DISCLAIMER: I do not own Vandread or any of its characters. They are the property of Gonzo.

Chapter 6

The Nirvana prisoners were silent, sitting and watching their guards sullenly. Everyone perked up a bit when the door opened, but sagged back down when they saw it was only a woman with a mop and bucket coming in. Everyone, that is, except Hibiki, Dita and Meia, who recognized her as one of the invaders. Hibiki's newly learned discretion kept him from saying anything, although he was itching to taunt her. Dita simply stayed quiet, glancing around, and trying to ignore the woman. Meia frowned, slightly perplexed. Why was such an operative a part-time janitor? She gave up pondering and slid back into a dull, pain-fuelled apathy.

The guards, though, were under no compulsion to keep quiet.

"Hey, Kyra, you missed a spot."

"Don't forget to mop the walls and ceiling, too."

Kyra spun around, bristling.

"You two shut the hell up! I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Renard's fucking uptightness, so stuff it before I shove those stunsticks up a place you really don't want them!"

"Oh ho ho…" The guards glanced at each other.

"She wants to shove our sticks up something…"

"Hey Kyra, do these turn you on? That is so exciting…"

The fuming woman raised a balled fist, ready to strike.

"Does THIS turn you bastards on?"

The guards glanced at each other again.

"Uh, kinda!" Both broke out laughing as she glared angrily. With an exasperated huff, she turned around and began mopping at a furious pace. The guards were still chuckling as the door hissed open again. Both glanced at it, then snapped to attention, drawing the prisoners' interest.

A man walked in, looking at the guards.

"At ease."

Both relaxed, but stayed where they were.

"Did you have any trouble out of them?"

"No sir, no trouble."

The man turned to the cell, and several of them recoiled in surprise. He had a lean face that could have been considered handsome if not for the gleaming silver and glowing red that had replaced one eye, giving him a cold, machine-like look. When he stepped closer, they could see lines of scars still spreading out a little from under the bionic implant. Dita shrank back from the imposing image, and Paiway also squirmed backwards, clearly uncomfortable with the look. He surveyed them carefully, his gaze coming to rest on Hibiki.

"From the looks of this one, he was a bit loud."

"Yes sir, but nothing a little military discipline can't handle."

Hibiki's strained temper and broken pride flared up. "What the hell are you talking about? I was just asking where I was and you maniacs attacked me for no reason!"

"You were punished for a misdemeanor, punk. Shut the fuck up before I teach you another lesson, understand?"

Their commander simply stood there impassively, before raising his right hand. His fingers flashed with practiced speed, forming a message in an intricate hand code none of them understood. Both guards subsided, then saluted and walked out. He turned to regard Kyra. She was still mopping slowly, and while her back was to them, it was obvious she was paying a lot of attention to what was going on.

"What are you doing in here, Mop Girl? You know that civilians are not allowed to listen in on a military interrogation."

Kyra's shoulders stiffened, but she snapped around, eyes blazing. "Cut it out with the farce, Renard! This isn't military anymore and you know it! Quit trying to fool yourself!"

The Stone Soldier kept his face impassive, although inwardly he reeled from the sharp words. Even she thinks so… Anger took over. He stepped forwards, then kicked the bucket, sloshing dirty, soapy water all over her. She staggered back, trying to clear it out of her eyes, then jackknifed forwards, letting out a gasp as he slammed a knife-hand blow hard into her abdomen, over where Meia had hit her earlier. She stumbled, out of wind, but recovered and came back at him, just as he expected. Her grit and fighting spirit were part of what made him recruit her, after all.

Unfortunately for her, she had not learned enough to vary her tactics with her opponent. She was a skilled fighter, but she attacked by rote, using techniques none other than he himself had taught her.

A quick, vicious jab, which he parried, followed immediately by a leg-sweep to his right knee, but he had already read the move and adroitly sprang over the attack, then executing a perfect reverse kick that slammed home into the small of her back, catapulting her into the cell she was facing. She bounced off, just in time to catch his fist as he spun around, putting all his momentum into a twist of the hips that slammed the total force into her kidneys.

Kyra stumbled forward again, but with a loose, flapping quality to her limbs that told him the last hit had taken the fight out of her. She smashed into the bars, gripping them in an effort to keep from dropping to the ground. Pain ran up and down her spine in electric shrieks as a horrible nausea welled up in her skull from the blow. She gasped, then retched, tasting the salty tang of blood in her mouth, feeling it drip down from onto her chin, then onto the floor. Renard reached out and grabbed her hair, then with another powerful twist of his hips, dragged her off the bars, dropping her onto the ground.

Not releasing his powerful grip, the mercenary captain yanked her back to his feet, then mercilessly slammed the heel of his palm into her breastbone, lifting her clean off the ground and sending her to the floor in a daze of pain. He saw her head hit hard, and knew the fight was over without a doubt. He knelt beside her, gripping her hair again in one fist and lifting her head off the ground a few inches while leaning closer.

"We may no longer be in an army, but this is still a military outfit, Kyra. It's only that you are no longer in the military part. I will not tolerate insubordination or open disrespect in front of outsiders. You will do what you're told or I'll have you thrown out." He spoke in a whisper the prisoners could not make out. He was not proud of doing what he had, especially for playing on Kyra's inexperience- she had been with the First for a long time, and since the loss of their homeworld, she knew no one and nothing outside of the regiment.

Rising, he turned and called in the guards. They carefully picked her up and brought her back to the sickbay for the second time in the day.

Renard turned back to the cell, suddenly feeling very weary. The prisoners studied him with barely-concealed animosity, but he pushed it aside and began to speak. He was planning to introduce himself by rank, but it suddenly seemed so foolish he didn't.

"My name is Renard Gilchrist. I'm the second in command of this unit."

Meia lifted her head. The drain seemed to be taking everything out of her, but she refused to back down.

"What unit is this? Who are you people? Why did you attack us?"

He studied her carefully, his single human eye filled with a sudden cunning calculation, as though deciding what to tell her.

"We were formerly a regiment in the defense force of a planet. We were driven off our home, and turned mercenary. We attacked you because we were paid to steal those craft… but there's something about them I want to ask you."

Gascogne laughed openly. "What makes you think that we'd tell you anything?"

Renard gestured at the battered Hibiki. "Do you like having things like that happen? Telling me won't hurt you, but holding out will."

Gascogne sighed, shrugged. "Point. What do you want to know?"

"What exactly is it about those machines? The data we recovered from your ship made no sense. Some more data we…acquired from a different source says the craft can combine to form some sort of 'super-machine', but my technicians can't figure out how that can even be physically possible."

The head of the Nirvana's Register grinned. "You're asking questions that I wish I knew the answer to."

The mercenary studied her carefully, then swept the rest of them with his gaze, but none showed anything. At that moment, another soldier entered and murmured something to him in a quick, hushed exchange. Renard nodded and strode out.

Barnette sat miserably in her Dread. She'd been stuck there for an extremely long time now, and was cramped, bored, and in desperate need for a bathroom. I wonder how the others are doing? The thought made her even more miserable. She had not even been able to catch a glimpse of the fate of her friends from this angle. She was despondently pondering the thought when a sudden beep interrupted her. A ship was incoming…

Renard Gilchrist and Conrad Kurtz were striding down a corridor together, towards a meeting room. They entered and stood in front of a table, eying the man that had hired them. Both were immediately struck by the wrongness of him- he was simply not natural, for some reason. He rose, grinning hugely, which unnerved them even more.

"Gentlemen! Welcome! I trust that everything went well?"

Kurtz nodded deferentially.

"Naturally, Minister. The items are being unloaded as we speak."

"Of course, of course…a second, if you please." He turned away and spoke into an intercom for a while.

"Well, my man has told me that you delivered the goods, as promised. Now for the other part of our transaction…"

He raised a hand, and suddenly a brilliant flare of red light burst out in a powerful arc, moving straight at the two mercenaries. Renard tackled Kurtz to the ground, battle-honed instincts kicking in, as the blast surged overhead, fusing the wall into a molten mass. He swiftly yanked out his sidearm while hitting the alert button hidden in his glove. The units the mercenaries had prepared in case of this burst out, firing on their former employer's men while hunter drones shot into any human signature not wearing an IFF transmitter, self-destructing on large masses or using deadly blades to tear open single targets.

Renard rose from hiding, spraying fire from his weapon across the room. He used a deadly Valkoris-designed sub gun that drew on a block of special plastic for ammunition, sending a solid stream of razor-sharp shards at subsonic speeds, capable of obliterating a human body in full body armor. It fired at an extremely fast rate, had little chances of jamming, and little to no recoil. Blood splattered everywhere as the Minister's aides died, but a glowing red energy field deflected any shots aimed at the man himself. Renard dropped down again as another blast of crimson light arced overhead, wondering what the hell that man was.

A brilliant crimson flash filled the room, and when it was gone, he raised his head above the piece of wall he was sheltering behind. The minister was gone, with a large, burnt spot in the floor where he had stood.

He pulled out a commlink as Kurtz got up behind him.

"This is Renard. What's the status?"

"The ships are gone, commander! They just vanished in a red light! We've got casualties, they were trying to secure it…"

Damn it! What the hell just happened?