”GOOD MORNING GREATER TOKYO REGION!!!! It’s the Nihon News Network Morning Report for those you who have to be up and about today! “
”The latest news on the most recent visitor to the Imperial Capitol, the Altess! Well, we’re obviously all still here, so reports of the aliens blowing up buildings and starting in an invasion are NOT true! However, the reward of [OBSCENE amount of yen] offered by the alien Duchess Cima Haman-Khan for the head, no body attached, of Nerima’s new Lord Tatewaki Kuno, has still gone uncollected on, thus far. The Imperial Court and Shogun have refused comment on this rather outrageous offer made in public, in the heart of Tokyo, and we have been unable to get any police authorities to make any comment on the bounty being offered. We were, however, able to interview one of Lord Kuno’s security staffers outside the Peer Council Hall recently!”
(Cut to a shot of an armored limo parked in the street, a man wearing dark glasses crouched almost completely out of sight behind the vehicle.)
Reporter: “What can you tell us about this kill-bounty placed on your lord?”
Kuno Securityman: “No comment!”
Reporter: “Surely you have SOME opinion about this blatant price on your daimyo’s head?”
Kuno Securityman:“No comment!”
Reporter: “Is Lord Kuno concerned about it?”
Kuno Securityman(looking nervously around):“No comment!”
Reporter:”What amount recent reports of violence against Kuno properties and staffers?”
Kuno Securityman: “Ah, no comment! And you wanna, like, stand a little ways over this way?”
Reporter:”Oh, I’m sorry, am I blocking your way?”
Kuno Securityman:”No, but you’re blocking somebody else’s way; so just stay...there! That’s good!”
Reporter:”What do you mean?”
*PA-TOW!*
(Camera POV suddenly becomes jumbled as there’s the sound of sudden scrambling: “MOVE OVER! MOVE OVER!MAKE ROOM! MAKE ROOM!” ”Get that thing outta my ear!” “Hey! Find your own cover!!!”
Pant=pant=pant-gasp-huff-puff!
(Voice of)Kuno Securityman: “Fifth time today. We think it’s the hash-heads from downtown by the docks thinking to score some easy money. Where they’re getting the guns, I dunno.”
Reporter: “YOU THINK?!”
*BING!*SHERrrooooooowwwwwww!*
Kuno Securityman: “Yep’ so far it’s been small stuff, but there WAS that rocket launcher earlier.”
Reporter: “Rocket launcher? Is this thing armored?!”
Kuno Securityman: “Not nearly well enough. Say, this still live? ‘Cause if it is, I gotta ask you to turn it off on account of the situation her-”
(Camera cuts out, and cuts back to the studio)
”Well, while we reestablish contact with our reporter outside the Peer Council Hall, Kimiko has some weather news for all you folks out there!”
”Hi there! It’s another bright beautiful sunny day in the Imperial Capitol, with only partial cloudiness, so if you’re coming downtown to look at the spaceship, you’ll have lots of sunlight for photography! Further south you can expec-”
”Hi, guys!”
”---Eh---?! Ukyo? What are you doing here?!”
”Ah, Kasumi, my supposed father disowned me for not charging the mighty Martian army in order to kill Ran-chan. I’m here to collect on that offer Ran-chan’s parents made to adopt me if that was the case. That is, if they’re still offering?”
”Ah, of course they are! I didn’t mean it like that! I mean, how’d you get in HERE?! The police have the place surrounded!”
”Well, I have the services of a genius kunoichi to get me places.” Ukyo gestured to the petite figure standing next to her who bowed deeply at the compliment.
Actually, Ukyo had very little idea of exactly HOW they’d gotten past the mob of onlookers(sour note; she could have made a killing vending to that hungry crowd!), circling media, and cordon of security, suffice to say she had vague recollections of blurring movement, huddling up behind some of the larger members in the crowd, scampering through some hedges, and possibly drugging a police dog.
”I’m sure that Auntie Nodoka and Uncle Genma will be glad to see you! And they’ll want to add you to their family register! And just in time, too!”
”What do you mean?”
”Well, Nabiki and Akane with that nice Officer Goto are downtown at the studios of the Nihon Today National News Network right now recording interviews! Those nice people are willing to pay rather substantially for our individual stories on ‘Ranko’! If you’re part of the family here, they may want to interview you too; the reporters have already said they want to talk to the Saotomes as well, and I imagine Nabiki will want to coach you and them as to what we want to say about the family!”
”Interviews? Paying for them? Cool!”
”Nabiki seemed to think so. Just as long as we remember to say the right things.”
”I imagine Genma’s going to need a LOT of coaching, then!”
”Ukyo! He’s going to be your adoptive father! Show some respect!”
”I am! I’m being an observant and dutifully respectful child, just like Ran-chan! Besides, I’m not yet on the register, so I may as well get my digs in now.”
Kasumi thought about that for a moment; technically Ukyo was right on BOTH counts. She found herself grinning back at the younger girl in agreement.
” You’re incorrigible, you know that? You’re also right; Genma IS going last, after some serious work by both Nabiki and Auntie.”
”Well, hey, I can help with that. Say, you know your phone’s not plugged in?”
”Yes. After a while the sympathy calls on Ranma’s enslavement got a little too much for little sister, and then this Altess business started, and we got all the press calling, and the crank calls, and everything else. Well, it got a little overwhelming, so we decided to pull it for a while.”
”Yeah, but what if somebody important calls?”
”They’d have trouble getting through all the other calls, and we’d never know. I’ll plug it back in later, though. If it’s really vital, I’m sure they’ll call back or find some other way of getting in touch with us.”
“Their line’s disconnected.”
”You don’t suppose something’s happened to them?”
”No; our agents in place report they aren’t going anywhere. And our representative has accompanied the two sisters to the television studio. We can contact them through our people already in place. They can’t ignore their Emperor after all.”
Doctor Ono Tofu looked at the phone in exasperation; he still couldn’t get through!
”I can’t believe it! BUSY! We can talk across GALAXIES and we can’t make one damn hardline connection go through?”
From her place next to the ship’s Captain( or Seenth in the Altess language) Ranma looked at the battlecruiser’s communications officer throw up his hands in frustration.
”We’ll just have to try again later, or try some other method.” Cima bemusedly stated. She turned and winked at Ranma. “We can always try the direct approach.”
”Ah, I don’t want to freak out anybody.”
”I think the freakout quotient down there is beyond that point,”spoke up the ship’s intelligence officer, a dark-haired Altess woman whose name Ranma learned was Faye Saber-Valentine, and who reminded Ranma somewhat of an older Nabiki, with a certain cunning gleam in her eye and a sense of jaded cynicism. “There’s a giant FELINE head poster downtown welcoming us to the city.”
Ranma made a point of NOT looking at the display screen she was indicating; benefit of memories of a life without the NekoKen training or not, she did NOT want to see a giant display of one of the furry monsters.
To Ranma’s great surprise, a vessel as large as Cima’s battlecruiser had a surprisingly small crew; only about fifty living people on the whole ship, and many of them only mission-specialists. The rest was handled by robots.
”Our numbers have always been small, but we find other ways to compensate for that. We can afford such measures. And we can afford QUALITY.” Cima had explained when Ranma had asked about that.
Ranma accepted the explanation; her Aisha-recollections didn’t run to the specifics of warships and military equipment; her Ma-Cha had been a financial analyst studying galactic economics back when she’d been growing up in the Dynasty.
However, the rest of her hadn’t grown up in the Dynasty. Ranma thus could still goggle in awe of the bridge as she stood beside Cima Haman-Khan. It wasn’t just as futuristic as anime and manga artists had depicted such things, it was even BETTER. Everything she could see just radiated POWER and STYLE, all apparently without sacrificing efficiency, as much as the martial artist part of Ranma could apply what she knew to what she could see and understand.
And speaking of style...Ranma fingered the collar of her new clothing. Among the other wonders of this ship, it really didn’t surprise Ranma that it had some automated means of whipping up new clothes in her size; black pants and red shirt, shoes, and underwear in familiar colors, if not in a familiar cut or fabrics, all done in some way that looked and felt expensive. Expensive, but certainly not uncomfortable.
”Well, if it’s any consolation to you, our sources indicate that nothing untoward has happened at the residence you indicated; aside from the fact that it’s still surrounded, of course.” Saber-Valentine broke in, nodding to several other displays.
The ‘sources’ she alluded to, were two high-altitude Naruni-built stealth Spy Drones, orbiting over the region. The shark-like flying robots had gone unseen by terrestrial observers and the various helicopters and aircraft buzzing over the Tokyo region as they floated on anti-gravity above Nerima, and were streaming back real-time aerial footage of the streets below.
One was hovering over the Tendo household, showing it surrounded by a cordon of police, holding back a sea of media and curious onlookers. A zoom lense had shown a few familiar-looking people inside the compound walls, going about their business, so things didn’t seem TOO bad down there.
The other drone was fixed on the Kuno manor; it showed a similar mob of media and security around its perimeter, but a much more violent-looking crowd gathered around. What few people had been seen on the manor grounds had moved quickly and anxiously, and typically with heavy escort.
”Seeing some violence down there; again, low-level stuff; some small projectile arms, petrochemical and alcohol-based incendiaries, and a few off-site chemical explosives. The local law enforcement authority chatter seems to indicate this is riot, but not uprising, level disturbance. They seem to think the real local heavy-hitters are yet to arrive on the scene. I’d agree with them; we’re not going to see any REAL response to your offer until the professionals have had a chance to scope out this Kuno’s defenses.”
”And what of the word we posted in the Three Galaxies? Any responses?”
Saber-Valentine turned her attention to a different set of displays. ”We’ve already picked up a dozen or so contacts coming through the dimensional channel we mapped out. Small ships, sporting either enhanced drives for their class, or showing indications of nonstandard weaponry and armor. Also a lot of drive and performance anomalities. Definitely bounty hunters and mercenary stock. The first of them should be hitting atmosphere right about now.”
”Your assessment?”
”Well, within a minute or so of emerging from plus-drive, they started fighting with each other. I’d say we’re seeing a culling process taking place already.”
”Good. I may be hoping to attract scum and lowlifes of the unscrupulous persuasion to go after that grasping little twit Kuno, but I want QUALITY scum and lowlifes!”
”Well, judging by the amount of the incoming debris, I’d say whoever survives the first elimination round is LUCKY scum and lowlife. Fortunately, none of them seem to be packing anything like nuclear weapons; it’s all low level weaponry, but they sure are enthusiastic about using it on each other.”
”Making atmospheric re-entry in three xugs! Brace for re-entry!”
”Finally! Any idea where we’re supposed to go on this mudball? I didn’t see any signs of spaceport trans-”
*KU-DUMPF!*EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!
”I can tell you we’re going DOWN. That was our A-G drive. Brace for crash.”
”WHAT?! Engage the auxiliaries! Give us drive power!”
”Can’t. Auxiliaries just totally crapped out. Guess those Crepalians got a lucky shot in. We’re strictly unpowered ballistic gliding now.”
Multiple eyes stared at the speaker.
”HOW CAN YOU BE SO CALM AT A TIME LIKE THIS?!”
”Practice and experience under your management. We might hit some turbulence, so hang on.”
*GGGDDDOOOSSHHHduhghduhghduhgdRROOOWWRRR*
”WWHHAAAHHHH!!!”
Yep; even a fully grown and mature multi-tentacled, multi-eyed, technology-using, star-travelling, evolved carnivore can scream like a little pre-breeder given the proper motivation.
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(Posted Mon, 12 Apr 2010 19:19)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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