Story 13 / Collection 7: Coming home

While you were sleeping.

Close to half of their fleet was wiped out. The lunar base was pulverised. And even so, Azrael still had his sights set steadfastly on destroying the PLANT homeland, while the safety of their own home planet had not even brushed the periphery of his consciousness.

Fllay had a front seat view to the maniacal craze in his eyes, and along with it the very distinct possibility of them being led into their graves today.

He had a gun pointed towards her captain's head, and the Archangel was closing in quickly.

It was an impossible situation.

She felt her whole body shaking in fear. As soon as Azrael moved away from her seat, she discreetly pushed a button on her screen, and whispered into her earpiece with as much calmness as she could muster.

"Ensign Sabnak, I think we're in trouble."

o-o-o

The endless streams of explosions that erupted in front of them brightened up the darkness of space as though it was daylight.

Natarle wanted to disarm the Archangel so she could get past them.

They wanted to disarm the Dominion so that she could not.

She knew she was fighting an unwinnable battle—she could not bring herself to take down that white ship, but they were fighting with everything they had and left her with no way to manoeuvre out of this gridlock, and that blond lunatic kept pushing and pushing and pushing.

She just wanted one moment to think.

Another light beam hit them, another few of her crew's lives potentially lost, another shout from the madman on her left.

Stop. Please stop. Stop making her do this.

It was like her mind and her body were two different entities. She was giving orders that her body knew like an instinct but her mind could not process, and her heart was tearing itself apart.

Suddenly she heard Azrael demanding to fire at the Archangel while it was preparing for the Strike to board, and Fllay shouting into her comms, warning the white ship of Azrael's intentions and getting hit by the man, sending her flying across the bridge.

Natarle acted on pure instinct this time, immediately reaching to grab the hand that held his gun, pushing it to the side just a mere second before he could fire at Fllay.

It was too close.

In the corner of her eyes she could see some of her crew cowering from ricochets of the bullet, and the dread in the faces of the rest. She should have noticed sooner, that they were all terrified of him. No one dared defy his orders, and every one of them counted on her to make the right decision.

And she knew what the right decision was—mutiny, which came with a responsibility she could not have her crew bear.

It was all on her.

She had to stop this man. She was the one single person in the whole universe who was in a position to stop this genocidal psychopath.

Every other choice she had was an illusion.

There was too much to lose.

The lives of their own people on Earth. The lives of the innocent people on PLANTS.

The lives of her crew. The lives of the Archangel crew.

There was no other way.

The answer was simple, really. As soon as she realised that, all the confusion cleared itself, leaving in its place a stark clarity.

She had to do this for everything that was important to her.

Her family.

Home.

Him.

She could no longer keep her promise. He probably no longer minded.

"All hands abandon ship!"

She held her grip on Azrael as tightly as possible as she pulled him to the front of the bridge, not giving him any chance to escape—she would ensure, with her own life, that his would end here today.

Fllay was looking at her with eyes full of uncertainty, so she gave her a nod and urged her to go—back to the Archangel, where she could finally see the person she had been longing for since they parted ways.

She truly hoped the girl could do what she herself could not.

Before she could confirm Fllay's safe exit from the bridge, her focus had been redirected back to the man who was struggling to writhe free from her hold, and on the verge of succeeding. She was a soldier, but he was a man, and it took her the use of both of her hands to move his gun away from her face, only for her to hear a deafening sound in close proximity and the heat building in her abdomen.

It took her a moment to realise he had fired into her body. Next was pain; a sharp and unrelenting pain that was rapidly dominating her senses.

"Captain!"

Her vision traced to the origins of the unexpected voice, and she saw the flame-haired girl hovering in front of the closed elevator doors, alone.

Why was she still here?

Fllay was reaching towards her, while Azrael had his eyes on the elevator. The girl was in his path; he raised his gun again. Natarle instinctively knew what was going to happen next.

"Azrael, stop!" She shouted and moved to cover Fllay.

Another shot was fired, this time in her shoulder, then one more in her thigh, and she cried out in excruciating pain. Azrael then grabbed her and threw her aside, out of his way, while Fllay rushed towards her and caught her in her arms. The girl gently eased her onto the floor, assessing her wounds but without a clue what to do about them, all the while trying her absolute best to not break down in tears right now.

The pain was dizzying, and there was so much blood floating around her—everything that entered her vision was marred by a red colour—and she felt both her strength and sentience quickly slipping away. She did not have much longer; only a small window remained for her to act, and it was closing rapidly.

"I need to stop him," Natarle had her sights trained on Azrael as he waited for the elevator to arrive, but Fllay held onto her with her trembling hands. "Let him go, you're losing too much blood. Please hold on, he's coming."

Her eyes were shutting close despite her best efforts to stay conscious, and she despaired.

If Azrael left this ship, she would have failed, and the Archangel will never be safe.

She heard the elevator door open.

All was lost.

o-o-o

It all started with Fllay's warning echoing throughout the bridge of the Archangel.

Everyone was confused as to what was happening, and then a few minutes later they spotted the escape pods leaving the dark coloured battleship.

Murrue was still contemplating what her next steps should be when Mwu's visual popped up on the large display screen.

"What's going on with the Dominion?"

Before she could answer, another visual came on screen, accompanied by Miriallia's announcement, "Incoming from the Dominion!"

Fllay's face came into view, but what shocked them more was the scene behind her.

A key lime-green haired young man in a pilot suit carried the Dominion's captain in his arms, and there was blood everywhere. Azrael was in the corner and had his hands tied behind his back, a gun held to his head by a crew member.

"Captain Ramius, please help us! Our captain is losing a lot of blood!" The redhead was visibly keeping a tight rein on her emotions, not letting herself give in to her panic. "She got shot three times, and most of the crew has been evacuated. We don't have anyone who can help her here. At this rate she's going to die!"

Despite the gasps Murrue heard coming from all corners of the bridge, her attention went intuitively towards Arnold.

He was still sharply focused ahead as though unfazed by Fllay's words. And yet barely seconds later, she felt the Archangel moving with a slight change of course.

Their helmsman's voice was calm and steady as always. "I'm taking us as close to the Dominion as we can get."

Murrue was surprised by his words, but at the same time felt she should not have been; it was a correct decision, just that she never expected him to make it on his own. She went along anyway. "Please do, ensign."

The pilot's voice was heard again over the screen, "I'm bringing her over in the Calamity!"

Fllay spun her head around towards him. "Ensign Sabnak, wait! I'll come with you!"

"There's not enough space in the cockpit!"

"Shouldn't we be getting her into a lifepod?"

"They only fit one person, so what difference does it make?"

"It doesn't look like they know what they're doing," Mwu jumped in. "I'll go and help."

"But-" Murrue hesitated.

"The Strike's state is not as bad as it looks. It'll just be a quick detour."

She had to trust him. "Stay safe, Mwu."

o-o-o

The Archangel's medic team was already on standby when Mwu docked the Strike with the Calamity closely behind.

Natarle's condition was rapidly deteriorating as they rushed her into the infirmary.

The medic team started bringing out the needles and hooking her up to the different devices, and Mwu was about to leave the room when Orga suddenly grabbed one of the medics and shoved him against the wall.

"What do you think you're doing?"

Mwu yanked him back. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Ensign Sabnak, they're just trying to save her!" Fllay cried, pulling him away by his arm and apologising at the same time, "I'm sorry, he doesn't have a lot of trust in medics."

Despite Fllay trying to get him to calm down, Orga's attention never strayed from his captain, and he questioned, "What are these things they're injecting into her?"

"Antibiotics, painkillers, I don't know!" Mwu could not believe this person; what could ever have happened for him to distrust medics so deeply? "Just let them do their job!"

The medic finally had enough. "Lieutenant Commander, can you please get them out! It's a life and death situation, this is no place for you two to be fighting!"

Mwu felt attacked; it was not like he lacked common sense. He hooked both of Orga's arms with his own and started dragging him out of the infirmary, but Orga kept resisting. "I'm staying!"

Another medic shouted at them. "She needs surgery now, get out!"

"Do you want me to throw you into the brig? Keep getting in the way and you'll be her cause of death!"

Mwu's last words seemed to finally have gotten through to Orga, and he stopped fighting Mwu. As soon as they exited the infirmary, Orga slumped to the floor and held his head in his hand, his whole posture full of despondency. Fllay knelt down next to him and placed her hand on his arm as a small gesture of comfort.

Mwu wondered why he ended up looking like the bad guy. "Hey, she'll pull through."

Fllay raised her head at him, eyes full of worry. "She can't die like this. That would be so unfair."

o-o-o

Natarle was still in surgery when the armistice was broadcasted throughout all of space.

It took all of Arnold's resolve to keep his concentration single-mindedly on his job.

They had no longer been actively fighting after the showdown with the Dominion, yet still, the war was far from over at that point and he could not afford a moment of distraction.

But the radio silence from the infirmary was only all the more unsettling, and the lack of information on how she was doing was prodding his thoughts to stray towards her. With every moment that passed without a word about her, his heart was beating with more urgency and impatience.

Then mere minutes after the broadcast, a call came in with Mwu's voice resonating loudly throughout the bridge. "Captain, the medics said we don't have enough blood packs, but none of us here are in good enough condition to give blood. She's type AB, anyone will do!"

"I'll go!" Arnold's response was immediate and assertive as he fixed his gaze straight at Murrue, sending a crystal clear signal that he was not making any concessions on this matter. "Captain, Tonomura can take my place."

"I understand," Murrue nodded at him, hesitant yet discerning. "Officer Tonomura, please take over from Ensign Neumann."

He barely waited for Tonomura to get settled in the co-pilot seat—everything was taking too long when every second counted—and gave him as brief of a handover as possible, then raced towards the infirmary.

Mwu, Fllay, and the Calamity's pilot were waiting outside when he got there, their attention turning unanimously towards him when they noticed his arrival. He did not stop for them, but as he entered the room, he did catch the pilot's stare and his low murmur, "You're him."

Whatever that meant was a question for another time.

The door closed behind him, and a medic immediately came over to bring him towards a seat by a curtain, then swiftly going through the process of preparing him for the blood transfer. He followed their every instruction silently and without question, for the chance to find the answer that he needed so desperately.

He drew back the curtain a little, and there she was.

Eyes closed, faintly breathing, unaware of her surroundings, fighting for her life.

He listened to the sounds of stainless steel utensils hitting onto trays, and the rushed instructions exchanged between the team.

He was fearful, yet hopeful.

Because she was once again within his reach.

Side story: The light

It was always the darkest before dawn.

But the darkest had passed—that, Arnold knew without a single ounce of doubt.

Although all he could do for now was watch her sleep, he felt the dull clench in his heart that coexisted with him for the past five months was gradually fading away, letting it finally beat again to the rhythm of his dreaming of the future.

He had been holding Natarle's hand since she came out of surgery, never letting go of it for even one second for the fear that she would slip away again. It was irrational, but the world they lived in hardly made much sense anymore; better safe than sorry.

The door opened, and he turned around to see the pilot with green hair.

"How is she?" It seemed this crudeness in his tone was his natural way of talking, though there was a subdued note of concern slipping through.

"The medics said she's going to be fine, but it'll be a while before she wakes up."

The young man nodded silently, and moved himself to the edge of the room, crossing his arms while leaning onto the wall behind him.

By the looks of it he did not intend to leave anytime soon.

Arnold recalled the words he caught in the air when he passed by him earlier. "Ensign Sabnak, right? Do I know you?"

"I doubt it."

"But you know me?"

"I know of you."

"How?" Orga would not have heard about him from Natarle. She had always guarded their relationship with caution, as though tirelessly shielding a small flame within the shadows, fearful that even the slightest of breezes would have killed it.

Orga briefly diverted his gaze at him, then returned it back to Natarle. "She was always alone in the observation deck, looking out into space while in deep thought. I asked her once. She just said the deck on the Archangel held special memories for her. I figured she had someone here."

The words relaxed something inside of Arnold, and it felt like he finally remembered how to breathe.

On separate ships, on opposite sides of the war, they held onto the same memories. And now, she was finally back here with him on this ship, just as it had always been.

He looked at Orga solemnly. "Thank you for bringing her here."

The pilot returned a disgusted face. "I didn't do it for you."

"That's pretty obvious." Arnold was not sure why he had to clarify a fact they both knew. This young man risked enough to save Natarle from an almost certain death; the care he had for her was apparent. One day, Arnold would want to hear about their times on the Dominion.

The perpetual hardness in Orga's stare seemed to mollify a bit. "It's not going to get any easier. You're still a ship full of traitors, and she's still the captain of the Dominion."

They were truths—irrefutable and damning—but somehow, those words gave him no fear.

"We'll deal with it one thing at a time. All that matters is she's here now, alive."

He lightly brushed his fingertips along her hairline, and whispered his wish for her to wake up soon.

To let him see those beautiful eyes again, glimmering like the starlight of purple nebulae.

[Prompt title 25: 『 』 (フリーテーマ) / (FREE THEME)]

Author's note

I'm not sure if anyone's noticed, but I'm not very good at writing stories where there's a lot of action going on. This is one of the few chapters that I'm not really sure about the pacing.

Lots of changes to details and reshuffling of sequences on how the battle went down. Lots of things that wouldn't make sense in reality. Well, I am rewriting (fictional) history after all. (I confess I only skimmed through the episode as a refresher because I couldn't bring myself to properly watch it again.)

Also, this and the next chapter are technically a two-part story.

Anyway, countdown phase! 5 more chapters to go and I'm done!