"I never dreamed that I'd fly higher than the clouds," Rena marveled as she looked out the window at Expel becoming farther and farther away.
"It's breathtaking, isn't it?" Opera asked.
"So beautiful..........where exactly is the ship?" Rena watched as white whisps of clouds moved with the quick passing of the rocket.
"Just above Expel's atmosphere, if it hasn't left," Opera said.
Rena looked over Opera's shoulder, through the windshield, at the approaching darkness beyond the clouds. Specks of bright light solitarily shone from random places in the spacious dark. "Is this, space?" Rena cautiously asked.
"Nothin' but," Opera laughed.
Suddenly, Rena saw a reflection in space. A flat surface made its presence known by allowing the starlight to shimmer off of it. Then the object moved, allowing the light to bounce off of corners and creases.
As the rocket sped towards the shiny object, more light showed more of the object, displaying the vast spaceship that took Claude away.
"That's it!" Rena gasped. Thoughts of the event that separated her from her beloved caused anger to rise within her as she contemplated how the people that attacked them would pay.
"We've got to be careful, Rena," Opera warned her friend. "From what you've told me about when Claude was taken, these people have no intention of assisting us."
"Yes......" Rena looked into her leather pouch, at the Holy Twin, the weapon for Claude. When she looked back up, towards the spaceship, she saw an object fly quickly away from it, with a smudge of blond in the object's window. "No, it couldn't be," Rena convinced herself.
***
"Commander Rachel, there's a small spacecraft approaching us from the planet Expel," a pilot examined the radar on the Tolden's control panel on the bridge.
Rachel stood over the pilot as she looked at the radar, then out the windshield, trying to find the spacecraft. "What is it?"
"It appears to be a class C-9 rocket ship, unique to those situated on the advanced planet Tetragenes. Why it's on this planet, I have no idea," the pilot explained.
"Then it must be an enemy ship, come to try and defeat us!" Rachel jumped to conclusions.
"Commander Rachel!?" the pilot gasped.
"You heard me! Destroy it!" Rachel exclaimed.
Other crew members scattered, following their superior's orders.
Rachel took charge. "Once the weapons are ready for launch, open fire!"
***
"Oh! Look!" Opera gasped.
Rena looked towards the spaceship. A small flap on the bottom of the ship opened, revealing several small missile-like objects. Dozens more flaps opened, showing more and more missiles.
"They must think we're an enemy!" Opera gasped as she flipped a switch that caused the rocket's shield to strengthen to full power.
"What do we do!?" Rena gaped.
"We'll have to ride it out!" Opera got a firm grip on the direction controls. But then, she saw an opening on the bottom of the spaceship. "Wait, look! The standard door that releases emergency ships from the hold is open! We can get on the ship by going in it! Hang on!"
The missiles suddenly began filling the air surrounding Opera's rocket as they shot away from the ship. Opera maneuvered skillfully with agility, being an expert in spacecraft piloting, and she managed to dodge the torpedoes of fire that swerved her way. Rena was dead scared, she had never encountered this sort of thing before, and though she trusted Opera, she still feared for her life, as one false move would mean their destruction.
"I don't think they're going to stop attacking until we're gone!" Opera exclaimed as she veered a hard left, avoiding an on-coming missile. "We might have to go back!"
"No!" Rena yelled. Frantically her eyes searched the contours of the ship, trying to find a way in. Then she noticed that the door to the hold, where the little rocket she had seen before came from. "There! That open hatch! Maybe we can get in through there!" Rena pointed to the opening on the side of the ship.
Opera saw it too. "We'll try! Hang on!" she turned her controls to take the rocket to the ship.
* * *
"What is the ship doing?" Commander Rachel exclaimed as she saw that the suspected enemy rocket had suddenly changed its course and was swerving off to the side.
The pilot shrugged his shoulders. "Perhaps they've given up, Commander."
"I doubt it......" Commander Rachel crossed her arms. The enemy was not in view from the deck, it was out of sight, but its image remained on the radar. But then Rachel noticed something interesting. A control panel on the main controls displayed a flashing screen, which said that the door to the hold was still open. Commander Rachel blanched as those facts dawned on her, and she feared of the enemy rocket's intentions.
"They're heading towards the open door to the hold!" Rachel realized as she slammed her fist down on the button that would close the door to the hold.
* * *
"Opera! The door is closing!" Rena gasped as she saw the hinged metallic flaps slowly coming down.
"We're going to make it!" Opera optimistically exclaimed as she dodged yet another missile, then pushed her hand against the clutch to force the rocket forward at it's top speed.
The rocket suddenly sprang forward, the force pushing Opera and Rena back in their seats. The engine seemed to have a new life as it emitted a stream of fire, and drove it across the distance at a vast speed. The metallic doors kept a steady speed as they were drawn down to close, and as Opera's rocket drew nearer, the two women could see men in blue jumpsuits milling and scrambling around inside the ship, some armed, others hastily working controls.
And then in a sudden burst of speed, just before the doors closed, Opera's rocket slipped inside, on board the huge spacecraft.
* * *
"That rocket we were shooting at has gotten on board!" the pilot worriedly told his commander.
"Fools! You let the enemy get on board!? Increase defenses in the hold, to determine the enemy's cause here!" Commander Rachel shouted orders to her crew. Though she acted calm and assured of her eventual triumph, she was actually shivering and panicking inside. Was this rocket actually enemy? Though she reacted as if it was, she knew deep inside that it wasn't. At the beginning of the battle with the Ten Wise Men on Milocinia, Rachel had gone to evaluate her chances and standards in the line of battle, to decide if she would take part in it, or take on the mission to investigate Expel. She had seen the slaughter, the relentless and unmerciful violence that Indalecio, Filia, and the rest of their team had distributed upon the Earth Federation's forces, killing hundreds. Rachel feared for herself, the enemy was so strong, seemingly indestructible. And now there was this mysterious rocket that was now on board the Tolden. It's strength seemed futile compared to Rachel's crew. So if this rocket was enemy, why would it come as such a weak force? That she would find out soon, as she ordered the crew in the hold to be tripled for protection.
* * *
"There are so many men out there," Rena panicked as Opera landed the rocket on the metal floor of the hold. Both women watched as armed men milled around the rocket, surrounding it and aiming their weapons at the spacecraft.
"Come out with your hands up!" a strong man with a megaphone called out to Opera and Rena.
"What are we going to do!?" Rena exclaimed.
Opera reached beside her, picking up her large specialized gun and inserting a disk into it's power box. "Stay down Rena, I have a plan," Opera cautiously looked out the windshield, mentally counting the number of armed men which surrounded her shuttle. Then she pressed a button on her control panel, and the glass dome roof of the rocket began to slowly open.
"Put down your weapons!" the man with the megaphone shouted again.
Rena watched in awe as Opera fearlessly stood up, her head and shoulders outside of the protection of her rocket, exposed to possible injury were the crew to open fire.
"Put down your weapons!!" the man commanded again.
"Where is Claude Kenni!?" Opera demanded as she held up her large gun, aiming at the man with the megaphone.
When the crew members saw the size and potency of Opera's awesome weapon, they all stepped back, and a number of them moved to protect the unarmed man with the megaphone, as Opera had her gun aimed at him.
"I will ask only one more time! Where is Claude Kenni!?" Opera yelled again, her finger squeezing against her gun's trigger.
The armed men remained silent, unsure of who this strange 3-eyed woman was speaking of.
"Fine then," Opera casually said as she aimed her gun off to the side, instead of directly at the crew member with the megaphone. Then she squeezed the trigger, and immediately the armed men scrambled as a bar of light shot out of the cannon of Opera's gun, then drove down to the metal floor, and upon contact with the floor, the bar of light exploded into a dark cloud of mist. The dark mist surrounded the men, blocking their view of Opera and her rocket.
"Come on, Rena! Now's our chance to escape!" Opera reached down a hand to help Rena out. Rena grabbed her leather pouch, being careful not to crush the Holy Twin in it, and slung the pouch over her shoulder as she grabbed Opera's hand and stepped out of the rocket with her friend.
The crew who had previously on their guard were now frantically calling out to stop the enemy. Others were choking on the mist, believing it to be toxic, when it was actually harmless. Still others stood their ground, searching with keen vision for the strange blond woman through the mist, and holding up their weapons to fire should she try to escape. But Opera and Rena weren't caught. They safely sidestepped through the dark cloud, eluding the men, and escaped through a small door on the opposite side of the room.
* * *
"The enemies have escaped! I repeat, the enemies have escaped!" a panicking voice exclaimed from the perforated surface of the radio in Commander Rachel's shaking hand. She was speaking with one of the crew members who had encountered the assumed enemy rocket in the hold.
"Who escaped?" Rachel inquired, holding the radio to her ear. She could hear men coughing in the background. "How many people?"
"A blond woman......with 3 eyes!" the voice from the radio exclaimed. "She was armed, she had a huge weapon, some sort of a gun, and when she shot a round at the floor, it was a beam of light, and exploded into a cloud of mist when it hit the floor. The mist blocked our view, and we couldn't see anything, so when the mist had cleared, we searched the rocket, but the woman was gone!"
"Well then, go after her! She can't have gotten far! This ship is so big, she's probably gotten lost! Go after her!" Commander Rachel ordered.
"Yes sir!" the voice on the radio echoed, then faded off as Rachel turned off the device.
"Damn fools, they let the enemy escape!" Rachel cursed out loud as she strode across the bridge, frantically thinking of what to do. "They said she's heavily armed......" Rachel feared for her own safety. With a sudden idea, Rachel picked up the radio again. "Sergeant Targ! Send more security to the bridge! I suspect that the 3-eyed woman will come here to the bridge if she wishes to take over the ship......."
* * *
"Opera! Where are we going!?" Rena exclaimed as she tried to keep up with her friend. The two women were running as quickly as possible down narrow corridors and up and down short flights of steps away from where they had left their rocket, Opera leading the way.
"Trust me, Rena. I've been on many a spacecraft like this, and believe me, a majority of them have the same design. All we have to do is stay along the right side of the ship, and there shouldn't be too many forks or multiple halls that would confuse us. It is like one long path, leading straight to the bridge," Opera explained as she stealthily stepped up a set of stairs, making sure that they weren't being followed. "And once we get to the bridge, all we have to do is threaten the Commander, and then whatever we want will be followed. We'll be in charge, and they'll have to listen to our orders if they want their precious Commander to live," Opera arrogantly smirked at her obviously successful plans.
The two women kept to the right side of the ship, and didn't encounter any of the ship's crew along the way. In the air all around them blared an alarm, as well as someone's voice over an intercom stating that the enemies had escaped.
Opera and Rena had to be more cautious, though, once they came to an open area. The open room was shaped like a pentagon, it had 5 walls. There were 3 other corridors to take besides the one they had come from, a corridor on each wall except one, but all the corridors led to the opposite end of the ship, where the bridge surely wasn't. And against the corridorless wall there were 2 doors, made of thick, dark metal and embossed with the same symbol that was on the outside of the ship.
"We're at the bridge," Opera stopped to catch her breath, hoisting her huge weapon up in her arms, preparing to use it if anyone came through the doors. "Just through those doors is the bridge, where the Commander probably is. Stay behind me when we go in, Rena, you don't have a weapon."
"Alright," Rena agreed as she and Opera approached the doors.
"You ready?" Opera adjusted her gun, then held it comfortably with her finger resting against the trigger, ready should she have to use it. Her other hand shook uneasily as it gripped the door's handle, prepared to open it.
Rena took a deep breath, afraid for the risk they were about to take. "I'm ready," she finally said as she stood safely behind Opera.
"Here we go!" Opera exclaimed as her hand quickly pushed down on the handle, and she forced open the door.
"It's breathtaking, isn't it?" Opera asked.
"So beautiful..........where exactly is the ship?" Rena watched as white whisps of clouds moved with the quick passing of the rocket.
"Just above Expel's atmosphere, if it hasn't left," Opera said.
Rena looked over Opera's shoulder, through the windshield, at the approaching darkness beyond the clouds. Specks of bright light solitarily shone from random places in the spacious dark. "Is this, space?" Rena cautiously asked.
"Nothin' but," Opera laughed.
Suddenly, Rena saw a reflection in space. A flat surface made its presence known by allowing the starlight to shimmer off of it. Then the object moved, allowing the light to bounce off of corners and creases.
As the rocket sped towards the shiny object, more light showed more of the object, displaying the vast spaceship that took Claude away.
"That's it!" Rena gasped. Thoughts of the event that separated her from her beloved caused anger to rise within her as she contemplated how the people that attacked them would pay.
"We've got to be careful, Rena," Opera warned her friend. "From what you've told me about when Claude was taken, these people have no intention of assisting us."
"Yes......" Rena looked into her leather pouch, at the Holy Twin, the weapon for Claude. When she looked back up, towards the spaceship, she saw an object fly quickly away from it, with a smudge of blond in the object's window. "No, it couldn't be," Rena convinced herself.
***
"Commander Rachel, there's a small spacecraft approaching us from the planet Expel," a pilot examined the radar on the Tolden's control panel on the bridge.
Rachel stood over the pilot as she looked at the radar, then out the windshield, trying to find the spacecraft. "What is it?"
"It appears to be a class C-9 rocket ship, unique to those situated on the advanced planet Tetragenes. Why it's on this planet, I have no idea," the pilot explained.
"Then it must be an enemy ship, come to try and defeat us!" Rachel jumped to conclusions.
"Commander Rachel!?" the pilot gasped.
"You heard me! Destroy it!" Rachel exclaimed.
Other crew members scattered, following their superior's orders.
Rachel took charge. "Once the weapons are ready for launch, open fire!"
***
"Oh! Look!" Opera gasped.
Rena looked towards the spaceship. A small flap on the bottom of the ship opened, revealing several small missile-like objects. Dozens more flaps opened, showing more and more missiles.
"They must think we're an enemy!" Opera gasped as she flipped a switch that caused the rocket's shield to strengthen to full power.
"What do we do!?" Rena gaped.
"We'll have to ride it out!" Opera got a firm grip on the direction controls. But then, she saw an opening on the bottom of the spaceship. "Wait, look! The standard door that releases emergency ships from the hold is open! We can get on the ship by going in it! Hang on!"
The missiles suddenly began filling the air surrounding Opera's rocket as they shot away from the ship. Opera maneuvered skillfully with agility, being an expert in spacecraft piloting, and she managed to dodge the torpedoes of fire that swerved her way. Rena was dead scared, she had never encountered this sort of thing before, and though she trusted Opera, she still feared for her life, as one false move would mean their destruction.
"I don't think they're going to stop attacking until we're gone!" Opera exclaimed as she veered a hard left, avoiding an on-coming missile. "We might have to go back!"
"No!" Rena yelled. Frantically her eyes searched the contours of the ship, trying to find a way in. Then she noticed that the door to the hold, where the little rocket she had seen before came from. "There! That open hatch! Maybe we can get in through there!" Rena pointed to the opening on the side of the ship.
Opera saw it too. "We'll try! Hang on!" she turned her controls to take the rocket to the ship.
* * *
"What is the ship doing?" Commander Rachel exclaimed as she saw that the suspected enemy rocket had suddenly changed its course and was swerving off to the side.
The pilot shrugged his shoulders. "Perhaps they've given up, Commander."
"I doubt it......" Commander Rachel crossed her arms. The enemy was not in view from the deck, it was out of sight, but its image remained on the radar. But then Rachel noticed something interesting. A control panel on the main controls displayed a flashing screen, which said that the door to the hold was still open. Commander Rachel blanched as those facts dawned on her, and she feared of the enemy rocket's intentions.
"They're heading towards the open door to the hold!" Rachel realized as she slammed her fist down on the button that would close the door to the hold.
* * *
"Opera! The door is closing!" Rena gasped as she saw the hinged metallic flaps slowly coming down.
"We're going to make it!" Opera optimistically exclaimed as she dodged yet another missile, then pushed her hand against the clutch to force the rocket forward at it's top speed.
The rocket suddenly sprang forward, the force pushing Opera and Rena back in their seats. The engine seemed to have a new life as it emitted a stream of fire, and drove it across the distance at a vast speed. The metallic doors kept a steady speed as they were drawn down to close, and as Opera's rocket drew nearer, the two women could see men in blue jumpsuits milling and scrambling around inside the ship, some armed, others hastily working controls.
And then in a sudden burst of speed, just before the doors closed, Opera's rocket slipped inside, on board the huge spacecraft.
* * *
"That rocket we were shooting at has gotten on board!" the pilot worriedly told his commander.
"Fools! You let the enemy get on board!? Increase defenses in the hold, to determine the enemy's cause here!" Commander Rachel shouted orders to her crew. Though she acted calm and assured of her eventual triumph, she was actually shivering and panicking inside. Was this rocket actually enemy? Though she reacted as if it was, she knew deep inside that it wasn't. At the beginning of the battle with the Ten Wise Men on Milocinia, Rachel had gone to evaluate her chances and standards in the line of battle, to decide if she would take part in it, or take on the mission to investigate Expel. She had seen the slaughter, the relentless and unmerciful violence that Indalecio, Filia, and the rest of their team had distributed upon the Earth Federation's forces, killing hundreds. Rachel feared for herself, the enemy was so strong, seemingly indestructible. And now there was this mysterious rocket that was now on board the Tolden. It's strength seemed futile compared to Rachel's crew. So if this rocket was enemy, why would it come as such a weak force? That she would find out soon, as she ordered the crew in the hold to be tripled for protection.
* * *
"There are so many men out there," Rena panicked as Opera landed the rocket on the metal floor of the hold. Both women watched as armed men milled around the rocket, surrounding it and aiming their weapons at the spacecraft.
"Come out with your hands up!" a strong man with a megaphone called out to Opera and Rena.
"What are we going to do!?" Rena exclaimed.
Opera reached beside her, picking up her large specialized gun and inserting a disk into it's power box. "Stay down Rena, I have a plan," Opera cautiously looked out the windshield, mentally counting the number of armed men which surrounded her shuttle. Then she pressed a button on her control panel, and the glass dome roof of the rocket began to slowly open.
"Put down your weapons!" the man with the megaphone shouted again.
Rena watched in awe as Opera fearlessly stood up, her head and shoulders outside of the protection of her rocket, exposed to possible injury were the crew to open fire.
"Put down your weapons!!" the man commanded again.
"Where is Claude Kenni!?" Opera demanded as she held up her large gun, aiming at the man with the megaphone.
When the crew members saw the size and potency of Opera's awesome weapon, they all stepped back, and a number of them moved to protect the unarmed man with the megaphone, as Opera had her gun aimed at him.
"I will ask only one more time! Where is Claude Kenni!?" Opera yelled again, her finger squeezing against her gun's trigger.
The armed men remained silent, unsure of who this strange 3-eyed woman was speaking of.
"Fine then," Opera casually said as she aimed her gun off to the side, instead of directly at the crew member with the megaphone. Then she squeezed the trigger, and immediately the armed men scrambled as a bar of light shot out of the cannon of Opera's gun, then drove down to the metal floor, and upon contact with the floor, the bar of light exploded into a dark cloud of mist. The dark mist surrounded the men, blocking their view of Opera and her rocket.
"Come on, Rena! Now's our chance to escape!" Opera reached down a hand to help Rena out. Rena grabbed her leather pouch, being careful not to crush the Holy Twin in it, and slung the pouch over her shoulder as she grabbed Opera's hand and stepped out of the rocket with her friend.
The crew who had previously on their guard were now frantically calling out to stop the enemy. Others were choking on the mist, believing it to be toxic, when it was actually harmless. Still others stood their ground, searching with keen vision for the strange blond woman through the mist, and holding up their weapons to fire should she try to escape. But Opera and Rena weren't caught. They safely sidestepped through the dark cloud, eluding the men, and escaped through a small door on the opposite side of the room.
* * *
"The enemies have escaped! I repeat, the enemies have escaped!" a panicking voice exclaimed from the perforated surface of the radio in Commander Rachel's shaking hand. She was speaking with one of the crew members who had encountered the assumed enemy rocket in the hold.
"Who escaped?" Rachel inquired, holding the radio to her ear. She could hear men coughing in the background. "How many people?"
"A blond woman......with 3 eyes!" the voice from the radio exclaimed. "She was armed, she had a huge weapon, some sort of a gun, and when she shot a round at the floor, it was a beam of light, and exploded into a cloud of mist when it hit the floor. The mist blocked our view, and we couldn't see anything, so when the mist had cleared, we searched the rocket, but the woman was gone!"
"Well then, go after her! She can't have gotten far! This ship is so big, she's probably gotten lost! Go after her!" Commander Rachel ordered.
"Yes sir!" the voice on the radio echoed, then faded off as Rachel turned off the device.
"Damn fools, they let the enemy escape!" Rachel cursed out loud as she strode across the bridge, frantically thinking of what to do. "They said she's heavily armed......" Rachel feared for her own safety. With a sudden idea, Rachel picked up the radio again. "Sergeant Targ! Send more security to the bridge! I suspect that the 3-eyed woman will come here to the bridge if she wishes to take over the ship......."
* * *
"Opera! Where are we going!?" Rena exclaimed as she tried to keep up with her friend. The two women were running as quickly as possible down narrow corridors and up and down short flights of steps away from where they had left their rocket, Opera leading the way.
"Trust me, Rena. I've been on many a spacecraft like this, and believe me, a majority of them have the same design. All we have to do is stay along the right side of the ship, and there shouldn't be too many forks or multiple halls that would confuse us. It is like one long path, leading straight to the bridge," Opera explained as she stealthily stepped up a set of stairs, making sure that they weren't being followed. "And once we get to the bridge, all we have to do is threaten the Commander, and then whatever we want will be followed. We'll be in charge, and they'll have to listen to our orders if they want their precious Commander to live," Opera arrogantly smirked at her obviously successful plans.
The two women kept to the right side of the ship, and didn't encounter any of the ship's crew along the way. In the air all around them blared an alarm, as well as someone's voice over an intercom stating that the enemies had escaped.
Opera and Rena had to be more cautious, though, once they came to an open area. The open room was shaped like a pentagon, it had 5 walls. There were 3 other corridors to take besides the one they had come from, a corridor on each wall except one, but all the corridors led to the opposite end of the ship, where the bridge surely wasn't. And against the corridorless wall there were 2 doors, made of thick, dark metal and embossed with the same symbol that was on the outside of the ship.
"We're at the bridge," Opera stopped to catch her breath, hoisting her huge weapon up in her arms, preparing to use it if anyone came through the doors. "Just through those doors is the bridge, where the Commander probably is. Stay behind me when we go in, Rena, you don't have a weapon."
"Alright," Rena agreed as she and Opera approached the doors.
"You ready?" Opera adjusted her gun, then held it comfortably with her finger resting against the trigger, ready should she have to use it. Her other hand shook uneasily as it gripped the door's handle, prepared to open it.
Rena took a deep breath, afraid for the risk they were about to take. "I'm ready," she finally said as she stood safely behind Opera.
"Here we go!" Opera exclaimed as her hand quickly pushed down on the handle, and she forced open the door.