Disclaimer: I don't own any of this, Vandread is property of Pioneer, Gonzo, and Media Factory; Ranma is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Viz and a lot more companies that I can't remember to list. ---Title--- Half a Vanguard Chapter One Being the second part of the '1/2' series By Dr. Suekeiichi Kaiton ---Unknown space--- "All hands, report your status." Magno looked up from the HUD and out into the blackness of unknown space, a veritable ocean of star forms she'd never seen before. Wherever they were, she knew how destructive the male missiles could be now, if only she'd know that beforehand perhaps they wouldn't be in this mess now. "BC! Report." "Captain, apparently the Paksis core has ruptured, spilling crystal all over the ship." "Is it any danger to us?" "Captain there's Paksis coming in from the exhaust shafts, it's beginning to build up in the Engine room." Gascogne Rheingau's voice rang clearly from the underbelly of the pirate ship. "Can you get rid of it?" "No, not with the lasers. We're having a hard time just keeping it out of our core." "Very well, do what you can Gascogne. BC I'm going to land on the Ikazuchi, I want to see the Paksis core myself." Magno depressed a switch off to the side of her armrest and the chair she was sitting in twirled 180 degrees to shoot down a conveyor belt. "Captain I don't think that's a good idea, the ship is very unstable." "I have to see this with my own two eyes." The aging captain walked down the corridor with a single guard, eventually reaching the Dread docking bay where a shuttle was ready to take her to the male ship. As the emptiness of space filled her vision all Magno could consider was how the Paksis was slowly eating away at the hulls of both ships, at the rate it was being consumed soon there would be nothing of either ship left. Thin filaments of crystal where stretching out into the surrounding space to snatch up every scrap of metal or plastic cast adrift by the explosion of the Muremasa, sucking all the debris to itself to initiate repairs. As the light shuttle landed on the thin layer of crystal blanketing the docking bay, Magno, Buzam and Parfet Balblair disembarked. Jura Basil Elden, and Meia Gisborn met them in the docking bay, the Paksis crackling underfoot. "I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes." "I'm sorry you had to come all the way out here, Captain." Meia nodded her head and followed Magno as she slowly walked towards the open doors which connected the Vanguard storage room with the docking bay. "Nonsense, Meia, I had to see this. BC how are the injured?" The platinum-haired woman walked next to the shorter and shut the doors behind the group. "They're fine, captain, Paiway is taking them all to decontamination and sickbay. She fears for airborne male diseases." Magno scoffed and slid her cane into a pool of coagulating blood. "How many times have I told that girl they don't carry diseases, they're just like us only different." "How much sense does that make?" Jura remarked under her breath. She wished Barnette was there with her. Magno looked to Dita and the young male body unconscious nearby. "The man Dita was chasing." Meia helpfully explained. Magno scoffed. "It's been a while since I last saw a man...but did their faces always look this silly? Where are the others?" Magno began moving to the main corridor, the group of two guards and Buzam following her. Parfet tarried a little longer to take samples of the Paksis. Meia, Jura and Dita split up to search the rest of the ship, at least that was the excuse Dita gave to sneak off to the observation deck. "We're taking that one to the brig, the others are under observation. Meia's team is going to sweep the ship for any others." "Excellent work, BC. What have you observed about the other two?" "They showed no fear when we attacked, they must be Elite. For our safety I had them placed in separate cells." "Take me to them." Buzam gestured past her and the foursome made their way deeper into the craft. ---The Vanguard launch room--- Bart Garsus kicked the plate with all his might and finally knocked the two inch piece of cheap metal off the statue of "Grandpa", freeing himself from the claustrophobic hell of being trapped. No sooner had he crawled away from the wreckage than Meia leveled her laser ring at his face, effectively stopping any notions of escape. Of course, no one cared. ---Holding cells--- "Duelo McFile. And do you have a name, Mr. Third Class Citizen?" Duelo watched as the younger man gnashed his teeth in anger. "Don't mock me! I'm not just your ordinary Third Class Citizen!" "You were the one who disrupted the opening ceremony. How did you get aboard?" Now he was intrigued, if a Third Class citizen was able to make it aboard the Ikazuchi undetected than perhaps he shouldn't be a Third Class Citizen. "I'm just full of surprises." The boy replied with a grin. Duelo smiled and looked down at his shackles, wondering where they'd taken Ranma. His musings were cut short as the egg-shaped robotic interface rolled back to life, sprouting arms and legs. "Pyoro?" Hibiki looked into the cartoonish bulging eyes on the display screen, a sweatdrop growing down his neck. "You...changed...didn't you?" Soon the interrogations were cut short as Buzam entered with a contingent of two guards, one with short green hair and miniscule breasts, the other with long brown tresses. "I'd appreciate it if you came with me." ---Brig--- "Well, well, well, one of the Elite on this ship?" Magno entered the cellblock and plodded closer to the activated green laser-bars of the only occupied cell. Her cane punctuated every other step with a hollow tap on the durasteel floor. Ranma looked up from his lap as he sat propped up against a wall, smoothing back his hair as her features were illuminated by the energy bars. There were no other lights on in the block. The brig was situated next to the holding cells in an area remodeled as the Ikazuchi was restored. The brig was dark and narrow with more of an unsettling psychological effect than the holding cells, though if Ranma felt its impact he did not show any sign of discomfort. "Good evening," he offered, giving her a friendly wave. "You seem curiously unafraid of us, stranger, I'd like to know why." "Let's just say that I'm not like the normal Tarak sheep and leave it at that." Magno smiled, it had been a long time since she'd had a decent battle of wits. "Oh? So you aren't afraid that I'll order you killed and placed over a spit so that my crew can fill their bellies?" Ranma smiled knowingly and looked her straight in the eye. "We both know you aren't cannibals and even if you were I doubt you'd like my taste." It seemed the usual methods of interrogation would be ineffective. "Why did you attack this ship?" The guards on either side of her flexed their fingers to activate their weapons, their white-gloved thumbs dangerously close to the firing stud. "I wouldn't do that if I were you." Magno waved them off with a gesture and gazed back intently at the creature in the cage. "I'm doing the questioning today, young man, and as for why we attacked all you need to know is that we were simply taking back what was ours." "I know all about that, the Ikazuchi is yours, I'm not going to stop you." That was surprising. The guards didn't know what to do any more, they wanted to zap him to shut his insolent mouth but the captain was brushing off his insults. "What do you plan on doing with me?" "We might just eat you on basic principle." Magno replied dryly "Oh, someone here will eat me...sooner or later." Ranma replied with a licentious smile, his eyes running over the curvaceous figures of the guards. If Magno understood the dual nature of his statement she gave no sign. She motioned to her guards and the two women deactivated the bars and hauled him up off the floor. Ranma went willingly, a chill running up his spine as their breasts and hips pressed against his body. He'd show them a whole new perspective on mankind in time. As for the moment, he followed Magno out into the corridor and towards the Officer's onsen. Paksis coated the walls and floor, obviously something had happened during that massive explosion other than cuts and burns. Another thing that bothered him was the lack of response from Tarak, assuming them hadn't entered a wormhole from the blast of the Muremasa the male forces should have been on the scene already. They entered the Officer's onsen as Meia brought in Bart at gunpoint. Duelo looked up at Ranma, still wearing the medical trenchcoat he'd taken from a locker before the explosion, but said nothing. Buzam looked at the newcomers and gestured to Meia, the Dread attacks leader dressed in a form-fitting gray and black jumpsuit that hugged her curves. She threw Bart down on the bench and Ranma quietly took a seat. ---The observation deck--- "Oh...none of these match." Ezra looked through the constellation finder Parfet had whipped up but was dismayed when nothing in the vicinity seemed to match any known formation. Dita was leaning over the railing almost drunkenly, still shaken from the explosion and her excitement in finding a 'real live alien'. "Wow, this place is so different!" The auburn-haired girl was dangling her head over the partition and staring down at the immense oblong stalagmites forced through the soil of the garden by the spread of Paksis. "It looks like Mejale!" "We always thought Paksis was just an energy source but it completely restored the ship." "Yeah...alien power is so amazing! If I ever get abducted-" She was quickly distracted by the movements of several far-off lights, too little to be stars and moving too quickly. "Look! Look, Ezra! It's a UFO!" ---The Officer's onsen--- "So let me get this straight." Magno took a sample from her gelatin cup and pointed at the group of men with her spoon. Buzam was standing on her right side, Meia on her left and the two escorts were still standing behind them, wary already of the men. "The two Elites are doctors, and the little one is-" "An attacker." Meia regarded him with a hostile glare. Not to mention that the black metal face-plate she wore freaked Hibiki out but such things were not her concern. "Now wait just a minute-!!!" Hibiki stood up to declare that he was a lowly mechanics operator when Bart's soft leather boot embedded itself in his stomach. With a wince and a groan, Hibiki Tokai's exclamation was cut violently short. Ranma just let his eyes take in the two female forms on either side of Magno, it was obvious he was dealing with a gender unaccustomed to male eyes and as such dressed as was comfortable, completely oblivious to a man's reactions to seeing such expanses of female flesh. Then again, it wasn't like the males knew what to do anyway so it didn't present a distraction. With a grin he thought that even if the women walked around stark naked the men wouldn't bat an eye, although it would certainly elicit unconscious side-effects such as the one between his legs as Buzam tapped her foot. "I saw him entering one of the Van-types before the explosion." Magno took another bite of the wobbly snack before regarding Ranma. "You I don't understand. The others cowardice or feigned detachment," Duelo flinched, "is understandable. You're casual attitude about this situation distressed me." She waved the glinting piece of flatware in his general direction. "We should get rid of them, the situation is already unstable they would just make matters worse." "Let's not be too hasty, Meia, I want to see what these men are capable of before we throw they out the airlock." She stared menacingly at the youngest two of the lot. Bart and Hibiki's white faces coupled with the sweat pouring down their faces told the aging captain that at least her rouse was effective on those two, now it was just a matter of the others. Her train of thought was broken as a shockwave threw them forward, followed swiftly by an explosion. Klaxons wailed in the distance. The ornate lacquered-bronze dish Magno was eating out of crashed to the floor and shattered. "What's going on?" Buzam snapped into her communicator. "My snack..." "Bad aliens are attacking!" Dita's voice came through in short bursts over Buzam's radio and everyone present sweatdropped. "Parfet! Can we move the ship?" "I'm doing my best but we have no control! The self-defense system's the only thing remotely working!" "Dreads are going out!" Meia dashed through the doors and ran down the hallway through the Paksis crystal and towards the Vanguard hangar where their Dreads lay. As her coltish legs pumped hard to push her through the darkened corridors she was already calling her team. "Barnette?" The vain green-haired woman was crying as icy water drenched her undergarments in the Jacuzzi. Paiway was still diligently writing in her notebook as the other women pounded on the glass window. "Paiway locked us in here and we can't get out!" "Miss Gasco, how are the Dreads?" The hangar was just around the next bend. "The Paksis swallowed up all the Dreads and is blocking the runway, we won't be able to deploy. And it's not Gasco! It's Gascogne!" "Jura?" Apparently she'd been wrong, the hangar was not around the next bend but rather another long run past the exploded Paksis core of the Ikazuchi. If Meia was annoyed by that turn of events, which she was, she didn't grimace but rather frowned in concentration and ran across the bridge overlooking Parfet's operations. "I'm almost at the Dreads, Dita's with me." The blonde rushed through the crystal in black high-heels almost dragging the ditzy Dita behind her as they slammed open the hangar doors. "Are those really ours?" The Dreads were half encased in Paksis but the cockpits were still above the level of coverage. "Wow!" Dita looked up at her heavily modified Dread and ran her hands along its polished blue steel. Meia arrived just as Jura got settled in her redesigned craft, scrambling to her ship and almost ripping off the entry hatch in her haste. "It doesn't look like the interface has changed much, we should be able to pilot them." With that, the three Dreads shot out the hangar bay and into the embrace of dark space and the octopi-looking alien attackers. ---The Officer's onsen--- "Crew transfer is complete." "BC, I leave the bridge to you." Magno sat huddled over her cane and watched the prisoners as Buzam started towards the door. Another blast rocked the ship at that moment, a direct hit by the alien powers on the pirate ship, utterly destroying the stern and sending shockwaves up the Paksis umbilical cord, resulting in the onsen wall collapsing on the green-haired guard. "BC take the attacker with you." Hibiki followed the platinum-tressed first officer out the doors and back to the crystalline corridors. The brown-haired guard knelt by her fallen friend and started to pull her from the debris when Ranma and Duelo's twin exclamations of 'Stop!' shook her from action. The two doctors leapt over the shower mirror and examined the injured woman, clearing a bit of rock dust from her face. A thin trickle of blood seeped from her mouth. "You shouldn't move her like that, you'll just make the injury worse. I have to get this woman to sickbay." At Magno's nod, Duelo and the other female lifted the body and walked briskly out. Ranma was left standing by the ruins of a wall as he regarded Magno. Bart, seeing an opportunity, took advantage of the situation with his (less than) silver tongue. "Well, it seems that you're in need of help." He leaned casually against the bathing faucets. "What do you have in mind?" Magno narrowed her eyes. "I say we call a truce and fill in each other's vacant positions, besides which you need me." "Oh?" "I'm actually a helmsman." He gave her a superior smirk. "Oh really? Well, I suppose I can agree to that, for the moment." Bart smirked smugly and offered his hand to the old woman only to have it knocked away by a hard rap on the knuckles by way of Magno's cane. He looked up at her cold flinty eyes, she'd seen right through his act. "I don't have any intention of getting chummy, young man, I'll still be treating you as a prisoner." Bart couldn't do anything except nod. Ranma walked out with the two of them but broke away silently to find the centre of the ship. ---The Vanguard bay--- "What should we do about him?" "Leave him, he has nowhere else to go. Just like us." Buzam scoffed and turned on a heel, walking away back down the dark hallway. Leaving Hibiki Tokai in charge of his own destiny. "What is your name?" The former Third Class Citizen of Tarak jumped to the ceiling in fright as Ranma appeared behind him. After calming down and growling at the Elite officer, and also walking back the three meters he'd jumped, Hibiki took a defiant tone. "What's it to you?" The question brought to mind the odd hallucinations before he'd awoken after the explosion. "I don't mean anything derogatory, I just want to know your name so I don't have to call you 'Third Class Citizen'." Ranma stood with both his hands at his sides, the breeze of growing Paksis swirling his coat around his legs. "It's Hibiki Tokai." The young worker looked dubiously at the proffered hand as if it were some kind of trick. "I'm Ranma Saotome, nice to meet you." He took Hibiki's hand and shook it, smiling at the youth's odd stare. "What's wrong?" "You're an Elite, why would you shake my hand?" The Elites never did that, hell the Prime Minister never even visited the factories, the hypocrites. "Let's just say that I don't put much stock in caste, okay? Now what are you doing here?" He'd heard the whole argument and Buzam's speech. "Why aren't you fighting, Hibiki? If you know how to use a Vanguard you should help out." "Why? They're just women! Women are our enemies!" Ranma slapped him hard, a firm crack on the cheek with the back of his hand. Hibiki felt something move inside his head and saw blackness and stars for a few moments, falling to the flawless floor. The commanding officer crouched low and watched as the pilot candidate came to his senses slowly. The boy was smart he could tell but misguided, much like a sixteen year old Duelo had been when they first met. He was too buried under societal stigmata and prejudice to see the truth in front of him. "You don't know women, Hibiki Tokai, they could have thrown us out the airlock immediately but they didn't. This isn't about gender or sex, little one, the women are fighting to keep this ship intact so we can live! It's only fair we do the same!" Ranma pointed to the holoscreen report station a few paces down the hall. "If you can do anything at all you can bring yourself up from Third class to Elite, it's just a matter of will. You can pilot a Van-Type, anyone can, now get out there now and fight for your life!" Ranma grasped the steel braided coil on his wrists and ripped it to pieces, letting the remains of the handcuffs clink to the floor. The echo seemed to awaken Hibiki from his attentive stupor and the pig-tailed man could see a new flame burn behind his eyes. As Hibiki called to the bridge, Ranma set back on his way to the core. ---The Bridge--- "What the-!?!?" Bart glanced at the dais at the end of the flying platform. Magno and Pyoro were standing next to him as he tentatively took a step forward. "You don't know what it is?" If he'd been lying she'd see him skinned alive. "Uh...n-n-n-no! Of c-course I know what it is...it's just one of our secret weapons. I'm s-surprised to see it on the ship." Magno gave him a kick in the ass to get him going as he neared the shimmering surface of the ship's interface. "You just g-g-go like th-his." Bart stepped lightly on the blue disk and screamed like a little girl as gooey tendrils reached out and pulled him in, leaving the entire bridge crew astonished to see a human sucked into a computer. Even Magno was impressed. "Th-this is a secret weapon of the men?" "He doesn't get it at all." Just then Buzam and Ezra arrived. "Where's the attacker, BC?" Before the commander could reply, Hibiki's face appeared on the main screen, his eyes flickering with something different than fear. Determination perhaps? Or was it anger? "Why is he-" "Let me handle this captain." Buzam stepped in front of Magno and addressed the man. "What is it? Do you want to fight?" "Yes! I want to fight!" The bridge was silenced by that exclamation and cowed into awe by the courage of a man. Even Magno was impressed. "I want to protect this ship and everyone on it!" There was a pause. Dita and Juri flew by the bridge canopy, chased by alien systems. "But...can you tell me how to get to the hangar?" ---Fast forward--- "I have to take that last step! I have to see it for myself!" The Vanguard ripped through the invaders with its vibro-sword as it sped towards the seed system. The ovular ship looking almost organic with it's moist and scaled surface, that appearance didn't quite connect with the hundreds of attackers flowing from it's gaping maw, making it all too apparent that the 'organic' was in fact technological. "Mr. Alien!!" Dita Liebely sped after him in her Dread, the polish blue metallic paint unscratched even under constant barrages by the unknown creatures (presuming that they are organic). "Dita! Break away and regroup!" Meia watched the horrid spectacle unfold as Dita's Dread came dangerously close to colliding with the Vanguard. "You little fool come back here! You're going to get killed!" Jura swerved to avoid an Octopi and blasted the three that popped into her sights. "Mr. Alien's going to save us! I just know it!" On the bridge of the Ikazuchi, Magno and Buzam watched the fight. The ship was fleeing from the Seed Ship but couldn't outrun it nor could their forces regroup. "Do you think this boy can do it?" Magno asked. "I think that if he does succeed, common sense will be turned on its head." Buzam replied, fascinated by the way the Vanguard easily evaded the octopi attacks. Dita was coming awfully close though... Hibiki dodged the first pass by Dita just barely and flew around the seed ship so that he could attack it from behind. What he didn't realize was that there floated a contingent of sixteen Octopi, which circled and incapacitated him from attacking further. The Seed ship, realizing it was in danger, spun around to face the attacker. Unfortunately Dita's Dread was following Hibiki's Van-Type so closely that she had no time to compensate for his sudden stop and everything exploded in a haze of white and flame. "Dita..." Meia watched as the Seed Ship seemingly suffered no damage and turned again to face the Ikazuchi. She wouldn't let her wing-woman's death be in vain! "Little fool..." The blonde watched as mangled parts of Octopi rained on her Dread's viewscreen. "I guess the miracle didn't happen." The bridge was quiet in respect for their pilot. "Pyoro?" The Navi-robot was the first to detect the new growth of energy at the centre of the blast. An enormous mecha floated out of the flames, metal still red with heat but gradually turning to a deep blue as the vacuum cooled it's surface. Everyone's eyes were wide as the machine flared it's wrist cannons and streaked towards the rear of the enemy system, blazing a corona of green in its wake. "Is that Dita?" Meia and Jura asked, confused as all hell. Magno and Buzam had no response. Duelo was setting the guard's broken bones by hand when the news first reached him and after he'd heard the details, went right back to work. Paiway Underberg was still trying to deal with the injured. Barnette Orangello was still freezing her shapely curvaceous behind off in the decontamination room. The monstrous mecha grabbed hold of the Seed Ship's rear and spun it around, digging its fingers into the shut lips to open the immense mouth that spawned the Octopi-cubes. Ripping the closing mechanism, its nacelles flipped over the shoulders of the gestalt robot and fired green death down its throat. The system bulged with the influx of power, stretching, trying to accommodate the burning fire of destruction shot into it's body, but eventually surrendered ending it's life in a fantastic explosion. The green blast beam, however, continued on its way after bursting through the invader, heading straight at the Ikazuchi. "Shields! All power to forward shields!" Magno stood up from her seat as the string of light threatened to overtake them. "We don't have any! I can't control the system!" Buzam closed her eyes, prepared to die for her captain and her ship. "Strafe left then! Get us out of the beam's range!" Magno was virtually screaming at Bart as he floated in the jelly interface of the new Ikazuchi. The 'helmsmen' was powerless to evade the death ray. A green light illuminated the bridge and blinded all those watching incoming Death. Everyone on the ship closed their eyes and prepared for the end...