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Vandread: The Unknown Soldier

Chapter Seven: Suspicion

Location: Conference Room, Nirvana

“Say that again,” Magno said in disbelief.

“Like I said before, I believe one of your Dread pilots may not be who she seems,” Aidan repeated.

“Do you know this for a fact?” BC asked, arms crossed.

“No, I don’t have proof, just a feeling,” he replied.

“We have to have proof before we could act,” Magno said, “Do you know her name?”

“No, but she has short, black hair, with a small lock of red hair,” he said as he saw an image of her in his mind.

“Her name is Reika Kiyaga,” BC said looking up from a data pad. “Does that ring any bells?”

“Reika… no it doesn’t, but names aren’t important,” he replied, looking over at BC. “Some people change names as often as they do clothes.”

“So what would you like us to do?” Magno asked.

“Just to keep an eye on her, that’s all,” he said as he walked out of the room, not even waiting to be dismissed.

Sitting on her bed, Reika lazily pecked at the keys of her noteputer. She was extremely bored, so bored that even running Dread combat simulations couldn’t pull her out of her boredom. She continued pecking at the keys until she was interrupted by a message that popped onscreen. It indicated that she had just received a message from someone. She opened it, but it was encrypted. It took her a few minutes to decipher it, and it read, ’Proceed at your own discretion.’

“What’cha doin’?” Jennifer asked.

“Just reading a letter from a friend on Mejale,” she replied, as she tapped the shut down key.

“Oh, do you wanna go grab a bite to eat?” Jennifer asked.

“Sure, why not,” she said as she closed her noteputer.

Aidan flexed the arm of his Geist Powered Armor Suit, making sure it was working properly and did not jam up. The Geist was the newest development in Solaris Powered Combat Armor. The armor was thick enough to withstand most small-arms fire, and some laser-based weapons. The suit had a medical pack that injected pain-killers when the wearer sustained injury. Unlike some of the heavier powered armor, it was not fully powered, meaning the wearer had to carry some of the weight. The most important and unique feature was the optical camouflage system built into the suit. It used special electronic dampeners to mask it’s IR signature as well as a special mimetic coating that redirected light to make the armor almost completely invisible.

He refused assistance from the chief engineer, a nerdy-looking woman with brown hair and glasses, to repair his battered armor. He didn’t like the idea of her figuring out how his powered armor worked. She also wanted to know more about the optical camouflage, but he told her that was classified. He said he would repair it himself, and he wouldn’t let anybody else touch it.

Suddenly a tall, blonde woman walked into the men’s quarters and stopped in front of him. He recognized her as Jura, the woman who had attacked him with the saber onboard the Artemis.

“It looks like you‘re about to go into battle” she said.

“No, just making repairs and testing my armor,” he said. “What do you want?” he asked as he picked up the laser rifle that was laying on his bunk next to the suit’s helmet.

“Well,” she said in partially seductive tone, “I’d like to make a baby, will you give me what I need?”

“What?“ Aidan was caught off-guard by her bluntness, but he quickly recovered. “Do you have any idea what you’re asking?”

“What does that mean?” she replied irritantly.

Aidan sighed. “I thought so,” he paused for a second. “Oh, and my answer is no.”

Jura fumed, and he watched her storm out of the men’s quarters, nearly running into Bart as she exited.

“What was that all about?” Bart asked.

“I have no idea,” Aidan replied as he practiced aiming the rifle.

Maria casually walked through the ship’s garden. Recently, it was becoming a habit for her. She found the place soothing and calm. It was the one serene place on this spaceship, the one place that seemed like home. It was a stark contrast to the gray of this ship, with lush, green plants and trees, and even a stream flowing in the center of it. It was a place where somebody could think.

She plopped down on the bench, and looked up into the stars that surrounded the ship. Numerous in number, they dotted the sky and light to the darkness.

It has already been a month since we arrived on the Nirvana, she wanted to go back home, but she feared there wouldn’t be a place left for her when and if she did. Right now, with the rebels in control of the planet, she would be killed if she ever went back. As it stood now, she probably wouldn’t mind if she ever went back. She sat there and continued to stare into the endless sea of stars.

Sitting at his computer in the infirmary, Duero looked over the disc that contained information about Solaris. It wasn’t the real disc, like the Aidan had, but was a copy. Duero knew it was underhanded to copy the disc, but he wanted to know more about Solaris. More precisely, he wanted to know more about the two from there. He just finished looking at Maria Shakov’s file. She was the daughter of the late Solaris Prime Minister, Cedric Shakov, who they claimed was assassinated. The file had all of her medical records, which he knew would be useful in the future. After he finished with her file, he decided to look at Aidan’s file. He opened it and looked at it.

It specified that Aidan was orphaned at the end of the Earth fleet’s attack on the system, twelve years ago. Not long after, he was put into a military-type school where he spent the next four years. After that, he entered boot camp, where he was trained to become a soldier. At the age of seventeen, he entered active service, just before the rise of a rebel faction that claimed to support Earth. He served in the infantry for a couple of years. Then it said that he was transferred to special forces. The rest of the information was classified. He continued to look through the remainder of the file before he was interrupted by a communication from Parfet.

“Sorry , was I interrupting something?” Parfet asked.

“No, nothing important,” he replied, I was just looking up some medical files,” he replied as he removed the disc and put it in his pocket. “ Do you want something?”

“Yeah, I’d like your help with something, meet me down in engineering,” she said.

“Sure, I’ll head there now,” he said as he cut the connection.

Aidan sat in the open cockpit of his Striker, performing some maintenance and some minor adjustments to the control system. The Striker was in a kneeling position, with the gantry running in front of it, just below the cockpit, which was situated in the chest. So far everything was working fine, but he had to make adjustments to the targeting system, which was off by a few degrees. He heard footsteps on the gantry and noticed someone peer into the cockpit. He noticed it was the red-haired girl named Dita.

“Oh, it’s you Mr. Soldier,” she said. It was a name that she gave to him. He tried to tell her not to call him that, but it failed. He reluctantly gave in, as he realized that she called very few of the men by their real names.

“Do you want something?” he asked as he looked up from computer in his lap.

“Have you seen Mr. Alien?” she asked.

“No… no I haven’t seen Hibiki, but I’ll let you know if I see him,” he answered.

“Thanks,” she said cheerfully as she left.

He glanced a the computer screen in front of him. It indicated that the sensors and camera feed in the head had a slight malfunction. He set the computer aside and climbed out of the cockpit. He grabbed the onto the handholds as he climbed up onto the shoulder. Once up there, he removed one of the access panels on the side of the head. It revealed a mess of wires and power conduits. He started to rewiring when someone climbed onto the gantry.

“Hey, Aidan, can I talk to you for a minute?” Meia asked.

“Sure, but could you give me a hand first?”

“Alright,” she replied.

Meanwhile, in a seldom used engineering section, the woman known as Reika glanced around cautiously, making sure no one was around. Satisfied that no one was there, she took a small cord from a small noteputer and inserted it into a socket. She then opened the noteputer and tapped a few keys. On the notepaper’s screen, it read ‘Starting Upload.’ A few minutes later, it was complete, she withdrew the cord and put the noteputer in a small bag. She smiled to herself, and left the engineering section, again checking for anyone around.

It will begin very soon…

Well, well, done with Chapter Seven, starting on Chapter Eight.