[story] Saber Chase

[Dartz]

New scene with Jferio's help. Which may explain why it got so long. It was originally planned to be a short hop, then on to Frigga.

Also now edited to remove a robot whistling twice.... and Nene realising twice that Maico knows who Saber White is. This is the cost of typing at 4am.

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The crew of Blue Midget 5 had given Maico her own cabin. How nice of them. Getting to the main belt from Mars via Ganymede seemed a bit silly at first. But JMC were her ride, and they gave her her own private cabin for the journey.

It was a peaceful place to think.

“Sylia the puppet. Sylia’s been around since 2016, so she wasn’t created specific for the Knight Sabers. That’s something that came after. It was something she decided to do”

She glanced at the notes on screen...

“Unless. Sylia was woken by Jet. Sylia’s Jet’s daughter. That makes more sense. It put’s her at the centre, rather than the periphery. It explains why she would have connections to all three. She goes through her mother...”

Another glance at Jet’s file.

“Father,” she corrected herself with a sigh. “And if Sylia’s an AI, who’s to say the other three aren’t? Ryan thinks pink is too. They’re either all Jet’s daughters, or a collection from among the three.”.

She paused. She remembered, months earlier, a meeting she had on Stellvia. It struck her like a brick.

“Noah Scott too. Noah asked me to quash this, because they’re doing good. What if he knows who they are?” She found herself feeling just a little sick.”That’s four. For four hardsuits.And the perfect people to have on your side if you wanted to run a group like this in secret. Which also explains the Halcyon node on Frigga.... ”

A beat. She cringed.

“Or maybe I’m getting ahead of myself with speculation. I’ll see what happens on Frigga, and what Jet tells me.” She drummed her fingers on the table, scowling a little, “But if she’s anything like Sylia she’ll probably lie about it, anyway....”

“There is no more space available to record,” her headset interrupted.”Delete old files, or insert a new disk,”

“What?” she blurted. “Disk full?”

Obviously. She’d dictated gigabytes of video over the last few weeks.

“Red Alert!” the intercom announced. Maico started, a shock of fear lancing through her body. Frantic, she glanced around looking for the seatbelt, then for her backpack.

“Bad time to crash when I don’t have any space on my disk,” she hissed. “Where did I put the spare?”

“Red Alert.” the intercom repeated. “We’re approaching landing,”

Huh?

“Shouldn’t that be a Blue Alert sir?” a second voice questioned in a soft, mid-Canadian accent

“Yes, but I don’t want to get up and change the bulb again,”

Oh. That was a mild relief. She still strapped herself in, just in case.

As far as landings went, it was remarkably uneventful. She gathered her things, loaded a new drive into her headset, thanked the crew, assured them that it wasn’t the vindaloo that made her ill last night, and quietly slipped her way down the loading ramp while they were busy with other things.

Two other Blue Midgets shared the bay, being loaded and unloaded concurrently by their crews. The level of activity startled her. Glancing around, it wasn’t hard to pick out a variety of familiar names and destinations on waiting packages. It was frenetic, it was energetic. It was fizzing and throbbing with life, a stark contrast from the monastic Grunthal. It was black and white.

It was just a little bit unnerving.

She pushed on, scanning for Jeph Antilles, wondering more and more if she wasn’t late, or early.... or if she hadn’t been forgotten about. It wouldn’t be the first time...

“Maico!”

Huh? She scanned the room once more.

“Maico!”

A woman was waving for her attention. Average to attractive, with fine golden blonde hair, wearing clothes that in parts seemed a bit too big for her figure, and in others embarrassingly tight.

So, obviously not usually in the female form so. Or laundry day.

“It’s me. Jeph!”

“Oh my...” she murmured. That would explain it. She put on her best sympathetic smile, jogging around freight pallets.

“Nené’s waiting in my office,” Jeph said with a gruff edge to her voice that spoke of some recent burning aggravation that hadn’t quite cooled off.

Waking up biomodded will do that to you, thought Maico, smiling inwardly.

“But of course,” she demurred.

Jeph sliced through corridors, storming forward with a purpose. Her hair swished out a beat in time with the sway of her hips. Maico was having a hard time keeping up with her, lugging a backpack full of essentials

“Jeph!” Maico called after her.

She stopped dead, spinning on a heel offering a soft, apologetic smile.

“Sorry. We’re a little pressed for time. I have a meeting in twenty minutes with a client,”

“Maybe we can wait for after?” the reporter suggested.

“No can do.” she shook her head. “The client is your ride to Frigga.”

“I thought I was riding with a delivery.”

“Yeah.” Jeph snorted. “That was the plan. But things haven’t been going according to plan here at all this last week.”

“Oh?” Maico rose an eyebrow,

“You’re not the first to ask after Nene because of the Sabers, Maico.” Jeph said. Her nostrils seemed to flair. “And things haven’t been going well since they left empty-handed,”

“Who was it?” Maico asked. “If you don’t mind?”

Competition?

“Let’s keep walking,”

Maico still found herself struggling to keep up.

“It was some mine managers from the United Belt Alliance, asking about her involvement in the Knight Sabers. They seemed convinced that because she was based on the original Sabers, she must be one,”

“I see,” Maico puffed out.

“Of course, two days after they leave, every single UBA mine cancelled their contract.” Her expression blackened, “It doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together.” She took a long, deep breath. “So know we’re dealing with the fallout of so many cancelled contracts, thousands of credits worth of their goods still in our warehouses, ‘requests’”... and she made the airquotes with her fingers around that word.... “ to drop all our other scheduled flights and return it all immediately, and them calling the Patrol on us calling us thieves.”

“For people who like being independent, they sure do call on the Space Patrol a lot.” Maico remarked.

“Do you think they left their hypocrisy behind on Earth when they came up?” Jeph snarled. “They’ve been triggering my biomod every day for the last week. It’s starting to get annoying.”

Maico offered her best sympathetic smile.

“I take it, you’ve heard about the Knight Sabers attacking them then?”

“Yup,” Jeph nodded curtly. “And after the last few days I can understand why. They used to be some of our best customers, but since Mason became their president they’ve been getting worse and worse,”

“Worse how?” Maico pushed.

“Everything has to run through their head officers. No more dealing with individual mines. They’re slow to pay up, switch shipping details at the last minute when we already have a Blue Midget on the way. They insist on micromanaging the loading and unloading, and they were trying to encourage us to pay into their private spacefleet because, as far as they were concerned we were benefiting from their defence without paying a red cent. And that’s just the top of a real big iceberg,”

Maico could sense how big it was. The air reeked of frustration. Frustration and fried pork dumplings. Her mouth began to water, and Maico forced herself to swallow the lump in her throat. A cavern was growing deep in her gut, widening by the second.

And bats were fluttering around inside.

And the bats were eating crawling, hairy bugs.

Hopefully her ride to Frigga would have food aboard. Twenty minutes was too short for a meal.

“Well, here we are,” Jeph told her, opening a hatch.

The head office of JMC was a somewhat cramped affair, although at least it wasn’t housed in a repurposed cargo container like a lot of the facilities in Serenity Valley. ‘Cramped’ was a relative idea, but it was smaller than Maico’s own apartment

There were a couple of desks covered in sheaves papers and computer hardware of various eras, with a well-worn green leather couch in the room for guests.

Green, Maico wondered.

It was the layout of the furniture that made it feel cramped, but it began to make sense when she saw the red R2 trundle through, blurting a whistling greeting as it retreived some files, before leaving the room again.

Jeph’s personal office was more of the same, save for being encrusted with the memorabilia one would associate with a dozen different factions, and a cheekily grinning blond in a green shirt.

“Maico Tange, meet Nene Romanova,”

“Hi,” Nene said. “So you came here to learn about the Sabers then?”

“Yes,” Maico nodded.

“Well take a seat, I’ll tell you all about them,” For a moment, Maico almost swore she could see a hint of longing in those eyes. “Of course, my Sabers were completely different to these Sabers since I’m mostly from the 2040 series, while they based themselves on the 2032 OVA series,”

Jeph made her presence obvious with a cough. I’m watching, Maico.

“Oh...”

“But I still have some memories from 2032. So how can I help you?”

Jeph scowled as the intercom on the desk beeped. She leant in and stabbed the button. “Yes?”

“Sorry to disturb your meeting, sir, but the client liaison is already here.” it announced.

Jeph looked at the clock on the computer monitor and heaved another sigh.

“She’s only ten minutes early, Jacques. I’ll be down in a few minutes.” She released the button on the intercom, and stood up. “You’ll have to excuse me for a few minutes, Maico. Job duties, this shouldn’t take me more than a few minutes to take care of.”

She yanked an antique PDA of some fashion out from under the debris on her desk and rushed out, leaving the door to slam behind her and Maico alone with Nene.

“So,” Maico mumbled, trying to get her train of thought back on track. She fiddled with her headset for a second, fixing Nene in the frame “Since their first public appearance on Genaros, I’ve been trying to track down the Knight Sabers...”

“And you think that, because I’m from the series, I might have information,” Nene finished for her.

“Yes,” nodded Maico. “If they’re in the Crisis fandom, you might have an idea who’s behind this,”

Nene took a moment, looking at her own reflection on a running laptop on the desk.

"No, I don't know who, or what, might be in those suits," Nene replied, sighing, still not looking at Maico. "That... wasn't even really a lifetime ago for me. Memories of people... six of them... that really never existed in the first place." She fiddled a little bit with the laptop. "Not that it would have stopped me from joining up if I'd been asked." She smiled, lightly. "As hard as it was... it was also a fun bit of challenge for me."

“I know who Saber White is,” Maico informed her. Nene visibly winced. “At least, I have an idea. I think she might be a relative of Jet Jaguar somehow,”

She deliberately witheld the name

“Well, y’know, that’s news to me if it is,”

“Do you know Jet?”

Nene’s face lit up with obvious relief.

“Jet Jaguar, she’s a big Crisis fen. She sings like Priss does. 2032 Priss anyway, including the Megatokyo accent. Oh... and she built my hardsuit for me. It’s as good as Sylia’s work was, even if it made me sound like Priss too. Frigga’s a good customer for us, they have regular shipments of equipment.”

“Do you think she’d be capable of pulling something like the Knight Sabers off?”

Nene was visibly thinking. Thinking about and answer, or thinking about whether the answer

“She’s military, so probably. But she’s always complaining about how much work Survival Shot is, so I doubt she’d have the time needed to actually put the work in. It took her two months to build my hardsuit in her free time.”

“Do you know if Jet has any relatives? Did she awaken any AI’s?”

That seemed to throw Nene a little. Maico could see her mind go through a loop.

“Ford Sierra’s her partner, they’ve been together for ages. Her brother Mackie is an AI like me. He’s cute to look at, but he’s a total perv.” her expression flattened a little, “A lot like the real one, really.”

Brother? that wasn’t in Jet’s file. How out of date was that thing? And how did an AI become a brother?

“Brother?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Nene shrugged. “I think it’s sort of the same thing that’s between me and Jeph... the Moll Flanders effect, only as a family bond instead. Yeah,” she confirmed, “It’s a handwavium quirk.”

Maico sucked on her lip, mulling it over in her mind.

“Do you believe Jet would be capable of building more AI’s?”

“That’s not her style,” Nene answered real quick.

“It’s just. Saber White is an AI too. And I have evidence linking Jet with her. The evidence itself is still circumstancial. I’m trying to build a theory that fits the facts, and every theory I have points to Saber White being either a close friend of, or relative of Jet’s,”

Nene glanced away at the door, almost pleading for it to open again, and for Jeph to come back. It refused to budge.

“Who is she?” she whispered

“I can’t say. It’s to early.” Maico answered.

“Tell me, please,” Nene pleaded.

“I can’t. Not until I’m certain.”

“You’re mean,” Nene whined at her, staring at her with huge, watering puppydog eyes.

“If I’m wrong and it gets out too soon, I lose my rep, and you know how important that is. People won’t talk to me.”

“....Alright,” Nene relented, dropping her shoulders and making it perfectly clear Maico was still being a big meanie by not telling.

Maico felt herself relax. Threat to her integrity passed. Tell Nene, and she tell’s the underspace. The underspace makes it go viral, and her half-formed and probably wrong theory blows the whole story out of the water, blows her reputation, and blows the big payoff at the end of the long and winding path.

The door opened, Jeph pushing her way in, being drafted by a rather attractive young woman, with the most stunning flame-hair Maico’d ever seen. It was such an irridescent orange, it might as well have been burning.

“Anika!” Nene chirruped.

The pair collided in mid air, embracing each other in mid air, giggling like schoolgirls.

“They’re friends,” Jeph explained, teresely. Her lips pursed together. “Anika Daini is the SysOp out on Frigga. She’ll be your ride there.”

“Anika!” Jeph’s bark broke up the little hug-fest. Nene broke out her puppydog stare once more. “This is Maico Tange,” a beat, “And for the love of God don’t forget to tell Jet about the matter we discussed,”

“Don’t worry, I won’t,” Anika reassured him, wearing a sunshine grin that seemed to be painfully endearing. “Maico... my A-wing’s in the hanger,”

Nene was silent,

“Sorry I can’t stay, Nene-chan. We’ve got customers, and I can’t leave Mackie at the controls of TITANIC or Bad Things will happen,”

“I know,” Nene frowned. “I’ll message you in the ‘verse when you get back,”

The pair shared another hug as they gave their goodbyes, and Maico wasn’t certain, but thought she might’ve seen a glimmer of jealousy in Jeph’s eyes.

There was something strange about Anika, Maico mused. Definitely a biomod with that hair. There was something about her that made her seem so.... pleasant. Like her hair had been moulded out of a captured ray of sunshine, brightening up the room as she entered.

As she left, the door closing behind her, she swore she could hear Nene giggling madly.

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