Difference between revisions of "Battle of Haibi Chapter 12"

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[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/FHD_Haibi Back to Battle of Haibi main directory]
 
[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/FHD_Haibi Back to Battle of Haibi main directory]
  
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Previous: [[Battle of Haibi Chapter 12]]: Precursors
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Previous: [[Battle of Haibi Chapter 11]]: Tailspin
  
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Chapter 13: Air Strike
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Chapter 12: Precursors
  
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Samurai puts his hand on Roku's shoulder as she looks at a kiosk in the Central Tower's first floor lobby, "SCD+76yr Dec 17 06:42:31"
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Roku is walking along main street towards the Central Tower.  It is a training day for her.  She checks her watch and sits down at a bench.  She pulls out a small bag and tosses some seeds to the sparrows.  She starts rambling at them, "This all feels so strange, being a haibane and all.  I'm used to war and bloodshed, deployment orders.  Now I live in a quaint little apartment save for a few nights in a barracks."
  
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"What are you up to?" Samurai asks.
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Her loud sigh startles a couple of the sparrows, but they show no further interest as she whispers, "I know nothing of what my life was like in the Final War ... except how it ''feels.''"  The sparrows must be particularly hungry, as two of them hop up on the bench beside her and pick some crumbs that she spilled by accident just inches away from her hip.  "It seems odd that you'd get so close," she whispers, "And for some reason," she reflects, "I feel afraid ... not of death or injury or persecution."  She closes her eyes and whispers, "I'm afraid of turning into a garrison softie ... What does that mean?"
  
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"I'm getting used to this Arabic/Latin stuff," Roku reflects, "It looks so familiar, yet so alien.  It's agonizing," she sighs.
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She opens her eyes, sensing that someone has sat down on the bench beside her.  There's no one there.  A black shape catches her eye, and standing on the bench's ornate stone upright is a crow.  As soon as it realizes that she's noticed, he takes off.
  
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"What is?" Samurai asks.
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"Who-" she pauses as the crow deftly catches a thermal updraft over the next alley and stops flapping its wings even as it continues to climb. "Who am I?  Do you know?"
  
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"The life I've left behind, I somehow know," she says, "How can I explain this? ... It's like I've left my life behind, but I still have a job."
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She checks her watch, and as she stands, the sparrows on the bench appear to regain their sense of self-preservation and scatter. She pours the rest of her dried out bread crust onto the snow in the plaza. About a hundred sparrows have gathered and elbow each other as she reaches the stairs on the western face of the square tower.
  
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"A Final Warrior," Samurai says.  "It's agonizing for me too.  Somehow I know, that the war of my first life," he shakes his head.  After a long moment, "It meant ''nothing.''  I lived a ''meaningless,'' empty life, having taken meaningless, ''empty'' oaths that I can't even remember the words to." He looks Roku in the eye, "And now ... the ''Saviour'' himself is holding me to those oaths ... to defend ''Haibi'' with my life."
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She arrives at the second floor, the control room simulator.  Samurai greets her, then whispers, "Willow Branch say anything?"
  
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Roku glances again at the clock.  "Oh, my!"  She switches it to Japanese, "For ''real!''" she gasps, grabs her bag and says, "I'm late for work!"
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She shakes her head.  "Has a haibane precursor ''ever'' been positively identified?" she asks.
  
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"Roku, wait!" Samurai orders, "Kabocha not expecting you today.  I want you on the gate for the Toga's arrival."
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"No," Samurai says, "Well ... I don't know, actually.  I think if I found out who my precursor was, especially if it was someone famous like Nick Vitores or Jack Campbell ... I doubt I'd want it known all around."
  
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"What?" Roku gasps, "I've only been here six weeks, and you want to put me on such an important post."
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"Nick?" she asks.
  
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Samurai puts a finger firmly on her shoulder, "Rok'hyaku Rokujuu Roku," he says with conviction, "''you'' are the ''best gunner'' in all of Haibi.  By far."
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"Oh," Samurai says, "Operation Tatakai, the Final War unit that wielded the Soul Cube.  Their main members were Jack and Devon Campbell, but they picked up several long term members before the annihilation battle.  Nick Vitores, Victor Neufeld, Juice Hightail ... ''Echo,'' dang, not even Gillie could figure out his real name."
  
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"Really?" she asks.
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"Do we know what happened to them?" Roku asks.
  
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"''Really,''" Samurai says, "Like I said before, I've been keeping you off the wall so that the enemy doesn't discover how good at this you really are.  But today-"  He pauses, "I have a ''really'' bad feeling about this.  The enemy has been building forces up just outside where ... they think we can see them.  We can see farther than they know, and have carefully hidden that fact from them.  Our sensors penetrate the weather, as you know, but they ''don't'' know that, obviously or they wouldn't be doing it in sight of us."
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Samurai says, "Vitores lasted just into the Annihilation, February or March of zero year and died when the Tatakai vehicle at that time was shot down.  Neufeld was a marked lab assistant in the first teleporter lab, the Soul Cube stole his implants, and then he was mostly a data sleuth.  He was left in Miami when the annihilation started ... at his request.  He probably starved to death.  Juice went missing just after," Samurai racks his brain, "No, sorry, just ''before'' the Annihilation started.  Probably secretly murdered while running her last errand, nobody has any idea what became of her."
  
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"Uh," Roku says, "There's a trick I remember. There's a special layer in the atmosphere you can bounce radio waves-"
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"Echo?" Roku asks.
  
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"''Sssh!''" Samurai says.  He looks at her with a deep admiration, "That's how we know, Roku ... God, is there anything she ''doesn't'' know about warfare?"
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Samurai laughs, "As if.  He went back to the UEG Marine Corps just after the annihilation began, so we know even less about his fate."
  
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"I could never forge that sword of yours," she says, "It's beautiful."
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"Could I," Roku says softly, afraid of what the answer might be, "have been one of them?"
  
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"Let's get you on the gate tower," Samurai says.
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"I ''seriously'' doubt it.  First, you don't look like ''any'' of them, and..." his voice trails off.
  
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Roku settles into the turret.  Subtle details in the scope reveal to her that it is not a simulation.  There are no wraiths.  She scans the path for mines, using half a dozen search modes that nobody else knows.
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Roku silently prods for the rest of the tought.
  
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<Roku-san> Samurai says, <Remember, we have a covenant to protect the Toga from the enemy.  If we betray it, it's the end of Haibi.>
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Samurai turns and looks at her, "Well, haibane might look ''totally'' different than their precursors, and that might be why we've never been able to track one down.  Kabocha thinks you're Featherwing Tatakai herself, but..."
  
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"Acknowledged, Master," Roku says.
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"I first reacted to that name by saying ''Haibane'' Tatakai," Roku says, "She must have died too late to have been executed for refusing an implant.  After the Annihilation started, the implant became meaningless, and in my cocoon dream, it is clear that I was executed for refusing to take one."  Roku looks away momentarily, wondering if he has a response.  After a minute, she turns back to him and says, "I think that if Devon Campbell comes back, she will take on ''that'' name, ''Tatakai.''  She ''must'' have died in battle."
  
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<Air strike,> she hears, but it is not Samurai.
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"I wish she were around now," Samurai says, "but hey!"  He turns towards her and says, "We're very blessed to have you in our defense.  You place first in most categories of training, but there is one thing you need to improve on."
  
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Roku cups her hand over her ear and listens.  Activating her radio with a flick of her wing under the battle robe, she whispers, "Zero-nine-five here, say again?"
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"Just one?" she chuckles.
  
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<Negative, Roku-san,> the sector commander says, <No traffic for you.>
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Samurai smiles, "True.  After just five weeks as a haibane, you still have a lot to learn, even if they're just refresher courses.  This thing," he reaches into an equipment cell built into the corridor next to the opening by the stairs, "I'm pretty sure your precursor has never seen."
  
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<Air strike,> it's a quiet whisper.
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"So, I need to improve on?" she says with a coy smile.
  
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Without keying her radio, she whispers, "Christ Almighty."
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"Your ''flying,''" Samurai says with a smile.
  
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Her heart skips a beat, and she realizes that she's pointed the wrong way.  She reaches for her track control and pulls the lever to "Air Defense"  The turret immediately starts moving back away from the wall's edge, as she pulls the plasma cannon above the horizon.
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Roku claps her wings back so hard that they generate a startling clap, then blows such a gust of air at Samurai that his hair is blown about.  "I've tried," she says.
  
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"Electronic support measures," she says on the radio, "Enemy emissions outside of Sector 2?  I need codes for C, S, X, and Ku bands to display in my turret HUD, acknowledge?"
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"Did your precursor ever fly?" Samurai asks.
  
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<Uh ... sure zero-nine-five, coming over your procedures,> the sector commander replies.
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"No," Roku says flatly.
  
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Roku reads from her procedures monitor, keys in the modes, and adjusts them.  The band that penetrates the cloud bank out east shows her ... shimmering shapes.  One of them flaps its wings.
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"No airliners, gliders, parachutes-"
  
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"Spectre cloak!" she cries in English.  Not knowing how to say it in Japanese, she says instead, "Incoming, zero-nine-five!" and starts shooting into the fog, from one cloaked batwing to the next, Cacoe. "Bearings only!" she reports.
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"Oh!" Roku blurts, blushing.  She spreads a wing and says, "I thought you meant these."
  
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As Roku's blue streaks course into the grey, a fireball comes back at her and misses her turret by four metres, blowing a shallow crater in the stone of the wall.
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"Well, you use them," Samurai waits for just long enough for Roku to get uncomfortable, then finishes, "to ''steer...''"  He hands her the backpack as he finishes, "A self-rigidizing, hikarinium suspended paraflyer.  That's how Kabocha got the radiation herbs to you so fast when," he pauses to steel himself for the name, "Taka got hit."  They spend a moment in silence, which he breaks by smacking her on the shoulder, "Come on, I'll show you."
  
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"Zero-eight-five copy my scope settings, code Alpha-Charlie-nine-seven-five," Roku says.  More fireballs tear at the wall around her, unable to find the mark.  Roku shoots out of the air the ones that air aimed accurately at the turret.  "''Hurry'' zero-eight-five!  I'm barely hanging on!" she cries.
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Next: [[Battle of Haibi Chapter 13]]: Air Strike
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In the control room in Defense Tower Two, well to the south, just north of the river's exit aqueduct into the base of the wall.  The sector commander looks at a situation display and sees nothing.  He calls up Roku's scope and sees her shooting at barely distinguishable flapping distortions in the green haze.  As she hits each one, it decloaks, recognizable as batwing and cacoe creatures.  Suddenly two alarms go off and looking over at his situation display, hundreds of red arrows appear.  The teamug slips out of his hands and shatters on the floor at his feet.  "Rifle sections three and four to ramparts zero-nine-two," he says calmly, "Power boost zero-nine-five and zero-eight-five."
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"Zero-eight-five has been hit!" somebody cries out.  The same voice cries, "Section Three!  Get on your fliers, she's all alone up there!"
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Roku, shooting furiously as the force decloaks in front of her, adjusts her turret position within the track system.  Fireballs are coming down all around her.  <Roku-san, how many?> Samurai asks.  Roku, far too busy to think about anything else but her weapon, dances her left hand over several switches.  Her weapon switches from firing one beam every half second to a nearly continuous stream of bursts thirty every second.
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<Roku-san!> Samurai's desperate voice cries.
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"Master, standby one," she says.
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Samurai, in Defense Tower Two's secret backup control room hidden in one of the shops in the Three-Mid industrial area, makes a call, "Hi, Kaiyou (海洋, Ocean)?  I need you to get to the Level Six look-up kiosk and translate this call for me."  He plays the recording of Roku's voice in English, <Spectre cloak!>
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Roku suddenly starts slowing her fire.  A couple more bursts.  She empties her lungs in a relieved sigh, "They're retreating."  She reaches for her position lever and pushes it forward.  A buzzer sounds.  Her procedures screen displays the message "Track damaged: unable to reach 095-glacis."
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"I can't reach the ground support position for the Toga," she says.
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A flying rifleman passes over, near her turret over the mildly damaged wall.  He hangs on the invisible suspension effect of his dimly glowing hikarinium buckles, zooming over the edge of the wall with his big rifle in his hands, <It's too late,> he reports, <The Toga convoy is destroyed, all forty carts.>
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Samurai slumps in his chair listening to Defense Tower Two report, <Acknowledged, how many casualties?>
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<Twelve,> comes the reply, all dead.  Samurai's eyes pop open as the report continues, <There are a ''lot'' of scooter tracks in the snow, Master.  It looks like a lot of them must have gotten away.>
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Roku pulls the action open on her turret's gun, looking at the glowing blue and dangerously hot circuitry.  She pokes at the brightest blue glowing part with a screwdriver.  With a spark, it flies out of the action and bounces off the cramped interior's roof.  She slips in a replacement part with her fingers.  Then she pops open the grey box, inserts the screwdriver into a mode switch and turns it from "A" to "B", then slaps the control box shut and pushes the entire glowing blue action back into battery.
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<Master Samurai,> Roku says, <That covenant means a lot, doesn't it?>  Samurai looks up as Roku reports, <The enemy are pursuing the Toga uncloaked.  I can help them out.  Current range is twenty-four kilometres>
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"Roku-san," Samurai warns quietly, "The wall turret can't shoot that far."
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< I looked up that grey box I asked you about when you first showed me,> she says, <Mode B ... is it worth that secret to save the Toga?>
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A flyer reports in, <There are about four hundred, Master, under about twice as many Cacoe.  We could use some help, sir.>
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Before Samurai can speak, his Sector Two commander, orders, <Do it, Roku-san.  Mode B is authorized.>
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Roku's thumb pushes the red button home.  Out of the muzzle of her gun moves a very fast green projectile, cutting a path through the fog as it flies.  Two seconds later, another.
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"I'm glad we've finally worked all the bugs out of this thing," Roku says.  She can easily track her two BFG missiles.  In its ultimate form, the projectile can be steered for minor course corrections, and travels at four kilometres per second.
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The streaking green fireballs each cut loose several lightning like pulses, avoiding the weaving haibane fliers and targeting only the floating round monsters.  Each missile takes out forty of the Cacoe hellspawn before it even explodes.  Both explode at the same time, etching beautiful green spiderweb patterns into the sky.  Well over half of the attacking enemy force is falling upon the fleeing Toga in little flaming cinders as they tear off on their motorbikes through the snow.  The other half decide their best odds are to dive and retreat.
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Having just switched her turret weapon back to Mode A, Roku returns her turret's action back to battery.
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<Master Samurai,> the Sector commander's voice greets a weary ear, < I vote that this new redhead of yours ''never'' gets a desk job!>
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Next: [[Battle of Haibi Chapter 14]]: Siege
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[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/FHD_Haibi Back to Battle of Haibi main directory]
 
[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/FHD_Haibi Back to Battle of Haibi main directory]

Revision as of 17:31, 25 May 2010

Back to Battle of Haibi main directory

Previous: Battle of Haibi Chapter 11: Tailspin

Chapter 12: Precursors

Roku is walking along main street towards the Central Tower. It is a training day for her. She checks her watch and sits down at a bench. She pulls out a small bag and tosses some seeds to the sparrows. She starts rambling at them, "This all feels so strange, being a haibane and all. I'm used to war and bloodshed, deployment orders. Now I live in a quaint little apartment save for a few nights in a barracks."

Her loud sigh startles a couple of the sparrows, but they show no further interest as she whispers, "I know nothing of what my life was like in the Final War ... except how it feels." The sparrows must be particularly hungry, as two of them hop up on the bench beside her and pick some crumbs that she spilled by accident just inches away from her hip. "It seems odd that you'd get so close," she whispers, "And for some reason," she reflects, "I feel afraid ... not of death or injury or persecution." She closes her eyes and whispers, "I'm afraid of turning into a garrison softie ... What does that mean?"

She opens her eyes, sensing that someone has sat down on the bench beside her. There's no one there. A black shape catches her eye, and standing on the bench's ornate stone upright is a crow. As soon as it realizes that she's noticed, he takes off.

"Who-" she pauses as the crow deftly catches a thermal updraft over the next alley and stops flapping its wings even as it continues to climb. "Who am I? Do you know?"

She checks her watch, and as she stands, the sparrows on the bench appear to regain their sense of self-preservation and scatter. She pours the rest of her dried out bread crust onto the snow in the plaza. About a hundred sparrows have gathered and elbow each other as she reaches the stairs on the western face of the square tower.

She arrives at the second floor, the control room simulator. Samurai greets her, then whispers, "Willow Branch say anything?"

She shakes her head. "Has a haibane precursor ever been positively identified?" she asks.

"No," Samurai says, "Well ... I don't know, actually. I think if I found out who my precursor was, especially if it was someone famous like Nick Vitores or Jack Campbell ... I doubt I'd want it known all around."

"Nick?" she asks.

"Oh," Samurai says, "Operation Tatakai, the Final War unit that wielded the Soul Cube. Their main members were Jack and Devon Campbell, but they picked up several long term members before the annihilation battle. Nick Vitores, Victor Neufeld, Juice Hightail ... Echo, dang, not even Gillie could figure out his real name."

"Do we know what happened to them?" Roku asks.

Samurai says, "Vitores lasted just into the Annihilation, February or March of zero year and died when the Tatakai vehicle at that time was shot down. Neufeld was a marked lab assistant in the first teleporter lab, the Soul Cube stole his implants, and then he was mostly a data sleuth. He was left in Miami when the annihilation started ... at his request. He probably starved to death. Juice went missing just after," Samurai racks his brain, "No, sorry, just before the Annihilation started. Probably secretly murdered while running her last errand, nobody has any idea what became of her."

"Echo?" Roku asks.

Samurai laughs, "As if. He went back to the UEG Marine Corps just after the annihilation began, so we know even less about his fate."

"Could I," Roku says softly, afraid of what the answer might be, "have been one of them?"

"I seriously doubt it. First, you don't look like any of them, and..." his voice trails off.

Roku silently prods for the rest of the tought.

Samurai turns and looks at her, "Well, haibane might look totally different than their precursors, and that might be why we've never been able to track one down. Kabocha thinks you're Featherwing Tatakai herself, but..."

"I first reacted to that name by saying Haibane Tatakai," Roku says, "She must have died too late to have been executed for refusing an implant. After the Annihilation started, the implant became meaningless, and in my cocoon dream, it is clear that I was executed for refusing to take one." Roku looks away momentarily, wondering if he has a response. After a minute, she turns back to him and says, "I think that if Devon Campbell comes back, she will take on that name, Tatakai. She must have died in battle."

"I wish she were around now," Samurai says, "but hey!" He turns towards her and says, "We're very blessed to have you in our defense. You place first in most categories of training, but there is one thing you need to improve on."

"Just one?" she chuckles.

Samurai smiles, "True. After just five weeks as a haibane, you still have a lot to learn, even if they're just refresher courses. This thing," he reaches into an equipment cell built into the corridor next to the opening by the stairs, "I'm pretty sure your precursor has never seen."

"So, I need to improve on?" she says with a coy smile.

"Your flying," Samurai says with a smile.

Roku claps her wings back so hard that they generate a startling clap, then blows such a gust of air at Samurai that his hair is blown about. "I've tried," she says.

"Did your precursor ever fly?" Samurai asks.

"No," Roku says flatly.

"No airliners, gliders, parachutes-"

"Oh!" Roku blurts, blushing. She spreads a wing and says, "I thought you meant these."

"Well, you use them," Samurai waits for just long enough for Roku to get uncomfortable, then finishes, "to steer..." He hands her the backpack as he finishes, "A self-rigidizing, hikarinium suspended paraflyer. That's how Kabocha got the radiation herbs to you so fast when," he pauses to steel himself for the name, "Taka got hit." They spend a moment in silence, which he breaks by smacking her on the shoulder, "Come on, I'll show you."

Next: Battle of Haibi Chapter 13: Air Strike

Back to Battle of Haibi main directory

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