I'm back! I got a job. Jobs eat time like Zero Two eats honey covered meat.
I note that, once again, I've screwed up the timing. Parfet says in episode 11 of season that they're roughly halfway back due to seeing Mejare through a telescope. this means that this interaction happens somewhere in the February-March range, rather than the new year. This still works, putting this one final event in the large three month time gap. It just puts it at the opposite end of the time gap.
My solution: Fuck canon, I do what I want. Honestly, I don't want to go back and put three chapters in between what I already wrote, and just writing off two months after the Christmas chapter seems really stupid. So, I'm pretending that scene didn't happen, or that Parfet said "one-third of the way" rather than "half-way."
On another note, the only named fancy skin person is Seran, the woman who gives Hibiki the blue bandana he wears for the rest of the show. The guy she's with is just "leader", and nobody else is shown for long enough to get a name.
Alarms.
When the Captain first picked me up off of Mejare, there were sirens just like the ones on the Nirvana. Now, they startle me each time they go off.
I was sleeping when they went off and Jura came to get me.
"Dita, looks like we've stumbled across some other humans. Captain wants us up to greet them."
Oh! More aliens! Or... well, I guess they're not aliens. Mister Alien was pretty clear about that.
I quickly change into my flight uniform and follow after Jura and the other pilots who had been woken to greet the newcomers.
The Captain and vice Captain are there at the door to the hangar the others are arriving at. No rest for the Captain huh? I wonder if she's alright. She does look a bit frail recently.
I wonder if the aliens are nice? If they were with the Harvesters, we wouldn't be letting them on board, right?
The door opens and...
Wow! These people are so pretty! Their skin is really smooth and pale,
Their leader, and old guy whose name I don't catch greets the Captain, but I notice that there's this girl with brown hair and a blue bandana tying her hair up chatting with a guy with black hair and a smug grin on their side. They're very close too. I break formation and head over to talk to them.
The woman notices me and waves as I approach. "Hello!"
I wave back. "Hi! You're all good aliens, right?"
The man's smile freezes in place, but the girl laughs. "We're not aliens, we're humans."
"Oh. Well, ah, welcome to the Nirvana!" I recover admirably. "Right now we're short two pilots, but we should be back to full fighting force soon!"
"...Missing?" The man and woman exchange glances.
"Yes, we, uh, had an..." It occurs to me that maybe I shouldn't tell this to people we just met. "They got lost."
"Rrrrrright." The man squares himself up offers his hand. "Major Dolor Asinum, and this is my wife, Seran Asinum."
Seran smiles at me. "I didn't choose the last name."
"I'm Dita! I'm one of the pilots here."
"Good, we have something in common then." Dolor looks pleased with himself. "I'm the Ace of the Us-nore fleet."
"Oh! I bet you'd get along with Meia. She's our Ace, and she's a really good leader too."
Seran elbows Dolor. "Seems like your type."
Dolor's cheeks color. "Oh, shush."
"Well, if she was here I'd introduce her!" I say, then clap my hands over my lips.
"I take it she's one of these pilots you... lost?" Seran asks.
"...um..." I scramble to think of something. I wish I could be smarter, like Mister Alien. He never has these problems.
"John..." Meia practically moans.
Brain, please engage.
Meia's grip isn't too strong to break, but I can't bring my arms to move. I'm stuck in her embrace, attempting to figure out what the hell I should do next.
The logical part of my brain points out how stale the air is already, and that we both smell, and that this really isn't the time.
My emotions tell me that I just had a depressing talk, and maybe some cheering up is in order.
The animal side tells me to have fun,
Generally, I figure my animal side is wrong. That's literally dumb animal instinct. Of course, that's denying myself the holy grail of human society, SEX.
Do I really want to take advantage of Meia? would this even count as taking advantage of her, since she's the one initiating it? Wait-
"John? John!"
My sluggish thoughts catch up to the present to find Meia had he gaze focused back on my face and her own fixed in a serious expression, but the blush hadn't faded from her cheeks yet.
"Ah, ahhh." I say, before ungluing my tongue from the top of my mouth. "M-Meia, this i-isn't the time-"
She reluctantly lets go, her serious expression clouding over with worry. "Are you okay?"
I hear a tapping sound, and realize that my fingernails had grown too long, and my hands are shaking violently enough to click those overlong nails on the hard plastic of the interior of the spaceship. "...I don't know."
She wraps her arms around me once again, but without sexual intent. This hug is clearly meant to calm me down.
It doesn't stop me involuntarily flinching away, but it does help.
"You're okay." She says with an awkward voice. "It's, it's going to be fine. whatever it is."
"Y-yeah. I'm, ah, gonna..." I don't even know what I'm talking about any more, practically just a gibbering mess at this point. "I-"
And suddenly my vision blacks out, her arms leave my sides, and I return to the cockpit of my Vanguard. Real subtle, Paksis.
I can't help the sharp twang of self-loathing that spikes up in response to my actions, as my brain finally starts to engage.
Jura and Dolor are off chatting in the corner, Jura excitedly gesturing through a set of maneuvers with her the table behind her, Barnette is attempting to murder her food with sheer force of will, sending spiteful glances at Dolor between bites.
Seran had sat down with me, and she told me a lot of cool things!
She's a mechanic. Her planet, which is called Us-nore, is being harvested for their skin, which is why they all have such nice skin! She gave me the recipe for the shakes they're supposed to drink daily to improve their skin, but it doesn't seem that appetizing. Maybe if I add some chocolate-
"Dita, you seem to have had quite the interesting time of things." Seran sighs and sits back in her chair. "We've been fighting off the Harvesters for as long as I've been alive, and we've done less against them than you have in the past few months."
I beam at her. "It's all because of Mister Alien!" I had told her all about Mister Alien, aside from the fact that he comes from an alternate reality. I don't think she's like that one even if she believed it. "I wish he was still here."
Her face grows solemn and she places a hand on my shoulder. "It's alright, Dita. You'll be able to deal with their loss in time."
I blink at the pretty woman. "Um, they're not dead."
She continues to pat my shoulder sympathetically. I want to convince her she's wrong, but decide to change the subject. "When I was describing the fight, you said something about a flagship?"
Seran sits back and takes out a pen and paper, a luxury I hadn't seen in some time. She starts sketching a long tub with a triangular front. It looks almost like a leg bone with the way it flares at both ends. "This is it." She says, lightly penning some detail lines. "It holds hundred of the shell-like craft and is very maneuverable for its size. Very few people have encountered one and lived to tell about it, so we don't really know what it's capable of."
"Looks dangerous. It must be longer than two of our ship."
Seran's face returns to a joyous smile. I like her better that way. "Way more than twice the size Dita. It's huuuge. we've been fighting this one for years, but it's survived everything we've thrown at it."
"We haven't tried my cannons yet!" I declare, raising my fork in the air with conviction.
"Oh! What kind of cannons are they?"
"Cannons powered by the power of love!"
Just my luck.
Out of the wide view port, I can see the overlarge enemy spaceship, one of the flagships. It had arrived shortly after the... incident. Meia had quickly run the calculations and figured out that it was heading straight for the Nirvana's projected course, and she had decided to head back. We hadn't actually finished coming up with a plan, but...
This makes it very awkward inside the combined Vandread. It's certainly the fastest way back to the Nirvana, but so far the entire trip has been spent in tense silence.
I figure I'm probably supposed to apologize, but for what exactly? Not responding to her feeling correctly? For freaking out? That's what I did, I freaked out. Again. Hey, at least this time I didn't punch her but given the hurt look she gave me I might as well have.
This is what happens when I get close to people. I drive them away because i don't get humans. Why can't I just go and hide in my room and code up some AI in my spare time?
Ah, I'm avoid thinking about the problem again. I need to apologize.
Last time this happened, I accidentally drove her off. It's what ended our relationship really, even if I didn't realize it until much later. I need to figure this out-
Wait. Waitwaitwait. My goal was... wasn't I trying not to get involved with anyone here? What the hell happened to that? Oh, so some girls decide they like you and you're all "Sure, why not?"
Something's obviously broken in my head.
"Looks like we may be too late." Meia's voice shatters my concentration. "There's already a fleet of ships surrounding the Nirvana."
All of my everyday worries are squashed to the side and my focus returns to the view out the window. There is indeed a fleet of ships surrounding the Nirvana, partially obscuring it.
"Pirates?" Meia asks.
I snort. "That would be funny, but I don't think so. Those ships look like the ones that got obliterated in the show."
"Yes." Meia concedes. "But those ships are kind of standard models. We even had a few on Mejare before they got scrapped for parts. They could be anyone who could be out here."
"The only people out here are us, the skin harvesting planet, and the harvesters. This is space. Space is big."
Meia grumbles. "No, Meia, I'm the expert despite only having arrived here three months ago. Your superior knowledge-"
I sigh. "Alright, fine. The Nirvana is a bad place filed with bad people and we need to save our saintly crew."
"Actually, we're going to hail them as if we're two people adrift in space. then, they don't know we're working together with the crew of the Nirvana if the surrounding ships are indeed hostile."
I shrug. "And we're fast enough to get away if worst comes to worst."
Meia reaches over to activate the communications array, but-
"Incoming!" I jam my foot at the pedal and dart the ship forward. Meia's arm is thrown away from the communicator and instead hits the weapons panel. The weapons aimed at us fire and my eyes are seared by the cannons that had just fired at us.
Two blasts of fire trail after the missiles we had inadvertently launched ourselves, accelerating ever faster towards the nearest ship.
"Aw, fuck."
"Agreed."
"Under attack?" I ask Del in bewilderment. "Did those new people turn on us?"
"Nah, it looks like it's someone else." Del smirks and pulls out a small remote-like device. "I have a suspicion-"
"Zan! Del!" Gascogne orders. "Make sure we've got as many ships ready to launch as possible, it sounds like the Harvesters are here."
Del's eye twitches and her smile disappears for the first time i recent memory. "Nooooooo, it's gotta be-"
But Gascogne is already turning to order the next group of girls.
Del turns back to me in exasperation. "I have this!" She jams the remote in my face. "It's a locator! I placed it on John's ship! It's him out there!"
"Oh." I blink a few times as my brain interprets this. "Oooooh."
"So, we have to figure out how to make sure he doesn't get blasted to shreds along with our dear leader."
"Um..." I wrack my brain. "We could get Dita..."
"No, stop, I can already see that ending poorly." Del shakes her head. "She'll go on a rampage trying to stop everyone else from hurting 'Mister Alien.' We'd have better luck making showing the tracker to the guy in charge of the other fleet."
"How do we do that?" I ask. "I don't know anyone from the other fleet, let alone their captain."
"The have a delegation on the Nirvana, so if we can find anyone here that we don't know that has to be them. All we have to do is show them this tracker and we should be in the clear."
"Okay!" I clap my hands together. "Let's do this-"
"You two, get back to work!" Gascogne yells in our direction.
I wince, but Del takes the moment to thumb her nose at my boss and say "I'm a pilot, not a waitress!" and bolt out the door.
I hope she finds someone in time.
Seran looks around at the walls as I lead them to the hanger their ship is docked in. "Why is the layout of your ship so weird?" She asks.
"The Nirvana used to be two ships." I say to them. "When we got teleported out into the middle of nowhere, our ship and the one we were fighting merged together into one because of this weird crystal that's powering the ship. Mister Alien calls it the Pack-cyst or something."
"Right." Dolor looks behind us. "Are you sure we're heading the right way?"
"Of course!" I open the next door and gesture grandly. "See? There's your shuttle."
"Dita! Wait!"
I turn around to see Del panting and gesturing wildly with something in her hand. "Don't let them go yet!"
"Excuse me, but the enemy's here." Dolor says. "We have to defend ourselves."
"That's not... hah... the enemy. It's John!"
My ears perk up. "Mister Alien?"
"Yeah, whatever. He's on our side." She holds out the remote again. "This is... hah... the tracking device."
I grab it and watch as the numbers on the screen fluctuate a bit. Wow, they must be moving pretty fast, judging by this tracker. "Um, I think we should go and help Mister Alien!"
Del groans and holds her head in her hands. "Dita, we need them to stop fighting each other, before anyone gets hurt. The less ships out there the better."
I look back at the tracker. "But-"
Del snatchers the device away from me and shoves it into Dolor's hands. "Go show this to your boss, okay? We would like our pilots back."
Any time that there's combat, the Reg becomes a hive of activity. Chaos isn't a strong enough word, I don't think. It's a scramble to get as many fighters out of the hanger as fast as possible without under equipping any of them.
At this point, I've been assigned to watch over the launches. Jura is first in line and all ready to head out when suddenly the alarm stops. Everyone stops for a brief moment to see if the alarm is going to come back, but it seems to have been silenced on purpose. In the middle of everything, Gascogne is having a hurried conversation as all of us subordinates watching her for cues.
Jura keys her microphone and starts talking to me. "What's going on up there?"
"The alarms stopped, and everyone's wondering what happened." I report. I hope nothing happened to John. "Gascogne's talking to someone right now."
"Really? Just like that?" Jura ponders. "That doesn't sound like our alien friends. They keep coming at us suicidally."
"Maybe the other fleet drove them off?"
"The Us-nore? Hah, those guys couldn't drive off a puppy. They've been fleeing a direct fight for years while leading one of the harvester's capital ships around on a wild goose chase. Besides, the harvesters have a massive battleship, there's no reason for them to be driven off." Jura writes off their involvement without any fanfare. "More likely, they got a lucky shot in on whatever unsuspecting trader or pirate flew into our airspace."
A can feel beads of sweat forming on my skin. "I hope John and Meia are alright."
"Hmm." Jura bites her lip. "You might be right, it could be them. Hey, launch me so I can see what's up."
"Eh-"
Gascogne taps her foot on the floor to draw attention. "Alright ladies, pack it up. Looks like they drove off whatever it was."
Kasur, another of the Reg girls, asks Gascogne "Do they know if it was the harvesters?"
"Apparently, it wasn't a design they were familiar with. Probably some sort of low scale pirate." Gascogne waves her hand dismissively. "They didn't even have guns, as far as the U-snore group could see."
"U-snore?" Endoa asks beside me.
"I think it's supposed to be Us-Nore." Nur whispers back. "Gasco must not like these guys."
"Why not?" Endoa turns fully to face Nur.
"Oh, right, you don't speak Tarak." Nur holds up a finger like she's lecturing. "'Snore' means to breath heavily in your sleep, causing a lot of noise."
"Just like you two!" Gascogne claps a hand on both of their shoulders. "And you must be sleeping if you think you can get away with talking so loudly while I'm trying to address the entire room.."
"Uh..."
"I'm sorry?"
Gascogne smiles and lifts her hands off their shoulders and goes back to facing the center of the room. "Still, just because we drove that craft off, we can't let down our guard. They may accidentally lead the Harvesters to us, or they may have a larger fleet backing them up. That might have been a scout ship. This means we're gonna have longer shifts for the foreseeable future, so make sure you get your rest when you can." She glances back at my fellow Reg crew. "Now, you're all dismissed."
Nur and Endoa practically bolt for the stock room.
Del has been pacing back and forth in front of the captain's quarters for the past few minutes. Seran had asked her to sit down a few minutes ago, but Del seems to be angrier than usual and had ignored everyone else. Worse, her smile looks like it had completely disappeared.
After what seems like ages, the captain's door opens and both our captain and Seran's comes out. Captain Magno looks a bit resigned to see us, but the other captain is surprised.
"Seran? Dolor? What are you doing up here?"
Del butts in before either of those two can answer. "I need you to call off your pilots. That ship out there is one of our."
"Excuse me, young lady, but I don't think we've met." The captain says politely.
"Call. Them. Off." Del grits her teeth.
I place a hand on her shoulder and pull her back slightly. "Ah, sorry, but we're pretty sure that that's Meia and Mister Alien out there."
Captain Magno glances at me quizzically. "And how would you four know this? Captain Radburn says that he was unable to hail the ship."
"We have a tracking device." Del holds out the device contemptuously. "So I keep telling you, CALL THE ATTACK OFF."
"We already did." Captain Radburn says with a sigh. "But only because we fired at them until they ran away. Though, I thought you had two ships that had gone missing?"
Del deflates in on herself, and I take the opportunity to explain. "Ah, we have these space ships that can combine with each other to form one bigger and better one. All of them need this one pilot, John and there's three others that can combine with him, like mine."
Captain Magno fixes me with her gaze and it takes a lot of effort to continue standing up under that. "I thought everyone was instructed not to tell them..." She sighs and covers her face with one hand. "I suppose it doesn't matter anymore. Anyway, now that we know where those two are, we can send someone to get them back."
Seran looks at Dolor, who sighs. "I suppose I could go. After all, I was led to believe that these two are very important to your fighting force."
The captain looks at me with that look again. "It was an accident, I swear!"
"Well." I say.
"Not friendly." Meia comments.
"New plan?"
"Well, one one side we have our entire crew captured by a force that's superior enough to capture the captain without much of a fight. There would have been more debris if they had fought there."
I agree and continue the thought. "And on the other side, Harvester flagship."
She scratches her head furiously with both hands. "Why can't these choices ever be simple?"
"What are you saying? It's obvious which one we go after." I respond.
"Huh?"
"Those on the Nirvana can take care of themselves. The two of us have a giant boner ship to take on."
"...Why do I like you again?" Meia asks.
"I have no idea." I shrug. "I... for what it's worth, I'm sorry. For earlier."
"A-Ah, let's just... not talk about that." She flushes, but quickly returns to battle mode. "Your argument isn't exactly compelling, but I find that trusting our companions to take care of themselves is a better idea than leaving those poor... fancy skin people to their fate."
"The two of us versus an entire flagship fleet." I smile slightly.
"Why don't we ever pick a fight with better odds?" Meia complains as she starts pressing some controls.
"Because then it'd be way too easy." I reply.
"By the way," Meia ask in a conversational tone. "How are you planning on finding the Harvester fleet?"
"Uh..."
So, my job eats up a lot of time. That should come as a surprise to none.
What is also eating up a lot of my time is writing my own book. I've been doing that off and on for years, and I finally got a good story, characters and setting all at the same time, so it's actually fun to write, unlike all of the other attempts I've put into an original story. So yeah.
On the plus side, from now on I should probably be updating more often than... once a month? jeez.
