This is the start of the novel equivalent of GXP episode 16
1 "An incident"
It was a routine matter for Seina. an hour before they had reached earth to begin their vacation they picked up a distress signal that was was routed through to them from headquarters, Seina's ship was relatively close, so he had to divert from finally seeing his parents again to check it out.\
" the target ship is still here but it seems nonfunctional, I'm also reading enemy ships."
"if were were able to use our hyper space jump to get here we would have been able to get here in time"
They couldn't because the ships ability to jump like that was top secret and this wasn't an ordinary decoy mission so they had orders not to use it.
"Can we stop the enemy ships?"
"Of course!"Amane said happily
"Wait! High energy reaction!" kiriko reported and suddenly all the enemies were surrounded by a white light.
"They're committing Suicide! Damn, they must want to hide the evidence of what they're doing here!"
"The precise scan has finished, There are 15 escape capsules"
"They must have stuck around to hunt the survivors down, what's their status?"
"There are nine responses coming from the capsules, but there is only one putting out a life reaction."
"What do you mean?"
amane asked confused. seina didn't understand what that meant and felt a bit confused by the situation.
"Let's hurry up and recover them anyways."
Kiriko said looking at Seina. Seina nodded.
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When a ship was attacked by Space Pirates and the inside of the ship was destroyed, on-site verification was usually done by dedicated probes and nano-machines. that way they could quickly investigate the inside of the ship while staying in their own.
It was partially also to prevent someones space suit from accidentally springing a leak with all the debris in the area. Another reason, was that it kept them from having to expose Seina to the miserable sight of all the dead on the ship.
Kiriko did the probe search by herself, so she could make sure Fuku didn't see it either.
"How is the inside of the ship?"
Seina looked worried, Kiriko was a little hesitant to answer
"There are no survivors inside the ship, we are currently collecting the bodies while conducting a precision scan of the site."
"Is that so"
"Miah?" Fuku noticed the look on Seina's face. Although she didn't know exactly what was going on because of Kiriko, she had realized it was bad from the look on Seina's face.
"How about the capsules?" Seina asked noticing Fuku's anxiety to distract her. Of course he wanted to distract his own anxieties as well.
"The capsule's have been recovered, but since they don't seem to have survived, I'll get to them once I'm done with the survey."
"Okay ... How is the other capsule?"Seina said while stroking Fuku on the shoulder.
"It's currently being collected by Amane, Hakuren, and Karen"
"Is that so ... are there any other survivors?"
Seina seemed to be praying, but Seina's wish was in vain and there were no survivors in the other capsules.
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In the medical room of Kamidake, a boy about five years old, the only survivor, was laid down.
"... It's okay he has no noticeable trauma and there are no abnormalities with his body"
Kiriko, who was scanning the boy 's body, told Seina with a smile.
"That's good but ..." Although Seina was relieved, He looked at the boy who was sleeping and made a clouded expression.
"Hakuren, how are things going on your end?"
"Recovery of the bodies is complete, and we're done sorting over them"
"Have you found any of the survivors' family?"
"From the genetic data we identified the mothers escape capsule, we found his father in the ship. The damage to both of them is quite drastic and it will be necessary to correct a few things before they are resuscitated ... ... "
They could reproduce some of their damaged body parts, but they had to be careful so they wouldn't suffer from a mental shock when resurrected.
"I trust your judgement, please continue working."
"roger that"
"I hope we can help them."
the father was shot while trying to help the mother and child escape, then the mother released the capsule with the child, and she managed to get herself onto a capsule somehow.
From the scan they could deduce a detailed record of what happened
(I guess I should be happy that at least one of them was saved ... ... huh?) Seina noticed and Fuku staring disturbingly at the boy.
"Fuku? ......... Fuku!"
Seina unexpectedly raised his voice to the surprisingly cold eyed Fuku.
"Hmmm Miah"
Fuku came back to reality, she shook her tail to Seina happily.
(...I wonder what was going through her mind just now) seina thought
Those cold eyes did not match what he had come to expect from Fuku.
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"Everything's all complete We've taken as much data as possible." amane announced
"Should we analyze the data here, it's not like we can do anything else."
"No we better leave some work for the analytics team so they get paid."
"Let's hand over the data as is, we don't want them to know how well the Kamidake can analyse things anyways."
"yeah... just like our hyperspace navigation... it will seem strange if they see we analyzed it over such a short amount of time."
"I know we can't use our ships full abilities all the time ... but i wish we could, so we would have been able to save more then just that child ... ...."Seina said, a bit dissatisfied with everyone's opinion.
"It is an everlasting dilemma that those who have Juraian Royal ships and Philosophers at the Academy face, knowing that the technology you have can help the people in front of you, but it can also cause even greater disasters. the only thing we can do is turn a blind eye ... "
"A great disaster?"
"High level technology is often seasoned in battle. it's not an exaggeration to say that most technology is used by the militarily the first time,Royal ships, and ships like Ryo-Ohki and the Kamidake have great power but it should be used responsibly"
"If something went really wrong it could cause an intergalactic war."
people naturally seek to maintain the same or slightly higher power as their opponents. However, if they knew that their power was unobtainably more advanced then theirs a war could develop from that fear alone.
"...... could it really get that bad?"
"And when trying to gain that power, its often the personality of those involved that is the most devastated. I'm Ashamed, just remembering how we tried to build a subsystem for fuku."
It was an un-objective weapon and one that was heartlessly made. all they cared about was weather it could execute the instructions reliably or not. as if it was necessary to make fuku operate reliably just by turning on a switch.
"............"
"Of course, that's why they use disguises for the ships if possible and tamper with records. royal ships are easy to disguise, without the wood exterior it's just a small unit, it's easy to conceal from other countries, but for this ship that would be difficult don't you think? "
"……Yes"
"Fortunately, since we are acting directly under and reporting only to Airi now, it is easy to tamper with the records, but when we're formally deployed like this we need to maintain the image that we're just another ship in the fleet, I'm sure it's just a matter of time though that everyone finds out, but for now it has to be hidden until that becomes impossible. "
"Yes, I understand."
To further complicate thing's seina was still a minor, and giving him such a thing to a youth, when youthful people are seldom able to responsibly wield such things would cause extra tension.
There were no adults who trusted truly important decisions to youth.
Expecially Seina, with his ridiculously high probability bias. He couldn't afford to make a mistake. he could cause a disaster to spin out of control with little momentum. and with the Kamidake he had power comparable to a royal ship. as such Seina had to live with the same dilemmas that those with royal ships do.
"Do we know the identity of the survivor?"
"He was registered in the central gene bank, but we don't know why he and his family were on the ship or why the ship was attacked."
The data of the boy was displayed, and his parents' photos were also displayed beside him.
"Oh, those are his parents, and other relatives are ... ... None"
"well I am fortunate to have been able to at least save this child, I guess there's no other way to think of it."
"well since he is the only witness. we will have to hand him over to those in charge together with the data we collected."There was nothing else that Seina could do for him.
"Captain, the boys' consciousness has returned"Ryoko reported, Seina and the others Headed for the transfer gate to the medical area immediately.
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An incident occurred at the same time as consciousness returned to the boy, in the area where the capsules full of bodies were placed.
Gryan!
Blades protruded from the inside of a capsule, breaking it open and from the inside, corpses with blades for arms came out.
The first corpse unlocked another capsule, and those corpses unleashed the others one after another. an alarm triggered instantly but Seina was not aware of it because the alarm for the capsules were set to a low priority and they were busy paying careful attention the boy.
-----------End of chapter-----------
click for chapter 2