The legs in the mecha snapped up as it fell, and an engine glowed at the bottom of the mech, stablilizing it and making it hover in the air. The arms retracted halfway, and several metal platings rearranged and became more streamlined. The mecha flew back up and hovered in front of the door, giving ample room for Chesta to do the same thing. She swallowed. She walked right up to the edge of the launch bay and looked down through the dragon's eyes.
There were clouds far below them, and sometimes when they moved, she could see a city or mountains below. She backed up from the edge. "What's she doing, my Lord?" Chesta asked Dilandau. "Just wait and see," He answered. There was a rumble above them, as they had sunk lower to allow room for her to jump off. Her mecha was longer than theirs, and also had a wider wingspan. The floor above them shook, and then a red and black thing propelled itself off of the edge.
It fell for a few hundred feet, and they watched it. "Why won't this thing's wings open!?" A panicked voice came over their radios. She was entering commands in the computer, flipping the corresponding switches and opening channels, pressing buttons and pulling up on the steering. "Flight mode, activate!" She screamed at it. In her panic, she tried flapping her arms, since they controlled the Libreia's arms, maybe it would transfer to control the wings. All the mech did was look like one of those cartoon birds who couldn't fly, maniacally flapping it's arms. Okay, panicking won't get me anywhere! Let me see... She looked over the panel again. Quickly, as the thing was rapidly gaining speed as it fell.
She gripped the steering thing. She pulled up, and focused mentally on the wings opening from the back of the mecha. When that didn't work, she opened her eyes. "Libreia, exterior flight control." She commanded. Acknowledged. The computer said, and she felt herself propelled up through an open door, and she gripped the 'reins' that shot out of it's back before she started to fall backwards. She looked back up to sky, and saw that Dilandau had been diving after her fall.
The wings opened with a snap, and her stomach felt like it climbed to her throat. She felt pressed down by the sudden gravity, and then she returned to normal. She pulled on the reins up and to the left, and the Libreia swung up diagonally in the direction she had specified. The mecha spiralled a few times whilst going up, and she thought she might be sick. "Libreia!" She shouted at it.
Yes, Commander Fox? It replied. "Run a systems diagnostic on the interior flight control!" She commanded it. Systems diagnostics imply that the interior flight control has not been activated. Would you like to activate it? It asked. "Yes!" She answered, and then she felt herself being sucked back into the mecha suit, and she landed in the seat.
The metal control gauntlets attached themselves to her wrists and ankles again. Grip steering pad. It instructed her, and she snatched it, pulling up. This time, the mecha did as it was told. She found that the steering was very much like those flight simulator video games she had played before she'd come into this world. In fact, it bore such a startling resemblance that she immediately felt she knew how to operate it.
The steering pad looked almost like that of a car's, except there was not a full circular bar going around the entire perimeter of it. There was the normal pad in the middle, and then two curved bars on either side of the pad. It worked just like that of a plane's steering. If one pulled up on the wheel, the nose went up, and vice versa. The pushing or pulling controlled the nose's altitude, while the turning of the pad controlled the direction.
"Okay, I get this system now. God, that scared me. I thought I was going to plummet all the way down and die." She said through the radios. " I thought so, too. Now that you've got control, we want to see if you can track us. Think of it as a kind of game. Both of us have our invisibility cloaks on, and we're flying around. See if you can catch us." Dilandau responded.
She thought for a moment, and then she remembered a science lesson she'd had in Grade Eight. The teacher had said that the section of light that was visible to humans was actually very small. On the red side of the colour spectrum, there was infrared, and on the opposite, the violet side, it went to ultraviolet rays, which proceeded to gamma rays. She remembered that infrared operated on a different wavelength than visible light did.
She couldn't type on the computer pad, because she had to concentrate on her steering. "Libreia, display infrared screen." She commanded. Acknowledged. The computer responded.
The vision worked on a sort of headband. It went around her eyes, like a 'Jordy LaForge' type thing from Star Trek. It displayed a panoramic screen of the view outside. The sky turned from normal blue to shades of red, and she turned her head to look all over the sky. She saw one, far up above her. She couldn't tell if it was the blue or the red one just yet, but she could see it. She pretended she hadn't yet, and flew straight up, diagonal to it, to get above it. She watched it move in a zig-zag fashion, to her left. She continued climbing in the sky, and when the pilot had regained his confidence that he hadn't been seen, she swung upside-down and flipped over, changing her trajectory to the mecha.
He realized he'd been spotted, and he dropped straight down, making patterns in the air. She followed these easily; She was used to things moving erratically like that on her video games. As she drew closer to the mecha, she noticed by it's darker shade of red that it was Chesta's mecha. She drew up right above it, and the Libreia's claws came down, latching onto the other mecha's back. "Gotcha!" She cried. "Damn. Oh well. I guess I should tell you; Dilandau's using an invisibility cloak that can't be seen by infrared." He explained.
"You fool! You shouldn't have told her!" Dilandau's voice came on the radio. She unlatched the Libreia's claws from the blue mecha's back. "Libreia, track last position of radio frequency emission." She said. Last radio frequency emission from the Alseides was directly to your left. Libreia responded. "Thanks." She said.
She tried heat-seeking vision, night vision, and ultra-violet vision, but she still couldn't see Dilandau. She made tight circles in the sky, concentrating on finding where he was. She suddenly had the feeling to grab, so she released the Libreia's claws that instant, and they latched onto metal. "Got you too, Lord Dilandau." She said, and he released the invisibility cloak.
"How the hell did you see me?" he asked her, totally shocked. "It's... Very difficult to explain, my Lord." She replied. "I'm listening," He replied, insistantly. I... You'll think I'm insane..." She said. "Gabrielle, it can't sound that crazy, because I'm insane myself! Or, at least everyone says so behind my back... I want to know how you caught me." He insisted. "Alright. I had a vision. That's how I saw you, Lord Dilandau." She blurted. The line was silent.
"Well, it's not unheard of." Chesta said, trying to make her not feel so awkward. "You mean to say, you closed your eyes and you saw where I was?" Dilandau asked. "Basically, yes. I've never told anyone else that I can do that. Please, don't tell anyone that I can. They'll say I'm a freak. Please, my Lord, don't tell anyone. Chesta, you won't tell, will you?" She begged. "No, of course I won't tell." He responded. Dilandau was silent for a moment.
"It's our little secret." Dilandau said, hating the fact that he knew every move and radio broadcast was being monitored. His radio crackled with a message from inside Zaibach.
"Commander Dilandau, we need you. We have new information on the White Dragon." A male voice said. "Alright. I'm coming in." He replied. He knew there was also more than new information on the White Dragon. He didn't want Gabrielle to go and have to visit the Scientists; There was no telling in what they might do. But, unfortunately, the circumstance was beyond his control, and if the Scientists wanted to see her, he could not stop them. He knew that they'd stopped monitoring the radio waves.
"Gabrielle, don't tell them anything, for your sake." He said, and he shut off his radio and landed back in the base. "Chesta, what did he mean by that?" She asked him. "Mean by what? I didn't hear anything." He responded. "Oh, nevermind then. We had best go in now; It's starting to get dark, and I'm tired." She said. "Yeah, me too." He replied, and he flew back to the base. She did a loop in the air to gather speed, and she followed him.
She exited the Libreia, and she followed Chesta. "Um, Chesta," She began. "Yes?" He asked. "Where am I going to sleep?" She asked curiously. "I don't know. You don't have quarters yet, so probably in the same room as one of us for tonight." He explained. "Oh," She said disappointedly. "I was hoping I could get my own room." She said. "Oh, don't worry, you will by tomorrow. You were just registered this morning, so you don't have a room yet. That's all I was saying." Chesta said.
They continued to the room she had been in to first meet the rest of the Dragonslayers. Migel was back, tenderly nursing one side of his face, which was badly bruised. Guimel was playing a game that looked like chess with Dalet, and Gatti was busily writing at a desk in the corner. She shyly said hello to the group of them, and then she walked up to the desk.
"Gatti, can I have a piece of paper?" She asked timidly. "Hn?" He said, snapped out of his concentration. "Sorry, I asked if I could have a piece of paper." She said, and apologized again. "Oh, yeah. Sure. I was just writing poetry, sorry I didn't notice you." He said, and handed her a piece of paper. "Thank you," She said. He looked on the desktop. "Sorry, I don't have another pen. You might ask someone else. They might have one." He said, and smiled softly, and returned back to his poetry. She looked around the room for the bag she'd had, and she found it, placed by a chair. She rooted through it and pulled out her green mechanical pencil and her CD player. She looked around the room for something hard she could use as a table, and she came across a game board that Guimel and Dalet weren't using, and she returned to the chair.
She hooked her earphones around her ears and pressed the play button on the CD player, and picked up the board and pencil. She listened to the David Usher CD as she drew, and she didn't notice the stares of amazed curiosity she got. She eventually looked up, and was embarassed to see all of them looking at her. She was sure she hadn't been singing, so what was the problem? "What?" She asked.
"What's that?" Migel piped up, and then he winced, because he moved his jaw to talk. "It's a CD player." She said, and smiled. She'd forgotten that these people might never have seen a CD player before. "It plays music recordings. It reads them off of discs, like this one," She said, as she flipped open the CD player and took out the disc. She held it up, and almost laughed at their expressions as they watched the light play about on the disc.
"That can't play music! It's just a shiny disc." Guimel said. "Would you like me to prove it?" She asked him. "Come here." She beckoned to him. He stood up and boldly walked forwards. She replaced the CD inside the player, and she showed him how to put on the earphones. He put them on, and she pressed the play button.
"Oh my God, it does play music!" He exclaimed. "That must be a small orchestra!" Said Dalet, and she couldn't help but laugh a little. "There is no orchestra. It's a recording." She explained. "A band records a song, and then a computer writes the music on the disc in a code called 'binary code.' It's a system of numbers.Then, a laser inside the player reads the numbers, and converts them back to sound." She explained. "That's amazing! Can I listen?" Dalet asked, and she told him he could. Eventually, all of them wanted to listen, and she gladly let them. They were all amazed, and she laughed.
"I want a CD player thing in my mecha!" Exclaimed one, and she giggled. She liked the idea, but she didn't think it would work. They'd need to develop the technology. Unless... "Do you have people here who could maybe take this player apart, copy the parts, and put mine back together?" She asked. "Yes," Said Gatti. "I could do it. I like working with machines." He said. "He's right," said Chesta. "He loves messing around with wires and stuff."
"Can you do it without wrecking mine?" She asked him. "If I'm careful," Said Gatti. "If I looked at it, I could probably improve it." He said, and she handed the thing to him. She took out the disc first, and put it back in it's casing. "Here," She said. "Be careful with it, because if it doesn't work when I get it back, I'll be mad." She continued. "No problem." He said, and he stood up from the desk. "I'm going to my quarters. I have a computer there. It'll analyze it for me." Gatti said, and he walked off with it, out the door.
There were clouds far below them, and sometimes when they moved, she could see a city or mountains below. She backed up from the edge. "What's she doing, my Lord?" Chesta asked Dilandau. "Just wait and see," He answered. There was a rumble above them, as they had sunk lower to allow room for her to jump off. Her mecha was longer than theirs, and also had a wider wingspan. The floor above them shook, and then a red and black thing propelled itself off of the edge.
It fell for a few hundred feet, and they watched it. "Why won't this thing's wings open!?" A panicked voice came over their radios. She was entering commands in the computer, flipping the corresponding switches and opening channels, pressing buttons and pulling up on the steering. "Flight mode, activate!" She screamed at it. In her panic, she tried flapping her arms, since they controlled the Libreia's arms, maybe it would transfer to control the wings. All the mech did was look like one of those cartoon birds who couldn't fly, maniacally flapping it's arms. Okay, panicking won't get me anywhere! Let me see... She looked over the panel again. Quickly, as the thing was rapidly gaining speed as it fell.
She gripped the steering thing. She pulled up, and focused mentally on the wings opening from the back of the mecha. When that didn't work, she opened her eyes. "Libreia, exterior flight control." She commanded. Acknowledged. The computer said, and she felt herself propelled up through an open door, and she gripped the 'reins' that shot out of it's back before she started to fall backwards. She looked back up to sky, and saw that Dilandau had been diving after her fall.
The wings opened with a snap, and her stomach felt like it climbed to her throat. She felt pressed down by the sudden gravity, and then she returned to normal. She pulled on the reins up and to the left, and the Libreia swung up diagonally in the direction she had specified. The mecha spiralled a few times whilst going up, and she thought she might be sick. "Libreia!" She shouted at it.
Yes, Commander Fox? It replied. "Run a systems diagnostic on the interior flight control!" She commanded it. Systems diagnostics imply that the interior flight control has not been activated. Would you like to activate it? It asked. "Yes!" She answered, and then she felt herself being sucked back into the mecha suit, and she landed in the seat.
The metal control gauntlets attached themselves to her wrists and ankles again. Grip steering pad. It instructed her, and she snatched it, pulling up. This time, the mecha did as it was told. She found that the steering was very much like those flight simulator video games she had played before she'd come into this world. In fact, it bore such a startling resemblance that she immediately felt she knew how to operate it.
The steering pad looked almost like that of a car's, except there was not a full circular bar going around the entire perimeter of it. There was the normal pad in the middle, and then two curved bars on either side of the pad. It worked just like that of a plane's steering. If one pulled up on the wheel, the nose went up, and vice versa. The pushing or pulling controlled the nose's altitude, while the turning of the pad controlled the direction.
"Okay, I get this system now. God, that scared me. I thought I was going to plummet all the way down and die." She said through the radios. " I thought so, too. Now that you've got control, we want to see if you can track us. Think of it as a kind of game. Both of us have our invisibility cloaks on, and we're flying around. See if you can catch us." Dilandau responded.
She thought for a moment, and then she remembered a science lesson she'd had in Grade Eight. The teacher had said that the section of light that was visible to humans was actually very small. On the red side of the colour spectrum, there was infrared, and on the opposite, the violet side, it went to ultraviolet rays, which proceeded to gamma rays. She remembered that infrared operated on a different wavelength than visible light did.
She couldn't type on the computer pad, because she had to concentrate on her steering. "Libreia, display infrared screen." She commanded. Acknowledged. The computer responded.
The vision worked on a sort of headband. It went around her eyes, like a 'Jordy LaForge' type thing from Star Trek. It displayed a panoramic screen of the view outside. The sky turned from normal blue to shades of red, and she turned her head to look all over the sky. She saw one, far up above her. She couldn't tell if it was the blue or the red one just yet, but she could see it. She pretended she hadn't yet, and flew straight up, diagonal to it, to get above it. She watched it move in a zig-zag fashion, to her left. She continued climbing in the sky, and when the pilot had regained his confidence that he hadn't been seen, she swung upside-down and flipped over, changing her trajectory to the mecha.
He realized he'd been spotted, and he dropped straight down, making patterns in the air. She followed these easily; She was used to things moving erratically like that on her video games. As she drew closer to the mecha, she noticed by it's darker shade of red that it was Chesta's mecha. She drew up right above it, and the Libreia's claws came down, latching onto the other mecha's back. "Gotcha!" She cried. "Damn. Oh well. I guess I should tell you; Dilandau's using an invisibility cloak that can't be seen by infrared." He explained.
"You fool! You shouldn't have told her!" Dilandau's voice came on the radio. She unlatched the Libreia's claws from the blue mecha's back. "Libreia, track last position of radio frequency emission." She said. Last radio frequency emission from the Alseides was directly to your left. Libreia responded. "Thanks." She said.
She tried heat-seeking vision, night vision, and ultra-violet vision, but she still couldn't see Dilandau. She made tight circles in the sky, concentrating on finding where he was. She suddenly had the feeling to grab, so she released the Libreia's claws that instant, and they latched onto metal. "Got you too, Lord Dilandau." She said, and he released the invisibility cloak.
"How the hell did you see me?" he asked her, totally shocked. "It's... Very difficult to explain, my Lord." She replied. "I'm listening," He replied, insistantly. I... You'll think I'm insane..." She said. "Gabrielle, it can't sound that crazy, because I'm insane myself! Or, at least everyone says so behind my back... I want to know how you caught me." He insisted. "Alright. I had a vision. That's how I saw you, Lord Dilandau." She blurted. The line was silent.
"Well, it's not unheard of." Chesta said, trying to make her not feel so awkward. "You mean to say, you closed your eyes and you saw where I was?" Dilandau asked. "Basically, yes. I've never told anyone else that I can do that. Please, don't tell anyone that I can. They'll say I'm a freak. Please, my Lord, don't tell anyone. Chesta, you won't tell, will you?" She begged. "No, of course I won't tell." He responded. Dilandau was silent for a moment.
"It's our little secret." Dilandau said, hating the fact that he knew every move and radio broadcast was being monitored. His radio crackled with a message from inside Zaibach.
"Commander Dilandau, we need you. We have new information on the White Dragon." A male voice said. "Alright. I'm coming in." He replied. He knew there was also more than new information on the White Dragon. He didn't want Gabrielle to go and have to visit the Scientists; There was no telling in what they might do. But, unfortunately, the circumstance was beyond his control, and if the Scientists wanted to see her, he could not stop them. He knew that they'd stopped monitoring the radio waves.
"Gabrielle, don't tell them anything, for your sake." He said, and he shut off his radio and landed back in the base. "Chesta, what did he mean by that?" She asked him. "Mean by what? I didn't hear anything." He responded. "Oh, nevermind then. We had best go in now; It's starting to get dark, and I'm tired." She said. "Yeah, me too." He replied, and he flew back to the base. She did a loop in the air to gather speed, and she followed him.
She exited the Libreia, and she followed Chesta. "Um, Chesta," She began. "Yes?" He asked. "Where am I going to sleep?" She asked curiously. "I don't know. You don't have quarters yet, so probably in the same room as one of us for tonight." He explained. "Oh," She said disappointedly. "I was hoping I could get my own room." She said. "Oh, don't worry, you will by tomorrow. You were just registered this morning, so you don't have a room yet. That's all I was saying." Chesta said.
They continued to the room she had been in to first meet the rest of the Dragonslayers. Migel was back, tenderly nursing one side of his face, which was badly bruised. Guimel was playing a game that looked like chess with Dalet, and Gatti was busily writing at a desk in the corner. She shyly said hello to the group of them, and then she walked up to the desk.
"Gatti, can I have a piece of paper?" She asked timidly. "Hn?" He said, snapped out of his concentration. "Sorry, I asked if I could have a piece of paper." She said, and apologized again. "Oh, yeah. Sure. I was just writing poetry, sorry I didn't notice you." He said, and handed her a piece of paper. "Thank you," She said. He looked on the desktop. "Sorry, I don't have another pen. You might ask someone else. They might have one." He said, and smiled softly, and returned back to his poetry. She looked around the room for the bag she'd had, and she found it, placed by a chair. She rooted through it and pulled out her green mechanical pencil and her CD player. She looked around the room for something hard she could use as a table, and she came across a game board that Guimel and Dalet weren't using, and she returned to the chair.
She hooked her earphones around her ears and pressed the play button on the CD player, and picked up the board and pencil. She listened to the David Usher CD as she drew, and she didn't notice the stares of amazed curiosity she got. She eventually looked up, and was embarassed to see all of them looking at her. She was sure she hadn't been singing, so what was the problem? "What?" She asked.
"What's that?" Migel piped up, and then he winced, because he moved his jaw to talk. "It's a CD player." She said, and smiled. She'd forgotten that these people might never have seen a CD player before. "It plays music recordings. It reads them off of discs, like this one," She said, as she flipped open the CD player and took out the disc. She held it up, and almost laughed at their expressions as they watched the light play about on the disc.
"That can't play music! It's just a shiny disc." Guimel said. "Would you like me to prove it?" She asked him. "Come here." She beckoned to him. He stood up and boldly walked forwards. She replaced the CD inside the player, and she showed him how to put on the earphones. He put them on, and she pressed the play button.
"Oh my God, it does play music!" He exclaimed. "That must be a small orchestra!" Said Dalet, and she couldn't help but laugh a little. "There is no orchestra. It's a recording." She explained. "A band records a song, and then a computer writes the music on the disc in a code called 'binary code.' It's a system of numbers.Then, a laser inside the player reads the numbers, and converts them back to sound." She explained. "That's amazing! Can I listen?" Dalet asked, and she told him he could. Eventually, all of them wanted to listen, and she gladly let them. They were all amazed, and she laughed.
"I want a CD player thing in my mecha!" Exclaimed one, and she giggled. She liked the idea, but she didn't think it would work. They'd need to develop the technology. Unless... "Do you have people here who could maybe take this player apart, copy the parts, and put mine back together?" She asked. "Yes," Said Gatti. "I could do it. I like working with machines." He said. "He's right," said Chesta. "He loves messing around with wires and stuff."
"Can you do it without wrecking mine?" She asked him. "If I'm careful," Said Gatti. "If I looked at it, I could probably improve it." He said, and she handed the thing to him. She took out the disc first, and put it back in it's casing. "Here," She said. "Be careful with it, because if it doesn't work when I get it back, I'll be mad." She continued. "No problem." He said, and he stood up from the desk. "I'm going to my quarters. I have a computer there. It'll analyze it for me." Gatti said, and he walked off with it, out the door.