Aboard an advanced space station, a four foot tall woman of exotic dress and appearance stared at her display for a few moments. As the readings failed to go away or prove to be anomalies, she numbly requested additional readings.
Seven minutes later, they came back positive. Acting quickly and a little too forcefully for the consoles liking, she slammed on every probe within scanning range of the specific Naviru signal. Some of the sensors were several light years distant from the source, so combining all of the sensor feeds and sorting them for relativity, she found her current target had been active on Sol-3 for approximately fourteen years now. The readings showed his systems were fairly deteriorated, but he was still functioning at quite a high power level.
Despite all of the data she had, she still stared disbelievingly at it. The being she was gathering readings on was quite legendary among the Naviru, and even among the other races due to the Naviru reactions.
Almost unbelievingly, she opened up the communications channels, putting in her request.
Request comm/data link with Orphan fleet command: Prime Directive, Alpha Priority:
Data on location of ‘Ranma’: Subject systems conditions in undetermined level of deterioration, suggest immediate action. Transmitting relevant data.
Request finished, she leaned back in her chair and sighed. She really hoped the data was correct and Ranma would finally be rescued. It would make a wonderful story to tell her children of her part in finally finding him after some seven thousand years.
On the bridge of the Naviru BattleCarrier ‘Star of Hope’:
At the center of the almost fantastically advanced battlecruiser sat a blond slender woman who stood almost seven feet tall, dressed in a black and red pirate outfit traditional among Naviru starship captains.
That actually took a bit of explaining to most people who didn’t know the Naviru. The Naviru were 98% female, so most people thought of female Naviru when they thought of the race. Naviru were generally described as valuing three things, A good fight, a mate and children, and cos(tume)-play.
Most of the universe were familiar enough with the race that when a Naviru GP ship pulled up to theirs and a female captain in a sexy pirate captain outfit demanded to board them and pillage their men, that the pirate part was just for fun, though sometimes if the men were agreeable, they did get ‘pillaged’. Most people chalked playing pirate up to the rather odd Naviru sense of humor.
In actuality, the Naviru were known to be the dutiful workers of outer space. Any position from gardener on a green-ship to an officer for the Galaxy Police to a handmaiden for the Jurai that called for a diligent upbeat female was likely filled by one of the Naviru, as they had an almost machine like work ethic.
Being an incredibly efficient people that needed very little in the way of maintenance due to their machine parts. There was little biological waste due to the machine parts regulation of their biological tissues. As a side-effect, they produced dimensional energies that they used to power their technologies. Everything from watches to their private vehicles were powered by their own energies, with their powerplant technology being regulated to large space ships and large scale powergrids.
That might sound like irrelevant background information, but it was very important to Ranma’s case. Each Naviru was rated by their power output. An F class Naviru had the energy of a healthy human, enough bio-energy to fully power a 100 kg body. An E class Naviru was ten times stronger than F class, and so on, through D C B A S and the very rare SS class, which had a power level of at least ten million. A C class person could power a 100 ton power armor that an Earthling would call a Gundam. An S class Naviru could power something along the lines of a 100,000 ton battleship. They could always power something smaller, though it wasn’t quite as efficient due to the extreme concentration of energies.
What made all of this important in regards to Ranma, was how the Naviru obtained new genetic material.
They adopted unwanted children from powerful races and implanted them with dimensional drives and the necessary sub-systems. The child adapted to the systems at a young age and became compatible genetically with the other Naviru. They also of course adopted less powerful children, because there were a lot of motherly Naviru.
Ranma had been an adoptee with a lot of potential, the bastard son of a powerful noble family.
At the age of four, the ship transporting him to his new home world had been attacked. He was never recovered.
. . and so was born a saying, Shinama, an insult calling someone foolishly stupid, suicidally stupid even. Literally it meant getting between a Naviru and her child.
With the loss of Ranma, the Orphan project had been started. Billions of Naviru donated time and resources to the formation of the Orphan fleet. The Orphan fleet has the soul purpose of finding Ranma, and finding those responsible for the attack.
The fleet never found Ranma or any clue as to his fate, theorizing that one of his adoptive mother went to all lengths to save him in a space pod which could have gone anywhere.
The Orphan fleet however had turned over most every dark nook and cranny. Several factions and planets took exception to this and went to war with them. The Naviru went into full reproduction mode, showing a single male could get dozens of mates pregnant each year. Breeding among the B A and S classes raised the number of the Elite classes and created dozens of planet shaking SS class female warrior.
The conflicts eventually went down, and the Orphan fleet continued to grow, it’s primary remaining mission of finding Ranma shifted to a passive one as they escorted future Adoptee carrying ships with battle cruisers and otherwise worked as a traveling police force/mercenaries which helped out in overstressed systems. Seven thousand years of hard work and continuing donations to a popular and beloved cause, and the Orphan fleet itself was a super-power among the universe.
Technically, the Orphan fleet and all of its assets belonged to the lost orphan, Ranma.
Factor in Ranma becoming the first and only SS-class male in the near future, and he would effectively rule the entire race. The Naviru actually had a very independent system, but the fact that he was a legend and extremely important to the future of the race meant he could have pretty much anything he would want.
Once they found him of course, and repaired his systems.
A silver haired woman teleported onto the bridge of the Star of Hope at the Captain’s request. Curious, she looked over the multiple shifting rings of light as they created an ethereal shifting music to accompany the shifting rainbows of color. Reaching her own aura out to the device, the light and music picked up and changed to a concerto that captured the entire bridge’s attention.
Eventually the silver haired woman, Hilberge, ended the lightshow.
The Captain, one Esmerelda Van Claud, turned to older silver haired woman, “Well, do you recognize the pattern?”
Hilberge turned her head slightly and snorted. She was some 8,200 years old now, and didn’t need to play dress up to have some individuality. “Of course I recognize it. I would never forget a Virus-Data-Vaccine pattern that beautiful. I’ve never seen this particular recording of Ranma however, where-ever did you find it? I was sure I’ve listened to all three years worth of his recordings.”
Esmerelda nodded to the ancient, one of the few remaining Naviru whom had actually read Ranma’s aura in person. “That’s simple honored elder, those are recent recordings.”
Hilberge stared at the relatively young flagship captain. “Then, why pray tell are we still here?” She was honestly curious, there was relatively little she knew of that would be able to stop the Orphan fleet in this matter.
The blond Captain shuddered a bit, “I was wanting confirmation. This is just, so, well, overwhelming.” Before the ancient could protect however, she shook herself and regained control of her faculties. “Right, set course to Sol-3 and prepare to Dive! I want all available Orphan ships to meet us there. Condition: Stealth and Sensor operations and prepare for possible assault action. Execute!”
The statuesque silver haired woman nodded appreciatively before catching the eye of a certain bridge-bunny that suddenly became nervous under her intense stare. “Patch me into sensors now.” Normally Hilberge was to controlled to be rude, but she was an admirer of auras, and Ranma’s was still one of the classics. She was among the many Naviru whom had experienced his entire three year aura existence.
All three years of available recordings with no interruptions. She had actually done so many times in her long life.
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(Posted Mon, 09 Jun 2003 04:52)
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