Disclaimer: Nadesico is not mine. "Uncle John's Band" is the property of Jimmy Buffett.
Oysters and Pearls:
Chapter 7
Quietly Making Noise
"'Ask me again tomorrow,'" Ryoko quoted almost snidely. "That was three days ago."
Hideki smiled, nearly giddy with self-congratulation as he waved the wing commander into a seat in the hangar bay's maintenance lock. "To be fair, there were some ... personnel issues ... that I had to deal with and perhaps you can help me with that once this demonstration is over."
Jun took his own seat next to Genechiro and waited patiently. "You must be onto something really impressive if you're pulling out all the stops."
The engineer rushed to a control panel as three maintainers wheeled in a section of what appeared to be a Caregiver fighter. The edges of the crystal were blackened from the extreme heat of the explosion that tore it apart, but the rest looked perfect without even a scratch to hint at wear and tear.
The maintainers wheeled in a second piece of fighter, and from the other end of the bay a ground-attack Aestivalis sporting a 20 millimeter heavy sniper rifle walked in.
"Lieutenant McKernan volunteered to help with this demo," Hideki said, gesturing to the green and brown mottled Aesti. McKernan's callsign was "Dimes," earned in basic when he bet his drill instructor he could shoot the head out of a dime at fifty meters. The drill sergeant took him up on it. McKernan only smiled, lifted the assault rifle they were training with and shot Ronald Reagan right out of the coin.
Twice.
Hideki tapped a few keys on the control pad, and a miniature distortion field appeared in front of them, separating the commanders from the Aesti and the fighters. The engineer strolled back to them, taking something out of his pocket and handing it to Jun.
"His first shot will be with the standard-issue, twenty-millimeter armor piercing round," he said, offering the bullet to Jun. The captain hefted the hunk of metal appreciatively. The pointed end of that round could smash through three feet of steel.
Dimes chambered a round and lifted the rifle. Ryoko was the only one with enough sense to put her fingers in her ears. The rifle roared, and the bullet struck the fighter dead on, ricocheting off and bouncing around the maintenance bay twice before embedding itself in the hull.
"As you can see, only a small chip was made in the fighter," Hideki said.
"We know this already," Genechiro bit out. "Do you have a solution or not?"
The engineer, however, would not be denied his show. "Now," he said grandly. "Lieutenant McKernan will switch to our NEW ammo."
The Aesti switched magazines and chambered a new round. He aimed at the second Caregiver fighter and fired.
The crystal shattered on impact.
Ryoko blinked. "WHOO!" she finally commented.
"Uh, wow!" Jun said. "What did you do?"
Hideki smiled and pulled a second bullet from his jacket pocket. The tip of this one shone in the light. "It occurred to me that engineering for the Caregivers might not be so different from engineering for us."
"Meaning?" Genechiro asked.
He handed the bullet to Jun and turned to face the Jovian. "We don't use the same metal for everything," he explained. "Sometimes we need something light, sometimes something dense. It's the same for them. I took some of their recovered fighters and found the densest type of crystal onboard, which I found surrounding their engine cores. Then I used a geologic laser cutter to cut them into bullets. Voila!"
Jun was speechless. "Hideki, this is above and beyond."
"Don't get excited yet, Sir," he warned. "There's a couple of issues."
"Like what?" Ryoko asked.
"It takes a long time to make these, and we can only make them as long as we have Caregiver fighters to harvest."
"What can you give me?" Ryoko asked seriously.
Hideki thought for a moment. "Give me two weeks and I can outfit the alert birds with some. Say ... one round in thirty."
"So what are you waiting for?" Genechiro asked.
"That brings me to my personnel problem..." he began.
Before he could go further, Megumi's face appeared on a comm window in front of them. "Jun, the SWACS has picked up something you're going to want to see."
"Dangerous?" Jun asked.
"No... Just kind of weird," Megumi elaborated.
"I'm on my way." He turned to Ryoko and Genechiro. "Help Hideki resolve whatever problem he has with the ammo," he ordered. "I want our alert birds armed up as soon as possible."
Ryoko nodded. "You got it."
As Jun walked off, Ryoko got down to business. "Okay, Hideki, what's the deal?"
"There's a problem getting the geologic cutter from Sciences," the engineer admitted.
"What?" Genechiro asked. "They need it for something else?"
"No, they're actually not using it right now," he told them. "It's..."
"It's..." Ryoko prompted.
Hideki took a breath. "Weird."
&&&&&&&&&&&&
When Jun stepped off the lift, he found Megumi, Ruri and Aurora huddled around the science station on the left side of the bridge. Walking up behind them, he tried to discern what they were looking at before interrupting.
"It's a planet," Ruri said definitively.
"It's an asteroid," Aurora argued.
"Asteroids don't have snow," Megumi reminded her.
"Comets do," Ruri interjected.
"Comets are made of ice, this is solid rock," Aurora reminded them.
"What've you got?" Jun finally asked.
Ruri and Megumi stepped aside so Jun could see. The screen in the science area showed a white sphere with a long, misty tail.
Rather than place his own bet, Jun decided to go with the experts. "What am I looking at?" he asked.
"It's... big," Aurora finally said.
"A big what?" Jun asked patiently.
"It's a planet-oid!" Aurora suddenly announced.
"A what?" the three of them asked.
From seemingly nowhere, Aurora produced some graphs and a tripod stand. Producing a pointer from god-knows-where, she began to explain.
"Planets revolve around the sun, but this one has an orbit similar to that of a comet! However, it's NOT a comet, as it is made of rock rather than ice, and it's not an asteroid as asteroids do not have atmospheres or weather patterns. As it shares the majority of its features with that of planets, but is NOT a planet, it is therefore... a planet-OID!"
No one responded for a moment.
"You made that up!" Megumi accused.
"I did NOT!" the Canadian shot back indignantly.
Jun leaned closer for a better look. He could definitely see clouds, though it was difficult to separate them from the rest of the snow-packed surface. "Can you predict its orbit?"
Aurora broke off from her catfight to punch a few keys, then returned. "As ACTING Science Officer, it is within my purview to make such scientific pronouncements!"
"You made up a word!" Megumi replied indignantly. "You could have called it a Ford Festiva and made the same argument!"
Jun watched as a line appeared on a computer graphic of the Epsilon system. The line ran toward the suns, diving between the two stars before making a loop back out to the edge of the system.
"Fine!" Aurora declared, hands on her hips. "As Science Officer, I therefore officially name this planet, Planet Ford Festiva!"
"Noted," Ruri announced, typing it into the log.
Aurora stuck her tongue out at the commo.
"Oh, that's mature!" Megumi sniped.
"Let's check it out," Jun interrupted with a smile. "How long to get there, Chase?"
"About two days, Skipper," the helmsman replied.
"Alter course," Jun ordered. "Time to do some actual exploring."
"Changing course," Chase confirmed. "Onward to Ford Festiva!" he announced, laughing.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
"You're kidding, right?" Ryoko asked.
Hideki patted the head of one Engineering's grasshoppers and shook his head. "Nope. Personally, I don't understand the problem. I kept getting the feeling there was some cultural disconnect. I mean, Dr. Fisher seems like a rational person, so why can't she see the rationality here?"
Genechiro looked honestly puzzled. "Yeah, I don't get it either. Is it because she wants compensation for the laser because it's more valuable now than it was when it was just cutting up stupid rocks?"
Ryoko sighed and rubbed her temples.
"Maybe in her mind geology is more vital than defense," Hideki hypothesized. "I mean, she did say she wasn't going to let us use it for war purposes."
"You guys really don't know?" Ryoko asked amazed.
Both Jovians shook their heads.
She looked back and forth between them. "Fisher's a peacenik," she announced.
Hideki and Genechiro blinked for a few moments.
"What, like you mean she's Russian?" Genechiro asked.
"No," Ryoko replied, trying desperately to keep from blowing up. "I mean she's anti-war. A protester."
Hideki seemed to get it first. "She's a Kaifunn. (1)"
"A what?"
"Someone who thinks war doesn't solve anything so they don't participate and discourage others from participating," Hideki told him.
"Since when do wars not solve anything?" Genechiro demanded, irritated by his own confusion.
Ryoko held her hands up. "Okay, look. Simple solution. We'll go down there and get it." She started for the lift. "I mean how hard can it be to take a machine from one little old lady?"
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Barkrarak stepped off the lift and saw Jun wave him toward the science station. Squaring his shoulders, the Waiter stepped forward. He waited until Jun had donned his translator headset before beginning.
"Leader of ships," he began respectfully. "This warrior feels privileged to assistance yet wishes to understand when next the warrior will fly amongst the vacuum."
"One thing at a time," Jun told him. "First, what do you know about this planet-OID?" asked, winking at Aurora as he said the last word.
Barkrarak looked at the screen, still displaying the feed from the SWACS. "It is the Wanderer," he intoned. "A lost world."
"Lost?" Megumi asked after Jun had translated.
The wolf waggled his head. "Our stories impart that the Wanderer was at one time a world of creatures that made insult and anger toward those who are better. Those who are better slapped the Wanderer away."
"You're saying this world once had people on it?" Aurora asked in awe.
Barkrarak seemed cautious. "People this warrior has not seen. Old females in my habitation speak of such impartations."
"Wives tales," Jun translated. "Still, every legend has a kernel of truth to it." He leaned toward the screen again. "Aurora, how would you feel about testing out the Datahawk?"
The scientist perked up. "I'll see to the preparations, Captain!" Before another word could be said, the scientist bolted for the lift.
"You want them to take a Starhawk out in that?" Megumi asked skeptically.
"Them?" he asked with a grin. "The hell with that! I'm going with them!"
"What!" Megumi asked in shock. "Jun chan," she started again in a whisper, "I don't like the look of those weather patterns."
"This is what we came out here to do," he said excitedly. "Setting foot on an alien world for the first time."
The commo pursed her lips. "Still, shouldn't a science team have first crack at it?"
Jun actually laughed. "Megumi! It's going to be fine! Chief Aragon flew with the Hurricane Hunters in Biloxi, he can handle whatever's down there."
Megumi looked unconvinced.
"And I happen to know a little bit about piloting myself, you know."
While this conversation was going on, Barkrarak stood by, rather uncomfortable knowing without being told that he was hearing something private but not knowing enough about human culture to leave. Finally, the settled on the best course of action he thought available and interrupted.
"If the nest mate of the leader of ships fears for leader of ships' safety, I could accompany," he rumbled.
Jun smiled uncomfortably. "Not this trip," he said.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Dr. Arianna Fisher didn't even look at them from her microscope as she spoke. "Like I told Mr. Amano," she said, "I didn't design and build my laser so you could use it to make weapons. I won't be party to it."
"We're not asking you to make the damn bullets," Ryoko told her flat out. "We're asking to borrow a machine you're not even using."
Fisher looked up in frustration. "Have you tried just... TALKING to them!"
Oh, shit, here we go, Ryoko thought. "Jun doesn't want a fight," she said concretely. "He'll talk to the Caregivers, but he also doesn't want dead pilots. Now these new rounds Hideki thought up could have saved three of my drivers out there."
"I am sympathetic to your pilots," Fisher told her with a touch of condescension. "But that's what they signed up for. No one forced them to fight for the captain."
"Wrong!" Ryoko growled menacingly. "I forced them! Just like I'm going to force you to give me that fucking machine! Genechiro, Hideki, get the laser!"
"This doesn't sound legal," Hideki pointed out carefully.
"You can't do that!" Fisher agreed angrily.
"Watch me!" Ryoko bit back. "I'm not telling my pilots they have to go out there outgunned because you have a bug up your ass about the war!"
Two of Hideki's grasshoppers lifted the laser off the table and started down the hall.
"I should have known," Fisher went on. "Anytime the military gets involved with something, they have to turn it into some bullshit military adventure! Even if the consequences mean our lives!"
Ryoko didn't answer, she was too busy ignoring her as she walked down the hall.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
"The Aestivalis is declaring an emergency!" Megumi cried, turning to Jun.
"Get her onboard!" Jun ordered quickly. "I want that pilot up here the second she lands! Minato, where's the other Aesti!"
"Twenty miles behind her at two-two-five," Minato announced, her eyes not leaving her board. "I'm reading intermittent Lidar contacts right behind her. Possible bogies at two-two-five."
"Those aren't bogies," Ryoko cursed under her breath. "They're bandits! Jun, let me..."
"Don't wait for me to tell you," Jun cut her off. "Get your birds in the air."
"Jun chan! Hikaru's coming through on the emergency band!"
Jun listened as the redhead's voice came over the speaker. "Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! This is Whiskey Six-Five declaring an emergency! Multiple bandits on my ass! I need immediate support! Repeat! This is Whiskey Six-Five..."
"Launch the alert birds!" Jun ordered. He turned to Megumi. "Get Erina on the line and tell her to launch fighters! We just walked into a trap!"
"Kanchou, Izumi has landed. She's on her way up," Ruri told him.
"AIIII! Nadesico, this is Whiskey Six-Five! I need help NOW!"
"How long until the alert fighters get to her?" Jun asked.
Megumi covered her earpiece and turned. "Thirty seconds."
"That's not soon enough," Ruri said hauntingly.
The unmistakeable sound of energy blasts piercing metal came over the speaker, followed by a gut-wrenching sob.
"Nadesico! Nadesico! They're right on top of me! I need he..."
It wasn't like in the movies where you could hear the explosion over the radio. The transmission simply stopped.
Megumi let out a shocked breath. "Whiskey Six-Five?" she whispered. "Hikaru? Can you hear me! Hikaru?"
The lift door opened, and Izumi rushed through just as Ryoko's voice came over the speaker.
"Nadesico, this is Alert One... Hikaru's..."
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Yellow eyes met her as Izumi opened her own, causing her to jump in surprise. Taking a moment to collect her thoughts, she stood up and turned away from the canine, instead facing the simulated green hills of the meditation room.
"Remorse," Barkrarak told her apologetically. "You were taking rest?"
"I don't rest in here," she snapped back at him. She took a breath to regain her composure.
"Troubles follow your steps," he said. "Another time I will speak alongside your own speech."
"No, Barkrarak, I'm sorry," Izumi told him. "I don't rest well. Just... What can I do for you?" She reached into her flight suit pocket and pulled a cigarette free.
The werewolf paused as if mastering his thoughts. "The leader of ships does not yet trust this warrior to combat on his behalf. Am I offensive to his thoughts?"
Lighting the cancer-stick, Izumi took a moment for a drag before shaking her head in answer. "No." She let a breath out before taking another drag. "Jun just needs to get to know you better before he trusts you. It just takes a little time. You'll see."
"What haunts your thoughts, Blackbird?" he asked.
She shook her head. "Nothing," she told him. "Just old wars." Pulling the cigarette from her lips, she examined the burning end. "Barkarak, the other Waiter we shot down... Who was he?"
Barkrarak regarded her carefully for a moment. "Weapons Master Arkarak," he told her. "My cousin."
Her eyes didn't leave the smoking embers of her addiction. "I'm sorry," she said quietly.
"Mourning his beyonding will not honor his passing," he told her. "Had you not arrived, and had the rest of our design fruitioned accordingly, we both would have slipped into abyss from frozen air and lack of liquids."
She looked up at him as he continued.
"Rather, Cousin passed in battle with an invincible foe." He barked a chuckle. "At the very least, no Consumer statue became he."
She went back to looking at her cigarette. "How do your people say goodbye to the dead?" she whispered.
Worry now crossed his eyes. "Trees are planted bearing their names." He approached her and rested a paw on her shoulder. "Your worries if should be how memories of you will be maintained... know that I would see a tree with your markings upon it grow on my lands."
She said nothing, just took another drag on her cigarette.
"How is it among your people?" he asked.
"I'll show you."
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
"All right!" Ryoko exclaimed as the grasshoppers placed the machine on Hideki's workbench. "Get to it!"
The bald man scrutinized the device carefully.
"What?" Genechiro asked. "What's wrong?"
Hideki tapped the emitter and nodded with a sigh. "Yup," he said simply. "We're boned."
"What are you talking about!" Ryoko growled.
"The focusing crystal has been removed," he told her.
"WHAT!"
He nodded. "We just dragged a one hundred, sixty pound paper weight up here."
Growling, Ryoko headed down the hall again.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Three rows of framed photographs hung on the wall outside the pilot's briefing room. While other groups of pictures had signs proudly declaring award-winners or chains of command, no signboard heralded this group. No sign had to.
"This is the Memorial Board," Izumi said simply. "Every pilot who's died in combat aboard the Nadesico is here."
Barkrarak took the view in. There were at least thirty pictures, beginning at the top left with a portrait of a man with short, wild hair, giving the photographer the victory sign.
"Gai Daigoji," Izumi supplied the name. "He was murdered at the beginning of the ship's maiden voyage."
The alien pilot's eyes wandered across the board until they rested on an empty space where it appeared a photo once hung. "Did the framed image placed here crash?" he asked.
Izumi actually smiled for a moment. "No. That's one we actually got back."
Barkrarak looked amazed. "You recalled a pilot from beyond the abyss?"
The raven-haired pilot's smile broadened a little. "No. It just turned out he wasn't dead."
Barkrarak finally reached the last image. An odd-looking female with flaming red hair and pieces of glass covering her eyes.
Izumi pointed at the space next to the photo. "Scorch, Stifler and Rhoodie's photos will go there," she told him.
"Who is the pilot here?" he asked, pointing at the redhead.
Izumi paused, unsure of what to say, but then again, wasn't that why she came up here?
"That's Hikaru Amano," she told him. "She was killed... three hours before the war ended."
"How?"
Izumi bit her lip in a desperate try to hold back tears. "Her..." she had to pause before going on. "Her wingman... abandoned her. Her Aestivalis was damaged, and her wingman... just... left her there. Oh, she thought she had a good... noble... reason, but..."
Barkrarak studied her closely.
"They gave her a medal," she whispered. "They should have shot her."
He turned to her and offered her a gruff bark. "Waiters live, then Waiters die. Only our better beings know why. Unlikely found it is I that your friend found her sacrifice a vain or empty one."
Izumi looked up at him. "God, I hope so."
He straightened. "Black bird, if I am to hope to attain a warrior status among your people, it is prudent I be educated on proper battle."
A small piece of her smile clawed its way back into Izumi's features. "Come on," she said. "Simulator's this way."
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
"Where is it!" Ryoko demanded, hands on her hips.
"Whatever are you talking about?" Fisher asked, looking over some data on her computer screen.
"The focusing crystal," the wing king bit out. "Where did you put it?"
The scientist looked up and offered a smile made of poisoned honey. "Of course I'll hand it over," she said.
Ryoko held her hand out.
"Just as soon as King Jun comes down here and asks me for it."
It took every ounce of strength in Ryoko's body to keep from popping the scientist there and then. Rather than say anything, which she knew would only make things worse, she turned on her heal and left the room.
"Give the King my regards," Fisher called after her.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
"Well, that's great," Genechiro said with a shrug. "Captain Aoi will go ask for it, and she'll give it to him. Problem solved."
Ryoko blinked in shock. "Are you dense? Can't you see what she's doing?"
The XO rubbed his temples. "Look, I'm trying to understand. Really, I am. But this whole idea is a little... alien to me."
The pilot sighed. "She wants to make a political statement. She wants Jun to go down there so she can make a big scene about how horrible it was to fight the Caregivers. We'll never hear the end of it, and right now that's crap we don't need."
"So what do you propose we do?" Hideki asked.
Ryoko growled, knowing how much the next statement would hurt. "We search the ship."
"Are you STUPID!" Genechiro asked incredulously. "This thing is what? An inch across?"
"Quarter-inch," Hideki supplied helpfully. "It could be hidden literally anywhere on this ship."
"That's it!" Genechiro swore, walking to a comm panel. "Get me the LE desk,(2)" he demanded. "She can rot in the brig until she gives it up."
Ryoko stepped after him and turned the panel off. "We can't do that either!" she told him. "We throw her in prison and she gets her vindication."
"So what?" he asked seriously. "Who the hell cares way out here? What difference is it really going to make?"
"We have two representatives of alien races onboard," Hideki said. "How do we preach tolerance to them when we show none for each other?"
"Oh spare me the Macrossian peace and love garbage!" Genechiro snapped at him. "There's a time for humoring idiots and time for getting things done!"
"Okay, how about this?" Ryoko asked. "You do that, and she FEELS like a winner. You want her to feel like a winner?"
"Not particularly," he bit out in reply.
"Jun's going to have enough to deal with without every know-it-all science dweeb on this bucket trying to show how Che they are," she told him seriously. "We find that crystal ourselves. He doesn't hear about this, and Fisher stays OUT of the brig. Copy?"
"So!" Hideki said, clapping his hands together. "Where do we start?"
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
"Hey, Ms. Houmei, did you get one of these?" Chase asked, holding up a printed email.
The head chef didn't stop chopping onions as she looked up at the helmsman. "If that's an email from Hideki postponing his anime viewing for another week, then yes." She used her cooking knife to sweep the onions from the cutting board into a wok. "A shame too. I already started on the food."
"I was supposed to play that gig," Chase told her regretfully. "I wonder what made him change his mind."
At that moment, the doors to the mess hall opened and three people in MOPP(3) gear entered. The hiss of their breath through their gas masks gave them an eerie presence, and their faces couldn't be made out through the plexiglass faceplates.
"Okay, everyone out!" a synthesized, but definitely female voice announced. "NOW!"
Two grasshoppers followed the trio inside as everyone who had been eating their evening meal bolted for the door. Gas masks were never a good sign of ANYTHING.
Only Chase and Houmei refused to leave. "Huh?" Chase asked.
"You better have a good reason for chasing out my customers, buddy!" Houmei announced, holding the kitchen knife up just a hair higher.
The lead gas mask held up a document with a bunch of unreadable stamps on it. "This is a Code A-Seven-C bio-containment issue. I suggest you leave immediately."
"My kitchen is inspected three times a week for EVERYTHING!" Houmei argued.
"Wait, what the hell is an A-Seven-C?" Chase asked.
One of the other gas masks chimed in helpfully. "Possible bio-organic infestation," he said. "Place has to be inspected thoroughly, then gassed."
"The hell it does!" Houmei cried, coming from around the counter, knife still in hand. "You have any idea how hard I'm going to have to scrub to make sure there's no poison left behind?"
"MA'AM! THIS IS AN A-SEVEN-C BIO-CONTAMINANT EMERGENCY SOMETHING OR OTHER!" the leader told her.
"Ryoko, is that you?" Chase asked.
The leader paused. "Um..."
The second mask stepped in. "The one you call 'Ryoko' is no longer here..."
"Oh, this is stupid!" the third, who had remained silent up until now, said as he stepped forward. Reaching up, he pulled off his gas mask. Genechiro pulled some hair out of his eyes. "As Executive Officer, I am ordering you to GET THE HELL OUT OF THIS KITCHEN RIGHT NOW!"
"Okay, okay, jeez!" Chase said as he started toward the door. Ryoko and Hideki pulled their masks off.
"No poison!" Houmei growled as she walked out.
"Okay," Ryoko said as the doors closed behind the two. "Get scanning. Genechiro, you check the freezers. She might have hidden them with the ice cubes. I'm going to check the spice rack."
The three started looking through the kitchen as the grasshoppers began scanning every nook and cranny of the cafeteria.
"This is so embarrassing," Genechiro growled. "Just so I know, what IS an A-Seven-C infestation?"
"Ants," Hideki told him as he scanned the bread carts.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
"Make sure to keep your speed up," Izumi's voice came over the comm. "While you can fight with no forward momentum, it leaves you very vulnerable."
Barkrarak banked left and saw three more grasshoppers heading toward him. Sending signals from his brain through the IFS, his Aestivalis hopped straight up and spun forward as the Jovian fighters went by, giving him a clear shot at their aft sections. Lining up the targeting reticule, he...
"Excuse me, Mr. Barkrakrak!"
The image of a human he had never seen before suddenly appeared in a comm window before him. Surprised, the Waiter's shots went wide.
"How do you do?" the woman asked. She wore a translator headset, making an interpreter unnecessary. "My name is Kimberly Tencza, I represent Nergal Heavy Industries."
"That is... good?" Barkrarak replied.
"I'd like to speak with you privately," she told him. "Please come to my office in one hour. Deck four, room 32." With that, her face disappeared.
He opened a channel with Izumi. "I have been summoned," he told her.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
"Mr. Barkrarak, please come in," Tencza invited the alien into her office, gesturing to a seat as she walked around her desk again. "Thank you so much for coming."
"Not certain to the nature of the choices was I in this instance," he told her truthfully.
"This has nothing to do with the military," she told him. "Do you know who I am?"
"The Black Bird says you hold money."
"In a way, yes," she told him. "It's my job to arrange trades."
"I have no item worth bartering," he told her, once again being as honest as possible.
"Well, not you personally," she told him. "But it is possible that your world has something to offer Nergal, and I'm quite sure Nergal could offer you something in return."
The Waiter suddenly got the feeling he was in over his head. "Something?" he asked.
She smiled, something he'd seen on countless predators. "Indeed. Of course, it would have to be something of equal value to whatever we can offer you. Tell me, what are your people especially good at making?"
Barkrarak racked his brain for something the human might want. It was hard, not having known the species that long. The Waiters were agricultural, they grew things. Only the Consumers had any interest in technology. That's why they were always... Ah hah!
"The Consumers seize celestial bodies in orbit around celestial bodies of greater mass," he explained. "They do this for the rocks beneath their shells."
"Rocks?"
Barkrarak knew the translator wasn't getting his point across. Although the machine made him sound simple, he was hardly stupid. Taking a pen and pad from Tencza's desk, he started drawing circles. When he was done a few minutes, later, he handed it to her.
"Rocks," he told her.
Tencza blinked and went to her computer. She brought up a chart and began cycling through it until she found a picture that matched the one she held in her hand. "Woah, baby!" she muttered. She regained her composure. "Um... How many of these... rocks... do they pull from your moons?"
"The celestial bodies are anomalous," he told her. "The entire lower mantle is made from minerals such as that."
The woman felt her heart flutter.
Barkrarak held his hands apart as wide as he could. "About this large."
Oooooh! Mama want! She thought. She looked at the paper again, at the drawing of the molecular composition of carbon there.
While carbon came in different forms, she knew there was only one form the Caretakers would have any interest in.
The diamond kind.
"Once those celestial bodies have been liberated from their bondage, would such things be of suitable value?" he asked.
Tencza choked back a laugh of glee. "A little," she admitted.
"This is adequate," he rumbled. "In return, Waiters require freedom. Freedom from Consumer slavery."
Tencza smiled and tapped a few keys on her computer. "Well, Mr. Barkrarak, you are fortunate. If there's one thing Nergal is good at building..." She turned her monitor around, showing him the schematics of a Cosmos - class Nergal battleship.
"... it's freedom."
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
"By my count, that leaves us with about a hundred and fifty rooms left," Hideki announced as he tossed a can of soda to Ryoko.
"Great!" Genechiro remarked sarcastically. "That should only take us a year."
"Everyone shut up," Ryoko ordered. "We need to step back for a bit. Let's take thirty minutes, get some chow and come back."
"Fine," the XO said, turning his back on them and walking out.
Ryoko shook her head. "Sheesh. He's a bundle of sunshine."
Hideki shrugged noncommitally
The wing king tapped the top of her can with her fingernail in thought. "Hideki, why do he and Rikari call you a 'Macrossian?'"
The engineer shrugged again. "Because I am."
"No, I mean what's the big deal?"
He took a breath and thought about how to put it. "When the Jovians fled Mars for Jupiter, they had very little. There was no time to pack and very little room on the available ships. So instead of things like books, which took up space and weighed a lot, they took vids that could be compressed into data. So for the first three new generations of Jovians, there was no Bible, no stories to draw faith from. Lacking anything else, they connected with Gekigangar 3. They were drawn to the message that the righteous would always overthrow evil if they fought long and hard enough."
"But there was another anime along the same lines as Gekigangar," he continued. "One that taught that peace was attainable no matter what 'the other' had done. That anime was Macross, a story about a lone battleship facing a horde of invading aliens with almost nothing in common with humans. But there was something, something that brought them together. It teaches that peace can be within reach, if you strive for it."
"And the Jovians don't like that?" Ryoko asked.
"Try to understand, Colonel," Hideki said sadly. "My people wanted revenge more than anything else for a very long time. Some still do. Only god can give permission for that kind of hate." He shrugged. "The Macrossians parted ideological ways with Gekigangar, so we were branded heretics." He took a long swig of soda.
Ryoko slammed the palm of her hand into her forehead. "It looks like the Jovians aren't as immune to protests as I thought."
Hideki only smiled. "We had to be very careful," he said. "The Jovians don't tolerate dissent. Our leader, Yuriko Akagi, sits in a Jovian prison cell to this day for..."
"For what?" Ryoko asked.
"You'll think it's stupid."
"On this ship? What ain't?"
He laughed at that. "I suppose you're right. She made a prophecy," he announced. "It's always been said that she possessed the gift of foresight. She predicted the war with your people. She predicted we'd lose that war. And she predicted that the story of Macross would come true."
The pilot snorted. "So... what? You think the Nadesico is this Macross?"
He only smiled again. "That, Colonel, is a leap of faith that even I am not ready to make."
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
"Well," Tencza told him. "This seems to have been a very good start. When we arri..."
At that moment, someone kicked the door in and three figures in gas masks followed by two grasshoppers entered her office.
"Everyone needs to get out," a synthesized voice said. "Now!"
"What is the meaning of this!" Tencza demanded, rising to her feet and placing her hands on her desk. Barkrarak looked confused, looking back and forth between the Nergal woman and the three figures.
"We have a A-Seven-C bio-containment situation!" the lead figure announced. "I need everyone to leave the room!"
The Nergal rep gathered her composure and stood up straight. "Who sent you? Captain Aoi? If he wanted to plant bugs in my office, this is by far the most amateurish way I've ever seen someone do it."
"Actually, it's ants!" a second gas mask told her helpfully.
"Shut up," the first gas mask told him. "Look, lady, we need to sweep this room and..."
She keyed a comm window. "I have a better idea. Let's see what the captain thinks."
"You can't do that!" the second gas mask interrupted.
"And why not?" Tencza demanded.
"Um..." the first gas mask began.
"The ants got him?" the second suggested. The third, standing in the background, smacked his own forehead in frustration.
"I want to know what's going on right now," Tencza demanded. "Or I'll have security come down here and find out the hard way. My office is off limits to unauthorized crew members."
The third man pulled off his gas mask. "Look," Genechiro told her, "We're looking for something that can give us a military advantage over the Caregivers."
The others pulled off their gas masks and one by one relayed the story of how they found themselves searching the ship room by room, thus far in vain.
Tencza listened closely and nodded. "I believe I can help you."
"You've seen it?" Hideki asked.
"No, but I do have some experience in negotiations, and I do believe if you give me an opportunity I can convince Dr. Fisher to give you the crystal. Follow me, please."
The four walked out of the office, leaving Barkrarak alone and forgotten.
"Should I depart?" he asked as the lights went dark around him.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Nothing was said of exactly what Tencza planned to say to Fisher, making for a rather quiet elevator trip to the science level. When they finally arrived at Fisher's lab, Tencza put on her negotiation smile.
"Ah, Dr. Fisher!" she said in greeting. "How are you getting along here?"
The scientist saw who was in Tencza's company and went frosty. "So they sent you, huh?" she asked. "I told them I'd only give the crystal to King Jun."
"Tsk, tsk," Tencza told her. "That's not very nice. The colonel here told me about your feelings on the manner, and I thought I'd talk to you personally."
"I don't' see why," Fisher told her, arms over her chest. "They know my position."
Tencza nodded. "Yes, but I'm willing to bet I can convince you. So, what's say you outline your position, I'll outline mine, and we'll find a satisfactory middle ground."
"You want to have a political debate?" Fisher asked incredulously.
"Oh, I'm sure it'll be fun!" Tencza told her. "I was very good at debate club in high school. Go on ahead."
"Very well," Fisher said. With a clearing of her throat, she began to speak. What followed was a diatribe that explained why wars in the modern age was wrong. Included were statements such as, "It's their culture, and we shouldn't interfere," and "What right does King Jun have to declare war in my name?"
Tencza listened carefully, nodding in places, shaking her head in others. At the end, Fisher clapped her hands and said,
"And that's the short version of where I'm coming from."
"Short version?" Genechiro asked. "She's been talking for twenty-five minutes!"
"Now then, I believe it's your turn," Fisher said, gesturing to Tencza.
The Nergal rep smiled sheepishly. "Those are all very good points, and I hope you'll find my arguments equally as fascinating," she said. She cleared her throat and stepped forward.
"Give me the crystal or you're fired." She turned to the others. "Did I go over time?" she asked.
"What!" Fisher asked, her face turning red in anger. "How dare y..."
"Excuse me! Still my turn!" Tencza interrupted angrily. "You built your drill with Nergal equipment, Nergal resources and Nergal personnel. It belongs to Nergal, and you will place that crystal in the custody of Colonel Subaru at once!"
"I see," Fisher hissed. "You can't win the debate so you silence my right to free speech!"
"Hardly," Tencza told her. "You have the right to say whatever you like to whomever you like. What you don't have the right to do is steal Nergal property and endanger Nergal employees. Now you can either give me the crystal or you can spend the next eleven and a half months in your quarters. I will terminate your Nergal contract here and now and see to it that no university, no company, no mall jewelry store ever takes an employment application from you ever again."
She held her hand out. "Well?" she asked. "Just how righteous are you?"
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
"We owe you one," Ryoko told Tencza as they stepped back on the lift. "Thank you, really."
"It's more about self preservation than anything else," the Nergal woman told her. "I live here too, you know. Don't mention it."
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
"Well the first days are the hardest days,
Don't you worry anymore.
Cause when life looks like easy street,
There is danger at the door.
Think this through with me,
Let me know your mind.
Oh, ho all I want to know-ho,
Is are you kind?"
Aurora was sitting at Ruri and Wei-Hu's table near the stage as Chase and two other crewmen with musical talent played. Chase had dubbed them, "Uncle John's Band." Wei-Hu, as usual, was enthralled with the sounds, but more so now that more instruments were involved.
"God damn! I declare!
Have you seen the light?
Their walls are made of cannon balls,
their motto is 'don't tread on me!'
Come hear Uncle John's band,
playing to the tide.
Come on along or go alone,
He's come to take his children home."
"How is this done?" Wei-Hu asked Ruri. "How do the sounds become as one?"
"Magic," Ruri answered deadpan.
"Magic?" Wei-Hu whispered in respectful awe.
"Ruri Ruri! That's not nice," Aurora told her. "It's about harmonics, Wei-Hu."
"Don't you have a mission tomorrow?"
"In the evening," Aurora told her proudly, not missing the hint to shut up. "It turns out the two-day estimate was off, so we can leave tomorrow!"
"Shouldn't you be on crew rest, then?"
"Nah!"
"Baka."
Uncle John's Band finished, and again Wei-Hu clapped as vigorously as she did that first night. "How does one do such acts?" she asked.
Chase somehow realized the comment was meant for him and turned to Ruri for a translation. "She wants to know how many beers she has to drink before she can play like you."
"Oh, it's easy," he said. He motioned for the alien girl to come up on stage. Timidly, Wei-Hu followed. Chase rooted around an old foot-locker that was doubling as a piano bench until he found the object of his search. "Here," he said, handing the alien a tambourine.
He couldn't understand the wording of her next question, but got the jist. "It's a tambourine," he told her. Taking it, he slapped it against his hand, making it ring.
The girl's eyes lit up as she snatched it back.
"Now, I want you to do this." He took her hands and slapped her palm against the tambourine a few times until he established a beat. "Keep doing that."
As Wei-Hu continued to slap the tambourine, Chase picked up his guitar and started to play along. A few moments later, Petty Officer Aurello joined in with the drums.
Wei-Hu twittered in glee.
At another table nearby, three people in MOPP gear raised beers. "And that's how it's done," Ryoko announced before throwing hers back.
"Fine, let's just never do it again!" Genechiro told her.
"Deal!"
Hideki wasn't listening. He was staring at the stage, at Chase playing music with Wei-Hu, two people, aliens to one another, linked together by music.
"I knew it," he breathed. "He's the one."
"One what?" Genechiro asked.
Remembering what he was talking about and with whom, he buttoned up. "Er... Colonel Subaru, now that I've found that solution you were looking for, you said you would owe me."
Ryoko slapped Hideki on the back, just a bit drunk. "Damn straight I did!"
"Good," he told her. "I actually have a favor to ask you."
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Hideki closed the door to his quarters and peeled the chem suit off. It had been a long day, but for the first time in a long time, things were looking up. Ryoko had agreed to talk to Jun for him, eagle to eagle(4) about Chase, who he was more certain than ever was the key to everything that had happened in his life until now.
Flopping down in his couch, he looked up at the ceiling as images from dreams and memories came back to him from that day. Well, the day was superfluous. It was five words that changed his life, five words that he was starting to believe meant nothing until recently.
He closed his eyes and whispered the words just as Yuriko Akagi had done that day on Io. That day, he was given a mission, one that promised peace not just between the Earthers and the Jovians, but among all peoples.
He whispered...
"'You will find Lynn Minmei.'"
Author's Notes:
1. Hideki is referring to the character, Lynn Kaifunn, from Macross, a man who protested against the war against the aliens on the grounds that "war never solved anything."
2. Law Enforcement
3. Mission Oriented Protective Posture. Chemical, biological and radiation protective gear that usually consists of a gas mask, chemical suit, rubber boots and gloves.
4. Ryoko, Jun and Rikari are actually the same rank, but are in different services. Jun is a Captain in the UE Navy, Ryoko a Colonel in the UE Space Force and Rikari a Colonel in the Superior Male Forces. All three ranks are represented by the eagle. Authority depends on the matter at hand, but as mission commander, Jun has total authority and responsibility.