Eternal City Crystal Tokyo

Seventy Four

"How the hell did you manage to blow your arm off?" Sylia Stingray asked, mildly surprised. She had helped design that body, it was supposedly near indestructable.

"Classified," Major Motoko Kusanagi sighed. She added with a groan, "It was one HELL of a fight though."

"Please try to avoid this scale of damage," Sylia scolded gently.

"No promises," Motoko said dryly.

Sylia smiled wryly as she examined the damage. "Okay, did you want just repairs, upgrades or a refit?" she asked.

Motoko gave her a wary look, knowing Sylia had wanted to work on her awhile. "What would upgrades or a refit involve?" she had to ask.

"Upgrades... well, I'm hitting the limits of how well I can add new tech to your existing body," Sylia admitted. "Not that your body isn't good, I should know, I built it..."

"But?" Motoko smiled wryly.

"But short of a complete rebuild, there's changes I can't impliment," Sylia conceded.

"The new quantinum nanotech," Motoko had read up on it, "I could reshape my body at will, on an atomic level."

"Exactly!" Sylia said excitedly.

"But you'd have to convert my artificial brain into that too," Motoko pointed out. "Call me suspersticious, but I don't think my Ghost could survive that."

Sylia wasn't sure she believed in souls, or 'Ghosts' or whatever. On the other hand she had seen a LOT of stuff over the years, including marrying a demoness. So who knows?

"I thought Serenity banned that form of nanotech?" Motoko asked after a moment.

Sylia sniffed, "She banned the Mesa version, which cuts corners and is notoriously unstable."

"Anyway... just repairs for now. I can afford to be offline long, what with the wedding and all," Motoko said firmly.

"Spoil sport," Sylia said cheerfully then went to work.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"The Jurai Lord did WHAT?" Queen Serenity yelped.

"He attempted to crash his warship into one of our space stations, apparently trying to incite a war," Minako sighed tiredly.

"He's insane," Saionji blinked.

"Not really," Minako objected, "there's ALWAYS been an expansionist group on Jurai. They'd LOVE a war. And there's what's left of Earth First..."

Endymion noted, "As we've not heard of an explosion, I assume he was stopped?"

"We only heard a few hours before he was going to attack, so I could only mobilize limited forces," Minako said, "but yes, we stopped him. Rammed his ship with a Swordbreaker, then sent in a raiding team to capture the plotters."

Serenity didn't like the look in Minako's eyes, and quietly asked, "You had injuries?"

"He wasn't Tenchi level powerful, but he was stronger than we anticipated. We had injuries, but thankfully no one died," Minako sighed.

"Motoko was hurt?" Saionji guessed, since she wasn't here for the briefing.

Minako just nodded choppily.

Changing the subject Endynion asked, "Speaking of Emperor Tenchi, what does he plan to do?"

"Well, that depends on us," Minako admitted as she nodded to the Queen, "if we make this public, he will openly punish them. If we want to keep it quiet, he will probably just strip the family of their titles and wealth."

"Why would we keep it quiet?" Serenity asked, frowning.

"Because crazy Jurai lord attacks our space station is going to feed into the sort of folks who join Earth First," Saionji pointed out bluntly. He looked over at Minako, "Did he die?"

"He refused to surrender," Minako admitted.

"And on the Jurai side, our enemies there can express shock and dismay we killed a Lord," Saionji said. He held up a hand as Minako was going to protest, "I know you did everything you could not to. But that's how they'll play it."

"I hate politics," Endymion muttered.

"I will tell Tenchi we will make what happened public," Serenity said firmly, "it does not serve our people to keep secrets from them."

"Understood," Saionji agreed.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Two days later Alucard tapped at the office door, once again in 'girl mode.' They found it easier to move around Crystal Tokyo unnoticed in that form, plus they liked the reactions of people who knew who she was. The shock was very amusing.

"Miss Alucard," Nuku Nuku smiled, the redheaded android manning the desk in front of Venus' office. "Here to see the boss?"

"Checking in on Motoko actually," Alucard admitted.

"She's in, if a bit cranky," Nuku Nuku pressed a switch to warn them Alucard was coming.

Motoko looked entirely fine, which was something of a relief. Alucard had seen her take a point blank shot from an ancient Jurai weapon, and he had been surprised at the damage she took.

"Alucard," Motoko nodded crisply, "did you check in on the others like I asked?"

"Of course," Alucard said. She grinned, "Our most greviously injured, Devil Lady, is being nursed by her girlfriend. It's sickening sweet, really."

After Motoko had been hurt, they had hurried to bring the Jurai ship to a hault. The controls had been booby trapped, and Jun had taken the blast. A normal human would have died, but thankfully she could regenerate.

"How angry is she?" Motoko wondered.

"Jun actually isn't," Alucard said, "but her fiance Nadesico is rather upset with us."

"Ah," Motoko winced.

"Cyber Six is also fine, though she's a bit annoyed you shielded her with your body," Alucard added.

"She's more biological than I am," Motoko waved that off.

"Hey, I'm biological," Alucard noted.

"Yes, but I don't actually LIKE you," Motoko countered.

Alucard just laughed. She paused then added, "Next time, we need a bigger team, or maybe Hardsuit support. Things nearly went badly wrong."

"Our intelligence was bad," Motoko agreed, "Minako has me looking into it."

"No rest for the weary," Alucard agreed.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"Are you all right?!" Honey Kisaragi burst in the room, the buxom blond looking alarmed.

Cyber Six smiled wryly as the police officer said, "I'm fine. I wasn't even in the line of fire."

Honey, who had contacts in Intelligence, looked dubious.

They were in Crystal Tokyo's police headquarters, and Cyber Six was just getting ready to go off shift when Honey caught up with her. Her boss, Leona Ozaka, had known about the fight, too, and had also fussed over her.

"I actually want to check up on one of my... well, comrades you could say," Cyber Six admitted.

"Could I come with you?" Honey asked meekly.

"I'd like that," Cyber Six admitted.

The two women checked out of work, then went outside where they took public transit. "Who are we seeing?" Honey asked. She was hoping it wasn't Motoko... visiting with her other superior made her nervous.

"Jun Fudoh," Cyber Six said.

Honey blinked, "The Devillady?" she hissed softly.

"Yup," Cyber Six agreed as they reached their stop, one of the many towers that housed most residents of the city.

Their police ID got them by the security door, then they went up to the woman's apartment. "Does she know you're coming?" Honey wondered.

"Well, no," Cyber Six admitted.

"Oh joy," Honey deadpanned as they reached the door.

Cyber Six pressed the entrance pad, and a voice called, "Go away!"

Honey and Cyber Six exchanged a glance, then Cyber Six called, "It's Cyber. I just wanted to check on you."

A pretty woman, maybe mid twenties with long brown hair smiled sheepishly. "Sorry about that," Nadesico said.

"It's fine," Honey reassured her as they walked in, then they both stopped in surprise.

Jun Fudoh was laying on the couch, and the coffee table beside her was covered in snacks. She looked profoundly embarassed, "You would not believe how hungry regeneration leaves me..."

Cyber Six just shook her head, chuckling. "Glad you're okay," she grinned.

To be continued...