Chapter 7: Secrets.
"Ship secure Captain" Captain Kaji reported. It was the deepest part of nightwatch and a select group had assembled in one of the troop transporters. The lights were dim and Kaji had just finished setting up noise and EM jammers.
Kaji took another look around the 'room' these were hardly the people he would have expected to find in a top secret security briefing. The head of psi-ops was a shoe-in. Having the Corps Sergeant Major included was a little irregular but her history justified her presence. The red-headed pilot he could understand making an exception for, after all the girl beside being family was an old time X-Com veteran. He had managed to dig up reports of her dating back many years, all of them sketchy, leading him to believe that she was some sort of sleeper agent. Kodachi Kuno was unexpected, but again justified. What he had a problem with was who was not here, no Misato, no Colonel Everett and no chief of engineers; all of them had impressive records, and had access to the top levels of secure information.
"Thank you Kaji" Nabiki replied, looking at the others. "What can you tell me?"
"Akane is the only extra aboard the ship as far as we can detect," Kaji replied.
"As far as she knows she came alone, and only at the urging of Soun and Genma," Kodachi added. "She has become most 'co-operative'" the mad doctor explained.
"Genma and Soun?" Kaji asked.
"Irrelivant" Nabiki ruled. "Any sign of sabotage?"
"None" replied the pilot of all people.
"Any sign she was tampered with?" Nabiki asked.
"Not by anyone but us" Gos replied.
"How did she get aboard?" Nabiki demanded.
"She used something called the Umisken to sneak into the Japanese lift site. From there she managed to dodge the checks," Kodachi explained.
"That should not be possible!" Kaji objected.
"True!" Nabiki agreed, "Okinawa has been alerted."
"Apparently she used her feminine wiles," Kaji added, with a knowing smile. Ranma sorted loudly.
"Did Weir help her?" Nabiki asked.
"No," replied Gos. "My man detected no foreknowledge even when she was told."
"But that doesn't explain why she was so keen to have her!" Kaji exclaimed.
"Bleeding heart!" the pilot offered.
"Explain" required Gos.
"She sees herself as the guardian of our morality," Kodachi interrupted, "ridiculous as that seems."
"So she was acting purely dis-interestedly," the pilot explained.
"I find that hard to swallow" Kaji objected.
"So do I" Laura added, "Nobody's that stupid!"
"Weir is!" Ranma objected.
"We cannot take the risk," Nabiki replied. "I want twenty-four hour watch on her team. Everything they do, every memo they write I want it looked at. If one so much as pees in the shower I want it logged!"
"Aye. Aye, Captain" Kaji agreed. The others nodded. "We may have to turn one of her people." He continued.
"I've got an 'in' with her personal secretary" Gos responded, with a subtext. For a moment everyone looked at him. He shrugged as if to say he wasn't telling.
"And disable her damn communicator!" Nabiki commanded. "That's all for now, dismissed." Nabiki ordered and the group broke up leaving only her and Ranma in the shuttle.
"Captain?" Ranma asked.
"Yes pilot?" Nabiki responded.
"Permission to display affection"
"Granted" Nabiki replied with a smile. Ranma swept her up in his arms and kissed her thoroughly.
Nabiki was very late to bed that night, very tired, and very very happy.
o
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"And where have you been Kei?" Yuri demanded. Ranma had just come stumbling back to his bunk only to find his wingman asleep on it. He had shaken her and now she was awake he was wishing he had let her sleep. "I waited for ages, you are just so insensitive!"
"Yuri," Ranma said waving his hands placatingly, "Please shut up"
"You shut up!" Yuri demanded.
"Fine" Ranma agreed. "Just get off my bed and let me sleep!"
"NO!"
"Shhh!" Ranma said, pushing her back.
"What are you doing?" Yuri demanded, as Ranma climbed into his bed next to her.
"You aren't leaving, fine, but I AM going to sleep." Ranma answered.
"But!"
"Shhh!" Ranma said, and Yuri, for once complied. Ranma wriggled to get comfortable and soon Yuri gave up, she was tierd too after all. So Yuri settled down next to her wingman.
"mmm you smell nice" Yuri whispered sleepily. Ranma knew exactly what Yuri smelt but decided not to make an issue of it.
o
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o
"So what can you tell me about your sister?" Weir asked. She was sat in her small room/office talking to the newly released Akane. The youngest Tendo was not entirely free of course, she was still under watch and unable to go anywhere without a guard. The girl also looked decidedly frazzled, and more than a little twitchy, when she had come in Weir had snapped a book shut and the poor girl had almost jumped out of her skin.
"She's a pervert like Ranma!" Akane accused.
""What do you mean by pervert?" Weir questioned.
"They own cheese whiz!" Akane pronounced, as if that was a capital crime.
"Cheese whiz?" Weir asked genuinely confused. The interview went on for another hour and by the end of it Weir knew she had been sold a turkey. The girl had obviously been mistreated to the point of derangement. It may have been the language problem, it may have been some sort of register problem but what ever excuse you tried the girl just came over as having a screw loose. Panda men indeed, imagine people changing species with the application of water. It was clear why Nabiki had sicked this wacko on her, the only question now was what to do with her.
"What shall I do with you?" Weir mused.
"Just please don't send me back to Kodachi-sama" the girl replied, but her body language made the request a lie. Weir was long used to political double speak.
"I am sorry Akane" Weir said, finally resolved "But I believe that miss Kuno may be the key to controlling this mess. I am afraid I need you to keep an eye on her. Get close to her…"
"But"
"For the planet" Weir ordered and Akane nodded with fake relucatance.
As she clumsily clunked out Weir was left no wiser than when the girl entered. Her coup had turned out to be a strikeout. "Damn Nabiki is good!" she swore, giving a big yawn. "I'll do something tomorrow." She resolved and went to bed.
As she was drifting off she finally managed to place the face and the name. Akane Tendo, the worst closeted lesbian rights activist in Japan. "Damn that girl is nuts!"
o
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o
Time passed.
Nabiki got to know each and every one of her officers and bridge crew. She managed to redraw the schedules to use everyone's time better. She kept Everett busy doing drills and out of her hair. Weir's party was neutralised temporarily by giving them a full medical and mental review, followed by extensive emergency response training. She manager to rota on time every day to be spent with her daughter, and swing more than the occasional night with her husband.
Ranma-Ranko managed to slip off to get time with his wife and child on an irregular basis, but ended up seeing more of Kimiko during the daytimes than Nabiki did. He also managed to help Tomo with his bird and even get the test rig up and running. Only his phenomenal stamina kept him going, he was always up long before the rest of his shift and regularly went to bed long after. He made up for this by sleeping through nearly every lecture the command staff gave to the pilots. Of course the times he got caught sneaking off, sleeping in briefings, out of uniform (thanks mostly to Yuri) and 'aquiring' the parts he needed for his bird and the rig cost him two pay grades and more than one set of extra duties.
His Wingman, Yuri, got worse. She went through a string of catastrophic relationships, each one ending for frivolous reasons like her breaking the guy's nose by accident or them getting caught 'in flagrente' because she broke something. Only Ranma was causing more breakages, and at least his were for a purpose (even if it was only to see what a packing crate looked like when you blew it up with an overloading laser cell). So she too got busted down to ensign, and spent a great deal of time doing extra duties. Not that she minded all that much, after all they gave her a chance to check out guys on other shifts.
Cmdr Focker all but had a breakdown, somehow the two best pilots in his squadron were also the very worst disciplined agents on Nemesis. His Skulls were living up to their expectations, if not surpassing them, and the Dirty Pair, as they had become known, were a big part of that but it really was not easy. The only person who could sympathise with him was Cmdr Hayes, and many a night the two of them whiled away bitching about the shitty hand fate had dealt them.
Hayes loved her job. She was a forces brat, born and raised in khaki. She loved the responsibility, the authority and the respect that her position gave her. She was also starting to fall for the rapidly greying Focker. BUT she hated not being able to wash the dirty pair out. She had to admit that they were good, if not better. She also had to admit they worked harder than anyone else aboard, even if it wasn't entirely their choice. She could even concede that whenever she drew up new tactical plans she had come to value their input. But they were also living embodiments of the worst aspects of pilots, irresponsible, overconfident and oversexed.
Gos managed to turn Weir's private secretary. For all of three days before she dumped him for Kaji. To say he resented it would have been a major understatement. Unfortunately having been prevented from killing the man in question he took to drinking.
He was not alone. The Master Sergeant Major, Laura to her friends, was also hitting the bottle hard. Simply put she was ready to kill Everett. In 'training accidents' she had decked him twice, and shot him once but still the idiot wouldn't wise up and kept giving orders, Everything had to be learned twice, Everett's way and the right way. It took a lot of time and was really winding people up, but it was keeping her people out of trouble. Now if she could only get rid of Everett permanently. She had just about beaten her commandos into shape despite his best efforts but the strain was really telling.
Misato hardly noticed. She was the chairperson of the hard drinking posse and could often be found plastered within seconds of coming off duty. She and Laura had set up a still, not that Nemesis was a dry ship, but purely because the stuff the mess had about as much kick as a wet fish to them.
Weir and her group were poked and prodded in ways that they had never been before, most of which were necessary, but only most. They also spent a lot of time talking about their childhoods, which was completely unnecessary but passed the time fairly easily.
Richard was of course spared all of this, having apparently gone through it all for his first Mars mission. Instead he ended up spending his time with a young French psychic by the name of Louise. He was never quite sure how the relationship started but was rarely bothered by the memory gap, she had her 'ways' of 'distracting' him.
Kodachi 'kept' Akane, and everyone breathed a small sigh of relief. Despite their sympathy for the homicidal maniacs they needed them contained, and this way they tied up two problems with the same bullwhip.
Kimiko and Callum had formed a small gang with two other, older kids, and were probably the only people aboard who had seen some of the places they managed to crawl into. The psychologist assigned to look after them rapidly became one of the most pitied people aboard the ship. No matter what she tried she could not corral the kids, or curb their adventurous exploring. She joined the still suppers with a vengeance.
Together the crew advanced by leaps and bounds. Drills were refined to the point of muscular memory, wide contingencies planned for, and teams built solid. The pilots were now regularly beating anything the computer could design to throw at them and designing their own programs to make up the shortfall. Most of the programs were even related to flying missions. The baycrews worked like demons to refit the tactical craft with every new design that came out of the labs, and sent many ideas into them for refinement. The security staff became paranoid and suspicious, just like they should have been, and were soon having to be restrained for the interests of efficient working of the ship.
All in all the Dark Angels of the Nemesis were all but ready for the fight of their lives. And that fight drew ever closer.