BSBxKc Chpt 3

==Blue Squadron (Battletech x KanColle(ish) crossover) - Chapter 3 -==
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===Debriefing with a stubborn Man===
Jan Mayen System, Deep Periphery - Waystation 135
Merely remaining in place and waiting for something, the Comstar cruiser Swift Justice decided, was markedly different in her new form from when she was a regular warship. She could not remember drawing nearly as much attention back then as she did after her "change".
At many of the station's portholes crewmen floated, their attention riveted to her and the other fleetmaidens. Most of them were waving at the three warships in human form. The Aegis-class could easily see those people in detail, and many of them wore expressions that to Swift looked like adoration or outright worship. The ash-haired woman had to spend conscious effort to keep a frown from her face.
 
Blue Squadron's two young members returned the waves, Brest with an enthusiastic smile and Amber Lotus a little more reserved.
 
"Are all Comstar people this nice?" The brunette asked while she had her gaze on a young woman with red hair, who looked barely older than her own appearance .
 
That was a loaded question which soured Swift's mood, so she chose to evade it. "I suppose people take a liking to you when you save them from a supernatural horror."
 
"We didn't really though. They only think we did, so their gratitude feels a bit weird, nanodesu." The draconian wore a slight frown, her gaze still directed at the watching crowd of people.
 
"Smile and play along. Remember what our liaison Mr. Zheng said during briefing." Swift replied while she swept her eyes over the station in search of the man. "He and his superiors will want to keep our adversaries' effects under wraps for many reasons."
 
"Like?" Brest turned towards the cruiser with a questioning look in her eyes. "Why would they keep this new threat secret? If people knew about it they could prepare themselves for it."
 
It was moments like these that reminded Swift of just how young and naive her charges were. Despite their appearance they were both only around a year old. The grey-haired woman collected her thoughts for a moment. When she answered her words were slow and measured.
 
"Imagine if word of a paranormal enemy, something straight out of a horror trivid no less, reached the Inner Sphere." She paused a moment. "That might not just cause the mother of all panics but also massive religious crises. When peoples' view of the cosmos is turned upside down they tend to resort to extremism and violence in response." Memories of her own recent death came to her unbidden, and she winced.
 
"Mmh. You really think they would be so unreasonable?" The brunette questioned with a slight tilt to her head.
 
"Yes, unfortunately. And there would also be those who might try to use these...things for their own ends." The cruiser looked towards Jan Mayen's L4 point where she could faintly make out the remains of their defeated enemies they had left there.
 
The FedSuns vessel followed Swift's gaze and thought for a moment.
 
"I think you don't need to worry about that junk. Nobody aside from the three of us can even approach those pieces." Brest turned and beamed a reassuring smile at her flagship.
 
Swift appreciated the intention, yet had to spend a lot of effort to keep her expression from turning into a grimace. "They would find a way." The woman shook her head and muttered. "They always do."
 
The girl's expression fell somewhat, and the older woman felt guilty for it.
 
With a deep breath the cruiser turned back towards the station only to see Amber making several gestures towards their audience, which she recognized after a moment as Hegemony standard sign language.
 
Sensing Swift's questioning gaze on her the dark-haired girl turned towards the flagship. "They asked many questions. I only answered the harmless ones though. How i feel, what kind of food i like."
 
That got Swift Justice's attention. "I have been right next to you since you appeared here in your new form, and you did not eat anything. How do you know what kind of food you like?"
 
The draconian paused briefly, then shrugged. "I just do." After a moment she added. "I think that's the least unusual thing about my new state i have discovered yet, nanodesu."
 
Something occurred to the cruiser then, and she was about to reply when she noticed movement in the airlock closest to them and turned towards it. Through its single large porthole she could see the young woman Brest had been looking at earlier place three cylindrical plastic containers onto the ground. The redhead floated back out of the room, closed its inner door behind her, and engaged the depressurization cycle.
 
When the air rushed out of the chamber the hardening vacuum in the airlock caused the plastic containers' lids to burst open, which kicked them off the ground. Some of their contents spilled out of them and coated part of the airlock. With the depressurization completed the chamber's outer door slid open, which made the last remaining molecules of atmosphere rush out into space and nudge the now open containers towards the three warships turned women.
 
Amber was in motion a moment later and carefully used her maneuvering thrusters floated towards the apparent offerings. She grasped one of the cylinders and looked into it. Her brows furrowed somewhat, then her expression brightened. Turning back to her fleetmates she remarked happily. "I did not think anyone would actually go ahead and bring us food." The draconian tilted the container so the other two could see what was in it.
 
Brest squinted, then sidled up to her fellow corvette and took one of the containers herself. She frowned as she looked into it, and turned a questioning look at the other girl. "I can't even tell what this is supposed to be."
 
"Potato mochi." The dark-haired girl grabbed the remaining plastic cylinder and lobbed it at Swift. She turned to their redheaded benefactor, who was watching them raptly from a porthole next to the airlock. "Arigatou." She motioned in sign language. The red-haired woman smiled broadly and gave a thumbs up in return.
 
The cruiser caught the container that had been tossed at her and took a critical look at the supposed food herself. "Hmm." It did not look all that appetizing. Apparently the quick depressurization had boiled away some of its water content before it had frozen solid.
 
Poking the contents of her container skeptically with a finger, the brown haired corvette thought for a moment. When Amber was about to take a bite of her mochi when Brest grabbed her wrist and stopped her. "Wait. We should think about this first."
 
With a pointed look and a raised eyebrow the dark haired girl replied. "What is there to think about? I have food in my hands and i'm hungry."
 
"Brest is right." The flagship spoke up and gave her own portion of food another critical look. "We are warships. We need hydrogen to run, ammunition and spare parts to resupply after combat. And we do not know what this food would do to us."
 
Amber half nodded her head before she replied. "Yet our crews need rations as well. I think you are too suspicious." She motioned towards the morsel of food in her hand and continued. "I think there isn't anything to do wrong. When my stomach growls I'll eat something."
 
"You don't have a stomach." The other corvette retorted.
 
The ebon-haired girl huffed in exasperation. "You know what i mean." She turned towards Swift and held out her container. "I volunteer to try this."
 
Just when Swift was about to deny the girl's request a new voice spoke up on their net.
 
"Please excuse my lateness." It belonged to Zheng, their liaison officer from the Star League Diplomatic Corps and link to a nominal chain of command for Blue Squadron. A moment later the man could be seen rounding the corner as he floated into the corridor that was visible through the airlock's portholes, noteputer in hand.
 
The red-haired woman, who had been watching the three fleet maidens closely through said portholes, sent a last smile and a wave towards them and relinquished her observation spot to the approaching officer. She turned to presumably return to her duties and floated along the corridor in the other direction the man was moving, the two humans exchanging nods when they passed each other.
 
 "Ladies." Zheng greeted as he reached the airlock's inner door and gave a salute to them. Like during their first meeting he was wearing an unassuming grey jumpsuit, and he looked just as rattled too. Frown lines were prominent on his Capellan features that gave the middle aged man a severe look that was in contrast to his calming voice and the way he carried himself. The cruiser-woman wondered how much of the grey in his hair was due to their unwelcome guests. "I am happy to see you. You made it back just in time to save us once more."
 
When the two younger girls glanced at each other and then their flagship with uncertainty, the Aegis gave them each a reassuring look back and, with a nod, replied to Zheng. "Yes. We have completed our patrol and made some discoveries about the foe."
 
The intelligence officer's gaze sharpened in expectation. Swift jettisoned from one of her cargo bays reached into one of her uniform's pockets and produced a folder from it. "This is a written report of our sortie to system 1339." She floated all the way up to the airlock's still open outer door, lobbed the report into it with a gentle push, and returned her gaze to the man who was a link to their respective militaries. She had to stifle a smile.
 
Zheng was wearing a dumbfounded expression. It took him a moment to regain his bearings. "How...Where did you take that folder from? It is too large to fit into any of your uniform's pockets"
 
"Dropped it from one of her freight bays." Brest spoke up. She had approached the airlock as well, with her ration of mochi floating next to her. "It looked funny from a human perspective though." The girl shrugged her shoulders with a smile.
 
 Shaking off his surprise he engaged the pressurization cycle on the airlock. While the chamber gradually filled with air the grey-haired woman continued.
 "The quick rundown is that we did encounter the enemy in system 1339. It was not the same ones that attacked this station though. And they had no Jumpship with them, so they could not escape. We destroyed them."
 
While Swift spoke Zheng retrieved the folder from the now pressurized airlock and flipped through the pages quickly.
 
"It is all in the report, but i have to state clearly just how bad our performance was during the battle. We should have easily swept aside an enemy formation of just a few dropships, but for some reason we could not reliably hit them. As such we took a lot more damage than we should have."
 
Listening to Swift's report made the intelligence officer's gaze settle on Amber, who had also approached and was floating just behind and to the side of the other two fleet women. "So that is why she looks a little worse for wear. Are you alright?"
 
Swift Justice was about to continue her report when she followed Zheng's gaze, and the words got stuck in her throat. The draconian corvette was chewing on something, and the teeth marks on the frozen lump of mochi in her hand made clear what it was. The cruiser bit herself on the tongue to not yell at the girl again. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and counted to ten in her head. When she opened them again her voice was more resigned than angry. "Amber Lotus what are you doing?"
 
The girl in question swallowed and replied. "Having food. It's not as delicious as i remember. It misses some of its water content and the rest is frozen, but still good, nanodesu."
 
Pinching the bridge of her nose the flagship carried on with audible frustration. "We did agree to not take foolish risks, did we not?"
 
"You never ordered me to not eat what the people generously offered us." The dark haired girl sounded entirely unapologetic as she returned Swift's gaze evenly.
 
"There can be no harm in quenching one's hunger, can there?" Zheng spoke up to defuse the tension that was radiating from the cruiser.
 
With a huff the woman composed herself. "Let me know if you notice any adversarial effects." 
 
Amber nodded and took another bite.
 
The cruiser turned back towards Zheng. "Anyway. Aside from the damage to Amber, the greatest problem is how badly the battle depleted our fighter complements." She hesitated long enough the man gestured for her to continue. "We had a greater than 2:1 advantage, yet we lost as many aerospace fighters as the enemy." Saying the words visibly pained the cruiser.
 
"I am sorry. Those high losses are in part my fault." The man looked genuinely apologetic. "Asking you to go on this patrol without any combat training seemed worth the risk for the chance of preventing the enemy from getting away and attacking somewhere else."
 
"Nah. It's not a lack of practice. Our pilots are trained well enough." Brest spoke up and waved her hand dismissively. "It's just that our strike craft and drop ships suffer from the same oddly bad accuracy as our main weapons. When you miss an enemy a bunch of times you give him the opportunity to shoot back something fierce."
 
Swift gave the brunette a subtle nod and a small smile. She was proud of the girl showing kindness to Zheng so he would not blame himself too much, even though what he said was technically true .
 
"She is right." The Aegis assured. "Besides, we agreed that this would be the best course of action." She gestured at herself and her two squadron mates. "And i gave the order."
 
Still looking somewhat contrite the intelligence officer donned a neutral expression and gestured to the oldest of the three fleet maidens. "Continue please."
 
"There is not much more to report. After we had defeated them we took anything that looked useful, and was not completely smashed, off of their wrecks and returned here." The cruiser hesitated, then asked carefully. "Mister Zheng, what was the sequence of events before and during the first attack on the station here? Before i arrived?"
 
He was perplexed at the question's unexpected direction, and looked upwards for a moment in recollection. "First came an emergence signature from an unplanned arrival. According to the technicians it was an unusual one, and they could not determine where it came from, but still recognizable as an emergence signature. There was no answer to the hails from traffic control, and shortly afterwards sensor ghosts started appearing from all directions. At that point we naturally assumed the arrival was hostile and we were being jammed." The man seemed lost in thought for a few moments. "I think it was not even a minute later that the first shots hit the station and panic spread."
"And the second time around?" The Aegis' gaze had become intense and scrutinizing.
 
"Aside from a few false contacts, that were attributed to the damage the sensor array had taken from the first attack, there was no warning at all. They came out of literal nowhere. I was in my quarters and the first hits landed before the alarms even started blaring." He looked a little pale as he remembered, but regained his composure, his tone became questioning. "You have a hypothesis. Let me hear it. How did they sneak up on us like that?"
 
"They did not. There was no enemy here."
 
"Excuse me?" Zheng's eyebrows were close to crawling into his hairline.
 
"There were no enemies here for the second attack." The woman repeated with a grave look. "After we had jumped in, and were approaching the station, we got distress calls that there was an attack. Yet we could not see any hostiles." At Zheng's incredulous expression she continued. "The closer we got the more frantic the screaming on the radio became."
 
Zheng looked past the fleet maidens with an unfocused gaze, then down at his noteputer. "But i heard the impacts on the outer skin. I could feel the station shake from them." His gaze returned to Swift. "That does not make any sense."
 
"I said that too!" Amber piped up helpfully, having finished her morsel of food.
 
Preempting more interruptions the flagship continued. "Luckily someone noticed the pattern and guessed the cause." She placed a hand on the brunette girl's head next to her "So we aborted our approach and got rid of said cause." The woman could not resist any longer and ruffled the girl's hair with a gentle smile. Brest leaned out of reach and swatted at the offending hand.
 
"How...? What?" The officer sounded utterly incredulous. "You expect me to believe that every living soul on this station fell victim to a trick of the mind? There is a recording of the attack in the station's sensor logs. damage caused and all." He shook his head in denial. "That is so unlikely as to be..." He trailed off.
 
"More unlikely than talking warships in human form?" Amber asked with crossed arms and drawn down eyebrows.
 
"We can prove it." Swift continued and gave a disapproving glance at the draconian, which made the dark-haired girl ease up on her scowl somewhat. "I will send pictures and more sensor data to your noteputer from before we left for system 1339 and after we returned. You can then compare the before and after to see for yourself that there is no new damage to the station."
 
Zheng paused for a moment, his racing thoughts plain to see. "Suppose things are as you say they are. That kind of capability... how did they do it?"
 
"The wreckage i mentioned. We jettisoned it at the planet's L4 point, and now everything is fine. As for the how?" She continued with a shrug. "I cannot prove it, but we have to assume the enemy being as supernatural as we are is responsible for that effect on people and technology." The two girls next to her nodded in agreement.
 
"To cause audio-visual hallucinations in a whole lot of people, alter their memories, falsify sensor data. And all of that from a huge distance, with mere pieces of destroyed craft..." He looked downwards and a shiver visibly ran up his spine.
 
Brest added her own opinion on the topic. "I think we should study the effects the enemy has on humans, so we can understand and maybe counter it." She paused for a moment, then grimaced slightly."Very carefully of course."
 
With a weary huff the officer nodded and started typing on his noteputer.
 
The grey-haired woman could sympathize with the man. A few shattered remains of defeated enemies having the passive effect of a superweapon had to be difficult to accept for him, even in the face of their own existence, Swift thought. She remained quiet for a minute to let Zheng regain his bearings.
 
Eventually she spoke up again to change the topic when he was apparently finished taking notes. "Now that we are not on a timer any more, i have been meaning to ask." Hesitating for a moment the cruiser searched for the right words. "What does an officer from the Star League's Intelligence Command do on a Comstar Explorer Corps station in the middle of nowhere?"
 
"You seem to have theory already." It was actually impressive how he was able to school his features into a mask of almost perfect neutrality mere minutes after he was visibly shaken, the oldest of the fleetmaidens thought.
 
"You belong to ROM." It was not a question.
 
He inclined his head in confirmation, which made the two corvettes speak up at the same time.
 
"That's not cool."
 
"So you lied to us."
 
Brest was somewhat upset over the apparent deception while Amber's voice had an edge to it.
 
"I did not. One thing does not preclude the other. I indeed serve with the SLIC's Memberstate Liaison branch." He held the dark haired girl's accusing gaze until she seemed to accept his words and relaxed. "To answer your question." He looked at Swift again. "I have been investigating rumors, as well as a number of ships disappearing in this part of the periphery."
 
"More than usual you mean?" Especially this far away from the inner sphere piracy was a very real threat. When Zheng's expression remained measurably neutral Swift's gaze sharpened. "You suspected the Word of Blake."
 
"I still do." He looked contemplative for a moment. "Due to our visitors they are just not the top of my list of suspects any more. But still on it."
 
"Did you find any clues that these rumored missing ships might be their doing?" Swift felt pressure building up behind her forehead.
 
"Nothing solid. Our automated monitoring posts did record coded streams of data though, which our cryptographers have, as of yet, been unable to decipher. They are what drew my attention in the first place, and made me travel here."
 
Placing a palm onto her forehead the woman closed her eyes. The pressure in her head had grown into a stinging pain. Was she even supposed to be able to get a headache? She was a warship for goodness' sake. The Aegis sighed and muttered. "I cannot claim i like the prospect of a run-in with them."
 
Not knowing all that much of what the two "adults" were talking about, and the continuous pangs of hunger in her belly, made the taller of the two corvettes lose inters in the conversation eventually. She elbowed Amber in the side and gestured to her own "ration" of food, that still floated next to her, with a questioning look.
 
Zheng for his part used the exchange to draw the cruiser-woman's attention away from her obviously distressing thoughts. Gazing past Swift he asked. "How are you holding up Amber Lotus?"
 
"I am a little less hungry than before and it tasted good, nanodesu."
 
He gave a curt nod. "Does anything feel wrong after that little snack? Or different?"
 
The shorter of the two girls got a far-away look in her eyes for a few moments, then surprise colored her features. "Actually there are two dozen NAC rounds more in my magazines than there should be, and i also got a hundred tons of fuel from somewhere."
 
Looking equal measures surprised and happy, the intelligence officer encouraged. "I think we just discovered how to resupply the three of you. Good, because I think you ladies more than deserve a proper meal."
 
While Brest hesitantly took a first bite of her mochi and Amber Lotus looked eager to have more, Swift just hoped that food would do something against her headache.
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*; Chapter Note from Author : Where do Fighters and DropShips come from? Like the video game version, fighters and dropships are replaced & repaired by the shipgirls. In this case, I went with food, because everything else seemed too game-mechanicy to me. Thus there no human crews on board the dropships/fighter.
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