[story] Saber Chase

[Dartz]

Gah. Yuku. Stop eating postings.

I do a little of both. I'll write the story straight out for the most part, occasionally coming back and editing things as I get better ideas. Nothings set in stone until it's all together and posted, and even then, I'll edit things.

I managed to work in Maico's meeting with Noah. This was all originally planned to be one straight scene but it works as it is, and that scene was too good not to use. I

And of course, Noriko is referring to the voice actress...

Ms Tange.

It is the standing policy of Black Aeronaut Technologies to release customer details only upon official request from either Space Patrol or Great Justice members with good reason.

Sincerely.
BAT Public Relations Department.

Maico sighed. She hadn’t expected much more than that really, had she? She switched back over to the newsgroup which was steadily turning up it’s own lead

“We had this battroid get stolen from a mad here on Pallas, nearly a year ago,”

“Was that that guy who got arrested for keeping AI’s as slaves?”

“Yeah, that’s the one. One of his ‘Angels’ stole the battroid on him to try make her escape. He hired a group of bounty hunters to recover it. Someone caught a picture of them...”

Maico remembered the mad story. A Mad by the name of Flint hired some mercenaries to recover a stolen batttroid he’d built. They did their job. And a week later the patrol came knocking.

“Wait.... those three there are the same as Genaros. But who’se the golden one?”

“Dunno. Maybe they hired a new girl,”

Maico pulled down the image. It was rough, it was dirty, but it was clearly the exact same Knight Sabers. She started typing.

“How could they have been active for over a year without anyone noticing?”

“Well, hardsuits aren’t exactly new things. Neither are hardsuits and bounty hunters. They just got lost in amongst the others. Hell, we have a group here in champ op’s calling themselves the Knight Sabers and they are pissed at being upstaged”

“And don’t forget the A-team. Don’t they use Stingray armour?”

That would fit the Lancer-type spacecraft, Maico thought. Roughriders doing something they don’t want traced back to them.

“But of course. They would have the money, and the training too. I think, we should spend our energy trying to figure out who would have the money to fund this level of technology and training. How many groups could do this?”

“Well, it’s not us. Warsies don’t use hardware like that. Section 31 doesn’t usually let itself get caught like that. Of the big hitters, that leaves Stellvia, Greenwood, maybe someone on Mars and the Roughriders,”

“It’s not the RR. I’d bet money it isn’t them,”

“Why?”

“Because the A-team were in Kandor,”

“Oh yeah, that annual Supers-Senshi thing’s tomorrow,”

Oh. The Memorial Melee. She’d been on her way to cover the buildup when the hostage crisis broke. And she still had to get out there. A Knight Saber exclusive might buy her her own ship, but she still needed to pick up her bread and butter stories.

“Stellvia,” Maico said to her camera. “That suddenly makes a lot more sense. Noah Scott can fund the hardware. They have the skills and connections to build it.... especially a custom ship as stealthy as the one used by the Sabers. Stellviacorp has been doing a lot of personel training lately, it wouldn’t be hard for them to hide an elite team in amongst it all. “

She thought for a moment. It was one she could get confirmation on quick enough, and Stellvia was an easy enough place to pick up a shuttle to Kandor. Kill two birds with one stone.

-------

Noah Scott sat behind his desk, supporting himself with one arm. It was quite clear to Maico that something had been keeping him awake, for quite a while.

"Maico, I assure you that they aren't my people. You know me - would I send out a team that wasn't wearing Stellvia Corporation logos?"

"No, of course not, Noah."

Maico smiled at the thought of corporate-sponsored super teams. For a moment, Noah actually seemed to be considering trying it.

"Do me a favour, please?,” he said, catching Maico off guard. “If you find out who they are, don't reveal their identities."

One of Maico's eyebrows went up, Spock-style. "You don't usually approve of bounty hunters."

Noah sighed to himself.

"Not on my station, no. But in Bubblegum Crisis, the Knight Sabers were a force for good. These four are trying to do some good , and they deserve the chance to try. If they cross the line, then you should tell all, but not before that.”

Maico gave him a dubious look, readying her counter argument involving the public’s right to know. Her wristwatch had other ideas. It chimed loud and shrill, squawking like a bird begging for a meal.

Both of them stared at it. Maico blushed.

"I have to leave now if I'm going to make the next shuttle to Kandor. Please say hello to Leda and Helen for me."

It wasn't until after Maico had left the station that she realized she hadn't actually promised to keep the Sabers' identities secret.

-----

A week went by.

Sailor Saturn won it this year for the Sammies. Unofficial Sailor Saturn, not that that’d ever stopped them. The click through rate for her website had gone back down almost to normal. The Saber trail had cooled.

The convention’s interest had moved on to the next big hit. She moved back to her usual work. No use starving herself to chase the big story.

Maico busied herself cleaning up her apartment. It was a job that really needed doing. The view outside the porthole was the same magnificent desolation it’d had always been, only now with added quad-bikers throwing up dust.

Still, her Knight Saber report had bought her food. It’d bought her a brand new recorder set. It’d paid for the recirculator circuit in the shower to be repaired, and the rest had gone into the ‘buy me a ship’ fund.

Her apartment wasn’t large. It was basically a partitioned shipping container. It wasn’t especially luxurious, but it had the comfort of an aged pair of boots that’d been broken in by many kilometres, and most importantly, it was hers.

Even if she seemed to be spending more time aboard other people’s spacecraft.

Maico sighed, unpacked her freshly laundered clothes, and started packing for her next journey. The Martian Terraforming Project Council were holding a ‘breaking-ground’ ceremony on the Isidis Canal. It may be dull, but it was her bread and butter. And it’d be nice to see Natsuko again.

She’d managed to arrange passage on a shuttle, and all was well. This time tomorrow she’d be in the breezy city of Helium.

Her phone started ringing in her ear. She snapped down the headset to take the call.

“Hey Maico.” A voice buzzed in her ear, “Everyone’s favourite hardsuited vigilantes just struck again. They rescued a mining community out in the main belt from a Zwilnik invasion. Details attached, including the patrol report. You’ll have to get out there fast while it’s still fresh.“

Her headset chirupped as it read the file, displaying it on the screen in front of her eye. It seemed legit...

“Are you certain?” she demanded.

“Yup. Four in hardsuits, colour and hardware descriptions match. You owe me big for this.”

Go to Helium for the easy story.

Head out to the main belt chasing her wild geese in hardsuit.

No choice.

“I’m on it,”

----

Three days latter, she was standing in the main landing bay at Showakusei Kozan. What an original name for an asteroid mine, she thought.

A wrecked Bolitho sat beside her, burned out and still smelling of scorched plastic. A sign in painted kanji welcoming visitors had been shot several time with some sort of thermal weapon. The paint had scorched and bubbled up with the heat.

Blue Blazers were handling the relief with their usual skill. Food pallets were being unloaded from the shuttle she’d just disembarked, along with air-tanks and spare parts.

Maico slipped through the crowd, making her way up through the main level. There was damage everywhere. Doors had been blasted in. A pressure bulkhead had slammed shut. A porthole had been replaced by a steel patch.

She made her way up through the industrial areas, to the residential dome. The uniformed Space Patrol were taking statements from survivors in their homes. The mine manager’s house was no different to the others.... a modest Japanese suburban style dwelling. It was set apart solely by broken gates, and the wreckage of some sort of mech sitting in the driveway.

There were five other wrecks scattered around the dome. And other areas marked out by Patrol tape, surrounding blankets. An uneasy knot twisted in her stomach as Maico remembered what Noah Scott had told her about the Sabers crossing the line.

Maico took a breath, set her system recording and rang the doorbell. A big C-130 transporter passed overhead, casting a shadow through the dome glass.

A middle aged Japanese man answered the door. The first thing that struck Maico about him was that the suit he was wearing was immaculate, and clearly something he’d put on just for purpose.

“Tange-san? Shite kudasai naibu ni kuru..”

It startled her for a moment. her mind had to switch gears between languages.

“Mister Gosho,” she returned in her own language. An automatic translator generated the subtitles for the video feed. “I am here about the recent attack,”

“Yes, I’ll tell you about it in my office,”

She was led through the house, remembering to leave her shoes at the doorway of course, and found herself enjoying the feel of polished wooden floors under her stockinged feet. It was a rare feeling in space.

It had once been a nice house, but it was obvious it’d been ransacked and quickly cleaned up. Some of the doors were buckled and cracked, and many of the rooms still had to be cleaned up. In what had been the living room, a young girl sat on the floor watching a television hastily set up on top of a media server.

It was playing old Sailor Moon episodes.

“She’s been watching them every hour she’s been awake,” said Gosho. “And she barely sleeps. Poor girl,”

He lingered for a moment, watching his child watch television. Maico made sure it was recorded.

“Anyway. Follow me,”

The office was more of the same. It was obvious there had been shelving there at one point, and there was wiring for a computer, but neither were present. There was a desk, a pair of chairs, a window and not much else anymore.

“Please, take a seat Miss Tange,”

“Thank you,”

“So,” he said, “What would you like to know?”

Maico brushed her pink fringe away from the camera’s lens.

“Could you tell me please, what happened the night off the attack,”

Gosho nodded. “It’s quite simple really. We saw them coming in when they were about twenty minutes out. That gave us time to broadcast a distress call and get ready to defend ourselves. We’re pretty far out right now, so we didn’t expect a quick response,”

Maico nodded, showing she was listening. He eased himself back into his chair.

“They attacked, breaking in through an emergency door bypassing our defences. All told, it took them about ten minutes to get control. They had those five mechs, and we had chocolate bombs and a few rifles we didn’t know how to use.”

And he was ashamed of that fact. Deeply and utterly so. It was written in the lines of his face.

“They brought the survivors up to the dome and started ransacking our homes while telling us what was going to happen to all of us when they took us away as well,”

And now anger.

“This went on for an hour. The first inkling we had that rescue was coming, was when the enemy ship stopped responding. This attack was completely different. It was sudden, like an earthquake. It came clear out of nowhere, struck, then vanished with only wreckage in it’s wake.”

Now just a twinge of fear.

“They hit so fast, the enemy didn’t have a chance. They quickly took down the ones that put up a fight. Those that gave up.... well they gave us their firearms so we could guard them. They left before we could properly thank them. By the time Great Justice arrived they were long gone.”

“Can you describe them? The rescuers,”

Gosho nodded. “Easily. There were four of them, riding some form of transformer. There was a white, a blue, a pink and a green one, all women in armour. The transformers had these big heavy cannons... they blew apart two of the enemy mecha’s with one shot each. It was amazing. We thought they were Great Justice at first.”

“Is there anything else?”

Gosho thought hard, cupping his chin in his free hand. Maico could see him scratching at the stubble under his jaw. “I’m sorry. But it happened so quickly. It can’t have been more than three minutes...”

“One of them sounded like Sailor Mars when she spoke,” a small voice called out from behind.

Maico turned around. The girl from the living room was standing in the doorway.

“Noriko, don’t be so rude.” her father chastised. “I’m having an important meeting here and you’re embarrassing me,”

“It’s quite alright,” Maico said, calmly.

“Sorry, papa,” the girl said “But I thought the lady would like to know. I heard her speak to one of the bad people.”

Maico thought. “That might actually be rather helpful. Thank you, Noriko,” she smiled at the girl.

The girl beamed victoriously back at her father, before running back to the living area just in time for the next episode.

“I wouldn’t put too much stock in what she says. I find it hard to tell one from the other myself. I grew out of that silly stuff a long time ago. Now where were we.”

“Mr Gosho, would it be possible for you to share your sensor logs of the attack, especially in the minutes before and after the rescue,”

He thought again. “Our equipment was heavily damaged, so that might be difficult, you understand?”

In other words, he was too polite to say it was impossible. Everything was wrecked.

“But of course,”

“If we can pull anything out of it, I’ll see that you receive a copy.”

“Thank you, Mister Gosho. That should be all,”

----

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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?