Disclaimer: I don't own Vandread.

A/N

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Chapter 4

"Hope is a currency, and I am now broke. You tell me to stay strong and have hope. With what strength should I reach with for the currency I no longer have?" – Barnette to Trig.

"Cute."

Barnette scowled. It was anything but cute. It looked interesting, but it wasn't cute.

She wore black leather pants, matching black long-sleeved shirt that clung to her body, and a tan colored short-sleeved button up shirt that she left open.

"I think I like the other stuff more." Sky Kid confessed.

Barnette turned just enough to see him sitting in a chair writing something down in a brown journal. When she took a single step towards him, he snapped it shut and gave her a pointed look for her troubles.

"What's wrong with what she has on?" Trig asked. She pulled out a few other items, mostly shirts that had some designs or words on them.

Barnette might have pouted if she wasn't in the biggest bind she had ever been in her life, but she didn't want to show them weakness. Both were friendly, but she doubted very much that they were actually doing this out of the goodness of their hearts.

Stay strong, she told herself. Chin up. Shoulders back.

A shirt flew at her face, blinding her. "Put that on."

She huffed and tore the shirt from her face. Trig was still riffling through the clothing for something. Barnette scowled at the woman and pulled the article of clothing away to look at it. It was cream colored and served as more of a vest than a shirt. She flung it on her shoulder and shook her head. It fit. She could tell.

"I'll take it, but I'm not trying it on."

Trig shrugged. "You're loss. Can't return it if it doesn't fit."

Barnette rolled her eyes. She'd make due. Wasn't the first time she had to do something like this. Wouldn't be the last.

Sky Kid resumed his writing as Barnette and Trig fished for more clothes.

Barnette would admit one thing about Trig that was interesting to her, and that was that she knew how to find good deals for clothing. Might not look the cutest or be the most fashionable, but it worked. She already had plenty of tops and pants, along with a few sexy pieces of lingerie that even Jura would have wanted.

If there was one thing that she was depressed about it was that they didn't have fashionable shoes. Being a military town in the shadow of an orbital elevator with farmland for as far as the eye could see meant most shoes were steel toed boots or simple combat boots. Why make different kinds of footwear when most of it would be around military or farm work. Even the companies that made the boots wore boots for safety.

And they weren't pretty either. They were either black or brown with nothing in between.

Maybe they'd work better with my gun collection? The thought was an amusing one for sure. For someone that liked firearms of the old era, she didn't dress the part. Nothing wrong with it, it was just strange that she never really considered it.

Then again, Mejarru was a planet of only females and everything was mostly about beauty and functionality, with it leaning more on beauty. The soldiers didn't have military boots. It was white high-heel boots.

Big difference.

And to her knowledge, only Gascogne had ever worn anything close to their boots.

Trig pulled out a black top with a golden bird on the chest. She turned the thing over and snickered at it. "Hey, Sky! What was the name of that girl that was in your class? The one with the red hair?"

Sighing as he was once again pulled from his writing, Sky Kid turned his gaze just enough to see the black top that was the cause of the question. "Phoenix. Mean little spitfire, too."

Barnette glanced at the top and then back to Sky as he returned to his writing. Wanting to know what was up, she ambled over to the woman and looked at the top, making sure to lean in close when she spoke. "Is that another callsign person?" she asked quietly.

Trig looked down at her and then back to Sky Kid as he resumed his writing. Shrugging, she put the shirt on her shoulder and motioned to the changing room. "Can you help try something on? My pants feel a little tight."

Barnette arched a brow but complied.

Once behind the questionable cover and safety of the wooden door, Trig sat down and took her top off instead. Barnette remained focused on her eyes. "It was his first girlfriend that I remember. And he's not wrong about her. She was certainly mean. Not so much anymore. Humility taught her a lot."

Barnette looked at the door, as if trying to gaze through it towards Sky Kid. She could still see him writing in that book of his in her minds' eye. "What's with the book?"

Trig tried the black top on, running a hand over her stomach and down her sides as she smoothed it and her jeans out. "It's a diary. I think it's cute that he writes in it."

"What's he write about?"

Trig stopped and looked at the green-haired pirate with a questioning look. It made her feel small. "I don't know. I don't ask. He doesn't tell. But," she pulled the top off and sat it down on the bench, "I think it's about his life. When we meet him all those years ago, he admitted that he had a guilty pleasure of writing. I don't judge. I take photos of almost all our gatherings."

Barnette furrowed her brow in thought to that. It seemed rather young to be writing anything about his life. He was maybe twenty at best. Two years in that flight school and on their team for about two or three years would put him around the age of twenty to twenty-two depending on when he was born. Trig was nearly twenty-five if she were to guess correctly.

The green-haired pirate looked down at the top and tried it on after removing her clothing. It didn't cling to her body and it made her feel like she was suddenly scrawny. She took it off and tossed it back to the taller woman.

Trig stood with her arms folded under her bust and gestured to the remaining clothing with a smirk.

Rolling her eyes, Barnette grumbled as she tried the rest on. Most of it fit perfectly but some of it was just a tiny bit too big for her. Nothing she couldn't grow into or simply give a few runs through a washer to fix, but it was better than nothing.

Satisfied, the two returned to their normal clothes and stepped out. Sky Kid was still writing in his book, but he was chuckling. A few patrons gave the young pilot questionable looks as he finished whatever he was writing or simply stopped because he saw them come out.

"They fit?"

"Of course."

He tossed a few brassieres in the face of Barnette with two hitting Trig simply because they weren't meant for straight flight.

The agitated pirate slowly removed the article of clothing and then eyed the pilot as he sat back down in his seat. He was back to writing.

Did… did he really pick out bras? Barnette looked to Trig and found that she was gone. When she turned around fully, she saw a door shutting and her familiar scuffed up boots under the door. She looked back at the male pilot and stormed up to him, holding the items in her clenched fist. "Did you go through our…" she stopped and looked at the items and thought back to Church's words.

"Trig said I play for both teams."

Her brain hadn't caught up with her mouth and thus she never got out a form of apology to the young male.

"But more to the point." He reached out to her chest and tapped the bottom of her boob, which jiggled since it wasn't being restrained anymore. "You need some simpler ones." He leaned back in the waiting chair and shooed her away with a wave of his hand.

Barnette bit down on her tongue in anger. No man had dared to do such a thing to her. It wasn't even a point to state that she'd only been around three males for the better part of her time on the Nirvana, but no other male since her capture had dared to do such a thing. She figured that it was taboo, which it was, since no other woman did that back home either with total strangers. Jura had done it, but she had permission.

Standing up straight, her face red with rage, she turned and stormed into the changing room and nearly slammed the door with how chaotic her thoughts were.

They're not gonna fit and I'm gonna throw them right back in his face.

She tore her top off and hastily started putting the items on. She was going to enjoy the look of shock, maybe even depression, that was sure to be on his face when she came back and told him they didn't fit. She was going to enjoy it, like the last piece of cake that someone else wanted. There was nothing, and she couldn't think of anything else, like that feeling of being right.

She turned and looked at herself in the mirror.

It does fit. She frowned as her body's signals finally reached her brain, along with her train of thought. It fits? How? Alarmed, she tried the next one, which didn't fit because it was bigger, most likely meant for Trig. The third was the same as the second, but the fourth and fifth actually fit her.

Confused, Barnette put her top back on and crept out to stare at him. Trig was talking to him and he was showing interest in her words, even pointing to somewhere else in the store. Trig looked in the direction and moved for the location he had pointed out.

Barnette tossed the items into his lap. "Explain."

Picking up one of the items between his thumb and index finger, he regarded the item with a keen eye before putting it back in his lap. "I'm impressionable, sadly, and have a very perverted teammate. He could look at you – Dressed in baggy clothing, mind you. – and know if you're not wearing any thing under it, shaved, and your bust size. I'm cursed with this information. It's what I get for paying attention too well. Let no one lie to you about being able to pick up on talents like that fast as a good thing. It sucks."

Barnette felt a vein throb on the side of her head. Yeah, she could see how that might not be a good thing to have for a talent. He didn't strike her as a pervert. Whoever this person was that was a pervert and could pickup on that stuff needed to be killed. That was no talent anyone should have.

It did give her pause for another reason. Razor blades were rare on the ship, and while she did have access to a few, it still had been two weeks since her last shave. A crime, but did he know?

"The others I got will fit you." Barnette nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of Trig's voice behind her. She had completely forgotten about the woman. She was holding a few others bras in her free hand. "I'm getting tired and wanna go home. Sky, you feel like grabbing dinner on the way home?"

He checked his pocket watch and sighed. "It's late."

"I know. That's why I wanna pick up food on the way back. My treat."

"I have to drive you all the way home and then drive myself all the way home. I'm not that eager to make that trip."

"I don't live that far out."

"Twenty miles from here to your house, and then another thirty miles going back the way I came to my house. That's nearly an hour and a half drive. And I'm hungry too, which means I wouldn't get home 'till real late."

"Fine. You can sleep on couch." He sighed and looked back down at his pocket watch. "You can sleep in my bed with me. How about that? Toss that in the face of Hound. He'll be jealous."

"Is he still hounding after you? No pun intended."

Barnette shivered and they took notice of her. When she saw that their eyes were on her, she gave Sky Kid a harsh glare. "Women and men shouldn't sleep in the same bed together."

Sky Kid opened his mouth but then shut it, having already dealt with this before and opted to keep his thoughts to himself. He was almost certain there was a comedian that had made jokes about such a thing.

"That's how people get pregnant over here, Barnette. Men sleep in the same bed with women and then get pregnant."

"So, you want to catch pregnancy then?"

Sky Kid laughed openly at that. Trig shut her eyes and wondered if she might have to give Barnette a talk about how it works. Maybe she could, but she doubted it'd be a good thing for her. It was funny to think about.

"Let's just pay out."

Barnette nodded, her mouth agape in thought to the two sleeping in the same bed and somehow catching pregnancy from a man. It was almost too disgusting to think about, and yet, Dita, back on the Nirvana, was probably at risk to catch such a thing from Hibiki.

The return to the car was less than pleasing for Sky Kid as he could feel the hateful and confused eyes of Barnette boring into the back of his skull. He opted to keep his mouth shut on the intricacy of impregnating a woman. If she knew that, she might hate all men even more than what he figured she probably already did; not including whatever upbringing she had on her strange world.

They threw the clothes into the trunk of the car and climbed in. Barnette was in the back, seat-belt already on and still maintaining a hard glare on the man behind the wheel. He waited to start the car until Trig finally put her seat-belt on.

"No men live on your world, right?" Trig asked.

Barnette tore her angry gaze away from Sky Kid to look at Trig while she spoke. "Yep. It's a good world. No male germs."

"I remember those. Those are called cooties. I guess that's the equivalent of it on your world."

"Cooties?"

"Yeah. It's actually a fictitious childhood disease, used as a rejection term and an infection tag game, kind of a like freeze tag, only without stopping once you're tagged. But it's also something a child will say they "caught" through close contact with an "infected" person from the opposite-sex with someone their age."

Barnette shook her head, confused to the whole concept of it. Male germs were just that, male germs. They were things a male carried that could kill you back at their world. Even with all their suits, if you were near a man and touched them, or even let them breath on you, you had to be decontaminated or you might die and spread the infection.

Trig snickered and looked at her fellow pilot. "You remember those days, don't you?"

"Is this a shot at my age?" Trig nodded and her licked his lower lip, his free hand opening and closing as if he were contemplating hitting his fellow pilot. "Yes," he rasped out. "I remember those days. I even remember how to get rid of them."

Barnette scoffed, "Get rid of male germs?"

"We actually called it female germs." With his free hand, he drew three circles in the same spot on Trig's arm before tapping it three times in the center of the invisible circle he drew. "Circle. Circle. Circle. Dot. Dot. Dot. Now you have your cootie shot~!" he sang out with the motions.

Trig threw her head back and laughed hard. Barnette just blinked, lost to what was happening.

"I…" Trig couldn't stop laughing and beat her leg with one hand while the other was holding her chest. It took another ten seconds for her to regain some control. "I haven't heard that in years!" The laughter started again. Sky Kid joined her, though he was far tamer in comparison.

"You remember this?" Sky Kid asked.

He put his free hand down by his thigh and made a circle with his thumb and index finger. Barnette looked. Trig didn't.

"Yes. I remember that well."

"I don't get it."

Knowing she might retaliate; Sky Kid didn't follow through with it.

"If you look at it, he gets to punch you. If you flinch when he goes to punch you, but doesn't hit you; he gets to hit twice. It's a lot dumber than cooties." Trig explained.

Barnette was lost on the concept, but understood enough to get by with it. If she ever got back to the Nirvana, she'd have a fun time using that on Hibiki and anyone else that annoyed her. Then again, if anyone else were to learn of it, like Gascogne, it might actually become really bad and painful. And it sounded like part of the game anyways.

"Any other stupid things from your school days?" Trig asked.

Sky Kid shuddered. "Paper claws." He looked fearful for a moment and then added, "I used to make them as a kid, too. I thought it was cool, but then it wasn't cool. I was using homework paper. Grades started to hurt."

Trig snorted a laugh. Barnette chuckled. She understood that last one all too well.

(-)

Lieutenant Richard Pool sat forward in his chair as he looked at the two pilots before him. One was a woman with short black hair and the other was a man with silver hair that reached bellow his ears.

"You called for us, Lieutenant?" The man spoke first. The woman reached into a pocket that was strapped to her side and pulled out a long knife that she started twirling around in one hand.

"I did." He laced his fingers together as a projection came up between them on his desk. The lights darkened in the room and the projection began to play. "Captain Senna sent us this information over four hours ago. For the time being, we're working with the idea that this is an attack by the Baelish Raiders."

The footage started to roll. Fighters darted through asteroids and around a metal object. The feed pulled back and showed a smaller ship fighting back against something unseen by the camera. A red object came into view and the feed was cut. Richard rewound the feed back to the red object. It was close enough that most of the body could be seen.

It was blocky, yet not. It had a tiny body that connected itself to two flat squares that might have mimicked a top and lower half to a humanoid body with thin metal arms and legs. A solitary eye stood at the center of the top half like a demonic gaze that bore through the three who watched it.

The lights turned back on slowly and the projection was cut.

"This information comes from Captain Senna. She received this from the Two For Flinching. We haven't had any contact with it since. She's heading out there now to investigate, but we've yet to receive word from her now, which has prompted my request. Viper, Angel, I'd like both of you to investigate the site that was attacked and look for any information concerning that red object."

Viper, the male, nodded. "The rest of the team?" he asked, sounding concerned.

"That's up to you. I requested only the both of you, but if you feel the need to bring your team, that's up to you, Squadron Leader."

"Understood. Angel, get the group together. Tactical meeting." The woman left without a word spoken. He watched her leave. Once the door was shut, his eyes grew tired. "I'm going to be honest with you, sir. I'm not too keen on working with little information."

"Information is rather limited right now. What you've seen is what we know. This is merely an investigation into something even I'm not certain on. It came from higher ups. We can only obey."

Pursing his lips, Viper nodded slowly before leaving.

Richard leaned back in his chair, his eyes shutting. Grumbling, he activated his computer and started looking up information on what the red objects could be. A report called out to him when he searched for the information. He found images and redacted notes of something similar in appearance to the odd things.

Barnette Orangelo… He read the name and then closed his eyes in thought. He put her name through the search engine and turned up the file concerning her. It was mostly blacked out and redacted information. The top brass had obviously decided to keep her off the records as best they could. He touched the monitor and scowled. They're hiding something again. He swore when the monitor flickered and the information began to change before his eyes.

The search engine came alive and a line of text was written before him.

WE'RE WATCHING YOU!

The monitor returned to normal and the information he had originally been looking at was delated.

What are you trying to hide, Raven?

There was a knock at his door and he jumped a little. Scowling, he got up and moved for the door. He reached down for the knob when he noticed it start to turn. He backed up and drew a pistol out of his desk.

When the door fully swung open, Madam Mori stood in the doorway. "Jumpy, aren't we?" She saw herself in and stared at him as he put his weapon down. "Richard, I can't help but feel like we're missing something."

He sat down and put the pistol in his desk drawer. "Like what?"

She stepped further in and took a seat. "The woman claims to have fought these objects, and you're ship traveled for four months with her on its way back here. How come you never ran across any of these things?"

He shrugged. "Luck, I guess. Why?"

Mori shrugged again. "Nothing too concerning. It's just strange that we have no information on something that would have probably passed us by or attacked us if that woman's ship had passed us some time ago."

Richard put a hand on his chin in thought. "If – hypothetically speaking – these things are out there, they obviously passed us by. Or, we simply have no record of them showing up for unknown reasons."

"Or," Mori stood up, a scowl forming on her face, "there is someone that's taking care of them behind our backs and not reporting it."

In that moment, Richard could feel a pair of eyes on him that were not visible in the room. He knew something was off, and it made his gut hurt. He was almost certain that whatever he said next could be the last thing he spoke. "You think there is someone out there playing hero for us?"

Mori regarded him like a bug under her boot. She took a long breath and shut her eyes. "Let's not play stupid, shall we? I dislike liars. The Raven. Is it possible, he's out there, right now dealing with this and simply not reporting it?"

Leaning back in his chair, the mans' eyes grew cold. "If he is out there dealing with this, I think he would have reported it to someone." He looked down at his monitor for a moment. The file was still gone, but more to the point, he saw something that put a fear in him that made his blood run cold. A shimmer of movement was behind him, hidden through phase-shift tech. His heart almost stopped when he saw the movement come to a stop directly behind him.

"Richard." He dared to look up at the Fleet Admiral. "If he is out there, then I don't intend to have my people looking for a killer that's trying to play hero. When The Raven shows up again, we will take him in chains or dead."

Swallowing a lump in his throat, he looked into the old woman's' eyes. "And what if the Raiders and Pirates are dealing with these threats?"

Tapping her cane on the floor, she nodded, like it was something she had considered, but had needed a second opinion on. "If it is them, I pray that whatever these machines are have nothing to them that they could use." She turned and began heading for the door. "Next time you see my daughter, inform her I'd like to speak to her about her son. He has some questionable things he likes to talk about."

Sitting back down in his chair, he smiled nervously. "I'll send Captain Senna to you as soon as I see her myself, ma'am." She shut the door and he shut his eyes. The feeling was gone and he looked at his monitor again. It came alive when he tapped a button on the keyboard and he scowled at it.

KEEP YOUR HEAD DOWN, RICH!

He turned the monitor off and looked behind himself. He had never noticed that his window had been opened. Fucking Raven.