Welland, early morning (local time: 7:21 AM, Tōkyō time 9:21 PM)…
"Hey, sleepyhead…"
A moan. "Wanna sleep…"
"Breakfast."
A blue eye snapped open. "Really?"
Shinobu laughed as a still-female Ranma shifted the covers away from her nude body, and then moved to sit up and stretch. Seeing her transformed husband's mouth-watering curves, the shifting of those oh-so-wonderful breasts and the inviting nexus between her legs that — when she was a he, of course — normally was where "Reverend Wonderful" (as Shinobu called Ranma's manhood) could be found, still glistened a little bit from their passionate lovemaking the previous night, the commander could only purr as she sipped her own cup of tea. "Fortunately, we don't have to be at the Academy for another ninety minutes, so take your time in showering and getting dressed."
"Ain't gonna miss one of Ryū-chan's breakfasts," Ranma said as she walked over to scoop up some towels and her private pack of toiletries before she took the side door into the bathroom to begin washing herself down.
Shinobu hummed as she turned to head back downstairs to the kitchen. The house was now empty save for the three women who normally lived here, the husband of one, the wife of another and a very nice guest from the Lone Star State. Fortunately, all of them were in either nightshirts or — in David Perry's case — a muscle shirt with the globe-eagle-and-anchor symbol of the United States Marine Corps over boxer shorts. "'Morning, Shinobu," Lum called up from her place before she nibbled into some of Tariko's homemade it'ti, a spicy and fermented vegetable-and-seafood side dish that she was enjoying very much since her wife used real Noukiite eta paste in making it. "Ranma finally up? He's got to do his entrance evaluation today."
"As do you," Fujinami Ryūnosuke warned as she gazed on the Oni.
A nod. "Tcha…"
"Oh, it'll be easy, Lum. Don't worry about it," Tariko stated before she gazed at David, who had been nibbling a bit in his serving of the alien food dish. "Dave, I'm not offended if you can't really tolerate spicy stuff. It's okay."
David jolted, and then he chuckled. "Sorry about that, Tariko…"
"Don't you people in Texas like spicy food?" Lum then asked. "Mexico's just right south of you. Tacos are a normal thing to eat for you folks."
A shake of the head. "Not really. The Gunny might have lived in Texas, but he came from the swamps of North Carolina originally. Only reason he chose to live out there with the others in the Lord's Army was because I came from Brownsville."
"Don't you have any other relatives?" Shinobu asked as she dug into her food after offering her own personal thanks to God for the meal.
"Not that I know of," he admitted before sipping his coffee, which was Tim Hortons and made in the coffee machine in the kitchen. "Not that I really was allowed to think about that sort of thing, of course." A sigh. "Guess I missed out on a lot."
"We'll have to talk to Padre Jackson about that," Tariko noted as she sipped her own tea. "Get the folks down there to do a trace of your relatives."
"I'll call Chaplain McDonald to get him to make the call," Shinobu noted. "We need to make sure of it before the Academy could consider accepting David as a student."
David gazed at her. "Your principal will let me come to school?"
"Of course. Just because almost all the Academy's current students are Avalonians of one sort or another doesn't mean we close our doors to people who need help." Shinobu then perked on hearing the front doorbell. "Is that Sakurako…?"
It wasn't. "Good morning, Captain," Kurokawa Satomi said as she walked into the living room, dressed in her normal work uniform (with jacket), a baseball cap on her head. She wasn't alone; accompanying her was Fort Erie's Chief Engine Room Artificer, Chief Petty Officer 2nd Class Kurihara Ayaka, a tomboy with deep turquoise hair and bright blue eyes who was the senior non-commissioned member in charge of the marine engineers (they were still called that despite the wild change of working environment) aboard the corvette. She also served as captain of the Academy's girl's high school volleyball team. "Got some orders from the CMS as well as CEFCOM. Hey, Dave!"
"Hello, David," Ayaka said as she smiled pleasantly at him.
David looked over, and then he smiled. "Hey, Chief! Chief!" he said as he nodded in greeting at them just as Ranma — once again male and dressed in comfortable unisex clothing that had been given to him by the members of Fort Erie's team of supply technicians to give him a jump-start on his own wardrobe now that he wasn't on the road anymore — came downstairs to sit down and enjoy his own breakfast.
Shinobu took the PADD Satomi gave her, and then accepted a kiss from her husband before she relaxed and scanned through what was written there. "So what's the news?" Ryūnosuke asked as she, Tariko and Lum were quick to detect their friend's surprise.
"As of 1400 today, we're considered a back-up duty ship to the duty ship for the Atlantic Fleet for the next three months, subject to change at a moment's notice," Shinobu stated. "We remain at the jetty unless called out, but we're to have a duty crew manning all critical stations 24/7. Ship is also to prepare for deep-space missions, especially if a return voyage to Onishuto is required…"
Lum blinked. "Your superiors will let you come to Uru?"
"By the sounds of it. Don't you need clearance from your government to live here?"
A dismissive wave of the hand. "It's alright. Dad will get it done and have it transmitted to me before he takes the Kashin back to Uru."
Tariko then hummed. "Hey, Lum, isn't Setsubun coming up soon?"
Ranma blinked. "Tariko, Setsubun was five weeks ago."
"Not our version, Ranma. It's a version that celebrates the peace between Uru and Fukunokami," Tariko explained. "It's a ball toss competition. You ever did that when you were going to middle school with this Hibiki creep Shinobu told me about?"
He shook his head. "Nah, not really. We weren't there long enough; Oyaji just needed to wait long enough to get the truant officers off his tail before he dragged me off." Ranma then sighed. "Kind of a pity, too. Ryōga wouldn't have been so crazy to come after me when we bumped into each other back in Tōkyō last fall…"
Near the Niagara River, close to the border between Niagara Falls and Fort Erie…
"AH-CHOO!"
A cold and female Hibiki Ryōga shook her head before she glanced up at the growing dawn. "Damn! Someone's talking about me!" she moaned before glancing around. "Now, which way would Welland be from here, I wonder…" she mused before turning south on the Niagara Parkway, away from the Netherby Road turn-off that would have taken him straight through the Townline Tunnel right into the Rose City itself…
Back at the home on Colbeck Drive…
"A bread feud?" David asked.
"Yeah, that's pretty much it!" Ranma stated before he finished the rest of his meal. Thanks to the year he had spend with his mother back in Nerima, he had been able to learn something about polite table manners (which drove his father crazy since he couldn't "practice" some "table-top defence" with his son while Nodoka hovered close by with a certain katana in hand). "The bread was always welcome since the normal food they cooked in the cafeteria was always some sort of okonomiyaki-type dish. Not the way U-chan — he was a friend of mine from Kyōto, Kuonji Ukyō — could cook it; that stuff ALWAYS was a downer to me when I was there." A shrug. "So we competed for it."
"So if he challenged you for a fight and gave you three days to prepare for it, why didn't he show up, then?!" the American then asked.
"Because the goof couldn't find his way out of a wet paper bag," Ranma replied. "We were camped out just down from his place. All he had to do was WALK DOWN THE STREET and there I was waiting for him! But could he show up?! NO!" He ignored all the laughter from the others. "So when he shows up coming after me when I was on a date with Shinobu about a month before we got married — well, after she stunned him with her service pistol, of course — he started going on and on about how I 'missed' out on an 'honourable' duel and how much of a bastard I was…" A shake of the head. "He's got to get a girl! That's it! He needs a girl! But who…"
Ryūnosuke smirked. "Mizuno Tomomi."
Shinobu blinked. "Why her?!"
"Shinobu, do you want to sic a man-killer like Maijima Karen on the guy?!"
All the women present — even Lum — shuddered on hearing that. "Okay, Tomomi-chan it is," Shinobu mused. "Satomi, did you call Izumi and asked her…?"
Satomi then perked as the doorbell pealed again. "I think that's our RPO with the Air Crew Chief, my Captain! With your permission?" she said with an exaggerated bow.
"Go!"
A minute later, Shinohara Izumi was inside; she was also in NCDs with a jacket and baseball cap. With her was Warrant Officer Asaoka Yukari, the senior non-commissioned member of the shuttle group detached from 119 Squadron to Fort Erie (she was an aircraft structures technician), thus she served as the "department petty officer" for the Air Detachment team. "You saw the orders?" Shinobu asked.
"I'm getting the basic duty roster set up now," Izumi stated. "I should have the watches ready to go in the next few hours. Ayumi-san's already given clearance for her platoon to be part of it. All we need is yours, Tariko-san."
Tariko held out her hand. Yukari passed her own PADD to her department commander, and then waited for the captain to add her own signature to the memo there that would ensure that all the technicians and pilots under her command would also be slotted in as part of the ship's watch team. "Make sure there's no favouritism, Ayumi."
The warrant officer nodded. "Yes, ma'am." A sigh. "Um, one question…"
"What?"
"Captain Invader called us when we moved Fort Erie to the jetty dock," Yukari said. "He said that your wife would be allowed to have her own scoutship with her when she's free to shift residency here to Earth full-time. We'll need to find a place to dock that ship since she won't be allowed to keep it on ground here in town."
"I can just put it into orbit over the house," Lum offered.
"Then it has to be as high up as our stations, Lum," Tariko warned. "Nothing that is either part of or affiliated to the E.D.F. doesn't stay below 500 Ks ASL unless special permission is granted. We need to dock it at Starbase #112."
"Or the ship itself."
Eyes locked on Ryūnosuke. "You mean back aft beyond the flight deck?" Shinobu asked. "The well there that was set originally aside for a vertical missile launcher system they decided not to fit on reserve ships?" She then hummed as she considered that, recalling what she had learned about Urusian civilian craft design. "Can the hull techs do something about providing a cover for it? Plus find some way to pressurise it so Lum can board and leave the ship whenever she wants to?"
The engineer officer nodded. "I'll get Mari and her people to look at it."
"Um, you don't have to…" Lum sputtered.
"Lum!" Shinobu scolded. "What these orders DON'T state out front is that you'll be expected to guide us around if we're deployed anywhere in the Federation. True, we have information handed to us from the Noukiites, but that's not direct, first-hand type of intelligence. You can provide that. Benten can provide that. So can Oyuki and all your other friends, too. Much that I am more than happy that you and Tariko are together, we need your help if we're going to be interacting with you people full-time in the future." She gave the Oni a shrug. "We need you."
"You'll just be like Sacagawea, Lum."
Eyes locked on David. "Who was that?" Lum asked.
"All American kids learn about her," the Texan stated. "She was a native American who helped Meriwether Lewis and William Clark explore the northwest of the United States back in the early 1800s. Even carried her infant son with her on the trip."
The Oni was aghast. "Why in the Maidens' Names would she do something like THAT?!"
"It was a trick."
Eyes locked on Ranma. "A trick?" Ryūnosuke asked.
He nodded. "Yeah. Learned this from an MCMAP gunnery sergeant I met down in Okinawa when I was on the trip with my dad." Hearing about that made David perk. "He said that the reason Sacagawea took her son with her was to fool all the native times into believing that Lewis and Clark's party wasn't a war party." A shrug. "After all, no tribal chief would ever believe that a war party would travel with a mother and child." He sipped the rest of his tea. "Guess they never met the Nǚjiézú."
Everyone stared at him, and then they laughed. Shinobu then sighed. "Cox'n?!"
Satomi braced herself. "Aye, Cap'n?"
"Get the word out to everyone. Ship's company musters at the Armoury at 1200."
"Aye-aye, ma'am!"
The Welland Armouries, close to lunch (Tōkyō time: 1:49 AM)…
"So you aced the basic tests, right?"
"Yeah, sis, I did," Ranma said as he stood outside the armoury doors while members of Fort Eries' ship's company filed in after driving to the location (on a side street off Prince Charles Drive north of the intersection of Townline Tunnel Road/Highway 58A) or beaming down from Spacedock #112; right now, the dockyard staff was watching over the corvette and they would be relieved in over two hours. "According to what Merritt-sensei told me, there are some things I'll be able to do in the advanced classes, but I still have to catch up a lot on the basics. Won't have problems with English since I learned it from the Americans, but if I want to do French immersion…"
"Ouch! You better hit the books, Onii-chan! Or do a deep mind-meld with a sister who speaks it as her first language," Kanami replied from her bedroom at the Saotome home in Nerima. Even if it was very late at night in Japan, Ranma's sister could still get enough sleep to wake up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for the next day. "As long as you don't end up forming a bond-mating with her, of course," she added with a laugh.
He moaned. "Kanami…"
"Oh, I'm just razzing you, Onii-chan! Relax!"
He then smirked. "How're the sisters?!"
A moan. Kanami didn't go full-time to Fūrinkan High School given that she had just emerged from Ranma's subconscious mind the previous summer. While the Japanese government was trying to make some necessary adjustments to allow such people as Saotome Kanami to fit properly into society, it still had some fine tuning to be done. To fill her days, Kanami attended private day schools and did correspondence courses on her private computer. "Oh, from what Akane told me, Kunō-baka and his morons were being really a bunch of idiots today because of the tag race. They all know Akane knows you, so they were afraid that you'd come back to Japan and beat her in battle so that you could take her on as a 'mistress!' Or some goofy thing like that!"
Ranma shook his head. He had only once met the "Shooting Star" of Fūrinkan High School's kendô team when he was courting Shinobu. And that one meeting was more than enough to convince him that Kunō Tatewaki was just a load of hot air: Both PO2 Shinohara Izumi and Lt(N) Sawada Minako were kendō-ka themselves and they were much better skilled with both bokken, shinai and live blade than Akane's arrogant would-be boyfriend. At the end of the stomp-down Ranma had given him, he had given the kendō-ka a new nickname: the "Shooting Ego." Kunō hadn't appreciated the humour of the situation. "Oh, what about Kodachi-chan, Kanami? She still got a crush on you?"
A moan. "Onii-chan, you're cruel…!" Kanami then sighed. "Well, Kodachi is still trying to badger me into becoming an Avalonian. And while she's incredibly pleasing to the eyes, she's still cruising the Te'a if you catch my drift!"
He nodded. Tatewaki's younger sister and captain of the martial arts rhythmic gymnastics team at her private high school, Saint Hebereke's Girl's Academy, in one of Nerima's more affluent sections. "You want her, don't you?"
She sighed. "I think almost as much as you want Shinobu or Tariko wants Lum!"
"Ranma?"
He perked on hearing Satomi's voice, and then he sighed. "Look, they're gonna call divisions pretty soon, so I gotta go. I'll e-mail you, okay?!"
"Have fun, Onii-chan!" she called back…
As the crew of Fort Erie are briefed on what's going on…
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(Posted Sun, 23 Jan 2011 23:52)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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