Daniel Jess Gibson
7th April 2005, 01:28 AM
[Ranma][NGE][HPL][AMG][Fusion][Fanfic] Sic Semper Morituri Chapter 43 -
Sturm und Drang signifying . . . nothing
Disclaimer:
I do not own any of the characters from Ranma 1 / 2, Neon Genesis
Evangelion, Ah My Goddess, or the Lovecraft Cycle involved in these
stories.
C&C, MSTs are welcome
E-mail: dan_s.comments@worldnet.att.net
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(these are the most updated versions)
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(these are the original versions)
What has gone before:
About Book 11 of the Tankoubon Manga, Akane and Soun Tendo throw
Ranma out of the house. Nabiki, in the guise of a wish, follows him.
They meet EVA pilots Shinji Ikari, Rei Ayanami, Asuka Soryu Langley and
Jeffrey Davis.
At the welcome home party for Nabiki and Rei, the Azores mission is
revealed. Three shoggoths, once fragments of Ritsuko, fight and are
defeated by combining Ritsuko, Ranma and Jeff, there are some side-effects
as the trio's personalities temporarily bleed into each other. Among
them:
Jeff, under the influence of Ranma, confronts Belldandy sending her, then
her sisters, into a tizzy, Keiichi managed to defuse it. Ranko, under the
influence of the others, gives Jeff the passionate kiss from the bet he
lost to Asuka at the carnival. Then Asuka and Jeff tickle Nabiki
remorselessly.
To help Misato and Hiro's relationship, Asuka, Rei and Shinji throw
together a Sunday in the park picnic. Asuka begins teaching Ranma both
sword fighting, and how to teach. Only he believes his first class with
the others was an unmitigated disaster.
Asuka contracts Keiichi and his sister to construct several bicycles
for the pilots. She shoots a bug and has her second clash with Skuld.
All four senators from Wyoming and Massachusetts begin investigating
the Boston incident and Misato's part in it. Aboard the Bennington, Jeff
meets with one of his patrons and receives an update on Sharon. Nabiki is
coming to realize the differences in the way the military treats her and
the other pilots.
Major ggreg and Adam Smith arrive, to cover their `spying` on NERV,
they will teach Nabiki and Jeff about explosives. Ritsuko investigates
the unusual way Jeff syncs with the EVA, she is terrified by the contact.
Later she realizes the spirits power the EVAs. Nabiki and Maya train to
operate firearms. Nabiki adds hand-to-hand training with the rifle.
Jeff and the Scholarly Dragon teach Nabiki about control of her
dreams, the Scholarly Dragon prevents a dream attack by Usagi and company.
The pilots and guards reminisce about the events of the previous
weeks with Belldandy, Sora and Megumi while taking a cooking lesson. The
day ends with a bug attack on Keiichi's home being destroyed by the pilots
and their guards.
Usagi and company summon a strike force of Dark Young, dholes,
shantaks and Hunting Horrors. The Twins watches the summoning and draws
its own plans against the EVAs, pilots and NERV. For a short time the
EVAs and the pilots are caught off stride. Once they regained the upper
hand they never released it. The pilots go over Misato's head to
participate in rescue operations.
Nabiki continues to train in controlling dreams, concentrating on
infiltration. Bad dreams continue to plague her. The Azores Mission
heads through the Panama Canal, and the principals are treated to the
effect of their celebrity. Nabiki and Maya don't like it.
The Russians go over a newsreel of the Azores team, and discuss their
growing maintenance problems.
The Azores group discover a second entry plug port in Unit 04 and
begin select Maya and Captain Madison of SAR to accompany the pilots to
the bottom.
The recovery itself goes off without serious problems, Nabiki carries
the Great Old One back to the EVA. She is revolted and horrified by the
experience.
Something is killing the leaders of the project.
What she has taken looks like a fried egg, Nabiki is ashamed of her
weakness and terror in the face of a Great Old One.
The creature awakens and the battlegroup is surrounded by clouds and
all the pilots are plunged into a dream, Rei awakens, but the others do
not. Shinji dreams of a city deep in the ocean, and then to the city he
designed in the dream challenge. Rei is with him and they lead the human
race of planet and to the stars. Then Shinji heads off to battle an enemy
on the Moon.
Ranma, Jeff and Nabiki find themselves in a faceless Nerima duplicate.
They join the group who repairs Nerima from the marital arts battles.
Asuka finds herself walking through the spectrum, eventually falling
to hunger and dehydration.
Rei and Erin temporarily move in with Sammi.
Hello darkness, my old friend, I've come to talk with you again,
Because a vision softly creeping, left its seeds while I was sleeping,
And the vision that was planted in my brain, still remains
Within the sound of silence.
The Sound of Silence - Paul Simon
In restless dreams I walked alone narrow streets of cobblestone,
July 27, 1947
"That was fun," Nabiki commented as the light ran red-hot pokers
through her eyelids and out through the back of her skull. She sat up,
opened her eyes and immediately collapsed again. "Please tell me I died."
"Sorry," Maya said, "You're still alive, still aboard the boat, and
we're still heading for Boston. I think."
" 'I' - I'm going to speak softly, it hurts less, 'I think.'?"
"Yes, none of the navigation gear is - "
The crash, that shook the entire ship, woke Raccoon, he sat up. "Oh,
that hurt." And collapsed back down immediately.
"Not - so - loud," Nabiki admonished, very quietly.
Raccoon slipped out of bed, managed to remain upright for five full
seconds, before sliding bonelessly to the floor.
"You never change," Nabiki told him as he pulled himself up and back
into bed.
"I think we're in a lot of trouble. It takes a lot of force to shake
a ship this size," he told her as he pulled the covers back over his body.
"We've been in trouble for days," Maya told them, then retreated from
the pilots' gaze. She must have realized the only way out was to tell
them everything, "We've been caught in a hurricane, since both of you
collapsed."
"Oh God!" Jeff pulled the covers over his head.
"I'm sure everything will be all right," Maya assured them.
"Don't stay that." Nabiki struggled to sit up, managed to stay there
on her third try. "Anger, fear resentment?" she asked Raccoon, who pulled
the covers down long enough to nod his agreement, then covered himself
again.
"Evidently family is one thing that holds, or at least a possible
link to immortality," he said from under the blanket, "Can you turn down
the lights? They're so loud."
"What are you talking about?" Maya asked, then more quietly when both
pilots winced, "I don't understand." She stood to turn off some of the
infirmary's lights.
"Daddy is not happy, but he doesn't want his baby girl harmed,"
Raccoon said.
"I'll talk to the Navy," Nabiki said as she stood. Just remaining
upright took considerable force of will. "You argue with _Doctor_ Akagi.
She won't be willing to give up her specimen."
"I'll do it." Raccoon stood. He was a nauseating shade of green.
Nabiki looked away quickly.
"What are you talking about?" Maya demanded, easily restraining both
pilots.
"Our specimen is Cthylla," Nabiki said, "Cthulhu's blood kin." She
smiled at Maya. "Daddy wants his little Princess back, and right the Hell
now couldn't be too soon."
Maya blanched and released both pilots. "You'd better change clothes
though."
Nabiki glanced at her hospital gown and was glad these didn't leave
you wide open at the back.
----------------------------------------
Nabiki looked across the hanger deck, the front portion had collapsed.
Maybe that was the crash we heard, she ignored the damage control parties
running here and there. The EVA was in the middle of the hanger, where
Raccoon had left it. So they could still use it.
The pitching and heaving of the ship made her queasy, she wondered
how much of her unsteadiness was nerves and sheer terror, and how much was
the heaving deck. Oh don't say heaving! she admonished herself.
"The storm's been tracking us?" she asked Master Chief Cole as he
walked up to her, he looked even worse than she felt.
"You're awake - I mean, yes ma'am. The Group's been scattered, Brits
and the Spanish too. The Brit's battlewagon had the Frenchies in tow,
they lost their bows, damn tinclads, beg pardon, ma'am. In this weather
you need a stout ship."
"Would you say it's been trying to drive us back to where we were?"
she asked calmly, she was fishing, she hadn't the faintest idea how to
convince the Admiral of what was happening. All she had were the memories
of the scream of rage and pain that dropped her to her knees. She hadn't
been aware of anything in the real world, until she awoke with her current
`hangover`. The look of desperation on the Master Chief's face told her
everything she needed to know.
"You know how to get us out of here?" he asked worriedly, hopefully.
"Or get us sunk, I can only hope," Nabiki admitted. The Master Chief
took her towards the stairway to the bridge, it was much noisier than she
remembered.
"We lost most of the glass on the bridge."
"Lost?" she shouted her question over the growing noise.
"A wave hit us broadside," the Master Chief explained.
"That's 30 me - 100 feet easy!"
"Yes, Miss Tendo, we know that."
Nabiki decided making her case might not be as difficult as she
thought. Then she realized she didn't know exactly what her plan was.
She glanced up the stairwell and heard the storm raging along. She
realized that she had just that far to come up with what she wanted to do,
and what she would have to do to threaten, cajole or negotiate with the
Admiral, to get him to do what she decided they had to do.
Terrific, she thought, I'm going to give orders to an Admiral. It
might be fun if thousands of lives weren't at stake.
Her decision of what she wanted came as she walked into the teeth of
a gale racing through the bridge's shattered windows. Only a few officers
in rain gear stood watch here, looking about with binoculars, and using
the sound-powered phones. She was instantly soaked to the skin and
chilled to the bone. She saw none of the escorting vessels around them.
No other carriers, no battleships. The sea was so rough, she couldn't
have seen a cruiser or destroyer unless she could look straight down on
them. She spotted her quarry using the pedestal-mounted binoculars.
"Admiral Adams!" she thundered over the din, "We have to talk."
----------------------------------------
"You are out of your mind," Admiral Adams shouted at her in his day
cabin.
Admiral Simson would have let me finish before he said that, Nabiki
thought, she looked at the walls, enjoyed looking like she in control.
Ironically, she had the explanation, and the wedge to use on Adams.
"I thought the EVAs were to kill these things, if one of them's gone
crazy, we should hunt it down and kill it." The man continued to
fulminate, she let him go, let him use up his energy on useless anger.
Nabiki debated revealing that 'Brother Jonathan' had told her some
were enemies, some were threats, and some wanted to be left alone. She
doubted that she'd have any luck with those explanations, let alone
justifying how she knew. She took a different, far more effective tack.
"Admiral, do you know how much power a hurricane represents? About
100 megatons a minute, that means over a hundred of Hiroshima bombs a
second. This one is disordered because it's trying to herd us. Now, we
can oppose something that can control and generate that kind of power, or
we can give in. Someone told me military troops aren't suicide troops."
She paused to let that filter in. "Of course, they could just sink us and
loot the ship once we all drown, but they haven't. The Castor and Pollux
were sunk when some of their minions were able to slip aboard. Speed was
our defense and we don't have that now, do we? How deep does the
disturbance a hurricane makes go? Could something say, swim under us and
rip open the hull in a few dozen places, and let us sink?" Nabiki had to
remind herself that Admiral Adams wasn't a bad man, he just wasn't Admiral
Simson. The man was out of his depth. She'd hammered him from one
direction, now she'd hit him from another, and then give him an honorable
way out.
"Or worse, it lets us take this storm straight to Boston, then after
it devastates that city, it turns south and destroys New York,
Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. It was called up out of nothing and
directed, doing the same over land would be trivially easy. I don't see
an alternative, if you do, tell me."
She watched him struggle and fail to come up with another way out.
"All right," he said in a beaten tone, "We'll do it your way. I'll
set things in motion." He paused, stared at her. "I don't like it."
"Sir, _I_ don't like it, neither of us has to like it, but we do have
to do our duty. The vow is 'protect and defend', not kill your enemies."
She nodded to him and turned away. She figured Raccoon would either
instantly agree, or laugh himself sick when she told him.
If he wanted a particular outcome, she thought defensively, He should
have told me beforehand.
----------------------------------------
'neath the halo of a street lamp
"How are we going to convince Sempai to return the specimen?" Maya
asked as they proceeded towards the lab. She was hovering around him, he
still looked ill.
"With logic and reason," Jeff suggested, "If that doesn't work, I
tear off all your clothes and you make passionate love to her while I run
off with the specimen." He headed down the ladder to the next deck.
Maya stared in shock at him.
"Well, would it also work if I tore all my clothes off and -?"
"NO!" Maya insisted as she scrambled after him.
"Okay, then you do it."
She frowned at him. "There are times I want to strangle you and the
rest of the pilots," she told him. Especially when you all think my crush
on Sempai is `cute`, read to be exploited, she silently added. "I'm
certain it won't come to that!" she insisted.
"Is that hope or despair?" he asked with upraised eyebrows.
"Aren't you scheduled for a full physical and range-of-motion exam?"
Maya asked carefully, "Do you want to be?"
"Oh really, with high heels and everything?" he enthused at her,
sparkling eyes and hands clenched under his chin.
So much for intimidation, Maya thought darkly as they entered the lab.
Sempai was standing next to the specimen, staring down at it. The
banks of equipment ignored. A trick of the light made it look like her
face was glowing an unnatural color. The illusion vanished when she
turned. Maya drew back. Sempai's face was blank, her eyes searching for
something randomly, just like the specimen did. Maya didn't know why she
made that connection.
"Sempai, are you all right?" she asked as she started forwards again,
"Is there a problem?"
Ritsuko whirled and picked up a gas cylinder and hurled it at Jeff
and Maya.
"Sempai! Please stop!" Maya yelled as Jeff pulled her out of the way
of a second heavy gas cylinder.
"She can't," Jeff yelled at her, "She's being controlled."
"She'll hurt herself lifting all those heavy pieces!" Maya stared as
Sempai tore free a piece of equipment bolted to the floor.
"Hurt _herself_?_" Jeff asked, "We're on the receiving end!"
Maya couldn't explain it, somehow she couldn't imagine Sempai trying
to hurt them, scare her yes, but not hurt her. The heavy desk missed them.
"She's trying to miss us, not hit us!"
"Once that thing realizes that, it will direct her not to see us,
just see a target!" Jeff told her as they dodged to a more secure position
behind a heavy workbench.
Now Maya was frightened.
"I can stop her without injuring her, but I'll need a distraction, be
ready to dodge when she doesn't see _you_ anymore."
"You promise she won't be hurt?" Maya ducked as another piece of
hurled heavy equipment bounced off the lab table they were now hiding
behind.
"She'll be surprised and embarrassed, but that's it. I give you my
word."
Maya stood up and walked to Ritsuko, who had a liquid oxygen cylinder
over her head, "Please, Sempai, you know me." She saw the look of
confused recognition, it held for a few seconds, then it vanished, but it
was long enough.
Jeff stabbed his hand against Sempai's back. She paled, then became
transparent, like a statue of water. Then the water crashed onto the deck,
scattering as droplets splashed everywhere. Jeff caught the cylinder and
managed a controlled crash on the deck.
"You . . . " Maya's mind was dropping through horror to despair.
"_YOU_KILLED_HER_!_"
"She's just stunned," Jeff shouted back. The water was already
turning black and bubbles appeared, becoming like semifluid pumice.
"_STUNNED_!_" Maya shrieked as she advanced in fury and anguish.
Jeff stared right into Maya's eyes, there was something odd in his
expression, something inhuman behind those eyes. "Get a bucket and start
collecting her, all of her."
'Get a bucket and start collecting her, all of her. Get a bucket and
start collecting her, all of her.' Maya heard the voice echoing in her
head, saw the eyes boring into hers. The combination drove all other
thoughts, all other volitions out of her mind. Maya bent down and
collected the pieces of slimy, sticky black gel that pulsed and throbbed
in her hands as she dropped them into a bucket.
Maya felt the tears of sadness and rage streaming down her cheeks.
She couldn't give voice to her rage at the betrayal, He'd promised she
wouldn't be hurt. How could _anyone_ recover from being reduced to this?
she wanted to scream. She looked up as a half-dozen Marine guards forced
their way into the room. She wanted to tell them to arrest him, shoot him,
but the voice and those eyes bored into her mind, she could only do as the
voice said, to keep collecting . . . Sempai. Some tiny part of her mind
watched all this, wondering why Sempai had attacked them, why Sempai
hadn't screamed when she dissolved, she looked more surprised than
anything else. She wondered if Jeff _hadn't_ betrayed her and Sempai, if
he'd been rougher than necessary because he needed it done quickly.
Like shooting at Ranma, Maya remembered, as her hands moved and her
eyes searched without any input from her.
"What the Hell is going on here?" the Marine lieutenant demanded.
"Lieutenant, we need an open-topped drum, 55 gallons or so, a clean
one," Jeff told him, in the same alien monotone he'd used on Maya, "Do you
speak English? Or am I standing on your beard? Now move it, Marine!"
The Lieutenant saluted, turned and ran from the room.
"Help her police up these fragments, they look like tar or pumice,
every scrap!" he ordered the others, the sense of alienness coming from
him increased. In an all-too-human gesture that seemed to accent his
eldritch manner, he moved his hat forward. "I have to go threaten our
`guest`."
Maya watched as the bewildered Marines helped her collect the pieces.
"Maya-san?" one of them asked her, "What is this stuff?" He lacked
the vacant look she was sure her eyes showed.
"Dr. Akagi," Maya told them tearfully, just saying it overwhelmed the
voice and the image that had been dominating her for several minutes. She
broke down sobbing.
The sergeant paled and sent two additional men after the lieutenant,
echoing and amplifying Jeff's demand.
Free of the compulsion, Maya watched Jeff walk up to the specimen,
his mask of fury matched her own. He held his hand over what they had
taken out of the temple at the bottom of the sea. The area between his
hand and the specimen shimmered and fogged up, as if the air itself were
trying to escape from between them.
After a few moments, he relaxed and stepped back, falling to the deck
in exhaustion. "Where's that drum?" he asked woozily.
"It's on its way," the sergeant told him, trying to make sure they
had all the bits and pieces, "What happened?"
"I couldn't let Dr. Akagi kill us. When she escaped that - thing's -
influence, she'd never forgive herself." Jeff dropped to his hands and
knees, peering into corners and crevices, searching for any traces of the
pieces of Dr. Akagi.
The bucket was more than filled, but the pieces seemed content to
remain in the amphistylar pile they'd made of them. It disturbed Maya how
it pulsed and quivered, changing as she watched. It was clearly alive,
but it wouldn't combine and flow together, just separate bits all struck
together, sitting there like a pile of jellied stones.
Nabiki entered with Captain Casey and Major ggreg, they looked at the
ruins of the lab.
"What the Hell happened here!" the Captain demanded.
"Dr. Akagi fell under the influence of that thing," Jeff said tightly,
"We're waiting for a drum so we can put her into it," Jeff gestured at the
pile of glistening, pulsing pumice they had in the center of the room.
Nabiki turned to the Captain, "Sir?" Major ggreg turned, turning
green as he left.
The Captain paled, then turned green himself, he looked ready to
throw up. "Get that thing off my ship. I'll order the course change,
we'll be at the site in three hours." The Captain looked around. "Do
what you can for her!" He turned and rushed from the room, covering his
mouth with his hand.
A few moments later, with a great deal of noise, a team of Marines
and sailors brought in a tub that looked like they'd made it by cutting a
steel barrel in half, top to bottom, and welding it together top to top.
They laid a tarpaulin inside, then carefully poured and placed the semi-
liquid rocks into the long tub.
"What happened?" Nabiki whispered to Maya and Jeff, in Japanese, when
she got close.
"Not here," Jeff whispered back.
Maya was fretting as they all scoured the room to find every last
piece and bit of . . . Dr. Akagi, and set it into the tarp-lined steel tub.
She also kept glaring at Raccoon, then looking away in shame.
Nabiki dragged both of them over to a corner, "Look, I'll accept this
silence for now. There'll be a couple of hours during the descent, _then_
I expect full and complete disclosure, or I'll beat it out of both of you.
Is that understood?"
Maya was even more afraid of Nabiki's tone than she had been of
Sempai and Jeff.
They shooed the military out and sealed the door, then Maya gave full
vent to her emotional typhoon, with a fury to match the storm raging
outside. "What are you going to do now?!" She shoved Jeff into a corner.
"You said you wouldn't hurt her!" Maya felt herself on the verge of tears
and violence, and she was strongly considering both.
"I told you she's just stunned, she will recover," he said carefully.
"Then what are you going to do?" Maya shook him. "Recover, from
being disintegrated! From being reduced to a puddle! No human . . . no
human could survive that." She covered her mouth and backed away, the
obvious answer was too terrible to contemplate. "No, no, no, no! No!
NO! NO!"
"I'm not, _you_ are," Jeff told her sternly, "Or is all that 'sempai'
stuff only for schoolgirl daydreams. The EVA changes you, and she's been
working with them longer and closer than anyone."
Maya felt her anger override her horror. How dare he!? she thought
as she raised her fist, then she calmed. She still felt miserable. "What
can I do?"
"Provide a template, when the pieces relax enough to flow back
together, climb in. You'll provide a guide for her."
Maya's eyes felt as big as saucers, she shook her head. This is
impossible, she thought in horror.
"The liquid will be like oxygenated L.C.L., you'll be able to breathe
it."
Maya covered her face in shock at Jeff's suggestion. "I can't," she
whispered in dread.
"You have to," Jeff replied, "She needs an adult female, that means
you. It's best that it's someone she trusts, who trusts her."
"But . . . ," she paused, glanced at Nabiki who nodded to her. She
steeled herself. It's for Sempai, she reminded herself. "I have to,
don't I?"
"You could leave her like this," Jeff told her heartlessly, "Or trust
she'd figure it out from a teen-aged boy or girl." He changed to a more
sympathetic tone, "We'll be with you for the start, then we'll take the
thing back where it belongs. Then we'll be back."
Maya nodded warily. "It won't . . . hurt her?"
"She'll be fine," he continued in his sympathetic tone, he smiled at
her, "A little embarrassed, but fine. Just like I promised."
"Okay." She blushed. "Do I have to take my clothes off?"
"Only if you want to, but the liquid will penetrate everywhere."
She squirmed at that, and worse at the pilots' 'friendly and
sympathetic' smiles.
----------------------------------------
"Pilots report to the EVA," the 1-MC blared, "All hnads make
preparations to launch the EVA."
Maya had been 'in the tub' for over an hour. Nabiki and Jeff had
been holding her hands, now she patted their hands, urging them to go.
She'd felt very strange as the thick liquid had crawled all over her
and into her. She'd panicked slightly when it entered her lungs. She had
difficulty breathing, but she was still breathing. She could hear the
blood rushing in her ears, and the random pulse of the liquid . . . of
Sempai, around her. She was glad she couldn't see, the stuff was still
nasty to look at, bubbling evilly.
From inside, Maya thought, The bubbles tickle. She tried her best to
relax. She always dreamed of being alone with Sempai, being intimate with
her. She'd even accidentally drawn her into one of those dreams. But
this wasn't what she had envisioned, not when it was life and death for
either or both of them. She knew Sempai would never intentionally hurt
her, but the occasional increase in pressure, like a tentacle tightening
around her leg, her chest, it alarmed her. She hoped the pilots would be
back soon. She prayed Sempai would recover.
----------------------------------------
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
The massive EVA descended through the dark water, Nabiki was
`driving`, Raccoon would return that thing. She couldn't bring herself to
come in contact with the thing again. The storm had been raging as they
returned to the site, but the sea was smooth enough for normal operations.
Somebody wants this to happen, Nabiki thought worriedly.
She had let Raccoon rest in the plug as they descended. The dive
captain wasn't aboard, and Maya was otherwise occupied.
"What is a 'tinclad'?" she began, to lull the topside listeners into
complacency, Raccoon could lecture endlessly and encyclopedically about
seemingly _anything_._
"The French Duquesnse-class cruisers were designed to be the fastest
Washington Treaty cruisers, to do that, they had a maximum armor thickness
of 30 millimeters."
"Centimeters," Nabiki corrected.
"_Mill_imeters, 1.18 inches, maximum armor."
"That's thinner than the armor on a Sherman!" Nabiki exclaimed, she
didn't have to feign her disbelief.
"Thinner than the armor on a Stuart," Raccoon amplified, "Hence the
sobriquet 'tinclads'. I take it they didn't do well in the storm."
"The British had to tow them back to port," Nabiki explained. She
let the discussion of the relative values of the various solutions to the
Washington Naval Treaty continue, she was confused that the French also
produced the best, the Algeire, sunk at Toulon. Lose the best, keep the
worst. I thought only Ranma had luck that rotten, she thought. She
winced at the commentary on the Mogami-class, even cheating they were weak.
I wonder if Kuno's ancestors were handing warship design? she wondered,
she was now satisfied the surface monitoring crew would be bored out of
their minds.
"What happened?" Nabiki asked after she assured herself she'd cut all
the communications with the surface.
"A mapulo is used to control shoggoths. This creature has a similar
power. Maybe it is the source of the control mechanisms."
"Over humans?" she asked.
"No."
"Oh . . . " Nabiki thought furiously, felt her throat tighten up.
Ritsuko-as-mother, had been as tender as Kasumi had ever been, but more
stern with discipline. It made it seem that Ritsuko cared about them more,
of course Kasumi hadn't been preparing soldier/warriors. Does NERV know
the truth? Rather, does Gendo, does Misato? she wondered. She boggled at
the contradiction, the warm woman who let Nabiki cry for her loss and pain.
She isn't human? That can't be possible! If she isn't human . . . what
_is_ she? I can't believe she's a threat to us! Shoggoth, isn't that one
of the things that attacked Rei and me aboard the Coral Sea? her mind
whirred through the possibilities.
Nabiki finally decided to ask no more questions until they reached
the cave, and the sepulcher. There'd be more time for questions on the
return trip.
This time, finding it was no problem, creatures: shoggoths and things
out of deepest nightmare; hung like a pair of parallel walls forming a
perfectly square corridor straight to their destination. An honor guard,
was all Nabiki could think of, Leading us in. I should be terrified of
all these things. But I feel nothing, maybe I should be afraid of that.
She didn't relax her vigilance, she did note that they didn't close in
behind them. The path to the surface was left wide open, the honor guard
peeling off after the EVA passed them.
They arrived uneventfully at the sea floor. An immense crowd of
alien. . . things arrayed around them, more like a concert or sports crowd
than an attack group. "You okay with this?" she asked Raccoon through the
tether line as he swam out.
"Yes, just be ready to get out of here _FAST_!_" He sounded far too
calm for her piece of mind.
"Should I leave you behind?" she joked.
"If it's you and the EVA or me, get out of here. Suffocation is
preferable to whatever they might have in mind. Maybe we have amnesty, if
we act in good faith."
Nabiki lost sight of him as he entered the cave, "Be careful, two
big. . . tentacled somethings - followed you in."
"I see them. They're avoiding the tether. I don't think they want
me getting lost," he still sounded a little too calm for events. She'd be
screaming, she wondered what was wrong with him. She barely kept herself
from striking out at the creatures surrounding her and her EVA. She
thought it ironic that once more she was in the EVA, and once more she was
not in _combat_ in the EVA.
Nabiki heard something through the line, but couldn't decipher it,
"Raccoon!"
"It's okay. They wanted the specimen. I insisted I had to put it
back myself," the voice on the other end of the line was icy cold,
composed, somehow less human than the things around her.
The problem as far as Nabiki was concerned, was they were thousands
of meters deep in the ocean, all alone. There was literally no help
available. Nabiki looked around nervously. She couldn't see far through
the darkness, but she could sense the motion around her and Unit 04 well
beyond her visual range. Something moving out there was _huge_, she
couldn't see it clearly, but it was at least five times the size of the
EVA. She was getting nervous, and there wasn't just one of them amid the
restive crowd of other indescribably things around her.
She heard the plug's outer hatch open and the system cycled, "Lucy
I'm home, I'm alone, get us out of here!" Raccoon told her, they'd agreed
the first phrase was the 'okay' signal.
Nabiki accelerated the EVA towards the surface, as the inner hatch
opened. She could feel the cold radiating off Raccoon, she remembered how
cold she'd gotten during her brief dive that started this entire fiasco.
"You're freezing!" she told him, she already had a counter to
whatever argument he raised.
"I'm fine," he said, disdaining her concern, "I - YAWP!"
She didn't have to tolerate that, she dragged him to the command
chair by the tether line and its attached facemask. She pulled him into
her lap and wrapped her arms around him. He was shivering from the cold,
she was shivering from the sight of the things of the `honor guard`
forming a wall behind them. Whether they were guarding them or waiting
for a moment to pounce, was immaterial. Nabiki was terrified. She'd been
in an EVA three times now, in each case she'd done little more than drive
it to its destination. She didn't know how she'd perform in combat.
Failure now would only kill the two of them, instead of the entire crew of
the carrier, some 2500 people.
She hated failure, No, I _fear_ it, she admitted to herself, the cold
of that realization matching the cold from the form held in her lap,
That's always been my real problem. Now I've lost nearly everything: home,
friends, Hiroko, Ranma; without anyone really making a mistake. What can
making a mistake do to me that hasn't already been done. She shivered
violently with those thoughts, barely keeping the sobs that came with them
in check. Raccoon wouldn't say anything about her breakdown. That he
hugged her back was okay too.
----------------------------------------
The force behind them dropped away as they entered the lighted waters.
Unit 04 broke the surface of a glassy sea, into a cloudless sky.
"What the . . . " Nabiki looked around. The very calm of it, after
days of relentless, pounding storm, was more terrifying than the hurricane
had been. The other ships of the escort group bobbing there, more like
toys in a bathtub than warships in the ocean. Nabiki could clearly see
the storm damage to the carrier, it was heavy and extensive. Most
striking was the collapse of the forward and rear of the flight deck.
When she'd gone over the side, she'd thought the damage aft had been a
trick of the light.
"Stand by to reboard," she told Raccoon, as he woke, still curled up
in her lap. She suspected she'd resurfaced too quickly, but neither the
EVA nor the pilots were having any problems.
Unit 04 leapt out of the water and landed on the deck, adding to the
damage. It wasn't as graceful as Ranma or Raccoon could manage, but she
didn't break through the battered flight deck.
"Let's get back to Doctor Akagi. Maya is probably panicking a little
at this point," Nabiki told Raccoon as she lifted him out of her lap.
Then she crawled Unit 04 through the deck lift to its maintenance spot at
the center of the hanger. The groan of the metal should have worried her,
but at this point, she no longer cared.
----------------------------------------
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
Going from sound sleep to full wakefulness is never easy, doing so in
midflight is difficult. Doing so before you crash to the deck is probably
a necessity.
Jeff wondered why his mind took such strange turns when he was in
danger of imminent injury. He managed to get his feet under him as he
managed a controlled crash. Ranko and Ranma would have landed on their
feet, he thought as he tried to attach the present with his last memories,
of lying on a cot with Maya's hand in his, Nabiki holding the young
woman's other hand as Maya lay submerged in the tub of still-fluid Dr.
Akagi.
Jeff hadn't managed to complete his analysis before an interruption
by the scream of rage and betrayal, being hoisted into the air and thrown
at a bulkhead by a very angry, naked Rit-chan. It returned his attention
to the here and now, and surviving the next few minutes.
Ritsuko looked furious as she charged after her projectile. Behind
her, Maya and Nabiki were just awakening. He doubted he could reason with
Rit-chan, so he manifested an AT field. It won't stop her, he realized as
he scrambled to his feet, But it might give her pause.
She tripped on the sharply-sloped field, grabbing its unseen edge for
support. Jeff was glad then frightened as he saw the transformation of
her expression from rage to something else. It told him his `little wall
trick` had had an unexpected side effect, and he shouldn't repeat it. A
moment later, the rage returned. She tore the field apart with her bare
hands, then continued her charge. Jeff felt incredible pain as the field
came apart. He ignored the cries from Maya and Nabiki, as Ritsuko was
also doing. He tried to retreat, but the smallness of the lab and the
pain of his field's destruction offered little refuge, and he'd have to
get past her to get to the door. However angry she was, Ritsuko moved as
if she knew that too.
She covered the last yards with a wild spring. He wound up flat on
his back on the floor, staring up at her. He glanced down, considering
the absurd thought, Blonde with short brown roots is her natural hair
color. She drove her fist into the deck next to his head. Rather than
panic, he automatically relaxed, he `knew` that he couldn't fight her,
even if she had been a human. Knowing that he was probably going to die,
gave him the steadiness he needed, his death he'd recover from. He
couldn't bring himself to do the things that he'd need to do to win a
conventional fight. He had other tools that wouldn't harm her. Either
they would calm her down, or she'd vent all her rage on him, the others
would be safe. He was also beginning to realize he'd hurt her quite a bit
already.
He closed his fingers around her wrist, caressing it. If he couldn't
fight, then he'd use another method. He reached up past her heaving
breasts, he knew what staring or touching there would induce right now,
maybe safer later. Instead he touched her jawline, running a finger along
it. Ignoring her other, upraised fist. He knew he couldn't stop the
descent once it started, all he could do was prevent the plunge. His
finger continued down her throat, her initial amazement at his
irrationality was giving way to enjoyment of the touch and confusion about
her own reaction. His finger circled the hollow of her throat, and her
back and neck began to arch in response.
Suddenly she grabbed his collar and slid him away across the floor.
She shivered at her own reaction. "What have you done?!" she demanded,
"Are you insane?! How _could_ you? I trusted you!" She stood and
brushed Maya aside. "What did you do to me?!"
It suddenly dawned on him that she wasn't talking about
disintegrating and reintegrating her. "How much do you . . . ?" he asked
as his horror grew.
"Remember? Everything," she said miserably. Maya took advantage of
Ritsuko kneeling and hugging herself, to drape a lab coat over her
shoulders and give Jeff a venomous look. Ritsuko looked back into the two
women's eyes.
"I . . . I . . . " The enormity of what he'd done plunged down on
him. He hadn't meant to, this was a disaster.
"I _know_!_" she shouted, "Don't you think I know? You _knew_ I'd
never forgive myself if I hurt you or Maya. You knew that you couldn't
bring yourself to use that black crystal, or the other spells." She
sighed, drew in on herself. "You didn't expect your AT field to have that
effect on a nonhuman." She sobbed as she knelt on the deck. "But it did,
as bad as Asuka, worse than her because it was more . . . intimate." She
looked up in him, looked totally lost.
Jeff was torn between rushing forward to comfort her or running from
the room.
"Please stay," she said, smiled mirthlessly, "See. I know, I also
know you know." She laughed desperately. Nabiki carefully knelt behind
her and put her arms around her shoulders. Ritsuko put her head on
Nabiki's arms and wept uncontrollably. Maya stared at the others without
understanding.
"Asuka and I discovered a side effect of the AT field. She climbed
up on top of mine and rolled up her sleeves and exposed her legs to
increase the surface area in contact . . . because the contact was so
enjoyable. But since Rei and Ranma have encountered the AT field Rei can
generate, she didn't have the effect on him . . .."
"You mean Ranma encountered the field Rei can generate, and it didn't
have the effect yours did on Asuka," Nabiki said brittlely.
Jeff gulped, nodded, wondered if he was going to get out of here
alive. "We also encounter the AT fields of our enemies all the time, so I
thought . . . that it was safe to use a diffuse AT field to disrupt Dr.
Akagi and free her from Cthylla's hold on her," he told them leadenly.
"You were wrong," Ritsuko reminded him, "I got the full affect, maybe
worse than Asuka's."
"I'm sorry."
"So am I," Ritsuko said, "I'm also sorry I didn't realize." She
raised her head, stared at him. "You really did love her . . . me."
"Yes." He stared at the deck and wished he could drop through it.
"And you are wondering if you subconsciously did this on purpose, to
regain who you lost."
"Exactly," he admitted, her automatic certainty unnerved him.
"Well, put it out of your mind," she ordered as she stood, "You
didn't, I know. If you'd seriously considered it, you would not have done
it." She buttoned the coat.
"I'll get breakfast for everyone," Jeff told them and left quickly.
He needed to escape, he had never considered he _could_ screw things up
that badly.
----------------------------------------
"Coward," Nabiki said, staring angrily at the door.
"No." Ritsuko knew what was driving him. It was terrifying for
someone as private as he was, and as private as she was, suddenly
realizing everything you felt, thought, knew and hoped was completely
known by another person, even one you trusted and cared for. It was that
emotional nakedness that had made her so angry when she awoke. She didn't
want anyone to know her that way, even more, she didn't want the
responsibility of knowing about someone else. Previously, he had
scrupulously not taken advantage of what he knew, because he dreaded
someone might do the same to him. Now it wasn't a remote possibility, but
a definite probability. He'd used a tiny portion of it to shock her
enough not to kill him, to gain time for her to come back to herself.
She'd gloried in that touch. If we'd been alone . . . perhaps - she
abandoned that thought. Ritsuko looked into Nabiki's and Maya's eyes, she
still saw only concern for her, not the revulsion she expected.
"So you saw," Ritsuko said bitterly.
"Only what he did to you." Maya stared daggers after Jeff, then
hugged Ritsuko. "I'm so glad you're all right."
Ritsuko reluctantly returned her affection, then pulled her away.
"Maya, what you saw . . . he didn't 'do' anything to me, except render me
unconscious and revealed to all of you - my true form."
Maya, wide-eyed, shook her head. "That can't be."
To Ritsuko's chagrin, Nabiki replaced Maya hugging her. Pulling
_her_ loose required more effort.
"Don't you understand? That thing, that was the real one, the real
me. That's what I am."
"What you don't understand, Doctor," Nabiki said, craftily resisting
being pried loose, "Jeff already told me. I don't care. Let me tell you
what - who Doc - Rit-chan is." She smiled at Ritsuko. "Rit-chan is an
overworked, lonely woman who without time or training, took in three
near-orphans and tried to make a home for them," Nabiki told her, "Someone
who was worried about grades, and if we were eating and sleeping properly.
About whether we were pushing ourselves too hard. Someone who cared about,
Nabiki . . . and Ranma, and even Raccoon and Shinji. Not because she had
to, but because she wanted to."
Ritsuko sadly realized that they really didn't understand what the
real problem was. "Miss Tendo, what did he tell you that convinced you to
give up your blackmail attempts? On everyone?"
"That he'd slit my throat." Nabiki covered her neck with both hands
and looked unhappy. She hadn't realized how `Rit-chan` knew all about her
'Ice Queen' activities.
" 'Slit your pretty throat,'" Ritsuko reminded her, enjoying her
shocked reaction. "How would _you_ deal with someone suddenly knowing all
'Mercenary Girl's' secrets? You'd run away too."
Nabiki gulped, nodded almost against her will.
"And the plans you had for Maya and me?"
Maya gasped, but didn't run, then glared at Nabiki. Nabiki looked
like she wanted to run after Raccoon, or disappear into the steel around
them. Ritsuko didn't continue to press, she had no desire to be alone.
She put on the clean clothes someone had provided for her. She wondered
what she was going to do. She wanted to run and comfort Jeff, she wanted
to check on Ranma and Ranko, `the twins`. She knew that `Ritsuko-Nabiki`
doted on the eldest, Kyoko, who looked and acted like Nabiki, the next
eldest, Sakai and Kairi, Jeff doted on.
That explains how 'Raccoon' can resist Ranko, she is his `daughter`,
she thought. She shook her head, it wasn't fair, it was completely unfair.
She had wanted someone, had for so long, now she had them complete for the
asking, and she couldn't ask. She couldn't come up with a logical,
rational reason, she just knew it was wrong.
The memories of Samuel's death hit her. She suddenly broke down
sobbing, it _hurt_, just remembering. She couldn't imagine surviving the
pain of the actual occurrence. Her loneliness was a drawn out ache, this
was a railroad tie shoved in and twisted. These weren't her memories, but
reminding herself of that did nothing to alleviate the ache the memories
brought with them.
It seemed several minutes later when she recovered. Nabiki had
draped herself across `Rit-chan's` back like a cloak, hugging her, like
Kyoko always did with mommy. When she needed it or she thought mommy did.
That is going to take even more sorting out! Ritsuko thought bitterly.
Maya, shier than the pilots, was holding Ritsuko's hands in hers and
staring worriedly at her Sempai. The image of a selfish, deeply
frightened, hair-triggered girl who could barely cook or sew,
Ritsuko-Nabiki's younger sister, the one Ritsuko-Nabiki and
Jeff-Ranma/Ranko kept having to bail out of scrapes. Ritsuko wondered how
accurate the portrayal really was.
"Are you all right?" Maya asked, clearly Maya, not Maya-Akane.
"No, I'm getting ambushed by some of the worst and best memories.
Including memories of living in Nerima, courting and marrying a girl named
Tendo Nabiki, and raising a family together." Ritsuko wondered what Ranma
would do when he learned all the things that `Raccoon` did as Ranma, both
the incredibly violent and astonishingly tender and loving. Ranko would
be astonished, then laugh herself sick about the last, Ritsuko thought,
then remembered Ranma and Ranko were the . . . Were not the same _person_,
but transformed back and forth. "You, rotten -!" She clamped her mouth
shut, it was one of the few mind games Ranma had to use on Nabiki and the
others, she wasn't going to spoil it for him/her. "It's a lot to absorb."
Yes, three entire lifetimes, awake, which wasn't exactly uneventful;
the Dreamlands, where I - he was a mage and a general, paperwork, yuk; and
the dreams of Nerima, I can't believe those people could ever survive to
reach puberty, especially the adults, she let the thought drift away as
she shook her head.
"Pilots have had a more eventful life than I have had," she told them,
"And that's saying something. Your sisters Kasumi and Akane, your father
Soun. He knows, the dreams where he married Ritsuko-Nabiki were very
similar to the dreams you just had." She felt a pang of jealousy at the
time `Nab-chan`, Ranma/Ranko and Raccoon had shared. That she knew all
about it, all Jeff felt about events, the people, especially his roommates
... . . bedmates. I'm jealous that a `little girl` spent time with `my
husband`, she laughed inwardly at that, It's not as if any of them did
anything. She wanted to tease Nabiki about that, then she remembered
_why_ they had spent every night clustered together. She remembered
Ranko's worries and the almost daily discussions with Raccoon. She
remembered her job.
"Nabiki, please report to the infirmary, we need to run some tests,
then to the EVA, we'll run a sync test," Ritsuko told her.
That's as close to a test of your 'ki' as I can manage, she thought
as Nabiki stood.
"You're back to normal," Nabiki said sourly.
----------------------------------------
That split the night and touched the sound of silence.
Weeks ago, they'd detected something odd in the region. The reports
that had caused the incursions were hard to believe. A 40-meter tall
manlike thing walking around? Anna thought, It could only be an EVA or an
Angel. And since it had been reported several times during the height of
winter, they had to wait until they had better weather to send a team in.
She'd volunteered, it was that or be volunteered. Besides, I am
Chief of Scouts, I'd like to think I still have some of my Dreamlands
skills and inclinations in the Waking World. She'd gone in, if the
American Alpine troops had been caught, they were just chasing a runaway
and she was just having fun leading her minders on a merry chase. Then we
found the footprint, she thought, With the ridges exactly like the upgrade
that had been planned for Unit 02. But by the time we were captured, it
had been superseded by an American innovation. Secret weapon by Goodyear.
So there are only a few people who should have known that design: me,
Asuka, and Dr. Schikelgrubber. I've been held by the Americans, Asuka by
the British then NERV, the Doctor is dead. So how did they get it? The
second, larger, incursion had been laid on in a hurry.
Anna looked over the troops assembled. She wasn't certain changing
the force level from 'lost patrol' to 'training accident' was such a swift
idea. 'Neither Dick nor Richard', she remembered, too many and too few,
something to be avoided. The weather had closed in so rapidly, so
conveniently, they couldn't retreat if the Swiss defense forces came upon
them.
So here I am in the Swiss Alps, with French- and German-speaking
American Alpine troops, she thought, And we haven't found anything. Even
a patrol sent specifically to where the footprint was. Either the six of
use were hallucinating, or somebody cleaned up the evidence. Either way
she wasn't happy, for a whole host of reasons.
"I don't like it," Major Mason, her minder, said quietly.
"We should get out of here," Anna agreed, "Hang the orders and the
weather."
"Orders are not to get caught," Mason said, laughed mirthlessly, "If
I hadn't seen it with my own eyes . . . I doubt we'll find anything."
"Better question," Anna said, "What do we do if we _do_ find
something, or something finds us?"
The man had no answer, Anna headed out from the shelter of the trees
and into the storm. Her `guard` stayed close. She walked to a rock
scoured clear of snow by the bitter winds. She stood on the only high
ground and looked over the camp. It was the best that could be done.
There were too many to effectively hide, and too few to fight something
serious.
She felt something under her feet. She knelt down and removed her
glove, touching the freezing stone with her bare hand. The vibration was
faint, and only seemed random because it was several rhythms out of phase
with each other.
"Something's coming," she told Mason, "Several somethings." She
motioned him onto the rock.
"Several big somethings," Mason agreed as he stood where she had and
felt the vibrations, "Let's go." They rushed back to the CP.
----------------------------------------
The troops threw themselves into the slit trenches, others assembled
the mortars they'd brought with. Anna noted the line throwers were also
being deployed. Basically mortars that fired a grappling hook and heavy
rope.
To trip something, she thought as she stood by. If the weather had
permitted, they would have shipped her out, possibility even calling in a
light plane. It was impossible now. She wouldn't have wanted to run away
anyway. She scanned the falling snow, saw no evidence of anything. Her
discovery had brought the scouts a few minutes warning.
"Unit seven," a voice in French crackled on the radio, another
disguise, "We've spotted something on the east."
So much for sounding French, she thought of the bad grammar and wrong
attitude. She couldn't see anything. Her guard mutely handed her his
binoculars, his face slack. She didn't try to read his expression, just
adjusted the binoculars before looking at what he had seen. She felt her
own face go slack. Not an Angel, but three EVAs in winter camouflage,
barely visible until they moved, advancing in a standard overwatch pattern.
One leapfrogging ahead, then the next, etc.
"I thought EVAs were scarce," she whispered, barely audible above the
wind, she handed back the binoculars.
"So did I," Mason told her as he took them.
She considered, "If I can capture one, can I go to Japan?"
"If you catch all three," Mason said, "I can arrange for immediate
transport for all four of you."
Okay big mouth, how do I take down three EVAs? she thought furiously,
not just to rejoin Asuka, but to stay alive. She stared, and saw the
standard infantry in winter camouflage deployed with the EVAs. The
Americans began firing on the incoming troops. The battle was destined to
be one-sided. None of the EVAs had a tether, but none were manifesting an
AT field. Probably that would attract too much attention. But the light
weapons we're carrying will have little effect on the EVAs' armor, she
thought. And all of them were moving very poorly, as if the pilots could
barely control them. Ikari did better on his first run, she thought, then
smiled at the implication, they had a chance if all these things were . . .
were just big, walking scarecrows.
Several American teams had worked themselves into a position to fire
the line throwers. The propelled grapnels caught one EVA, tangling its
arms and legs. One line so entangled it, it went down on one knee. But
those gunners came under heavy fire from the supporting infantry.
"Come on." Anna had an idea. The base would be overrun, but she
could get some valuable intelligence.
----------------------------------------
The spider hole was a bit cramped. The line thrower was going to
serve another purpose. The hand grenades would be very useful. She would
have preferred a knife, but Anna Alice wasn't who she was in the
Dreamlands. She had to compromise.
The infantry had passed. The tramp of an EVA's footsteps approached.
She waited in silence. She hoped it wouldn't step down too close, that
would crush or bury her. Her luck held, the machine passed, she popped up
and fired. The knotted line following behind the grapnel which landed and
seemed well set. She didn't think about it as she scrambled up the rope,
looking at any details about the machine to report later. She also
concentrated on the exercises Asuka had helped teach her about syncing
with an EVA, if she had sufficient surprise on her side, she might beat
both of her other enemies. Only the welded handholds on the arms appeared
nonstandard, which was how they carried the troops. The carapace over the
entry plug was also slightly different. She had only a little space to
reach the hatch covering a nonstandard entry plug. The end hatch didn't
use the turn wheel but a simpler, quicker undogging mechanism. She
decided to recommend keeping the turn wheel and inner hatch, it would
prevent what she was doing as she undogged the hatch, dropped two hand
grenades into the L.C.L. and quickly resealed the hatch. The blast
pounded on the hatch. She undogged the hatch again and climbed inside as
the EVA stumbled and fell. Inside the plug was the safest place to be.
She removed the A10 nerve clip from the corpse in the command chair.
She was able to see the other EVA coming towards her as the third freed
itself.
Probably thinks it's coming to help a comrade, she thought, she could
barely make the Unit move, but she was gaining more control every moment,
Too bad. She slammed the edge of the Unit's hand into the approaching
EVA's throat as it leaned down. It staggered back. She knew that what
the EVAs felt, the pilots felt, so the other pilots should be out the
fight for a while. She turned towards the third.
Suddenly she was thrown against the control column as all the feeds
went dead.
"Ejection by remote, clever," she grunted as the g-forces crushed
down on her. They'd never gotten the remote ejection to work properly.
She knew enough to wait until the rockets cut out before trying to sit
back, she hoped she landed in Allied rather than SEELE territory, she also
hoped that disabling one EVA and driving off another bought the Americans
time to escape.
Sturm und Drang signifying . . . nothing
Disclaimer:
I do not own any of the characters from Ranma 1 / 2, Neon Genesis
Evangelion, Ah My Goddess, or the Lovecraft Cycle involved in these
stories.
C&C, MSTs are welcome
E-mail: dan_s.comments@worldnet.att.net
Stories are available in Rich Text Format and HTML at:
<http://home.att.net/~danjess.gibson>http://home.att.net/~danjess.gibson
(these are the most updated versions)
Stories are available in Plain ASCII at:
<http://archives.eyrie.org/anime/Ranma/Sic-Semper-Morituri/>http://archives.eyrie.org/anime/Ranma/Sic-Semper-Morituri/
ftp://ftp.cs.ubc.ca/pub/archive/anime-fan-works/Ranma/Sic-Semper-Morituri/
<http://www.cs.ubc.ca/cgi-bin/ftp/archive/anime-fan-works/Ranma/type/Sic-Sem>http://www.cs.ubc.ca/cgi-bin/ftp/archive/anime-fan-works/Ranma/type/Sic-Semper-Morituri
(these are the original versions)
What has gone before:
About Book 11 of the Tankoubon Manga, Akane and Soun Tendo throw
Ranma out of the house. Nabiki, in the guise of a wish, follows him.
They meet EVA pilots Shinji Ikari, Rei Ayanami, Asuka Soryu Langley and
Jeffrey Davis.
At the welcome home party for Nabiki and Rei, the Azores mission is
revealed. Three shoggoths, once fragments of Ritsuko, fight and are
defeated by combining Ritsuko, Ranma and Jeff, there are some side-effects
as the trio's personalities temporarily bleed into each other. Among
them:
Jeff, under the influence of Ranma, confronts Belldandy sending her, then
her sisters, into a tizzy, Keiichi managed to defuse it. Ranko, under the
influence of the others, gives Jeff the passionate kiss from the bet he
lost to Asuka at the carnival. Then Asuka and Jeff tickle Nabiki
remorselessly.
To help Misato and Hiro's relationship, Asuka, Rei and Shinji throw
together a Sunday in the park picnic. Asuka begins teaching Ranma both
sword fighting, and how to teach. Only he believes his first class with
the others was an unmitigated disaster.
Asuka contracts Keiichi and his sister to construct several bicycles
for the pilots. She shoots a bug and has her second clash with Skuld.
All four senators from Wyoming and Massachusetts begin investigating
the Boston incident and Misato's part in it. Aboard the Bennington, Jeff
meets with one of his patrons and receives an update on Sharon. Nabiki is
coming to realize the differences in the way the military treats her and
the other pilots.
Major ggreg and Adam Smith arrive, to cover their `spying` on NERV,
they will teach Nabiki and Jeff about explosives. Ritsuko investigates
the unusual way Jeff syncs with the EVA, she is terrified by the contact.
Later she realizes the spirits power the EVAs. Nabiki and Maya train to
operate firearms. Nabiki adds hand-to-hand training with the rifle.
Jeff and the Scholarly Dragon teach Nabiki about control of her
dreams, the Scholarly Dragon prevents a dream attack by Usagi and company.
The pilots and guards reminisce about the events of the previous
weeks with Belldandy, Sora and Megumi while taking a cooking lesson. The
day ends with a bug attack on Keiichi's home being destroyed by the pilots
and their guards.
Usagi and company summon a strike force of Dark Young, dholes,
shantaks and Hunting Horrors. The Twins watches the summoning and draws
its own plans against the EVAs, pilots and NERV. For a short time the
EVAs and the pilots are caught off stride. Once they regained the upper
hand they never released it. The pilots go over Misato's head to
participate in rescue operations.
Nabiki continues to train in controlling dreams, concentrating on
infiltration. Bad dreams continue to plague her. The Azores Mission
heads through the Panama Canal, and the principals are treated to the
effect of their celebrity. Nabiki and Maya don't like it.
The Russians go over a newsreel of the Azores team, and discuss their
growing maintenance problems.
The Azores group discover a second entry plug port in Unit 04 and
begin select Maya and Captain Madison of SAR to accompany the pilots to
the bottom.
The recovery itself goes off without serious problems, Nabiki carries
the Great Old One back to the EVA. She is revolted and horrified by the
experience.
Something is killing the leaders of the project.
What she has taken looks like a fried egg, Nabiki is ashamed of her
weakness and terror in the face of a Great Old One.
The creature awakens and the battlegroup is surrounded by clouds and
all the pilots are plunged into a dream, Rei awakens, but the others do
not. Shinji dreams of a city deep in the ocean, and then to the city he
designed in the dream challenge. Rei is with him and they lead the human
race of planet and to the stars. Then Shinji heads off to battle an enemy
on the Moon.
Ranma, Jeff and Nabiki find themselves in a faceless Nerima duplicate.
They join the group who repairs Nerima from the marital arts battles.
Asuka finds herself walking through the spectrum, eventually falling
to hunger and dehydration.
Rei and Erin temporarily move in with Sammi.
Hello darkness, my old friend, I've come to talk with you again,
Because a vision softly creeping, left its seeds while I was sleeping,
And the vision that was planted in my brain, still remains
Within the sound of silence.
The Sound of Silence - Paul Simon
In restless dreams I walked alone narrow streets of cobblestone,
July 27, 1947
"That was fun," Nabiki commented as the light ran red-hot pokers
through her eyelids and out through the back of her skull. She sat up,
opened her eyes and immediately collapsed again. "Please tell me I died."
"Sorry," Maya said, "You're still alive, still aboard the boat, and
we're still heading for Boston. I think."
" 'I' - I'm going to speak softly, it hurts less, 'I think.'?"
"Yes, none of the navigation gear is - "
The crash, that shook the entire ship, woke Raccoon, he sat up. "Oh,
that hurt." And collapsed back down immediately.
"Not - so - loud," Nabiki admonished, very quietly.
Raccoon slipped out of bed, managed to remain upright for five full
seconds, before sliding bonelessly to the floor.
"You never change," Nabiki told him as he pulled himself up and back
into bed.
"I think we're in a lot of trouble. It takes a lot of force to shake
a ship this size," he told her as he pulled the covers back over his body.
"We've been in trouble for days," Maya told them, then retreated from
the pilots' gaze. She must have realized the only way out was to tell
them everything, "We've been caught in a hurricane, since both of you
collapsed."
"Oh God!" Jeff pulled the covers over his head.
"I'm sure everything will be all right," Maya assured them.
"Don't stay that." Nabiki struggled to sit up, managed to stay there
on her third try. "Anger, fear resentment?" she asked Raccoon, who pulled
the covers down long enough to nod his agreement, then covered himself
again.
"Evidently family is one thing that holds, or at least a possible
link to immortality," he said from under the blanket, "Can you turn down
the lights? They're so loud."
"What are you talking about?" Maya asked, then more quietly when both
pilots winced, "I don't understand." She stood to turn off some of the
infirmary's lights.
"Daddy is not happy, but he doesn't want his baby girl harmed,"
Raccoon said.
"I'll talk to the Navy," Nabiki said as she stood. Just remaining
upright took considerable force of will. "You argue with _Doctor_ Akagi.
She won't be willing to give up her specimen."
"I'll do it." Raccoon stood. He was a nauseating shade of green.
Nabiki looked away quickly.
"What are you talking about?" Maya demanded, easily restraining both
pilots.
"Our specimen is Cthylla," Nabiki said, "Cthulhu's blood kin." She
smiled at Maya. "Daddy wants his little Princess back, and right the Hell
now couldn't be too soon."
Maya blanched and released both pilots. "You'd better change clothes
though."
Nabiki glanced at her hospital gown and was glad these didn't leave
you wide open at the back.
----------------------------------------
Nabiki looked across the hanger deck, the front portion had collapsed.
Maybe that was the crash we heard, she ignored the damage control parties
running here and there. The EVA was in the middle of the hanger, where
Raccoon had left it. So they could still use it.
The pitching and heaving of the ship made her queasy, she wondered
how much of her unsteadiness was nerves and sheer terror, and how much was
the heaving deck. Oh don't say heaving! she admonished herself.
"The storm's been tracking us?" she asked Master Chief Cole as he
walked up to her, he looked even worse than she felt.
"You're awake - I mean, yes ma'am. The Group's been scattered, Brits
and the Spanish too. The Brit's battlewagon had the Frenchies in tow,
they lost their bows, damn tinclads, beg pardon, ma'am. In this weather
you need a stout ship."
"Would you say it's been trying to drive us back to where we were?"
she asked calmly, she was fishing, she hadn't the faintest idea how to
convince the Admiral of what was happening. All she had were the memories
of the scream of rage and pain that dropped her to her knees. She hadn't
been aware of anything in the real world, until she awoke with her current
`hangover`. The look of desperation on the Master Chief's face told her
everything she needed to know.
"You know how to get us out of here?" he asked worriedly, hopefully.
"Or get us sunk, I can only hope," Nabiki admitted. The Master Chief
took her towards the stairway to the bridge, it was much noisier than she
remembered.
"We lost most of the glass on the bridge."
"Lost?" she shouted her question over the growing noise.
"A wave hit us broadside," the Master Chief explained.
"That's 30 me - 100 feet easy!"
"Yes, Miss Tendo, we know that."
Nabiki decided making her case might not be as difficult as she
thought. Then she realized she didn't know exactly what her plan was.
She glanced up the stairwell and heard the storm raging along. She
realized that she had just that far to come up with what she wanted to do,
and what she would have to do to threaten, cajole or negotiate with the
Admiral, to get him to do what she decided they had to do.
Terrific, she thought, I'm going to give orders to an Admiral. It
might be fun if thousands of lives weren't at stake.
Her decision of what she wanted came as she walked into the teeth of
a gale racing through the bridge's shattered windows. Only a few officers
in rain gear stood watch here, looking about with binoculars, and using
the sound-powered phones. She was instantly soaked to the skin and
chilled to the bone. She saw none of the escorting vessels around them.
No other carriers, no battleships. The sea was so rough, she couldn't
have seen a cruiser or destroyer unless she could look straight down on
them. She spotted her quarry using the pedestal-mounted binoculars.
"Admiral Adams!" she thundered over the din, "We have to talk."
----------------------------------------
"You are out of your mind," Admiral Adams shouted at her in his day
cabin.
Admiral Simson would have let me finish before he said that, Nabiki
thought, she looked at the walls, enjoyed looking like she in control.
Ironically, she had the explanation, and the wedge to use on Adams.
"I thought the EVAs were to kill these things, if one of them's gone
crazy, we should hunt it down and kill it." The man continued to
fulminate, she let him go, let him use up his energy on useless anger.
Nabiki debated revealing that 'Brother Jonathan' had told her some
were enemies, some were threats, and some wanted to be left alone. She
doubted that she'd have any luck with those explanations, let alone
justifying how she knew. She took a different, far more effective tack.
"Admiral, do you know how much power a hurricane represents? About
100 megatons a minute, that means over a hundred of Hiroshima bombs a
second. This one is disordered because it's trying to herd us. Now, we
can oppose something that can control and generate that kind of power, or
we can give in. Someone told me military troops aren't suicide troops."
She paused to let that filter in. "Of course, they could just sink us and
loot the ship once we all drown, but they haven't. The Castor and Pollux
were sunk when some of their minions were able to slip aboard. Speed was
our defense and we don't have that now, do we? How deep does the
disturbance a hurricane makes go? Could something say, swim under us and
rip open the hull in a few dozen places, and let us sink?" Nabiki had to
remind herself that Admiral Adams wasn't a bad man, he just wasn't Admiral
Simson. The man was out of his depth. She'd hammered him from one
direction, now she'd hit him from another, and then give him an honorable
way out.
"Or worse, it lets us take this storm straight to Boston, then after
it devastates that city, it turns south and destroys New York,
Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. It was called up out of nothing and
directed, doing the same over land would be trivially easy. I don't see
an alternative, if you do, tell me."
She watched him struggle and fail to come up with another way out.
"All right," he said in a beaten tone, "We'll do it your way. I'll
set things in motion." He paused, stared at her. "I don't like it."
"Sir, _I_ don't like it, neither of us has to like it, but we do have
to do our duty. The vow is 'protect and defend', not kill your enemies."
She nodded to him and turned away. She figured Raccoon would either
instantly agree, or laugh himself sick when she told him.
If he wanted a particular outcome, she thought defensively, He should
have told me beforehand.
----------------------------------------
'neath the halo of a street lamp
"How are we going to convince Sempai to return the specimen?" Maya
asked as they proceeded towards the lab. She was hovering around him, he
still looked ill.
"With logic and reason," Jeff suggested, "If that doesn't work, I
tear off all your clothes and you make passionate love to her while I run
off with the specimen." He headed down the ladder to the next deck.
Maya stared in shock at him.
"Well, would it also work if I tore all my clothes off and -?"
"NO!" Maya insisted as she scrambled after him.
"Okay, then you do it."
She frowned at him. "There are times I want to strangle you and the
rest of the pilots," she told him. Especially when you all think my crush
on Sempai is `cute`, read to be exploited, she silently added. "I'm
certain it won't come to that!" she insisted.
"Is that hope or despair?" he asked with upraised eyebrows.
"Aren't you scheduled for a full physical and range-of-motion exam?"
Maya asked carefully, "Do you want to be?"
"Oh really, with high heels and everything?" he enthused at her,
sparkling eyes and hands clenched under his chin.
So much for intimidation, Maya thought darkly as they entered the lab.
Sempai was standing next to the specimen, staring down at it. The
banks of equipment ignored. A trick of the light made it look like her
face was glowing an unnatural color. The illusion vanished when she
turned. Maya drew back. Sempai's face was blank, her eyes searching for
something randomly, just like the specimen did. Maya didn't know why she
made that connection.
"Sempai, are you all right?" she asked as she started forwards again,
"Is there a problem?"
Ritsuko whirled and picked up a gas cylinder and hurled it at Jeff
and Maya.
"Sempai! Please stop!" Maya yelled as Jeff pulled her out of the way
of a second heavy gas cylinder.
"She can't," Jeff yelled at her, "She's being controlled."
"She'll hurt herself lifting all those heavy pieces!" Maya stared as
Sempai tore free a piece of equipment bolted to the floor.
"Hurt _herself_?_" Jeff asked, "We're on the receiving end!"
Maya couldn't explain it, somehow she couldn't imagine Sempai trying
to hurt them, scare her yes, but not hurt her. The heavy desk missed them.
"She's trying to miss us, not hit us!"
"Once that thing realizes that, it will direct her not to see us,
just see a target!" Jeff told her as they dodged to a more secure position
behind a heavy workbench.
Now Maya was frightened.
"I can stop her without injuring her, but I'll need a distraction, be
ready to dodge when she doesn't see _you_ anymore."
"You promise she won't be hurt?" Maya ducked as another piece of
hurled heavy equipment bounced off the lab table they were now hiding
behind.
"She'll be surprised and embarrassed, but that's it. I give you my
word."
Maya stood up and walked to Ritsuko, who had a liquid oxygen cylinder
over her head, "Please, Sempai, you know me." She saw the look of
confused recognition, it held for a few seconds, then it vanished, but it
was long enough.
Jeff stabbed his hand against Sempai's back. She paled, then became
transparent, like a statue of water. Then the water crashed onto the deck,
scattering as droplets splashed everywhere. Jeff caught the cylinder and
managed a controlled crash on the deck.
"You . . . " Maya's mind was dropping through horror to despair.
"_YOU_KILLED_HER_!_"
"She's just stunned," Jeff shouted back. The water was already
turning black and bubbles appeared, becoming like semifluid pumice.
"_STUNNED_!_" Maya shrieked as she advanced in fury and anguish.
Jeff stared right into Maya's eyes, there was something odd in his
expression, something inhuman behind those eyes. "Get a bucket and start
collecting her, all of her."
'Get a bucket and start collecting her, all of her. Get a bucket and
start collecting her, all of her.' Maya heard the voice echoing in her
head, saw the eyes boring into hers. The combination drove all other
thoughts, all other volitions out of her mind. Maya bent down and
collected the pieces of slimy, sticky black gel that pulsed and throbbed
in her hands as she dropped them into a bucket.
Maya felt the tears of sadness and rage streaming down her cheeks.
She couldn't give voice to her rage at the betrayal, He'd promised she
wouldn't be hurt. How could _anyone_ recover from being reduced to this?
she wanted to scream. She looked up as a half-dozen Marine guards forced
their way into the room. She wanted to tell them to arrest him, shoot him,
but the voice and those eyes bored into her mind, she could only do as the
voice said, to keep collecting . . . Sempai. Some tiny part of her mind
watched all this, wondering why Sempai had attacked them, why Sempai
hadn't screamed when she dissolved, she looked more surprised than
anything else. She wondered if Jeff _hadn't_ betrayed her and Sempai, if
he'd been rougher than necessary because he needed it done quickly.
Like shooting at Ranma, Maya remembered, as her hands moved and her
eyes searched without any input from her.
"What the Hell is going on here?" the Marine lieutenant demanded.
"Lieutenant, we need an open-topped drum, 55 gallons or so, a clean
one," Jeff told him, in the same alien monotone he'd used on Maya, "Do you
speak English? Or am I standing on your beard? Now move it, Marine!"
The Lieutenant saluted, turned and ran from the room.
"Help her police up these fragments, they look like tar or pumice,
every scrap!" he ordered the others, the sense of alienness coming from
him increased. In an all-too-human gesture that seemed to accent his
eldritch manner, he moved his hat forward. "I have to go threaten our
`guest`."
Maya watched as the bewildered Marines helped her collect the pieces.
"Maya-san?" one of them asked her, "What is this stuff?" He lacked
the vacant look she was sure her eyes showed.
"Dr. Akagi," Maya told them tearfully, just saying it overwhelmed the
voice and the image that had been dominating her for several minutes. She
broke down sobbing.
The sergeant paled and sent two additional men after the lieutenant,
echoing and amplifying Jeff's demand.
Free of the compulsion, Maya watched Jeff walk up to the specimen,
his mask of fury matched her own. He held his hand over what they had
taken out of the temple at the bottom of the sea. The area between his
hand and the specimen shimmered and fogged up, as if the air itself were
trying to escape from between them.
After a few moments, he relaxed and stepped back, falling to the deck
in exhaustion. "Where's that drum?" he asked woozily.
"It's on its way," the sergeant told him, trying to make sure they
had all the bits and pieces, "What happened?"
"I couldn't let Dr. Akagi kill us. When she escaped that - thing's -
influence, she'd never forgive herself." Jeff dropped to his hands and
knees, peering into corners and crevices, searching for any traces of the
pieces of Dr. Akagi.
The bucket was more than filled, but the pieces seemed content to
remain in the amphistylar pile they'd made of them. It disturbed Maya how
it pulsed and quivered, changing as she watched. It was clearly alive,
but it wouldn't combine and flow together, just separate bits all struck
together, sitting there like a pile of jellied stones.
Nabiki entered with Captain Casey and Major ggreg, they looked at the
ruins of the lab.
"What the Hell happened here!" the Captain demanded.
"Dr. Akagi fell under the influence of that thing," Jeff said tightly,
"We're waiting for a drum so we can put her into it," Jeff gestured at the
pile of glistening, pulsing pumice they had in the center of the room.
Nabiki turned to the Captain, "Sir?" Major ggreg turned, turning
green as he left.
The Captain paled, then turned green himself, he looked ready to
throw up. "Get that thing off my ship. I'll order the course change,
we'll be at the site in three hours." The Captain looked around. "Do
what you can for her!" He turned and rushed from the room, covering his
mouth with his hand.
A few moments later, with a great deal of noise, a team of Marines
and sailors brought in a tub that looked like they'd made it by cutting a
steel barrel in half, top to bottom, and welding it together top to top.
They laid a tarpaulin inside, then carefully poured and placed the semi-
liquid rocks into the long tub.
"What happened?" Nabiki whispered to Maya and Jeff, in Japanese, when
she got close.
"Not here," Jeff whispered back.
Maya was fretting as they all scoured the room to find every last
piece and bit of . . . Dr. Akagi, and set it into the tarp-lined steel tub.
She also kept glaring at Raccoon, then looking away in shame.
Nabiki dragged both of them over to a corner, "Look, I'll accept this
silence for now. There'll be a couple of hours during the descent, _then_
I expect full and complete disclosure, or I'll beat it out of both of you.
Is that understood?"
Maya was even more afraid of Nabiki's tone than she had been of
Sempai and Jeff.
They shooed the military out and sealed the door, then Maya gave full
vent to her emotional typhoon, with a fury to match the storm raging
outside. "What are you going to do now?!" She shoved Jeff into a corner.
"You said you wouldn't hurt her!" Maya felt herself on the verge of tears
and violence, and she was strongly considering both.
"I told you she's just stunned, she will recover," he said carefully.
"Then what are you going to do?" Maya shook him. "Recover, from
being disintegrated! From being reduced to a puddle! No human . . . no
human could survive that." She covered her mouth and backed away, the
obvious answer was too terrible to contemplate. "No, no, no, no! No!
NO! NO!"
"I'm not, _you_ are," Jeff told her sternly, "Or is all that 'sempai'
stuff only for schoolgirl daydreams. The EVA changes you, and she's been
working with them longer and closer than anyone."
Maya felt her anger override her horror. How dare he!? she thought
as she raised her fist, then she calmed. She still felt miserable. "What
can I do?"
"Provide a template, when the pieces relax enough to flow back
together, climb in. You'll provide a guide for her."
Maya's eyes felt as big as saucers, she shook her head. This is
impossible, she thought in horror.
"The liquid will be like oxygenated L.C.L., you'll be able to breathe
it."
Maya covered her face in shock at Jeff's suggestion. "I can't," she
whispered in dread.
"You have to," Jeff replied, "She needs an adult female, that means
you. It's best that it's someone she trusts, who trusts her."
"But . . . ," she paused, glanced at Nabiki who nodded to her. She
steeled herself. It's for Sempai, she reminded herself. "I have to,
don't I?"
"You could leave her like this," Jeff told her heartlessly, "Or trust
she'd figure it out from a teen-aged boy or girl." He changed to a more
sympathetic tone, "We'll be with you for the start, then we'll take the
thing back where it belongs. Then we'll be back."
Maya nodded warily. "It won't . . . hurt her?"
"She'll be fine," he continued in his sympathetic tone, he smiled at
her, "A little embarrassed, but fine. Just like I promised."
"Okay." She blushed. "Do I have to take my clothes off?"
"Only if you want to, but the liquid will penetrate everywhere."
She squirmed at that, and worse at the pilots' 'friendly and
sympathetic' smiles.
----------------------------------------
"Pilots report to the EVA," the 1-MC blared, "All hnads make
preparations to launch the EVA."
Maya had been 'in the tub' for over an hour. Nabiki and Jeff had
been holding her hands, now she patted their hands, urging them to go.
She'd felt very strange as the thick liquid had crawled all over her
and into her. She'd panicked slightly when it entered her lungs. She had
difficulty breathing, but she was still breathing. She could hear the
blood rushing in her ears, and the random pulse of the liquid . . . of
Sempai, around her. She was glad she couldn't see, the stuff was still
nasty to look at, bubbling evilly.
From inside, Maya thought, The bubbles tickle. She tried her best to
relax. She always dreamed of being alone with Sempai, being intimate with
her. She'd even accidentally drawn her into one of those dreams. But
this wasn't what she had envisioned, not when it was life and death for
either or both of them. She knew Sempai would never intentionally hurt
her, but the occasional increase in pressure, like a tentacle tightening
around her leg, her chest, it alarmed her. She hoped the pilots would be
back soon. She prayed Sempai would recover.
----------------------------------------
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
The massive EVA descended through the dark water, Nabiki was
`driving`, Raccoon would return that thing. She couldn't bring herself to
come in contact with the thing again. The storm had been raging as they
returned to the site, but the sea was smooth enough for normal operations.
Somebody wants this to happen, Nabiki thought worriedly.
She had let Raccoon rest in the plug as they descended. The dive
captain wasn't aboard, and Maya was otherwise occupied.
"What is a 'tinclad'?" she began, to lull the topside listeners into
complacency, Raccoon could lecture endlessly and encyclopedically about
seemingly _anything_._
"The French Duquesnse-class cruisers were designed to be the fastest
Washington Treaty cruisers, to do that, they had a maximum armor thickness
of 30 millimeters."
"Centimeters," Nabiki corrected.
"_Mill_imeters, 1.18 inches, maximum armor."
"That's thinner than the armor on a Sherman!" Nabiki exclaimed, she
didn't have to feign her disbelief.
"Thinner than the armor on a Stuart," Raccoon amplified, "Hence the
sobriquet 'tinclads'. I take it they didn't do well in the storm."
"The British had to tow them back to port," Nabiki explained. She
let the discussion of the relative values of the various solutions to the
Washington Naval Treaty continue, she was confused that the French also
produced the best, the Algeire, sunk at Toulon. Lose the best, keep the
worst. I thought only Ranma had luck that rotten, she thought. She
winced at the commentary on the Mogami-class, even cheating they were weak.
I wonder if Kuno's ancestors were handing warship design? she wondered,
she was now satisfied the surface monitoring crew would be bored out of
their minds.
"What happened?" Nabiki asked after she assured herself she'd cut all
the communications with the surface.
"A mapulo is used to control shoggoths. This creature has a similar
power. Maybe it is the source of the control mechanisms."
"Over humans?" she asked.
"No."
"Oh . . . " Nabiki thought furiously, felt her throat tighten up.
Ritsuko-as-mother, had been as tender as Kasumi had ever been, but more
stern with discipline. It made it seem that Ritsuko cared about them more,
of course Kasumi hadn't been preparing soldier/warriors. Does NERV know
the truth? Rather, does Gendo, does Misato? she wondered. She boggled at
the contradiction, the warm woman who let Nabiki cry for her loss and pain.
She isn't human? That can't be possible! If she isn't human . . . what
_is_ she? I can't believe she's a threat to us! Shoggoth, isn't that one
of the things that attacked Rei and me aboard the Coral Sea? her mind
whirred through the possibilities.
Nabiki finally decided to ask no more questions until they reached
the cave, and the sepulcher. There'd be more time for questions on the
return trip.
This time, finding it was no problem, creatures: shoggoths and things
out of deepest nightmare; hung like a pair of parallel walls forming a
perfectly square corridor straight to their destination. An honor guard,
was all Nabiki could think of, Leading us in. I should be terrified of
all these things. But I feel nothing, maybe I should be afraid of that.
She didn't relax her vigilance, she did note that they didn't close in
behind them. The path to the surface was left wide open, the honor guard
peeling off after the EVA passed them.
They arrived uneventfully at the sea floor. An immense crowd of
alien. . . things arrayed around them, more like a concert or sports crowd
than an attack group. "You okay with this?" she asked Raccoon through the
tether line as he swam out.
"Yes, just be ready to get out of here _FAST_!_" He sounded far too
calm for her piece of mind.
"Should I leave you behind?" she joked.
"If it's you and the EVA or me, get out of here. Suffocation is
preferable to whatever they might have in mind. Maybe we have amnesty, if
we act in good faith."
Nabiki lost sight of him as he entered the cave, "Be careful, two
big. . . tentacled somethings - followed you in."
"I see them. They're avoiding the tether. I don't think they want
me getting lost," he still sounded a little too calm for events. She'd be
screaming, she wondered what was wrong with him. She barely kept herself
from striking out at the creatures surrounding her and her EVA. She
thought it ironic that once more she was in the EVA, and once more she was
not in _combat_ in the EVA.
Nabiki heard something through the line, but couldn't decipher it,
"Raccoon!"
"It's okay. They wanted the specimen. I insisted I had to put it
back myself," the voice on the other end of the line was icy cold,
composed, somehow less human than the things around her.
The problem as far as Nabiki was concerned, was they were thousands
of meters deep in the ocean, all alone. There was literally no help
available. Nabiki looked around nervously. She couldn't see far through
the darkness, but she could sense the motion around her and Unit 04 well
beyond her visual range. Something moving out there was _huge_, she
couldn't see it clearly, but it was at least five times the size of the
EVA. She was getting nervous, and there wasn't just one of them amid the
restive crowd of other indescribably things around her.
She heard the plug's outer hatch open and the system cycled, "Lucy
I'm home, I'm alone, get us out of here!" Raccoon told her, they'd agreed
the first phrase was the 'okay' signal.
Nabiki accelerated the EVA towards the surface, as the inner hatch
opened. She could feel the cold radiating off Raccoon, she remembered how
cold she'd gotten during her brief dive that started this entire fiasco.
"You're freezing!" she told him, she already had a counter to
whatever argument he raised.
"I'm fine," he said, disdaining her concern, "I - YAWP!"
She didn't have to tolerate that, she dragged him to the command
chair by the tether line and its attached facemask. She pulled him into
her lap and wrapped her arms around him. He was shivering from the cold,
she was shivering from the sight of the things of the `honor guard`
forming a wall behind them. Whether they were guarding them or waiting
for a moment to pounce, was immaterial. Nabiki was terrified. She'd been
in an EVA three times now, in each case she'd done little more than drive
it to its destination. She didn't know how she'd perform in combat.
Failure now would only kill the two of them, instead of the entire crew of
the carrier, some 2500 people.
She hated failure, No, I _fear_ it, she admitted to herself, the cold
of that realization matching the cold from the form held in her lap,
That's always been my real problem. Now I've lost nearly everything: home,
friends, Hiroko, Ranma; without anyone really making a mistake. What can
making a mistake do to me that hasn't already been done. She shivered
violently with those thoughts, barely keeping the sobs that came with them
in check. Raccoon wouldn't say anything about her breakdown. That he
hugged her back was okay too.
----------------------------------------
The force behind them dropped away as they entered the lighted waters.
Unit 04 broke the surface of a glassy sea, into a cloudless sky.
"What the . . . " Nabiki looked around. The very calm of it, after
days of relentless, pounding storm, was more terrifying than the hurricane
had been. The other ships of the escort group bobbing there, more like
toys in a bathtub than warships in the ocean. Nabiki could clearly see
the storm damage to the carrier, it was heavy and extensive. Most
striking was the collapse of the forward and rear of the flight deck.
When she'd gone over the side, she'd thought the damage aft had been a
trick of the light.
"Stand by to reboard," she told Raccoon, as he woke, still curled up
in her lap. She suspected she'd resurfaced too quickly, but neither the
EVA nor the pilots were having any problems.
Unit 04 leapt out of the water and landed on the deck, adding to the
damage. It wasn't as graceful as Ranma or Raccoon could manage, but she
didn't break through the battered flight deck.
"Let's get back to Doctor Akagi. Maya is probably panicking a little
at this point," Nabiki told Raccoon as she lifted him out of her lap.
Then she crawled Unit 04 through the deck lift to its maintenance spot at
the center of the hanger. The groan of the metal should have worried her,
but at this point, she no longer cared.
----------------------------------------
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
Going from sound sleep to full wakefulness is never easy, doing so in
midflight is difficult. Doing so before you crash to the deck is probably
a necessity.
Jeff wondered why his mind took such strange turns when he was in
danger of imminent injury. He managed to get his feet under him as he
managed a controlled crash. Ranko and Ranma would have landed on their
feet, he thought as he tried to attach the present with his last memories,
of lying on a cot with Maya's hand in his, Nabiki holding the young
woman's other hand as Maya lay submerged in the tub of still-fluid Dr.
Akagi.
Jeff hadn't managed to complete his analysis before an interruption
by the scream of rage and betrayal, being hoisted into the air and thrown
at a bulkhead by a very angry, naked Rit-chan. It returned his attention
to the here and now, and surviving the next few minutes.
Ritsuko looked furious as she charged after her projectile. Behind
her, Maya and Nabiki were just awakening. He doubted he could reason with
Rit-chan, so he manifested an AT field. It won't stop her, he realized as
he scrambled to his feet, But it might give her pause.
She tripped on the sharply-sloped field, grabbing its unseen edge for
support. Jeff was glad then frightened as he saw the transformation of
her expression from rage to something else. It told him his `little wall
trick` had had an unexpected side effect, and he shouldn't repeat it. A
moment later, the rage returned. She tore the field apart with her bare
hands, then continued her charge. Jeff felt incredible pain as the field
came apart. He ignored the cries from Maya and Nabiki, as Ritsuko was
also doing. He tried to retreat, but the smallness of the lab and the
pain of his field's destruction offered little refuge, and he'd have to
get past her to get to the door. However angry she was, Ritsuko moved as
if she knew that too.
She covered the last yards with a wild spring. He wound up flat on
his back on the floor, staring up at her. He glanced down, considering
the absurd thought, Blonde with short brown roots is her natural hair
color. She drove her fist into the deck next to his head. Rather than
panic, he automatically relaxed, he `knew` that he couldn't fight her,
even if she had been a human. Knowing that he was probably going to die,
gave him the steadiness he needed, his death he'd recover from. He
couldn't bring himself to do the things that he'd need to do to win a
conventional fight. He had other tools that wouldn't harm her. Either
they would calm her down, or she'd vent all her rage on him, the others
would be safe. He was also beginning to realize he'd hurt her quite a bit
already.
He closed his fingers around her wrist, caressing it. If he couldn't
fight, then he'd use another method. He reached up past her heaving
breasts, he knew what staring or touching there would induce right now,
maybe safer later. Instead he touched her jawline, running a finger along
it. Ignoring her other, upraised fist. He knew he couldn't stop the
descent once it started, all he could do was prevent the plunge. His
finger continued down her throat, her initial amazement at his
irrationality was giving way to enjoyment of the touch and confusion about
her own reaction. His finger circled the hollow of her throat, and her
back and neck began to arch in response.
Suddenly she grabbed his collar and slid him away across the floor.
She shivered at her own reaction. "What have you done?!" she demanded,
"Are you insane?! How _could_ you? I trusted you!" She stood and
brushed Maya aside. "What did you do to me?!"
It suddenly dawned on him that she wasn't talking about
disintegrating and reintegrating her. "How much do you . . . ?" he asked
as his horror grew.
"Remember? Everything," she said miserably. Maya took advantage of
Ritsuko kneeling and hugging herself, to drape a lab coat over her
shoulders and give Jeff a venomous look. Ritsuko looked back into the two
women's eyes.
"I . . . I . . . " The enormity of what he'd done plunged down on
him. He hadn't meant to, this was a disaster.
"I _know_!_" she shouted, "Don't you think I know? You _knew_ I'd
never forgive myself if I hurt you or Maya. You knew that you couldn't
bring yourself to use that black crystal, or the other spells." She
sighed, drew in on herself. "You didn't expect your AT field to have that
effect on a nonhuman." She sobbed as she knelt on the deck. "But it did,
as bad as Asuka, worse than her because it was more . . . intimate." She
looked up in him, looked totally lost.
Jeff was torn between rushing forward to comfort her or running from
the room.
"Please stay," she said, smiled mirthlessly, "See. I know, I also
know you know." She laughed desperately. Nabiki carefully knelt behind
her and put her arms around her shoulders. Ritsuko put her head on
Nabiki's arms and wept uncontrollably. Maya stared at the others without
understanding.
"Asuka and I discovered a side effect of the AT field. She climbed
up on top of mine and rolled up her sleeves and exposed her legs to
increase the surface area in contact . . . because the contact was so
enjoyable. But since Rei and Ranma have encountered the AT field Rei can
generate, she didn't have the effect on him . . .."
"You mean Ranma encountered the field Rei can generate, and it didn't
have the effect yours did on Asuka," Nabiki said brittlely.
Jeff gulped, nodded, wondered if he was going to get out of here
alive. "We also encounter the AT fields of our enemies all the time, so I
thought . . . that it was safe to use a diffuse AT field to disrupt Dr.
Akagi and free her from Cthylla's hold on her," he told them leadenly.
"You were wrong," Ritsuko reminded him, "I got the full affect, maybe
worse than Asuka's."
"I'm sorry."
"So am I," Ritsuko said, "I'm also sorry I didn't realize." She
raised her head, stared at him. "You really did love her . . . me."
"Yes." He stared at the deck and wished he could drop through it.
"And you are wondering if you subconsciously did this on purpose, to
regain who you lost."
"Exactly," he admitted, her automatic certainty unnerved him.
"Well, put it out of your mind," she ordered as she stood, "You
didn't, I know. If you'd seriously considered it, you would not have done
it." She buttoned the coat.
"I'll get breakfast for everyone," Jeff told them and left quickly.
He needed to escape, he had never considered he _could_ screw things up
that badly.
----------------------------------------
"Coward," Nabiki said, staring angrily at the door.
"No." Ritsuko knew what was driving him. It was terrifying for
someone as private as he was, and as private as she was, suddenly
realizing everything you felt, thought, knew and hoped was completely
known by another person, even one you trusted and cared for. It was that
emotional nakedness that had made her so angry when she awoke. She didn't
want anyone to know her that way, even more, she didn't want the
responsibility of knowing about someone else. Previously, he had
scrupulously not taken advantage of what he knew, because he dreaded
someone might do the same to him. Now it wasn't a remote possibility, but
a definite probability. He'd used a tiny portion of it to shock her
enough not to kill him, to gain time for her to come back to herself.
She'd gloried in that touch. If we'd been alone . . . perhaps - she
abandoned that thought. Ritsuko looked into Nabiki's and Maya's eyes, she
still saw only concern for her, not the revulsion she expected.
"So you saw," Ritsuko said bitterly.
"Only what he did to you." Maya stared daggers after Jeff, then
hugged Ritsuko. "I'm so glad you're all right."
Ritsuko reluctantly returned her affection, then pulled her away.
"Maya, what you saw . . . he didn't 'do' anything to me, except render me
unconscious and revealed to all of you - my true form."
Maya, wide-eyed, shook her head. "That can't be."
To Ritsuko's chagrin, Nabiki replaced Maya hugging her. Pulling
_her_ loose required more effort.
"Don't you understand? That thing, that was the real one, the real
me. That's what I am."
"What you don't understand, Doctor," Nabiki said, craftily resisting
being pried loose, "Jeff already told me. I don't care. Let me tell you
what - who Doc - Rit-chan is." She smiled at Ritsuko. "Rit-chan is an
overworked, lonely woman who without time or training, took in three
near-orphans and tried to make a home for them," Nabiki told her, "Someone
who was worried about grades, and if we were eating and sleeping properly.
About whether we were pushing ourselves too hard. Someone who cared about,
Nabiki . . . and Ranma, and even Raccoon and Shinji. Not because she had
to, but because she wanted to."
Ritsuko sadly realized that they really didn't understand what the
real problem was. "Miss Tendo, what did he tell you that convinced you to
give up your blackmail attempts? On everyone?"
"That he'd slit my throat." Nabiki covered her neck with both hands
and looked unhappy. She hadn't realized how `Rit-chan` knew all about her
'Ice Queen' activities.
" 'Slit your pretty throat,'" Ritsuko reminded her, enjoying her
shocked reaction. "How would _you_ deal with someone suddenly knowing all
'Mercenary Girl's' secrets? You'd run away too."
Nabiki gulped, nodded almost against her will.
"And the plans you had for Maya and me?"
Maya gasped, but didn't run, then glared at Nabiki. Nabiki looked
like she wanted to run after Raccoon, or disappear into the steel around
them. Ritsuko didn't continue to press, she had no desire to be alone.
She put on the clean clothes someone had provided for her. She wondered
what she was going to do. She wanted to run and comfort Jeff, she wanted
to check on Ranma and Ranko, `the twins`. She knew that `Ritsuko-Nabiki`
doted on the eldest, Kyoko, who looked and acted like Nabiki, the next
eldest, Sakai and Kairi, Jeff doted on.
That explains how 'Raccoon' can resist Ranko, she is his `daughter`,
she thought. She shook her head, it wasn't fair, it was completely unfair.
She had wanted someone, had for so long, now she had them complete for the
asking, and she couldn't ask. She couldn't come up with a logical,
rational reason, she just knew it was wrong.
The memories of Samuel's death hit her. She suddenly broke down
sobbing, it _hurt_, just remembering. She couldn't imagine surviving the
pain of the actual occurrence. Her loneliness was a drawn out ache, this
was a railroad tie shoved in and twisted. These weren't her memories, but
reminding herself of that did nothing to alleviate the ache the memories
brought with them.
It seemed several minutes later when she recovered. Nabiki had
draped herself across `Rit-chan's` back like a cloak, hugging her, like
Kyoko always did with mommy. When she needed it or she thought mommy did.
That is going to take even more sorting out! Ritsuko thought bitterly.
Maya, shier than the pilots, was holding Ritsuko's hands in hers and
staring worriedly at her Sempai. The image of a selfish, deeply
frightened, hair-triggered girl who could barely cook or sew,
Ritsuko-Nabiki's younger sister, the one Ritsuko-Nabiki and
Jeff-Ranma/Ranko kept having to bail out of scrapes. Ritsuko wondered how
accurate the portrayal really was.
"Are you all right?" Maya asked, clearly Maya, not Maya-Akane.
"No, I'm getting ambushed by some of the worst and best memories.
Including memories of living in Nerima, courting and marrying a girl named
Tendo Nabiki, and raising a family together." Ritsuko wondered what Ranma
would do when he learned all the things that `Raccoon` did as Ranma, both
the incredibly violent and astonishingly tender and loving. Ranko would
be astonished, then laugh herself sick about the last, Ritsuko thought,
then remembered Ranma and Ranko were the . . . Were not the same _person_,
but transformed back and forth. "You, rotten -!" She clamped her mouth
shut, it was one of the few mind games Ranma had to use on Nabiki and the
others, she wasn't going to spoil it for him/her. "It's a lot to absorb."
Yes, three entire lifetimes, awake, which wasn't exactly uneventful;
the Dreamlands, where I - he was a mage and a general, paperwork, yuk; and
the dreams of Nerima, I can't believe those people could ever survive to
reach puberty, especially the adults, she let the thought drift away as
she shook her head.
"Pilots have had a more eventful life than I have had," she told them,
"And that's saying something. Your sisters Kasumi and Akane, your father
Soun. He knows, the dreams where he married Ritsuko-Nabiki were very
similar to the dreams you just had." She felt a pang of jealousy at the
time `Nab-chan`, Ranma/Ranko and Raccoon had shared. That she knew all
about it, all Jeff felt about events, the people, especially his roommates
... . . bedmates. I'm jealous that a `little girl` spent time with `my
husband`, she laughed inwardly at that, It's not as if any of them did
anything. She wanted to tease Nabiki about that, then she remembered
_why_ they had spent every night clustered together. She remembered
Ranko's worries and the almost daily discussions with Raccoon. She
remembered her job.
"Nabiki, please report to the infirmary, we need to run some tests,
then to the EVA, we'll run a sync test," Ritsuko told her.
That's as close to a test of your 'ki' as I can manage, she thought
as Nabiki stood.
"You're back to normal," Nabiki said sourly.
----------------------------------------
That split the night and touched the sound of silence.
Weeks ago, they'd detected something odd in the region. The reports
that had caused the incursions were hard to believe. A 40-meter tall
manlike thing walking around? Anna thought, It could only be an EVA or an
Angel. And since it had been reported several times during the height of
winter, they had to wait until they had better weather to send a team in.
She'd volunteered, it was that or be volunteered. Besides, I am
Chief of Scouts, I'd like to think I still have some of my Dreamlands
skills and inclinations in the Waking World. She'd gone in, if the
American Alpine troops had been caught, they were just chasing a runaway
and she was just having fun leading her minders on a merry chase. Then we
found the footprint, she thought, With the ridges exactly like the upgrade
that had been planned for Unit 02. But by the time we were captured, it
had been superseded by an American innovation. Secret weapon by Goodyear.
So there are only a few people who should have known that design: me,
Asuka, and Dr. Schikelgrubber. I've been held by the Americans, Asuka by
the British then NERV, the Doctor is dead. So how did they get it? The
second, larger, incursion had been laid on in a hurry.
Anna looked over the troops assembled. She wasn't certain changing
the force level from 'lost patrol' to 'training accident' was such a swift
idea. 'Neither Dick nor Richard', she remembered, too many and too few,
something to be avoided. The weather had closed in so rapidly, so
conveniently, they couldn't retreat if the Swiss defense forces came upon
them.
So here I am in the Swiss Alps, with French- and German-speaking
American Alpine troops, she thought, And we haven't found anything. Even
a patrol sent specifically to where the footprint was. Either the six of
use were hallucinating, or somebody cleaned up the evidence. Either way
she wasn't happy, for a whole host of reasons.
"I don't like it," Major Mason, her minder, said quietly.
"We should get out of here," Anna agreed, "Hang the orders and the
weather."
"Orders are not to get caught," Mason said, laughed mirthlessly, "If
I hadn't seen it with my own eyes . . . I doubt we'll find anything."
"Better question," Anna said, "What do we do if we _do_ find
something, or something finds us?"
The man had no answer, Anna headed out from the shelter of the trees
and into the storm. Her `guard` stayed close. She walked to a rock
scoured clear of snow by the bitter winds. She stood on the only high
ground and looked over the camp. It was the best that could be done.
There were too many to effectively hide, and too few to fight something
serious.
She felt something under her feet. She knelt down and removed her
glove, touching the freezing stone with her bare hand. The vibration was
faint, and only seemed random because it was several rhythms out of phase
with each other.
"Something's coming," she told Mason, "Several somethings." She
motioned him onto the rock.
"Several big somethings," Mason agreed as he stood where she had and
felt the vibrations, "Let's go." They rushed back to the CP.
----------------------------------------
The troops threw themselves into the slit trenches, others assembled
the mortars they'd brought with. Anna noted the line throwers were also
being deployed. Basically mortars that fired a grappling hook and heavy
rope.
To trip something, she thought as she stood by. If the weather had
permitted, they would have shipped her out, possibility even calling in a
light plane. It was impossible now. She wouldn't have wanted to run away
anyway. She scanned the falling snow, saw no evidence of anything. Her
discovery had brought the scouts a few minutes warning.
"Unit seven," a voice in French crackled on the radio, another
disguise, "We've spotted something on the east."
So much for sounding French, she thought of the bad grammar and wrong
attitude. She couldn't see anything. Her guard mutely handed her his
binoculars, his face slack. She didn't try to read his expression, just
adjusted the binoculars before looking at what he had seen. She felt her
own face go slack. Not an Angel, but three EVAs in winter camouflage,
barely visible until they moved, advancing in a standard overwatch pattern.
One leapfrogging ahead, then the next, etc.
"I thought EVAs were scarce," she whispered, barely audible above the
wind, she handed back the binoculars.
"So did I," Mason told her as he took them.
She considered, "If I can capture one, can I go to Japan?"
"If you catch all three," Mason said, "I can arrange for immediate
transport for all four of you."
Okay big mouth, how do I take down three EVAs? she thought furiously,
not just to rejoin Asuka, but to stay alive. She stared, and saw the
standard infantry in winter camouflage deployed with the EVAs. The
Americans began firing on the incoming troops. The battle was destined to
be one-sided. None of the EVAs had a tether, but none were manifesting an
AT field. Probably that would attract too much attention. But the light
weapons we're carrying will have little effect on the EVAs' armor, she
thought. And all of them were moving very poorly, as if the pilots could
barely control them. Ikari did better on his first run, she thought, then
smiled at the implication, they had a chance if all these things were . . .
were just big, walking scarecrows.
Several American teams had worked themselves into a position to fire
the line throwers. The propelled grapnels caught one EVA, tangling its
arms and legs. One line so entangled it, it went down on one knee. But
those gunners came under heavy fire from the supporting infantry.
"Come on." Anna had an idea. The base would be overrun, but she
could get some valuable intelligence.
----------------------------------------
The spider hole was a bit cramped. The line thrower was going to
serve another purpose. The hand grenades would be very useful. She would
have preferred a knife, but Anna Alice wasn't who she was in the
Dreamlands. She had to compromise.
The infantry had passed. The tramp of an EVA's footsteps approached.
She waited in silence. She hoped it wouldn't step down too close, that
would crush or bury her. Her luck held, the machine passed, she popped up
and fired. The knotted line following behind the grapnel which landed and
seemed well set. She didn't think about it as she scrambled up the rope,
looking at any details about the machine to report later. She also
concentrated on the exercises Asuka had helped teach her about syncing
with an EVA, if she had sufficient surprise on her side, she might beat
both of her other enemies. Only the welded handholds on the arms appeared
nonstandard, which was how they carried the troops. The carapace over the
entry plug was also slightly different. She had only a little space to
reach the hatch covering a nonstandard entry plug. The end hatch didn't
use the turn wheel but a simpler, quicker undogging mechanism. She
decided to recommend keeping the turn wheel and inner hatch, it would
prevent what she was doing as she undogged the hatch, dropped two hand
grenades into the L.C.L. and quickly resealed the hatch. The blast
pounded on the hatch. She undogged the hatch again and climbed inside as
the EVA stumbled and fell. Inside the plug was the safest place to be.
She removed the A10 nerve clip from the corpse in the command chair.
She was able to see the other EVA coming towards her as the third freed
itself.
Probably thinks it's coming to help a comrade, she thought, she could
barely make the Unit move, but she was gaining more control every moment,
Too bad. She slammed the edge of the Unit's hand into the approaching
EVA's throat as it leaned down. It staggered back. She knew that what
the EVAs felt, the pilots felt, so the other pilots should be out the
fight for a while. She turned towards the third.
Suddenly she was thrown against the control column as all the feeds
went dead.
"Ejection by remote, clever," she grunted as the g-forces crushed
down on her. They'd never gotten the remote ejection to work properly.
She knew enough to wait until the rockets cut out before trying to sit
back, she hoped she landed in Allied rather than SEELE territory, she also
hoped that disabling one EVA and driving off another bought the Americans
time to escape.