No one could answer the innumerable questions that surrounded the immense human-shaped machine that came to be known as the White Goddess. They only knew it was the first to be built and the only one completed. There were others in existence, but their creators had vanished before they were finished. In total there were five Ingrids, all fashioned in a similar manner, yet all distinctly different.
It was soon discovered that these goddesses would be the only hope for mankind to save Zion. The search for someone to pilot them in battle had begun before anyone had realized the importance of those chosen. It was a grueling task to find a person to pilot a weapon that had never been tested: a hunt that started before the Ingrids were even finished.
In a time when people were evacuating the planet of Zion, when many failed to see hope in fighting an alien form know as Victim, these future warriors were gathered in space. Five were needed and five were found, all young men, mere boys; maybe the only ones foolish enough to attempt the dicey assignment. On a satellite orbiting the planet they were trained for a brief time; a pressing few months when they did little but eat, sleep, and simulate battles.
After the final modifications to the outsides of the Ingrids were made the young men were directed down the catwalk and escorted to their assigned vessel. The technicians, who had been working as speedily as they could, matched the boys to the goddesses according to the skills they had displayed during the past months.
The young man stood, peering up at the towering form of the machine he was to pilot. "It's huge! I've never seen anything like it," he announced in a tone of complete astonishment.
"She."
The teenage boy forced his vision to part from the machine in a hope to see the owner of the voice. A platform lowered itself as it rotated around the body of the Ingrid, coming to a level position with the bridge.
"What? Who?""Ernn Laties." The man gestured towards the White Goddess. "She is huge and you've never seen anything like her."
"I wasn't aware that machines had gender."
"Young men are always unaware of many simple things. It is in their nature to ignore some of the everyday facts that are so clear to others." He smiled and, jumping over the railing to land with slight difficulty on the bridge, hypothesized, "I guess I'm just a little too old to be doing that."
The boy looked at the Ingrid once more, carefully examining every aspect of what was exposed to his vision. Its white frame held a decidedly feminine form; large red designs adorned its face and shoulder guards.
"I am sorry sir. She is beautiful. But why bother to form her so artistically, it is just a machine?"
Smiling, the man replied, "If you continue to refer to her as a 'machine' and fail to see that there is more to Ernn Laties than metal you will never get along." He chuckled at the confused expression on the soon-to-be-pilot's face, "In answer to your question, no one knows why they were formed this way. I am sure even her builders could not fully comprehend what they were doing. They were pawns of some higher force; connected somehow, feeding of off another source of intelligence."
The last part of his speech wasn't directed towards anyone. It was as if he was asking the goddess, making sure his assumptions of her creation were correct. His broad shoulders relaxed a bit as he watched the face of Ernn Laties, it never changed. He sighed, a steady flow of air that held his reservations about letting such a young man pilot the Ingrid; one long breath that showed his age and his own longing to take her into battle himself.
"Sit, Kuro." He almost barked the order after a long pause. The young man jumped at the harsh tone and did as he was told.
"Who are you?" Kuro questioned the elderly man.
-
It seemed to Kuro that that day was eons ago: perhaps with everything that had happened in that time, all the battles, all the changes, it could only be viewed as a passing of ages. The months since Chane had left stretched on and on, but they could not extend indefinitely. He missed the elderly man every time that woman approached him. Ernn Laties' replacement technician was an outstanding mechanic her skills where evident to all those on board the ship; in spite of that the contrasts were still too strong.
Reigha's smooth contoured face only served to remind Kuro of the old man's jetting jaw and chiseled cheek bones. He imagined that Ernn Laties would prefer to have Chane's hands, warm and weathered, with the dark backs and cream colored palms, working on her than the young woman's.
"Maintenance complete, the damage to the left arm is repaired," Reigha explained, fingers dancing over the keyboard as she made a final check of the data. She leapt from the platform and joined Kuro on the catwalk. "Ernn Laties really is an exceptional thing."
One more difference between Chane and Reigha, he would never have referred to the goddess as a 'thing', or even an 'exceptional thing.' Kuro glanced at her from the corner of his eye, "She is."
"Whoever made the circuitry is a real genius. I wish I could learn from them." She had a one track mind—mechanics; Reigha lived to figure out what made mechanical things work. The hanger lapsed into a silence that was only interrupted by the muffled sounds of machinery.
Someone approached them, clearing his throat to gain their attention. It seemed both repairer and pilot expected his arrival, Reigha left without being asked and Kuro didn't even turn around to greet the newcomer.
His countenance expressed pure authority; his presence demanded respect though his mannerisms were always friendly. An aged man but somehow he purveyed the appearance of being in his prim. Cheerful, reserved, and in control, Micha Latzki never passed unnoticed. Kuro knew the conversation that would follow, memorized the questions that no doubt would come. The old man and the youth who had just entered manhood stood in stony silence, neither dreading nor anticipating what each inevitably understood would happen.
"So I hear Ernn Laties is going to be fine," Mr. Latzki flashed a congenial grin.
"All the damage has been repaired."
"You're the last one."
"Yes." Kuro knew all too well that he was the last of the original five pilots still able to fight in the Ingrid; he had been there as every encounter with Victim caused increasing injuries and growing damage. He had observed when the old technicians had been replaced by repairers, who rapidly developed into the pilots' counterparts. Kuro watched as a few likely pilots steadily blossomed into an overflowing class of many students in structured training sessions to do battle with victim.
"Your EX. is waning."
"I know."
"We have an excellent candidate for her next pilot." The elderly man paused, waiting for a reaction. "He'll be ready to enter the cock-pit in a short time. There are still a few tests he needs to complete, once everything is cleared you'll be there to observe."
It was an order but with Mr. Latzki it never sounded mandatory, though no one had ventured to find out what happened when his orders weren't followed.
"Yes."
Micha smiled again, almost shyly, "He won't need to take you're place im…"
Kuro tartly cut him off, "I understand everything."
The so-called tests were a precaution newly founded to prevent any repetition of the terrible incident when the first replacement pilot for the orange Ingrid entered the cock-pit. After a month in the infirmary the young man was still hardly responsive to the Doctors' therapy; eventually he had regained enough health to live normally on one of the colonies. All the members of the goddess army realized then that it could have turned out much worse; a few others had been rejected by the Ingrids before, but none of them had been hurt so severely.
Kuro wondered how his fellow pilots had entered the newly completed Ingrids without complications and why, with them, had problems only started when their EX was fading. He was the only original pilot left, and, as with the other four, his EX had dimmed. Kuro was feeling the strain of battle more acutely; injury and damage happened more frequently. Reflecting on memories, Kuro was thinking that perhaps it was taking too long to find someone to take his place and that it was strange how at such a young age he felt like a relic.
"Come on, Kuro." Reigha had found him on the observation deck, still traversing through the passages of his mind, the venue of his thoughts as changing as the white clouds of Zion clearly seen through the window.
Walking in subdued silence, they joined the small party gathered around the White Goddess. Kuro spotted the pilot nominee right away; a blond-haired, blue-eyed conspicuous presence among the other familiar faces. He seemed like such a child, though Kuro had also been that young when first escorted down the cat-walk and introduced to Ernn Laties. They exchanged less-than-formal greetings; Reigha with an abundant amount of information to relay. She was several years Kuro's senior, but not enough to be considered old, yet next to this youth she positively looked like a doting mother-figure.
"Everything seems to be proceeding well?" Mr. Latzki questioned after a brief time had passed.
Reigha responded immediately, eyes reading the screen, "He has entered the cockpit without any complications, but the scanners are taking longer to respond than it should."
"Ern Laties is behaving normally?"
"Yes." For someone new to the goddess' system it would naturally take longer for the body and mind to link with the Ingrid. Reigha was accustomed to the nearly instant synchronization of Kuro and Ernn Laties and the time that now lapsed was filled with 'what-ifs;' 'what if the tests had been wrong?', 'what if he wasn't combatable with Ernn Laties?', 'what if his body was having an adverse reaction?'
"Kuro, how is he doing?" The elderly man called to the youth positioned near the cockpit.
Reaching his hand into the gelatinous substance, Kuro made sure Shia was calm, without any threat of injury.
"It's so dark in here." No fear leaked into this statement of fact.
"Can you still see out the open hatch?" Kuro questioned.
"Yes, but it's dim and blurry."
"The scanning and connection is complete, everything is clear." Ryoko informed her companion. "Mr. Latzki shall we close the cockpit?"
The elderly man nodded.
Speaking directly through the link to the Ingrid, she quickly told Shia her objective, "You can hear me now. We're going to close the doors, the darkness will be absolute but it should clear momentarily. If anything doesn't feel right tell me"
"Understood."
Kuro removed his hand from the gel-like wall and with a slight push urged the doors to close. As foretold the immense darkness was absolute but it soon vanished and Shia could see the inside of the hanger as though there were nothing to block his view.
"Everything is still progressing smoothly?"
"Yes," Reigha answered Micha. "Shia, try to move the hand."
"Yes ma'am." Shia heard minor grumblings to his statement. He tried to fulfill Reihga's command but when Shia moved, as he had been instructed to, a pulsing sensation, like the pounding when a nerve ending is hit, numbed all other feelings in his hand. When he tried to move again his vision became unclear, he couldn't tell what was happening and the pain was spreading.
Reigha typed quickly, doing everything in order to solve the problem. "His heart rate in increasing, but so is the tuning."
In the Ingrid there remained only a fuzzy light and some blurred colors from the outside. Shia closed his eyes trying to steady his beating heart; he opened them again to find a dim blue glow.
"It looks like everything has gone back to normal," Reigha informed everyone.
The boy in the cockpit moved again, a strong electrical current flowed through his body. Shia screamed as the stinging grew stronger.
"Abort!" Kuro shouted, "Get him out of there!"
Reigha typed in the commands and the cockpit opened. Shia rushed for that new light, stumbling out of the Ingrid. Kuro helped to ease the panting boy into a sitting position and remained kneeling beside him until the others had joined them.
"What happened?"
"She wouldn't let him," was Kuro's cryptic reply to Reigha's frantic question.
"What are you talking about, he was doing fine. What happened?"
Micha put his hand gently on the girls shoulder. "We'll worry about that latter. Right now Kuro should take Shia to the infirmary."