CHAPTER 21:PAPER, ROCK AND SCISSORS
The meeting was almost ready, with Magno' s pirates seated at a strategy table with Rebecca 's group on the other side. Varoa sat on her left, bright red hair cropped short. At Magno' s side sat BC and Meia with the others standing. Not surprisingly, Bart and Ed stood behind their 'women'.
"The meeting begins," Magno tapped the table, letting the others sit at seats at the table. Everyone was seated, leaving Rebecca to open proceedings.
"You tell me the entire Harvester fleet is headed for Mejale and Talark. This is bad news ! Breaking you out was hard enough- any suggestions?"
"You know what we're thinking. We have to convince the leaders of Talark and Mejale to help us fight them off. Talark' s minefield won't be enough. "
"How? We're outlaws on Mejale, and demons on Talark!" Varoa thudded her fist.
Bart shook off the comment but said nothing.
"The Doctor has an announcement concerning Hibiki," Magno raised her hand. "If you please, Doctor McPhail."
Duerro stood up and activated a series of displays, mostly Hibiki' s bio-composition and his structural make-up. He pointed to a specific field of data which nobody seemed to recognize.
"He's our trump card. This makes him our ambassador to Talark."
The women gasped and looked at each other for answers. Rebecca sat on the edge of her seat, palms crunching the wooden armrests.
"Yes. He is one of the first generation of colonists, like the Seven Men on Talark as well as Grandma herself. I hear they have this habit of listening to their own?"
"That's what my grandpa told me," Bart bowed his head.
"What of any other enemies of Earth?" Rebecca calmly returned to her seat.
"We don't know. Lunarian forces might arrive, but we don't' know when. But it's imperative that we convince Grandpa and Grandma to ally." BC made her point. Bart squeezed her hand, but turned back to Rebecca.
"Then that's settled. We have to somehow gatecrash the Hall of the Fathers and the Chamber of the Mother and make' em think our way. "
"That may not be necessary…"Magno grinned, " I know a back way in…"
Jin Tokai never really liked the Hall of the Fathers. Too stony for his tastes, too full of statues of old men made before they were too old. Silent sentinels stood firm at the doors, though they did not still their eyes at what old Jin was carrying in his left hand. He stopped at the door, letting them examine his package. One look convinced them and he soon stepped into the hall of the Fathers, a dark, dimly lit hall where the seven thrones of the oldest men on Talark sat. The center throne lit up, revealing a gnarled old man with age-stained fingers and a giant beard. To his left sat a beardless lord, the blonde color of his hair still showing despite his age.
"What are you doing here, Jin? You promised that you would guard the underground sleepers and never come here unless in emergency, " asked the blonde man.
"Father Garsuss, I've come to show you all this."
Jin opened up his package and held aloft a plant in a pot . "Look! I've managed to grow something in that wasteland!"
"Is that all?" the bearded man mockingly laughed, "I was awakened to see a potted plant?"
"It's the best hope we have to survive, brother!" Jin called out to him and the others. "The best."
"Jin….!"
"Now stop that, Grandpa…" Father Garsuss motioned for him to sit down, " Jin is trying to help us all live. Isn't that right, Jin?"
"You better believe it, Marcus…" a female voice came out of the blue. A screen popped up , showing a robed old woman, her eyes guarded by a transparent blue visor.
"Annie!" Grandpa grunted in astonishment, " You haven't opened this channel in…in…"
"One hundred years," Jin reminded Grandpa, "One century, Zen. When we were all young men and women going together to a dream. Now we're all that's left of that generation…well, except two more."
"There's someone you might know on the other channel," Annie pressed a switch.
"Ah, Uncle Jin! You played with me on the ship! I've missed you!" Magno chimed, smiling at her old playmate.
"Ah-ha! Little Miss Magno! It's been a long time indeed!" Jin held out his arms as if to greet an onrushing child.
"She is Magno Vidan, leader of the pirates who've been embarrassing our military forces for years."
"What does a pirate want with us?"
"I'm a member of the first generation as well, I want to voice my opinion!" she sarcastically smiled.
"One more, you said?" Father Garsuss pointed to a blank screen.
"My name is Hibiki Tokai."
Grandpa dropped his scepter.
As if Hibiki' s entrance wasn't prolific enough, his message was beamed on both worlds as well as to neighboring planets. Fleets stopped to listen to him and changed course, while citizens viewed this strange boy on large erected screens. His speech was confident, full of guts and determination. The Todoroki sat silently in space dock, its crew befuddled by what Hibiki had to say. On board the Paraiso and the Nirvana, the pilots stood by in case the Harvesters decided to join the podium.
"No, no! Stop the transmission!" some of the Fathers were waving frantically. Grandpa and Garsuss ignored them, though only the latter was truly listening to Hibiki. Annie shook her head and sighed.
"This is what your message meant, Magno?"
"I only said 'Look'."
"…so, that's it! We should do this for our future!" Hibiki triumphantly raised his fist.
Grandpa was speechless, as were the Fathers who were yelling earlier. The Golden Vanguard leapt out of the Nirvana with the other fighters and the delivery craft, merging into the Blue Victory. The combination left many of Annie's maidens rubbing their eyes, but Annie smiled.
"This is what that meant then….and thank you for Sera's disk. I'll keep it until she can come visit her mothers' graves...my daughter's graves…."
"Alert, alert!" Ezra yelled, "Large ship detected, six o clock!"
"What? How did they get past our markers?!" BC gritted her teeth.
"It seems to know our recognition codes!" Celtic wailed.
Sensors on the Todoroki went crazy at the sighting. No one on board had ever seen a Harvester mothership, though this one was strangely golden and somehow benign. The pirates getting ready to attack were beaten to it by the Black Star, ever eager to fight the enemy.
"Gung-ho as always, Eddie! It this how you greet an old pal?"
"Carl?"
Ed's retros barely stopped the Black Star from colliding with the behemoth vessel, which dwarfed the two pirate ships , making them look like blue and green buttons on a golden coat.
"Yep, it's me! The overalls man!" old Carlos from Lunar 21 twirled, "We captured this bugger at Soul Point, shortly after you left! How, a trade secret! It's wonderful, once you get to know the insides!" he laughed as a little robot straightened out his shirt.
"But…?" Ed rubbed his aching temples.
Seven ships decloaked around him, the same seven that shot the Nirvana off its moorings earlier. Carlos zoomed out the camera to show that he was on board one of them, remote controlling the giant vessel.
"I saw some of you getting ready to be executed- couldn't have that, could we?" he smiled again. "And here we have the ThunderStrike units! The Thunder Dread project fell through, so we used the Thunder parts and added them to the existing VanStrikes! God, I'm glad I never retired!" he adjusted his suspenders. "some big time action!"
The Vandread pilots were gobsmacked, welcoming the new arrival with a mixture of cheer and trepidation. The golden ship loomed behind them, a giant ,obsidian one eyed squid. Some yelling convinced Varoa that the ship was on their side, after an aborted nosedive into the gold giant's core.
" Edward, your friends are rather few, but they bring large gifts!" Magno grinned.
"Are we invited, or are you going to have to frisk us ?" Rabat's voice came out over the speakers.
Hibiki and Dita turned to see about seventy five ships of varying shapes and sizes moving in to join them. Hibiki saw Oosa and Tatanka sitting behind Rabat together with Utan, with Sera and her bodyguards on the split screen.
"The Smugglers Union- I would have thought…I spent years arresting these people!" Barnet laughed, noticing the irony, "now they've bailed me out!".
"One more fleet behind them, Boss!" Ezra reported.
Two hundred white ships, all shaped like swans with their white exteriors loomed behind Rabat's fleet, their fighters pouring out of docking bays like ants out of a burning anthill.
"Melanos anti-Earth fleet deploying. Here to help our comrade Hibiki Tokai."
"Melanos…"Hibiki sat up in his seat.
"Melanos?" Dita asked.
"They were a target of Earth for their skin. The fleet that picked me up before Rabat found me…they were wiped out. They're…they're massing to help me, Dita…me…"
"You're quite a popular man, that's why!" Dita smiled at him, squeezing his hand. She looked up as hundreds of Vanguards zoomed past her cockpit.
"This is the Talark Empire flagship Todoroki. Requesting your permission to join the battle," the admiral saluted onscreen, forgetting the male superstitions.
Two hundred and fifty Talark pod ships joined the fleet, together with numerous battle stations and mobile attack units. Swarms of Vanguards outran the Dreads, rushing towards the head of the fleet and stopping there. A man wearing pilot goggles split-screened with the admiral of the Todoroki, smoking a big cigar and sporting a gray beard.
"My name is Kyumei Ozeki, leader of the Specialist Bangat attack squadron! We request that you let us have first pick at the enemies!" His blue Vanguard went to the very front tip of the fleet, swinging its energy naginata around and lighting its solitary red eye. The women on the Nirvana and Paraiso were speechless, noticing the difference in the Talark pilots' confidence since the time they stole the Nirvana.
"Like hell you are." Another voice joined in as hundreds of mecha joined the crowd of metal and flame from newly arrived ships. Three hundred Lunarian cruisers appeared out of cloak, ThunderStrikes flowing out like a great river of thruster plumes. Against the tide, one ThunderStrike hit its retros and hovered next to Barnet' s Dread.
"Ah, so we meet again, Barnet! This rose in my hair is for you!" a certain Robbie Marshall smiled, placing the flower between his teeth, shifting his eyebrows up. "You didn't think I'd forget, my dear baker?"
"If you think I'm gonna bake for you all day…." Barnet gasped at what she had just said, clapping her mouth shut with her hands.
Robbie shook his head, "No, silly. Women…how do men cope with you? Talk to you later, gorgeous! There's this cool movie I want you to see with me! It's a date! Bella Ciao! "
His ThunderStrike activated its extra boosters and zoomed out of sight, joining his flight leader. Jura came up to Barnet, who still had her hands to her mouth, her cheeks reddening.
"Oh come on, Barnet! He's right there!" Jura laughed, with Pyoro in her cockpit.
"Hello, um….is there any way we can er…help?" a female voice came on the net.
One hundred sleek, colorful ships of the Mejale Border Patrol flanked the ragtag fleet, Dreads issuing out to ordered formations and weapons charged. The captured Harvester ship formed the center of the fleet along with its seven escorts, ready for battle.
All in total, nine hundred and fifty ships and battle stations. Grandpa sat bemused, wondering how one boy managed to assemble such an army. Garsuss got up and stood beside Jin.
"My boy's on that ship, you know," he proudly grinned.