'That man shouldn't be working himself to the bone so often...' Dr. Chambers drifted down the familiar corridors of the administrative and personal offices that were built to overlook the primary Abyss research laboratory. She finally found the one that she was looking for and rang the buzzer. "Professor Steamhein? It's me, Miss Chambers." No response. She buzzed again after a minute and still didn't receive a response. 'Aw, screw it.' She punched in the access code on the control panel to unlock the door and stepped in.
The room was an absolute mess with papers jammed with mathematical equations, diagrams, blueprints and drawings filling up almost every square inch of the room. On the left side was the Professor's desk where a multitude of disassembled machines and materials were cluttering the area beside his advanced notebook computer. Finally her eyes found who she was looking for. Fast asleep on the leather couch on the far right hand corner of the office was Steamhein himself who was recovering from the burnout of his latest stroke of genius. She made her way to his body and shook him gently. "Professor, wake up."
A couple of snorts and coughs followed until the professor finally returned to consciousness. "Ugh... morning, Miss Chambers."
"Actually, it would be evening. It's 2100 hours," replied the woman.
Steamhein groaned in frustration as he got up. "Argh! Didn't I tell you to wake me up by 1600 hours at the latest? I had a weapons performance test for the Messiah scheduled around that time!"
"You needed the rest after pulling off that insane 36 hour workathon earlier on your latest invention. You were so excited about it that you ordered your staff to make Hinata's N Jammer Canceller installation the top priority since it would test the device out."
"Miss Chambers, I humbly request that you stop acting like a mother hen." He yawned once and stretched before heading over to his desk. He just knew that he would have a major backlog of mail to go through. "If my prototype works splendidly, then we can start installing it in mass quantities. Just think... a watered down version of Mirage Colloid! While still visible to the naked eye, normal radar won't be able to detect it and main cameras on mobile suits, mobile armours and battleships would not be able to see it unless their lens are adjusted to a specific point in the visual spectrum!"
His ramblings of his 'cloaking' device reminded her about one of the things she had planned to update him about. She brought out the small booklet that she had been carrying with her for the past hour. "Speaking of that, Morris Jeffries just submitted the mission report. It also contains the Hyperion's technical data and the overall performance of your latest toy on Hinata's GuAIZ." Just as she finished, Steamhein snatched the booklet like a young boy snatching up his first pornographic magazine and quickly started browsing through it to go straight to the section after the retrieval of the Hyperion Gundam data was successful.
**********
With the transfer complete, Rebecca activated the homing beacon to let our third comrade know that the mission is accomplished and that we needed our escape. However, luck was not on our side as security forces forced their way through to the office that we were currently occupying.
The two black clad intruders froze as they were facing a group of eight heavily armed soldiers. "Don't move a muscle!!"
"Squad Two to the bridge. We cornered the intruders in the Captain's Office on C Deck."
"Roger that. We're sending over reinforcements. Hold your position."
At that moment, Hinata's unit had breached a section of the hull about two metres away from us. In a panic, one of the soldiers fired their rifles on us and grazed Rebecca in her right arm. While by itself, this is not a serious injury, the exposure in her suit combined with the vacuum of space may have caused irreparable damage to her right arm.
"AAAUUUGGHHH!!!" Rebecca was quickly able to cover up her exposed hole in her spacesuit but the brief period was more than enough to make the experience painful. The glass containing the emergency sealant stored in the office broke and the pink liquid started making its way towards the breach.
I ordered Hinata to get Rebecca into her cockpit so that she would be in a safe environment. Once that was completed, I hopped on the outstretched mechanical palm so we could take our leave. However, Hinata had one last piece of unfinished business...
"You hurt my precious person. Burn in hell, you bastards..." The two rail cannons and her beam rifle were about to fire until she saw that the enemy Astray was approaching with the backpack unit following it closely.
"I believe this belongs to you!" shouted the enemy pilot just as his mobile suit flew up and caused the backpack unit pursuing him to collide with Hinata's GuAIZ.
The enemy then proceeded to draw its beam saber to further damage the GuAIZ while the human companion in the white spacesuit tried to fly over to the manual hatch. While I fought with that individual, Hinata engaged in melee combat against the Astray. We were able to force them to withdraw back to a certain point and that was enough for Hinata to do what she had intended.
With the backpack reattached, the beam cannons and rail cannons came to life once more and she pointed the barrels of all her available weaponry towards the Ortigiya. The blue Astray tried to get in and save the ship but it couldn't stop the five beam discharges from leaving.
There was no chance for the other battleship...
**********
A sudden unpleasant jolt ran through the body of a young man with long dark hair and he stood up from his workstation on the Junk Guild ship Re.H.O.M.E.. "Something wrong, Canard?" asked the holographic George Glenn.
"I..." He looked around and noticed the concerned faces of Liam, Lowe, Kisato and the Professor. Eight simply showed a blinking smiley on his computer screen.
"... I honestly don't know..."
**********
... and the explosion put a good distance between us and that other Astray. With her anger satisfied for the most part, I was able to convince her to get back to base. I must point out that this type of behaviour could potentially endanger a mission and all who are involved with it. If she is to continue as an operative, she must sit down for counselling and learn to accept that her partner will undoubtedly be exposed to risks. As for the fate of the drifting Astray and his companion, only time will tell if we shall meet up with them again on the battlefield.
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(Posted Fri, 27 Jul 2007 21:35)
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