9 「Admiral Sanda」
「3 Hours Later. 5 1/2 Days until Shiro's arrival.」
An alarm went off throughout the underground battlecruiser. Lights flashed blue. It was as if they were about to be attacked by an unknown force, or there was some sort of radiation leak. Lance still hadn't returned, the cadets weren't here yet, and there was no word from Iverson.
Katie and Hunk rushed into the command center and skidded to a stop as they stared a the hologram which had taken up the room. Their eyes were centered on what looked like stealth helicopters. The hologram had very realistic graphics, to the point that one would believe they could touch it.
"Woah..." Hunk said as he walked forward, looking at the desert scenery.
"Now's not the time to be mesmerized, Hunk." Nemoi spoke with an unamused tone as he glanced over his shoulder towards those whom were entering the room.
Katie raised a brow at this and strode over to him, standing beside him as she took in what was going on. "Those aren't cadets... Those are aerial troop carriers," She took the pair of glasses off her nose and hooked it onto her shirts wide collar. "I don't think this was Iverson's choice."
"No, I don't think it was." Nemoi begrudgingly stated as he pointed at the helicopter convoy. Suddenly the sides of the helicopters became transparent, showing armed Galaxy Garrison troops. It was clear they were either here to capture the ship, or retrieve anything and everything they could from it. "Admiral Sanda... She wants to cover this up as well."
"What...?" Katie looked over at Nemoi as he spoke the Admiral's name that he had mentioned before to Iverson. "What do you mean cover this up as well? Do you mean she is the one who covered up the story behind my dad and brother!?"
Nemoi nodded without any form of reluctance to give this information out. "She outranks Iverson, she already knew about the Aliens that abducted them. Despite her actions being within good intent, she is considered a traitor, a traitor who doesn't like their authority being undermined... On top of being a senseless coward."
Hearing him speak ill of the Admiral, the two teens seem to understand what was going to happen. Especially what his next orders will be.
"We can no longer wait here," he stated as he looked over towards Adam who was standing in the doorway. He seemed to be wearing a visible frown. "All of you. Remain here in the control room. Believe me, I'll know if you leave." He tapped the side of his head and the visor of his armor concealed his face.
Within minutes he was entering the Hangar of the Chimeras Castle, the vertical doors only being half open so that the carriers could only enter one at a time.
It only took them about ten minutes to arrive at the opening Iverson had described to them. It was clear that Lance had been taken into custody, or placed in his quarters at the barracks. This was a clean up operation.
Another three minutes and they were entering the hangar, one carrier at a time. At that moment he was standing in the center of the vast room. He had his bladed guard shotos only partially out of his armor. The blades at his wrists, fully extended.
He was clearly taking an aggressive stance as it seemed his attempt a peace had failed. He knew that the soldiers were armed according to the scans gifted to him by his battlecruiser.
With the carriers still landing, he remained standing there. He wasn't going to go charging in, but he limited their access easily. This also made it hard for them to escape should they fail to go against him.
Using his armor's comms, he called up to Katie. "The Galra Sentries, did you repurpose them with Altean tech?"
Katie who was watching the Holographic display showing the hangar, blinked and nodded. "Y-yes. I did, but why?"
"Activate them," He gestured towards the holographic camera to hurry up.
Adam who heard this raised a brow and watched as Katie ran off towards the control console on the far end of the room and began typing commands into it. Seconds later, the sentries would be seen entering the hangar bay.
"What the... Where are they getting these commands from?" Katie started at the console as Altean numbers and letters were running through it like crazy. The data was something she had never seen or experienced before.
"Me, obviously. After you woke me up, I found I could interface with Altean tech without even being near it." He laughed nervously as the Galaxy Garrison troops began pouring out of the carriers. There were four carriers and a total of forty eight individuals, including Admiral Sanda.
With her hands folded behind her back, gripping a pistol out of sight, she would approach him appearing externally calm. The troops following in four rows of ten and two rows of four.
"Nemo, I presume." She said his name wrong, if it was intentional, it wasn't written on her face.
"I cannot let you bring global panic to this world. While it is in the time of peace, it will stay that way. I will have to ask you to leave, and release our cadets and pilot who are in your care." Her eyes shifted side to side as she looked at the sentries.
These sentries looked completely different from the Galra's after having been repurposed and they didn't exactly look like Altean Gladiators either. They were all painted white and appeared to look like heavy armored humanoids with slot shaped visors with a single sky blue sensor eye within it's head.
They were armed with what looked to be Altean Weapons, rifles pistols and swords.
"You may have us outnumbered, but you don't have the technological advantage." Nemoi warned as he moved to bend his right arm at to a right angle in front of himself. His open fist pointed to the air. He held his other arm at an acute angle behind it to shield his face with a looser fist. One foot behind the other, he looked as if he was ready to go into a mixed martial arts tournament. "Do you wish to continue hostilities?"
Sanda raised a brow hearing him speak, "Speaking of stopping the hostilities before they even begin? How quaint." She drew the pistol from behind her back, briefly took aim and fired.
In that very moment, Nemoi closed his eyes and concentrated. The world felt as if it had slowed down, every millisecond felt like he was running a mile. He opened his eyes, his heart was pounding.
He could hear the sound of Katie and Hunk screaming over the comm system, Adam gasping.
He could see the bullets, he could feel them. The heat, the force behind them. He imagined, he willed and he executed his thoughts. His hand would glow a soft white, just as the bullets were regaining real time, Sanda and the rest of them watched as they dissipated into white energy and flowed into his palm.
「250+ QP」
Sanda was dumbfounded, she didn't understand. What was this? Magic? She growled to herself, lowering the weapon slightly. "Oh... Quite the trick. Can you do it again?" She asked as she raised her weapon and fired a volley of three more shots.
Nemoi swiped his hand to the side, it happened again without hesitation or reluctance. The bullets dissipated into white energy and entered the man's palm.
「250+ QP」
"Three or nine more rounds?" Nemoi asked as he looked at the gun she was using. It was standard issue, solid rounds. It was nine millimeter, usually carrying around nine or more bullets per clip.
Sanda paused for a moment, she could see he was familiar with the weapon. She pursed her lips slightly. "How much do you know about us, child?"
"I've been sleeping on this planet for ten thousand years, I may be sixteen years old, but I'm mentally much older than that." It was a roundabout answer, one which would need some thinking to decipher. "My question is however, how much Quintessence energy do I get from a living human being?"
Sanda immediately took a step back, the others raising their weapons to defend their superior officer. They were clueless. All of them. No matter how many times they tried with solid bullets, it wouldn't work out the way they wanted it to.
"I see... You must be one of the Altean Alchemists listed in your cultural information you gifted to us. Makes it very valuable, doesn't it?" Sanda spoke up, sounding somewhat friendly, but there was a hint of mocking. Was she trying to provoke him or talk him down?
"Provoking me into close quarters combat, will be courting death, Admiral Sanda."
"We can't trust you," Sanda said as she pointed at him with her empty hand. "We can't let you take our children into space to fight your war! Earth is not involved!"
"Twenty years ago, there was a Galra incursion on Earth. An exterrestrial clandestine organization known as the Blade of Marmora fought them off numerous times to protect Earth and the weapon fragment it had been hiding for ten thousand years." He stated with a frown over his lips. The helmet's visor pulling back to reveal his very human features aside from the prints on his cheeks and his pointed ears.
"Earth has long been involved in this war, without even knowing it."
Sanda stared at him, taking in his face, his ferocity toward her lack of humility. "Why are you so against us?" She asked, lowering her head an angle but keeping her eyes on him.
"When they do eventually come to Earth... As the coward you are, you surrender Earth to the Galra, in turn they stab you while your back is turned and then they proceed to slaughter everyone at a global scale through orbital bombardment."
Stunned and entirely confused, the men lower their weapons. What was he talking about? He was talking as if this had already happened. Looking at one another, then looking to the Admiral. What was going on?
Katie and Hunk stood there, still taking in the question he had asked Sanda in the beginning. 'How much Quintessence would I get from a living human being?' What did he mean by that? Was it some sort of threat? If he could drain all those soldiers of their quintessence, effectively killing them, what made him any better than the Galra? Was it just a fear tactic? An example of what the Galra would do?
Katie was the first to dismiss it. From her first Impression of Nemoi, he didn't seem like a bad person, he was just lonely and had lost everything he had known and loved. She believed he likely wanted to scare them into submission, or at least confuse them.
It was rather abnormal for an Altean to use a fear tactic.
Hunk was going through his anxieties, pessimism. Something along the lines of "Oh man, he's not going to eat us! He wants to turn us all to ash!" But he was too busy biting at his nails like Shaggy from Scooby Doo.
Adam remained composed, if Nemoi wanted to kill, he would have killed them all by now. He could have killed them all before they even landed.
That was right, within the last few hours, he had seen the battlecruisers weapons systems. They were one of the few systems that hadn't been offline for the past ten thousand years.
The Galaxy Garrison had willingly walked right into a trap of their own making.
"Will you accept my terms?" Nemoi asked, not having moved an inch.
"Will you be able to bring back everyone at one hundred percent?" Sanda asked, knowingly giving an impossible condition of her own, or at least seeing if he would answer truthfully.
"No, War never changes." His response was without hesitation or thought. It didn't sound rehearsed or automatic, but it was given.
Sanda glanced away from him, then locked her gaze once more, making eye contact. "You may have your pilots, the cadets may train here, but we cannot give you the manpower you ask for."
"Understood Admiral," Nemoi bowed his head slightly and relaxed his posture.
Katie, Hunk and Adam all let out a drawn out sigh of relief. Everything had happened so fast, and yet there were no casualties. Nemoi was unhurt and it seemed peace was going to continue for the time being.
"Think of this as the Cold War, Admiral. There will be no direct confrontation with the Galra for a couple years. That makes technological development easier." Nemoi smirked slightly watching as they all seemed to retreat back to the carriers and begin to take their leave. The hangar doors opening for them to leave in a more numerous fashion.
