Part
Sixteen
Minagi had a slight smile on her
face as Mitsuki came onto the large bridge. "Hell of a ship, isn't
she?" she said with a great deal of pride, sitting there in the command
chair.
"From what I saw of it,
it's pretty impressive," Mitsuki quickly agreed with Minagi, looking around
her curiously.
Sasami, Masaki and Funaho stood
to one side of the chamber, out of the way of the members of the bridge crew.
She didn't recognize most of the crew who were sitting at the different
stations, and wondered if they were a group specially assigned to the
Swordbreaker itself. However she noted that the bridge layout itself was pretty
typical, with a central command chair and several crew stations spread out
around the circular bridge.
"You ain't seen nothing
yet," Minagi grinned. She turned to the young lady at one of the consoles,
"Ayanami, open communications with the Ryo- Ohki."
"Yes, ma'am," Rei
Ayanami said coolly, activating a series of controls on her panel with smooth
efficiently.
The bridge of the Ryo-Ohki
appeared on the monitor screen, and Mitsuki quickly made note of those standing
there. Ryouko and Ayeka were front and center, Washu and Yume to one side, and
nearby Kiyone was standing waiting.
"Ready to move out?"
Ryouko asked with a grin.
"The last of the stragglers
are on board," Minagi shot a impish look at Mitsuki.
"Hey!" Mitsuki
protested.
Ryouko chuckled softly at that
before smiling at Minagi, "We're moving out. Let's keep the ships down to
the lower hyperspace bands, we're not in that much of a rush to get there. And
it'll give us a chance to discuss our strategy."
Minagi pouted, "Aw, but I
wanted to see how fast this thing could go!"
"It'll just have to
wait," Ryouko shrugged, then she seemed to be hit with an inspiration,
"we'll race or something later, OK?"
"I'll even give you a lead,
old timer," Minagi grinned.
"Oh, yeah? Ryo-Ohki can
take Swordbreaker any day!" Ryouko shot back.
Washu sighed and muttered to
Yume even as the two siblings continued to fight, "I swear, they're like a
pair of overgrown children."
"Be strong, m'love,"
Yume pattered her on the arm.
Ayeka was shaking her head, but
a little smile was teasing her lips.
Kiyone shot all three a scolding
look, then said to Minagi seriously, "The Swordbreaker will be carrying the
fighters along with it through hyperspace. That means if we run into anything
hostile, let the Ryo-Ohki take point until you can disengage them."
"Got it," Minagi
nodded firmly.
"Then let's do this,"
Ryouko nodded firmly.
"Mothers, sister, I look
forward to seeing you on Earth," Ayeka said quietly just before the
communications line closed.
"Get me Yamamoto Yohko,"
Minagi next ordered Rei, and a few moments later the face of the intense captain
of all the fleet's fighter squads was up on the screen. "Move the fighters
into position," Minagi ordered her.
Outside in the airless depths of
space a flight of seven fighters moved in a delicate dance, taking up their
positions all around the Swordbreaker. Six of them were silvery strike fighters,
and one was a larger, almost blood red craft.
"Fighters ready,"
Yohko reported from the red fighter's cockpit.
"Extend transit field
around the fighters," Minagi turned to the silver haired figure sitting at
the navigation console.
"Done," Ruri answered
her simply, an odd light dancing across both the backs of her slim hands and her
wide blue eyes.
"Tactical, extend the
ship's shields around us and the fighters," Minagi ordered the young woman
with fiery red hair.
"The shields are in place,
ma'am," Asuka Langley reported back after a moment.
"Yohko," Minagi said,
"I want communications links maintained with Swordbreaker at all times.
This is the first time we've tried this stunt with this many fighters, so if any
of your systems start behaving oddly, I want to know."
Yohko nodded, her expression
grim, "Understood."
The link closed, and outside,
they saw Ryo-Ohki moving into position in front of them. "All right,"
Minagi smiled, "looks like it's time to go."
Ruri worked her controls,
smoothly bringing them directly in line behind Ryo-Ohki, There was a slight
shudder, then Ruri softly declared, "Main drives engaged. Countdown to
hyperspace transit in... five... four... three... two... one... go."
Outside all of the viewports,
space itself seemed to disappear into pure darkness as the ship left normal
space and began to move through a very different sort of reality. Hyperspace,
the shortcut between any two places in the universe, was utilized by most of the
great spacefaring races. But Washu had taken that technology one step better,
cutting down transit times by an incredible factor. And Swordbreaker might just
be her best design yet.
"Estimated time of arrival
for Earth, two standard days," Ruri reported coolly.
Mitsuki did a fast metal
comparison of roughly how long a typical Galaxy Police cruiser could have
crossed that sort of distance and whistled softly. "That's incredibly
fast," she murmured to herself quietly.
Minagi chuckled softly,
"Not really. Both Ryo-Ohki and Swordbreaker are taking it easy. We could
finished this trip in less than a day if we wanted to."
"Remind me not to challenge
either ship to a race then," Mitsuki blinked. She looked over at Minagi
thoughtfully then with a sly grin asked her, "When you do race against
Ryo-Ohki, who should I put my money on?"
Minagi had a good laugh at that,
"Damned if I know." She got up out of her seat and said to the
navigator, "Ruri, you're in charge."
"Of course," the
silvery haired girl answered coolly.
"Asuka," Minagi turned
to the tactical officer, "keep an eye on the fighters for me. You pick up
anything unusual, let me know."
"Yes, ma'am!" Asuka
threw a salute.
Minagi took Mitsuki in tow
before walking over to Sasami, Funaho and Masaki and saying, "We'll have
someone show you to your quarters. They won't be luxurious as the Washu's
Revenge, but they shouldn't be too bad, either."
"Thank you," Funaho
said with a bow.
"I'm sure it'll be
fine," Misaki beamed. Quietly to Funaho she said, "It'll be just like
that time we stowed away on that freighter and had to spend the entire trip in a
little cabin."
Funaho didn't say anything, but
she blushed faintly.
"Sasami," Minagi
started, but trailed off looking a bit uncomfortable.
"Yes?" Sasami asked
curiously.
"We don't have a ship's
cook just yet," Minagi admitted. She looked entreatingly at Sasami and
asked, "Would you mind helping out?" Her pleading glance was quickly
joined by Mitsuki's, Sasami's mothers, and then several bridge crew.
"All right, all
right," Sasami laughed, "I'll cook for you."
"Thanks," Mitsuki
smiled happily. She chuckled softly, "I'm sure that none of you would want
to try my cooking."
"Is it that bad?"
Funaho asked her curiously.
"There's an standing order
to shook me if I go anywhere near the galley of a Galaxy Police vessel,"
Mitsuki answered jokingly.
Soft laughter was her general
reply. They escorted the ladies to their rooms, then Minagi said to Mitsuki,
"Anything you need to do to prepare for our arrival on Earth?"
"Not much I can do in
advance," Mitsuki admitted. "I'll have to see how the situation there
is and then play the investigation by ear," she explained. She hesitated a
moment, then looked over at Minagi to ask, "You seemed especially concerned
about the fighters. If there some unusual danger involved with bringing them
along?"
"Not exactly," Minagi
said gravely. "We tested this out a few times and it's worked fine, mostly.
But one time..." she trailed off.
"Something went
wrong," Mitsuki quickly concluded. She quietly asked her, "Did you
figure out what happened?"
"From the transmissions we
recovered the pilots were goading each other on, seeing which one could get the
closest to the transit field's event horizon," Minagi explained quietly. A
grim little smile, "They managed to rupture the field."
"A catastrophic re-entry
into normal space," Mitsuki murmured, "there's no way they could have
survived that."
"Even worse," Minagi
said grimly, "they impacted a planet."
"Ouch," Mitsuki
winced, thinking the kind of explosion that could trigger.
"Dixon and Fokker got a
memorial plaque in one of the fighter hangers," Minagi shrugged,
"because we couldn't recover a body." Minagi shook her head and forced
a smile, "Such a gloomy topic! Sorry I nattered on so long."
"Hey, I asked,"
Mitsuki shrugged. She smiled, "So how do we kill two days?"
Minagi smirked, "I can
guess how Ryouko and Ayeka are going to."
Mitsuki snickered, "Even
with Ryouko's mothers on board?"
"Wouldn't stop Ryouko,"
Minagi said thoughtfully, "but it might slow Ayeka down a bit."
Just ahead of them aboard
Ryo-Ohki, Ryouko looked out into the blackness of hyperspace with Ayeka standing
close by her side. "You know what I'm going to miss the most while we're on
this trip?" Ryouko asked.
"Our bedroom?" Ayeka
asked with a little smile.
"Heh. That, too,"
Ryouko admitted. With a slightly sheepish smile she admitted, "I'm going to
miss Sasami's cooking."
"Oh, don't worry about
that," Ayeka shrugged.
"Hmm?" Ryouko looked
at her curiously.
From behind her back Ayeka
produced a giant lunch box. "I had Sasami prepare us two bento boxes for
today and tomorrow," she said cheerfully.
Ryouko began to laugh even as
she hugged Ayeka close, "You think of everything, m'love."
To be continued...