Disclaimer: I do not own Vandread, it belongs to Gonzo, the things are mine are characters from Theora.
Allies Out There
By Eric Tsai
Chapter 1 "Contact"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello folks, how are you all doing? Well, hope you are enjoying my story so far. Well, here comes the second chapter.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When Hibiki and Meia opened their eyes, they found themselves in open space again.
"What happened?" Hibiki asked as they tried to remember what had happened before they went unconscious.
Then they remembered everything, from pursuing the unknown target, to the encounter of some strange new ship, and entering a wormhole, which was quite a rough ride from their standard.
"Where are we now?" Meia asked in her thoughts as a transmission came in.
"Unidentified ship, this is the Theora Federation Ship Independence, please identify yourself." The transmission came in a language that both of them could understand.
"This is Vandread Meia of Mejalee pirate ship Nirvana, we were on patrol when we detected the Harvest Cubes, which led us to enter into the asteroid field." Meia said as Hibiki sat back and listened.
"We?" The communication officer of the Independence was surprised, but Meia could tell that she was suppressing the emotion.
"May we speak to your commanding officer?" Meia asked realizing that they were low on energy.
"This is the Captain David E. Lin of the Theora Federal Starfleet, I am in the commanding officer in charged of this ship." Another voice said a few seconds later.
"Captain Lin, I request permission to land on your ship, since we are running out of fuel." Meia said as she sighed.
"I see, we will see what we can do, David Lin, out." Then the communication ended.
"Are you sure we can trust them?" Hibiki asked.
"Well, we can't fly back to Nirvana no matter what since we probably jumped into another zone." Meia replied as they prepared to land the Vandread.
The landing process was smooth as they were able to land it in the form of mechanoid.
As the cockpit opened, they were greeted by the sight of several officers and several armed personnel, whom Meia believed to be marines as their uniforms were different from the other crew members.
As they climbed down from their Vandread by the ladder provided by the maintenance crew, one of the officers who was wearing an officer's cap stepped forward.
"I am Captain David E. Lin, welcome to T.F.S. Independence." The officer said as he extended his hand as a gesture of friendliness.
Meia took a step forward and so did Hibiki as they knew they were being greeted as honored guest.
"I am Meia Gisborn and this is Hibiki Tokai, I am from the planet of Mejalee and Hibiki is from the planet of Tarrak.
"Well, we are honored to have guests like you." David said with a slight smile. "This way, please."
"I am sorry to have you dragged along, but that is what happens if you are too close to a wormhole." The captain said as they walked out of the hangar bay followed by several officers and marines.
"Where are we now?" Hibiki asked as they entered a corridor with window and noticed a nebula.
"We are approaching our home, Theora System." Captain Lin explained as he turned his head a bit to face Hibiki.
As they went along, they noticed several crew members, including both male and females.
They were fascinated how the males and females onboard this ship interacted, and they realized there were a lot of so called couples onboard.
Noticing that his guests were paying watching the interaction between his crew, whom several were in relationship he asked, "Is something wrong?"
"Well, no, it is just that…" Hibiki started the answer, but he did not know how to finish it.
"It's that from where we came from, females and males don't live together and in fact are at war with one another." Meia said as she sadly looked down.
"Then what about you two?" David said as they stopped.
"We are an exception." Meia continued.
"At first we were in a battle in the orbit of Tarrak, where we the pirates of Mejalee raided the new flagship of Tarrak Empire, that was where we found him." Meia explained and as she mentioned Hibiki, she smiled and turned to him.
"He was only a third class citizen of Tarrak, but for some pride issue, he sneaked onboard the Ikazuchi to steal a battle mech, which he made part for." David listened as he could tell what was going on between these two.
"Let's carry on, tell me as we go." The captain then along with the two guests and his subordinates continued.
"Very idiotically, he got caught." Meia said as she chuckled a bit and Hibiki knew she was making fun of him
"Hey, it's not my fault that they decided to showcase the Vanguards." Hibiki retorted as he his face was flushed a little due to the anger.
"Well, they threw him in the brig was what happened." Meia continued.
"That's when you raided the Ikazuchi." Hibiki then took over as they entered another section of the corridor without windows.
"Somehow I met up with them after I broke out during the fight." Hibiki intentionally skipped the part of meeting Dita and Meia knew it as she was still feeling guilty.
"Let me guess, they locked you up again, right?" David added in with a smile.
"Yeah, and I remember you were quite rough on me the first time." Hibiki sighed depressingly as he looked up at the farthest corner of his eyes from Meia.
"Come on, you know I didn't mean it." Meia pouted.
"Anyway, they finally let me and some of the men who they didn't throw into escape pods out when we encountered the cubes, because we realize that we needed to work together to defeat this enemy." Hibiki sighed in relief as he finally finished.
The captain nodded slightly as he repeated the story once more in his mind.
"Those cubes, we call them harvest droids." David said after a few moments of silence.
"Also, I know I might be intrusive, but can I ask a question?" David E. Lin asked and Hibiki and Meia looked at each for a second before giving a nod as an answer.
"Are you two involved in a relationship?" David asked.
"Well, do you care for one another and have it made known to one another?" David asked again as he scratched his lower chin after rewording it.
"Well, yes." Hibiki and Meia answered with one voice.
"I see." David nodded as they arrived at the front of a room.
"This is where your rooms are." David said as the door slid opened.
"I have to apologize that this is rather small, since we are a military vessel." David added as they walked in.
"No, this is a lot better than what we have on Nirvana." Meia replied as Hibiki looked around.
The captain smiled then continued on with the tour as his subordinates waited outside.
"You have two separate bedrooms and two separate restrooms, a kitchen and a common living room connected with the dinning room." David pointed towards each one as he spoke about all of them.
"If you need anything, use that terminal in the living room or ask your liaison officer." David said as he let the two youngsters looked around the room.
"Captain Lin, can you tell us a little bit about Theora?" Meia asked as Hibiki continued to look around the room.
"Sure." He said as Meia signaled him to sit on the sofa in the living room.
Hibiki for the mean while also joined in as he sat down next to Meia.
After clearing his throat, the Theorian captain began his story about their history.
"Theora is a country founded two centuries ago when our ancestors' colonization ship deviated from the original course of the colonial fleet after a disagreement over how the new colony should be set up." The captain said as he looked at Hibiki and Meia.
"Therefore we found this planet fit for humans after making a subspace jump away from the fleet." The captain continued as Hibiki and Meia listened carefully.
"The colony grew at a very fast rate as our ancestor was mostly from an immigrant country on Earth called United States of America." David paused for a second then carried on.
"Our society is based on the religion of Protestant Christianity and our government is a federal republic." As he finished that sentence he knew that he was about get some question.
"What is a federal republic?" Hibiki asked and Meia looked intently at the Theroian, expecting a clear answer.
"Have you heard of the word democracy?" Captain David E. Lin asked and they shook their head.
"Democracy is a government type that people decide on the things and the majority counts, and republic is actually representative democracy, in which people in each area elect representative and these representatives meet together and make decision for the entire country and the leader of the government is the President of the Theora Federation, who is also elected by the people for the maximum two terms of four years and the government is bounded by the Constitution of the Federation, the supreme law of the land, they can not violate it." David then took in a breath as he finished.
"What if the government violates the Constitution?" Meia asked as she was curious.
"Then the people have the right to impeach the current administration if light; if serious they can over throw the entire government." David replied as he noticed the time.
"Well, I let you two rest a bit. You can look up all the data you want on the terminal." David said as he stood up.
Then after saying goodnight, the captain left.
The day went on after they each took turn shower and they carried on as if everything was normal.
However, Hibiki could tell that Meia was worried, even though she did not say it.
So he remained silent until night finally came for them.
Hibiki unlike any other nights, he could not sleep, so he decided to research on their new friend's country.
When he walked out of his room, he noticed the light in the living room was on and he saw a blue hair girl wearing sweater and a pant sitting in front of the terminal.
"Meia?" He softly called out her name and upon hearing it, she turned back to face him.
"Yes, Hibiki?" Meia responded as she turned around to face him.
"What are you doing?" Hibiki could tell that she was sad, but he decided he should not touch that subject right away.
"I am researching the history of Theora." Meia answered as Hibiki pulled over a chair from the dinning table.
"I see." He said as he sat down next to her.
Then it was silence between the two of them as they read the words on the screen together. Finally, Hibiki took up the courage.
"Meia, is something bothering you?" Hibiki asked.
"No nothing." Meia said as she continued to fix her eyes on the screen.
"Look at me, Meia, you are hiding something aren't you?" Hibiki asked as he slightly raised the volume of his voice.
"I am not." Meia said as she replied in angry cold voice.
"You are, I can tell." Then there was more silence.
"Please Meia, I thought we are lovers, so please tell me, so that we can get through this together." With that Meia looked down sadly and guiltily.
"It's just that I am scared that we will never be able to go home." Meia said as she sniffed trying to hide her tears.
"It's okay, let it all out, remember you are not alone anymore." Hibiki knew that a few weeks ago he wouldn't have said these things, but he knew that he must take up all this as he was a man and she was the only one Meia could rely on.
Then that night Meia Gisborn cried for the first time in front of anyone after the destruction of her home in the arms of her lover, Hibiki Tokai.
The night went on and eventually they feel asleep on the chair with Hibiki's head leaning against the wall and Meia against the chest of Hibiki, both had a smile on their face of happiness for they knew no matter what happened, they have each other to stand on.
To be continued…
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That's it. Another chapter done. I will see if I can hit four today. Anyway please review and give me feedbacks and comments on this.