Foreword:
It's been awhile, and I'm sorry I kept you waiting. Things got hectic all of a sudden with a new baby on the way, and for awhile I lost my mojo. But here's chapter 4 and I'm working on chapter 5 as we speak.
Now some people have commented on my trying to interject some military realism into this fic. For those who may not be so inclined, I'm trying a little something different with this chapter. After certain words you'll see a number. Those are endnotes. At the end of this fic, there are explanations for the terms or just background information that a reader might like to know about.
By the way, Nadesico is not mine.
Oysters and Pearls
Chapter 4
Everybody's Talk'n
A normal "stand-up" usually lasts an hour, but given the situation, Jun allotted some extra time for the daily afternoon meeting of his commanders and department heads. Taking his seat at the head of the conference table, the young captain didn't waste time.
He gave a nod to Ruri. "Ship's Ops."
"Omoikane checks out," the girl replied semi-deadpan. "The distortion field is at ninety-three percent and holding steady."
Jun jotted down some notes. "Helm."
"Navigation computers are back online, and we have determined that this is, in fact, Epsilon Eridani," Chase told him. "We're waiting to get some more information about the location of planets, asteroids and such from the science geeks before we start thinking about setting a course."
"Emergency egress?" Jun asked him.
"Ruri thinks the distortion field will protect us from solar radiation long enough for us to slip between the two suns," Chase told him warily. "It's risky, but if we have to retreat pretty quick, that'll lose 'em."
Jun nodded again. "Comm?"
"Intership and short range communication checks out fine," Megumi told him from his left. "The translight transmitter, however, is fried. And I have no idea how to repair it."
The captain frowned as he wrote. "Engineering?"
"Propulsion is online, Sir," Hideki told him. "Full navigation in all flight modes."
Jun nodded. "Flight Ops?"
Ryoko stood up and read off a notepad. "We're at ninety percent, and all squadrons are prepared to deploy. Since the scanners are back online, I've recalled the SWACS(1), but I've got the RJ(2) flying in a wide pattern with its ears open." She looked up briefly. "Scorch and Nuts(3) are on Alert Five. Flight deck reports fully functional."
She sat down as Jun wrote in his notebook. "Services?"
The commander of his Services Squadron looked up wearing an expression of a man who wished he didn't have to say what he had to say. "Chow hall is good to go, food checks out, but..." he paused. "The holographic interaction unit is fried out, and there are no replacements onboard."
More than one person grimaced. The HIU was an integral part of the ship's morale, welfare and recreation system. It was a hurtful blow.
Jun, however, really had more important things to worry about just this second. "Okay, we'll take a look at our options for that at the next stand-up. Sciences?"
Aurora stood up, cleared her throat and set up some graphs. "From what we can gather, there are two planets within a week's travel from here. One toward the suns and one further away. Both appear capable of supporting life."
"Any idea which species can be found on either planet?" Jun asked.
"Not from the scanners," Aurora said. "However..."
"Go on," Jun gestured.
"Well, I can make a leap of faith in one direction or the other," she went on. "For instance, what we've learned from an examination of our guests, it's reasonable to assume that the child comes from a warmer planet than the other...er...alien, given the lack of fur."
Jun arched an eyebrow. "Chase?"
The helmsman flipped a coin and caught it, slapping it on the back of his other hand. "Inward, Sir."
"Good enough for me," the captain agreed. "Mister Warren, make our course for the inward planet, all ahead one half."
The musician left his seat. "Aye aye, Sir."
"Any seconds?" he asked the remaining officers. The security forces commander raised his hand. With a nod from Jun, he stood up.
"Sir, my men have searched the ship for Dr. Franssenge three times. She's not onboard. I'd like to return them to their normal duties."
The captain sighed. As much as he hated to say it, the commander was right. He nodded again. "Go ahead. Anyone else? All right, everyone, back to work."
Ruri accepted the plate of cookies from Houmei and arched an eyebrow at the sheer magnitude of confection on the plate. There were probably fifty cookies stacked like an Incan ziggurat precariously on the aluminum disc.
"There's only going to be two of us," Ruri pointed out.
"It might take awhile," Houmei said with a wink.
The girl sighed and started toward the door. "Baka," she whispered. She balanced the desserts carefully as she walked down the corridor to the lift. Waiting while the elevator took her to sickbay, she tried to figure out why the Kanchou had asked her to do this.
"You look to be about the same age," Jun had told her. "You might be able to get her to talk to you."
She didn't buy it and told him as much.
"Just smile," he said. "It's universal."
"Baka," she whispered again. But she'd do it for Jun. She felt he'd earned the benefit of the doubt after all these years, though some would disagree. When he had first taken command of the Nadesico after Yurika Misumaru's disappearance, there was a lot of doubt and rumor-mongering going on aboard the ship. First, Jun had disappeared for more than a year, and while most of the old Nadesico crew knew why, it was something they all swore not to discuss. Then, Yurika disappeared and Jun came back. Conspiracy theories went wild.
But after a few months and several engagements, the crew accepted Jun as Kanchou. While he didn't possess the tactical and strategic genius that contributed to Yurika's reputation, neither did he possess the eccentricities that were her hallmark. He was solid, a calming presence on the bridge, and more capable, she thought, than the majority of the UE commanders who had somehow earned commissions during the Jovian War.(4)
She entered sickbay and walked straight to the back room where the alien child was resting. Upon seeing Ruri walking toward her, the child sat up from the bed in fear.
Ruri bit her lip and smiled broadly. It made her face hurt.
The alien inched further away.
Ruri dropped the smile and sighed. "My name is Ruri Hoshino," she said, repeating verbatim the greeting she'd been taught since her first day of the massive computer simulation she had called her childhood. "It's nice to meet you."
The girl said nothing.
Ruri pointed at herself. "Ruri," she said. "Ruri." She pointed at the girl expectedly.
The alien paused, then opened her mouth and emitted a musical sound like that of a flute being played.
"I don't think I can pronounce that," Ruri told her simply. She decided to just go with the first notes the girl gave her. She pointed at the alien. "Wei-Hu," she said, trying her best to simulate the sound.
The alien said nothing.
"Omoikane is listening to us," Ruri explained, deciding it might be better to get to the point. "He has to hear you speak so he can learn your language. After he's done that, we can use the translators Miss Dayne brought from Earth to talk to each other."
The alien, again, said nothing.
Ruri sighed and lifted the plate. "Cookie?"
Genechiro turned the corner and stopped at the entrance to the brig. The SFS guard came to attention and unlocked it for him before stepping aside to let him pass. The Jovian commander walked in. There were five cells on each side of him with steel bars reinforced with tungsten keeping the riff-raff in.
The wolf creature saw him enter from his seat in the far right cell and stood up. Genechiro put his hands on his hips and gave the creature a glare.
"I have questions for you," the XO told it. "You're going to answer them or I'm going to make your stay with us very unpleasant." He waited for the creature to speak.
It chose not to.
"You're going to help us learn your language," Genechiro told it. He held up one of the translators.
The creature growled at him.
"I'm going to guess that's the word for 'no,'" the XO replied. He stepped forward until his face was only inches from the bars. "We have time. All the time in the..."
Suddenly, the creature reached through the bars and grabbed the Jovian's head! He pulled sharply, slamming Genechiro's head into the tungsten bars, knocking him cold.
The creature followed the XO's limp form to the floor and reached out again, grabbing the man's key-card. A quick swipe and the creature was free.
Another second and he was past the guard.
A few seconds later, he was on his way to the bridge...
The lift opened, and Jun turned, surprised to see Ruri back so soon.
"Back so soon?" he asked.
"She said a few words," Ruri told him nonchalantly. "I think she's scared."
"Wouldn't you be?" Megumi asked as the 13-year-old took her seat next to her. "Shot at, picked up by aliens from god-knows-where..."
"Yeah," Chase threw in. "Ain't it cool?" He grinned.
"How warped are you?" Megumi asked him, shaking her head.
"Warped enough to sign up for this," he replied with a shrug. Seeing the commo unmoved, he threw his hands in the air. "Relax!" he cried. "The girl's safe, the monster's in the brig, and we're up here styl'n! Everything is COOL!"
The lift doors suddenly burst open, and an eight foot werewolf stepped through.
Chase shot Megumi a look. "Oh, don't even start..."
The creature howled and leapt toward Jun.
"JUN!" Megumi screamed. At the exact same time, Ruri was calling Security Forces.
The werewolf landed a foot from Jun and growled.
Chase broke the glass container on a nearby fire extinguisher and shouted. "Be submissive, Sir! Look at the floor! Avert your gaze!"
"It's not a gorilla, you idiot!" Megumi screamed at him hysterically. "DO SOMETHING!"
Jun looked the creature in the eye. He'd been faced with worse. The werewolf stared at him, blue eyes piercing the short distance between them.
In that moment, Jun saw something.
Desperation.
The emergency lift behind him opened, and two SF's stepped out, submachine guns at the ready.
The creature howled.
"STOP!" Jun shouted at them. "HOLD YOUR FIRE!" He turned to them, breaking his gaze with the werewolf. As he did, the creature raised its claws to strike.
"JUN!"
At that moment, inspiration struck Ruri, and her fingers danced over the ops panel. Suddenly, the werewolf's hands went to its ears, and it screamed.
Jun turned back in time to see the wolf creature fall to its knees. The SF's were no slouches. They jumped on the monster and shoved its oversized wrists into a pair of cuffs. Once he was secure, Ruri typed something into Omoikane. The creature calmed down.
"Ruri chan," Megumi began breathlessly. "What did you do?"
"The alien is of a canine variety, just like Ms. Dayne said," Ruri replied. "I just had Omoikane pump in the ship's whistle at an ultra-high frequency."
"A dog whistle," Jun said. "Nice."
The SF's took the creature away, Jun following it with his gaze.
"Jun chan?" Megumi whispered. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," he said off-handedly. "Ruri, I want you to keep trying with the alien girl. I need more information about them."
Ruri nodded and left for the elevator.
Jun's gaze caught Chase's. "'Be submissive?'" he asked.
The helmsman shrugged. "Works on the Discovery Channel."
Jun smiled, but it disappeared a moment later. "Megumi," he began. "Please ask Izumi to come to the bridge."
By the time Izumi arrived on the bridge, Jun had already been called back down to the flight deck where she had just been ten minutes ago. She sighed and stepped back into the lift. Lighting a cigarette, she waited for the lift to shuttle her back down.
She wasn't in her flight suit today. As part of her punishment for going off-mission, Ryoko had scheduled her for extra landing officer duty, so she was dressed in white from head to toe to separate her from other duties on the flight deck.(5)
The lift came to a stop and she got out, pausing only long enough to put out her cigarette. She asked the Deck Officer where the Kanchou was, and he directed her to a maintenance bay on the far side of the flight deck.
The maintenance bay was scattered with wreckage, but not from an Aesti or a Gekigangar. She recognize the material immediately. Hideki was talking with Jun, hoisting a large canister as if in evidence.
"Loaded with oxygen cans, Sir," Hideki was telling him. "I count seventeen so far."
"You're saying this was a short range fighter that was modified?" Jun asked.
Hideki nodded. "Yes, Sir."
Jun's finger went to his chin in thought.
"Something else, Sir," Hideki broke into his reverie. "Out of these seventeen canisters, only one of them had any oxygen left."
The Kanchou took a breath. "You thinking what I'm thinking?" he asked.
Hideki nodded. "This guy wasn't planning on coming back," he said simply. "It looks like he spent two weeks getting from whereever he came from to that spot, and that was going to be it."
Jun slapped Hideki gently on the back. "Good work, Hideki. Continue analyzing the alien's spacecraft."
"Yes, Sir."
He turned to Izumi. "You got a few minutes?"
"I'm not an interrogator, Jun," Izumi told him plainly as she lit another cigarette. "Get the SF guys to do it."
The two of them were sitting in the pilots' briefing room. Izumi stood off to the side while Jun sat in one of the pilots' chairs.
"Quite frankly," she started again. "I didn't think you'd let Tsukuomi do it, given how you feel about Jovian methods and all," she told him carefully.
Jun simply nodded. "He's the XO," he explained. "It was his job to perform. But now it's time to try something different."
"So why me?"
"Because the two of you have more in common than anyone else here," he explained. "You're both pilots. You were both out there, in that battle."
Izumi said nothing, waiting for something more concrete.
"Right now, he's alone," Jun told her softly. "That's a bad place to be. He needs someone who can connect with him on some level. I think it's you."
Before he could continue, Megumi's face appeared between them. "Kanchou, sensors report one heavy directly ahead and ten degrees above the ecliptic."(6)
Jun nodded. "Go to condition two(7) and have Chase set an intercept cour..."
Megumi turned her head, and Jun could just make out Ruri's voice from the other end. His wife turned back to him. "Kanchou, sensors report the ship has already changed course to intercept US! Time to intercept..." She turned back to Ruri, then back to him. "Four and a half hours."
"I'll be right up," he told her. Megumi's face disappeared. He looked at Izumi. "I need information, Colonel," he said. "I need it in four and a half hours."
With only four hours until the Nadesico would meet an alien capital ship face to face for the first time, the ship was a beehive of activity. Aurora, who had spent the majority of her young life in the campuses of Todai, UCLA and Columbia, was unused to the orderly confusion aboard a battleship before a POSSIBLE battle. No one knew what was going on or why, yet everyone knew what THEY were supposed to do and how.
It was in the middle of this thought, as she walked down the corridor, that Ryoko interrupted her.
"Oh, Colonel, I'm sorry! I..."
Ryoko didn't even bother to acknowledge her. She simply took the woman's hand and started down the corridor. "Come with me," she said simply. "You're on in five minutes."
"On?" Aurora asked. "On what?"
"If the target becomes hostile," Ryoko continued from her lecturn. "Wing support from Nadesico may be critical." Behind her, a smartboard showed a wire representation of Nadesico and possible representations of ships from both alien species encountered so far. Before her, all pilots on board the Nadesico except one were sitting in their chairs, looking back at her.
"Now, for a capabilities brief, Ms. Aurora Dayne, our acting science officer. She's a civilian GS-11, so you will treat her with the same respects as you would a major. Ms. Dayne."
Aurora stood in front of the smartboard, eyes wide in nervous fear. She leaned over the microphone. "Uh...hi," she said. A squeal of feedback filled the room.
Someone coughed in the back of the room.
"Well... um," she began. "We... we really don't know anything useful at the moment." She took a deep breath.
Inez, she thought. How would Inez do this?
Inez would own the room, she concluded. She could admit to knowing nothing and everything at the same time.
Aurora straightened. "But given what we've seen so far, we can make some educated guesses," she began again with more force.
Yeah, I can do this, she thought.
Izumi entered the brig and immediately addressed the two SF troops on guard. "Go get some chow," she said simply. The two men looked to each other for a second, then walked out.
The wolf creature looked up at her defiantly, a half-snarl on his face.
She regarded him for another second and pointed at herself. "Maki," she told him simply and pointed at him.
The creature said nothing.
She took another second, then pointed at him again. This time, she spread her hand out, with her pinky and her thumb stretched out like an airplane. "Shoooooooooo," she said, moving the hand around.
The creature looked at her with a little more interest.
With her other hand, Izumi used two fingers to represent legs and her thumb and pinkey to represent arms. "Cheeeeuuuuuuu," she noised, then pointed at herself.
She then brough the two up together, the human figure behind the airplane.
"RATATATATATA!" she said. She spread the fingers of the airplane hand wide and followed up with, "BOOM!"
Recognition dawned on the werewolf's face. He pointed at her. "Krofarim," he said simply.
She pointed at herself again. "Pilot," she said. "Maki." She pointed at him. "Pilot..."
He raised a paw and pointed at himself. "Barkkrarak."
"Target coming within range of short-range sensors now, Kanchou," Ruri calmly informed him, her eyes never leaving her panel.
"Let's see it," he ordered.
The viewscreen shifted, showing something both beautiful and awe-inspiring. It was simple in design, yet beautiful. It looked like the marquis-cut diamond in Megumi's wedding ring, only pink and millions times the size. Smaller crystals floated around it.
Before he could ask, Ruri had the answer. "Confirming several smaller craft in position around the larger one," she said. "Escort fighters by Omoikane's guess."
"Any energy readings that would suggest weaponry arming up?" he asked.
Ruri shook her head. "But it's very hard to tell. Their energy signature is very different from ours. I'm also not detecting anything like a distortion field or Jovian force field."
"What does it say about a species that doesn't think it needs a force field?" Megumi asked hopefully.
"I wouldn't let your guard down," Aurora cautioned. "It's possible they just don't need one." She shook her head as she looked at the readings on the science monitor. "The crystal lattice structure of that ship is very strong."
"Meg chan, start scanning for frequencies with chatter on it," Jun ordered. "See if you can find a medium we can communicate on."
Megumi nodded and started scanning.
"Ruri, go down to sickbay and bring our guest up."
Without a word, the silver-haired girl started toward the lift.
"Jun, I think I have something," Megumi told him.
"Can you patch me in?"
She nodded. "You're on."
"Unknown spacecraft," Jun began, silently wishing there was a more polite way of phrasing it. "My name is Captain Jun Aoi, representing the United Earth Government and the Jovian Union." He shook his head ruefully and went ahead and said it. "We come in peace."
From the cockpit of her Aestavalis, Ryoko listened to the bridge communicator and flexed her fingers. Directly in front of her, cold space waited for her, for something to go wrong and for her and three other Aestis to leap off the flight deck before the distortion field went up.
Ringed around the flight deck, Rikari's entire Gekigangar squadron was waiting to Boson jump outside the ship and surprise the aliens. If they were hostile, they'd get the shock of their lives.
She guaranteed that.
For an agonizing minute, nothing but static answered them. Then, without warning, the static stopped. For one more breathless second there was nothing, and then...
A flute, or a clarinet, came over the comm. The song was quick and agitated. Remembering Ruri's report, Jun realized someone was talking to them. He turned quickly to Megumi.
"Is the translator getting all this!"
She nodded. "It's recording now."
There was static on the viewscreen, and then a pink-haired man appeared. His mouth moved and more of the musical notes came through.
"We don't know your language," Jun explained. "But our translator matrix can put it together the more we communicate."
At that moment, Ruri appeared with the alien child in tow.
The change in the alien man was immediate. His face turned deep red and the tone of his speech deepened by several octaves.
"Ah, shit, this just went bad!" Chase hissed.
Jun put his hands up to try to calm the captain. That's when the child began to speak urgently. She pointed at the humans several times.
"She's diming us out," Chase whispered.
Slowly, the man's face softened and returned to its normal color. When he spoke again, it was softly. He bowed his head to Jun.
"Is that 'thank you?'" Megumi asked.
"Let's find out," Jun replied. He gestured to the man. "You are welcome to come aboard and get Wei Hu," he said, gesturing to the child in turn. The man looked puzzled. Jun thought for a moment, then pointed at the man. He raised his palm and scrunched his fingertips together until his hand was as close to a diamond shape as he could make it. Then, making the same whooshing sound Izumi had earlier, he moved the hand until it rested on Chase's control panel.
The man got it. Jun could see realization on his face. He bowed to Jun and made another musical noise. Then the screen went black.
"Guess who's coming to dinner," Ruri noted.
"Have Ryoko clear the flight deck," Jun ordered, relieved. "Leave the flight bay doors open and have an experienced flight officer guide them in manually." He looked to Megumi. "Meg chan, send them copies of our language database. We can make much of their language, maybe they can do something with ours."
Megumi nodded.
Jun turned to Wei Hu and bowed. "Thank you," he said.
The girl curtsied.
For the first time in days, things were looking up.
End Notes
1. Spaceborne Warning And Control Ship
2. The Rivet Jack in this story is based on the modern day RC-135 Rivet Joint based at Offutt AFB, Neb. Rivet Joint crews are probably some of the ballsiest people serving in the Air Force as their aircraft are slow, unarmed and 40 years old. Many reconnaissance crews in the RJ's predecessors, the RB-47 and RB-29 were shot down by Russian fighters while flying reconnaissance missions near Soviet airspace making them some of the very few DIRECT Cold War casualties.
3. "Scorch" and "Nuts" are the callsigns of modern day Air Force fighter pilots. Scorch is the callsign of the commander of the first operational F-22A squadron.
4. Due to numerous losses and high attrition towards the end of the Jovian War, most UE warship commanders had less than 7 years in the service.
5. Deck crew on aircraft carriers wear different colors depending on their duties. Izumi is working as a landing officer, a collateral duty that all pilots, including the CAG, must conduct.
6. The ecliptic is a plane in space that bisects both the earth and the sun, thus allowing a fixed reference for altitude. In this case, the ecliptic is based on the plane directly bisecting the two suns.
7. Conditions aboard a warship determine readiness. Condition 3 is normal cruising, Condition 2 is when half the ship's weaponry is armed, and Condition 1 is full battlestations.