Still, his tone sounded rather like a little boy's when he spoke. "That's the problem with being on standby. There is nothing to do but wait and wonder about what's coming up."
"Being able to have time to prepare for a combat mission is usually beneficial," Sosuke commented.
"I know that. But that still leaves you ready to be surprised by the actual battle alarm."
"Worrying will not change the status of the situation, save to distract from important tasks."
"You know something?" the blond man grumbled, setting a glare on his comrade. "You really are stiff as a board."
"And this is a problem?"
"Of course it is! Fortunately though, that, and this standby, allow us to do something that needs a great deal of attention."
"And that is...."
"Educating you on women, my dear buddy!"
The younger man frowned as his teammate slung an arm around his shoulders. "Is there some new detail that I need to be educated on?"
"Pal, you need to learn the whole play book, from beginning to end."
"It's that important."
"It's the only important thing. You, my friend, have two lovely young ladies after you, you lucky dog!" Kurz declared, jabbing his younger companion with a friendly punch. "That's something plenty of us would love to kill for!"
"Shouldn't we be looking to keep the equipment is in top shape?"
"Ah, I'm sure that it is. Besides, we have time to do that. Right now, we have more important things to educate you on."
"What would that be?" murmured a feminine voice. "How to slack off when on duty?"
"Come on, Mao. Can't blame a guy for trying to help a friend."
"You're kidding, right? Your sort of help wouldn't exactly be worth much to a horn dog, never mind Sosuke. Actually, you are a horn dog," Melissa Mao scoffed, placing her hands on her hips as she glared at the blond man.
Kurz rolled his eyes even as he admitted that she did look damned good in her flight suit. With her shapely form, most of the guys tended to be pleased when she wore the form fitting outfit. He rather did suppose that she'd look wonderful in a slinky little evening gown with heels, but that was entirely unlikely to happen. In the mean time though, he didn't feel like backing down on this. "You don't understand, do you? This is the sort of thing that guys really should do."
"What? Goof off?"
"No, no. Help each other out?"
"Like you were doing in the mess hall?"
"Something like that."
"Trust me. That certainly wasn't helpful at all. It was just more of you being an idiot," the short haired woman pointedly remarked.
"You probably don't even know what I was talking about."
"I'm not sure that I want to know what brought on your babble."
"Little do you know...." the older of her two subordinates told her, wiggling a finger.
"And there is some important detail about this that I missed?"
"Only that our dear and precious captain, Tessa, spent the night with this young stud here."
"Oh, really...."
"Not only that, but they had company," Kurz sighed happily, as if he was caught up in some blissful memory. "A lovely young cadet with long legs, and long hair, by the name of Kaname Chidori."
"Tessa went to bed with him... and another girl?"
"I'm not sure that Tessa and Kaname wanted to be with each other. More like they were after Sosuke here."
"I see...." Melissa drawled, and leaned down to stare Sosuke straight in the face. "You didn't try anything... 'funny' now did you?"
"'Funny'?" parroted Sosuke, blinking in confusion.
"You know.... Tricked them, played one off on the other, took advantage of them when they couldn't help themselves.... That sort of thing."
"No. I handled their... attentions, and then proceeded to use force to disuade Kurz from trying to grab at them."
The NCO glared at Kurz for a moment before grinning and grabbing Sosuke over to her. "Well, that's wonderful!"
"It is?" chorused Kurz and Sosuke.
"Absolutely. You were a gentleman, you lady killer you."
"But no one was harmed," the teenaged soldier reminded her. "Save for Kurz when it was needed."
"That's fine. But I'm not talking about taking a girl out physically. I mean, you managed to challenge them through their emotions."
"It's a battle then?"
"You really don't get it. I'm saying that you got them to like you. Tessa did show something new to you, right?" she asked with her brows raised.
"Well, she did leave her panties with me after Miss Chidori did so."
"Oooh! I knew that I could count on you! Obviously she likes you. Don't you worry though."
"Is there some concerns that I should have had?"
"Yes, but they're nothing to worry about now. I've known Tessa for a long time, and there is one thing that I'm sure of."
"And that is...."
"This is your chance, and you really should take it. Go for it, you ladykiller you!"
"But that's exactly what I said!" Kurz complained.
"No, you were trying to be a lech, you jackass."
"Can't blame a guy for trying to get a little... vibe about what it was like from his friend."
"Watch me. Besides, what do you think that you can do?"
"Me? I can give him lessons in love...."
"I kind of doubt that," drawled one of the other pilots, strolling over to the trio.
"How can you say something like that?"
"Simple. It's the truth."
"You are one of the crudest playboy's that I've ever seen," a mechanic told the blond man. "You're the only guy that I've know to act as if he wants a woman to get mad at him."
"He is the guy who holds the record for the most slaps from girls while on shore leave," another mechanic put in.
"Hell, he gets slapped even before he steps off onto the port of call."
"Come on guys! Can't you give me a little sympathy?" Kurz whined.
"Actually... no. You're just too much of a jerk."
A radar control officer standing nearby nodded. "The very idea of you giving advice on romance is so absurd that it's clear that the whole situation would be FUBAR before the first step would be taken."
The blond man scowled at the others around him. "Then what would you think should be done, huh?"
"Let's give him some real help," drawled the pilot.
"Like what do to make a girl ready for a night in," said a mechanic with a chuckle.
"There are plenty of ways to enjoy yourself with a girl," the sensor officer reminded the teenager. "You just have to be aware of them, and use them to the fullest."
"Don't try to force anything," put in another pilot.
"But if you keep your calm and remember to pay attention to what they want," the flight deck boss observed," they can give you plenty to enjoy."
"I see," Sosuke murmured.
They were on different decks of the station, and were involved with different tasks. Nothing about their current positions had anything in common with each other's, and they were a bit distanced from the events of the previous night. But as Kaname and Tessa tried to focus on the jobs at hand, a chill ran over their skin, and brought one thought into both of their heads.
'I am so not going to like whatever that was.'
Nora Lemming was good at her job, and was rather focused on it. Being professional had always seemed to be the best way to work, which was especially true since people's lives were depending on the results of her efforts. Others might have wanted to be the pilots or commanders, but she was perfectly happy being an engineer, tinkering with the machines placed into her care.
That didn't mean that she wasn't the attractive young woman that she appeared to be, as even her attention could be distracted from her work by hearing some sort of commotion.
"What the hell is going on over there?" she asked one of her subordinates.
The mechanic glanced over at her and frowned. "You mean that you didn't hear?"
"No, I've been kind of busy overhauling fuel exchanges. So what's the situation?"
"Sagara's got lady troubles!"
"He's got a girlfriend?"
"Actually, he has two of them."
"Amazing...."
"But you know him. Poor kid doesn't know what to do with them."
The blonde woman let her brow furrow. "Then he isn't treating them right?"
"Well... I'm not sure that you could say that he's been nasty to them or anything like that." The mechanic gave a small shrug. "He's just a bit too... clueless about women. Kid knows how to make a bomb out of household goods, but can't figure out how to tell a girl that he likes her."
"That does sound like him. What's he doing about it?"
"Right now.... Nothing. He needs information, and the one really looking to give it to him is Weber."
"That idiot? If he's in charge of the information, that'd be one short relationship."
"You're telling me."
"I'll just have to go and get involved then. Having a repeat of the last time that Weber tried to flirt with me doesn't sit well."
"What are you going to do?"
"Nothing much," Nora commented as she strolled over towards where Sosuke was surrounded by people. "I'm just going to help him understand that he should respect the young women that he wants to be with."
"You want to do what?" Shinji Kazama asked as he looked at the screen in front of him.
"I wish to get the supplies that I requested," Sosuke answered from the other side of the intercom system. "I have been told that they will be of great assistance with my 'women troubles'."
"But to get that sort of stuff...."
"Is there a problem?"
"Well...." the boy with the glasses mumbled.
Grinning mightily, Ono-D came over and slung an arm around Shinji's shoulders. "What this guy's trying to say is that you've got to be more confident. Chicks love a guy who knows what he wants."
"The difficulty is that I am unsure of what I am supposed to be doing," Sosuke admitted.
"And that's where I come in, oh buddy, oh pal."
"Which means...."
"Don't you worry. We'll have you ready for... who is it, anyway?"
"Cadet Chidori and Captain Testarossa."
"Wow! You lucky guy! Two babes for the price of one!"
Shinji thought of Tessa's delicate ivory form and Kaname's toned and shapely curves, and did the only thing that he could manage at that moment.
"That's.... Shinji? Are you okay?" Ono-D asked, glancing over at the glasses wearing boy. "Damn. He fainted. Could be from the nosebleed. But at least he's smiling."
Normally, Mizuki would be rather put out that a boy didn't recognize that she was attractive, but this one wasn't exactly what she'd call 'normal'.
"So, Miss Chidori has gained a relationship with one of the military pilots...." murmured the student body president.
"That's right," Mizuki confirmed, leaning back in her own chair and crossing her long legs. "Kaname's apparently got herself a guy. Kind of cute too, in a rough way."
"Interesting...."
"I'm just kind of surprised that you found out so quickly."
"There is little that I do not know about what goes on around here," the president told her.
"Kind of creepy, but whatever. It's not my problem, though I do have to wonder if I should help that guy of hers try out some good clothing."
"That would fit in with my own plans."
She narrowed her eyes as she gazed at him. "What does that mean?"
"I simply can not allow such a romance to happen without interference."
"You aren't going to stop them, are you?"
"Of course not. Such situations are not to be trifled with, and are an intergral part of school life. "Miss Mikihara."
Up until then, Ren had stood quietly at the president's side, but now she put down a pile of plans, to do lists, maps, and schedules on the table in front of them. "This is the beginning."
"'Beginning' of what?" Mizuki asked, eyeing the documents warily.
"Romance. These are the set up for important dates. Meeting after class, heading over for study sessions in each other's rooms, dinners for two...." the president drawled.
"You've got to be kidding. It's just like something out of a dating sim."
"It is the expected way to go."
"In what world? This is silly...."
"No, it is romance," Hayashimizu replied, snapping his fan out so that the large heart on it could be seen.
He was an experienced officer who'd been through plenty of fights over his time, but there were two things that were important to Richard Mardukas, doing the job right, and his captain. Oh, there had been a time when he'd been rather put out that the clumsy young child had been put in charge of such an important installation. But over time, he, like the rest of the crew, had learned that she was actually a quite capable young woman. She never pulled away from the hard decisions, and even though she tried her best to avoid hurting people if she could, she was willing to give the order to take lives if she had to. So, if she happened to be a little hesitant and uncertain, it was forgiven, especially since she was able to come up with questions that more experienced officers had to learn to ask themselves.
That was why his attention was peaked when he heard her name being mentioned between two of the other officers.
"Really," the communications technician chirped, leaning over towards the woman at the environmental station. "Captain Testarossa's got herself a crush!"
"It had to happen sometime," the environmental technician admitted.
"Too true. It was just a matter of time."
"Exactly, though a lot of the guys would be depressed to know that she's taken. I mean, a lot of them have been panting after her."
The com officer nodded. "Once they know that she's involved with Sagara...."
"They'll be so disappointed."
"Uh huh!"
Commander Mardukas stiffened at the exchange, and understood the concept in principle. However, knowing that such a clod as Sagara had become the focus for the captain's affections was intolerable. Why, that fool didn't even understand the meaning of restraint, and could mar the delicate sensibilities of the Captain Testarossa. Mardukas' protective instincts came roaring to the forefront, and he knew that he had to do something to help keep the young woman that he thought of as much as his charge as his captain from being hurt as possible.
As soon as possible, he was going to have to have a nice... 'chat' with Sagara, in which he would explain, in no uncertain terms, just what the results would be if he even so much as made the captain sniffle.
Several of the other officers backed away from his suddenly dark expression, while:
Read the comments on this episode
(Posted Sun, 08 Feb 2009 15:29)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.