Back Home – The Dual War
by Warringer
Chapter 45
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Katai of the Yokokaze Clan was the proud commander of the Kogatana, one of the Silent Blade II class Frigate that had been build after the breakthrough that had propelled his people into the Quantum 0 classification of civilizations.
The breakthrough had only been possible after the last thirteen Silent Blade class Battlecruisers, the pre-breakthrough designation, had been able to disable a Quantum 0 pirate while he was attempting to break orbit of Zaitaku. It had given the scientists of the many clans and nations of their homeworld the means to develop new technologies and redesign the ships they had.
So Katai was now the commander of a Silent Blade II instead of a Silent Blade and he was glad that he was able to fight the pirates that plagues his home system at a more equal footing.
Just like the ship that had appeared from slipstream right in front of his ship and its sister.
He had ordered to gather as much information as possible before they would go and attack the ship. Information was something everyone needed and the Shin'bi even more so, having to fight vastly superior enemies over the last 140 years. But even before, the Shin'bi way of fighting had lead early to new ways of getting and interpret information.
Katai lazily flapped his wings in the zero-gravity of the command center of his ship to stop right behind his data specialist, Yui.
"Anything?" he asked and looked over his shoulders at the screen that showed the presumed pirate ship.
"Unusual design," she answered and her clawed fingers moved over her keyboard and touchscreen." I've never seen anything like it before. As far as I can tell its a ship designed and build only for warfare. No flourish stuff, just straight to the point."
She zoomed in on the ship and it showed a boom in the upper left of the ship.
"A weapons turret," she noted." Nothing that we have ever encountered on a pirate ship. And that ship got four of those."
Than she zoomed in on other smaller turrets.
"And than those smaller ones. It gives the ship a nearly complete coverage of weapons fire. They could take a shot at us without even turning around."
Katai frowned and nodded. Than he blinked once as a red symbol popped up on the screen and he heard Yui cursing silently.
Her hands flew over the touchscreen and keyboard and the screen changed, showing new informations Katai didn't completely understand, only that it dealt with radar data.
"I think they found us," Yui stated." They are cycling through multiple radar frequencies. Fast enough that the smart skin lags behind."
Katai did the same as Yui a moment before, cursing silently. The smart skin that covered the hull was a relatively new development, but it was based on old principles. The pirate ship that had given his people informations about sensors that were in use in the galaxy and the scientists had developed new countermeasures to deal with them. Like the smart skin, a nanotechnical layer that was designed to scatter and dampen the radar and lidar return of the hull. However the nano particles in the smart skin needed some time to calibrate on the radar frequencies that hit the hull and when they lagged the radar return was greater.
"Daisuke, switch the smart skin to passive mode," he ordered his tactical officer, who nodded in return.
"Lets hope that..."
"Incoming radio message," the radio operator said and Yui looked at Katai.
"They have seen us," she deadpanned.
Katai frowned.
"Lets hear it," he ordered.
"This is Korvettenkapitän Daniel Petersen of the Raumflotte Cutter Mainz, representing GDI. I am calling the two Shin'bi vessels. We have no hostile intention towards you. Please respond."
The voice had spoken in their mother language, through it had a strange accent. Katai looked at the screen in front of Yui.
"Status change of the ship?"
Her fingers once again flew over the screen and keyboard.
"No. They are not rerouting energy to their weapons nor shields. Maybe it is genuine..."
Katai sighed and closed his eyes for a moment.
"Get me the Reiken. I want to know what Mizuki thinks of this."
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Internally Tenchi sighed, but he didn't show it outside, as he glanced over towards Lady Seto. He didn't really want to have anything to do with her, but as she was now posted to his ship as observer, he couldn't help that. To add insult to injury, DK, D, K and Setsuna had ganged up on him to get him to not only greet her but also show Seto and her people the ship.
He had already showed them their cabins. Being a Warlock and intended to be a flagship, Dark Knight had been fitted with several VIP cabins with 50 square meters and the three Jurians had been put in three of those. Of course they had started to bitch about it. It seemed that only the lowliest crews on Jurian ships would get such 'small' cabins. It once again showed Tenchi how decadent the Jurians were.
The Command Center would be the last thing he would show them. First they needed to know about one of the most important places for the crew.
The door opened in front of them and they walked into one of the large lounges of the recreational area. The off duty crew was sitting around on tables and in couches, reading, talking or watching TV.
"This is one of the main recreational areas," he said and looked at the two companions of Seto.
Seto hadn't really been the one to say anything, but her two companions were louder about it.
"That's it?" Kanemitsu Hirata, Seto's Chief of Operations, asked as he looked quite shocked.
Tenchi merely raised an eyebrow, not letting his irritation show. This was far more than he was used to before getting Dark Knight. Never before he knew about any crew that had gotten this much and the added things that came with this lounge.
"It suits our needs," he answered." But this is just one of the lounges. We got several trainings areas, a small library and two computer rooms."
"Computer rooms?" Minaho Masaki, Tenchi's aunt it seemed and Seto's Chief of Intelligence, asked very interested, while Hirata gave Tenchi a very irritated glare.
"Follow me," Tenchi said and lead them through the room.
A look at Seto showed him that she didn't think of commenting at the moment. Again an automatic door opened in front of them and they were greeted by a rather loud scream.
"Hatchery!"
The Jurians stopped and blinked. Tenchi chuckled about this room. DK had pushed it through for all ships with GDI and the heads of state had signed it after long debates.
Rooms like these were set up on all GDI ships. They were rather large and contained rows and rows of, for Earth, high end computers with large displays. There weren't only programs for work installed on the machines, but also a huge amount of games. The Gaming Industry had fallen over their own feet to give their games to GDI for this project and the crews were very glad about it.
"I'm sorry," she said and walked up to one of the computers where a Petty Officer Second Class was sitting.
Tenchi glanced on the screen and grinned, seeing how a whole host of Zerglings rushed into a rather dense line of Terran Marines, who were nearly completely slaughtered. He glanced back at his guests and shrugged.
"I forgot that DK has organized a small Starcraft Tournament for today."
With that he turned back to the Petty Officer who was still immersed into her game.
"Who's winning?" he asked.
"Ensign Winters, sir," came the reply with the Petty Officer not looking up, but rather ordering her Goliaths and her single Behemoth to contain the Zerg attack.
"I would wonder if he wasn't winning," Tenchi replied with a chuckle.
"Your not helping, sir."
Tenchi laughed slightly.
"Build a few Firebats," he said and patted her on the shoulder." And try not to loose too high. You have him beat in Quake anyway."
"I'm looking forward to frag him several times over, sir," she replied with a light mad crackle.
The Jurians were still standing where they were and blinked. Tenchi gave them a sardonic smile.
"One of the ways to deal with the young generation off-duty. Give them a computer, some games, pizza and coke and they are all set. Bread and Games. The old Romans knew what they talked about."
There was a rather loud curse in the background that made all three Jurians blush, while Tenchi just shook his head.
"Corners really needs to learn how to loose a little more silent."
"He does, sir," a male voice came from behind and Tenchi turned to look at an ensign." You still in for the UT Tournament, sir? Lieutenant Kowalski needs to pushed from his throne."
Tenchi grinned.
"You can count me in. Through we might get into a sortie at that time."
The ensign shrugged.
"We can't have everything, sir. If we do, we have the Tournament later."
"Could clash with the CS one."
"I guess we can work something out with DK, sir."
A look at the Jurians told Tenchi that they were quite possibly a little more shocked, through he didn't quite know what had them shocked. The games or the way he treated his crew and reverse.
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Battle Leader Hak'ey didn't really understand the strange looks he was getting every since he had put a foot on the human ship that had brought him to Shabazza before coming aboard Dark Knight. Especially he was puzzled by the reaction of one of the crewman who had 'gone to get a drink' after he had given him his name.
These humans were very strange in their behavior.
At the moment he was sitting in one of the lounges that were part of the recreational system of Dark Knight. To come to Earth was kind of like coming to a paradise. While on transit from New Omelos to Earth, he had stood under a device called 'shower' by the humans for at least three hours, washing of grime and dirt of twenty years.
'Damn Jhe'dur,' he thought and sighed.
Back during the war he had believed in her like so many others and he had actively helped her in a way. He wasn't really a fighter, but he had been gifted with an analytical mind and he had used that to study the ways other races waged war in the long history of the galaxy. And it was the same analytical mind that wouldn't let him forget what he had seen and what he wanted to forget. Such was the curse of having a eidetic memory.
But even after showering for three hours and receiving a new and real uniform of the Dilgar Remenant Forces, he felt dirty and out of place. And the strange glances he received didn't help any.
"Battle Leader Hak'ey?" he heard a voice behind him and turned around to look at a elder human in an uniform that was different to those of the humans around. Another service maybe?
"Yes," he answered and stood up, only to look at three Jurians behind the human.
And he recognized all three of them.
The human smiled.
"I'm Commodore Tenchi Masaki," the human said and presented his hand for a gesture that was called 'shaking hands'.
Hak'ey shook the hand, stealing a glance towards the Jurians. They didn't look like they were liking his presence.
"What is that Dilgar doing here?" the Jurian he had identified as Kanemitsu Hirata, the Chief of Operations of the also present Lady Seto Jurai." Shouldn't they be extinct by now?"
"Not thanks to you," Hak'ey couldn't help but shoot back, resulting in Hirata becoming red in his face.
"Do you know what the Dilgar did, Commodore?" Hirata directed at Commodore Masaki, while ignoring Hak'ey and stressing 'Commodore'.
Commodore Masaki gave Hirata a level glance.
"I am very well aware of what happened during the Dilgar War, Commander," he answered in an also level tone of voice.
It only enraged Hirata more.
"The Dilgar have killed billions of people during that War. And they were using Chemical and Bioligical weapons."
Hak'ey could hear the capital letters in chemical and biological. A memory from his studies of the Jurian warfare surfaced.
"Not the Dilgar killed billions of people, Commander Hirata," he said." War Leader Jha'dur killed billions of people."
Hirata seemed put of as Hak'ey spoke up and didn't react.
"Of cause she wasn't the only one to do just that," he continued, keeping quite enough to only be heard by Masaki and the Jurians." One Thousand three hundred fourty nine years ago. The 7th Jurian Armada under command of Lady Seto Jurai, completely glassed the planet Kontari Prime, home of a Quantum 0 civilization. 7th Armada did that because the Kontari were pressed by Quantum 2 pirates to not reveal their position. Of cause the Kontari didn't know very much about the Jurians having been Level 0 for just twenty years and thought that 7th Armada was only 'exaggerate' about what would happen, fearing the Pirates more than 7th Armada. The result was that Kontari Prime was rendered inhabitable, killing about two billion people who simply didn't know who they were up against, destroyed by a woman who has, according to many sources, a very powerful psychosis when it comes to her hatred for pirates and sadly the political power to act on said psychosis."
While he had spoken he had avoided to look directly at Lady Seto, looking at Hirata, who had paled while he had spoken. But from the corner of his eyes he saw that Lady Seto's face didn't change.
"I don't try to defend Jhe'dur, she can rot in hell for all I care. But she isn't the only one to kill billions."
He suddenly heard a voice that sounded strangely like his own.
"But not goof for goof..."
"Oh mind your own kipper Pierce. Sir, I was only trying to..."
On the display he could see a scene with a human who looked also very similar to him.
At that moment he could only think that the response the man on the screen had gotten was pretty accurate to what he had just pulled.