Here is Chapter 9. Sorry, I deleted it by accident when I updated chapter 10. Thanks to jy24 for pointing that out.
- Rampant Id
Chapter 9: Unexpected Tip / Temporary Truce
"Honored 12th Noah, there is an incoming message for you. Should I patch it through?" A disembodied voice floated from the room's intercom panel.
Kanda opened his eyes with a sigh and stood up, sheathing his sword regretfully. So much for meditating.
"Yes, I'll take it here."
In the instant that it took Kanda to walk over to the communications panel that stretched along the side wall, a visual representation of one of his informants appeared before him. Kanda noted that the man seemed more agitated than usual.
"Honored 12th Noah, I bring urgent news. It has been brought to my attention that no more than 37 hours ago a bartender on Dantooine claimed he saw a while-haired teenager with a scar asking for a ride off planet. The bartender then directed him to the only available pilot still in that region - a smuggler who goes by the name of Lavi."
There was a pause and then the man's hesitant voice sounded again. "Honored Noah?"
Kanda blinked a few times to get his mind working again. He was still processing the part about a scarred, white-haired teenager. His gloved hand fisted at his right side while his left gripped the pommel of the Katana. Closing his eyes Kanda took a deep breath and forced his expression to go blank again.
He had thought this day would never come. In fact, he still worried that perhaps this was just a cruel game fate was playing with him, providing him with someone who fit the description of the one person he had been hunting down for over two years now.
Kanda quickly jabbed a finger toward the visual projection to end the transmission. Then his fingers rapidly flew over a series of virtual keys. A different image appeared before him, the face of first a surprised captain which upon seeing him morphed into one filled with terror.
``What can I do for you Honored 12 Noah?" The man stammered out.
"You recently sent a message about coming across an aircraft that had left the planet of Dantooine." Kanda stated without preamble.
"Y-Yes?" Was the hesitant reply.
"I want you to hold the ship in place until my arrival. I will oversee the capture of the prisoners in person".
"Understood my Lord," was all that Kanda heard the instant before he shut down the communication and headed for the door. As he passed through it Kanda spoke quickly into the communicator on his left wrist.
"I am sending you coordinates, and I expect this ship to be there by the time that I reach the bridge," Refusing to acknowledge the jumbled emotions that now coursed through him Kanda stalked down the ship's long corridors, his black robes billowing out behind him.
Silence filled the air as Lavi's last words finally register in Allen's brain.
"Book men? What do books have to do with Exorcists?" He asked, feeling that he was missing something important if the expression on his Master's face was something to go by. Then another thought hit him.
"Wait a minute. Cross, what did Lavi mean when he said that you joined the Millennium Earl? Isn't that the leader of the Noah you talked about, the one who destroyed the Exorcist Order?"
Cross shut his eyes for a moment as he ran his hand down his face, sighing.
"It's complicated. There were other circumstances that pushed me into leaving the order sooner than I expected. As for the Earl, I didn't exactly join with him..."
"Stop your lying, you bastard! You were his freaking lapdog. You did everything on his command, from slaughtering your own people all the way to -"
"Do not accuse me of things I never did." Cross' voice took on a hard edge and his eyes slanted toward Lavi in anger. "Things rarely tend to be how they appear on the surface."
Lavi scoffed and probably would have crossed his arms in defiance, if not for the fact that Allan still had him pinned to the far wall with his enormous, red hand stretched out before him.
A sudden impact rocked the ship, knocked everyone off their feet and inadvertently freeing Lavi from Allen's grip.
Allen tensed as Lavi dove for the blaster and came up with it trained on Cross once more.
Cross stayed where he was and simply looked back at the angry young man.
"Listen, as entertaining as this is, I would prefer to finish it at a more opportune time. If I'm not mistaken, that was a tractor beam locking onto our ship. We will most likely be boarded in less than 5 minutes, so unless we want to find ourselves chained up and taken in for interrogation we need to come up with a plan, and quickly."
"Fine," Lavi replied as he holstered his blaster. "I have an idea - but once this is over I want a re-match".
Cross nodded his agreement and headed toward the two young men.
"Oh, and one more thing," Lavi added as he jerked his thumb back at Allan, who stood still and recalled his innocence so that it took the form of a regular-sized arm again, all the while his other arm slowly dripped drops of blood onto the steel floor. "You might want to help him bind that injured arm before he bleeds himself to death."
"Sir," The co-pilot called out, "our sensors seem to be suddenly malfunctioning."
"What do you mean that they are malfunctioning? This ship isn't even a year old yet! There is no way for it to breakdown so soon," was the disbelieving reply.
"And yet it indicates that currently there are no lifeforms aboard the enemy ship." The co-pilot replied dryly.
"What? How is that even possible?" Demanded the suddenly agitated pilot. If by some chance he had managed to lose the prisoners, the 12th Noah was going to demand his head - possibly quite literally.
"Perhaps they used escape pods. A ship that size would have most likely been equipped with them," The co-pilot suggested.
The Captain shook his head, "We would have seen them. I have been watching that ship for over half an hour and haven't seen any activity whatsoever since the moment we initiated the tractor beam."
"What would you recommend we do, Captain?"
This was met with a moment of silence as the Captain thought about his options.
"We will need someone to search the ship to see whether it is indeed missing her crew. It would be a very bad idea to have the 12th Noah waste his time, just to discover that we have delivered an empty vessel to him."
"I wholeheartedly agree Captain. I'll take a scanner with me to check for life-signs once I've boarded, and I'll stay in contact through my communicator."
"I'll be awaiting your report." The Captain replied, hoping to receive some good news soon.
