“Now this I like.”
Nabiki was grinning at the screen. Showing on it was the newest development of Minitech, making use of Kunz’s research. It was sleek, subtle, and…
“It looks like a glorified dune buggy.” Ranma was amused. Nabiki looked like a little kid with a new toy. He just had to be the one to be the older kid telling her it was geeky, even if she was actually the older of the two.
“Only to us, Ranma,” she replied, looking even happier. “To them, it looks like thin air. Do you know how often I wanted to be invisible back in Nerima so I could spy on all of you like this? This is a young woman’s dream come true. Hell, it’s an old woman’s dream come true.”
Ranma shrugged. “I can understand that. Can’t count the number of times I wish I could just disappear back then.” He chuckled as a thought came to him. “Why do you think I spent as much time in the Umisenken as I did when I was able to learn it?”
She looked at him. It would have been a frosty glare if not for the childish smile on her face. “Is that why you stole our foundation? To get back at us?”
“I put it back,” he said with an innocent look on his face. It was much better than it used to be.
After a second they both laughed and Nabiki turned back to the controls. “Well, this is still what I was hoping for.” She turned to Ranma, the look of someone with a brilliant idea on her face. “How would you like to learn how to drive these things?”
“What?”
“Oh, come now, Ranma. You must be dying to be behind all this power. This thing could easily take down an Abrams, probably go toe to toe with a Mammoth or two, and can only be seen if you want it to. You must want to try it.”
Ranma had to begrudgingly nod. He’d seen the Mammoth tanks. The MX-6 was designed as an anti-armour/anti-air war machine. It was about fifty percent larger than an Abrams in each dimension and had two massive turrets. Also included was a full set of Surface-to-Air missiles, making it the most diverse and powerful of the Cabal’s land units. It was, however, taxing on production, meaning that they were never built exclusively, as the M1 could often do the job and so more was simply overkill. Against the units of Antaeus, however, even the mighty Mammoth was small fry.
“Sure.” Nabiki stepped aside and he went up to the control stick. “So how’s it work?”
Nabiki spent some time with simple controls, taking the time to be thorough. She even had a simple Pegasus cargo chopper built to teach him the controls for flying vehicles. It was hardly a drain on resources. She went on about special controls, then started to show him the ‘war room’ command centres control scheme. Something seemed fishy.
“Nabiki, why are you showing me all this?”
“Just in case, Ranma. I may need to go ashore to do something you can’t and I’ll want an able commander here to watch my back and keep my ship in one piece.”
He nodded. It made sense. Besides, he had to admit that it was rather fun, and a bit intoxicating. Being able to make, unmake and control all these things had a ring of the power of a god to it. Even the layout of the war room added to it, making you feel as if you were looking down on the field of battle, deciding what your little minions would do for you.
So far, the repair mission was going well. They had arrived at this island in need of resources for the automated repair system to finish its work. The amount reserved for battle units was rather small, but was put to quick use. Now, after having harvested two supply depots from the island, they had a massive reserve, but something they had found had encouraged Church and Walker to order them to continue exploring. They had seen helicopters, an Apache and a recon bird, modified by the same living material as the AA guns they had encountered during the rescue and at island zero. The fact that mobile units were so changed demanded investigation. As of now they had found a massive enemy base on the south east of the island, which included a dock. This dock had missiles. Big ones. Intercontinental missiles, like the ones that had attacked the cities.
In addition to that they had found three large, dome-like structures. From the reading received, Church had supposed they were targeting arrays. Nabiki was getting a very bad, but very excited feeling.
Now, they were driving the Puma stealth vehicle north from the base. “The land looks barren… diseased.” Church rang in as they entered ‘Area 4’ of the island. Sure enough, where the rest of it had been lush and green, this was looking light the sight of some kind of vegetation plague. The trees were withered, most completely bare; the grass was brown and sick looking, and even the ground itself looked as if it had suffered a great upheaval. Then they saw it.
“By the kami…” Ranma rarely cursed like that. Now, however, he was filled with massive dread. It was a thought that the helicopters were a test of something new. What he saw threw that out the window. Before him was a base, just as massive as the one on the south east of the island, and every part of it was infected, or maybe blended, with that same organic mass that was in the choppers and guns. Massive turrets with large organic spikes sticking out the top, production facilities with ‘breathing’ tentacles, even the large MX-6 Mammoths had large growths surrounding them. The walls seemed to have veins, making the place seem like a massive hybrid between living things and metal constructs.
“Walker? Church? Do you see this?” Nabiki was obviously shaken by their discovery.
“Yes, Captain. Don’t stop, though. We need to know how large the facility is,” Walker said.
Nabiki nodded, a useless gesture as Walker wasn’t watching, only listening. “Aye, sir.” It amazed her that anyone could be that cool when seeing this. Just what had that man seen?
The little recon vehicle moved about, following the main road. It led to a set of massive doors. Not as large as the ones at island zero, but large enough to keep a tank out until it decided to try and blast through. Despite not being visible, the doors opened for the Puma.
Ranma squinted at the screen. “Those look like…”
“Captain, you’ve stumbled on the missile silos I don’t need to tell you what to do.”
“Roger that.” Nabiki replied. She had just looked about and decloaked the Puma when the silos began to open up. “No, not now!” she screamed at the display.
The missiles were launching.
“Die, damn it!” she screamed again as she pulled the trigger. The puma released several hundred rounds at one of the missiles. It wobbled and began to veer off course as the thrusters became damaged, but while she took the one out, five more had launched.
Nabiki swore while Walker spoke, “Captain, you need to destroy the missile guidance arrays. Once they’re destroyed, the missiles will ditch in the sea.”
Nabiki looked at the tactical map. All three arrays were known. They had managed to search most of the island. Unfortunately, the cannons’ creation engine had only manufactured two set of rounds for the main guns. She looked at the map some more, then started to move. She marked all the of the arrays with markers, two red and one green. Then she surprised everyone. “Ranma, make Pegasus units to grab those containers we found and haul them all to the north west array. Then have a Hornet attack helicopter with the longbow missile array on standby. I need to do something.”
It took Ranma a couple of seconds for what she said to sink in. “What? You want me to attack these things?”
“No, Ranma. Just put those explosive containers next to that one. These things will be too strong for our guns, but a bigger bang should do the job. Tankers full of rocket fuel should be enough.” She looked at the console. “Antaeus, fire main cannons: one shot at each red waypoint.”
“Acknowledged, main guns firing,” the ships voice replied.
Nabiki turned to the still staring Saotome. “Get to work! I have something do get ready!” She then went to another computer console and began typing and tapping the screen.
Ranma turned to the control centre. He knew how to do it all, it just seemed so easy, but the job was monumental. He quickly built the choppers and even had two of the souls assigned to them, Kroker in one and Korolev in the other. “Alright you two. Gather these containers,” he walked over the two war room map and indicated the explosive payloads, “and drop them at the base of that dome.”
Kroker chimed in, “Then what?”
“Then get back here. I don’t want anything over there.”
The two helicopters left the main creation bays and headed out to get their cargo. As they did so, Ranma watched the display confirm the destruction of the two arrays the guns had fired on and readied the combat chopper. The hornet design was acquired from the very chopper that Ransom had been in during his last fight. With its retrieval was his own. Ranma assigned the flying ace to the helicopter, armed with a missile set that paralleled the best of what the Cabal carried, seeing as it was stolen from them. “Ransom, stand by for further…”
Nabiki charged in, knocking Ranma aside and began her work. She prepared one more hornet, this one commanded by the sniper, Madsen, and another Pegasus with a unique add-on. “Nabiki, what’s that?”
“’That’, is going to give us an edge, Ranma.” Nabiki replied with a determined look on her face. “Ransom, Madsen, escort unit designated Hijack. I’ll be flying it personally.” She then took the controls and directed the Pegasus to the array.
Ranma looked at her. He could only think of two words to describe what he saw as the Pegasus lowered its winch line with the odd attachment at the end which stuck to the array: pleased and dreading. She looked at him with a look he’d seen once before and hoped he would never see again. Someone who knew death was coming and was doing their all to ensure that it would only take them. “Don’t look at me like that, Nabiki.”
“Sorry, Ranma,” she said, a sad smile coming to her, “but this is the only way that Church and Walker can’t interfere anymore. They managed to tie their control to my name.”
“Nabiki, don’t. We can work around them.”
“Captain Tendo, what in God’s name are you doing?” Walker said.
Nabiki rounded on the comm. centre. “Something that you can’t stop. Antaeus, acknowledge Ranma Saotome as second in command of Antaeus prototype zero-zero.”
“Acknowledged. Ranma Saotome is now first officer.”
“Nabiki, no!”
“Antaeus, activate protocol ‘Hijack’.” With that, Nabiki suddenly stiffened, throwing her head back in a silent scream and then began to fall. Ranma quickly rushed in to grab her, catching her limp form.
“Nabiki. Nabiki!” Ranma yelled, smacking her face.
“What the devil is going on over there?!” Walker shouted.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Nabiki’s voice came in over the comm. system.
“Captain, what did you do?” Church asked.
“Oh, I’m not Captain, anymore. The Captain is dead. Long live the Captain!” Nabiki’s face, her twenty year old face, appeared on the screen. Above it was ‘N. Tendo’ is roman letters. “I’ve activated my little plan. You see the Hijack unit is actually a means for the Pegasus’s soul to interface with any device it comes in contact with. As it`s attached to the last guidance array, I now have control of the missiles. I`m not ditching them in the sea.”
“Oh, God. You’re going to kill us.” Walker said.
Nabiki laughed. “Oh, nothing of the sort. I just wanted to be sure that Ranma was free of your yoke and to get my own revenge on these bastards. There’s a little island nearby with nothing but military capabilities and I’m landing half the missiles on it. The other half I'm sending to island zero: I'm reducing it to a crater.”
Ranma looked at Nabiki’s face, her real one. “Nabiki, how are you doing this?”
“Oh, God.” Church spoke up, “She activated her chip.”
“Chip?”
“Walker, didn’t you say that everyone who served on an adaptive cruiser had the soulcatcher chip implanted?”
“Yes, Church, even Captain Tendo did. It was supposed to be in case she was killed but the cruiser was still intact so that we could send in a new captain without having to debrief them personally.”
“But now I’m in command,” Ranma said, sullenly. “Nabiki, I don’t want this. Why’d you do it?”
“Because someone has to and I needed to make sure those two couldn’t foul things up by taking control again, because if I did then the mission didn’t die with me, and because I have nothing left to lose. I’ve lost my family already and my loyalty was gone when they forced me to join this cursed military. This way I could die with at least some honour.”
“Damn it, Tendo.” Walker’s voice was controlled, but slightly seething.
“Eat shit, Walker. I’ve released your little toy into the hands of someone who can destroy the Cabal with their own knowledge. Be grateful, your little war is about to end. Captain, I would also like to report that the missiles have reached their targets. Mission accomplished.”
Ranma stood up, still looking at the now empty shell that was once the body of Nabiki Tendo. “All souls, return to the ship once someone blows up those tankers. Someone pick up Patton in the Scarab. Antaeus, once everyone’s back take us out to sea.”
Church’s voice spoke up over the comm. sounding very uncertain, ”Mr. Saotome, what do you intend to do?”
“I’ll finish what I’ve started. The Cabal have taken the most important person in my life and a dear friend. I’m going to end them.”
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(Posted Tue, 20 Apr 2010 07:02)
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