BSBxKc Chpt 12

==Blue Squadron (Battletech x KanColle(ish) crossover) - Chapter 12 -==
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===Message through the Dark===
Jan Mayen System, Deep Periphery
"Nothing here." La Plata stated, displeased.
 
The sentiment in the woman's voice matched Swift Justice's own thoughts. Both cruisers, and Amber Lotus, were on sortie again to investigate the disappearance of a DropShip and JumpShip, respectively.
 
Having found no trace of the DropShip, they had moved on to the JumpShip's presumed last location, one jump away.
 
"Are we sure we are at the right jump point?" Amber questioned, while she was busy sweeping their general vicinity, sensor suite at full power.
 
"Their last report stated they were aiming for the zenith point in this system." Swift replied, a frown on her face. She cupped her chin, and hummed. "It is worth taking a look."
 
After brief contemplation she made a decision. Picking her Union for the task, she sent the DropShip on a polar orbit around the yellow dwarf star. It would still take a while, but the DropShip would enable her to see past the star, at the nadir jump point, faster and with a lot less effort than if any of them went there. Not to mention that they could charge their drives while they waited.
 
Raising her Jump Sail made the Aegis' companions follow suit.
 
"Whatever Zheng mentioned back there threw you off-kilter. Want to talk about it?" La Plata was not just observant, but also persistent.
 
Swift was grateful, though, that the woman had waited until they could not easily be overheard, before she tried to get something out of her.
 
"Would you leave it be if i said no?" There was an uncharacteristic, almost whiny, quality to the grey-haired woman's voice.
 
"Nope." An unapologetic smile was on the Dart's face, yet her green eyes were kind. "Out with it. It was obviously code. What did that message mean?"
 
"Curiously i think it meant exactly what it said." A weary exhale.
 
"Come on. Stop being vague." Motioning with her hand, La Plata encouraged.
 
"This is about the Word of Blake, and a possible super-weapon they have." Unexpectedly, Amber entered the conversation. After finding nothing in their vicinity, she had disengaged her active sweeping of the area.
 
Swift's gaze snapped onto the Inazuma, openly surprised.
 
"Yes. We are also aware of it. Though we don't know what, or where, exactly it is, nanodesu." Evenly returning her flagship's gaze with her dark eyes, Amber once more made Swift remind herself that the corvette before her was not a naive girl but an instrument of war. A lapse she had committed repeatedly. She blamed her new nature for it.
 
"I've caught up with reading history until the Star League era, after the Reunification War. Suppose this "Word of Blake" makes an appearance later?" Rhetoric though it was, the dark-haired woman's question was legitimate. Swift shook off her surprise.
 
"Yes. A relatively recent development, the Word is a splinter group of Comstar. They are the original reason why Zheng came to the area." Here she hesitated. "And they killed me."
 
"Oh." La Plata made an unhappy sound. "I'm sorry to bring that up then."
"It is no problem." Swift was quick to reassure. "I am annoyed with myself that i get this unreasonably uneasy feeling, along with a headache, every time they come up in a conversation." While she spoke, her pale eyes were following her DropShips' path across the background of stars.
 
Noticing the Aegis' distraction, Amber Lotus picked up the conversation's thread. "That superweapon i mentioned is a spaceship though. We..." Here she gestured at herself. "My nation's intelligence services, i mean, know that much."
 
"I guess that makes it our problem, if it's actually real, and we encounter it." La Plata trailed off, humming.
 
"If we encounter it." Swift pronounced the first word noticeably. "My primary concern is our unwelcome guests. Unless something drastic happens, ending their threat is the highest priority."
 
There was no argument against that, and a comfortable silence fell for a while.
 
"The nadir point is clear." Swift muttered what she had assumed already, and gave her DropShip the order to head back.
 
"Do we return to the station, then, or should we che...." La Plata trailed off, and her frame tensed.
 
Amber and Swift were matching the woman in posture, the light-haired cruiser listening intently to a fax-message they were receiving.
 
<<"..pship..7493...system 2799...zenith point....state of emergency...enemy contact...Repeat...JumpShip 7493..... The message started looping there.">>
 
Swift Justice's pale eyes went unfocused for a moment. Sifting through the intelligence reports they had, she quickly reached a conclusion.
 
"That is only one jump away." She gave Amber a meaningful look, who nodded in approval. Then she turned to La Plata.
 
"I'll be fully charged in a little while. How about you?" The tanned woman had seamlessly switched to a battle-mindset.
 
"We cannot afford to wait. We will be going now." Amber Lotus had already started lowering her Jump Sail, and the Aegis followed suit.
 
"Alright." Readily agreeing, the Dart started lowering her own Jump Sail as well.
 
"Keep charging, La Plata. Amber and I will go ahead. You follow us as soon as you can." Swift was frantically running the numbers through her jump computer, intent on departing as soon as possible.
 
For a moment a confused expression dominated the tanned woman's features, before realization turned it into disapproval. Her brilliant green eyes narrowed.
 
"That's not a good idea."
 
"I did not claim it was." Swift was in the process of picking up her DropShips.
 
"Has it occurred to you that this may be a trap? If we're going to walk into it, we should do so at full strength."
 
"We will be at full strength, once you join us." Glancing at her Union in the distance, Swift recognised it would not make it back before they departed. Returning her gaze to the other cruiser, the Aegis experienced a personal conflict. As happy as she was to have La Plata with her, part of her had also been afraid of this, of having to justify her decisions. And the woman had the seniority and experience to question them.
 
"You can't be serious about this." Having remained calm until now, the Dart's voice finally rose in volume.
 
"I am. This distress-call is no more than 4 hours old, so we have a chance to stop, or even prevent, an attack. But we have to act now, and I will not risk losing you to a misjump because of insufficient charge."
 
"So instead you want to risk losing both of you by jumping into the unknown, and possibly an ambush." Vehemently opposed to Swift's intentions, La Plata almost hissed her last words.
 
Sighing wearily, the Aegis explained herself. "Maybe the recordings of what we saw and heard, at Vespucci and Jan Mayen, do not properly convey how terrible of an enemy these things are. This is the first time we are in a position to do something about it. I..." She glanced at Amber, who gave her a thumbs up in agreement. "We have to respond as soon as we can."
 
"You're more stubborn than a mule." Huffing, La Plata surrendered to the inevitable. She directed two of her DropShips to Swift's side. "Here. Take my Saturns with you, so you at least have a full complement of DropShips."
 
"Thank you." Swift inclined her head in thanks. For the woman's understanding, as well as her DropShips.
 
"Dropships are docked, Jump Sail is lowered and coordinates fed to the computer. Ready to jump, nanodesu." Amber was first to finish preparations.
 
Moments later, Swift Justice achieved the same status. She looked intently into La Plata's eyes, not exactly sure what she was trying to convey.
 
After several moments of that, the dark-haired woman raised her hand in a salute.
 
"Godspeed."
 
Cruiser and corvette mirrored the gesture.
 
"See you on the other side, nanodesu."
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===Hostile Welcome===
The universe asserted itself again. The first thing Swift Justice saw was the JumpShip they had received a distress call from. It was right in front of her. Yet, before she could even think anything, she screamed in surprised pain. Several heavy rounds had impacted her rear back.
 
Reflexively, she glanced over her shoulder. Behind Swift, almost at point blank range, was a large warship.
 
Deathly pale to the Aegis' new sight, the woman was even more disturbing than the Quixote. She was wearing what appeared to be standard grey underwear on her upper torso, while the woman's lower half disappeared into a mass of black chitin and steel. And probably other things too, since the spots where weapons-emplacements or turrets jutted out of it seemed to be bubbling and churning. The spectral woman's long, flowing locks of snow-colored hair contrasted sharply with her dark lower half. And this time Swift was certain that the ghost-woman's eyes were actually glowing, yellow in this case.
 
Needless to say that the Aegis had never seen anything like it.
 
Shaking off her pained surprise, Swift made to undock her DropShips as quickly as she could. She would be a sitting duck, unable to maneuver, until she got them on their ways.
 
Amber was doing the same, spitting Japanese curses Swift did not understand properly. Maybe it was better that way.
 
Another salvo of NAC-rounds came in. Hitting the Aegis in the same spots as before, they caused serious damage. She ground her teeth together to keep herself from screaming again. The heavy impacts, shattering armor and tearing through her hull, caused bolts of pain to jolt through her. Straightening again from being knocked forwards by the hits, she had to make the realization that the most important of her rear-facing weapons had been destroyed. She had not even been able to shoot back yet, and would not be either, until she got under way.
 
Worse was that one of the massive shells had hit one of the Aegis' DropShips, a Dictator, which had been detatched already and was maneuvering to get away from its mothership. Its armor not being designed to withstand weaponry of that kind, it was literally shattered by the monstrous impact. The hail of wreckage added to the stab of pain Swift experienced from the loss of her DropShip.
 
Caught with her back to the ghost-woman as well, Amber Lotus did what she could to take heat off of Swift. She landed several hits with her smaller caliber NACs pointing that way, which unfortunately did not seem to faze their adversary all that much.
 
Not only did the enemy cruiser keep firing, but she, and the half dozen accompanying DropShips, were launching fighters.
 
Having finally gotten their cargo going, Swift and Amber went to full-ahead at the same time. Though not before the enemy landed a last uncontested salvo on the Aegis. The clang of the impacts somehow made the cracking of armor and the buckling of hull worse. Biting down on her tongue, Swift kept herself from screaming, when she felt something in one of her propulsion-units break an enemy round pierce her hip.
 
By this point, four of the enemy DropShips, along with most of their fighters, had formed up and were about to reach the duo of cruiser and corvette.
 
Amber had done well under great pressure, and gotten her aerospace elements linked up with Swift's own. Barely in time for their defense.
 
Finally able to maneuver properly, Swift presented her broadside and fired. She scored good hits. Considering the painful reply she got from her adversary, though, the effect was not as good as she had hoped for. Gritting her teeth again, the Aegis continued her turn and rolled, to use her other broadside.
 
Again she fired, again she scored good hits. Again a reply arrived, which compromised Swift's armor on that side. Along with causing more damage to several of her systems, and a hull-breach, the hits knocked out one of her broadside guns.
Fighting like a lion, Amber Lotus was in the zone. Taciturn as she always was in battle, she did her duty in silence. Despite their diminished complement of DropShips, and consequently fighters, the Inazuma was keeping most of the enemy aerospace-assets away from Swift. She even tried to give her flagship a hand, taking potshots at the enemy warship whenever she saw an opportunity.
 
Yet it was not enough. With the head start their adversaries had gotten through the element of surprise, they had the advantage. The enemy cruiser had more guns, armor which had not been weakened by previous battles, and most definitely had not taken several unanswered salvos.
 
Swift had to make the terrible realization that they would lose.
 
"We need to change our tactics." The grey-haired cruiser remarked, switching to a more evasive course. "Delay until La Plata arrives." Swift performed another roll and caught an attacking pair of fighters with a matching pair of White Sharks. She followed it up with a turn that allowed her to shine a little light, in the form of her NLs, at the enemy warship.
 
"Copy that." Effortlessly matching her flagship's course, Amber kept up her valiant defense. At least the aerospace side of the battle was going well.
 
Turning the other way, Swift Justice fired another salvo from her main guns. It brought a smile to her face. Finally, the enemy showed visible damage. A turret had been blasted off of the dark cruiser, smoke seeping from the gap where it had formerly sat.
 
Moments later a series of bad hits wiped the smile off of the Aegis' face. Almost doubling over and groaning with pain, she immediately experienced a significant loss of thrust, and with dismay also noticed she had lost several NLs on her affected side.
 
A grunt drew the flagship's attention from her own misery to Amber. The girl, entangled in battle as she was, had gotten strafed. Two new parallel lines of scorch marks were on her uniform's front.
 
"Status?" Swift was doing what she could to make herself difficult to hit.
 
"Minor hits. Good to go." The strain in the girl's voice was obvious, but Swift trusted her escort to let her know if something truly bad happened.
 
Rolling again to present her least damaged side before an enemy salvo's arrival, Swift yelped when it did hit. Sending back a reply with the guns she had left, the Aegis had to admit that maybe she had made the wrong decision. She should have listened to La Plata.
 
 As though summoned by the thought of her, an emergence signature appeared at the jump point. A moment later La Plata was there, on the enemy warship's other side from Swift and Amber.
It took the dark-haired woman less than a moment to start shooting. She must have jumped with her guns loaded. And with the range being as short as it was, she did not miss.
 
"What did I tell you!?" Despite her yelling, there was no venom in La Plata's words.
 
Whirling around from the multitude of hits, the pale woman fastened her glowing yellow eyes on the new arrival. Her turrets traversed, yet before she could fire, another of La Plata's volleys hit her. It visibly damaged the dark hull, and claimed several weapons as well. When the spectre returned fire on the Dart, it was with significantly fewer guns than she had raked Swift with.
 
The Aegis did not hesitate, and took the opportunity her old friend's arrival had given them. Turning, so she could bring her weapons to bear most effectively, she let loose. Now it was the nightmare-cruiser's turn to get hit in the back. Armour plating, pieces of hull and all sorts of growths were blasted off of the warship. 
 
Having launched and organized her own aerospace assets, La Plata accelerated towards the pale woman to complete the pincer. A quartet of Killer Whales she had launched with her first salvo reached the enemy formation, and claimed both DropShips that were anchoring the enemy warship's screen.
 
Another of Swift's salvos had found its mark, when she noticed a familiar pattern of electromagnetic noise emanate from their dark adversary. Her frown deepening, she gave quick orders.
 
"Fire every gun you have at that cruiser. Do not let it escape." She followed her own command and saw, a moment later, that the other members of her squadron had done so as well. Bright beams of light hit the dark vessel, followed by bolts of man-made lightning. Swift tracked the ordinance from their guns on its way to its target.
 
Before the shells could go home, though, the eldritch ship had disappeared.
 
Heaving a sigh of relief, Swift turned her attention to assisting Amber with the cleanup of the remaining enemy aerospace power around them. Limited as her ability was, she did use her capital missiles to strike at the remaining aerospace fighters, which turned several of the twisted things into clouds of debris.
 
By the time La Plata reached them it was all but over. The last remaining fighters were being hunted down and destroyed by their combined wings of fighters.
 
"Well, good thing i decided not to wait for your Union." Hands on her hips, the dark-haired woman regarded the damaged Aegis. Her expression gradually turned into a deepening frown. "My goodness, she really worked you over."
 
 "It could have been worse." Swift shrugged, and regretted the attempt at levity instantly. When she lifted her shoulders, a jolt of pain seared through her. Grimacing, she added. "Remind me to listen to you next time."
 
"If we were in that situation again, you would make the same brash decision." Tone merely lightly scolding, La Plata started reaching for Swift, then pulled her hand back again. The tanned woman was visibly searching for a way to aid her old friend, yet did not know how.
 
"Probably." While picking up her remaining fighters, Swift mused to herself that maybe she had let her experiences influence her strategic thinking. But how was she supposed to sit idly by and do nothing, while actual monsters were doing gods knew what to defenseless people? She made a mental note to talk about that issue with someone.
 
"It paid off, nanodesu." Finished with picking up all but her standard patrols, Amber Lotus pointed at the JumpShip close by.
 
"Let us hope so." Attempting to straighten up, and after a painful wince deciding to remain hunched over, Swift Justice asked. "Everyone. What is your status?"
 
"Just scratches. I'm as combat-worthy as before, nanodesu." Amber's answer was quick and unperturbed.
 
"Are you crazy?" La Plata's was not. "You took one heck of a beating and ask us how we are?"
 
"I am the flagship. I need to know that." Laughing hurt, so Swift contented herself with beaming a smile at the other cruiser. Laboriously, she made a turn towards the still JumpShip. Some of her directional thrusters were not working all that well any more.
 
"I..." Shaking her head in either disbelief or exasperation, the tanned woman belatedly answered Swift's request. "I took a few hits from large-caliber NACs. They really did a thing on my armour. Lost a turret too." She paused for a moment. "How did you survive that kind of fire, at full strength too, for that long? What kind of armor do you even have?" The more she recounted, the more incredulous the look in La Plata's eyes got.
 
"Grumman K5, and improved internal structure." Swift answered distractedly. She had found a position that allowed her to speak and move without experiencing pain, hunched-over as it might have been. She carefully approached the stricken JumpShip, all her attention on it.
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===Fleeting Possibility of Hope===
La Plata kept looking at Swift expectantly, while the latter limped past her. The Aegis apparently considered her question answered.
 
"Ferro Carbide armor. Offers better protection than standard, but is bulkier, nanodesu." To La Plata's relief, their escort pitched in. The dark-haired woman was starting to get annoyed with having to ask for things that were common knowledge.
 
Pausing for a moment, the Dart considered. Their main adversary must have also had something akin to that, because she had expected her own weapons to do more damage than they had, La Plata thought sourly.
 
"I hope not all of our enemies are decked out in that, like that cruiser from just now." Thinking of the spectral figure caused a chill to go down the tanned woman's spine. "I am not looking forward to facing that one again."
 
While Swift Justice's attention was still on the Jumpship they had come to rescue, Amber Lotus gave her a funny look. "You won't see her again, nanodesu."
 
Blinking, La Plata paused. "You say that as though it was fact."
 
"Because it is. Didn't you notice?" Her blank look told the Inazuma no. "When that enemy cruiser tried to jump, her K-F field was faulty from the start. Even without us shooting at that thing with all we had, it would have been a misjump, nanodesu."
 
La Plata released a breath. She was inexplicably glad they would not have to face that adversary again. Considering how badly that ghost-woman had beaten up Swift, she deserved to be stranded who knows where, for all time.
 
Grumbling mentally, the tanned woman also realised that her sensor-suite had not picked up what had been apparent to her fellows. It made sense that her own equipment, half a millenium out of date as it was, fell behind in performance compared to new and modern warships. That did not mean she liked it, though.
 
"Give me a hand here, please." Swift's voice drew La Plata back to the present. Scowling, the Aegis was gesturing at the jumpship. "My own small-craft bay is...out of commission. So both of you, send boarding units onto it and search for the crew."
 
Following the order without question, La Plata was in the middle of preparing her transports when Swift's words truly registered with her. "Search for the crew" she had said. Considering what the light cruiser had read and heard of the effect their enemies had on people, there should be panicked screaming over the radio, La Plata realized. The silence on the airwaves did not bode well.
 
Having drawn alongside the jumpship, and established a defensive perimeter around them, the fleetmaidens were close enough to see the ship's name painted on its side. Along with worrying signs.
 
"Willemstad. No markings though." La Plata murmured. One of the less unusual names for ships she had heard. Launching transports carrying her boarding-parties, she followed Swift's example and turned to face away from the jumpship. It was so she would be able to act as quickly as possible in case they got more company.
 
Having apparently heard her mutter, the grey-haired woman belatedly responded. "Standard procedure for assets employed by secret services. We will see more of that."
 
Exchanging a glance with Swift, La Plata inclined her head in understanding.
 
Minutes later her transports deployed their cargo. Seeing the jumpship from her infantrists' perspective did not assuage her suspicions. Especially the fact that the lights were out all over the ship, on top of the deafening silence on the radio, was cause for worry.
 
Scurrying a short distance along the jumpship's hull, La Plata's boarders reached Willemstad's small-craft bay. A hole had been blown into its large doors, through which her men squeezed.
 
After making sure the hangar was clear of enemies, the short platoon of infantry advanced into the adjacent corridors. What they discovered was eerily similar to the recordings Swift had shown her. Of the squadron's previous operation to aid an installation that had come under attack by their mysterious foe.
 
Furniture had been smashed, glass broken, and there were a number of dead crewmen, along with prominent scratch-marks on various surfaces.
 
After securing the last part of the ship La Plata was assigned, which had experienced a fire, she blinked the far-away look from her eyes. "The back-half of the jumpship is clear. No survivors found. No clues either." She was wearing a frown.
 
"What about the escape pods and life boats?" Swift Justice was giving her a pointed look over a shoulder.
 
"All of which are missing." Frown deepening, the dark-haired woman was not happy.
 
"Copy." Swerving her gaze over her other shoulder, the flagship addressed their lone escort. "Amber, status?"
 
"My guys are almost done reading out Willemstad's computer core, nanodesu." Sporting a far-away look in her eyes, the girl's attention was obviously elsewhere.
 
La Plata was running an appraising gaze over the jumpship next to her, when a piece of black chitin drifted through her field of view. She was about to question how to proceed, when Amber's Achilles suddenly made a sharp turn and took off at its breakneck maximum acceleration.
Not even needing to say anything, a pointed look with a raised eyebrow from Swift had the Inazuma explaining.
 
"These guys were smart. They took all kinds of precautionary measures." She paused, expression downcast for a moment, before her features became resolute again. "Among those was modifying their escape pods to transmit weakly on the frequency of emission nebulae, nanodesu."
 
"That's ingenious, actually. Hide a distress beacon in the universe's background noise." La Plata was impressed by the ingenuity, then grimaced when she adjusted her sensors. She had to make the realization that there was just a single escape pod she could hear.
 
"They have read our reports, and taken them seriously, at least." Swift winced when she turned to look in the lone signal's direction. "Pity it was not enough to save them."
 
Both cruisers watched the Achilles' sprint towards the escape pod raptly. La Plata was also in the process of retreating her boarders to their entry points.
 
"Almost there." Something of a mix between tension, excitement and apprehension laced Amber's words, while her DropShip was on final approach.
 
La Plata could see it pull right up to the tiny speck of light in the distance, until both became a single dot.
 
"Deploying EVA unit, nanodesu." Wearing a far-away look again, Amber was steering either the dropship or its EVA crew directly.
 
Tension built while both cruisers waited for a report on what the girl could see.
 
"There's someone inside!" The happy surprise in the girl's voice lasted only for a moment. She paused then, expression betraying great concentration.
 
It took La Plata a lot of self-control to not push for the girl to relay what she saw, word for word.
 
A minute later, the draconian spoke up again. "It's a man. He's not moving, and has a red stain on his jumpsuit. Looks unconscious, but i can see him breathing. Definitely alive, nanodesu!"
 
That was the first good news of the day. It would also be the first time they had actually been able to rescue someone.
 
"Bringing the pod on board." Amber's voice conveyed the urgency the girl was feeling. It was something La Plata understood well. Her first instinct upon seeing someone injured was to provide quick aid. She grimaced when her eyes strayed to Swift's form, of their own accord. Sometimes it was not that easy, though.
 
"Having an eye-witness of the attack might let us know more of how the enemy operates." The woman in question was already thinking of how to gain a strategic advantage from their find, small as it may be.
 
 Unexpectedly, Amber started. Her expression abruptly went blank, quickly replaced by confusion. "He's gone."
 
"Gone how?" The flagship demanded.
 
"Gone gone. I don't know how. I brought the pod onto my Achilles, had med-crew ready." Here she paused, grasping for words. "The pod is empty now. A minute ago there was a man in there! What's going on, nanodesu!?" Distress made the girl's voice rise in pitch and volume while spoke. By the end Amber was all but screeching.
 
Swift turned a questioning gaze at La Plata, which the latter could only answer with a shrug. She had no idea either.
 
After a moment, the grey-haired woman floated up to Amber and wordlessly placed a comforting arm around the girl's shoulders.
 
The Inazuma was on the brink of losing her composure, hands trembling and dark eyes misty. Gazing up at her flagship with a beseeching look, she pleaded. "I didn't imagine that man, did i?"
 
Using that low register of voice La Plata had come to call comforting, Swift reassured the corvette. "No, i do not think so. Fly your dropship back so we can take a look at what its crew recorded."
 
With a shaky exhale, Amber nodded once and went about turning her Achilles around.
 
Keeping Amber in that half-embrace, the Aegis glanced at La Plata. The dark-haired woman once more recognized that her old friend was a capable leader. She could not help the smile that crept onto her features. Swift returned it.
 
Amber eventually calmed down enough to stop shaking. Swift stepped out of the girl's personal space, but lingered close still, in a subtle gesture of support.
 
When the girl's assault dropship reached the fleetmaidens, it deployed two small craft. Each of which headed for Swift and La Plata respectively.
 
A short while later, having docked with each warship, they returned to their dropship. Amber's data-recordings had been delivered.
 
"Both cruisers' eyes seemed to be looking into the distance while they reviewed the videos. La Plata was the first to return to the present.
 
"That's compelling footage. Especially since the splotches of blood in the escape pod are where the videos showed the unconscious crewman." Doing her best to learn from Swift's example, La Plata gave, what she hoped, was a reassuring smile to Amber. "That man was there."
 
"I agree." Joining the conversation as well, the grey-haired woman added. "Transfer that escape pod to me, please. I want to take a look at it myself." Raising her eyebrows when she realized what her words might imply, the Aegis added. "In my many years of service, i have carried many intelligence-people. I may have a different perspective, see things you did not." She smiled broadly then. "Four eyes see more than two."
 
La Plata snorted. It was not even a joke, yet Swift's stupid smile was funny to her somehow.
 
Amber, for her part, began to prepare the escape pod for transfer. Distractedly she mused. "What happened to that man then? Where did he go, nanodesu?"
 
Before anyone could think of a reply, the three fleetmaidens sensed a burst of bright light behind them, and turned as one.
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==Chapter Note==
*; Chapter Note from the Author : Swift regrets her decisions. Somewhat.This one took me longer than i thought it would.
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