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Vandread: The Unknown Soldier (Revised)

Chapter Six: Engagement

Location: Uncharted Star System, 120 Light Years from Tarak/Mejale System.

"What in the world is taking them so long?" Admiral Alexander Graff, the highest ranking naval officer left, acting commander of the remainder of the Solaris Defense Force, asked his second in command.

"I don't know, sir, they did take a lot of damage during their escape," Commander Marcus Randall replied almost immediately.

"Perhaps, but I think it has more to do that coordinates may have been off," Graff said as he stroked his dark, well-trimmed beard.

"True, but I don't think it would have taken them this long," the stoic Randall replied.

Graff picked up the mug that sat in it's holder on the arm of his command chair, and took a sip of the dark, bitter liquid. It wasn't real coffee, but a soy-based substitute, as they ran out of the real stuff a few days ago. He winced in pain as the hot liquid burned his tongue. His vision scanned the bridge of the S.D.S Dauntless, noting that every member of the bridge crew was doing his or her job. Still, he couldn't help but wonder what was taking Captain Cranston and the Artemis so damn long. His current train of thought was interrupted by the sensor operator's alarmed shout.

"Sir, multiple contacts have just appeared in system!" the operator reported.

"Can you identify them?" he asked, although a feeling in his gut told him it was the E.D.A. His feeling was verified when he saw the operator visibly pale.

"Sir, it's the E.D.A.! They have found us!" she fairly shouted her report.

"Dammit!" he cursed. "All hands, general quarters, prepare for battle! All pilots, prepare for launch!" he bellowed. All over the ship, the activity tripled as every crewmember stopped what they were doing and headed for their stations.

"Contact the rest of the fleet," he ordered the comm tech. "Tell them to prepare for battle. Helmsman, bring engines to full," he ordered. "Bring main batteries online, load missile tubes," he ordered the weapons officer.

A series of 'Aye, sirs!' followed his chain of commands as the Dauntless leapt into action. The Dauntless was an Invincible class Battle cruiser, and it was aptly named. Being the largest class of vessel in the fleet, the Invincible Class boasted the heaviest armor and the most weapons of any ship in the Solaris Defense Force. It's angular shape slightly resembled the battleships of the twentieth century, but only faintly. The bulky appearance would intimidate just about anybody. Several of the laser cannons on mounted along the nose of the craft started to glow as the weapons were prepped for combat.

"So, it has begun…" Randall said ominously, something normally unlike him.

"Aye, that it has…" Graff echoed.

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Hibiki flexed his left arm while he walked down one of the ship's many corridors. It had been a few days ago that he'd had the cast removed, and he felt better than he had in a long time. He almost didn't notice Dita approach him, until she called him by that annoying nickname she'd given him when they first met.

"Hey, Mr. Alien!" she said in her usual cheerful voice.

"Oh, it's you," he replied in his usual manner when addressing her. "What do you want now?"

"Well, I was wondering when you were going to keep your promise," she said as she glanced down and then back up.

Dammit, she still remembers? He felt his face get red with embarrassment as he replied. "Well, I… um, I can't right now."

"Why not?" she asked, edging in closer to him.

"Well, uh… because I have something to do," he replied, backing up slightly.

"Aww… you always say something like that," she said, disappointment evident in her voice.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed someone in the gym, which was on the men's side of the ship. Upon looking closer, he noticed it was that soldier from Solaris, Aidan. Deciding he needed to get away from Dita, he proceeded to walk towards the gym.

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With nothing else to do for the moment, Maria thought she'd go ahead and take a walk. Her mind flashed over the recent events, the most painful being the death of her father. To think it had only been a week and a half since he was killed, no, murdered. Her father was all she had left, with the fact that her mother had passed away when Maria was just a little girl. Her father had raised her from that point on, sparing enough time for her when she needed it. She failed to notice the person in front of her, who apparently wasn't paying attention either. She and the other person collided, knocking her to the ground.

"Sorry," the other person said as she held out a hand to help Maria to her feet. She accepted the help.

"No, it was my fault, I wasn't watching where I was going," she said sheepishly. She saw the woman had short, black hair, with some red in it. "Maria, my name is Maria."

"Reika," the woman replied. "You're not from around here, are you?"

"No, I'm not," she replied. "I'm from Solaris."

"Solaris, eh?" Reika said, slightly narrowing her eyes, which Maria failed to notice. "So you're the one I've been hearing a lot about recently?"

"Well it was nice running into you," Reika said, smiling slightly. "See you around."

Maria laughed lightly at the implied joke. "Yeah, see you around."

As soon as Maria was out of earshot, Reika smiled to herself, but there was no humor in it. "Sooner than you think, my dear Maria."

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The large, leather bag rocked and swayed under several pounding blows. As a soldier, he had to maintain physically fit, as all the drills and exercises in training had made completely clear. It became even more intense as he entered Special Forces. He also had trained extensively in hand-to-hand combat techniques, a lot of times, the hard way. He continued his assault on the bag, noticing but deciding to ignore the person he saw out of the corner of his eye. He stopped as he heard the person speak up.

"Need a sparring partner?" Hibiki asked. "I'm pretty good at this kind of stuff," he said in a prideful voice.

"Is that so?" he asked sarcastically as he wiped the sweat from his face. He was about to refuse the offer, but something in this kid's tone made him reconsider. He had the same kind of tone when he had started military training, but was quickly lost when his training instructor decked him without any advance warning, more than once. This kid needed to be taught a lesson. He walked over and picked up some additional sparring gear, and tossed it to the kid.

"Put these on," he said.

"Okay," Hibiki replied as he took off his orange shirt, and put the gear on. The gear consisted of a pair of padded gloves, boots, and a helmet. Aidan had the same, sans the helmet.

As soon as he donned the gear, Hibiki walked onto the mat, opposite Aidan. Aidan cracked his knuckles. "Okay, I'll let you have the first move, kid."

"Whatever you say," Hibiki replied. "And don't call me 'kid.'

Hibiki lunged forward and threw a right hook, but Aidan, already in a defensive stance, easily shifted to his left, avoiding the rather clumsy attack. It seemed to irritate Hibiki. The next punch was also pretty easy to block and avoid, further aggravating him.

"Are you going to fight or just dance around?" Hibiki complained.

Aidan knew better than to fall for something like that. Hibiki was trying to goad him into doing something foolish. Like hell. Now it was time to turn that tactic back at him. Hibiki threw another punch, and Aidan grabbed his outstretched arm and hooked his left foot behind Hibiki's legs, and tripped him, making him fall flat on his back.

"Come on, is that all you got, kid?" Aidan taunted, as he let Hibiki get back on his feet.

"Like I said before, don't call me 'kid!' Hibiki growled as he charged into attack yet again. This time he found himself flat on his face. Aidan had easily tripped him up, again. The kid had to be fuming now.

"You're hot-headed, which is easy to exploit," Aidan said.

"You know nothing about me!" Hibiki yelled.

"That's right, I don't know anything about you really," Aidan replied. "But I don't need to."

"Why not?" Hibiki asked irritably.

"Because I can still kick your sorry little ass," he replied with a smirk.

Then, without any warning, Aidan went on the offensive, attacking with a series of punches that ended with an underhand blow to Hibiki's abdomen, knocking the wind out of him. Before Hibiki could recover Aidan slammed his padded fist straight into Hibiki's forehead, flooring him.

Dazed, Hibiki took a few seconds to regain his senses. "That was unfair," he whined.

"There are no rules in a life-or-death fight, kid," Aidan countered. "Think about that next time somebody attacks you with the intent to kill." Aidan grabbed Hibiki's arm and pulled him to his feet.

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Straining against the g-forces that threatened to bludgeon him into oblivion, Lieutenant Scott Hawkins pursued the enemy fighter. He was currently engaged in a pitched dogfight with a few rebel fighters. The sharp turn he had just performed saved him from a pair of missiles that were locked onto him. He piloted an SF-21 Lightning, a sleek, fast, forward-swept wing fighter. He turned his attention to another enemy fighter as it entered his field of vision.

"Gotcha," he muttered as he lined up his sights on the enemy. Once he had lock, he unleashed a series of blasts from his fighter's nose-mounted pulse laser cannons. The series of red beams tore into the fighter from tail to nose, blasting open the cockpit in the process. With it's pilot vaporized, the fighter veered out of control before exploding several hundred meters away.

"Scratch one bandit!" he crowed into his helmet-mike. Little did he know that little skirmish had brought him into range of one the larger vessel's defensive weapons. He pulled away as several laser bolts and missiles were fired in his direction. He turned back onto the ship and locked his missiles onto it. He watched as the missiles tore into one of the defensive turrets, blowing it to pieces.

What he didn't notice was that a laser bolt did find it's mark, coring the fighter's main engine. He franticly grabbed for the ejection handle, which would eject the entire cockpit. He pulled, but the flames were faster, and he was burned up, along with the rest of his fighter. To anybody watching, the flaming ejection pod was like a comet before disintegrating into nothingness.

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Reika walked into the briefing room a few minutes early, and took a seat next to Jennifer. This was required to integrate the new recruits with the veterans of the Dread squadron. She had noticed a man standing in the back of the room, leaning against the wall. He made eye contact with her briefly, before she turned her attention back to the woman in command, Meia Gisborn.

"Now that everyone's here, let's begin," Meia started off.

"What's he doing here?" Reika whispered to her friend.

"Him?" Jennifer replied, glancing back at the man leaning against the wall. "I don't know."

"Do you two have something you want to tell the rest of us?" Meia said to the two them, pinning them with a stern glance.

"Uh- nothing, Ma'am," Reika replied.

"Well then let's get back to the task at hand then," Meia said.

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After having to participate in the briefing for the exercise, Aidan was going to go back to his quarters. On his way down the corridor, he noticed a pair of figures walking the opposite way. They were apparently talking about something amusing, as one of them was laughing. As they got closer, he noticed that they were the Dread pilots that kept looking back at him during the briefing.

The one that was laughing had long, teal hair that she kept over one shoulder. The other was slightly shorter, but had really short black hair. What was distinct about her was that a single lock of her hair was red. They had noticed him and both glanced in his direction, and he nodded slightly to them as they passed by.

He unconsciously brought his hand up to his left arm, right where there was a long, jagged scar running from his shoulder to just above his elbow. He had received that wound in an explosion, and the medics said that the wound was so deep that the scar could not be removed. He was fine with that, as it was a reminder. A reminder, and a price that he had paid for failing to protect the one person he cared about.

Then something else suddenly came to his mind. He glanced back, but both women were already out of sight. It was a slight nagging feeling. He felt as if one of the two seemed familiar, the one with the short black hair. No matter what, he couldn't totally place that feeling, but something told him differently.

He asked himself these questions, but still couldn't figure out why she was familiar. He thought that he might need to inform one of the leaders of this pirate group of a potential risk. That troublesome thought bothered him all the way back to his quarters.

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