(no subject)
Oh drats. Why did I agree to cantor tonight? I want to write part III and finish! Ahhhhh weeeelllll. ^-^
Interesting the canon you find on-line when you go to check a fact... Completely changed this story. As in, it is a totally new one, plot, characters, and all. I just can't write non-canon without a very good reason/prompt, hahaha. Terrible flaw. At least I came up with another twist! ^-^ Fantastical though it may be...
Disclaimer: Hikaru, Misa, Shammy, and Miku belong to Studio Nue, Big West, and others. CLAMP claims the witch and her servants.
Onegai
“That sounds an awful lot like blackmail, Captain.”
Major Misa Ichijou looked down at the monitor by her left hand with an amused smile. The good looking captain on the screen had long ago perfected the fine art of flirting without being unprofessional. Of course, he had had years of practice. “Do you not think your squad can handle it, Commander?” she asked, tilting her head slightly to the left.
Her husband smirked at her in return. “Oh, the Skull can handle any mission you care to assign them, Ma'am, but a choice between babysitting boring reconnaissance flights or a three month grounding for tweaks on the experimental engines instead of the combat drills we had planned...”
“Sorry, we're all out of Community Festival Service dates,” she quipped as he let his voice trail off. “However, I suppose I could ask Lieutenant Miliome to swap the schedules around, give Ghost Squadron the reconnaissance 'babysitting' jobs, and have Skull Squadron take their place as the perimeter guards. I'm sure you can come up with some creative way to work your drills into that.”
Hikaru snorted at her. “Now you've gone from blackmail to insults. Skull'll take the recon missions, thank you. How long until the fuel generation station is back up and running?”
Misa's eyes and smile became a bit more serious. “Commander Takao is predicting at least three weeks, maybe four. They need to manufacture a synthesis chamber from basic materials and there are some wiring and controls modifications that need to be completed.”
Hikaru nodded. Before he could continue the conversation, however, the orange haired First Officer of the SDF-2 interrupted. “Captain! Unidentified space craft, bearing Alpha three-zero-theta central, closing fast!”
Misa snapped her gaze to Shammy Miliome. “Number?”
“Lots, Captain. Ummm... The system estimates at least a hundred, varying sizes.” Shammy gave her commanding officer a worried look. “Shall I go to Red Alert?”
“More than a hundred craft, varying sizes...” Misa parroted softly. “Energy signatures? Do we have a visual?”
“Large, possibly attack grade. And they are just now entering the scan area of Outpost 8.” Shammy's fingers hovered over the cover for the large red button on her console. Despite her worried expression, her voice and hands were steady.
“Orange Alert,” Misa decided abruptly. “Scramble Diamondback squadron. Tiger and Skull squadrons on standby.” She raised her voice to carry over the piercing alarm that began to wail throughout the military zones of the ship. “No engagement until we determine that their motive is hostile. Lieutenant Kingman, try to hail the unidentified ships.”
“Aye, Captain!” the communications specialist called as she turned to her computer.
Misa allowed herself to glance down at the monitor near her left hand. As she had expected, Hikaru's image was gone. She tried to push the worry for him and their daughter to the back of her mind as she listened to the status reports that began to roll in.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Hikaru cursed under his breath as a nearby explosion rocked his Valkyrie wildly. That had been a little too close for comfort. “You okay, Commander?” he heard his newest wingman ask. The boy's voice still sounded nervous even after an hour in combat.
“Yeah,” Hikaru managed to croak out as his hands, feet, and mind danced over the ship's controls. “Next time wait until I have a chance to get some space, though.”
“Uh, yeah. Sorry about that, Sir,” the wingman replied, sounding relieved.
“Another major hit on the SDF-2!” Lieutenant Marsh, the leader of the Diamondback squadron, called through the TAC net. Hikaru felt his heart freeze. “They're getting closer to the civilian sectors!”
“We gotta stop them somehow,” another unidentified pilot called back.
“How? They're dancing circles around us!” growled a different pilot.
“All squadrons, fall back!” Shammy's voice echoed in Hikaru's headset. “Repeat, all squads fall back to the SDF-2. Prepare for emergency space fold.” His eyes widened in shock.
“A fold? With all this energy flying around? Are they nuts?” Lieutenant Marsh said in disbelief as he dodged around an enemy and fired on it from behind.
“They'll just take all these small fighter craft with them,” Hikaru's young wingman agreed as he blew a hole through one of the enemy fighters that was perilously close to the SDF-2.
“You heard the lady,” Hikaru said as he cut through the chatter. “Return to base. Take out all that you can on the way. Diamondbacks, you take the front, Ghost on the second quarter, Tiger on the rear. Skull will take third quarter and overlap Ghost on the civilian areas in second. Don't leave your ships. Set up to relaunch as soon as the fold is over.”
“Aye, Sir,” the men acknowledged with varying degrees of reluctance.
Hikaru swapped his communicator frequency over to command only. “Base, this is Skull One.”
“Go ahead, Skull One,” Shammy answered.
“How long until Fold?”
“We need everyone back on board in five minutes.”
“Five minutes!” Lieutenant Marsh cried. “We won't have time to take any of these guys out, much less get into lockdown in five minutes!”
“Five minutes to be on board,” Shammy replied calmly. “Seven minutes to Fold.”
Hikaru shook his head as he lined up on an enemy. “Not good enough,” he muttered. Shammy heard him, soft as he was.
“No heroics,” she said sternly as he blew the fighter out of his way. “Shield is going into Overdrive in five, check that, four minutes. Autocannon fire is increasing and Destroids are going into automatic now. Get your men on board.”
Hikaru grit his teeth and ground out an affirmative before switching back to the open flow TAC net. “Watch it, Zimmer! You got a tail!” he heard someone call out. Instinctively, his eyes swung around, and then he locked and fired on the enemy hounding the Ghost squad pilot.
“Thanks, whoever,” the pilot called absently as he shot down two more enemy craft.
“Welcome,” Hikaru replied just as absently. “Watch out for increased Autocannon and Destroid fire,” he informed his men. “And get yourselves in. Now. Use Gerwalk mode if necessary for clampdown.” He ignored their protests that there were still too many enemy craft in the red zone. “In.” He lined up on another enemy fighter and blew it away.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw another cluster of enemy craft slipping through the thinning Valkyrie net. His heart clenched and his eyes widened in fear as he realized that they were over a civilian sector. Without a thought, he turned and sped towards them.
“Commander?” his junior wingman called as he turned to follow.
“Commander's busy,” Ghost Two called out as he, too, raced towards the enemy. “Get inside like he told you.”
“But...”
“Move it, kid! I got him.”
“You heard Sergeant Malcomb,” Hikaru's senior wingman called as he peeled off to return to the landing bay. Another enemy fighter distracted him, and he turned in that direction instead. “Let's go.”
“Two minutes!” Shammy called through the TAC net. “All craft to be aboard in two minutes!” She looked at the number of planes still flying about and her face tightened. “Landing bays to Choke Mode! All pilots in, now!!”
Hikaru pushed Shammy's commanding voice to the side of his consciousness as he dove his Valkyrie under the three enemy craft and transformed into Battroid mode. With great skill born from practice and his innate abilities, he dodged the fire of a nearby Destroid and settled down about 10 meters from it. Raising his cannon in his robotic arms, he aimed and fired at the lead attacker. The enemy craft dodged the laser, but Hikaru calmly continued to track it and fire until he finally hit it. The explosion rocked him unexpectedly.
“Watch out, Sir!” Sergeant Malcomb called as he destroyed a second craft, then rolled into Battroid mode and stood protectively beside his commanding officer's side. “We got two additional coming in.”
“Roger,” Hikaru replied as he regained his balance and dodged an incoming round. Knowing the criticality of the section they were protecting and the skill of the other man, he did not bother to order the older pilot inside. “Shield is going into Overdrive. Make sure you clamp down tight on the hull for Fold,” he warned instead. The other pilot just nodded his head in acknowledgment as they raised their cannons and picked new targets.
“Shield into Overdrive. Fold in T minus two minutes,” Shammy warned as a curtain of light sprang up around the two Battroids and the Destroid. Hikaru and Sergeant Malcomb fired at the four enemy craft that were caught inside the shield. “Pilots 90% in. Remaining pilots, let the Destroids take them. Don't depend on proximity to keep you with us. Get in now!”
It was an oddly familiar dance. Dodge the round, sight the target, avoid the shrapnel, predict which way the target was going to go, avoid your wingman, and fire. Smoothly, the two combat veterans tread the measures of the waltz as they shot down two more enemy craft.
Sergeant Malcomb stumbled as his foot clamps braced his Battroid oddly against the explosion and looked around to find something to catch himself on. His eyes widened in surprise as he saw yet another enemy craft cruising towards them along the ship's surface behind Hikaru's back. “Captain, watch out!” he cried as he jerked himself around to knock his superior's Battroid to the deck. His own Battroid exploded as it took a direct hit from the remaining enemy overhead.
“Malcomb!” Hikaru shouted as he instinctively protected his eyes from the burst of light. “Why you...” Still lying prone on the hull, he swung his cannon around and fired at the enemy nearer the ship. Three blasts and then, just as the craft was almost on top of him, he finally hit it. At the same time, the Destroid scored a direct hit on the enemy craft overhead.
Hikaru dropped his cannon and held on as the resulting explosions shook the hull, ripping pieces of it free. “Breech over Civilian Area Two!” he heard Shammy cry as the piece of hull he was clinging to blew free. “Executing Fold!” As the twisting forces of the space jump joined the conflicting forces of the explosions, he lost consciousness.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
“Breech over Civilian Area Two!... Breech over Civilian Area Two!...”
Hikaru twisted on his bed as Shammy's distorted voice echoed those dreadful words over and over in his head. In his dream, he felt the hull plating slowly peel free from the ship. He looked down in horror, trying desperately to push it back into place. In the gap, he saw the pale faces and wide, frightened eyes of the children.
And then, only one face filled his view; one little two year old girl with reddening brown hair and sweet green eyes. “Daddy?” Miku cried as tears ran down her face. “Daddy? Aaaaaaa....”
Hikaru jerked upright in the bed, his hands reaching as he tried desperately to catch the falling phantom. He stared sightlessly at the empty air in front of him, and then lowered his trembling arms with a shaky sigh. He reached up to scrub at his face, wishing he could scrub the nightmare from his mind as well.
Two years. Two long, slow years had passed since that horrible day. He had woken in an old fashioned hospital bed surrounded by strangers who could not answer his questions.
Moving jerkily, he untangled himself from the sheets and stood up. There would be no more sleep tonight. He knew that from past experience. He might as well clean up and get to work. One bleary eyed glance at the clock told him that it was only one o'clock in the morning. Time enough for a good strong workout, too, before cleaning up and walking a new route to the office that he could not enter until five.
Two hours later, more awake, clean, and dressed neatly in his white button down shirt and black pants, he walked along the streets of Tokyo with his hands in his pockets. The fingers of his right hand caressed and twirled the little, wrinkled bit of paper that he never went without. His eyes scanned the empty street as he considered how to make his walk a little bit longer.
The sound of laughter caught his ear, startling him. “Do it again! Do it again!” a young voice called excitedly.
“Are you suuuuuure?” a woman's voice drawled playfully.
“Yes! Yes! Again!”
“Oooookayyyy~~~ You asked for it~~~!”
Curious, Hikaru turned his face in the direction of the noise. Light spilled out of the gate in a nearby wall, and he took a few steps in that direction. “Su~piiiiiiiiin!” the woman cried gaily as the child began to laugh uncontrollably.
Stepping into the gate, Hikaru looked into a small front yard and saw a tall, slim woman with long dark hair frantically spinning a disk that looked like it had been stolen from a game show. A small black object of some sort was strapped to the center of the disk, long streamers from one end blowing in the wind. “Wheeeeeeee!” the child cried. “Sooooo dizzyyyyy!” Hikaru blinked in surprise and scanned the yard for the child. He saw no one but the woman and whatever she had strapped to the wheel.
“Ah! Enough!” the woman cried as she collapsed back to sit on the grass. “I'm thirsty again.”
“Woh-u-woh-u-woh...” was the child's only reply.
“Now where did I put that whiskey...”
“Here, Mistress~!” Two young girls ran out of the house, one carrying a glass of ice and the other a bottle of whiskey.
“Woh-u-woh-u-woh...” the first child said again, and then giggled. “Mokona doesn't need whiskey to make the world go round and round and round...”
Feeling that he had spied long enough, Hikaru turned to continue his walk to the office. He stopped up short as the two little girls suddenly appeared in front of him.
“A customer! A customer! Mistress has a customer!” they sing-songed as they pushed him the rest of the way through the gate.
“Hey! Wait!” he protested. He glanced at the woman, expecting to see her upset or frightened. She just looked calmly back at him. Embarrassed, he turned to face her. “I'm so sorry to have interrupted your party,” he said as he bowed politely. “I was just passing by.”
“But you stopped,” she replied as she gracefully curled her tumbler of whiskey into her chest. “And you came in the gate.”
Hikaru shook his head. “No, ma'am. I would not be so rude as to come into your place at this time of the night without warning.”
She smiled amusedly at him. “Your name?”
He paused for a long moment, and then bowed again slowly. “I am... Ichijou Hikaru.”
“Not just Ichijou Hikaru...,” the woman replied musingly. “There is something more that goes with that... Prince? King? No... A title, but not something royal. Shougun perhaps?...”
Hikaru blinked at her in surprise. “Captain. But how did you know, Miss...?”
She gave him a slow smile as the two little girls untied the thing from the wheel. Hikaru could see now that it looked like a black stuffed animal of some sort with long ears. Only, it moved on its own. “Yuuko,” the woman said, drawing his attention back to her. “I am called Yuuko here. And I know many things. Like this is not your world. And that you have a wish.”
Hikaru stiffened, and then forced himself to smile. “I do not know what you mean. I was just on my way to work when I heard voices and got curious.”
“This is a shop that grants wishes,” Yuuko replied, unfazed by his disclaimer and coolness. “The fact that you have come here means that you have a wish.” Odd as they sounded, her words had a ring of truth to them that made Hikaru's gut tighten. “However...! We do expect a fair payment in exchange. That is only fair, right?”
Hikaru clenched his hands, and then nodded wordlessly. “Your wish... It would be to return to your own world?” Yuuko asked thoughtfully. A sympathetic look brushed across her face, quickly hidden by her professional mask. “But the cost to travel between worlds... That is high. Too high for you.”
“How...,” he choked out as he slipped his right hand into his pocket again. “How high?”
Yuuko shook her head. “More than you would pay.” She met his eyes steadily as he waited for her to name the price. Finally, he lowered his head and relaxed his shoulders.
“If only...,” he said softly, and then shook his head. “Do you meet many people from different worlds?” he asked huskily as he looked back up at her.
Yuuko nodded. “Some can pay the price. Others cannot.”
Hikaru narrowed his eyes as something in her tone and words caught at him. “And the ones who cannot... Where do they go?”
Yuuko gave him a small smile as she lifted her drink to her lips. “Most go searching for another route. Some give up.”
“And do they ever find another route?” He clenched his hand tightly around the paper in his pocket.
“A few,” she conceded as she tilted her glass and let the ice clink. Immediately, one of the little girls refilled it.
“How much... How much does information cost?”
Yuuko quirked her eyebrows at him, impressed. “It depends on the information.”
“Directions to one who can help me return to them.”
Yuuko tapped her glass thoughtfully against her chin. “There is more than one that I can think of, but I do not know what price they will ask of you.”
“The one who has the best chance of granting my wish? If I can pay their price.”
Yuuko hummed. “That one... That one you will need help to reach. You will not find her on your own.”
“A month of my pay,” Hikaru offered. When Yuuko gave him an amused laugh, he clenched his hand tighter. His eyes skittered around the yard, and then settled on the small black creature who was guzzling the last of the whiskey straight from the bottle. “Two months of pay paid in alcohol.”
“Oooo... You play mean,” Yuuko grinned as she sat up. The black thing beside her perked up expectantly. “But I'm afraid it will cost significantly more than that. A year's supply of alcohol.”
Hikaru shook his head. “What I can afford to buy with six months of pay,” he countered.
“Six months of alcohol plus...” Yuuko stood up and placed her finger under his chin. “...that little charm you keep holding so tightly to.” Hikaru paled and instinctively shook his head. “In exchange for that, I will give you directions to the best one to help you return to your family and provide an introduction.”
Hikaru trembled as he stared into her crimson eyes. To be able to return to Misa and Miku... To know that they were all right... It was worth almost any cost. But the charm had been a special gift from Miku, made with her own hands. He had promised her that he would carry it with him everywhere so that her love could keep him safe. It was all he had left of his beloved daughter and the life he had lost two years before.
Those crimson eyes tried to be neutral, but he could see that they were begging him to trust her, to take the chance that she could do what she promised. He also knew, instinctively, that it was really the charm that she wanted. He could adjust the promised alcohol freely, but the charm was the majority of the price.
Finally, slowly, he pulled the charm from his right pocket. He forced his reluctant fingers to open. As her hand settled over the charm in his palm, he felt as if his heart were about to be ripped out.
“Mokona,” Yuuko said softly over her shoulder. “Go get it please.”
“Yes!” the black creature called. It bounced quickly into the house followed by the two girls. Hikaru and Yuuko waited silently, not moving, until they returned. “Here you are, Yuuko!” Mokona said as it dropped a small stone by her foot.
Yuuko nodded and then gently lifted the charm from Hikaru's trembling hand. “Take the crystal,” she ordered kindly as she stepped back. “Follow where it leads you.”
Swallowing the painful, scratchy feeling in his throat, the man nodded jerkily and knelt to pick up the stone. Bowing politely to the group, he turned and blindly left the shop.
“Ne... Yuuko... Will he find his way home?” Mokona asked a little sadly, worry in its shining black eyes.
She looked down at it, nodded, and then turned to walk towards her treasure room. “They will help him. And the cost will not be too much.” She paused and looked out her window towards the night sky. “I wish you safe journey,” she murmured softly.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Hikaru sat at his desk and stared thoughtfully at the thumbnail sized chip of stone that the woman had given him early that morning. It appeared to be a normal sand colored piece of rock: oblong, solid, slightly rough. Despite her assurance that it would lead him to someone who could help him return home, it had done nothing out of the ordinary all day.
“Yo! Ichijou!”
Hikaru looked up with a real smile as a tall, blond man pushed his door open and stepped into his office. One of the few good things about this world was the man who could have been a twin to his “older brother”. The stranger even had the same name: Roy Fokker. “Hey! What's up?”
“Hear you were haunting the gate again this morning,” Roy teased. “Better watch it. First break in, they'll blame you.”
Hikaru shrugged as he pocketed the stone. “Guess I'm just a morning person.”
Roy snorted his opinion of that, and then changed the subject. “Kijima called in sick.”
Hikaru frowned at that. “I knew it. Glad his wife talked some sense into him. So, what'cha gonna do for the trick segment? That’s up in an hour, right?”
Roy's smile widened. “Yep. I got a backup.” When Hikaru gave him a surprised look, he tossed the helmet he was carrying at his friend. “You say that you can fly. You definitely know the 300S inside and out, and you talk like you know the stunts. You up to it?”
The dark haired man held the helmet and then smiled slowly. “Yeah. I'm up to it.”
Roy smiled at the light in his friend's eyes. Papers or no papers, he knew a pilot when he saw one, and Hikaru was a pilot. He could not wait to see what the other man could do in the air.
An hour later, Hikaru sat in the aerobatic company’s secondmost prized aircraft. He could feel the wind whistling around him, the atmosphere tugging on his wings as he roared through the sea of blue. It felt kind of odd after two years of grounding and two years of space flight before that, but the adjustments and responses were coming back quickly.
He listened to the emcee absently as he put the speedy little one-seater through its tricks and turns. All of the standard crowd pleasers were there: the Immelmanns, barrel rolls, spins, hammerheads, and the loop-the-loop. He was tempted to try the Lomcevak, but it had been so long since he’d been behind a stick or flown in atmosphere that his better judgment was louder than his desire to show off. He did, however, throw in one additional maneuver at the end of the show, one that he could do in his sleep. “The Fokker Shuffle,” he called into the radio as he sent his plane on its last prep climb for the day.
“The what? Hey, Ichijou, no showing off! Stick to the plan,” the air controller sent back sternly. “You want us to loose our license?”
“No one will get hurt,” Hikaru replied calmly as he checked his foils and meters. “It stays in the box.”
“Well…” He could almost hear the air controller shake his head. “All stunts have to be passed by the boss, first. You’re gonna get yourself grounded again, Flyboy.”
Altitude reached, Hikaru didn’t bother to respond. He flipped the plane over and began the fancy maneuver that his “big brother” had invented so many years ago. It was the perfect ending for the show he had just put on, and he knew that the crowd would enjoy it immensely. Over, around, back, and forth he pushed the plane as it hurtled diagonally across the invisible aerobatic box. Just as it reached the bottom left corner, he jerked it up into a vertical climb, went for the stall, and ended with the tailslide. With a wide grin on his face, he waggled his wings to the people he could see waving below and headed for the landing strip.
“What was that?!” Roy shouted as he popped the cap and began to climb out. “Are you nuts? Do you know just how long it took me to convince Morikaze-san to let you behind the stick?”
“Sorry…,” Hikaru mumbled as he climbed down from the plane.
“Sorry? Sorry? You’re gonna be sorry you little…”
“And just what was that little maneuver called?” the owner of the airshow asked, raising his voice to be heard over Roy’s diatribe. The portly man came to a stop beside the tall blond and tilted his grey head curiously.
Hikaru looked at the retired navy pilot a little nervously. “Umm… Just something my… aerobatics instructor taught me. He used to perform it all the time in the little flying circus he toured with.”
“And did it have a name?” Morikaze asked.
Hikaru flashed a nervous glance towards Roy, and then nodded reluctantly. “I think… He called it the Fokker Shuffle.”
“The Fokker Shuffle…,” Morikaze mused as he raised a hand to stroke his chin. “The Fokker Shuffle… Yes, I can see that.” He gave Roy a piercing glance. “I can see that quite easily.”
“Hey!” the blond replied before visibly restraining himself.
The owner turned his gaze back to Hikaru, and his expression became more serious. “I took a chance on you, Ichijou. You don’t have a license, but I could tell that you were an experienced pilot. You’re clean and a hard worker… Makes me wonder how you lost it.” He held up his hand. “But that’s your business. Mine is this air show and field. And I took a big chance letting you go up there today.”
“Yes, sir,” Hikaru replied as he looked towards the ground. He was starting to regret that he did not follow the air controller’s advice about sticking strictly to the routine.
“You did good, son,” Morikaze said suddenly clapping Hikaru on the shoulder. “You obviously knew just what you were doing, and the crowd loved it. Just enough flash without being unnecessarily dangerous. They were already on their feet cheering for you before you began that last maneuver. But, I can’t let lack of discipline go unpunished. All aerobatics have to be approved by me. Before takeoff. So… You’re grounded again. For two months. And your pay will be docked to cover whatever fines we may encounter.”
“Yes, sir,” Hikaru replied softly.
“And after that…,” Morikaze said as he clapped the younger man on the arm again. “After that, your pay will be docked to cover your tests and licensing fees.” When Hikaru looked up at him, startled, he grinned. “Welcome to the team, boy.”
Edited - 07SEP08
Interesting the canon you find on-line when you go to check a fact... Completely changed this story. As in, it is a totally new one, plot, characters, and all. I just can't write non-canon without a very good reason/prompt, hahaha. Terrible flaw. At least I came up with another twist! ^-^ Fantastical though it may be...
Disclaimer: Hikaru, Misa, Shammy, and Miku belong to Studio Nue, Big West, and others. CLAMP claims the witch and her servants.
Onegai
“That sounds an awful lot like blackmail, Captain.”
Major Misa Ichijou looked down at the monitor by her left hand with an amused smile. The good looking captain on the screen had long ago perfected the fine art of flirting without being unprofessional. Of course, he had had years of practice. “Do you not think your squad can handle it, Commander?” she asked, tilting her head slightly to the left.
Her husband smirked at her in return. “Oh, the Skull can handle any mission you care to assign them, Ma'am, but a choice between babysitting boring reconnaissance flights or a three month grounding for tweaks on the experimental engines instead of the combat drills we had planned...”
“Sorry, we're all out of Community Festival Service dates,” she quipped as he let his voice trail off. “However, I suppose I could ask Lieutenant Miliome to swap the schedules around, give Ghost Squadron the reconnaissance 'babysitting' jobs, and have Skull Squadron take their place as the perimeter guards. I'm sure you can come up with some creative way to work your drills into that.”
Hikaru snorted at her. “Now you've gone from blackmail to insults. Skull'll take the recon missions, thank you. How long until the fuel generation station is back up and running?”
Misa's eyes and smile became a bit more serious. “Commander Takao is predicting at least three weeks, maybe four. They need to manufacture a synthesis chamber from basic materials and there are some wiring and controls modifications that need to be completed.”
Hikaru nodded. Before he could continue the conversation, however, the orange haired First Officer of the SDF-2 interrupted. “Captain! Unidentified space craft, bearing Alpha three-zero-theta central, closing fast!”
Misa snapped her gaze to Shammy Miliome. “Number?”
“Lots, Captain. Ummm... The system estimates at least a hundred, varying sizes.” Shammy gave her commanding officer a worried look. “Shall I go to Red Alert?”
“More than a hundred craft, varying sizes...” Misa parroted softly. “Energy signatures? Do we have a visual?”
“Large, possibly attack grade. And they are just now entering the scan area of Outpost 8.” Shammy's fingers hovered over the cover for the large red button on her console. Despite her worried expression, her voice and hands were steady.
“Orange Alert,” Misa decided abruptly. “Scramble Diamondback squadron. Tiger and Skull squadrons on standby.” She raised her voice to carry over the piercing alarm that began to wail throughout the military zones of the ship. “No engagement until we determine that their motive is hostile. Lieutenant Kingman, try to hail the unidentified ships.”
“Aye, Captain!” the communications specialist called as she turned to her computer.
Misa allowed herself to glance down at the monitor near her left hand. As she had expected, Hikaru's image was gone. She tried to push the worry for him and their daughter to the back of her mind as she listened to the status reports that began to roll in.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Hikaru cursed under his breath as a nearby explosion rocked his Valkyrie wildly. That had been a little too close for comfort. “You okay, Commander?” he heard his newest wingman ask. The boy's voice still sounded nervous even after an hour in combat.
“Yeah,” Hikaru managed to croak out as his hands, feet, and mind danced over the ship's controls. “Next time wait until I have a chance to get some space, though.”
“Uh, yeah. Sorry about that, Sir,” the wingman replied, sounding relieved.
“Another major hit on the SDF-2!” Lieutenant Marsh, the leader of the Diamondback squadron, called through the TAC net. Hikaru felt his heart freeze. “They're getting closer to the civilian sectors!”
“We gotta stop them somehow,” another unidentified pilot called back.
“How? They're dancing circles around us!” growled a different pilot.
“All squadrons, fall back!” Shammy's voice echoed in Hikaru's headset. “Repeat, all squads fall back to the SDF-2. Prepare for emergency space fold.” His eyes widened in shock.
“A fold? With all this energy flying around? Are they nuts?” Lieutenant Marsh said in disbelief as he dodged around an enemy and fired on it from behind.
“They'll just take all these small fighter craft with them,” Hikaru's young wingman agreed as he blew a hole through one of the enemy fighters that was perilously close to the SDF-2.
“You heard the lady,” Hikaru said as he cut through the chatter. “Return to base. Take out all that you can on the way. Diamondbacks, you take the front, Ghost on the second quarter, Tiger on the rear. Skull will take third quarter and overlap Ghost on the civilian areas in second. Don't leave your ships. Set up to relaunch as soon as the fold is over.”
“Aye, Sir,” the men acknowledged with varying degrees of reluctance.
Hikaru swapped his communicator frequency over to command only. “Base, this is Skull One.”
“Go ahead, Skull One,” Shammy answered.
“How long until Fold?”
“We need everyone back on board in five minutes.”
“Five minutes!” Lieutenant Marsh cried. “We won't have time to take any of these guys out, much less get into lockdown in five minutes!”
“Five minutes to be on board,” Shammy replied calmly. “Seven minutes to Fold.”
Hikaru shook his head as he lined up on an enemy. “Not good enough,” he muttered. Shammy heard him, soft as he was.
“No heroics,” she said sternly as he blew the fighter out of his way. “Shield is going into Overdrive in five, check that, four minutes. Autocannon fire is increasing and Destroids are going into automatic now. Get your men on board.”
Hikaru grit his teeth and ground out an affirmative before switching back to the open flow TAC net. “Watch it, Zimmer! You got a tail!” he heard someone call out. Instinctively, his eyes swung around, and then he locked and fired on the enemy hounding the Ghost squad pilot.
“Thanks, whoever,” the pilot called absently as he shot down two more enemy craft.
“Welcome,” Hikaru replied just as absently. “Watch out for increased Autocannon and Destroid fire,” he informed his men. “And get yourselves in. Now. Use Gerwalk mode if necessary for clampdown.” He ignored their protests that there were still too many enemy craft in the red zone. “In.” He lined up on another enemy fighter and blew it away.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw another cluster of enemy craft slipping through the thinning Valkyrie net. His heart clenched and his eyes widened in fear as he realized that they were over a civilian sector. Without a thought, he turned and sped towards them.
“Commander?” his junior wingman called as he turned to follow.
“Commander's busy,” Ghost Two called out as he, too, raced towards the enemy. “Get inside like he told you.”
“But...”
“Move it, kid! I got him.”
“You heard Sergeant Malcomb,” Hikaru's senior wingman called as he peeled off to return to the landing bay. Another enemy fighter distracted him, and he turned in that direction instead. “Let's go.”
“Two minutes!” Shammy called through the TAC net. “All craft to be aboard in two minutes!” She looked at the number of planes still flying about and her face tightened. “Landing bays to Choke Mode! All pilots in, now!!”
Hikaru pushed Shammy's commanding voice to the side of his consciousness as he dove his Valkyrie under the three enemy craft and transformed into Battroid mode. With great skill born from practice and his innate abilities, he dodged the fire of a nearby Destroid and settled down about 10 meters from it. Raising his cannon in his robotic arms, he aimed and fired at the lead attacker. The enemy craft dodged the laser, but Hikaru calmly continued to track it and fire until he finally hit it. The explosion rocked him unexpectedly.
“Watch out, Sir!” Sergeant Malcomb called as he destroyed a second craft, then rolled into Battroid mode and stood protectively beside his commanding officer's side. “We got two additional coming in.”
“Roger,” Hikaru replied as he regained his balance and dodged an incoming round. Knowing the criticality of the section they were protecting and the skill of the other man, he did not bother to order the older pilot inside. “Shield is going into Overdrive. Make sure you clamp down tight on the hull for Fold,” he warned instead. The other pilot just nodded his head in acknowledgment as they raised their cannons and picked new targets.
“Shield into Overdrive. Fold in T minus two minutes,” Shammy warned as a curtain of light sprang up around the two Battroids and the Destroid. Hikaru and Sergeant Malcomb fired at the four enemy craft that were caught inside the shield. “Pilots 90% in. Remaining pilots, let the Destroids take them. Don't depend on proximity to keep you with us. Get in now!”
It was an oddly familiar dance. Dodge the round, sight the target, avoid the shrapnel, predict which way the target was going to go, avoid your wingman, and fire. Smoothly, the two combat veterans tread the measures of the waltz as they shot down two more enemy craft.
Sergeant Malcomb stumbled as his foot clamps braced his Battroid oddly against the explosion and looked around to find something to catch himself on. His eyes widened in surprise as he saw yet another enemy craft cruising towards them along the ship's surface behind Hikaru's back. “Captain, watch out!” he cried as he jerked himself around to knock his superior's Battroid to the deck. His own Battroid exploded as it took a direct hit from the remaining enemy overhead.
“Malcomb!” Hikaru shouted as he instinctively protected his eyes from the burst of light. “Why you...” Still lying prone on the hull, he swung his cannon around and fired at the enemy nearer the ship. Three blasts and then, just as the craft was almost on top of him, he finally hit it. At the same time, the Destroid scored a direct hit on the enemy craft overhead.
Hikaru dropped his cannon and held on as the resulting explosions shook the hull, ripping pieces of it free. “Breech over Civilian Area Two!” he heard Shammy cry as the piece of hull he was clinging to blew free. “Executing Fold!” As the twisting forces of the space jump joined the conflicting forces of the explosions, he lost consciousness.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
“Breech over Civilian Area Two!... Breech over Civilian Area Two!...”
Hikaru twisted on his bed as Shammy's distorted voice echoed those dreadful words over and over in his head. In his dream, he felt the hull plating slowly peel free from the ship. He looked down in horror, trying desperately to push it back into place. In the gap, he saw the pale faces and wide, frightened eyes of the children.
And then, only one face filled his view; one little two year old girl with reddening brown hair and sweet green eyes. “Daddy?” Miku cried as tears ran down her face. “Daddy? Aaaaaaa....”
Hikaru jerked upright in the bed, his hands reaching as he tried desperately to catch the falling phantom. He stared sightlessly at the empty air in front of him, and then lowered his trembling arms with a shaky sigh. He reached up to scrub at his face, wishing he could scrub the nightmare from his mind as well.
Two years. Two long, slow years had passed since that horrible day. He had woken in an old fashioned hospital bed surrounded by strangers who could not answer his questions.
Moving jerkily, he untangled himself from the sheets and stood up. There would be no more sleep tonight. He knew that from past experience. He might as well clean up and get to work. One bleary eyed glance at the clock told him that it was only one o'clock in the morning. Time enough for a good strong workout, too, before cleaning up and walking a new route to the office that he could not enter until five.
Two hours later, more awake, clean, and dressed neatly in his white button down shirt and black pants, he walked along the streets of Tokyo with his hands in his pockets. The fingers of his right hand caressed and twirled the little, wrinkled bit of paper that he never went without. His eyes scanned the empty street as he considered how to make his walk a little bit longer.
The sound of laughter caught his ear, startling him. “Do it again! Do it again!” a young voice called excitedly.
“Are you suuuuuure?” a woman's voice drawled playfully.
“Yes! Yes! Again!”
“Oooookayyyy~~~ You asked for it~~~!”
Curious, Hikaru turned his face in the direction of the noise. Light spilled out of the gate in a nearby wall, and he took a few steps in that direction. “Su~piiiiiiiiin!” the woman cried gaily as the child began to laugh uncontrollably.
Stepping into the gate, Hikaru looked into a small front yard and saw a tall, slim woman with long dark hair frantically spinning a disk that looked like it had been stolen from a game show. A small black object of some sort was strapped to the center of the disk, long streamers from one end blowing in the wind. “Wheeeeeeee!” the child cried. “Sooooo dizzyyyyy!” Hikaru blinked in surprise and scanned the yard for the child. He saw no one but the woman and whatever she had strapped to the wheel.
“Ah! Enough!” the woman cried as she collapsed back to sit on the grass. “I'm thirsty again.”
“Woh-u-woh-u-woh...” was the child's only reply.
“Now where did I put that whiskey...”
“Here, Mistress~!” Two young girls ran out of the house, one carrying a glass of ice and the other a bottle of whiskey.
“Woh-u-woh-u-woh...” the first child said again, and then giggled. “Mokona doesn't need whiskey to make the world go round and round and round...”
Feeling that he had spied long enough, Hikaru turned to continue his walk to the office. He stopped up short as the two little girls suddenly appeared in front of him.
“A customer! A customer! Mistress has a customer!” they sing-songed as they pushed him the rest of the way through the gate.
“Hey! Wait!” he protested. He glanced at the woman, expecting to see her upset or frightened. She just looked calmly back at him. Embarrassed, he turned to face her. “I'm so sorry to have interrupted your party,” he said as he bowed politely. “I was just passing by.”
“But you stopped,” she replied as she gracefully curled her tumbler of whiskey into her chest. “And you came in the gate.”
Hikaru shook his head. “No, ma'am. I would not be so rude as to come into your place at this time of the night without warning.”
She smiled amusedly at him. “Your name?”
He paused for a long moment, and then bowed again slowly. “I am... Ichijou Hikaru.”
“Not just Ichijou Hikaru...,” the woman replied musingly. “There is something more that goes with that... Prince? King? No... A title, but not something royal. Shougun perhaps?...”
Hikaru blinked at her in surprise. “Captain. But how did you know, Miss...?”
She gave him a slow smile as the two little girls untied the thing from the wheel. Hikaru could see now that it looked like a black stuffed animal of some sort with long ears. Only, it moved on its own. “Yuuko,” the woman said, drawing his attention back to her. “I am called Yuuko here. And I know many things. Like this is not your world. And that you have a wish.”
Hikaru stiffened, and then forced himself to smile. “I do not know what you mean. I was just on my way to work when I heard voices and got curious.”
“This is a shop that grants wishes,” Yuuko replied, unfazed by his disclaimer and coolness. “The fact that you have come here means that you have a wish.” Odd as they sounded, her words had a ring of truth to them that made Hikaru's gut tighten. “However...! We do expect a fair payment in exchange. That is only fair, right?”
Hikaru clenched his hands, and then nodded wordlessly. “Your wish... It would be to return to your own world?” Yuuko asked thoughtfully. A sympathetic look brushed across her face, quickly hidden by her professional mask. “But the cost to travel between worlds... That is high. Too high for you.”
“How...,” he choked out as he slipped his right hand into his pocket again. “How high?”
Yuuko shook her head. “More than you would pay.” She met his eyes steadily as he waited for her to name the price. Finally, he lowered his head and relaxed his shoulders.
“If only...,” he said softly, and then shook his head. “Do you meet many people from different worlds?” he asked huskily as he looked back up at her.
Yuuko nodded. “Some can pay the price. Others cannot.”
Hikaru narrowed his eyes as something in her tone and words caught at him. “And the ones who cannot... Where do they go?”
Yuuko gave him a small smile as she lifted her drink to her lips. “Most go searching for another route. Some give up.”
“And do they ever find another route?” He clenched his hand tightly around the paper in his pocket.
“A few,” she conceded as she tilted her glass and let the ice clink. Immediately, one of the little girls refilled it.
“How much... How much does information cost?”
Yuuko quirked her eyebrows at him, impressed. “It depends on the information.”
“Directions to one who can help me return to them.”
Yuuko tapped her glass thoughtfully against her chin. “There is more than one that I can think of, but I do not know what price they will ask of you.”
“The one who has the best chance of granting my wish? If I can pay their price.”
Yuuko hummed. “That one... That one you will need help to reach. You will not find her on your own.”
“A month of my pay,” Hikaru offered. When Yuuko gave him an amused laugh, he clenched his hand tighter. His eyes skittered around the yard, and then settled on the small black creature who was guzzling the last of the whiskey straight from the bottle. “Two months of pay paid in alcohol.”
“Oooo... You play mean,” Yuuko grinned as she sat up. The black thing beside her perked up expectantly. “But I'm afraid it will cost significantly more than that. A year's supply of alcohol.”
Hikaru shook his head. “What I can afford to buy with six months of pay,” he countered.
“Six months of alcohol plus...” Yuuko stood up and placed her finger under his chin. “...that little charm you keep holding so tightly to.” Hikaru paled and instinctively shook his head. “In exchange for that, I will give you directions to the best one to help you return to your family and provide an introduction.”
Hikaru trembled as he stared into her crimson eyes. To be able to return to Misa and Miku... To know that they were all right... It was worth almost any cost. But the charm had been a special gift from Miku, made with her own hands. He had promised her that he would carry it with him everywhere so that her love could keep him safe. It was all he had left of his beloved daughter and the life he had lost two years before.
Those crimson eyes tried to be neutral, but he could see that they were begging him to trust her, to take the chance that she could do what she promised. He also knew, instinctively, that it was really the charm that she wanted. He could adjust the promised alcohol freely, but the charm was the majority of the price.
Finally, slowly, he pulled the charm from his right pocket. He forced his reluctant fingers to open. As her hand settled over the charm in his palm, he felt as if his heart were about to be ripped out.
“Mokona,” Yuuko said softly over her shoulder. “Go get it please.”
“Yes!” the black creature called. It bounced quickly into the house followed by the two girls. Hikaru and Yuuko waited silently, not moving, until they returned. “Here you are, Yuuko!” Mokona said as it dropped a small stone by her foot.
Yuuko nodded and then gently lifted the charm from Hikaru's trembling hand. “Take the crystal,” she ordered kindly as she stepped back. “Follow where it leads you.”
Swallowing the painful, scratchy feeling in his throat, the man nodded jerkily and knelt to pick up the stone. Bowing politely to the group, he turned and blindly left the shop.
“Ne... Yuuko... Will he find his way home?” Mokona asked a little sadly, worry in its shining black eyes.
She looked down at it, nodded, and then turned to walk towards her treasure room. “They will help him. And the cost will not be too much.” She paused and looked out her window towards the night sky. “I wish you safe journey,” she murmured softly.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Hikaru sat at his desk and stared thoughtfully at the thumbnail sized chip of stone that the woman had given him early that morning. It appeared to be a normal sand colored piece of rock: oblong, solid, slightly rough. Despite her assurance that it would lead him to someone who could help him return home, it had done nothing out of the ordinary all day.
“Yo! Ichijou!”
Hikaru looked up with a real smile as a tall, blond man pushed his door open and stepped into his office. One of the few good things about this world was the man who could have been a twin to his “older brother”. The stranger even had the same name: Roy Fokker. “Hey! What's up?”
“Hear you were haunting the gate again this morning,” Roy teased. “Better watch it. First break in, they'll blame you.”
Hikaru shrugged as he pocketed the stone. “Guess I'm just a morning person.”
Roy snorted his opinion of that, and then changed the subject. “Kijima called in sick.”
Hikaru frowned at that. “I knew it. Glad his wife talked some sense into him. So, what'cha gonna do for the trick segment? That’s up in an hour, right?”
Roy's smile widened. “Yep. I got a backup.” When Hikaru gave him a surprised look, he tossed the helmet he was carrying at his friend. “You say that you can fly. You definitely know the 300S inside and out, and you talk like you know the stunts. You up to it?”
The dark haired man held the helmet and then smiled slowly. “Yeah. I'm up to it.”
Roy smiled at the light in his friend's eyes. Papers or no papers, he knew a pilot when he saw one, and Hikaru was a pilot. He could not wait to see what the other man could do in the air.
An hour later, Hikaru sat in the aerobatic company’s secondmost prized aircraft. He could feel the wind whistling around him, the atmosphere tugging on his wings as he roared through the sea of blue. It felt kind of odd after two years of grounding and two years of space flight before that, but the adjustments and responses were coming back quickly.
He listened to the emcee absently as he put the speedy little one-seater through its tricks and turns. All of the standard crowd pleasers were there: the Immelmanns, barrel rolls, spins, hammerheads, and the loop-the-loop. He was tempted to try the Lomcevak, but it had been so long since he’d been behind a stick or flown in atmosphere that his better judgment was louder than his desire to show off. He did, however, throw in one additional maneuver at the end of the show, one that he could do in his sleep. “The Fokker Shuffle,” he called into the radio as he sent his plane on its last prep climb for the day.
“The what? Hey, Ichijou, no showing off! Stick to the plan,” the air controller sent back sternly. “You want us to loose our license?”
“No one will get hurt,” Hikaru replied calmly as he checked his foils and meters. “It stays in the box.”
“Well…” He could almost hear the air controller shake his head. “All stunts have to be passed by the boss, first. You’re gonna get yourself grounded again, Flyboy.”
Altitude reached, Hikaru didn’t bother to respond. He flipped the plane over and began the fancy maneuver that his “big brother” had invented so many years ago. It was the perfect ending for the show he had just put on, and he knew that the crowd would enjoy it immensely. Over, around, back, and forth he pushed the plane as it hurtled diagonally across the invisible aerobatic box. Just as it reached the bottom left corner, he jerked it up into a vertical climb, went for the stall, and ended with the tailslide. With a wide grin on his face, he waggled his wings to the people he could see waving below and headed for the landing strip.
“What was that?!” Roy shouted as he popped the cap and began to climb out. “Are you nuts? Do you know just how long it took me to convince Morikaze-san to let you behind the stick?”
“Sorry…,” Hikaru mumbled as he climbed down from the plane.
“Sorry? Sorry? You’re gonna be sorry you little…”
“And just what was that little maneuver called?” the owner of the airshow asked, raising his voice to be heard over Roy’s diatribe. The portly man came to a stop beside the tall blond and tilted his grey head curiously.
Hikaru looked at the retired navy pilot a little nervously. “Umm… Just something my… aerobatics instructor taught me. He used to perform it all the time in the little flying circus he toured with.”
“And did it have a name?” Morikaze asked.
Hikaru flashed a nervous glance towards Roy, and then nodded reluctantly. “I think… He called it the Fokker Shuffle.”
“The Fokker Shuffle…,” Morikaze mused as he raised a hand to stroke his chin. “The Fokker Shuffle… Yes, I can see that.” He gave Roy a piercing glance. “I can see that quite easily.”
“Hey!” the blond replied before visibly restraining himself.
The owner turned his gaze back to Hikaru, and his expression became more serious. “I took a chance on you, Ichijou. You don’t have a license, but I could tell that you were an experienced pilot. You’re clean and a hard worker… Makes me wonder how you lost it.” He held up his hand. “But that’s your business. Mine is this air show and field. And I took a big chance letting you go up there today.”
“Yes, sir,” Hikaru replied as he looked towards the ground. He was starting to regret that he did not follow the air controller’s advice about sticking strictly to the routine.
“You did good, son,” Morikaze said suddenly clapping Hikaru on the shoulder. “You obviously knew just what you were doing, and the crowd loved it. Just enough flash without being unnecessarily dangerous. They were already on their feet cheering for you before you began that last maneuver. But, I can’t let lack of discipline go unpunished. All aerobatics have to be approved by me. Before takeoff. So… You’re grounded again. For two months. And your pay will be docked to cover whatever fines we may encounter.”
“Yes, sir,” Hikaru replied softly.
“And after that…,” Morikaze said as he clapped the younger man on the arm again. “After that, your pay will be docked to cover your tests and licensing fees.” When Hikaru looked up at him, startled, he grinned. “Welcome to the team, boy.”
Edited - 07SEP08