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7.2 - Deadlight Commences Part 2

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If the first two days of waiting had been dull and uneventful, with little to no talk between Hoki and Scarlet, the following forty-eight hours had been the reverse. Multiple false starts had dragged one or the other from where they slept, only to find out it had been nothing more than a passing comet or such like. With the atrophy of no exercise now setting in, Scarlet's games of cards had become ever more frequent to pass the monotony. Hoki had to admit it fascinated her how much their conversation on the second day had changed things. Just talking had made things feel ever so slightly different between the two.

For Hoki, the realisation of just how similar to her father, Scarlet really was, had seemingly re-contextualized much. It was hard not to think more fondly of the woman now that she reminded her so much of those heady days spent with her father's unit after The First War had ended. A part of her wanted to feel embarrassed by it - For all the previous bickering to be so pointless seemed wrong - And yet she simply couldn't help but wonder now why it was they had been at odds in the first place. It struck her that it was too easy. Surely they couldn't just stop arguing because of one silly heart-to-heart. And yet, despite all these considerations, she honestly began to look forward to when the two's schedules would match up. To asking her more questions and to have the opportunity to learn about the bizarre woman's colourful 'past lives'.

Alternately, Scarlet just seemed happy to have someone to play cards with. Unlike Hoki, the strain of not moving about and the unnatural quiet that came once you got accustomed to the stirrings of the Vijaiks seemed normal for Scarlet. Unlike on the Fluchtig, she acted downright chirpy. While she did make sure to curse Kolme and Nate's names at every opportunity she got, claiming it was their fault they'd been left waiting for so long.

The prediction had forecasted that the Curadh would arrive in two days at the most. It had now been more than four long spans floating aimlessly in the blackness of space. If things went on like this for much longer, new issues would inevitably arise: There was a limit to how long the crew cabin could supply them with food and oxygen - Or to how long the pilots could stave off the side effects of such cabin pressure even if Scarlet seemed so contented - Which in itself Hoki was sure would have come across as annoying just days ago.

  Of course, none of this was to say things didn't still get heated between the duo. While a serviceable way to kill time, the card game often proved an infuriating experience. Scarlet was clearly an old hand at the thing, and while Hoki could keep up, Scarlet often acted with a self-assured air as though the whole thing were rigged in her favour.

'That's impossible to do, mind you. It's a simulation; Scarlet wouldn't have the tools to hack it, which means she's just trying to freak me out...'

A small panel chirped to Hoki's side, just as on-screen, yet another game ended in her defeat. As she looked over at the panel that had sought her attention, she did her best to ignore Scarlet's whop of victory. 96 Hours.

Scarlet too, stopped cheering to read her own notification.

"Blasting heck, nearly a hundred hours, the heck are those damn men thinking!"

Hoki didn't respond; instead, she slumped into her chair, a hand on her face.

"You alright? Guess I beat ya pretty great in that round. I suppose you must be wanting to head to bed right 'bout now," Scarlet suggested with only a hint of satisfaction at her latest victory.

Hoki shook her head; "No, it's not that. I don't think so, anyway. Scarlet, surely your head is tired of this place, too? Isn't this a bit too much 'Calm before the Storm' even for you?"

Rather than her usual response of laughter, a knowing smile crept across Scarlet's face, one which Hoki recognised from her time spent around Lt.Kolme - The sort of smile she had always wished she could manage herself.

  "How many actions have you seen, girly?"

"Huh? What has that got to with-- Oh, oh really, that how it is then? I really thought we'd started to move past all this silly bicker--" Before she could go any further, Scarlet cut back in, "Slow down for cryin' out loud. I meant it honestly. Sheesh."

Hoki hesitated for a moment but relented nonetheless, "Fine if you really must know - two. Just two, and none of them in space. Laugh away."

There was no laugh; Scarlet simply nodded at her.

"More than a lot have. I take it the second was when your da' tried to escape Bhaile?"

Still hesitant, Hoki nodded back, "...There was another. At the officer's academy when I was still a student, some terrorist group managed to infiltrate the school with a teacher, Sun only knows how. He handed copies of keys out to his comrades over months of prep work, and then one day, suddenly, the whole school is being held hostage by a load of terrorists with half the school's training Vijaiks."

"Let me guess, you lead your classmates to fight 'em off with the other half of those mecha?" Scarlet asked with a genuine tone of intrigue.

"...Well, I suppose we did yes, stopped them doing anything until the military could arrive. We even made the national news," Hoki reminisced, "But it was Vald who did the leading part..."

"Vald? Funny name, an old boyfriend?"

Hoki choked on her own words. 'How long. How long since you last said his name with such causal abandon. You damn disrespectful idiot!'

"Girly? Hoki?"

"Ah, sorry, umm. Vald was more of a brother, really. I don't generally go for men, not that I'd have seen Val that way whatever the case may be."

Again Scarlet's expression seemed unfazed, though it was clear she had picked up on the key word as she sat quietly giving Hoki the time to speak - Was.

"You know how I'm the 'Hokuai'?" - Scarlet nodded along in confirmation, "Well, the Hokuai has been a man for a long time now. Don't get me wrong, father never - And I really mean that - Never acted like he would have had me be any other way, but with Vald… He could... I think Val meant he had a son and a daughter, if that makes sense."

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"And this Vald, he didn't make it into space either, I take it?" Scarlet said in an uncharacteristically subtle tone.

Hoki nearly laughed as she shook her head; "Oh he made it alright. He skipped a whole year of school; he was just that good. TSU-s recruited him before he had even finished training and then on his first deployment, against… Well, that bit doesn't matter. Anyway, he got injured, captured, and then summarily executed by the terrorists - In a video sent to TSU command, a beheading is what the 'rumours' all say... It's funny, really. I used to be jealous of him. It wasn't based on anything. My father always doted on me and always told me the title would be mine someday but I was jealous. He got into TSU-s so young, graduated early, went to space, and was the model image of what the next Hokuai was meant to be..."  

Hoki let her sentence trail away.

"Nasty piece of business, it sounds like," Scarlet muttered, a more rigid complexation coming over her face.

Hoki pawed at her eyes while trying to look away from the camera, "Ahem, anyway, nothing to be nervous about, we've trained for this right, 'since birth’. Isn't that what you told Una?"

"Pah! That's just what the Rookie needed to hear; she's the sort who feels better if she believes everyone else around her knows what's going on. I didn't mean it for you. Nothing wrong with being nervous, not after something like that," Scarlet concluded sternly.

"Nonsense, that whole thing was years ago, and it's not like I was there or anything. I was safe at home..."

Scarlet frowned at this, "I didn't always like the moments before a battle, ya know. When we first invaded Bhaile, I was absolutely bricking it. I can't have been much older than you are now, but everyone looked at me as if I knew something they didn't. Ha, maybe I did about mech-combat in space but on land? I'd never even felt gravity as strong as you have down there, never seen an ocean or natural forest before. I knew nothing, but everyone respected me, Miss Test-Pilot, to know it all."

It was Hoki's turn to sit quietly, wondering if Scarlet was simply making things up to comfort her.

"But then I met Master, stupid old git that he was. Taught us how to live down there, pilot a twenty-metre-tall behemoth across open plains, and sleep well but stay aware enough to run when the night-time shelling would start. How to share the tea ration out properly."

  A sincere smile and that far-away look now took hold of Scarlet's visage.

"You said that before, 'Master’. Was he your teacher?"

"Teacher, eh? No, that ain't quite right. I was already your age then, older even. No more like... In the old Abhailen tongue, we say 'Naikima', like a companion, I guess. A mentor but also a friend. Ha, like that makes any sense!"

"Naikima... That's an old word from parts of Eastern Bhaile. I learned some when I was little," Hoki added.

"Huh? Well there ya go; makes sense to me. The very first settlers of Abhaile were from all over, the language was just a mesh of them all, before the 'Great Homogenisation' at least," Scarlet put a particular sarcastic emphasis on the name of the law that had abolished most old languages, "Ya that's what he was. Ha, could of sworn the old fool had died on me a dozen times over, but we'd always run into each other again. During the evacuation of Bhaile, when things started goin' wrong for the revolution - I saw him holding the rear line. I thought for sure it was a final stand kind of deal - Yet months later, I ran into him again, only for us to get split up once more when the war ended.

  Cutting a very long story short, he ended up being my subordinate during '18. Never really felt right that, but there it was. 'Lt. Commander Scarlet' - sounds bloody stupid, doesn't it? And I suppose, if we're really stuck here with nothing to do but gossip like old hags, you might as well know he died, not in battle as some hero but as an invalid. I commanded twenty-five in the 'none-war'; he was all that made it back alive. Left in a tiny room out the back of the Remembrance base. I used all my 'influence' to stop them from trying to throw him out. They believed he was a drain on resources - Can you believe that? The man had fought with them for so many years, and that's how it ends - Well, I could hardly stay with Remembrance after that or all the other crap I saw them do - Then I went and did it all again with the Mithril when I joined up with IAFS and well, you know the rest...."

There was a drawn-out silence as the two stewed on the delicate details they'd let each other in on.

  'The magic of the battlefield really is something else....'

"Is… Is that why you hate me?" Hoki asked, more meekly than she had intended.

"I don't hate you, princess. I've just seen too many like you die. I don't wan--"

"Scarlet, scarlet, I... You were right. Nervous? They want us to fight a friggin Casnel! I've spent my whole life being raised on stories of their greatness, told how they're the closest man can get to gods! I can't do this just cause I happen to specialise in rifles. ‘Hokuai’ is just a name I stole. I'm no legendary warrior!" Hoki blurted the words out like a dam of emotions that the last four days of isolation had eroded away entirely.

"You heard me tell Nilas before, girly, I don't want any more students or 'comrades'. The Rookie is just, I don't know, it just happened, but you're different girl. I'm not looking to train a successor," Scarlet said back calmly.

"Then don't train me as one; don't train me at all. I just want a naikima, Scarlet. We've been here four days, and we both know that the plan sucks. It's vague and optimistic at best. Playing cards can only distract me so much from that fact. I know before I disregarded you, tried to pull rank--"

"Arbiter behind 'The Massacre of the 4th' - wasn't it' you said?"

"And I'm sorry for that, I am. You just--"

"Seemed like an old fart who couldn't accept that times had changed and my war had ended a decade ago?" Hoki nodded dejectedly; Scarlet continued, "Ya well, I suppose I might have seen you as a bit of an entitled daddy’s girl. Guess I was wrong about that if nothing else--"

"Then?"

If you want to make this ridiculous mission work, I wouldn't mute you if you happened to start going over the battle plan aloud - I might have a comment or two on it. But as a," Scarlet sighed deeply before going on, "--As a friend, alright? Not as a student or ally, just a chat between friends who happen to be standing on the precipice of death, nothing more. I guess I owe you that much, but you better get ahold of yourself - What would the 'kids' think if they saw this outburst from their teacher, eh?"

Hoki smiled, not the usual fake mask she used to assure her former students - But a real, honest smile.

'Screw it if it's stupid, I am afraid, very afraid, but with her - She's stubborn, overbearing and arrogant - But there's just something about her. I want to talk to her more. Friend? That sounds nice... That's ok, right, father... Vald?

  I promised that day to fight for everyone who can't anymore, for everyone who's still waiting for a resolution - To make sure their sacrifices are not in vain - Why shouldn't I add Scarlet to that list? Even if she can be a bitch sometimes... I want to fight alongside her! I want--'

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