After dropping Isis off and taking off into space again, Yuuno blinked as something came to him. “Okay, Rai…” Yuuno looked at the bluette, who blinked at him in confusion. “What was it that you stole back there on Mercadia?”
“Stole what?” She tried to pull off an innocent look but it was obvious he wasn‘t buying it. When he held out his hand, she pouted at him and walked over to a corner of the ship to pull out a book she had hidden before handing it to him.
Yuuno blinked in surprise since all he could see was a simple blue book. Although this one was rather heavy for its size. The only thing that it had that was different from normal books was a square metal clasp with a swirling mark on it. Grabbing the clasp, he was surprised that he couldn’t open it. “What the?”
“Incompatible user.”
Yuuno blinked, so the book could talk, it wasn’t that unusual. “Incompatible?”
“Incompatible user, will wait for a compatible user.”
Yuuno blinked as the square mark glowed and pushed his hand away from it. “What the heck?”
“It did the same to me, Yuu-nii…” Rai pouted as Yuuno shook his head and sighed.
“For now, just put it back, I’ll think of something later.” He looked at her and shook his head. “So, why’d you steal it if you couldn’t access it?”
She shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea at the time?”
“Ugh…” Deciding not to put too much thought on it now, he tried fiddling around with the communications systems again from his spot in the pilot’s seat. He had spent pretty much all day yesterday getting that together and figured that he would be able to make the proper repairs easily. Then he could give Chrono a call just to let him know what happened.
The funny thing is that no matter what he did, he couldn’t establish a stable subspace signal to transmit his message. He was certain that he did all the repairs correctly and that he bought the compatible equipment. For crying out loud, this thing cost him nearly a full week’s pay check! But still nothing. It was another mystery for him to solve… when Material-S and Material-D weren’t requiring him to be around.
Their conditions were both starting to deteriorate. They had pretty much slept through most of the previous day. While their fever hadn’t reached the extreme fatigued state he had seen Material-S in earlier, it wasn’t going away so easily even with proper fluids, nutrition and rest.
“Yuu-nii?”
“Hm?” He was surprised by the sudden hug from behind and gesture of affection from the Fate replica.
“Don’t get sick too, okay? Please? I want to see everybody happy and healthy… as we go travelling across the universe, discovering new people and aliens and finding out how much of a mess they make when they bleed!!”
He mentally erased that last sentence while patting Material-L‘s hand gently. “I won’t get sick, Rai-chan. Here, I’ll even do one of those pinky promises,” replied Yuuno as he held out his right pinkie.
In an instant, her own pinky finger had intertwined with his and a brilliant smile was on her face. “I’m gonna hold you to that!”
“Heh… you know, you never did finish telling me that story about the most fun you ever had when you and the others were kids.” He needed to take her mind off things and getting her to finish the story she started the previous day while he was working on repairs and checking in on the other two Materials should do just the trick.
“Well… where was I in that story?”
“Something about going after a huge mana battery being used to create a Dragon Whelp Nest?”
“Based on the information that I’ve received from the Admiral and the engine schematics of the BUS, I’ve extrapolated where the ship is most likely to take this route.” A diagram of dimensional space came up along with a projected flight path for the meeting‘s multiple attendants to see which consisted of the three Aces, Chrono, Admiral Leti Lowran, First Lieutenant Signum and Second Lieutenant Vita. “There’s only a certain amount of supplies left on the ship and since they have to split it among more people, they’ll be forced to replenish at some point. But this is assuming that they intend to come to Mid-Childa.”
“I’m certain that they’ll be coming, Yaz. I saw in in their eyes,” said Chrono, who was fully recovered from his earlier ‘meltdown’. “They’ll be hungry for my blood.”
“It won’t be just your blood they’re after,” said Hayate from her spot on the conference table. “They’ll be targeting everyone who fought against the Corrupted Protection Program fifteen years ago. You, me, Nanoha-chan, Fate-chan and my Knights.”
“What do you mean by that?” asked Signum in a puzzled tone. “Do these replicas have some sort of link with those events?”
“Mariel told us that these ‘Materials’ are the remnants of the protection program,” replied Nanoha.
This definitely caught the attention of the two Ancient Belkan Knights. “Are you serious?! How is this possible?!” shouted Vita. “The program jumped back to its remains after Reinforce chose to seal herself away and reformed itself into the three Materials before quietly vanishing from our sights. We just let it slip past us back then!” It was rare for Fate to show this level of frustration but considering the implications, nobody could blame her.
“…… permission to be excused,” whispered the Knight of the Iron Hammer in a coarse tone before she rushed her way out of the meeting.
“Signum, please go after her and make sure she doesn’t bust up Chrono’s ship.”
“Yes, Mistress.”
Hayate merely gave a small sad smile as Signum departed after Vita. “In a sense, whatever atrocities they may have committed will become our responsibility. Our negligence was what caused this situation to come this far.”
Noticing how quickly the mood was deteriorating, Leti attempted to try and salvage the meeting. “Well, you couldn’t have known back then! All the reasonable precautions were being taken!”
“But it wasn’t enough,” stressed Nanoha. Then a horrible thought came to her mind. “Wait a minute… Yuuno-kun was involved in that fight too! And they have him in their clutches!!”
“He wasn’t directly attacking though! He and Arf were just binding the program down so we could get clear shots at it!” But now, even Fate was worried for the Librarian’s well being. After all, it didn’t look like the Materials wouldn’t care much who they manage to get their hands on first as long as they got all of them.
“Chrono-kun, you have to let us search for him!”
He shook his head. “I can’t let you do that, Nanoha. I need all of you here to prepare the defenses for when those Materials do arrive. I’ll send out search parties to look out for his ship. They’ll all have an extraction team ready to be deployed so they can get him out safely.”
“But-!”
“You took an oath when you chose to wear that uniform, Captain Takamachi,” said Admiral Harlaown with just a hint of steel in his tone. “Your first priority is to protect the well-being of the citizens. Is that clear?”
There was a tense pause until she finally yielded with a barely audible “Yes, sir.”
He really wished he didn’t have to pull that on her but he had his own priorities. “Alright, everybody… we all have our assignments. With everybody pulling their weight and a little luck, we can prevent this from escalating any further. Dismissed.”
The Aces shuffled out of the room but not before Fate shot her brother a disappointed look which he managed to ignore. Yaz was the next to leave after packing up his presentation materials which left just Leti and Chrono in the conference room. “You know, Lindy probably would have been able to-”
“I’m not my mother,” said the male Harlaown in a sharp tone before getting up from his chair to head back to the bridge, leaving the other Admiral alone in the dark.
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(Posted Mon, 02 Aug 2010 08:47)
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