Taste of Risk
"Thanks again," I told Chester, the friend who had given Freyja and I a ride to Barrette City here on Ragna.
"We're even now, alright?" The tall brutish man replied, looking anywhere but at me, clearly not comfortable with receiving any kind of thanks.
"Yeah," I replied, half laughing at my friends unease. He was the type of man who if you came at with a knife, would pull out a rocket launcher. But if you came at him with a hug, he would be paralyzed with fear. "We're even now. See you around." As I gave a causal backwards wave to a flustered Chester, I looked for where Freyja had run off to. She couldn't have gone far, we had just arrived after all. But with as busy as the streets were, she could be ten meters away and I wouldn't be able to see her. I began to scour the area looking for her, only paying mild attention to the Ragnans hawking their wares.
"Wow!" I heard a familiar voice exclaim from up ahead. "We're on Ragna!" I looked around and soon found the bright orange and blond hair of Freyja only five or so meters in front of me. "There are so many sparkly sounds!" she said, making no sense at all. I was about to tell her as much, but my nose began to tingle out of nowhere and I let loose a loud sneeze, obviously frightening Freyja by the way she jumped at the sudden noise. However, even after the large sneeze, my nose was still tingling and it even felt like my sinuses were beginning to congest. I hadn't had a reaction like this to anything except for that one time I visited a strange cafe that had a bunch of…
Mercats.
I looked over to my side, and sure enough, giving me an annoyed expression as if my sneezing had been an affront to its existence was a big brown mercat, creatures that had the front end of a feline house cat and a backend that looked like it was stolen from a dolphin. As I glanced around with more scrutiny, I saw the strange animals all over the docks we were currently on.
"Ugh," I moaned, already hearing the slight congestion in my own voice. "Damn mercats all over the place…"
"What are you doing following me?" Freyja asked, looking at me as if I had grown a third arm. For a second, I was a little taken back. I mean, yeah, we had never really made any plans on staying together once we had arrived on Ragna, but for Freyja to give me the cold shoulder minutes after we landed… So I decided to get back at her with some light teasing.
"I came to see you fail the auditions," I replied casually. Freyja's reaction was just as exaggerated and loud as everything she did.
"I'm not gonna fail!" She shouted while her cheeks burned a bright red. She turned around with a great amount of gusto and stormed off in a random direction, leaving me to wear my amused grin before another sneeze wiped it off my face. I decided to quickly catch back up with Freyja to make sure she made it to her auditions, both because I felt at least a little concerned for her safety in the large city and because I had always been curious about Walkure's headquarters, Macross Elysion.
It didn't take long to catch up to the shorter girl, she had become sidetracked by a Ragnan selling some attachable webbing that could let a wearer swim like a 'true Ragnan'. I glanced at Freyja who was completely entranced by the sales pitch.
"I've never seen a Ragnan before," she said without looking away.
"They are more adapted to living in water than any of the other humanoid races," I began explaining. "They have gills in addition to that webbing," I told Freyja, discretely pointing at the slits on the man's neck. As she continued to ogle the man, I saw some movement out the side of my eye. Thinking they were some pick-pocket, I quickly tried to warn Freyja, but before I could, she let out a small startled cry.
"Ew! What's this icky thing!?" I looked over as she stretched out her arm in an effort to get whatever was on her arm far away from her. Just beyond her reach was a group of kids who looked pretty pleased with themselves.
"It's cheap! Buy one!" a boy, the oldest looking one of the group, said with a mischievous smile that only the most naive of people wouldn't see as predatory.
"It's a phone! Cell! Number one!" another boy quickly added, his smile just as cunning. The small girl of the group did her part by acting as cute as she could with the two thorns at her side. Normally, these kinds of hustles end in pretty bad failure. But Freyja was the perfect target.
"A phone?" the young girl said as she began to inspect the device on her wrist.
"Wai-" I began to say, reaching out to try and stop her from doing anything that might-
"Contract established. Commence payment process," the red mercat stylized phone said as it locked itself onto Freyja's arm. Now all three children had their smiles of victory as Freyja began to wave her arm around like a crazed person.
"Get it off me!" she yelled out, dampening the three young hustlers smiles only a fraction as looks were sent our way.
"Time to run!" I said as I took Freyja's arm and pulled her away from the children who were dancing some sort of victory dance at what was likely their first successful 'sale'. I pulled her along as we weaved through the crowds, gradually making our way towards the towering structure that was Macross Elysion. After a couple of minutes of running, we came to rest at an open plaza to catch our breath.
"Cities are so scary," Freyja panted as she grabbed a pole and slid down it to the ground, heaving like she hadn't run further than fifty meters her whole life. As I began to relax my own breath, I head the rolling rumble of a Variable Fighter high up in the sky. I raised my head and looked just ahead of the sound to spot a lone aircraft making its way towards Elysion.
"Look at that," I told Freyja hoping she would recover faster than it was looking it would take. Sure enough, as soon as she had something new to focus on, her energy seemed to come back quicker than a love sick dog.
"Oh my gosh! It's so big!" the girl said as she sprung back up to her feet and began walking towards the towering structure.
"That's the Macross Elysion," I began, getting up to join her as we continued to make our way to Freyja's tryouts. "It's Chaos' Ragna branch's HQ."
"So they hold the auditions there?" Freyja asked, more in confirmation than an actual question. Or so I hoped. Before I could really reply however, I heard the girl begin to make a humming noise. I glanced back at her to see her slightly hunched with her hands clenched into fists, as if she was charging up some kind of super attack a video game character might have. I then noticed her hair accessory glowing again. "My rune's running high!" she proclaimed, finally giving me a proper opening to ask about the strange heart shaped object.
"Rune? You mean that tentacle thing on your head?" Or so I thought had been a proper opening.
"Don't stare at it!" the girl quickly said as she spun around and put her hands protectively over the glowing object. "Perv!" she quickly added, the tips of her barely visible ears a bright red.
"Huh?! It's supposed to be arousing?!" I cried out in bewilderment. Perhaps if I was going to be around this Windermeran much longer, I should start studying up on their culture a little better to avoid such mistakes in the future. "Anyways, let's get going. Do you want to be late for your auditions?"
"No," Freyja said dejected, refusing to drop her hands from her head as she stormed past me towards Elysion.
"Sheesh," I muttered as I followed from a distance that I figured Freyja would appreciate. The rest of our walk was thankfully sedate, the only activity being near the base of Elysion. Reporters were all over getting coverage on the auditions, feeding Freyja's excitement as we approached the front desk where a couple of receptionist were busy with all manner of secretarial tasks.
"Um, excuse me," Freyja said a little nervously to one of the women at the desk. Once she had her attention, Freyja pulled out the flier she had shown me back on Al Shahal. "I'dliketoauditionforWalkure!" she quickly shouted out in one explosive breath. The woman sat there for a moment before she was able to process what Freyja had said. Once she had deciphered that, she turned to look at either of the women at her side. I knew the look that they were sharing and began to prepare myself for the worst possible outcome.
"Um, I'm sorry, but I'm afraid you can't enter the audition." I preemptively winced as I looked back at Freyja, who was taking her turn at processing the other woman's words.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN I CAN'T ENTER THE AUDITION?!" Freyja asked, her voice the loudest I had heard it yet. The women at the counter all had nervous looks and rightly so.
"Well, today is the final round…" the woman Freyja had been speaking to said, her voice wavering with nervousness.
"You'd need to pass the qualifier rounds first," another lady to my right said, trying to sound as helpful as she could be.
"There's qualifiers?" Freyja asked, eyes wide with fright. She quickly brought her flier back up to her eyes and scanned the bottom, the tiny print barely legible after being carried around in her pockets for who knows how long. Suddenly, the girl let out a shocked gasp, as if she was having an aneurysm. I felt like face palming myself. I had just followed a girl who overlooked quite a large technicality over 30 lightyears.
"Are you for real?" I asked the hyperactive girl as I brought my hand up to massage my temples.
"What are you doing here?"
"Oh, hey, it's dancer boy."
I had no idea who had spoken or who they were speaking about, but the approaching voices, one of them being strangely familiar, seemed to be speaking to me so I turned around. I was more than a little surprised as the woman who had punched me back on Al Shahal came towards me with a menacing stare, accompanied by a large Ragnan male who must've called me 'dancer boy'.
"Are you here to complain about me?" Mirage asked with more loathing and annoyance than could ever be expressed in mere words. I immediately remembered the angry woman's parting words, when she had told me to give any complaints to her superiors. I let out an amused chuckle that only seemed to miff the woman further.
"The world isn't all about you," I replied sarcastically, getting a weird sense of enjoyment as seeing the disciplined pilot lose their composure at my taunt. Mirage's face contorted into a mix between embarrassment and furry, however, before she could act on either emotion, Freyja, also recognizing the woman but not knowing about her more hostile nature, jumped at Mirage and latched her hands around the pilots wrists.
"You're from the Delta platoon!" Freyja yelled out hysterically, crying like a child who was… well, probably about her age. "Please let me take the audition!" It didn't take a genius to see that Mirage was clearly not used to anyone invading her personal space by the way her cheeks flushed to a bright red glow. Admittedly, anyone would be embarrassed at having the hot mess that was Freyja cry all over them. As the Windermeran continued to beg the distressed pilot for an audition, I heard one of the receptionists speaking over her headset.
"… Ah, right. In that case…" the woman finished up the call she was on and stood up to try and get Freyja's attention. "Um, miss?" Freyja, stopped mid-sentence of whatever plea she had been issuing to Mirage and looked back at the green haired woman with teary eyes. "You've received special permission to take part in the audition." Nearly everyone in the vicinity looked some level of relieved, Mirage almost more so than Freyja herself.
"Really?" Freyja asked, collapsing on top of Mirage who quickly tried to keep the girl from hitting the ground.
"So damn lucky…" I muttered under my breath. Whether it came to somehow dodging bullets on the battle field or the rules of some contest, it seemed that luck was on Freyja's side either way. Now if only I could catch a lucky break every once in a wh-
"And also…" the receptionist began, speaking to me this time. I raised a confused eyebrow at the woman as she continued to address me.
"Are you Hayate Immelmann?"
"I am," I replied, unsure what was going on. I was pretty sure I hadn't broken any laws yet, though, that situation with the phone was a little-
"Commander Arad from the Delta platoon wants to see you," the woman continued, throwing my train of thought off yet again.
"The commander?" Mirage asked as she helped Freyja to her feet.
"Me?" I asked, trying to confirm what I had been told. Why did Mirage's boss want to see me?
"Looks like the commander liked you moves, dancer boy," the large Ragnan said with a hefty pat on my shoulder.
"Ha!" Mirage let lose a forced laugh. "More like he wants to find out how you hijacked a military Variable Fighter."
"But Hayate saved me," Freyja said, sounding confused as to both why I had been summoned by this commander Arad and why Mirage was showing me such hostility. "Why would he get in trouble for that?" Mirage, at finally hearing why I had 'hijacked' the VF, began gaping like a fish, her gaze shifting between the girl she was holding in her hands and myself.
"Um…" the secretary who had delivered the news to us began, unsure of how to properly enter the conversation again. I looked back at her, deciding I had sufficiently dedicated to memory the shocked look Mirage had been sporting. "Ms?" the timid woman asked as she looked over at Freyja. "You can wait here with the other for the final auditions. Mr. Immelmann, would you mind following me?"
"I guess," I replied with a shrug, turning back towards Freyja to say goodbye. "See you around, I guess." I began to follow the green haired woman, but unsurprisingly, Freyja got a sudden burst of energy and flung herself out from Mirage's loose hold.
"Hey, wait!" The secretary and I stopped, both turning to address the child who had been causing a ruckus since arriving on the planet. "Um…" she began nervously, her cheeks beginning to burn as everyone around listened in on the usually loud girl. "Thanks for-" she continued in an uncharacteristically shy and soft voice before I cut her off, deciding to save her from the embarrassment she seemed to be going through.
"I'm not giving you a ride back home," I said with a small smirk. Freyja looked back up from the floor she had begun to focus on with confusion and surprise. "Once you're done failing, you're on your own," I elaborated, hoping she would see my smile and understand I was just teasing her some more. I honestly hoped she did well in her auditions, she had seemed to enjoy herself immensely back on Al Shahal when she had sung with Walkure. The small smile that came across her still red cheeks proved to me she had interpreted my teasing successfully.
"I'm not gonna fail!" she shouted regardless, causing me to smile just a bit more. I turned around, and seeing that I was ready to go, the secretary began to lead me to this commander Arad once again.
The walk through Elysion was somewhat dizzying. There were countless hallways that branched off countless others, numbers and letters that seemed to be thrown together without rhyme or reason painted on every other wall, and personnel constantly walking in and out of doors that all hissed open and close. So, when a large window came up on my right, I was immediately drawn to it, the familiarity of the blue sky it showed instantly calming me from the unfamiliarity Elysion was proving to hold. As I continued to gaze out the window, my vision came upon some parked VF's.
My mind flashed back to the memory I had of flying through the sky back on Al Shahal, the brief moment of… correctness I had felt before being unceremoniously shot down. Shaking myself from the pleasurable memory, I looked back to where I expected the secretary to be waiting, only to find she was nowhere in sight, dozens of other people milling through the space I had expected her to occupy.
"Shit," I murmured, beginning to feel a slight panic. There was no way I knew of to track the secretary back down, and I hadn't been paying enough attention to go back to where we had come from. I looked back out the window to try and sooth my nerves again, finding my eyes drawn back to the aircraft like a magnet. This Arad guy was supposed to be the commander of Delta Platoon, right? He'd have to come get his plane sooner or later…
It was surprisingly easy to get to the flight deck the planes were on, I just had to follow the signs that said, 'PILOT AND MAINTENCE CREW ONLY'. None of the doors were locked and the people around me must've assumed I was authorized to enter if I had already made it this far. Once I had stepped outside, I immediately felt the stress and anxiety that had been building while I had been inside Elysion fall away. The gentle breeze was just enough to make the hot surface of the runway cool and comfortable, and the scent was the freshest I had smelled in a while.
A VF-31 near me that was accented in an imperial purple paint job caught my interest. As I began to walk closer to the plane, I heard a couple of mechanics who were doing maintenance talking.
"DGS status normal," the mechanic on the ladder that went up into the cockpit of the craft reported to the other man. "Hand me the wrench, will ya?"
"Yeah, yeah," the other guy replied as he turned around to reach into a bin of tools on a cart near the plane. As he was passing the wrench to his partner, the man guy noticed me as I was looking at the large 04 painted on the side of the VF. "Who's that?" the man asked his older counterpart.
"That's a new face," the older man replied as he lowered himself down the ladder. "You a rookie?" the man called out to me, clearly not worried about some stranger standing beside his ward. Clearly everyone here had a lot of faith in their security measures. Not wanting to set off a panic, but not wanting to lie to the genuine seeming man either, I went with a possible half-truth.
"Kind of," I replied as I shifted my focus on the deadly looking laser that was attached to the wing I was under.
"'Kind of' he says," the older man laughed. He watched me study the plane a moment more before he asked another question. "Sorry if it seems silly of me to ask, but do you like planes?"
"I like flying in them," I answered, turning to face the man.
"Ha! Now there's an answer you expect from a pilot!" the man said as he elbowed the mechanic beside him. He began removing his gloves and walked up to me, putting his hand out to shake. "The name's Theodore, and that's Perry. When you start flying?" he asked as I shook his rough hands.
"Hayate Immelmann. Soon, I hope," I replied, a small smile coming to my face both at the man's demeanor and at the prospect of possibly flying again.
"Well aren't you a flyboy through and through," the man said as he clapped my shoulder. "You ever handle a VF-31 Siegfried before?" the man asked as Perry came over and shook my hand, all three of us turning to look at the aircraft after the exchanged greetings.
"No," I replied, looking over every inch of the craft and feeling an overwhelming excitement build up in me at even being near such a powerful and graceful looking machine. I bet I could really make this one dance…
"Well, you're in for a treat," the man said as he ogled the plane with me. "She can be a handful if you aren't mindful of her quirks, but once you've built up that rapport, she'll do laps around everything else out there."
"I'll believe it," I replied, thinking back to the battle that had taken up the whole sky back on Al Shahal.
"You know who your instructor will be?" The jovial man asked, glancing back down at me for a moment.
"Not yet," I replied, still unable to tear my gaze from the plane.
"Lieutenant Ihlefeld's probably the best pilot for the job from a purely instructional point of view," the man began saying as he looked back towards the plane with me. "But, from every other angle, putting him with someone who isn't going to be as proficient as him right off the bat is a very bad idea." The mechanic fished with a sigh. "Well, it was nice to meet you Mr. Immelmann. Do me a favor and try and treat whatever plane becomes yours with some love. It makes my job a little easier to do." I laughed nervously as I remembered what happened to the last plane I had flown.
"Will do," I replied regardless, shaking the man's hand one last time as he and Perry went back to doing maintenance. I began to walk around the other parked planes, losing track of time and myself as I took in the beautiful machines. At some point, my mind was pulled away from the metallic frames before me to the sound of a bird who's repeated calls weren't quite annoying, but frequent and loud enough to be a distraction. I looked up at the mostly white avian, bringing my hand up behind it and putting my thumb and little finger out as if they were the forward swept wings of the VF-31's I had been studying for who knows how long. I pretended for a moment my hand was an aircraft fighting a giant bird, but the make-believe quickly proved to be boring as the bird didn't seem to understand my hand was in the perfect position to take it out and refused to move as if it's life depended on it.
"You showed off some impressive moves the other day," a voice suddenly called out from behind me, further removing me away from my little game with the bird. I turned around to see an older man, the one who had seemed to be in charge of Mirage back on Al Shahal. "I'm the commander of the Delta platoon, Arad Molders." To his right was another guy, maybe four of five years older than me and about eight to ten centimeters taller than the commander Molders.
"I was taken down in a flash," I replied, not sure what the man was talking about. "It was my first time flying a plane."
"But you seemed proficient at controlling a battroid," the man clarified, a small smile never quite leaving his face.
"I've used workroids for work," I replied a little redundantly. Or maybe not. If I had simply said I used workroids, he might have assumed I had hijacked those too. Mirage no doubt had told him about my unauthorized use of a military asset…
"I see," the man said simply, putting my mind a little more at ease. Maybe Mirage hadn't submitted her thirty page report yet. Ha. I laughed at the thought of the auburn haired woman writing a dissertationafter each sortie only for the commander in front of me to give it a rough glance before deleting the large file from whatever device he read it from. My fantasy was interrupted by a voice that sounded as if being here was some colossal waste of time and any other activity would be more productive.
"You seem to move around a lot," the taller man beside the commander began, looking at a device he held in his hand. I got kind of frustrated that the guy had all my personal information right in front of him, and as to prove that was exactly what it was, he began to list off all the places I had lived in the last couple of years since leaving home. "Listania. Ebel. Gregor. Different jobs on every planet."
"So what?" I asked, perhaps more defensively than needed, but the guy was bugging me. Clearly, he wasn't used to being spoken back to. The man gave me a disbelieving look, as if my question to him was the most inappropriate or insulting thing I could do at the moment.
"Commander Arad, this is a waste of time," the tall black haired bastard told the still smirking commander, his roguish appearance only intensifying as his smirk grew almost imperceptibly.
"Hold on now," I demanded more than asked. Both sets of eyes met mine, one pair daring me to continue, the other, well, they were also daring me, but it was the kind of daring look that gave you that extra push to go ahead rather than a gaze to intimidate.
"You're the one who asked for me," I continued, not even looking at the man to the right of commander Arad. This clearly only antagonized the prick to his right, a result that I wasn't unhappy with.
"Who do you think-"
"Well," the commander began, also ignoring the man to his right, nearly making me laugh a little as the man's dark eyes briefly widened with disbelief before his strict discipline made him fall back into a mask of indifference that was thinly covering his seething mood. "I thought you could fly for us if you felt like it," the commander continued, confirming what I had been feeling the whole time I had been on my way to see the man. Regardless, suspecting and confirming are two different things that aren't always mutually assured. As I continued to process what saying yes to this man's proposal meant, the commander walked to the edge of the platform behind me.
"How did flying feel?" the commander asked. I opened my mouth to begin speaking, but there were no words I could find to do what I felt justice. "Come here," the man said, seeming to have felt my hesitance. However, my movement to his side, to the sheer and sudden edge of the platform,came without a second thought.
"If you fall, you die," the man said plainly. "You risk your life," he continued, glancing at me out of the corner of his eye, seeing me standing toe to toe with the edge of the platform. "But you still take off. That's the fate of those who've tasted the wind." His smile he had worn the whole time grew yet another marginal amount. "You've tasted it too, haven't you?" the commander asked making a slight nod towards my feet at the edge. "The rest is whether you fly or not, whether you're willing to risk your life."
Almost as if it had been coordinated, a VF-31 flew a shallow upward arc a couple hundred meters away, the plane sounding like it was sheering the very wind it was flying through. I took a large breath and blinked my eyes, trying to clear my mind to make a rational decision and not an emotional one. I began to walk along the edge of the platform, the proximity to the wide open sky somehow making my mind clear. The cool breeze continued to flow across the flight deck we were all on, occasionally getting strong enough to move my necklace. I looked down at the purple crystal that was the only real reminder of my father I carried around. Perhaps it was my nerves, or maybe the constant breeze moving it, but the crystal somehow felt… active. Humming maybe. I took another deep breath again. A humming necklace? I really needed to focus right now. I looked back up at the plane that had flown by.
"Risk my life, huh?" I stopped my walk and turned to put my back to the ledge. Risk my life. Commander Arad had asked if I had tasted the wind. Had the feeling back on Al Shahal been what that was? How could I be sure.
The breeze again picked up a little more and this time I was sure of it, my necklace began to hum.
"Wha…" I began to ask before a whisper that very well could have been the wind itself spoke to me.
Risk you life.
The breeze suddenly stopped and there was dead silence. But now the whisper, without anything trying speak over it, gave one simple command that in the silence sounded like a shout.
Jump.
And I did.
But before the startled gasps of either commander Arad or the man who had accompanied him could reach my ears, a gust of air more powerful than I had ever experienced blew at my back, lifting me the few centimeters I had fallen and then some. When I touched back down on the flight deck, I was too stunned to move for many reasons. Why had I even done that? Who, or even what, had whispered to me? Why did it feel like the crystal of my necklace that had practically been vibrating half a second ago seem to be completely normal again?
"You've got guts," a stunned commander Arad began, pulling me from my daze. "But maybe try not to take everything I say in the future quite so literally," he nervously joked as the man who had followed him seemed to mutter something under his breath. I finial recovered enough from the adrenaline pumping though my veins to stand back up normally.
"That… that felt nice," I finally stated. My ears were still pounding and it felt like I could run a mile without any fatigue. In front of me was the purple accented plane again. I walked towards it with a slightly frenetic look in my eyes. Once I reached the craft, I ran my hand over its sleek aluminum.
"I hate the army," I said, thinking of my father who I knew had been in NUNS. I didn't hate my father, far from it, but I hated the organization that had taken him away from me.
"So do I," the commander said. For a split moment, I thought he was just saying it, but perhaps his rouge look meant more than just a fashion statement.
"Taking orders too," I added, seeing if I could push my luck. "So I'll play by my own rules." After all, that was the way I had lived my life before and look where it got me now.
"Commander Arad?" the third wheel muttered. Ignoring him like I had been all along, I spoke words of affirmation to myself.
"I'll fly the skies with this beauty."
Oh how wrong I was.
AN: Not every chapter will end with 'Oh how wrong I was.' I promise. It just worked out that way. A quick question to a certain reviewer and anyone else out there who wants something to think about. Does't death have its own meaning? There is a reason losing someone in a video game, tv show or book is a hard thing to go through. Not saying that I won't save certain characters, but I'm not saying I will either. Does saving a character from their fate cheapen their life?
...
Anywho, I hope you enjoyed the second chapter. Thank you for taking the time to read, your interest helps keep me on course.
