Author's Notes...
Think maia may slit my throat in my sleep... I'm ending this one in a cliffhanger as well. Think of it this way... it's my own little nod to old-fashioned serials. Well, it's not really, but think of it that way if it makes you feel better. Also realize this, if it's not already farking obvious from the list of stuff I have posted here and the graphics on my website - I'm a Ruri fanboy. Hopefully not the weird creepy type, but a Ruri fan nonetheless. So from that it should be pretty damn obvious I'm not going to do any permenant damage to her in my stories. Hell, I even tried to work a lemon into Enemies and couldn't. In the same vein, I'm trying very hard to be nicer to Hari than I am in the IY-MSN stuff.
Unfortunately, I do have to give Hari & Ruri a ... bruise (for lack of a better term) to advance the plot. But we're not there yet. Probably a couple more chapters before it gets into that. But, again, no permanent damage to them. Promise. Now to the chumps I created, I got no qualms with messing with them. I'll even kill 'em off if the plot requires. Anyways, enough rambling. We now join a black-armoured Aestivalis, somewhere in the upper edges of Earth's atmosphere...
The Black Sarena hurtled through the upper levels of earth's atmosphere following the Nadesico when Akito suddenly noticed motion on the belly of the the ship. "Lapis, report."
"The central computer core is ejecting form the ship," Lapis reported. "Nuclear Pulse engines are increasing output to unstable levels. The resulting accelleration is pushing the ship back out of the atmosphere. It would appear that the Nadesico's self-destruct sequence has been activated."
Akito gunned the Sarena's engines and closed his gap on the Nadesico. "Lapis, maintain lock on the Sarena's coordinates and be prepared to jump me if necessary."
"You're going to do something stupid again, aren't you?" Lapis asked casually.
Akito smiled underneath his helmet. "My armour may have turned black, but I must still protect the hime-sama I am charged with."
Lapis sighed through the comm link but refrained from muttering "baka" in reply.
The quartet in the control room felt their abode shake free of its home with the horrendous sound of shredding metal accompanying it. "Minna-san, dump all all Random Access Memory and force-stop all processes," Ruri commanded. "Do not write any data to disk. Omoikane left that door open for us, we should go through it."
"Youkai!" The trio around her chorused as they quickly finished off shutting down the system.
"Uh, guys, I think we have a problem," Mike said as calmly as he could a few moments later. "I can't get confirmation that the braking thrusters are firing."
"Could it because we shutdown all of the core?" Tobias countered.
"Dame," Ruri answered. "The emergency systems are apart from the main core with their own arrays."
"So, ah... anybody have any suggestions as to what we should do?" Tobias asked. "Besides pray, of course."
The quartet felt a sudden jerk as if the falling core suddenly decided to slown down. They all fellt themselves pushed into the seats and their harnesses briefly slacked when almost as quickly they felt the harnesses return their tension as inertia caught up with their apparent change in speed. Tobias leaned his head as close to Ruri's as he dared in the seemingly free-falling comptuer. "Um, Hoshino-san, if we make it through this, can I, ah, take you to dinner or something?"
Ruri blinked and stared at the wall in front of her for a moment. There was certainly nothing they could do at this point, so there wasn't any harm in discussing other matters for the moment. She suddenly found herself blushing slightly as she responded, "Hai."
The engines of his mecha groaned in protest as he fought to slow the core in its descent. "Lapis, are they slowed enough?"
Lapis glanced at her screens before replying through the open channel. "Your tow line when combined with the two thrusters which have fired has slowed their descent by fifteen percent. Another thirty seconds and according to specifications they will be able to touch down with minimal structural damage."
Ruri and Tobias sat silently, unsure of what to say to each other. Neither was quite sure what had prompted Tobias to ask at that particular point in time, and it had left both rather speechless. Tobias for the most part simply listened to what he could hear of Hari and Mike's conversation over the din around them.
Ruri knew at some level that the descent wouldn't last much longer but was having trouble convincing herself of this as it seemed like the chaotic ride would never end. At the same time another part of her was well aware that the termination of this fall was going to be far less than pleasant.
If the Sarena held a voice or even an AI, by this point it would have been protesting rather loudly about the fact that it was neither a towing ship nor a parachute despite Akito's using it as such at the moment. The Sarena also would have objected that the tether line from the Sarena was designed to either tether itself to something to to carry another Aestivalis a short distance, preferably underneath low-gravity conditions. It was not meant to carry the mass of a ship's computer core and most certainly was not intended to carry a mass of that size which also happened to be headed for Earth's surface in a near free-fall.
However, the Sarena did not have have any form of linguistic ability with which to convey its displeasure at the task it was given. As such, it was forced to convey its opinion through myriad warning lights and alarms, shaking and groaning its opinion to a pilot who was well aware of what the machine did not want to do. Despite his craft's best efforts to disuade his course of action, at the moment the Black Sarena's pilot had no intention of listening to what his mecha was trying to tell him. Tenkawa Akito only cared about his altimeter and his airspeed. At this point, specifications said that the core would survive impact intact. However, the specifications made no mention of humans. This translated that Akito had no idea of how slow he should be going. As such, he had resolved himself to slowing down the core as much as was possible.
"Akito-san, in these conditions the core is more than three times the weight rating of your tow line. It cannot hold out much longer," Lapis warned.
"Lapis, there are times when you just give specs the finger," Tenkawa panted out as he argued with the Saren's controls. "Besides, specifications are always written to avoid lawsuits."
"And thus why you provide them with them with the gift of a finger?"
"Sort of," Akiito said, and was about to try to further elaborate when the Sarena seconded Lapis' warning.
"Towline breakage immenant" appared, blinking in front of Tenkawa with white-on-red lettering to convey the panic Akito should be feeling right now. Akito, however, felt no need to panic as he glanced at his instruments. He was low enough and slow enough that the towline could snap at any time and the core could crash safely, albeit roughly.
Ruri heard Tobias sigh in what she assumed was dismay behind her. "Doujdano, Tobi-san? Am I too heavy?"
She heard Tobias laugh and turned to face him as much as the chair's safety belts would allow her to. "All apologies, Kanchou," he quickly followed his laugh with. "It's just that I'm amused by you being too heavy for anything other than a duck."
Ruri's eyebrow decided to imitate Spock's. "A duck?"
"British humor."
"Mmm hmm. So what was the sigh for?"
"Just thinking that roller coasters should only last two minutes or so," Tobias replied.
"If this is what roller coasters are like," Ruri countered, "I believe they may be over-rated."
Tobias' eyebrows lifted in mild suprise. "So you've nev--" he stopped when they all heard a loud, metallic pop eminate from the top of the core. Immediately all four felt their speed instantly increase as they were lifted against the chairs' harnesses. Ruri felt Tobias' cheek brush past hers and was about to ask if he was alright when she noticed the already-dim light of the core darken and realized that the speed increase was causing them to black out.
The Sarena shot upwards, its engines seemingly rejoicing at the loss of load. "Akito-san," Lapis called, "please return to the Euccharis. U.E. Spacey vessels are en route to recover the life pods. We should vacate the area before they arrive."
"Hai," Akito answered, taking one last look at the falling core before returning his attention to his flying.
I honestly have no idea if they really would have blacked out or not. I don't really feel like digging out the equations and then working them to figure it out, either. Willingly suspend your disbelief for a moment here, k? :-)