Author's Notes:
Hmm. I decide to post this story as I get it typed in, and what happens? So much overtime I don't even want to look at a computer when I get home, much less do something productive in front of one. But whatever. In light of heaping a ton of misery upon our crew, this one backs off a bit and does some setup. Tossed in some warm fuzzies and crap to break up the misery-fest. Looking at what I have on paper right now, the rating will probably get bumped on up to R. It won't be anything that hasn't been done else-where in PG-13 land, but that coupled with everything else going on violence-wise and language-wise it may be prudent. :P Ignoring the fact that the story was rated in the pre-Janet era of the FCC.
[] [] [] [] []
Ruri's mind slowly worked its way back to consciousness and a slight groan from Tobias told her he was doing the same. As her body started responding again she began taking stock of herself. Her head hurt slightly but she guessed from the pain that at some point it must have collided with Tobias'. She had an even easier time brushing off the aching coming from every muscle in her body, allaying it to tension and adrenaline. Ruri realized that she was still laying her hands on the second set of IFS controllers Mike had attached to Tobias' chair, and lifted her hands to stretch her aching arms. The moment she pulled her hands away she felt them explode in pain.
Tobias didn't want to admit that he was enjoying sitting quietly with the captain in his lap when he considered the circumstances around why they were in this position, and yet he still found himself enjoying it somewhat. He suddenly felt the Kanchou start shaking slightly in front of him and lifted his head from his headrest to hear her crying softly. "Kanchou, are you alright?"
Ruri nodded her head, but when Tobias leaned his own head over Ruri's shoulder the source of her tears was immediately evident. While technically she still wore her white cotton officer's gloves, the electrical charges from the feedback had almost completely burned them off of her hands. Tobias' own palms ached slightly, as if he had grabbed onto a hot pot handle or the like, but the feedback appeared to have done far more damage to Ruri.
Hoshino heard McLaren's question but was still unsure how to answer him when she felt his arms gently encircle her waist. He held her tightly to himself for a moment before loosening his arms.
"There should be first aid kits in both Mike's quarters and mine," she heard him say. Ruri nodded her head, a little bit in shock at being hugged in such a way.
"Omoikane first," she said as she started to reach for the release to the belts still binding them to the chair. Tobias let go of her waist and gently grabbed her wrists to prevent her from using her hands for the moment. With one hand he fumbled with the latches while the other quickly tapped on a nearby keyboard.
"There," Tobias finally stated a few moments later. "It'll POST then run through a disk integrity check." Ruri slid from the chair and walked across the small office space to check on Hari & Mike. "That'll take several hours and then we can bring the processes up one at a time or whatever. How are they?"
"Sleeping soundly," Ruri replied.
Figures for Mike, kind of surprising for Makibi," Tobias said, moving to stand on the other side of the chair from her.
"He's slept through his alarm before," Ruri replied, "I suppose that it's not so surprising.
"Either way," Tobias replied as he walked over to the core's exit, "they'll be awake soon enough, and it's not like we'll be hard to find. Now, to get that first aid kit." He yanked on the manual release by the door, which parted the entry with a loud gnashing of gears. He worked the lever a few more times, ratcheting the doors wide enough apart to allow egress. "Geez, if that didn't wake them up--"
"It didn't," Ruri replied, walking through the doorway. Tobias shook his head at the sound sleepers and followed her into his quarters. He ducked past her as they entered and popped of random access panels within the room.
"Here it is," he announced after removing a fourth panel. "You'd think that they'd mark where these things are, eh, Kanchou?"
Ruri shook her head. "The evacuation procedures themselves are relatively an afterthought. Emergency life support systems, first aid kits, and emergency rations were added to the core so that Nergal could consider it a lifeboat, and therefore U.E. Spacey could not complain if Nergal required the core to be evacuated with the crew."
"Good old Uncle Nergal, always looking out for its bottom line," Tobias said, a hair on the malicious side. He rummaged through the kits contents and produced an aerosol bottle marked for burn treatment and skimmed its label. He set the can down as Ruri knelt and proffered her hands to him.
"Tobi-san, I noticed that you have what appears to be a mobile," Ruri opened, nodding towards an amalgamation of parts on top of his folded futon which was threatening to slide off onto the floor.
McLaren blushed slightly as he began to gently peel away the remains of Ruri's gloves, embarrassed as much over the earlier embrace and his contact with her now as much as over the mobile. "Er, yeah, I guess it's just kind of something left over from my childhood. It's kind of silly, I suppose."
Ruri shook her head. "Not really. I hav- had one in my quarters that was very similar to the one I have in my earliest memories."
"If it was stars and planets, I'll be forced to start singing 'It's A Small World,' and I hate that song," Tobias replied with a smile as he applied the spray to her hands.
"It was fish, actually. My room at the institute where I grew up was decorated with that motif."
"Similar here. I suppose decorating like that was supposed to be 'intellectually stimulating' for the time period.," Tobias commented sarcastically. Ruri's raised eyebrow bludgeoned him into continuing, apologetically, "I'm adopted, and before ending up with the couple I call 'parents' my biological parents turned me over to a genius shop. It was a rather... unsettling experience being there. Apparently the one I was, well, sold to was more interested in from-birth learning but went ahead and took-- Kanchou, did I say something wrong?"
Ruri's gaze, which had intensified, softened slightly as she shook her head slightly. "Not at all, Tobi-san. Where was the institute?"
"Sweden? Finland? Somewhere in that region of Europe. I can probably find out for sure from Da-"
"Helllllloooooo, young lovahs!" Mike called into the room, cutting Tobias off as he entered.
"One," McLaren replied flatly, "since when does treating the wounds of one's superior officer constitute a 'romantic moment?' Two, is Hari up as well? Three, how are your hands?"
"One, you two are hopeless, did you know that? Two, yeah, but he's still lounging in the core, I think. Three, not too bad. Hari's definitely worse than me and it looks like you are, too," Mike replied.
"Maybe, but I've burned myself worse before," Tobias replied as he stood. "Did you know that you can over clock an IFS controller?"
Mike laughed as Hari walked into the room. :you're a hopeless hardware junkie, did you know that?"
"Yeah, I know," Tobias replied, tossing Mike the medicine can. "Give Makibi-san a hand with his burns."
"And where are you going?" Mike returned.
"Borrowing your GPS. Dunno why the Hell you brought ti with you, but otherwise it'd be tomorrow before we figured out where in the world we are, and that's assuming whatever antenna the core's GPS would use didn't get ripped off as we came down."
"Left side of the desk, bottom drawer, Mike replied. "I think there's a hatch or something you have to climb through. I couldn't see a way to open the corridor's bulkhead."
"If you'd read the manual, you'd know that it doesn't open after the core leaves the ship," Hari countered as Tobias took the opportunity to smack Mike in the back of the head as he walked past.
Mike simply smiled, "Yeah, but who reads the manual?"
"Not you, obviously," Hari muttered.
[] [] [] [] []
Tobias sat on the cold metal of the exterior of the core near the egress hatch. Mike's GPS unit had already told him what he needed to know, but he was opting to sit and enjoy the cool air. He reflected that while the temperature was to his liking, Christenson was likely to complain that it was far too cold for his comfort.
The clank of duty shoes on ladder rungs attracted his attention, but, seeing as he was the only one to eschew the duty shoes in favor of boots, gave him no clue as to who was approaching. When he heard the ladder's climber stop he twisted around to his captain emerge.
"Enjoying the sunrise or the sunset"? she asked as he stood to greet her.
"While it's the sunset, I guess technically what I'm enjoying is the cold air," Tobias replied as he handed Mike's GPS to Ruri.
Ruri looked at the device's screen for a few moments before returning it to Tobias and looking back across the landscape to the setting sun. "Texas, ka? Isn't Mike-san from here?"
Tobias nodded and shrugged off his jacket, handing it to Ruri. "Yeah, he's from around Dallas and we're more or less equidistant to Dallas and Houston."
Ruri blushed slightly as she pulled Tobias' Jacket around her shoulders. She was about to reply when enough racket sounded from the nearby ladder that they assumed that both Mike and Hari were clambering up the ladder. Mike emerged first and before the two could greet him he let out a yelp which neither Ruri, Tobias, nor the still-climbing Hari was sure whether was in pleasure or pain.
"Day-YUM it's cold! Hey, wait a second..." Mike paused, blocking Hari into the hatchway and illiciting curious looks from everyone. "Double-damn. Tober, we're in East Texas, ain't we?"
Tobias tossed the GPS to Mike. "I honestly don't want to know how you knew that. But maybe we should head back inside because while ten degrees is comfy for me you three probably aren't exactly toasty. Especially Texans who break out the outerwear anytime it falls below twenty."
[] [] [] [] []
The four re-convened in Tobias' quarters, Mike's quarters having been summarily declared unfit for human habitation by Hari. For the moment, however, that was the farthest thing from Hari's mind, as he was currently being rather soundly beaten by his commanding officer at chess. Mike smiled slightly at the look of stark panic on the younger boy's face while trying to decide which move would prolong the inevitable longest. Not that Mike had any clue what Hoshino's strategy was, it was just that he knew he wasn't about to try to play against her in anything that didn't somehow involve random chance. Mike shifted his attention to Tobias, watching his junior flit between the half-dozen laptops and desktops the Scotsman had assembled around himself on the floor. He sighed loudly then complained, "You know if you hadn't told the core to do a check disk we could all be actually doing something right now and Omoikane could be doing what you're doing."
Tobias looked up, raised an eyebrow but said nothing as he returned to his ministrations. Hari looked up from the chessboard and answered instead. "Ano... what would happen if we have bad hardware and use it without knowing so?"
Ruri opened her mouth to comment but Tobias spoke first in an odd accent, without looking up from his monitors. "Biiiiig badda-boom."
Further conversation was cut off when a loud metallic knocking began resounding through the core's walls. Hari turned to Tobias, "Tobias-san, what kind of test are you running?"
Tobias' head jerked seemingly in all directions at once as he checked monitors. Just sys-diags, nothing that should be making this kind of noise. Maybe one of the drives decided to fail."
"Sucker's failing in a grand and glorious way," Mike replied as the knocking sounded again.
"Mike-san, Hari-kun, please go look outside," Ruri instructed. When greeted with blank stares, she replied, "It sounds as if someone is knocking on the door."
Mike & Hari blinked in realization and quickly scurried for the egress ladder, with Mike saying something about how Tobias should know what a hard drive failure sounded like, and how the sound that they were hearing certainly wasn't it. Ruri watched the two leave then sat quietly for a few moments until she heard Tobias quietly hurling epithets at his computers.
"Nan desu?" she queried, turning to face him.
Tobias sighed and shook his head in response. "I just hope the drives faired better than the rest of the core. Which should now be called 'tub.'"
"That many systems have been damaged?" Ruri asked.
Tobias nodded as he grabbed a warm can of cola sitting in the midst of the chaos. "The life support systems are all but non functional. All that's heating the area are these machines. The core's A/C units lost probably half of their freon, meaning they'll freeze up pretty soon. When they do we can switch the compressors off and just run the fans. While winter in the arctic circle would've been better, Texas should be cold enough to keep the drives from melting."
"How has the core itself fared?"
"Half of the processor arrays are puddles of glass and piles of shards, taking half the RAM with it. Internal communications and hardwired networking are fine, but step outside of the core and you only have gigabit connection."
"In other words, we have just enough to be able to bring Omoikane back up, assuming enough of the drives pass the disk check. How is the power to the drives?" Ruri questioned
"Some of the fuel cells are damaged, but if we're only running Omoikane then that supplemented with what solar cells survived should give us several hundred hours run time."
"At which point we will hopefully have Omoikane back on Nergal's private grid." Ruri surmised.
"Do you want to connect him to the public grid in case I'm wrong?"
Before Ruri could answer, Hari appeared in the doorway with some of his usual enthusiasm returning to his face. "Kanchou!" he called breathlessly, "some people who live nearby offered to let us stay the night at their house!"
"Does Mike-san already know them?" Ruri mused aloud.
"He didn't seem to," Hari answered, "but he said something about Texas hospitality being a constant."
Ruri looked over to Tobias, who shrugged and replied, "It's typical of half of the state and atypical of the other half."
Ruri nodded and turned back to Hari. "Very well, we'll accept their offer of hospitality."
[] [] [] [] []
Of the mecha that had attacked the Nadesico, only one managed to survive the ravages of space and Akito. He were currently in the brig of one of the U.E. Spacey vessels which responded to Lapis' forged beacon, the Tsutsuji. However, at the moment he wished he was on his way to hell with his compatriots.
"My God..." one of the guards next to the door whispered to the soldier sharing duty with him.
"Yeah," his companion breathed. "I'd always heard she's a demon in an Aesti, but I guess she's just Oni, period."
The Jovian officer seated a few feet in front of them flipped his head backwards over his chair, causing looks of pure panic in the guards' faces. "Maa maa, don't let her here you say that, she might play with you, too."
Saburouta flipped his head back up for a moment before flipping it backwards again and whispering conspiratorially, "No one expects the Ryoko Inquisition, ne?"
"Temeeeee!!" Ryoko snarled from across the room. She had aimed it at the prisoner, but it had served to silence everyone present. "Answer the question or I'll start ripping fingers off until you talk!"
"Maa, maa," Prospector crooned, leaning in towards the prisoner. "I have no doubt that Ryoko-san would do as she threatens, and reattaching fingers becomes quite expensive quite quickly. Shall we try this again?"
The frightened pilot nodded his head, causing Prospector to smile as he straightened his back and adjusted his glasses. "Now, what is your name?"
"My name is John Smith," the man stammered.
An eyebrow raised as Prospector took in the man's definitely non-Caucasian appearance, but continued, "What is your mission?"
"We were to destroy the Nadesico, which despite our losses we succeeded in doing," Smith replied, an air of bravado returning to his voice. A snarl from Ryoko doused the flicker as quickly as it had appeared.
Prospector's expression remained unchanged as he continued, "Now, what is-"
"The air speed of a laden swallow?" Saburouta chimed in from his chair. Ryoko's Look of Brimstone and Damnation turned to her comrade, who shrugged. "I couldn't help myself," he explained.
"Wha- what?" the captive stuttered, staring blankly for a moment before his eyes refocused. "E-European or African?"
"European!" Ryoko snapped, unsure even why they were talking about it.
"I- I don't know! I mean, I don't know, SIR!" Smith replied.
If Ryoko were honest she wouldn't have cared what the man replied with, but took advantage of the it nonetheless. Snarling something about it being a wrong answer, she connected a blow to the man's jaw which caused the office chair he was handcuffed in to roll back several inches.
The door between the guards hissed open, flooding the dimmer room with light from the hallway. "Subaru-kun," a jowly voice called. "Leave some for the Confederation and the U.E. Spacey dogs above you!"
"Oi, trying to push around weight that only exists in your belly, Azuma?" Ryoko sneered over her shoulder, causing the former station commander's substantial paunch to shake with laughter.
"Come now, Subaru-kun," the former colony commander said, rolling the suffix around in his mouth. "I may have taken a demotion after Amaterasu, but I still outrank you."
"Demo..." Saburouta interjected, "since you were a pawn to the Successors, I'm not sure she really cares what your rank is."
A vein in Azuma's forehead throbbed but he somehow managed to subdue it after a few minutes. He turned and stepped out of the room, and as the doors were closing he turned and looked back. "You'll have longer careers if you leave the detective work in the hands of someone besides pilots and accountants."
[] [] [] [] []
Despite all of her time on warships, Ruri found herself exceedingly grateful to place her feet back on solid ground. When they had descended from the core and seen the... vehicle which their benefactor, who preferred to be called "Mick" drove. It had started its life as a normal pickup truck but had apparently been given a vehicular version of Miracle Grow, as it was now several feet off of the ground with tires which threatened to reach her waist. As there were only two seats in the vehicle's cabin, she and Hari opted to join Tobias in the back of the monstrosity for the ride to their host's house. The arrangement kept her free of the boisterous conversation between Mick and Mike, but at the same time left her stomach with the feeling of pitching about on an ancient sailing vessel instead of loping across hills in the back of a wheeled vehicle.
Almost as soon as their feet were on solid ground again in front of Mick's residence, the quartet found themselves ushered inside and in short order were seated around a rather large dining table upon which Mick's wife had placed copious amounts of food. Conversations spun long and loud, particularly between the Texans at the table. Mick and his wife Emma were both good cooks as well as gracious hosts. As the night claimed the final rays of light from the horizon the conversation lulled and Ruri managed to excuse herself to borrow the couple's video phone in order to contact Nergal.
A half an hour later Hoshino joined the party in their hosts' living room, where everyone was enjoying the spectacle of Hari soundly thrashing Mike at the console system.
"Mick-san," she opened, "is there someplace nearby where we could arrange transportation to Dallas?"
"Well, sort of," Mick drawled in reply. "Friend of mine runs a dealership a coupla miles up the road, and his brother runs one a little outside of downtown Dallas. There're no rental places nearby, so your best bet would be to 'buy' a car from him and turn around and 'sell' it to his brother once you can get a rental or whatever lined up. I'll go ahead and give 'im a call to let 'im know I'll be bringing you kids by in the morning."
Ruri nodded her thanks as their hose rose and headed down the hall to place the call. She frowned slightly then turned towards Tobias and Mike. "Tobi-san, Mike-san, one of you is licensed to operate motor vehicles, correct?"
[] [] [] [] []
Akito lay in his quarters, daydreaming of more pleasant times, when Lapis appeared on a holoscreen beside him. "Akito-san, all of the Nadesico crew except for those in the core have been recovered. Erina-san has informed me that Nadesico's captain made contact with Nergal. I would assume that means the core touched down safely."
Akito nodded slightly, still staring at the ceiling above his bed. "Even if it was not entirely 'safely', at least we know that the important part of the core is safe for the moment. Lapis, do you have Ruri-chan's coordinates?"
"Hai, Erina-san gave them to me. She also informed me that the captain intends to go to the nearest major city, Dallas, to await the team which will recover the core," Lapis responded, displaying a map before him. "There is one other piece of information Erina-san gave to me. She said that there is reason to believe that the Crimsons have a significant presence in Dallas."
Akito's brow furrowed. "Lapis, locate all properties held by either the Crimsons as a group or any member of their family in a twenty-mile radius of that city."
"Already completed," Lapis replied with a brief smile, and added the locations to the map before him.
Akito stared at the screen for a moment then grunted. He rolled off of his bunk and grabbed his cloak. "Hope you brought your cowboy boots, Lapis. It's field trip time."
"Yee-haw," the young girl sighed through the comm link as Akito left his quarters. She shook her head slightly then closed the channel on the empty room.
[] [] [] [] []
Footnotes...
Yes, Azuma was that big, bald "commander" of the Amaterasu colony where we first see the Nadesico-B and Ruri's extended and Saburouta's new locks. The implementation of spellcheck in the Linux version of Open Office is a resource pig. Maybe I'll rework it in a future version, but I intended his addressing Ryoko with "-kun" to really offend her (since he was emphasizing the fact that she's technically a subordinate to him). But what's there will do for now. Okay, on with more writing and typing so hopefully it won't be another several months before this story sees an update...
And if you missed the X-Files joke, we need to talk.
Oh, and why are there no indentations on any paragraphs? Because I got sick and ing tired of ing with it to coerce the upload process to not blatantly ignore them. hey, look! It even relieves me of my asterisks! joy. I know they do their best, but... (sighs.)
