Five hundred kilometres in geo-synchronous orbit over Hamilton, Ontario…
"WHAT?!"
Fujinami Ryūnosuke ducked the shout from the young woman seated at the end of the table in the wardroom aboard the Sackville-class space corvette currently anchored alongside the interior wall of Her Majesty's Canadian Spacedock #112, a circular construction about ten kilometres wide and four kilometres tall that currently housed the nineteen ships assigned to form the naval part of Joint Task Group 31-3. "It's true, Shinobu," the black-haired, brown-eyed tomboy said as she relaxed in her chair next to her new commanding officer. "Turns out Ranma's old man intended all along to get him married to one of the Tendō sisters. Something about 'uniting the two schools' of their martial arts form. Akane and her sisters just got told about this today!"
Saotome Shinobu — as her friends pretty much knew her as despite the cloth nametag on her work shirt still reading MIYAKE in gold thread — blinked for a moment before she shook her head. "But Okā-san assured ME that Anata didn't have any sort of obligations whatsoever, especially after that whole mess with the Daikoku family!" she protested, ignoring the fact that the other officers in Fort Erie's wardroom were all silent and listening in to what their new skipper and chief engineer were saying.
Ryūnosuke nodded. She had been Shinobu's best lady at the wedding — both the Catholic ceremony at Saint Mary's Cathedral and the Shintō ceremony at the Tomioka Hachiman Shrine, both in Tōkyō — and had met Saotome Nodoka, even taking a chance to psi-scan her to make sure that her best friend's future mother-in-law was an okay lady. Despite her particular insistence that her son be a "man-above-man" and her hidden wish for grandchildren due to her long separation from her son, Nodoka had passed muster with the old fisherman's "son" from the Kujūkuri Beach in eastern Chiba.
"I know. I called Oba-chan after the call with Akane," Ryūnosuke stated. "She had no idea this was going to happen whatsoever. Ranma's old man didn't tell her spit about this!" A sigh. "But she is going to find the jerk and wake him up to Reality as soon as she gets over to the Tendō place." A chuckle. "Love to be there…"
Hearing that, Shinobu took a deep breath, and then she sank into her chair. "God, I hope so," she said before reaching over to finish the last of her tea before standing up. "Anyhow, I'm going to do some paperwork and then go to bed. Good night, all."
The other officers all stood to attention and nodded politely to her. "Good night, Captain," executive officer Azato Miwa said as Shinobu walked out of the room.
Silence fell as the seven officers all exchanged looks, and then combat officer Haigwara Urara spat out, "What in Eternity's Name just happened?!"
"Cool off, U-chan!" Akiyama Yūko, the combat systems engineer, called out. "We should have seen this coming! We know what sort of asshole Ran-chan's old man's like! We sensed it both from him and his mom! This is just par for the course!"
"So?! Are we going to just STAND here…?!"
"THAT'S ENOUGH, LIEUTENANT!" Miwa snapped.
Urara jolted, and then she breathed out. "Sorry, ma'am."
The blonde tomboy with the pale blue eyes nodded. "Look, I'm pissed off at this, too! I'm all for racing over there, snatching the Skipper's hubby and getting him to THIS side of the Pacific as soon as possible! We're going to be deploying on a Joint-Ex in seventy-two hours; Shinobu does NOT need this on her head right now!"
"So what DO we do, Miwa?" supply officer Yamanoue Yuri asked.
Eyes locked on Miwa as Fort Erie's former combat officer shook her head. "We make sure the crew understands what's going on," she ordered. "Half of them are sisters, so they'll sense it right away when they wake up tomorrow morning and the Skipper goes around the ship for her forenoon inspection. Pass it on to the division P.O.s so they can brief everyone else. Other than that, we hope that Oba-san gets this mess straightened around A.S.A.P. so Ranma-kun can come here and be with his wife."
"I'll tell the boys to sharpen their bayonets," Takahashi Ayumi, a captain from the Lincoln and Welland Regiment who commanded Fort Erie's security and defence team — in essence, a rifle platoon of infantrymen, also equipped with a small squad of support weapons — for boarding actions, then declared.
Everyone else gaped, and then they laughed…
God, it's been just four months since we got married…
As a starship in the Canadian contingent of the United Nations Earth Defence Force, Her Majesty's Canadian Ship Fort Erie — named in tribute to a River-class frigate from World War Two that later saw duty as a Prestonian-class escort ship in the early years of the Cold War — was small, the smallest warship design currently active. About five times the length of the previous Fort Erie, she was shaped like a long and flat cigar with superstructure both above and below the main hull, the twin ports of her main engines sticking out of her fantail with the secondary drive units right underneath. Because of that, the whole crew of 195 (including the ship's combat support shuttle detachment from 119 Starship Support Squadron and the platoon from the Lincoln and Welland Regiment) enjoyed single-bed quarters right down to the lowest ordinary seaman and private. Of course, as the ship's commanding officer, Saotome Shinobu had much more spacious quarters in the upper forward superstructure than what the junior-most member of the ship's company had in the main hull. And right now…
Nothing ever was easy for you, was it, Anata…?
Thinking on that, Shinobu could only grin as she gazed on her wedding picture, holding place of prominence on her work desk along with pictures of her parents and her best friends from childhood and "Fast School," the provisional training unit Terran-form Avalonians — even those born as normal Terrans such as herself and Ryūnosuke — that had been formed when the Canadian government had elected to take up the incredible offer given to them (and all of Earth as a whole) by a man named Ganzo dai-Louc five years before when a giant factory-ship arrived in Earth's solar system bearing within its hull over two BILLION sentient beings that had escaped a horror that made even the worst tales from the slavery societies of old seem quite quaint in comparison.
Nor was it for me, Shinobu then mused.
"Captain?"
She perked, and then looked over as her personal steward looked at her from the window to her private pantry. "You scared me, John," she breathed out. "What is it?"
Master Seaman John Laundry was one of the normal Terrans aboard Fort Erie, which didn't bother him one bit. A ten-year veteran of the Naval Reserves who had been part of Star's ship's company before Canada began building its own space fleet, he had gladly volunteered to work full-time on the namesake ship to his own hometown when she had been commissioned three years ago. He was descent from United Empire Loyalists who had lived in the Niagara Peninsula since the American War of Independence, with relatives who had fought in all the wars Canadians had been involved with since that time, including the American Civil War and Vietnam. "I heard what happened to your husband, ma'am," he said, a concerned look on his face. "I hope Mrs. Saotome can get it all straightened up. You and your husband deserve a break."
Shinobu smiled. "I'm praying to God for that, John. Turn yourself in, okay?"
A nod. "Aye, ma'am."
As he moved to shut things down, Shinobu took a deep breath. "Long way…"
"What's that?"
She looked over; John babied her as much as he could get away with it. He had been the same way with Takanashi Naoko, Fort Erie's first commanding officer. "I was just saying it's been a long way since I was in elementary school back in Japan," she lamented. "Living a normal kid's life, wondering what had happened to Ataru after he disappeared like that before he turned seven…" A shake of the head. "And then…"
"Does Captain Moroboshi know about what happened?"
Shinobu blinked, and then she moaned. "Oh, Lord! I hope not…!"
Elsewhere on the station…
"AH-CHOO!"
Looking over from her bunk in the private shared quarters for the officers of 119 Squadron's B Flight (they were the ones who flew the Star Flare combat support shuttles for Fort Erie and her sisterships in an outer-space version of the old helicopter air detachments that were assigned to surface warships), Sasamoto Narumi blinked. "You okay, Tariko?" the lieutenant wondered before she relaxed in her bunk.
A moan escaped the brown-haired, brown-eyed tomboy in the other bunk. "Someone's talking about me," Moroboshi Tariko groaned out before closing her eyes…
Aboard Fort Erie…
Shinobu slipped herself under the covers, allowing her head to rest alongside the beautiful stuffed teddy bear — dressed in a red Mandarin tang and black slacks, a wound ponytail of her husband's hair stitched lovingly into the back of the head by both her mother and her mother-in-law — as she relaxed herself, allowing the fatigue of the day to finally overcome her and sleep to take over. "Ranma…" she breathed out as his image flooded her mind, sending warm shivers of delight through her body.
She had to believe…
She had to have hope…
Nodoka would straighten it all around…
She had to…
As sleep finally took her, a warm smile crossed her face as we…
(Posted Tue, 04 Jan 2011 13:49)
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.