Nabiki was really really angry now. The scientists had finally rigged their antennae and dish, they were all ready to start when something blew and the room had to be evacuated. It was a long two hours before they were ready to try again.
"Colonel we have located their transponder and are ready to beam the signal" one particularly brave technician announced.
"Do it" she commanded. There was a hum and a whine, everyone winced, but no explosion.
"Vessel Endeavour this is Cydonia Base do you copy? Over," the science geek on the set called. There was a long moment of silence, then the receiver crackled into life.
"This is Endeavour reading you loud and clear. Over," responded a young man's voice, not sounding impressed in the least, more like harassed. The room of course exploded into rounds of congratulations, egg heads rejoicing at the first real deep space transmission. Somewhere a cork popped and champagne started to flow.
"I say again this is Endeavour, we read you, do you have a message? Over," the voice added. Nabiki pushed the rejoicing geek out of the way with a single finger and stole his seat.
"Affirmative," she replied, rather impressed with her tactical speak, "who am I talking to?" she asked. There was a long period of silence.
"Over?" said the voice.
"What do you mean over, you never said anything?" Nabiki replied, warning off the nearest group of celebrants with a glare.
"No you never said anything," replied the voice indignantly, "You've got to say over. Over"
"Okay Over Over. Now who are you?" Nabiki responded.
"NO!" replied the voice, "Look I really don't have time for this we're being attacked, call back when you got something to say!" OUT!"
"OI!" Nabiki commanded "You sit soldier!" she barked in her 'Colonel Ballbuster' voice. "Name and Rank Soldier!" she commanded.
"Corporal O'Reilley number-
"Forget it, just put Colonel Saotome on the radio!" she commanded.
"Can't" said Radar's voice from the other end really quietly "he just left."
"What's this about you being attacked?" she asked, suddenly concerned.
"Not yet we're not" Radar replied, "but we will be soon an I gotta get my suit on!"
"You tell me what the hell is going on there, right now!" Nabiki replied voice dropping to sub-arctic. Radar got the message.
"We found some UFO's on the long range. The captain and Ranma said we gotta chase them and now we're all going to red alert cuz we're gonna catch them and fight it out-"
"Them?" Nabiki prompted.
"Three small ones Ma'am Sir" Radar explained, "They were headed for home system so we were gonna head 'em off at the pass like"
"Who the hell trained this man?" Nabiki lamented to the now silent room. "Well corporal you'll just have to keep us updated on what's going on, right?" she ordered.
"But Sir Ma'am Ranma told me to watch the Ufos and I still ain't got my suit on!" Radar complained.
"Ma'am" interrupted a nearby technician gingerly.
"What?" she asked with a glare.
"we can patch the sensor feed through the channel" he added in a quiet rush.
-
-
So Nabiki got to see the fight through the eyes of the Endeavour's sensors. Rapidly various scientists attached themselves to more individual feeds. She saw the Endeavour beaing down on the enemy craft, saw their U-turn and saw the fight begin, and that was when the really bad feeling hit her. With the first volley the enemy craft had demonstrated a firepower that meant real trouble for the X-Com ship, and after the first reply it was clear that the Endeavour's own firepower options needed looked at.
As the damage mounted a chill started to spread through her body. Then the vessel took another big hit, lost targeting sensors and spoke no more. A deadly hush fell on the room, one by one the occupants turned to her. On every face she saw fear and uncertainty, the need for reassurance to desire to make the last few minutes go away. "Takeuchi-san" she started while rising slowly to her feet, "Correct me if I am wrong but this does not mean that the Endeavour is destroyed, what are the other options?" she finished with a steely glare at the man.
"Er, from the last readings and the direction of attack the most likely problem is that…Sensors. The Endeavour's dish acts as both sensor and signal receptor, without the dish they would be unable to modulate our carrier wave, unable to broadcast."
"And this can be fixed?" she prompted.
"Oh we'll put the dish inside, maybe have a separate backup..-
"Ridiculous" another scientist piped in, "the signal degradation through the hull would…."
Nabiki left them to it, scientist happily falling back into the realm of what they knew best. Only a few seemed to realise that they had been manipulated and most of them were happy to go along with the argument, if only to avoid airing the other, unspoken, option. Nabiki herself put one hand on her belly and whispered, "Be well Hero" and then left to deal with the new portents in her own way.
-
A Council of War was arranged, its subject the return of the alien menace. Jack and the Earthside crew were informed. Everywhere there was a rising tide of hysteria. Through it all sailed a resolute Nabiki, bringing order to the sudden chaos, calm where things had verged on panic. Outwardly calm and collected she did what she was best at, made other people do things. Inside she was in turmoil, afraid frustrated and angry all at the same time. Every time some idiot came to her with a problem she knew they could fix, but really wanted someone else to make the decision she had to resist the urge to scream abuse. She knew the staff were just being human and reaching out for reassurance but it left her feeling like she was running a kinder garden not mankind's greatest collection of scientific minds on Earth's first extra-terrestrial colony.
The base security staff were pestering her with new proposals, new defensive ideas, and she had a really hard time talking to them, the moment they spoke to her they didn't seem to talk any language she knew. After a few hours of attempting to decipher the mysterious language she told them to form a committee and talk 'soldier' to each other. She just wished the other problems were so easily fixed, but too many egos collided in the scientists to leave them to do anything alone and there was a very true saying about too many doctors not being good for patients. Being base commander had seemed like a great step when they had offered it all that time ago. The Rank increase to above Ranma had helped too, even if he did later catch up. Right now accepting this assignment seemed like her own private hell.
So Nabiki's mood got fouler, her manner harsher and everyone around her struggled to become more efficient so they didn't have to face the next stage of her temper. The hours slipped into days and still neither news nor attack came. Everywhere the base continued to hold its breath, and work like demons to prepare for renewed war. Events that would have been cause for celebration passed with only a memo. Even the opening of the cyclotron slipped by without the ceremony expected, much to the disappointment of various engineers. Nabiki inspected the first high grade synthetic Elerium, pretended to be impressed and passed the machinery for full production, but that was it. Almost overnight emergency turrets were erected, armed with massive laser cannons and a small fleet of interceptors was altered for space to fly patrols.
It was in the middle of this that Nabiki's pregnancy started going wrong. It may have been the stress, or the constant moving from meeting to meeting, or even that she wasn't eating properly, or even something else, but whatever it was she got sick. The doctors confined her immediately to a regeneration tank and ran a huge series of tests. Isolated in the tank all Nabiki could hear were odd murmurs and concerned whispers. She had a microphone but nobody seemed to be listening to its feed. Without information panic threatened but Nabiki wasn't abouit to let the egg heads know that. Instead she struggled over to the side of the tank and apparently calmly knocked on the surface. A pair of doctors turned to her looking surprised, she held up her hand miming a phone, they looked at each other and scrambled for a console.
"Sorry Ma'am" the doc who got there first apologised, " the speaker was turned off."
"Won't happen again Ma'am" the other added.
"I know it won't" Nabiki threatened, "Now you are going to tell me what's going on."
"Er yes Ma'am" the first speaker replied.
"Truth is Ma'am we don't rightly know" supplied the second.
"Then you will tell me what you do know" she informed them.
"Yes Ma'am" said the first, belting his companion on the arm. "You and the baby are both fine!" he asserted. "In fact you're both better than fine," he added.
"Explain," she commanded coolly.
"Er the scan shows unusual brain activity Ma'am" he replied, "my guess is the kid has reacted to something and his mind has developed faster than expected."
"Gos," she swore "he's been helping me check on the baby."
"That would be Colonel Gosunkugi?" the second asked. Nabiki didn't reply, the first doc took the hint and slapped his companion.
"Of course it is dimwit" he hissed
"But he's like really creepy" the second said, only to get hit again.
"Shh, idiot the speaker is still on!"
"Uh guys" Nabiki began tentatively, "Are you sure you're doctors?"
"Oh sure we are, well mostly, I kinda got kicked out of my internship for the whole bride of Frankenstein thing but that's all in the past."
"Yeah, we're much better now Ma'am" added the second one. "I'm sure this time we could actually build a real girlfriend"
"You think?" asked the first in a goofy voice.
"Kami it's the revenge of the stooges" Nabiki whispered, tuning out the rapidly heating argument over blond or brunette. But they had come through, her baby was fine and that was all that really mattered. Still this would have been a really good time for Ranma to be here, even if it was only so she could order him to hit both the gurning fools.
-
Nabiki stayed in the tank for the whole next day, it was warm and cosy and she sort of liked it, besides the gunk did wonders for her skin, and stretch marks had to be dealt with somehow. Admittedly she was also catching up on a lot of lost sleep, whatever music they had playing in the tank just seemed to have that effect on her.
While sleeping she had several very lurid dreams. The first was way beyond pornographic, involving Ranma, a riding crop and a lot of warm chocolate sauce. When she came to she was genuinely relieved, a weight seemed to have lifted from her mind and she felt more relaxed than she had in days. She also dictated a note to one of the slapheads to remind her to order some high riding boots and a crop for 'compatibility tests'. As she drifted back to sleep the smile of anticipation on her face was positively wicked.
The second dream turned out to be a new episode in the torture of her baby sister. Nabiki still could not believe the gall of the girl, letting their fathers put her in that ugly meringue of a wedding dress and try to pass the nutter off as her. Still seeing her running off only wearing the bustier part, stockings, a garter belt and a load of sacred oil had been fairly amusing. Even more so when the deluded girl's wannabe lovers had been standing in her way.
-
"My beauteous Akane you run to my arms. You are radiant, you are half-naked? And slippy! All my dreams come true at once, come Sasuke shall prepare the cheese whiz."
"Back off pervert" whack "I'm not like that"
"Of course she isn't, she's with me. Isn't that right my big strong officer?"
"Yuka? NOOOOOOO!"
Cue fleeing Akane, followed by two adherents, one (cheese whiz carrying) ninja and a swarm of paparazzi. And her over-amorous female parole officer.
-
This latest plan promised to be a doozy and Nabiki actually woke herself up laughing so hard. This time she made the techie note down "panty parachute" and "dissolving dress." The look she got from the man in question seemed to doubt her sanity but the look she expected to see on Akane's face would make it worth it.
Her third dream was much more surreal, involving a cloying warmth and being curled up somewhere soft and wet. At first she just thought she was in the tank with the lights out and was just about ready to rip some poor techie's spine clear of his body, verbally speaking of course, when she heard the heartbeat. The noise rapidly drove all other thoughts away. She could hear her own heartbeat, strong and loud and alongside it was another; only this seemed to be coming from all around her. Nabiki may have been comparatively new to this psychic stuff but she quickly joined the dots. She was dreaming that she was her kid. The loud heartbeat was really her own, and the cloying soft cover was her belly. Her joy lit up like a candle and was magnified out of all scope when she felt another mind sharing it.
When she woke up again she was smiling even wider than before, only this smile was that of a mother who has just been granted a very special gift by hr child. As Nabiki lay there floating in the tank she just knew Ranma would be back soon. There was simply no way he would miss out on this.
-
-
Entering Earth's solar system at that very moment was the limping Endeavour. From outside the damage looked catastrophic. The front windows were smashed, the bridge completely open to the void. A broad swath had been taken out of the port side of the ship, culminating in a host of trailing wires and scrap that followed tendril-like behind the ship. And all over her were more craters, scorch marks and missing plates. Nearly the only thing that seemed to be intact were the engine flares that burned a steady bright orange from all but one of their thrusters.
If the outside was bad the interior sucked. In an effort to lower mass to drive ratios most of the interior panelling had been discarded, along with all the niceties that could be spared. The bunks, the kitchen, the desks, all of it. Life support had been stripped down to an oxygen and a water reclaimer, and no attempt to restore pressure had been made except for in the surgery, which also doubled as the only washing facilities on the ship. Even though water had been a luxury since everyone was bottled up in their suits since the attack, that one concession had been had in the interests of morale, and not turning up smelling like they had spent the last two weeks stewing in their own sweat. All internal comms had failed so the ship had to be run over short wave suit comms and that in turn meant that all idle chatter had been stopped.
"This bites!" Ranma swore, writing on a pad for his companion. "And you can guess who they are gonna blame when we get back!" he added
"How much does a one of a kind deep space explorer cost anyway" the recently promoted Captain Porter wrote, pulling a big grin to emphasise his point.
"Not my fault!" Ranma wrote, pressing hard. Porter smiled back,
"So who did crash the ship into the alien?" he wrote, drawing a quick picture of the collision. Ranma just sulked. A small alarm went off in his suit and a new display flashed up on his HUD.
"Gotta go refill" he wrote, "see ya in ten" he added. Porter just gave him a mocking salute and went back to sketching the crash and miming explosions.
"Bastard" Ranma muttered to himself.