A/N: //This fic is long overdue; it's been sitting in my hard drive far too long.// The setting is post-Vandread 2nd Stage, so for those who haven't watched the second season, please proceed with caution. Most of the spoilers aren't that blatantly revealed, but they still are spoilers nonetheless. C and C are most welcome.
Level 1: The Stowaway
"Do you want me to punch your headlights a hundred lightyears away?!"
"Uchuujin-san!"
"I dare you to try, shorty! You're all talk and hot air you'll just self-combust anyway!"
"Darf-san!"
"Mattaku," groaned Gascogne, setting her strip of wire firmly between her teeth. She reached out and grabbed each boy's head with her hands and said pleasantly, "Boys, if you don't shut up, I'll punch both of you so hard you'll hear your ancestors sing. Now move it, please! You're holding the line." She grinned at Dita, who had looked utterly helpless between the two sniping boys from Talark. "Boys will be boys. Just try not to get in the middle of the cross-fire and you'll be fine."
The tall Chief of Register watched as the threesome made their way with their food towards the cafetaria table, although not without some sort of snide remark being exchanged between the two boys accompanying the girl. Hibiki Tokai and Dita had returned from Talark with the group of men chosen to co-exist with the women of the Nirvana, and one of them had been Darf Falstaff, a young man of Hibiki's age. With the rank of an apprentice Vanguard pilot, he was noticeably taller than Hibiki and had boyish good looks, and had also, it seemed, immediately set eyes and charms upon redhead Dita Liebely, which infuriated Hibiki to no end.
Gascogne grinned to herself as she crossed her arms. He was certainly giving Hibiki a run for his money. The butts and rebuttals between the two rivals were certainly loud, but at least interesting.
What made it even more interesting was seeing Hibiki trying to look as if he didn't care and utterly failing, and not to mention Dita having no idea why on Mejele both of them fought so much when they had only met. I guess they still hadn't made their feelings clear even though we gave them enough time and space to do so, Gascogne reflected, remembering how Hibiki had stretched his hand for Dita. Kids today. Always missing out opportunities.
"Gasco-san!" someone called, and Gascogne turned around, looking a little nettled by the nickname. "We've run out of mashed potatoes!"
"Get the steamed rice out then," she answered, adjusting her gloves.
"We've run out of that too!"
Gascogne rolled her eyes as she made her way towards the kitchen. Today was actually the first day that the Talark men set foot on the Nirvana, and apparently, she had forgotten the little fact that men from Talark had never eaten real food before. I bet I know what split the men and women in the first place, she thought wryly. The men ate too much.
Her kitchen crew was in chaos. The men took in food like black holes, they told her, and judging from the rate the men were making the food disappear, they wouldn't have enough of the daily food allowance to last them till dinnertime, blast the appetite of men.
Ara, and she still had to do inspection on her transport ship that had brought the men in to check if everything was in order after her girls had loaded up the men's Vanguards into the Nirvana's hangars. Gascogne winced. Some extra help would be needed.
She stuck her head from the kitchen door. Jura was scrutinizing carefully all the men that had arrived, her food left unfinished on her plate. Barnette sat beside her with an amused yet weathered look on her face as she lent a ready ear to Jura's assessment of the males. Duero and Parfet were nowhere to be seen. Bart was busy explaining the structure of Mejele food to the more hesitant men, assuring them it wasn't poison. Hibiki was kicking Darf on the shins, Darf was howling with pain, and Dita was trying to placate both sides to no avail. Then she sighted Meia Gisborn standing up from the table, having just finished her lunch. Gascogne brightened.
"Meia! Oi, Meia!"
Meia turned around, eyebrows lifted questioningly towards the woman giving her a jaunty wave. "Yes, Gascogne?"
"Could you do inspection on the transport ship that came with the otoko for me? We kinda have our hands full, and I have to have it checked before we have that orientation address to everyone. Just take a peek if all the Vanguards were out of the ship, or for any loose parts that might have been misplaced."
"Sure." Meia nodded and made her way towards the cafeteria door without another word.
Always a quiet girl, thought Gascogne as she went back to the kitchen. But at least she smiles now, from time to time.
"All right, people!" she called, clapping her hands above the din of the kitchen. "Current food supply status, report!"
Meia raked her blue hair with her fingers as she noiselessly moved towards the main docking bay which housed the transport ship. She could see the men that she passed by give her a long glance from head to toe as if she was a specimen in a petri dish, and she could not help but feel unnerved. She had finished her lunch early to escape the staring strangers; not that she was afraid of them, but merely needing some time to get used to their rough ways.
She keyed in the password on the lock pad and the thick metal door swished open. The lights on the ceiling flickered and glowed, illuminating the bay.
The white freighter was on the far right, its rampway still down. Meia walked up the ramp and into its open port, sweeping a critical eye over the main passageway. Her specialization was piloting ships, not inspecting them, but she had also learned much of the Registerial work during her training as a pirate.
She moved her way to the cargo hold, flicking switches of the lightsources. The hold was empty, save some hover pods and some tools. No lingering Vanguard was in sight nor sound; just a peaceful calm as the ship cooled its servos. Gascogne's crew had always been efficient.
She left the place and walked back to the main hold. She was about go out of the main hatch when she heard a quivering, scraping sound somewhere in the interior of the ship, and she stopped. Then there was a sharp clank, as if something had been lifted and slid over the floor of the ship.
Meia carefully padded back to the main hold, her eyes alert and the laser ring on her finger ready. She rested her back on one of the metal walls and arched her neck. Then her eyes widened.
A panel of the floor had been removed and on its place was a brown-haired man hoisting himself up from a hidden compartment. He wore a red visor band over his eyes and was dressed in a simple, leather jerkin robe. He pulled himself and sat on the edge of the other panels, looking around.
Meia frowned. Seemed that Gascogne had not gotten rid of her old smuggler's instincts when the ship had been given to her care. Sometimes those secret passageways and compartments were more trouble than what they were worth.
She planted her left foot firmly and pivoted to her left, right arm stretched forward, the ring targeted at the man's head. "Stand up with your hands above your head," she sternly commanded.
The man gave a start and jumped to his feet, scrambling as he did so. He promptly placed his hands over his head, his back towards Meia.
"Face me," said Meia deliberately, "slowly."
The man turned around, his visor glowing.
"Take off your visor with your right hand," instructed the girl. "Place it on the floor where I can see it."
"I don't think you would like me to do that," ventured the stowaway apologetically.
Meia leveled her target on the man's forehead. "And why not?"
"Because I have no eyes."
Meia blinked. "You have no eyes?"
"Yes, that is correct." The man did not move. "My eyes were gouged out when I was younger, and the visor is used to cover my eye sockets and to send nerve impulses to my brain of heat detection."
Meia could find no insincerity in him and she did not want the privilege of seeing an empty eye socket, but she kept her ring up. "Can you see me?"
"Not your features," answered the man dutifully. "But my visor is giving me heat images of a human being beside a metal wall, with a potentially destructive item on her finger aimed conveniently at my head."
"Are you from Talark?"
"No." The man shook his tousled head. "I am from the planet Asimov."
"Who are you and what are you doing here?"
"My name is Isaac. I came to ask the help of the Nirvana."
Hibiki felt as if he was going to pop a blood vessel.
"I don't mean to brag, but I was the best pilot in my class," Darf informed Dita, smiling. "And hey, I hear you're quite a pilot too."
"Aa...iye, betsuni," returned Dita, coloring profusely.
Hibiki's eye was twitching as he turned aside, folded his arms, and gave a loud "Hmf," of contempt. They had all gathered in the assembly hall to listen to the Okashira and B.C's orientation briefing to the men and women of Talark and Mejele, and Darf Falstaff had the nerve to be a complete pest by following him and Dita. Well, only her, actually, of course, because Hibiki Tokai came with no one, and Dita was only following him, as usual, and Falstaff was following her, which made it all very irritating.
"Bet you've never piloted a Vandread before, Falstaff," he could not help shooting back. That should shut him up, he thought satisfactorily, stealing a glance at Dita and immediately reverting his eyes.
Darf was about to retort something when Hibiki smugly gestured him to be quiet, pointing at the monitor screen where B.C's face had appeared. A gradual hush spread over the hall.
"People of the Nirvana," his voice came out, synthetically feminized by the modificator on his throat. "We welcome those from Talark into our ship, whose home it will be for them for an indefinite period of time. As you all know, this ship and its members will serve for Mejele and Talark as the model case of the re-co-existence of men and women as both planets strive to make peace over years of war and hostility."
B.C. brushed a lock of his silver hair and tucked it behind his ear, and poor Bart felt a sudden pang near his heart.
"As examples of the goodwill hoped between the two nations, I look forward to the eventual reintegration of both sides despite the long-standing tradition that had separated us. I wish us all well."
There was a pause, and Gascogne's voice could be heard over B.C.'s shoulder, "And hey, it might help too if the women and men didn't stand that far apart."
A nervous sort of laughter disseminated over the two huge blocks of men and women that stood a good thirty feet from the other.
Magno Vivan's age-laden face came on, a smile on her lips. "Men of Talark and women of Mejele," she addressed them, her warm voice cracking with age. "Although you weren't taught so, men and women were created to live with one another, even with our differences. It's the natural order of things. Our elders made a mistake, and it is the reponsibility of the next generation to rebuild what had been lost. It won't be easy and it will take some time, but as they say, someone has to do it, and it might as well be us."
"Other than acting as the model case for Mejele and Talark, both planets have also requested us to patrol the known galaxy and keep a lookout for any more Earthian forces bent on their harvesting project." Magno grew serious. "It's true that the leader of the project has been eliminated, but there still could be more ships out there doing their work. It is important to make sure that all their forces have been neutralized before we finally make a seige on Earth itself." Magno suddenly smiled. "Besides, I think we need to take the Nirvana out more often."
Hibiki grinned. The old woman never sounded as old as she really was.
"Okashira." There was suddenly a shift of movement in the monitor screen as Meia entered the bridge with a man by her side, her ring steadily on his back. "I found a stowaway on the transport ship the Talark men used to come here. He claims he is not from Talark, and that he needs our help."
"Hm?" The old woman's eyes glinted as she swiveled her chair.
All was silent as two guards proceeded to hold each of his arms and Meia took a step away. Magno glanced at the man and he stood there peacefully, his hands manacled.
"Well," said Magno, folding her arms benevolently across her chest, "this is a surprise. Would you care to introduce yourself, young man?"
"By your permission, Commander, I shall explain myself." Isaac turned his neck to face the monitor. "My name is Isaac, and I come from the planet Asimov. Years and years ago, when the Karitori project of Earth was first launched, our planet was one of its first victims, being so far-flung in the galaxy that none of the other planets would suspect what Earth was doing." He paused and said, "They took from us our eyes."
After a moment's silence, Magno spoke, "And therefore the visor."
"Yes," replied Isaac. "The visor was all we could do in reaction to this injustice committed against us, being the peaceful race we had striven to be since the time of our ancestors. We could only hope that they would not prey on us again after their first Harvest."
"And did they?"
"They never did...until more than a week ago, when one of their ships came and the nightmare was relived again. Once more, they took the eyes of our new, seeing generation, the pride of our planet, and once again our race was left in the darkness."
"More than a week ago..." Magno's brow was furrowed in thought. "That was just before the main Karitori mothership was defeated."
"As our intelligence agencies had informed us," agreed Isaac. "But a few days later, a few asteroids crashed on Asimov, luckily falling on the uninhabited parts of the planet. As we cleared out the debris, we discovered a piece of equipment among the asteroids. As far as our improvised eyes could tell and our hands could feel, it seemed to be some sort of database equipment from a ship, so we took great pains to decode it despite our handicap."
"And?" Magno lifted her eyebrows expectantly.
"And it turned to be a piece from a Karitori ship, part of a mission databank. And we found out that the Karitori was planning to attack Asimov a third time, but this time, it was not for our eyes, since they had wiped us clean for that. It was for our brains."
A general shudder ran across the hall and the bridge. Even B.C narrowed his eyes in disgust.
"And when was this 'mission' supposed to be executed?" asked Magno pensively.
"Approximately five days from today," answered the Asimov. He hesitated before continuing. "We understand that the Nirvana and its allies had defeated the Karitori leadership and its daughter ships, but we fear that there may still be Karitori ships who had not been part of the entourage that rightfully met their end. Our planet had been attacked two times already, stealing us of our right to see...and we do not want a third to steal our right to think. We know that there is only probably a slim chance of a Karitori ship coming back after its leader's demise, but we desperately want the assurance that there will not be a third plunder. It will be...too painful."
Meia looked at Isaac. It was strange. People said that the eyes were the windows to the soul, but what if the man had no eyes? How could the other discern what he was feeling? Yet she didn't need his eyes to tell her how much he cared for his planet; his voice was full of passion for his people. She looked at Magno.
The old woman was lost in thought. "One more thing, man of Asimov," she finally answered. "Why did you come here in such secrecy? Mejele and Talark are both against the Karitori; they would surely have welcomed your call for help."
"We are running out of time, if the databank proved to be true, and that the ship would come," said Isaac. "Asimov has no starships in production for we do not venture out in space very much. I was sent by the Asimov Council to ask for help as fast I could, and to avoid any notice or fuss, I came straight to the source of help: the Nirvana."
"How could a planet so far-flung hear of the Nirvana?"
Isaac's reply was short but heartfelt. "Great deeds cannot be kept secret, Commander, especially when they are most needed."
Hibiki tore his eyes from the screen to look at his hands. Great deeds...
Magno's hood covered her eyes, but when she looked up, they flashed with light. "B.C."
"Hai, Okashira?"
"Tell Bart to set a course to Asimov."
end of level 1