MASAKI TALES Vol. V - QUEST...
Author: Daferge
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Disclaimer: Tenchi Muyo! is a copyright AIC/Pioneer Ltd.
All respective characters are property of their original owners.
All original characters and ideas are property of the author.
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Chapter 04... The Search...
( A secluded Star System within the Juraian Empire... )
A small starship dropped out of subspace and back into real-space, beneath a star lite sky...
Unlike most starships, this one wasn't made of metal or even wood, which the Juraians favored so much...
This one was created from crystal which tended to absorb light rather than reflect it...
A deep, dark crystal said to have fantastic powers...
And just about any one who traveled the stars knew about it and the person who operated it...
The Ken-Ohki had the female human, Nagi Katsumoro at the controls...
An infamous bounty-hunter by trade, who had taken up a sort of side job, since the recent huge decline in space pirates and especially any with worth-while bounties...
Only a select few knew that she had become the 'bodyguard' of the second Princess of Jurai, Sasami Masaki Jurai...
At least that was the 'cover' story passed out to the public...
The real facts were that Nagi and Ken-Ohki were her escort, a sort of fancy name for being her transportation...
And 'Bodyguard' sounded so much better than 'Chauffeur'...
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Usually Nagi would have been along to escort Sasami back to her home world to see her parents, like she had earlier in the day...
However, with the new, highly secret transport system that Washu had recently created, had Sasami really wanted to, she could have gone by her self...
But Sasami liked Nagi and liked taking her along when she went places, like now...
As she was about to leave her home world, to escort her sister back to Earth, her step-mother Funaho had asked if she or someone from the Masaki household could check on something for her, if she got the chance...
Sasami knew there was more to it than that, but agreed to pass on the request...
So, when she got back to the house, Sasami had managed to contact Washu, deep within the huge world Avalon and asked her what she thought...
A smiling Washu had agreed, as things were too quiet around the house...
And this would give Sasami a chance to show that, like her sister and sister-in-laws, she too was a true princess of Jurai...
She would also be taking some of the others along with her, as befitted a princess of Jurai...
Besides it would do them all some good to get out of the house for while, a girl's day out...
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( Earlier in Washu's Lab... )
Nagi, Ken-Ohki on her shoulder had been watching and when Sasami had finished talking to Washu, saw her turn to her for her opinion...
Most of her life Nagi had been a loner, until Ken-Ohki came along...
Since becoming involved with the Masaki family, Tenchi's family, her life had changed again, getting a whole lot better...
And like her former rival, the ex-space pirate Ryoko, she now had something that she wish to protect...
So Nagi did some thing that she still wasn't use to, but that she'd found herself doing more often recently...
She had smiled and nodded her head...
There was never a dull moment with the Masaki family...
And it would be good to get back out into space for a while...
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( Deep within Avalon... )
Washu smiled as she closed her keyboard down after talking with Sasami...
The Juraian Minister of Intelligence had to have a few reasons of her own, besides getting Sasami's minds off of Ryoko and Mayuka's conditions...
As it was, Washu had suggested a little experiment that they could do for her at the same time...
If it worked, as she had every reason to believed it would, it might be almost as big a deal as her new transportation system had been...
She saw Tenchi looking at her, his head slightly tilted...
I was going to get around to trying it my self, some time, this way we get it checked out and it help them at the same time...
Tenchi smiled as he sighed...
I know...
He turned and head down the darkened hall...
And we still love you... Mom...
Washu rubbed something from her eye before following...
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( On Ken-Ohki... )
Nagi turned and smiled at the others...
Sasami was sitting in a comfortable seat created just for her, Ryo-Ohki in her lap...
Ryo-Ohki hadn't left Ryoko's side since she'd collapsed when they got home after the attack...
Washu had told her that she should go with Sasami and help out, she also needed to get out of the house...
Ayeka and Mihoshi would be there to watch over her big sister for her...
Galaxy Police Detective 1st class Kiyone Makibi occupied one of the other seats...
Things had been quiet of late and Washu had need of her help in the experiment...
Washu had left a set of simple instructions, which she and Nagi read...
Both had instantly seen the advantages...
Kiyone Tanaka, also a Detective 1st class, occupied one of the other seats, happy to get away from work for a while and relax...
In fact there were some special reasons that officer Tanaka was along...
As well as some that she was unaware of at the moment...
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Before leaving the Lab, Nagi had found the small device Washu wanted them to test for her, not larger than her fist...
They had then taken the special sub-space transportation system and actually WALKED to a planet that was many light-years away from colony planet 0315...
One of the major advantages of the new system...
As the local 'exit' was in the office of the local tavern, no one saw their return to normal space...
There, with the help of the tavern's owner, they had quietly launched Ken-Ohki and proceeding the short distance to this system...
So that, in a few short hours, they had completed a trip across the known galaxy in what would have taken several days by conventional means...
Very few people knew where they were and security had been a major concern of late...
Little wonder the Royal family felt better with Washu on THEIR side...
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Having made sure that her passengers were OK, Nagi had Ken-Ohki launched the small device as Washu's instructions suggested...
After the small device traveled a safe distance from the Ken-Ohki, it began to dissolve and disappear...
After a while Nagi looked at a small device that had been with device...
There were just two small spots on it, one red, the other green...
At launch the red one had lite up, then, a short while after the device disappeared, the red one went out and the green one lite up...
With a smile Nagi turned to the two GP officers and nodded her head...
It was now up to them...
With that, Officer Makibi smiled and gestured to her fellow officer, giving her the honor...
Galaxy Police Detective 1st class Kiyone Tanaka was a bit nervous as she stood...
Taking a deep breath to calm herself, she pressed a button on the bracelet on her arm...
With all eyes on her, she spoke slowly and carefully...
"Yukinojo are you there?... "
It was only a few seconds, but to her it seem like hours before there was a reply...
" Yes, Detective Tanaka... "
And everyone smiled...
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" Please follow my signal and exit the sub-space dock... "
This would be the moment of truth...
As everyone watched, they were all now standing, the nose of the Yukinojo appeared at the spot where the device had disappeared...
Once it was all there, it moved over to stop near to the Ken-Ohki...
" Detective Tanaka?... "
Kiyone smiled as she answered...
" Yes?... "
" According to my scans, it would seem that we are no longer in the 0315 star system?... "
Kiyone smiled...
" Correct!... "
There was a short pause...
" In fact we are a good number of light-years away from that system?... "
Kiyone saw the others smiling...
" Again, correct!... "
It didn't take much for the ship's AI to come to an obvious conclusion...
" I've been one of that mad scientist's Guinea Pigs, haven't I... "
All the girls smiled, they knew he was not asking a question, he was stating a fact...
It was Sasami who answered him...
" Yes, Yukinojo, welcome to the family... "
The reply was very soft and very sad...
" I was afraid you were going to say that... "
All the girls started laughing...
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( Washu's Lab... )
Katsuhito Masaki sipped some tea that Sasami had fixed for him before she left with the others...
Sitting on one of Washu's floating chairs, he watched over the others in the lab...
Ayeka and Mihoshi, asleep on the platform bed that Washu had ready for them...
Mihoshi cuddling her stuffed bear, Ayeka cuddling a large pillow...
He'd watched as a small floating ball had appeared when Ayeka had gotten restless and pressed some thing to her neck...
Ayeka had sighed and gone right back to sleep...
Over on the old couch, lay Ryoko's stand-in, Minagi Hakubi...
At the moment, the only other person around was his student, Rogon Masaki,"a third cousin of Tenchi's visiting from overseas"...
With Sasami's guardian Logs, Azaka and Kamidake, the three were standing guard over the Masaki household while everyone was gone...
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As the local priest for the Masaki Shrine up on the hill, he should be up there now...
However there was a note on the closed gate, between the two guardians, stating that the shrine was closed due to a family emergency...
And as it was, Rogon wasn't alone most of the time, for a female ninja from Tokyo was helping out...
Tuskiko Hoshiki, the granddaughter of the head of the Hoshiki Ninja clan, which the Masakis had recently save from being destroyed...
Washu had installed a simple doorway/gate connection directly to the Hoshiki Ninja clan's estate in Tokyo...
This not only allowed a secure way of quickly getting to Tokyo ( the girls all like to go shopping ), but it helped improve relations between the two 'clans'...
Especially between Rogon and Tuskiko...
As such, Tuskiko had joined Rogon's training as often as she could get away from her duties in Tokyo, with her grandfather's permission...
Katsuhito enjoyed having another student...
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Whenever Tenchi and the other were around, there was a larger class and some showing off before the others...
He enjoyed watching Tuskiko and Rogon's eyes widen as Tenchi and one of the girls went at it...
Tuskiko had never imagined that there were people with such skills and powers, outside movies and Anime on TV...
As for Rogon, although he hadn't seen them, being for outer space, he had at least heard of them...
Katsuhito knew that both were highly skilled in the martial arts...
They were both quite 'raw', but both had great potential...
He had very high hope for both...
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( The Hoshiki estate, Tokyo... )
Katsuro Hoshiki, the head of the clan studied the latest financial reports and smiled...
Life was good and the future had never looked better...
He smiled at the picture of the smiling couple on his desk, his granddaughter Tuskiko and her good friend, Rogon Masaki...
The only ninja to have ever defeated her...
In trying to ensure trust between the two clans, Lord Tenchi, the head of the Masaki clan had let Katsuro and Tuskiko know some of their more important secrets...
One had been, that although listed as"a third cousin of Tenchi's visiting from overseas", Rogon wasn't...
Not only was the young male not named Masaki, he was from a lot further away than 'overseas', he was actually from a distant world, a VERY distant world...
As Lord Tenchi admitted, a good many members of the Masaki household were from distant worlds...
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Katsuro had to smile when he recalled his first thoughts about that - madness...
Until he and Tuskiko were actually taken aboard a starship in orbit and shown the planet floating below them...
Then they both knew it was all true, another secret, among many they must now keep...
Besides, who in the world would believe them any way, more likely lock them away...
What better reason for wanting to keep the secret?...
It was a bond of great trust between the clans...
And any second thoughts he might have once had about befriending the Masaki clan disappeared...
As Lady Washu had commented, what chance did some simple ninja clans have against the vast Galactic Empire that was now protecting them?...
Hadn't the recent foiled invasion and the incident before the high council proved it?...
He chuckled, something he hadn't been able to do in quite some time...
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( On the Yukinojo... )
Sasami and the others sat around a small table while officer Kiyone Makibi prepared to give a 'lecture' on the known history of this system...
On the edge of the Juraian Empire, it was so isolated that although claimed by Jurai, the Galaxy Police had been patrolling it, along with a number of other systems that were under their jurisdiction in the sector...
It was a trade-off for similar isolated Galaxy systems that Juraian force kept an eye on...
As for the system itself..
It had been accidentally discovered and claimed by a distant cousin of the Emperor...
His ship had appeared in the system, after a long random jump, after being badly damaged during one of the many conflicts with the Airaian Kingdom...
However, along with the uncharted system, he soon discovered that its major planet already had a small population living on it, one that had learned to live WITH the planet instead of FIGHTING it...
Thus, even after centuries of low tech colonization, the planet was still almost virginal, still untouched, as had most of the system...
A report by the cousin reported that due to the distance of the system from the home world any attempt to 'collect' ( a polite word for strip mining ) the resources present for shipment home, would cost far more than they would ever be worth...
There just wasn't any rare materials present within the system that would make it worth the effort...
That and the fact the local population would, in all likelihood, resist such a move and thus make it even more costly...
However, on the other hand, there were some sources in the system's outer rings which could provide the raw materials for a number of the Empire's nearby outposts for far less than what it was costing at that time to ship in from other places...
This would allow those resources, being shipped in from much further away, to be sent to other outposts, also in need, at a much lower cost, saving even more...
The Emperor studied the report and placed his stamp on it, putting his cousin in charge and assigning the system to him and his clan...
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As such, the Tanaka clan had been responsible for the system ever since...
Kiyone created a 3D image of the major world before continuing...
A geological report on the planet indicated that for the most part, it could be classified as a low class planet, backwater world...
One where very little technology was being used...
Most of the population, estimated to be just a few thousand, tended to live in various underground villages connected to access towers in the vegetation above ground that allowed contact to the outer world...
Except for a few spots on the planet, most of the land masses were still covered by native vegetation...
One of these spots was the section of cliffs, over looking the sea, that the lordship's mansion had been built...
The mansion and it's few building was the only know spot on the planet where higher tech was known or allowed...
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It was reported that there was some 'industry' on the planet, creating the basic stuff needed by the local population...
Even so, they only used what they needed and was careful about any waste that might be created...
Being such an isolated system, there was not much more known in the official Juraian and GP records...
Most recent data had consisted of the few 'all is well' reports from officers who passed through or near the system while they were patrolling the rest of the sector...
The last Lord Tanaka, who was living on the planet, passed away shortly after his sole surviving son, a Galaxy Police officer, was killed when the transport he and his family were riding on was attacked...
A records search indicated his sole surviving family member was a young great-granddaughter who had missed the trip due to illness...
Kiyone paused as she and the others turned to her fellow officer, who every one knew was that great-granddaughter...
The recent return of her brother and his acquiring the title of Lord Tanaka, had made her Lady Tanaka, which every one on board was well aware of...
It was also one of the reasons she was alone, to officially return to the system, inspect the estate and get updated data on the system...
The Queen had heard rumors that the caretaker for the system might not have been just watching over it the way he was suppose to be...
If so, they would need some really hard evidence before confronting some one so high in the government...
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( The third sub power room... )
Washu smiled as she observed her work...
Shortly after arriving, she had placed two of her small generators, still in the boxes in opposite corners of the room, opened them and pulled out some cables...
She connected the cables to outlets in the wall and had the helpers move the boxes closer to the walls, covering and protecting the cables...
She then set the anti-grav system, which allowed then to carry the heavy boxes with ease, to heavy grav mode...
Now each box weighed a ton...
They weren't going anywhere and they had access to huge amounts of power...
Merlin watched and there was amusement on his face...
She didn't bother to explain to him that the reason she was able to make all the adjustment and upgrades so quickly was because she and her sisters had created this world a million or so years before...
But that had been before she locked up her powers and most of her memories within the three stones of power that had once been Ryoko's major source of power...
She'd been thoughtful enough to leave a complete blueprint of the world in the planet's data base, which she now had access to when she needed it...
However, even Goddesses don't think of everything...
Thus, since they gave the world away as a gift, almost all collected data was recorded by hand, written down...
And now to get the data they needed, they would have to find that material and then read the handwritten information...
Looking at the others a thought accrued to her...
I'm going to need a much bigger research team...
SIGH...
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( On the Yukinojo... )
Kiyone had just finished her report when the ship's AI broke in...
" Officer Makibi?... "
" Yes?... "
" It seems we are being hailed by approaching ships IDed as Juraian Military... They are demanding we explain why we have entered Juraian restricted space?... "
No one seem to have any idea about what was going on...
Kiyone and the others quickly made it to the bridge where she took the command chair, Lady Kiyone took the co-command chair...
She set the comm-unit so that it only showed her and not the others on the bridge before opening a channel...
" This is Galaxy Police Detective 1st class Kiyone Makibi of the Galaxy Cruiser Yukinojo... Please identify yourselves!... "
She tried to sound polite, but also firm...
A young officer wearing a Juraian naval uniform appeared and eyed her...
" Well, Detactive Makibi... I am Captain Zanata in command of security patrol number 6215... This system has been classified as a hazardous world and placed under class A restriction by the Jurai High Council... I must ask that you leave the system at once or I shall be forced to fire on you... "
Noting movement behind her, she motioned with her hand for Princess Sasami to stay back...
Sasami stopped at the hand sign and smiled as she saw the smile on Kiyone's face...
The same kind of smile her sister Ayeka got when she was about to go head-to-head with Ryoko...
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Kiyone had finished reading the printout of the scan of 'security Patrol Number 6215'...
A light cruiser, four medium escorts destroyers and half a dozen small scout/patrol cruisers, a reasonable defensive force for protecting the system...
However, since the cruiser was several centuries old, and the rest at-least 50 years old, the revised Yukinojo wouldn't even raised a sweat taking them out...
Kiyone studied the Captain and his uniform, which seem to scream "fresh meat", just out of the Academy and probably his first command...
The cut of his uniform suggested upper class, his rank one of the major families, possibly even related to the Royal family some how...
She tilted her head slightly as she spoke...
" Well, Captain Zanata... I should probably tell you that the Yukinojo is a Mark XX special GP Patrol Cruiser... And that makes it equal to a 4th generation Tree-ship... "
None of them had ever seen eyes that wide before, it was almost hysterical, the way his jaw dropped...
Kiyone spoke softly as she gestured with her hand...
" There's someone here who would like to ask you a couple of questions... "
As Sasami stepped before the comm-unit and it looked as if the young Captain was going to have a heart attack...
" PRINCESS SASAMI!... "
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To be continued...
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Please feel free to comment and review for any errors...
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