When he regained awareness again, opening his eyes and turning his attention toward the tekkapod that held the youngest of his brothers, the first thing that Spear took notice of was the fact that it was still glowing. Still the healthy, steady green that meant that the Tekkaman inside was still viable. Spear was glad for it; he didn't want to lose even a single one of his siblings, not after the way the twins had been taken from him.
(Sasuke-chibi? Are you feeling better now?)
(Sasuke? Who is that?) his little brother asked, sounding so hopelessly confused that Spear couldn't help but feel sorry for asking in the first place. (And who- who are you?)
(I'm sorry,) Spear said quickly. (I thought you were someone I knew.)
Closing the link between them before he could inadvertently let something slip, Spear reached out for the one person that he knew would be able to explain to him just what was happening to his youngest brother.
(Omega-sama? Is something happening to Sasuke?)
(Sasuke?) the ancient Warlord paused, and Spear got the impression of swift mental activity, as if he was considering his response; at least considering something. (Ah, yes; the youngest of your little clan. He is being prepared to take the final step into becoming a Tekkaman. A proper one, you understand; nothing like those traitor twins we've been dealing with.)
(My younger brothers,) he mused, not particularly happy about hearing any of his family members being described that way, but unable to deny the truth of what his Warlord was saying. (Would you mind if I tried to persuade them to come back, my Lord? I think I might be able to get through to them.)
(As you will, Spear,) Omega said, though he didn't seem particularly sanguine about the idea. (Though I rather doubt that they will be willing to listen to you, particularly after the way they killed Dagger.)
(Fritz is dead?) he repeated, his eyes opening wide in shock.
(Yes. He was killed by the elder of the traitor twins; the one with the green eyes.)
(Takaya killed Fritz?) he blinked in surprise. (I wonder how Shinya feels about that; he and Fritz were nearly as close as he and Takaya are. Even though they didn't get to see each other quite so often.)
What could have happened to them, that they would have even considered such a horrible thing?
(I'll still do my best to convince them, my Lord,) he said, feeling a bit shaken by the revelation, but no less determined to carry through with his plans. (But, thank you for telling me this. It's… important information.)
(Yes; I should think so. Go back to sleep now, Spear,) Omega-sama's command was unmistakable, and Spear found his body settling back down into the torpor he had only recently escaped from. (I will awaken you when the time comes.)
Spear's last conscious thought before sleep took him was to wonder just how he was going to handle his younger brothers; if Takaya had been willing to kill Fritz, what might that mean for him?
I
When he woke up, staring at the ceiling of the Space Knights' infirmary, Shinya wondered just how he had managed to catch a Radam monster's claw in his torso when all he'd been aiming to do was bat the thing aside. Clearly, he hadn't quite planned that so well; then again, there hadn't really been much time for planning at all, just actions and the consequences that came with them. His arm and upper-chest were still a bit tender at the moment, so he tried not to move much.
It was hard, though, since the skin in that area was starting to itch slightly.
The sight of one of the doctors, coming up to him with a look of businesslike neutrality that was replaced with one of honest surprise when he saw Shinya looking at him, drew a small smile from him.
"You're awake?" the doctor wondered aloud, blinking. "Well, I suppose you wouldn't have your eyes open if you weren't. How are you feeling?"
"I feel better now, thank you," he said, offering a small smile.
"Yes, I'd imagine so," the doctor said, smiling back at him. "Well, if you'll just hold still while I remove your bandages, you'll be free to go. I swear, you and your brother have the most amazing recovery-rates I've seen in my entire career."
Something else that the Radam could be thanked, or blamed, for again then. "Thank you. I don't really think I want to spend any more time in this bed," he said, as the doctor came over to his bed.
Nodding with an understanding expression, the doctor looked down at him for a moment as if he was a particularly interesting medical case he had been tasked to solve. When the doctor pulled back his blanket and began to remove the bandages wrapped around the top of his right arm, Shinya twitched a bit.
"Stop," he laughed as the man's fingers probed the sensitized skin under the bandage. "That tickles."
"Ah," the doctor said, with a soft chuckle of his own. "I do apologize, then. I just wanted to get a closer examination of your shoulder. You really are a remarkable young man; I don't know of any other person who would have recovered from this kind of an injury with the speed you have."
"I guess I am kind of strange like that," he said, trying not to think about what the Radam had done to him.
"On the contrary, you're quite impressive," the doctor corrected gently. "Anyway, you're free to go now, D-Two."
"Thank you," he said, levering himself up and out of bed, pausing a bit when his newly-healed shoulder complained a bit, but he was soon back on his feet nonetheless.
"Try not to make a habit of ending up here, D-Two," the doctor said, a wry smile on his face. "Your brother was in and out of here ever since he woke up this morning. I finally managed to get him to leave, but I had to threaten to sedate him and put him in one of the beds just to get some peace to work on you."
"I'll try to keep that in mind," he said with a laugh. (Ta-kun, have you been pestering the medics while I was out?)
(You would have done the same, wouldn't you, Shin-chan?) Takaya asked, and he could sense that his brother was somewhere very close by.
(Yes, Ta-kun; I would have, but I would have tried not to bother people.)
Judging from what the doctor had said about his older twin's proclivities during the time he'd been incapacitated, he suspected that Takaya was waiting for him just outside the door to the infirmary. When he walked through said door, he found that his brother was indeed waiting for him there. There was an expression of profound relief on his brother's face, and Shinya smiled along with him.
"It's nice to be back, Ta-kun."
"It's nice to have you back again, Shin-chan," Takaya said softly, smile still on his face. "I've been waiting for you to get up so we could go have breakfast together."
"Oh? Is breakfast all you've been thinking about, Ta-kun?" he turned a sidelong smirk on Takaya. "And here I thought you missed me."
(You're not funny, Aiba-tan.) Takaya said, giving him a Look.
Shinya laughed; it'd been such a long time since he'd heard that name, and it felt even longer since he'd had it applied to him. It was good to know that, no matter what happened to the two of them, he and Takaya would always be essentially themselves. Takaya, a smile breaking out over his face, laughed along with him as they walked.
They both fell silent before they reached the cafeteria, though, not wanting to be bothered by people who would likely be curious about their good humor. Taking their usual table at the far end of the room, away from where the larger groups people tended to settle. Setting down their trays, laden with all of the foods they liked, Shinya and Takaya began to eat with their usual gusto.
Once their meal was finished, Takaya took their trays back over to the counter and deposited them and their load of used dishes into the pile with all of the others that were due to be washed. After that, with nothing else to keep them there, they left the cafeteria; their blast-furnace metabolism already going to work on their latest meal.
"What would you say to a bit of sparring, brother?" Shinya asked suddenly, prompting a surprised blink from Takaya.
"Why?"
"It would be nice to test my skills against someone who's not actually trying to kill me," Shinya said, offering a one-shouldered shrug. (Besides, we all used to free-spar. I guess I miss that.)
(There used to be a lot more of us to free-spar,) Takaya said, looking morosely down at the ground. "It would be nice to get in some practice before we end up having to fight for real again."
"Yeah," Shinya said, putting a hand on Takaya's shoulder as the both of them continued on their way through the corridor.
Just as they were about to start heading back to their rooms to get ready, though, Honda intercepted them.
"Good morning, D-boys," the rotund man said, with a somewhat jovial air. "The Blue Earth needs painting, would you like to help?"
"All right," Takaya said, before he could make any kind of response, one way or another, on the matter.
(I thought we were going to be sparring, Ta-kun,) he said, trying not to sound like he was too annoyed, even though he had kind of been looking forward to it. It was like he'd told Takaya, it'd been too long since they had done anything like that.
(Honda asked us to help,) Takaya said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. (The ship was damaged because of us.)
(You're right,) he said, smiling softly as the three of them turned and headed for the service-hangar where the Blue Earth underwent her routine maintenance, and her swiftly-becoming-routine combat repairs.
(I know I am,) Takaya said, turning to wink at him, just out of Honda's line of sight.
When they finally arrived in the service-hangar, Shinya saw that there had already been scaffolding set up by the side of the Blue Earth that they were going to be working on. He also saw that there were three paint-sprayers, and three facemasks to go with them. The three of them climbed up onto the scaffolding, and Honda offered them a bit of help with the masks and sprayers.
He accepted it gladly; not just for the sake of his and Takaya's cover, but because it'd been awhile since he'd used these things at all.
II
They'd been working on the Blue Earth for some indiscriminate time or other, and the fumes were starting to make the inside of his nose itch. Of course, given that it was this bad for him, he didn't want to think of how bad it must have been for Shinya. For some reason, both of them were allergic to the fumes from the specific type of paint used on spaceship hulls, but it only really seemed to affect either of them when the paints were being applied with a sprayer.
Looking over at Shinya to see how his brother was doing, he found that his brother was twitching his nose slightly, the way he always did when he needed to sneeze but didn't particularly want to.
"The Blue Earth has been getting a lot more dinged-up since you D-Boys have been here," Honda said, and Takaya couldn't quite tell if he was just thinking aloud or not.
"Well, that's why brother and I are helping you out right now," he said, though he did understand the sentiment.
Just as he finished that sentence, Shinya sneezed three times in quick succession. He never seemed to be able to sneeze just once, it always seemed to be two or three times. There were even occasions, though they were extremely rare, when his brother would actually sneeze four times in a row. And anytime he did that, it was always a struggle for Takaya not to laugh.
"You all right up there, D-Two?"
"I'm all right, old man," Shinya called back, his hand still on his mask from tipping it up. "I'm not getting sick," another double-sneeze.
"Really," Honda said, sounding concerned. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah, it's just the paint," Shinya said, grinning down at Honda as he flipped his facemask back down. "Thank you for your concern, Honda."
They worked like that for a couple more minutes, before Milly's voice over the comm. interrupted them: "Emergency! All Space Knights are to gather in the Central Emergency Room."
"What, again?" Honda groused. "We're just too popular."
(Well, brother, I guess we're not going to be doing any free-sparring today,) Shinya said.
(I guess not,) he sighed. (Sorry; I took a bit too long.)
The three of them climbed down from the scaffolding, and he and Shinya handed their sprayers and facemasks to Honda and then dashed out of the room. Honda would be along soon enough, but he in particular was eager to find out just what the Chief wanted to brief them on. This was the first time he hadn't been called somewhere by the general-alert, so it was already a day of firsts.
He couldn't shake the feeling, though, that this wasn't going to be a particularly good day for them; probably the voice of experience speaking.
He and Shinya met up with Aki, Noal, and Levin in the corridors leading to the conference room, and the two groups blended easily into one.
"You heard, too?" Shinya asked, as they all continued on their way toward the main room.
Before any of their fellow Space Knights could answer that question, though, they were all standing before the doors leading into the main room of OSDG Headquarters; or Comm. One, as he'd heard Milly say. Filing inside, the two lines of Space Knights divided down the middle to settle into a line in front of the huge screen that made up the far wall. Taking his place next to Shinya, Takaya patted his brother's right shoulder and was rewarded with a small smile.
Chief Freeman, standing at the forefront of the room the same way he'd done last time, waited calmly for them all to settle into place.
"What's that?" Noal asked, as the Chief activated the screen, displaying a large number of ships, all flying in formation; he quickly recognized them as Beta transports, and judging from the way Shinya discreetly squeezed his hand he did too, but neither of them were going to say anything.
He didn't want anyone asking him about things that weren't their business, even if he was starting to think of them as comrades.
"A fleet of transport ships that took off from Jupiter's moon Io," the Chief said. "There are twelve in all," he added, with an aside glance to him and Shinya. "They are carrying energy plants, metal ore, and other resources on their way back to Earth."
"They're on their way back to Earth?" Aki asked, and he quickly covered a wince as he realized just what the problem was that she had seen. "It'll be extremely dangerous for that kind of ship to land directly on Earth."
"That kind of ship was made to travel between the Orbital Ring and outer space," Honda groused, clearly annoyed.
"They took off from the development base on Io before the Orbital Ring had been occupied by the Radam," the Chief said in his usual tone. "They heard of the danger on Earth, and bravely decided to transport their resources here."
The image of the convoy flickered as the Chief spoke, then was replaced by the photo of a man; Takaya tried not to see anything familiar about him, but he had that kind of a face- ruthlessly, almost viciously, Takaya slammed his mental impressions into a tungsten box, welded it shut, and hurled it into the deepest, darkest pit he could find. He wasn't going to do this to himself.
"So, what do we do now?" he asked, not having seen the connection, or the necessity of their presence; sure, this was good information to have, but they could have just as easily been informed of this later.
The Chief, who he now saw was wearing a pair of dark, rimless wraparound glasses, turned to look at them over his left shoulder. "We have a direct order from the President for this. Your mission is to protect these spaceships and see that they land on Earth safely. If the worst should happen, sacrifice the ships and the lives of their crew. For this mission to succeed, all you need to do is procure the supplied that these ships are carrying."
He didn't know quite how to interpret the emphasis that the Chief spoke with, but in a more emotional person, he would have said it was disapproval.
"Of course," Shinya groused. "Who expected the ADF to do anything on their own?"
Needless to say, no one raised their hand, but Shinya's own raised eyebrow did make him have to bite back a smirk.
"Go now," was all the Chief said in response; the usual affirmative from the Space Knights was a bit more subdued than it had been in the past, of course.
Turning to leave the comm. room with his brother, Aki, and Noal, Takaya sighed. He didn't like being thought of as just some toy soldier, to be wound up and pointed at whatever it was that the Allied Defense Force, or anyone else for that matter, wanted dead at the moment. And, from the almost palpable annoyance that was radiating off of Shinya at present, he felt just the same.
As the four of them made for the Blue Earth's hangar, he couldn't help the momentary amusement that came at the thought of Honda's probable feelings on the matter. Here he'd just finished getting the ship all patched up and painted, and she was being sent right back into the field again. That was kind of funny, if you had a morbid sense of humor, anyway.
"Well, since you boys are probably going to end up having to transform before all of this is over, and since we don't exactly have time to stop off in the cafeteria and let you stuff your faces, I guess I can let you have those extra rations I laid in."
Those rations had been for them in the first place, given the high-calorie diets that they had both been placed on when the nature of their powers had been determined to depend on their own energy reserves.
"Thank you, Noal-kun," Shinya said, with airily mocking, overblown gratitude. "You're so kind." Shinya batted his eyelashes, and Noal and Aki both burst out laughing.
"Yeah, well you D-Boys just remember that," Noal said, grinning as they all made it up to the Blue Earth's pre-launch vehicle and quickly boarded the ship.
While Noal took care of the preliminaries, he and Shinya both headed for the aft storage-section and grabbed a pair of the prepared meal boxes stored there. Eating even as they made their way back to their seats, he handed Shinya his empty container and glanced over as his brother stowed them away.
"All finished?" Noal asked, not waiting for a response. "Let's go. Our landing-point is the Inlet of Paradise Island. Chosen because it'll be easy to recover the supplies, even if the ships fail to land and explode. That's not something we can mention to Dr. Cal."
"Yes, Noal-kun," he said, as Shinya snickered.
"You scared?" Shinya asked, grinning; Noal ignored him.
"But I don't quite understand it," Aki said, sounding concerned. "The Chief's attitude was a little too cold."
"Yeah," he said, as Shinya echoed the sentiment; that wasn't what they were really thinking about, though. Knowing something like that couldn't be easy for anyone; particularly if they cared about their comrades. He didn't know, no one did, how Dr. Cal would react to learning that.
Still, he was determined to find out just what kind of a man Dr. Cal really was; that would be the quickest way. A quick glance over at Shinya confirmed that his brother had decided the same thing he had, and now they both shared that resolve. Clasping his younger twin's hand, Takaya squeezed tightly.
III
No matter how many times he was forced to send his Space Knights into danger, it had never truly became easy. That was why he had worn his visor, to keep his Space Knights from knowing just how much he had detested the wording used and the orders he had had to deliver. His Space Knights were not expendable, not one of them could be so easily replaced as the orders he had received had so clearly implied.
Still, it was his duty as their Chief to pass on the orders that he was given, and if he resisted too much he would run the risk of losing his command. It was not likely that his replacement, whoever they appointed, would be so moral as to think of his Space Knights as people rather than just one more exploitable asset to be used as the Allied Defense Force saw fit. Particularly D-Boy and D-Two, who were the most vulnerable to exploitation by the ADF.
However, the thoughts of what his Space Knights might be doing were now interspersed with the memories of his old friend Silas.
He had always been one for lost causes; the lonelier and the more hopeless the better, to his way of thinking. He could still clearly remember how passionately Silas had argued against the initial formation of the Allied Defense Force, citing the fact that the Generals would be given unchecked power over the people they were going to be assigned to protect; of course, by then it had been too late to contest such a drastic reorganization of the Earth's various militaries. Even he had bowed to cold necessity at that point; he'd seen too much strife caused by the entanglements inherent in the old way of doing things.
Silas had looked at him when the decision was announced, just a simple look, but the expression on his old friend's face had been one that he would never forget, not as long as he lived. Silas had obviously seen it as a deep, personal betrayal; a betrayal so deeply personal that it had driven him to abandon not only his home planet, but his own family. He had left for Io not soon after the announcement of the Allied Defense Force's formation had been made.
Heinrich had gone to meet him at the launch-site, as any old friend would have, but Silas had been determined to leave. He had stated that the formation of the ADF had sealed Earth's fate; that there was no future for the Earth, and he was going to found a new colony on Io. It was likely to have taken a great deal of work, terraforming such a volatile, volcanic moon as that one, but then Silas had never been one to take the simple path.
Heinrich often doubted that Silas would know what to do with himself if he wasn't struggling against something; he often wondered what Silas would have done if he had known about the formation of the Space Knights, and if he could have persuaded his old friend to join them. Things between them would have likely been different; still, there was nothing to do now but look to the future. The past was unchangeable, he knew that better than most.
IV
As the Blue Earth passed under the Orbital Ring, Noal continued to check the scopes.
"All right, we made it through," he said, relieved. "Aki, are the Radam following us?"
"We're fine for now."
"Whew, what a job," he sighed in relief. "I can't do well in battle on an empty stomach! When we've gone a little farther, let them know where to meet us in code."
"Roger," Aki said, in a tone that meant she was probably rolling her eyes at him.
"It doesn't matter if you use the code or not," D-Boy said, sounding suspicious. "There's no way the Radam aren't onto us. They're just waiting for their prey to arrive."
"Oh, you're sure about that?" he asked.
"Of course," D-Two answered, turning to look back over his shoulder.
"You're really sure?" he asked, taking another bite of his chocolate bar.
"We've been fighting them longer than you have, Noal-kun," D-Two retorted. "Remember Tekkaman Dagger?"
Ouch; point to D-Two for that one, since D-Boy was still dealing with the aftermath of Dagger's little stunt. A ping on the sensors let him know that he had more important things to think about than D-Two's, or either of the Gemini Boys' for that matter, maybe-accurate predictions of doom. They were also moving toward the asteroid belt now, which meant that he'd have to keep an eye out for the, admittedly rare, stray asteroid.
Easing his ship into the Beta's docking-bay, Noal began the shut-down sequence as the docking-bay doors closed and sealed behind them. By the time they had made it out to the boarding ramp, the docking-bay was filled with new oxygen, and they could all be on their way out of the ship. He was glad for it; too long with the Gemini Boys and their rampant paranoia could even make him start to believe that they were right.
Still, they'd been right once, so he'd at least keep his eyes open.
"I'm Noal, of the Space Knights," he said, offering a salute to the man standing before them; Dr. Silas Cal, he knew the man from the photo the Chief had shown them back at OSDG Headquarters.
"I'm Aki," his fellow Space Knight, and crack navigator, said.
About the only ones who weren't following proper protocol were the newest members of their team. "Uh, these are our comrades," he said, speaking softly over his shoulder to them; neither of them responded, though they did turn to look at each other briefly, but they were only doing the twin thing again. "Their names are… D-Boy," he said, gesturing to the twins in turn as he named them. "And D-Two."
V
"I'm afraid I'm not a military man, and I don't like salutes," he responded, with a gentle chuckle as he stepped forward to shake their hands.
He'd recognized Kouzu Aiba's twin sons once he'd gotten a clear glimpse of their faces, but that didn't explain why they were using those strange names. Nor did it explain the scars he could see above and below Takaya's left eye, or the fact that Shinya's eyes had changed their shade so drastically. Silas wondered what had happened to them, but he wasn't going to speak of it in front of military-adjuncts like those other two.
"So, are you operating this transport ship alone?" Aki asked.
"That's right," he confirmed. "All of the other ships are being manned by one crewmember as well," he said, turning to smile at them over his left shoulder. "Well, make yourselves comfortable. I'll make you some tea, grown in Io's hydroponic gardens."
Leading them deeper into the ship, Silas looked back at Takaya and Shinya, taking a long moment to assess them while the two military-adjuncts fell back to speak among themselves. He began to see things that he had been unable to discern while he had been seeing them merely at rest. Their stances were stiffer, their postures more closed-off, than the photos that Kouzu had showed him.
They moved almost as one entity, walking close enough that their shoulders almost brushed against one another, even in the relatively wide space of the shipboard corridor. What told the real story, however, was their eyes: neither Takaya's nor Shinya's eyes rested for more than a few moments on any one object, instead quickly roving to take in every part of their surroundings almost at once. It was clear that they had both been though a terrible experience to make them so hyperalert to any potential, or imagined, threats.
The question still remained, however, just what that experience had actually been. It wasn't likely to be connected to those military-adjuncts he'd just met, since the twins' clearly habitual wariness actually seemed to decrease around them, even if only by the smallest fraction. Something else, then; likely several somethings, considering what he'd heard of the invasion.
Turning his attention forward, just before the twins' ever-roving eyes could fall on him, Silas gratefully made his way into the ship's lounge. Quickly setting about preparing a pot of soothing chamomile tea, since it would do this particular crew a great deal of good, he gathered the cups and saucers that they would be using while he waited for the tea to heat up.
Once it had boiled, he took the teabags he had gathered up, set them each in one of the five teacups in front of his various guests, and began to pour the hot water in.
"So, has the landing-site been selected yet?" he asked, to the clear surprise of Kouzu's sons and the military-adjuncts they were traveling with. The pilot, Noal, seemed reluctant to answer for some reason.
"The Inlet of Paradise Island," Takaya said, his closed eyes highlighting his scars for a long moment.
"You know what that means," Shinya said, fixing him with a sharp look.
"Yes," he said, pouring the twins' tea and setting their cups back down in front of them. "I know."
"You know?" Takaya echoed, though he didn't seem to believe it, and clearly neither did Shinya.
"I know just what it means that they chose that site, of all places," he said, looking down for a moment as he sipped his tea.
He could still feel the intense scrutiny that the twins were leveling at him, and he smiled softly. Those two were indeed the sons of Kouzu Aiba; they took nothing at face-value, and were clearly in pursuit of whatever deeper truth they might find here. And, they just might find it at that.
Once the tea had been finished at last, he stood up. "Would you like to see my cargo?"
"All right," the blond pilot, Noal he recalled, said after looking to his colleague and Kouzu's sons. "Let's go."
"Right this way, then," he said, smiling as he lead them all out of the lounge and down into the storage section. The small greenhouse that had been built inside this transport of his had been placed farther back, so that it could draw power more directly from the generators that supplied the engines. None of them seemed particularly interested in the ores that he was carrying, which fit since none of them were miners or metalworkers of any stripe, so they by-passed those rather quickly.
"Onboard this ship, I have energy generators, mineral ore, and several different plants from Io," he said proudly, leading them into the greenhouse where the plants he and his people, the colonists of Io, had been tending to for so very long were stored. "Just a few different species I've cultivated myself. Don't worry, there are no Radam trees here."
"What's this?" Noal asked, as they moved closer to the rear of the ship.
"You mean this? The "D" stands for "Danger". There's a particularly powerful power-generator stored inside this crate," he said. "It's like you, my Dangerous Boys."
Silas didn't like lying to them that way, but he was hardly going to speak freely in front of a pair of military-adjuncts.
"How did you know that the D in our D-Boys names stood for "dangerous"?" Noal said.
"Freeman told me," he said, turning to speak more directly to the sons of his old colleague, and the friend he wished he'd stayed in closer contact with. "He said that if anything happened, I could leave everything to your Dangerous Boys," he said, placing his hands on Takaya and Shinya's right shoulders.
The eyes of the twins both flared briefly in surprise, and he thought for a moment that he had seen a flicker of something on both their foreheads. There wasn't time to investigate it, however; there were many things that he had to do before they reached the Earth. Foremost among them was to draw down the very danger that Shinya had been so adamant about stating; to draw it down on his head, and his alone.
"That's all I have to show you," he said, turning to smile at the entire group that had come out here to assist him with this mission of his.
"All right," Noal, who seemed to be acting as the groups spokesman, said.
"Thank you for your hospitality, Dr. Cal," Aki said, smiling kindly.
"You're quite welcome," he said, as he fell into step beside their group. "There's more tea, if you want it. And I even have tea cakes, if any of you feel like something sweet."
"Thank you," Noal said, with a nod.
VI
Dr. Cal split off from them once they had reached the lounge, continuing on to the cockpit and its transmitter equipment while they let themselves into the glassed-in room. As much as he hated to admit it, the Gemini Boys and their rampant paranoia might have just scored another one.
"I don't quite get it. What's inside that guy's head?" Noal groused, closing his eyes briefly as he leaned his head back against the headrest of the small, pale pink sofa he and Aki were sitting on. Naturally, the Gemini Boys were standing side-by-side, staring stoically out the single window.
"You mean Dr. Cal?" Aki said, trying to be reasonable.
"Yeah, he must realize what the military's up to, but he's just too calm," he said, still not quite convinced. Particularly considering the fact that there was basically a big, fat target on his ship, and the Radam would be all too eager to snap it up if they found out about it. "He might just be planning to betray us at the last minute."
"I think you're overanalyzing this," Aki said, clearly amused.
"Am I?"
"What do you think about this, D-Boys?"
"If he is or not, we'll find out soon enough," D-Two said, turning to look at them over his right shoulder.
Just then, though, something big, heavy, and likely affiliated with the Radam, slammed into the ship. They were almost knocked off their feet, but the Gemini Boys moved in quickly to support them. Noal wasn't sure if he should be happy to have his suspicions vindicated, or pissed that they had been endangered by some guy's need to prove he could outrun the Radam if he just hoped for it, or whatever Dr. Cal had been thinking.
"They're here," he groused, as D-Two let go of his shoulder.
"No time to lose!" Aki exclaimed. "Hurry back to the Blue Earth!"
"Dr. Cal, please look after the fleet!" he called over his left shoulder, as the four of them ran past.
They ran; the Gemini Boys overtook them without too much effort, and they all ran hell-bent-for-leather down the corridors and then right back up the boarding-ramp. He was in the pilot's seat just a few seconds after the twins had settled themselves into their own seats, and he was already starting the engines before the doors had even opened. Even though he wasn't too fond of the guy, Dr. Cal had at least let them out in time.
He at least had to give the man that.
VII
When the Blue Earth had made its way out of his docking-bay, firing its forward laser-cannons into the massive swarm of Radam monsters that Shinya had predicted would come for them all if he continued with his plan, Silas glared fiercely at the creatures. He didn't know just who the Radam were, or what they wanted, but that was his planet they were invading and these were his people they were attacking.
He wouldn't let that stand.
This was indeed a swarm, just the way that Shinya had predicted it would be, and now all he needed was to get those creatures to focus on him. He would ensure that all of his people got back to Earth safely, even if he had to die doing it. That was the true purpose of the D-Device, and also the reason that he had been so quick to broadcast its location: if the Radam wanted something to chase, then he would make sure it was him.
When a pair of strange lights, one bright blue and one bright green, came shooting out of the Blue Earth and then turned to engage the swarm of Radam monsters that seemed to be growing increasingly vast by the second, Silas was puzzled. When the lights coalesced into a pair of armored figures, one white with red patches and one black with the same, he wondered if they could be some new weapon developed by the ADF.
Then, thinking back to the people that he had seen aboard the Blue Earth, he wondered if his old friend Heinrich von Freeman, who he had seen last as a Lieutenant in the ADF, had begun to dabble in some kind of bio-technological enhancement process. He would have been disappointed to hear of it, but he would hardly put it past the ADF to do such things. Even when they weren't in the midst of a war, those kinds of people could never be trusted to be truly ethical.
When he saw again the flares of light, both in the distinct colors that he had seen before: green for the white figure, and blue for the black one, he remembered just where he had seen those very colors not so much earlier.
"Takaya? Shinya?"
Indeed, given the way they moved, the way they seemed to anticipate each and every move that the other would make, and their clear concern for one another in the pitched battle that was taking place all around them, it could hardly be anyone other than the twins. That explained their wariness; if they were expected to go into battle against these kinds of odds at a moment's notice, they could hardly be expected to be able to relax properly.
The twins clearly outmatched the Radam monsters in one-on-one combat, destroying them with the ease of what was clearly long practice, but this swarm would likely be enough to overwhelm even them and whatever strange power they had brought to bear. It still fell to him to save his people. However, that didn't mean that he wasn't grateful for help that was freely given.
"Thank you, Takaya, Shinya," he said quietly, then activated his ship's radio and turned his attention to the next phase of his plan. "Keep pushing forward!" he shouted, making sure to sound as if he was on the verge of panic, as he broke formation with the others and moved off on his own.
The distinctive sound of a coded message alert broke into his concentration, and he looked down as the inset screen displayed the status of the message. It was double-encoded, and as his radio decrypted it, he wondered for a moment just who it was.
"So, there's no stopping you, is there?"
Smiling for his old friend Heinrich, Silas spoke firmly. "It's too late. I've already transmitted false information to the Radam, that this ship is carrying the most advanced weaponry that the Allied Defense Force has produced, over the military's dedicated channel."
"After all of your opposition towards the military, I'd never imagined that one day you'd be willing to give your life for them."
"Don't misunderstand me!" He had to laugh. "I'm not doing this for the military. I'm doing this for the Earth; my homeland. This is the one thing I can do for the Earth!" He sighed, looking out at the Earth, surrounded by the Orbital Ring; he saw it through a swarm of Radam monsters, but they were almost secondary to him now. "Farewell, Freeman."
VIII
Landing Pegas on Dr. Cal's ship, since it was the one the Radam were concentrating on, and the D-Device was obviously important to the war effort in some way, Blade lead Varis into the ship through a wide hole that one of the Radam monsters had torn in the hull and ordered Pegas to follow them. Raising his tekkalance as another of the swarming legions of Radam monsters came into his line of sight, he bisected the thing and lead Varis as they dove through the closing air lock doors just before they closed.
Falling back a bit so he and Varis could run side-by-side down the corridor, Blade kept a watch out for any more Radam monsters that might come after them. They encountered a few more on the way to the cockpit; he didn't bother to count them since he and Varis dealt with them as soon as they spotted the monsters, but he was fairly sure it was less than ten. As they cleared the last obstacle that stood between them and the cockpit, yet another Radam monster, he and Varis raced over to the damaged chair where Dr. Cal was still sitting as he heard the man moaning.
"Cal!" he exclaimed.
"Dangerous Boy," Dr. Cal said weakly, and Blade noticed then that his shirt was soaked with blood, blood that was running down his torso to pool in his lap.
"Get ahold of yourself, Doctor," he said; trying to offset the knowledge that they were too late. Again. That he was too late to do anything but watch, again.
"You can see I'm done for," Dr. Cal grunted. Blade closed his eyes in sheer, frustrated helplessness. "Could you do me a favor?"
"Yes," Varis said, sounding like he would have been approving if he hadn't been so horrified.
"Thank you," Dr. Cal smiled weakly. "One of you, take control of this ship and pilot it through the atmosphere. The Radam think there are weapons onboard."
"They're all swarming around this ship," he said, feeling stricken, but still having to respect Dr. Cal's dedication.
"They're going to be throwing every one of the monsters in this area after you," Varis said, and Blade knew that his brother was trying to distance himself from the horror that they were both feeling right now by immersing his mind in tactical considerations.
"The heat will cause the unstable chemicals in the generator I'm carrying to explode," Dr. Cal said, unfastening the gold bracelet that he had been wearing on his right wrist and handing it over to him. "I'm glad you two were here, though," he muttered, his eyes falling closed. "Even at the end."
Blade took it, enfolding it within his armored right hand, and sighed. This shouldn't have happened; he was supposed to be better than this, he was a Tekkaman for god's sake, and yet all he could do now was watch as Dr. Cal slowly bled to death in front of them. It hurt; for all his power, he couldn't manage to save someone who was right in front of him. It wasn't fair.
Looking over at Varis, just as the shriek of a Radam monster echoed through the lonely, decimated cockpit of the damaged transport. He watched tiredly as his little brother killed the thing. Not since the Argos; not since the Radam, he corrected himself. Things haven't been fair since we met them.
Since then, he'd had to watch his younger twin, who Father had asked him to protect back when they were both just normal boys, go leaping into fights with things that sometimes frightened even him. Even though those days sometimes felt like they were thousands of years away, and even though they had both eventually agreed that they would protect each other, he was still determined to hold to that promise. It was the only one of his promises from that time that he could still keep, now that the Radam had shown up.
Now that he only had one of his younger brothers left.
When the transport Varis was piloting, since he had taken the controls right after he had killed that Radam monster, began to enter the outer-edges of the Earth's atmosphere, the heat-shields on the cockpit windows began to slide closed. He knew they'd been coming; they were a standard feature on Beta transports, but it still felt strange to be isolated like this. Especially after he'd spent so much time in the Blue Earth's cockpit, even though none of it had been during reentry.
"Kouzu- Kouzu Aiba was a friend of mine," a quiet voice said, barely breaking the silence.
"Dr. Cal, you shouldn't talk," he said, putting his unoccupied left hand on the man's shoulder. "Rest."
"We were friends," Dr. Cal repeated, his eyes fixing on Blade with an unfocused sort of intensity. "And he told me about you; Takaya. Shinya."
"Yeah; Dad told us to forget about the others," Varis said thickly. "But we haven't," his brother paused, sighing. "We remember."
And they did; even when it hurt, even when it felt like it would break them both, they remembered the people they had once been and the family they had once had.
"If you could tell me," Dr. Cal said, smiling weakly at them. "What happened?"
"The Radam," Varis said, all but spitting the name. "They took us."
"Oh… I'm sorry..."
"Dr. Cal," he entreated. "Try to rest."
Dr. Cal was already unconscious again, though. At least, Blade hoped that he was only unconscious. They were so close to Earth now, so close to getting help for the man, their father's friend, that to lose him would feel like a knife in his heart.
One more in a long line of them, yes, but the feeling was still something he tried to avoid.
A quick look at the ship's chronometer told him that he and Varis had better find someplace safe to transform back. They only had five minutes left, out of the thirty that they could safely remain transformed, and he for one didn't want to cause the convoy or Dr. Cal any more trouble than they had already run into today.
"Shinya," he began, turning to look over at his younger brother, only to find him holding his head and moaning softly. "What's wrong?"
"I don't know," Varis said, shaking his head slowly. "I feel… strange-"
The glowing crystal-field that surrounded either of them when they transformed into or out of their armored forms appeared around him, and his entire form was consumed by the light of his transformation. His armor vanished into the light, revealing his human form, and Blade moved quickly to catch his younger twin as he began to fall backwards.
"Ta-kun," Shinya muttered, as his eyes slipped closed.
Cradling his younger twin's head for a few moments, baffled about just what had made Shinya transform back and then collapse like that, Blade remembered that he didn't have the time to speculate about that kind of thing right now. Standing up, he carried Shinya over to Pegas and gently set him down next to the big mech's feet.
"Pegas, cancel my transformation," he commanded, just loud enough for the mech to receive the command while still being quiet enough to let Shinya get the sleep he so clearly needed.
"Roger."
Once the chamber was open, he climbed inside and felt the remaining energy from his transformation drain away. Pegas opened up again once he was back in human form, but he didn't have time for more than a cursory glance over his younger twin before the computer began warning him of the imminent self-destruct. Cursing himself briefly for his slowness, Takaya turned back to Pegas.
It was the safest place he could think of, since Pegas was designed to handle the kind of heavy-combat that he and Shinya got into on pretty much a daily basis. That meant that it was probably at least as tough as one of them, and neither Tekkaman Blade nor Tekkaman Varis would have been adversely affected by an exploding spacecraft. Even a bulky Beta transport like the one they were in now.
First things first, though, he mused, knowing that he would have to transform himself to survive what was going to be coming. Transform, without the benefit of another meal and with very little rest between transformations besides. It wasn't the best situation, but it was better than dying in the explosion of a Beta transport.
Ordering Pegas to restore his transformation, Blade was forced to take a moment to steady himself, before he picked Shinya up gently with his armored hands.
"Pegas, please protect my brother," he said firmly, though he wasn't quite able to completely hide the quaver in his voice.
"Roger," Pegas said; he might have been imagining things, but the mech's deep, powerful voice had actually sounded kind then. He probably needed more sleep.
Still, as he cradled Shinya in his arms, watching as the interlock-chamber opened again and he gently placed Shinya's slumbering form inside the open chamber, he wasn't quite as surprised as he might have been otherwise when Pegas reached out to support his younger twin with its large hands. Pegas supported Shinya until the interlock-chamber was halfway closed, then it let him go and sealed itself around him.
"Varis is safe," Pegas said; Takaya blinked in surprise. "I will protect him."
"Thank you," he said, after a few moments of being stunned speechless.
Levin had said that Pegas' A.I. would respond to his commands, and would eventually learn to anticipate them, but he honestly hadn't expected anything like this to start happening. Still, on the scale of strange things that had been happening to him lately, this was really one of the most minor. It was even benign, which wasn't something he could honestly say regarding a lot of the strange things that had been happening to him lately.
The Beta detonated around them before he could think anymore about those kinds of things, though, and Blade quickly flew onto Pegas' back before the two of them could become separated in the ensuing chaos.
Flying out ahead of the explosion, taking the lead ship's place at the head of the convoy, Blade tried not to think about just what was happening to Dr. Cal. The cockpit had sealed itself into an escape pod when the ship's systems had gone critical, leaving him, Shinya, and Pegas just outside, so Dr. Cal would have been protected from the ship's self-destruct, and the explosives that he himself had planted, but the wounds that he had suffered needed tending to.
Something that he wasn't going to be getting until they had all made it down to the Earth and back onto solid ground. He hoped that help didn't come too late, but he worried that it might. A wave of weariness that almost knocked him to his knees let Blade know that he probably shouldn't have transformed twice in such a short amount of time.
(Ta-kun? Where am I?)
Shinya. (You're inside Pegas, Shin-chan,) he said, relief taking the edge off of the tiredness that was pressing down on him. (I had to make sure you were safe.)
(Thank you, Ta-kun)
(Of course,) he chuckled softly. (But, I think you need to transform back now.)
"Pegas, I need you to let brother transform," he said. "Don't activate my tekkaset."
"Roger."
He felt a surge of energy under his feet, and then a burst of bright blue energy shot out of the top of Pegas. He sighed, knowing that he was one more step closer to getting the sleep he so desperately needed right now. Varis turned a flip in mid-flight, landing just behind him on Pegas.
(It's good to see you again, Ta-kun.)
(You too, Shin-chan,) he said, grateful at last to be able to be getting the sleep he needed if he was going to function properly until the end of the day.
Flying under Pegas, Blade ordered it to open its interlock-chamber for the umpteenth time that day. Securing himself inside, he watched the chamber close around him and then felt the rush of energy leaving his body as his transformation faded away. He didn't know quite where they were in relation to the convoy anymore, but for the moment Takaya was entirely too tired to care.
IX
When the Beta transport that D-Boy, D-Two, and Dr. Cal had been riding had exploded so suddenly, Aki's heart just about leapt up into her throat. She'd heard them and Dr. Cal talking, and she and Noal both knew now that the doctor's plan had been to put himself forward as a target for the Radam so that the rest of the convoy could get through safely. She only hoped that poor, brave, determined man would manage to make it through his ordeal.
After that conversation, though, the twins had seemed to be having another, but the radio-link from Pegas to the Blue Earth had been garbled enough that they had only managed to pick out two words: we remember. D-Two had said them, but she didn't know the context or who they had been spoken in response to. Noal, of course, had decided that it wasn't important to him, but she couldn't help but wonder just what it was that the twins remembered.
Or who.
Flying out at the head of the convoy, taking the place that had been occupied previously by Dr. Cal's ship, Aki held onto her composure with an iron grip. She did the same with her faith in the twins; they had to have survived, they were stronger than a mere exploding ship, and they had made themselves too much a part of her life for Aki to let them go so easily. They would come back; they had to.
When Noal landed the Blue Earth on the beach, right next to the ocean they'd guided the Beta transports into so that the water would cushion the shock of their landing, Aki took a moment to remind herself that the twins were alive. Even in spite of the fact that neither she nor Noal had been able to spot them on their way down through the Earth's atmosphere, those two were the bravest, strongest men she had ever known. They could survive this; they had survived this.
Leaving the ship behind, she and Noal spoke briefly with the military personnel unloading the Beta transports, informing them of the status of the convoy, and the fate of Dr. Cal. She honestly hoped that the doctor himself would manage to survive until he had reached the medical help that was waiting for all of them at the landing site, but that wasn't the foremost thought in her mind at the moment. She was worried about D-Boy and D-Two; the twins, her boys, or that was how she was starting to think of D-Two, anyway.
What she was starting to feel for D-Boy wasn't nearly so simple, she knew.
"They'll be all right," Noal said, turning to her as the both stood together on the beach, scanning the skies for any signs of the twins. "They've gotten through worse than this."
Pegas burst up and out of the water, and she saw that Tekkaman Varis had actually been riding on the mech's back. He flew off with a burst from his thrusters, landing on Pegas' right shoulder and actually sitting down there, still in his full armor, until Pegas had settled itself down on the beach. The light of his transformation, that strange crystalline-cage, enveloped him then, and D-Two's armored form was subsumed in turquoise radiance for a few moments before vanishing to reveal his human form in the same pose: palms flat against Pegas' shoulder-assembly, lower legs resting on the mech's right arm with his ankles together, and his eyes turned toward the interlock-chamber.
"Yes!" she exclaimed, unable to control her joy in the face of what seemed like a miracle.
When Pegas settled itself onto the sand, D-Two leapt lightly from his perch and landed in the sand next to it. Running up to meet the mech as the interlock-chamber swung open, she saw D-Two looping his left arm around D-Boy's shoulders, taking the weight of his brother with his right arm around D-Boy's waist.
"You're back!" she called happily, as she and Noal both ran up to meet the twins.
"Good afternoon," D-Two said, smiling softly at them. "Noal-kun, Aki-chan."
D-Boy was more subdued, but Aki could just tell that he felt just the same as his brother.
"You've done a good job," one of the squad leaders from the ADF said, driving up to their group in a Jeep; the smiles on both twins' faces disappeared like morning mist as soon as they saw him. "I'm sure Brigadier General Colbert will be pleased."
"How many survivors?" she asked; she still wondered what was bothering the twins, but now wasn't quite the time to think about those kinds of things.
The trooper held up two fingers, and Aki tried to hold back a wince.
"Only two?" she heard Noal ask, resisting the urge to look over her shoulder at the twins; they'd been uncommonly quiet since the soldiers had shown up, particularly for D-Two.
"They're critically injured, but they'll be able to walk again in six months," the captain said calmly; Aki almost thought she heard someone scoff, but that could have just been her imagination. "But we've recovered more than half of the resources, so the mission was a success," the captain said, turning to look at where she knew the twins were standing. "You've all done a very fine job."
The twins moved forward almost as one; D-Two's slap knocked the captain's head sideways, and D-Boy's follow-up punch flattened him on his back. The other trooper, the one who had stayed in the Jeep, leaped out and tried to tackle them, but Noal intercepted him before he could take more than a couple steps. The captain, meanwhile, was demanding to know why the twins had just hit him.
D-Two all but snarled. D-Boy hissed, throwing something that glittered at the captain's feet; it landed between the mirrored sunglasses that D-Boy's punch had knocked off.
She wondered what was wrong, watching the twins for a moment as they stalked off, and turned to look down at what D-Boy had thrown down. It was the wristband that Dr. Cal had been wearing; only now it was open, and she could see that there was a picture inside it. It was a family portrait: a younger Dr. Cal, with someone that was probably his wife, and a little girl that looked so much like him that she just had to be his daughter.
Aki understood now: the twins had been with Dr. Cal up until his ship had exploded, speaking to him as he was suffering from his wounds; it was no wonder they had been so angry that his sacrifice could be that easily dismissed by the very ones that he had made it for.