Disclaimer: Characters and concepts from "Tenchi Muyo!" were created by Kajishima Masaki and Hitoshi Okuda, and are Copyright AIC and Pioneer LDC. This work is a parody and not to be used for any commercial purposes.
Tree and Infancy, Chapter 6
"Okay, we're approaching the asteroid belt." Mihoshi announced. "I'm throttling back for a quiet approach."
Sasami leaned forward in her chair. Just to make sure, she touched the ribbon that ran around the back of her head and secured Ayeka's tiara. "I'm trying to zoom in near their last known coordinates." Sasami worked the controls for the holo-screen as she had been hastily instructed by Mihoshi. After a few anxious moments, a fuzzy blip showed up on her screen. "Aha! There's an energy reading from a power-plant on standby."
"Good work!" Mihoshi lightly nudged the steering control, and brought their course on track for the unknown vessel.
"Miss Mihoshi?" The part of Yukinojo that looked like a metal face came forward on the extending arm. "Shouldn't we let the others on Ryo-Ohki know?"
"Oh, they'll follow us." Mihoshi said without a hint of concern. "I don't want to alert the other ship with a transmission."
"Too late--they've seen us!" Sasami announced as the blip on the holo-screen began to move.
"Yukinojo, transmit this!" Mihoshi cleared her throat. "Attention, unidentified vessel: this is Detective First Class Kuramitsu of the Galaxy Police. You are not authorized to be in this area. Come to a full stop and prepare to be inspected."
There was a pause, and then the overhead speaker crackled to life. "Galaxy Police, this matter does not concern you. You are advised for your own safety to leave the area."
"The nerve!" Mihoshi said out loud. "I am the officer assigned to patrol this sector," she announced into the communications channel, "you are going to be inspected!"
A yellow beam shot out from the other ship, narrowly missing Yukinojo. Mihoshi hit the throttle and went into evasive maneuvers.
"I don't think they want to be inspected!" said Sasami as she was pushed back into her seat.
"Attention hostile vessel! Firing on the Galaxy Police is a serious offense," shouted Mihoshi, "and if you hit my ship, you'll really be in trouble! "
"THEY'LL be in trouble??" Sasami exclaimed. Between the fright of her first time under fire, and nausea from Mihoshi's maneuvers, she decided that combat wasn't nearly as much fun as Ryoko made it seem.
Another holo-screen popped up, displaying Washu's face. "Mihoshi! I've determined what that thing is on the underside of their ship. It's a plasma cannon, powerful enough that they have to fix it in place and aim it by rotating the entire ship! Whatever you do, don't get directly in front of them!"
At this point, communications got complicated. Washu reconstructed the recordings later, deleting the expletives, which was quite a job since every third word or so had been an obscenity or blasphemy. While Sasami expressed her dismay over the plasma cannon, the voice on the enemy ship demanded to know who was spilling their secrets. A second voice interrupted, saying excitedly that he had spotted the vicious pirate ship Ryo-Ohki. The first voice directed the second not to alarm the rest of the crew and to have his obviously defective eyesight checked, since Ryo-Ohki had been destroyed on a raid of Jurai seven centuries before. Ryoko then spoke up, declaring that statement to be a baseless rumor. However, she received no notice from the other ship, where the second voice was insisting that Ryo-Ohki was indeed present as shown by the eye-catching but tasteless projections from the diagrams in "Ohrmudd's Compendium of Fighting Spaceships". This opinion brought an indignant howl from Ryo-Ohki herself. The first man then made a potentially painful suggestion as to what the second man could do with his copy of "Ohrmudd's Compendium of Fighting Spaceships".
At the same time, Washu stated that Ryo-Ohki was an elegantly designed spaceship, and that the men of the other ship wouldn't know good taste if it bit them on their collective posterior, which Ryo-Ohki was capable of doing. Mihoshi strongly seconded Washu's opinion, adding that these were the rudest space pirates she had ever encountered. The first man had then informed Mihoshi that she was in error, they were smugglers who provided what other people wanted rather than pirates who stole what didn't belong to them. While the second smuggler was questioning the wisdom of providing this information to the Galaxy Police, Ryoko vehemently countered that space pirates were open and honest about what they did, while smugglers sneaked around, and made an unflattering comparison to rodents. This time she was heard, and the second smuggler, with a remarkable mix of satisfaction and panic, announced that they were indeed facing the merciless Ryo-Ohki and the rapacious demoness Ryoko. This brought growls of rage from both those individuals. The first smuggler instructed him to be silent, declaring that no seven-century old relics or bumbling policewoman was going to catch them. Mihoshi forcefully disagreed, saying that she was in fact going to arrest them, so there. Ryoko gave her own take, which was that strictly speaking Mihoshi would not arrest them, because she, Ryoko, intended to blow them out of existence.
By this time primary weapons were being powered up on all sides, and Tenchi made an impassioned appeal for calm to be restored, and for that part of the Solar System not to be turned into Armageddon. He was promptly shouted down by everyone within reception range except Sasami, with several promises that their opponents would, by various deities, get what was coming to them.
Ryo-Ohki fired first, with a low-powered but rapid salvo of beams to get the range. All of them were deflected by the smuggler's force-shield. The other ship answered with two of the yellow beams it had used against Mihoshi's shuttle, but Ryo-Ohki evaded smartly. The enemy ship turned in pursuit of Ryo-Ohki, obviously trying to get the plasma cannon to bear. Aware of this, Ryoko veered Ryo-Ohki behind an asteroid. The plasma cannon fired anyway, with a thunderous burst of static on everyone's intercoms. There was a brilliant flash, and the entire asteroid was blown to fragments. Several of the pieces struck Ryo-Ohki, sending the cabbit-ship into a spin.
Tenchi was sent flying across the bridge. Ryoko teleported, catching him in mid-air. "I've saved you, Tenchi! Don't I deserve a--" But just at that moment, her head hit one of the red floating crystals. Her voice changed in an instant from romantic to sulphurous as she yelled out profanities.
"Serves you right for not focusing on the combat," Washu announced. "Come on, Ryo-Ohki, we can't let Mihoshi do the fighting alone." Her fingers jabbed at the controls, and the view-screen showed their course straightening out.
In the meantime, Mihoshi's shuttle had started its own salvo of energy beams. Sasami groaned in disappointment as the smugglers' shields held. The other ship answered with its secondary weapons, and Mihoshi was hard put to keep evading. Luckily, the smugglers couldn't turn fast enough to lock the plasma cannon on to the shuttle.
Washu glanced at a secondary display. "Thirty-four percent power on the primary, Ryo-Ohki. That should disable their shield."
"You're just going to take down their shield??" demanded Ryoko. "We should blow them to molecules!"
"No, we can't!" Tenchi protested. "They're still--well, people, whatever planet they're from."
"They're trying to blast us, aren't they?" Ryoko argued.
"But we don't know what they're smuggling yet," Washu pointed out. "It might be valuable, after all."
"Thirty-four percent power, Ryo-Ohki!" Ryoko said. "Fire!"
A searing flare of red came from the point on Ryo-Ohki's underside. It went unerringly towards the enemy vessel. There was a moment when the shield glowed brightly, then a shower of sparks.
"It's down!" Ryoko shouted, as a meter on Ryo-Ohki's display panel dropped to zero.
"Okay!" rapped out Washu. "I'll pilot Ryo-Ohki on a close pass to that ship. Ryoko, you teleport outside and take care of the plasma cannon while we dodge away. Then we'll circle back and Tenchi and you can both get inside."
"Gotcha!" said Ryoko. She flew over to the side of the bridge. Reaching up to her ear, she plucked her copy gem from its earring and placed it in her right wrist. "Ready!" she announced.
"Full maneuvering power, Ryo-Ohki." Washu sat down at the controls. "Brace yourself, Tenchi! Here we . . . uhhh, never mind."
All three stared at the view-screen, where Mihoshi's shuttle was now sticking out of the underside of the smuggler's ship. The shuttle's nose had smashed squarely into the plasma cannon.
"Damn!" Ryoko clenched her fist. "I was supposed to wreck that thing!"
"Arrrghh!" Washu pulled her hair in frustration. "Why doesn't any plan ever work out when Mihoshi's involved?"
"Umm . . . isn't destroying the plasma cannon a good thing?" Tenchi said.
"Well, technically, I guess so," Washu still sounded displeased.
"But now Mihoshi will go on board that ship and try to arrest the entire crew." Ryoko pointed out.
"You're right!" Tenchi turned, suddenly impatient. "Washu, hurry and get us there! We have to help Mihoshi!"
On board the GP shuttle, Mihoshi was indeed eager to do her duty. "Hey! Even better than the landing on Dr. Clay's ship! Don't you think so?"
"Alive . . . we're alive . . " Sasami moaned.
"Ooooh . . . every inductor I have hurts." Yukinojo complained.
"Come on, you guys," Mihoshi had changed into her skin-tight combat outfit, "we have smugglers to catch!"
Sasami shook her head, partly to decline Mihoshi's invitation, and partly to clear it. "I promised Ayeka I wouldn't go on the other ship until Tenchi said so."
"I'm kind of stuck here too, remember?" Yukinojo reminded the GP detective.
"Oh, yeah." Mihoshi paused for a moment, then picked up her blaster rifle with a determined air. "Yukinojo, find a hatch and extend the boarding tube. Sasami, you're in charge of the shuttle until I return."
"I really think you should wait for--" Sasami began, but Mihoshi had left the bridge before she could complete her thought. A few moments later, a holo-screen popped up with Washu's face in the center.
"Sasami! Has Mihoshi already boarded the smuggler ship?" Washu asked.
"She's just going on board now," Sasami answered.
"I thought so. We're going to make a pass so Tenchi and Ryoko can join her. Keep this channel open, and get ready to move the shuttle away if you need to, but right now I think you're screened from the smuggler's secondaries."
"Right." Sasami turned towards Yukinojo. "Give me a view of Ryo-Ohki!"
Yet another holo-screen opened, showing a segment of space with the oncoming cabbit-battleship. Ryo-Ohki zoomed past, the beams from the smuggler ship reaching out but not hitting her. A crystal like a tear-drop fell from Ryo-Ohki's side and stuck into the enemy ship's hull about a hundred meters away from the shuttle.
Inside the crystal, Ryoko exclaimed "Perfect landing!"
"Yes, but how do we get inside from here?" asked Tenchi.
"Take my hand," Ryoko said in her best throaty seductive voice, "and leave the rest to me."
Nervously, Tenchi did as he was instructed. Ryoko phased them both through the walls of the crystal, and through the hull of the enemy ship. Touching down on the floor of a corridor, she turned to him with a wink, and inquired, "How's that?"
"I'm impressed, Ryoko." He said sincerely. "I'd forgotten you could do that with others."
"It's easier to phase living matter." Ryoko explained. "I guess because it's already in flux. But I'm afraid I don't have any tricks for finding where Mihoshi's gotten to."
From a bend around the corner came a thump, and then the noise of several metal containers falling in a heap. "Oopsie." Came Mihoshi's voce.
"There she is!" Tenchi dashed forward. "Mihoshi! It's me and Ryoko! Have you found any of the smugglers yet?"
"Hi, Tenchi!" Mihoshi smiled as Tenchi and Ryoko came around the corner. "No, so far I've just found cargo compartments full of containers like these." She pointed to the heap of containers next to her.
"What's in them?" Ryoko asked.
"I don't know. They're sealed shut." Mihoshi replied.
"Easy enough to find out." Ryoko phased an arm into the closest container. "Ahh--blaster pistols! These guys must be arms smugglers." She thought for a moment. "That means they've probably got the latest blasters for their own personal weapons, so watch yourselves. The bridge is probably in the center of the ship. Let's keep going this way."
Tenchi was reminded of the time aboard Dr. Clay's ship as the three ran down the corridor, looking for the way to the ship's bridge. This time, however, there was little choice. The corridor ended in a large door.
Ryoko needed only a glance at the locking mechanism to figure it out. "Here we go." She said, and threw the door open. Beyond was a large cargo storage area, with stacks of containers either strapped to the floor or on shelves. But far more importantly, the chamber was also occupied by at least two dozen hover-robots, with their blasters pointing at the doorway. "Ambush!" Ryoko shouted, and dived to cover Tenchi.
The robots opened fire, and a barrage of energy-bolts came at the trio. Most of them passed over Ryoko and Tenchi, who were ducking even as the robots had started shooting. But it was nearly inevitable that one shot would find a mark, and it did. Ryoko gave a cry as her right hand was blown off.
"Ryoko!!" Tenchi yelled, and light glowed on his forehead.
Mihoshi stumbled backward, trying to evade, and her blaster-rifle went off as she fell over. Somehow, the shot hit a barrel which burst in a cloud of smoke, blinding most of the robots. Ryoko scrabbled around on the floor with her left hand, found the copy gem, and tossed it through the doorway into the cargo chamber. The Light Hawk wings flared into existence, and the next moment the gem exploded, taking three robots with it. But it was clear that they had only won a few moments' grace.
"Can you move, Ryoko?" Tenchi asked anxiously.
"Yes!" Ryoko's face had lost none of its determination. "Time for a temporary retreat."
The three picked themselves up with remarkable speed, and began running back down the corridor. Tenchi took the rear to cover the two women with his shield. They reached a corner, and dashed around it. Mihoshi took up a position to cover the corridor behind them with her blaster rifle, while Ryoko busied herself regenerating her hand.
Several robots appeared out of the smoke, and Mihoshi picked off two of them before the rest retreated. "Whew!" said Tenchi. "We were in real trouble for a moment—"
The ship seemed to give a lurch, and then Tenchi and Mihoshi found themselves floating in mid-air. "I think we still are!" Mihoshi yelled.
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"Sasami!" Washu spoke urgently from the holo-screen. "We've got trouble! Ryoko's been wounded, and they're turning off the artificial gravity so Tenchi and Mihoshi can't fight as well. I need you to fire your main propulsion to accelerate the smuggler's ship, and create gravity on board. Then I'll try to get in there and hack into their defensive systems."
"Okay!" Sasami quickly sat down at the controls. "Yukinojo, make sure the main engines are at full power!" The whine of the shuttle's powerplant started to build. Gingerly at first, Sasami pushed the throttle forward. The shuttle and the smuggler's ship began to move, but there was a shuddering sound as the shuttle started to tip.
"Princess, we're not centered!" Yukinojo called. "Can you use the maneuvering thrusters?"
"I think so!" Sasami answered. She grabbed the joystick she had seen Mihoshi use with her free hand. After a few anxious moments, her mastery of video games came to the rescue, and she had the shuttle back into alignment. She advanced the main throttle more confidently, and was rewarded with acceleration that pushed her against the back of her seat. "Good luck, brother Tenchi." She said aloud.
( To Be Continued . . . )