten the top of each bun to colour pink, and the overall impression I got from two buns reminded me of, well, a shapely, doughy pair of breasts. A small smile crept onto my face as I observed the eyes of the galactic fairy and the blue haired student boggle, clearly making the same connection I did.

Ranka continued, oblivious. "A-after all, they say you can't wage war on an empty stomach..." The younger Lee trailed off as she noticed the weird looks being directed at the buns, and glanced down. Instantly she slumped, a pink blush settling over her cheeks. I guess even at that young age they're sensitive to innuendo.

Sheryl then burst into a fit of giggles, which somehow infected Saotome. Those two were apparently more of a pair than I had initially guessed, arguing over the same crap and now laughing at the same joke. Still, the situation was defused for the time being, and I maintained my amused smile as Sheryl told Ranka just how 'definitely really cute' she was. The revelation didn't help Ranka's attitude much, and with an exhausted sigh she slumped even further.

Once Ranka had gotten over her funk (and Sheryl had managed to pull her dress up properly), the atmosphere in the room lightened somewhat. Sure, the air re-circulators hadn't kicked back in, but the air wasn't smelling off so we had a bit of time left before we started getting desperate. The usual protocol in these cases was to wait from someone to open the door from the outside, as there was no way for us to tell what was going on outside. That was a general rule though – if we ran out of air, we'd just open it up and try our luck. No one else had put two and two together about the recirculation yet though, so I didn't bring it up in order not to induce a panic.

Instead we split the steamed tuna buns, Saotome and I halving one bun while Sheryl and Ranka halved the other. I wasn't sure how I felt about the steamed tuna on the inside, as I preferred mine raw in sashimi cuts, but it was definitely palatable so I asked Ranka to pass my regards to the chef at her restaurant when she got the time. With the situation defused for the time being the girls and I relaxed as much as we could in the space available to us, while Saotome decided to try and use the terminal to get in contact with rescue forces.

"It's no good," he sighed as he killed the terminal. "The signal's not being restored."

Sheryl looked glumly at the ceiling. "It's hard to sit quietly while your fate is in someone else's hands," she said in tones of melancholy.

"You're right," I replied, "but when in situations like this you can teach yourself to trust your friends and colleagues to save you," I told her, a little crookedly. Her line struck a chord with my mentality; I made it a point to be control of my situation as often as humanly possibly, so my advice sounded hypocritical to my ears. On the flip side of the coin, the people in this shelter didn't have the extended survival abilities that I possessed, nor my practical experience – so it was more justified for them to be leaning on other people when they needed to.

"That's nice," the galactic fairy told me, "but I didn't get this far by relying on other people." I held my tongue, she possibly had a point and I wasn't going to call her on it and start another argument.

"Speaking of people saving us, I wonder how everyone at S.M.S. is going," Ranka said quietly. I opened my mouth to reassure her, but Saotome beat me to the punch.

"You know some of them?" he asked her in a voice drained of his usual fire. I honestly wondered for a second how the simple situational humour of the steamed tuna buns had diffused everyone's anger so effectively, but I supposed the result was there, so why bother caring about the how.

"Yeah," she confirmed for him. "My brother works in human resources, and I go there sometimes to bring them snacks."

"S.M.S. huh?" Saotome mused, his eyes glazing over for a second. When he shook himself out of his reverie he gave me a look.

"Is there anything you can do to get me in?" he asked plaintively. I shrugged.

"I could put a word in with the Squad Commander, but we're short on VF-25's in any case," I told him, and it was mostly the truth. I had an inkling that Ozma wanted to bring him on board anyway if only to prevent him from getting mixed up the real military, and if I judged the blue haired student's character correctly, that's where he'd run if we turned him down. He'd already been approached once, after all. Still, that didn't mean he was prepared for life as a combat pilot.

"The question is," I told him, "why do you want to be a combat pilot?"

Saotome took a second or two to organise his reply, by which time Sheryl had already cut in over the top of him.

"Hey, is it just me," she began, "or is it getting stuffy in here?"

Damnit. Well, it looks like that cat would be out of the bag soon.

"Don't mess about," Saotome said, the dismissal in his tone threaded with a small amount of anger at having been spoken over.

"No, I'm serious," she replied, but got no further as the shelter was jarred by some external force. The four of us were thrown about, with Saotome only managing to keep his feet thanks to a desperate grab for the terminal. The lights cut out again to be replaced with the red emergency lighting, but this time the normal lighting didn't re-engage after a few seconds. Saotome swung back up to the terminal and brought up the shelter information. The despondent click of his tongue said all it, but he told us told the details anyway.

"Damn, the circulation system is down! At this rate we won't last another fifteen minutes." The intensity of his voice had risen a couple of levels, and I thought a detected a small measure of panic in there.

"Well don't just stand there, do something about it!" the galactic fairy demanded, her voice rising as well. If dropping my face into my palm would have improved the situation I would have no doubt done so at that point in time. Now that our lost air supply was common knowledge to the other three occupants of the shelter, they were beginning to panic, just as I thought. Fifteen minutes was still plenty of time for the rescuers to arrive, and in the worst case scenario we could still take our chances and get out if the park was pressurised.

"I would if I could," the blue haired student shot back, and I couldn't help but think I'd seen this kind of bickering before, about, oh, five minutes ago. Ranka mumbled something I didn't catch, but Sheryl took the stage next to her, rising regally before us. Even in the ruddy glow, it was easy to tell why she had such a large fanbase with the young male demographic; the woman was beautiful. At least when she wanted to be, I reminded myself. With a look of determination on her face that could only have been rivalled by Rin, she evenly told Saotome; "You've got to be kidding me."

And with that, she pivoted on one foot and strode purposefully towards exit ladder.

"Stop, you idiot!" Saotome exclaimed, clearly not awestruck by her celebrity charisma. "It's vacuum out there!"

I snorted as Sheryl started playing with the door controls. "All security shelter entrances are interlocked with redundant pressure gauges. They won't open unless it's pressurised outside," I told Saotome. I was surprised he didn't know that, but civilian evacuation drilling always involved not heading outside until allowed so by the military, so maybe that's why he was worried about opening the door.

"Thank you Shirou," the strawberry blonde songstress said to me as she continued messing with the door controls. "I'm not giving up and waiting to suffocate, no way!" she continued, obviously feeling as though she was on a roll. "People say I'm lucky, but I've worked hard by myself to get to where I am now! That's how I can be Sheryl Nome!"

Okay, she'd gone beyond the inspirational now. Sheryl was definitely monologuing. Not that I disagreed with her philosophy at all, it was very similar to my beliefs as a child and somewhat similar to the beliefs I carried now, but her training as a celebrity had kicked in and she was playing to the crowd now. Ranka was lapping it up, but Saotome wasn't buying it.

"That's how you take fate into your own hands!"

At that point I put a hand on her shoulder and put a decent amount of weight on it to keep her from the ladder. "If you're committed to this, I'm going first. We don't know what it's like outside, and I'm the best person in here to deal with unknown situations," I told her quietly. Sheryl nodded regally, no doubt thinking she'd inspired me with her speech. In reality, it was simply my job. Most lives saved. "Very well," I was told.

With that, I opened myself to my magic circuits and swung up the ladder towards the exit. It slid open as I approached and my field of view was obscured by the upper bodies of two women in hazard suits. Tellingly, their helmets were off, indicating the danger was most likely over.

I threw on a smile.

"Good afternoon ladies, how can I help you?"


It turned out that one of the ladies was a certain Grace O'Connor; Sheryl's manager. After I'd clambered out of the shelter, the galactic fairy was the next person out, and she favoured Grace with a quick hug, which was warmly returned. Even as Saotome and Ranka were extracting themselves from the hole we'd shared for all of twenty minutes, the middle-aged manager was busy organising transport for the herself and the diva back to their hotel, the spitting image of efficiency. She thanked us all warmly (and oddly enough, personally) for looking after Sheryl during the 'crisis'.

We barely had more than a few seconds to chat before an unassuming black car pulled up on the road behind us, and we ambled over quietly. Grace appeared busy on her phone pretty much the entire time, no doubt busy confirming security and whatnot for their ride back to the hotel. A pity really, I wanted a chance to ask her about the Vajra and check her response. As Sheryl's manager, if the Vajra were somehow attracted by the concert, there was a possibility she might know something about them, after all.

So instead of talking to Grace, I introduced myself to Second Lieutenant Catherine Glass, the N.U.N.S. liaison to Sheryl for the duration of her stay on Frontier and the other woman who had greeted me from out of the shelter. Well, I thought I was making an introduction, but I had an inkling we'd already met each other.

"You wouldn't happen to be the daughter of President Glass would you?" I asked the young woman after the traditional pleasantries were finished.

"I am," she responded guardedly, probably aware that simply being who she was made her a target to people that didn't agree with her father and his methods.

"I thought so," I said amicably. I had met this woman before; I effectively 'babysat' her for a fortnight when she was only two years old – she was so young there'd be no way she'd remember me. There was also no point in reminding her about it – she'd go to her parents (just her father now, I guess) and get it confirmed, which would lead to her asking questions about my age... It would just be a huge mess if I were to open my mouth right now.

"You know my father?" she asked me curiously.

"Everyone knows your father," I told her with a fake chuckle.

Our conversation was cut off as Sheryl opened the car door then spun around to address us. "Listen up," she said, then paused for effect. "If I happen to find that visual data on the net, I'll destroy your lives, first socially, then biologically." Her raised index finger and the fact she alternated between glaring at Saotome and myself during that little tirade made it blatantly clear who those words were for. I kept a perfectly straight face, although Saotome took it upon himself to shoot her a withering glance.

With a grin, the songstress stepped into the car. As she leant out to shut the door, she paused in just the right spot to expose as much cleavage as possible to Saotome.

"Although," she purred, "if you want to use it as a memory just for tonight, I'll allow it," she finished up, demurely letting a hand rest over the folds of her recently donned jacket. How on earth Saotome could fall again for one of her obvious attempts to bait him was beyond me, but sure enough I caught a flash of a satisfied grin roll across Sheryl's face as Saotome (and Ranka too, at the implied innuendo I guess) colour red and recoil.

The grin was replaced with a condescending giggle. "As if I'd allow that, idiot," she sniffed in disdain. As Saotome opened his mouth to deliver what would not doubt be a witless, belligerent response, I eyed askance across the car at Grace. She caught my look and offered me a distracted half embarrassed, half apologetic smile as way of a reply, all the while chatting on a cell phone. Idly I began wondering how deep I needed to look into Sheryl's support staff.

Saotome had barely finished what he no doubt thought was an intimidating and drawn out "What?" when Sheryl seized back the initiative with ease, calling Ranka over to the car. The green haired girl (who I was now beginning to suspect was at least some part zentran – she didn't have the ears, but her hair responded to her emotions like a meltran's does), looked shocked for a second, but quickly scurried over to the car door. I suppressed a snort as she almost tripped over Saotome, who wound down rather quickly now that he wasn't being expertly baited.

"Do you like singing?" Sheryl asked Ranka, all tones of teasing dropped from her voice.

"Y-yeah!" Ranka replied enthusiastically. Sheryl smiled.

"Then you should be more honest with yourself," Sheryl confided to the younger girl, "there's always chances right in front of your eyes if you look."

That was actually a useful bit of advice, and handing it out ran in opposite directions to the opinion I had formed of Sheryl during our twenty minutes of captivity at the bottom of that emergency shelter. A thump from the car let me know that Grace was now occupying the drivers seat. Sheryl glanced away from Ranka to confirm that for herself, before turning back.

"I almost never give anyone a service like this," Sheryl told the green haired girl with a wink and a smile. Looks like I'd have to dig deeper on Sheryl – she was clearly not the one-dimensional idol I was expecting. On top of that, I still needed to determine if Grace or any of her staff knew anything about the Vajra.

I sighed as the door shut with a thump and a click, then watched as the car rumbled off. If only I had the presence of mind to have some trackers on me! I could have planted one in Sheryl's coat and found out where they were staying, which would save me a lot of leg work in the future. Still, maybe if I kept tabs on Saotome the galactic fairy would show up again. To that end, I resolved to obtain some electronic bugs for that purpose.

A creak of polymer suit on concrete brought my attention back from future plans. Ranka, Saotome and myself turned to face Lieutenant Glass, who seemed to use the movement as a way to get our attention.

"Quite the leisurely rescue," Saotome commented flatly, sarcasm dripping off his voice. The Lieutenant's phone began to chime, but she ignored it in favour of actually replying to Saotome's snide remark.

"On that matter, we apologise," Lieutenant Glass replied, clearly just rolling out platitudes on behalf of the N.U.N.S. "If we had've know the air recirculators were down -"

I waved her down. "Don't worry about that, get your phone."

To be honest, I was half expecting Saotome to launch into a tirade against me, but he obviously wasn't in the mood to hear meaningless excuses either. The Lieutenant herself wasted no time, quickly bringing her military issue phone to her ear.

"Yes, I'm finished here."

Lieutenant Glass must have been getting a report from higher up in the command tree. I was kind of hoping she'd hurry up with that, because we still had to be formally discharged from this area and I wanted to get back to the Quarter to help out with the after action detail.

"What?" she asked, her voice rising in pitch just a little. "Lieutenant Commander Ozma Lee has been injured?"

Oh. Oh. Damn. I really hope Ranka wasn't paying attention just then.

"Eh?" The girl uttered in response to my unspoken pleas. Given what Ozma told me earlier, I was fairly certain this wasn't going to easy on the young girl. I turned to put a calming hand on Ranka's shoulder to keep her under control, but movement in the field of stars beyond the patched dome caught my attention. Ranka followed my eyes with her worried ones, trying to discern what it was I was looking at, possibly to distract her from thinking about what Lieutenant Glass had said earlier.

That wasn't going to be the best idea for the young Lee. What I was currently looking at were two variable fighters, one green, one blue, both in battloid configuration. Between them, being carried along by two pairs of manipulator arms was a grey VF-25S, upside-down relative to the battloids. As the trio of variable fighters passed ahead I could easily make out the Squad Commander unconscious in a cockpit filled with spheres of blood. I hadn't bothered Reinforcing my eyes, but I got the feeling that if I did I'd probably even be able to make out the wounds on his body.

I maintained a neutral expression as the Messiahs silently passed us by to land. It was definitely not a pleasant sight to be watching, but there was nothing I could do about it.

"Ozma," breathed Lieutenant Glass vehemently. I glanced at her and was surprised to see the look of utter shock on her face – maybe she knew the Squad Commander from his days in the N.U.N.S.

Her reaction was easily trumped by Ranka's a bare second later. A shrill scream erupted behind me, and I spun around in time to see Ranka shakily pull her hands away from her mouth. Ranka's pale white face followed the path of the variable fighters above us. It had been a long time since I'd seen the kind of utter devastation that the young girl's body language was conveying. As Mikhail and Luca passed beyond our field of vision, the green haired girl broke into a stumbling run to keep them in sight, eventually colliding with the dome. She barely seemed to notice. With tears in her eyes, she simply righted herself and started to yell futilely at the docking fighters.

"Brother! Why are you hurt?"

I watched on. Lieutenant Glass tried to cut in, tried to ask if Ranka was actually related to the Squad Commander, but Ranka wasn't paying any attention whatsoever, so Lieutenant Glass let the words die in the air.

"You said you'd stop piloting! You said you'd never leave me alone!"

On some unspoken agreement, Saotome and I moved up towards the stricken girl as she let herself slide down the carbon-glass, leaving a trail of sweat and tears where her forehead was in contact with the dome.

"You said you'd stop doing dangerous stuff," she cried, her voice losing it's volume. "You can't die, you just can't..." the poor girl moaned piteously. Saotome and I had just about reached her by that time, and I finally got around to putting that hand on her shoulder. Saotome echoed the gesture on her other shoulder, but we were both ignored. Something serious had dislodged in her mind; something so serious that we couldn't help her with it right now. Her back heaved as tears streamed down her face and she buried her head in her heads, completely blocking us out.

"Why?" she asked, her voice heaving with thickened emotion. "Why would you do such a thing! I haven't told anyone that secret!" The green haired girl had regained her voice by now; she practically screamed that last line. Still...

Secret? What secret? What was Ranka talking about? Whatever it was, now that Ranka knew that Ozma was piloting, I was going to make damn sure he told me everything.

"So... no..." she sobbed, losing her voice again. Saotome had began to rub her back soothingly, and with a start I realised I had completely forgotten there was a distressed girl right in front of me.

Maybe Saotome wasn't the only one with empathy issues.

I had barely finished that bitter thought when Ranka screamed and with a spasm flung herself violently backwards. Saotome easily caught her as she went over backwards and I met his eyes. Shock and worry lined them. I wondered what he saw when he saw mine.


I found it mildly ironic that after leaving the park in such a mess of chaos and confusion, I found myself back there six hours later casually sipping on a sports drink I'd purchased from an overly friendly vending machine. (One of the few advances of mankind that I was certain I'd never get used to were AI controlled vending machines on wheels.) It was a glorious night beyond the viewing dome – with the artificial light from the external shell cut in order to simulate night, there was very little light pollution to obscure the stars. Perhaps the only blemish was a cloudy patch where carbon-glass combined with self repairing gel had combined to seal the hole punched in the dome earlier.

I inhaled the cool night air, reflecting on events earlier in the day. The aftermath of the operation was incredibly chaotic, but eventually Lieutenant Glass and her N.U.N.S. escorts managed to get Ranka to the closest hospital, the Starlight Hill. It was a private hospital that I knew from my S.M.S. briefings as being associated with us – we'd pay them a yearly sum and they'd allow us access to their medical equipment and a few rooms. The upshot of that was that I knew Ranka would be in good hands.

Saotome had wandered off after them, and with the excitement over in the park I double timed it back to Quarter. I made it back in time to watch an unconscious Ozma fly past on a crash tray out the hangar door, with Canaria hanging over his shoulder. There wasn't much else to do at that point, except help the ground crews finish up in the hangar area, which I did until Robbs told me I'd done enough, and shooed me out of the hangar. I made my way back to my room, quickly scrawled the code "IFT-4088 x5 +display" onto a piece of paper, slipped it into my pocket and made my way out to the park.

Movement flared in my peripheral vision, and I brought my eyes around to the path. Two figures were ambling up the path, both dressed in S.M.S. jackets; one was a micronised Nene Rora, her height serving as the perfect contrast to her Squad Commander, Klan Klan. When she was macronised, Klan was a fairly average late teenage meltran, sitting somewhere around thirteen metres high with electric blue hair and deep green eyes. Due to some quirk of genetics however, when she was micronised, well, she flat out looked as though she was barely ten years old.

This made her a perfect target for mockery by Mikhail, who I was assured by Luca only did it because him and Klan had all but grown up together. The rest of S.M.S. mostly had the good grace to avoid such behaviour, but on one occasion I had caught Bobby trying to chase her down with an armful of dresses while crooning "But you're so cuuuuuuuuuute!" in that curious voice of his.

"Klan, Nene," I greeted them with a nod as they closed in on my seat, omitting Klan's rank as was typically the case for S.M.S. employees when off duty. I must admit, the flexibility and informality of the company was really beginning to grow on me.

"Shirou," the blue haired meltran replied, giving me a nod in reply – a gesture which was echoed by Nene. The pair stopped in front of the seat I was on so I dutifully shuffled aside a bit and swept my hand in the general direction of the free space, offering them some space on the seat. Klan shook her head with an exasperated sigh.

"We can't hang around," she explained. "The management at O'Malley's just rang to let us know that Ramaria has passed out in the corner." The undersized meltran rolled her eyes theatrically. "Again."

I raised my eyebrow slightly. I'd only run into Ramaria a couple of times, but on reflection, just about every time I'd run into her she was either drinking, hungover or on duty. If I found her drinking once or twice, I'd be willing to chalk it up to coincidence. It then dawned on me that there could be some underlying reason that was drinking the red haired meltran to consume that heavily.

"She seems to be pretty involved with the alcohol," I commented neutrally. Klan gave me a shrewd glance in reply (well, about as shrewd as her face could pull off – the actual effect reminded me of a cat giving a person a curious stare).

"She has her moments," Klan told me, perhaps a touch defensively. I glanced past her towards Nene, but she was following the lead of her Squad Leader (or onee-sama) and didn't give away any information. I shrugged, feeling that perhaps it was perhaps something to follow up another time.

"Do you need a hand carrying her back?" I asked. Offering my help cost me nothing whatsoever, and would save Nene from having to struggle by herself with unconscious meltran dead weight on the way back to Quarter, because let's face it, Klan wasn't going to be of much help carrying Ramaria back when she was micronised. I got another long glance from the meltran (perhaps she was wondering whether I was going to try dig into Ramaria's character on the way or not), before she gave me a curt nod.

"We could probably use the help," she admitted shamelessly. "Also," she began with a cat-like grin, "it will give me a chance to assess your intentions towards my cute little Nene!"

I gave her good natured grin at the quick topic change. Nene herself flushed a little, protesting weakly at the underhanded poke at her.

"Go on ahead," I told the pair. "I'll just finish my drink and catch up."

Klan nodded and twisted on one foot, heading back up the path. Nene gave me one last quick glance before chasing after her 'onee-sama'. I took the time to finish my drink – there was barely more than two mouthfuls left in the can, so it didn't take long. When I was sure the meltran pair had travelled far enough down the path, I pulled the piece of paper out of my pocket and palmed it in between the slats of wood that composed the park bench I was sitting on. I grabbed my can and set it upright on the lip of a bin conveniently placed next to the seat, then took off at a brisk walk after the women.

"So, I heard you signed up to get whipped by Nene in the dojo," the blue haired meltran began cheerfully as I caught up to them. Nene had apparently told Klan of our agreed spar at some point in time, and the young blue haired meltran had of course taken that as some sort of serious challenge as opposed to a friendly match. Nene and I had to spend the entire journey to the bar and back again insisting that there was nothing confrontational about our planned exercise. Klan, being a young meltran, no doubt found the thought of a challenge between us in a somewhat romantic fashion, trying to sell us on the idea of the spar as being a symbolic clash for dominance between our squadrons.

I found the concept completely hilarious and thus politely maintained my ground, insisting steadfastly and without my reaction that it was simply a spar for exercise. In reality, I had little doubt about the outcome and was only interested in keeping my technique sharp. The short meltran had much more success needling Nene, who was keeping step with me as we dragged Ramaria between us. The pink haired Queadluun pilot was stuttering and blushing as she tried to maintain her ground in the face of the dogged onslaught of her Squad Commander. Klan used her social status of big sister and Squad Commander to good effect in her attempts to bully some sort of confession out of Nene, but the pink haired meltran held her ground somehow. (I got the feeling that her modesty was what saved her – Klan was definitely of the belief that Nene would knock me around the dojo and Nene probably didn't want to encourage that idea when she had no idea about my capabilities.)

As we passed back through the park, I noticed with some satisfaction that my sports drink can was nowhere to be seen. The rest of the walk home was made enjoyable enough by watching Klan rile up Nene, who I thought was getting disproportionately ruffled, and apart from the slightly justified sense of deja vu I had when helping Nene dump Ramaria in their room, nothing raised my heckles.


"So," I began, staring out a window overlooking a rather picturesque rose garden. "Can you tell me about Ranka now?"

"What's there to say?" Ozma asked me from his position on the hospital bed behind me. His gruff voice carried a hint of caution, and I found myself wondering if he'd gotten around to reading the reports detailing what I had gotten involved with while he was chasing off aliens.

"That's rhetorical right?" I asked him with a snort. "I was there Ozma. I saw Ranka break down when she saw you injured in the cockpit," I coldly told the man, as I spun around to face him. The hospital room was sterile, as such rooms usually are. I should know, I'd seen more than my fair share in my life.

Ozma met my gaze, the defiance I expected to see projected by blue eyes framed with a furrowed brow.

"We'll never be a professional team if you can't trust me. If you can't trust us," I reminded the defiant Squad Commander in a whisper. It was just the two of us in the room, and I pitched my voice in such a way as to appeal to Ozma's sense of squad solidarity. I'd also hoped that reminding him about Mikhail and Luca would build my case in this regard.

He held my gaze for a good ten seconds, but finally relented.

"You're right," he exhaled, leaning back in the hospital bed. I suppressed a hypocritical grimace; for all my talk of trust, all my rhetoric, to my ears it sounded hollow – there was a core of truth there, but I half felt like I was just making a play to get the desired result.

"I'm not really Ranka's brother," he told me in a soft voice. I didn't let the jolt of surprise that ran through me show on my face, but I was most definitely surprised. If he wasn't really Ranka's brother, he must have built some deep emotional bonds one way or another to trigger a reaction like the one she had last night.

"We're both survivors of the 117th Expeditionary Fleet," he explained in the same soft voice. I narrowed my eyes and nodded, instantly recognising the fleet that had met it's end during the first large scale conflict with the Vajra.

"I was a rookie, just out of the academy. It was supposed to be a routine deployment for pilots like me – a low risk deployment to ease us into the life and duties of a military pilot."

I nodded, indicating that I didn't have any questions yet, but my mind was racing. This meant that both Ranka and Ozma had links to previous Vajra incursions. I quickly dismissed the idea that Ozma was deliberately hiding this information from me in particular – it was clear that this action composed the classified section of his personnel file. That would seemingly imply that if Ozma was involved with the Vajra on a deeper level than a shells and missiles solution, he was most likely not aware of it; someone high enough in the command chain to classify the action would be.

"I was a worthless pilot, and we were outclassed in our old birds," he told me. "I was disabled quickly – my main engines were taken out from underneath me. I drifted in space with my distress beacon on while the main fleet burned behind me. There was nothing I could do."

This was a different side to the confident and headstrong pilot I had come to know in the past few weeks. It was easy to tell he had secrets, but I had no idea they ran this deep.

"I picked up the signal of an escape pod and used my vector thrusters to close in on it," Ozma continued. "I opened communications, but the only reply I got was an automated video signal showing the inside of the pod."

I continued to listen to the story in incredulous silence. I was certain there were no official records or survivors from that fleet, so either Ozma was feeding me a line of crap or someone was going to a lot of effort to cover up for Ranka and Ozma. On top of that, I got the niggling feeling that I was missing something.

"Ranka was sitting there in the pod, almost catatonic. She wouldn't respond at all. It was clear she was taking it a lot worse than me – whatever family she had was nothing more than dust now. I had to help. When we were picked up by a rescue ship, I told them she was my sister. It was clear no-one believed me, but surprisingly the commander of the ship didn't care. Perhaps he thought I would be better than dumping her into an orphanage." The grey haired pilot paused for a moment. "The details were covered up in black ink and suddenly I had a new sister."

By now I was definitely showing my disbelief on my face with an open mouth – even if only half this story was true, this story spoke volumes of Ozma's character. I'd need to verify it as much as possible, but all of a sudden I began to see my Squad Commander in a new light, past the grizzled old bastard front he usually put on for us. It also went some way to explaining his displays of concern for the members of his company.

"She lost her voice for a while and bottled her memories away. But we somehow developed a fairly normal relationship over time. One day I came back from a combat patrol with a nasty concussion – I'd bet what she did then was pretty similar to what you saw yesterday. That's when I knew I had to stop piloting, but I couldn't protect her if I wasn't in the cockpit."

"Which is why she wasn't supposed to know you were still piloting," I finished for him. Ozma nodded. I let out a sigh and collapsed back against the window.

"I'm sorry for doubting you Ozma," I told the grey haired pilot. I was surprised to find myself sincerely meaning it. I had seen with my own eyes the trust Ranka had in her older brother, and none of that could have been faked. That meant Ozma was being incredibly modest when he said they'd somehow developed 'a fairly normal relationship' – the love and trust required to build what they had was phenomenal, easily on the same level that had allowed Rin and I to succeed in the Grail War and in London.

Far more than I had left in me, I felt certain.

"It's okay," the Squad Commander told me sheepishly. "It's kind of good to tell someone," he confided. "And besides, you're right. I do need to trust you guys more, so, uh, thanks for pulling my head out of my arse."

I waved off Ozma's uncomfortable attempt at thanks. "Don't try for modesty Ozma, you just can't do it well," I said, injecting an upward lilt into my tone. Ozma's face relaxed to its usual self-sure grin and he snorted in reply. A comfortably easy silence settled on the room. I checked my watch and turned back to the window. Out in the garden I spotted a chair with an old fashioned bound book lying unattended on a bench and felt a surge of satisfaction flow through me.

"I have a question," I told Ozma, turning away from the window again. "Just before Ranka had her episode, she mentioned she hadn't told anyone about 'that secret'. Do you know anything about that?"

Ozma looked me square in the eye. No fidgeting or dancing eyes. "I don't, sorry."

I believed him.

"Oh, one last thing," I told Ozma. "Saotome wanted me to put a good word in with you. I can't really say much for his personality, but after what he got us through yesterday, he's a skilled and confident pilot."

The Squad Commander gave me a pained look. I was saying what we both knew and Ozma probably didn't want to hear – Saotome was a good pilot, despite his personality issues. And a good private military company always required good pilots. Who knows, maybe Saotome's character was even helping his case. Given what I had just learned about Ozma, maybe he might even want to try to prevent the kid from getting suckered into the N.U.N.S., where he wouldn't be treated nearly as well as he would with us. Either way, I had gotten Ozma thinking where he hadn't been before.

For a second, I felt kind of bad. The feeling passed.

"We do have Gilliam's old bird coming back from L.A.I. soon," he mused, before deigning to notice me again. "Thanks for ruining my recovery Shirou," he said without bite. I flashed him a grin, the kind of grin that let him know I was enjoying his acting.

"Well Squad Commander," I began, dropping back into my mask of casual indifference, "it's been fun, and thanks for clearing that up for me. I've got some errands to run before I get back to the Quarter, so I'll catch you later."

In a reversal of roles, it was now my time to wave over my shoulder before completing my goodbyes.

I ambled along the corridors on the fourth floor of the hospital, making my way towards the elevators. Suddenly it hit me. The Vajra had left Ozma and Ranka alone on their escape, but the rest of the fleet was destroyed. Were the Vajra looking for something in the 117th Expeditionary Fleet? The only two things that currently linked the Vajra to the Frontier fleet were Ranka and Ozma, and he had reason enough to hate the Vajra.

The fact that Ranka could be a threat to humanity was something that didn't sit well with me, especially after I'd gotten to know her somewhat. I'd really hate to have to kill her.

Still, that was just conjecture at this point, and admittedly, she was but one person in a sea of possibilities. Idly, I wondered what that secret was, the one Ranka mentioned but Ozma had no clue about. Maybe it was a fragment of her hidden memories, a silly childhood promise made to someone just before she went through her own personal hell.

I entered the large landing overlooking the main entrance of the hospital, rolling that thought through my head. Several floors below me I spotted Mikhail and Luca in their school uniforms, leading a grumpy looking Saotome towards the elevators.

I let my eyes linger on the trio for a moment, before taking the stairs down. I just wasn't in the mood to deal with them at the moment.


Author's notes:

Well, that was another fairly large chapter, which unfortunately seemed to be mostly expositionary in nature. Personally I tend to enjoy writing the action because I think I can write it better than doing purely character work, but eh, if I was doing all action and no story I'd be writing a Quake fanfic or something :p I had originally planned to put in another scene, but got to the end and decided to throw it into the next chapter, and to be honest the more I was pushing to get the next scene out, the more I thought it would probably fit better with the flow a bit later.

The big surprise for me was how long it took to narrate the emergency shelter scene for Shirou's point of view. In hindsight it became a fairly handy way for Shirou to get a better grip on Alto's character and introduce him to the galactic fairy herself, plus I got a chance to play some anatomy humour, so that's always a win in my book.

I'm enjoying expanding the role of the Pixie squadron characters and writing more life into them than they received in the series, with the obvious exception of Klan. People who are familiar with Macross Frontier might find it odd, but Ramaria and Nene are pretty much blank slates character-wise, which lets me fill them up how I see fit. It's also nice to use them to be able to write your main character into a situation which doesn't require constant head-butting or snarking (ala: Alto. The more I write him and Shirou, the more I'm sure Shirou sees him as a stupid clown whose reaction to any sort of authority involves kicking and screaming)

For the future I'm planning to dabble a bit deeper in the Nasuverse, which will require a bit of research. Hell, I own the FS/N game and I'm fairly sure my understand of canon and characterisation from FS/N is fairly horrible, so it's going to probably involve a lot of research! Bear with me :p

On a final note, I'd like to thank everyone who's put their two cents in the review box. There's a lot of useful feedback and encouraging comments in there, thanks heaps!