Chapter 24, Cold Welcome

Two days into the first Sidonian diplomatic mission to another universe, the crew of Mizuki only found disappointment.

The radio signals on planetary orbit turned out to be autonomous magnetic mines; the people who activated them, along with anyone else in the ships and stations behind this wall of explosives, were dead for centuries. Hostile organic biomass on debris were the first signs of activity greeting the recon squad's Guardians just as they cleared a path through the minefield.

Still, Yuhata felt the only way out was through. She made the decision to deploy an armed boarding team made of Teruru the artificial human and several Honokas to investigate, starting with the station named Roanoke. Meanwhile, Izana would lead a few Guardians to clean up floating organisms and gather samples for analysis. The ship's Hyggs sensors detected extra background activity spikes when the debris parasites were cut open - what if these fleshy, tumorous things were related to Gauna?

"I've caught a new specimen!" Izana reported, her Guardian's camera focusing on a container with something angry bouncing around inside, "I'll have unit 581 send it over to you."

"Okay, what is it?"

"Some kind of space animal? I see energy signals on it, but no Gauna core."

"...An animal?"

"It fired spikes at us!" Tsumugi added, "This means it's a porcupine, right?"

"Porcupines don't launch spikes, at least they dob't have tentacles."

"Then it should be a hedgehog? I want to ask Dr. Tahiro... Oh! There's something bigger moving under this ship tagged Terra Nova, We should check it out next."

"Sure. Izana, just keep your automatic decoder running, remember, we need to make our radio system compatible with theirs at the soonest."

"It's running! Here, forwarding you the first shipborne message I caught, without delay! It's on a loop."

"Thanks, file received. Roanoke team, come in. En, Ichigaya, what's your status?"

"Busy!" The unofficially acclaimed angriest Honoka barked back, "Permission to come back for more ammo and katana blades!"

"Hardened!" Teruru replied in the authentic socially awkward artificial human manner.

"Pardon me?" Yuhata was about to ask for elaboration on what the away team was fighting, but Schneider helpfully synchronized the android's camera footage to the main screen - just in time for everyone to see En tearing off tendrils from a mummified human skull, then crushing it with her own hands. Her tattered pure white pilot suit, same as the suit on Tou behind her, was plastered by splotches of darkened blood.

"We're being attacked, no joke! The dead are possessed, they don't stay down unless I fucking cut them, must be Gauna!"

A wave of disheartened murmurs washed over the bridge, and the public radio channel.

"Prepare for evac! I've already set up decontamination for your return! You've at least found out there's no human life on board, we'll disassemble the station from the outside, same with the ships."

"The Roanoke's reactor isn't stable enough in its current state." Teruru said, "It can explode if we pick the structure apart, we have to turn it on first, then fully off."

"I hate nuclear power... Pull back, stay at the docks, I'll arrange supplies. En, let your sisters give all your guns to Ichigaya. You're switching to new guns, her hardware can't use them."

Kobayashi has spared a few of her covert weapons, the glove-shaped personal gravity launchers for this mission, just in case the diplomatic party would need to defend themselves in emergencies. They're devastating to any biomass, but the energy discharge would interfere with cyborg and android components.

"Screw your guns, my dad gave me great armor! What's wrong with disarmament!" Teruru was greatly annoyed.

"These abominations wants to kill us, same as the Gauna!" En shouted back, "Start ripping flesh already, or you'll find out if they like to eat memory alloy!"

"Argh! I'll punch them harder than you can! Let's go get your gravity launcher already." With that, the teen robot turned away and headed off. After all she was both a civilian and an undocumented minor press-ganged into the expedition.

"Redeployment time! Sen, Baku, Tou, Shou, katanas out, let's watch each other's back."

Yuhata blinked, wondering whether she heard En call for Shou, or was it the connection lag making her hear Tou twice: "No worries, team, good job so far. Just bring us some organism samples."

"These tentacles and a quarter of a skull should do, right? We'll be back with you soon."

"Disgusting..." Izana whimpered into the radio, her Type 18R2's video focusing on a cluster of interlocked cargo modules she took off the CMS Terra Nova. At its center was a glass container; a humanoid with glowing eyes and blade-like teeth was writhing inside, bone blades scratching at the glass.

"We can't risk a live sample this big. Seal it in anti-Ena glue." The Commander ordered, "Cut it in half first?"

"Maybe it's a live alien. Humanoid Ena don't move like this..."

"Was it this angry when the SCAF lock it up?" Tsumugi wondered, "I sense no relation to Gauna."

"Creatures that look like it have been hostile to En's team. We'll see about first contact later."

Then, the humanoid broke open its glass casing, at the cost of both its arms. It wriggled out of the box, then lunged at Izana'a cockpit, trailing behind flash frozen streams of blood. However, it was far from accustomed to near-absolute zero space; a few seconds later it crashed onto the Type 18R2's armor with a dull thunk.

"Problem ended... Applying glue now."

"Permission to speak, boss?" Tired of the comedy of errors, Schneider rose from his seat cocoon and floated next to Yuhata, "We have enough alien specimens, Commander, and none of these are things I've seen before my trip across. Do you think we should send them back to Sidonia, or call Dr. Shinatose to spare us a few biologists?"

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"Sidonia has enough to worry about." She saw the choice in a heartbeat, "I'll request Dr. Tahiro alongside the firepower. Send back a part of the non-combatants until we can go to the planet."

"Roger that, logging it all." The Foreigner smiled, "You're running this operation better than anyone I can think of, Commander. My trust is all with you."

"Thanks."

"I trust you, Yuhata." She imagined her brother speaking to her. Midorikawa Izumo, man with the dubious honor to be either the 4th or 5th pilot killed by a Gauna since Nagate's first appearance, "You'll see the end of this mystery and bring us back."

"Bring us back." She could practically see him on Schneider's cocoon.

////

I was expecting Commander Fabrik here." The Overseer greeted Kendra over the video call, in a tone of notable soft disapproval.

"Apologies, sir, can't get him to move. He's with the crew and pilots, giving them his reassurance, saying it's not the worst considering we drove the unknown Guardian away."

"How long should that take?"

"He got alcohol brought out and made a toast to Nagate's health. Personal opinions, sir? I think he's putting on his best show to get off the alien girl's shitlist."

The Ravager was now docked at the closest base with acceptable security clearance, located on the frontier planet of Uxor. Nagate was rushed to the local EarthGov military ER, closely watched by all the other pilots; everyone except Shizuka was sent back to ship.

"Reasonable, for now. Thank fuck we know he's out of range for the new underground sermons, and his god is money."

"Like you said, I'm glad he's a weasel, not a Markerhead."

"Material science department will work out a way to utilize Kabi on countermeasures smaller than a Javelin Gun... Now, did anyone catch anything about the attacker?"

"Nothing. Buckell examined metal scrapings on our Guardians, trace elements say they're all from different planets, different foundries. Looks like a Magpie home brew if we don't know what is a Guardian."

"You can blame me on this. The intelligence committee chose to pay off Unitology with the oldest data we copied from the computer, we had no idea how strong it turned out. Well, our relations can still play some church internal politics cards to stop it from proliferating."

"If they have one more operational machine, everyone on the Ravager would be dead or thrown into a freezer ship already, boss."

"Don't worry, we have backdoors on their freezer ships."

Finally, the door slid open and in walked Commander Fabrik, the solemn expression he wore in front of the crew replaced with a loyal enthusiasm: "I must have missed something important, boss, but these guys? They want me to think the boy should be the one Kyne goes around barking about. He better have eternal life himself! Brace it finances department, my bill of painkillers to comp is long."

"Okay, Fabrik." The Overseer waved with bare minimum acknowledgment as Kendra moved aside from the camera, "Titan is on high alert to receive your ship, and the hospital is ready for Tanikaze's transfer."

"How long will you have to keep him?"

"How long do you think we need to drain his imprinted Marker data? On Aegis, he absorbed more than twice the amount expected to be humanly possible."

"Fuck." Fabrik yawned, Kendra could see him feeling ready to sleep off the alcohol he shared with the pilots.

"Go think of a story to feed the pilots, extend their vacation however long as you see fit, my men will handle the paperwork."

"Thanks, sir, though I see the pilots are getting sticky."

"Sticky?"

"Attached. It's more than about break, breathing room, or hazard pay. They need emotional support, someone to fill the gap when their main man is out. I'd say it's a tactical and training concern too."

"Everyone but Hampton are supposed to be hardened veterans."

"Bad idea to let them build a spirit of unit cohesion, I guess, or let them win too much. Anyway, consider this as my formal request for more pilots and Guardians, as soon as material science builds more. My ship needs to have 8 Guardians on board." The Commander smoothed out his extravagant long hair.

The Overseer rubbed his temples and stretched in his char: "Fine, there are more Singularity models almost done on Titan... We'll let CEC wait longer for their share of civilian units. Who do you want for pilots?"

"I've got a few old navy test pilot buddies in mind, but I actually like them. So, Mike Johnston. He passed on the training sims, and I can't see one downside if he gets himself killed too soon. His cousin is a certified small spacecraft pilot, plus she was on the Ishiguro, so we should ask her to join. And then..." He looked around the room for inspiration on filling the second team, "Alyssa Vincent. She is only rifleman certified, but so was Carver. She'll keep the Johnstons in line and be an emotional collar on Hoshijiro."

"Hoshijiro? She is coming with Tanikaze, she'll be cooperative for his sake."

"According to firsthand video evidence, she physically crunches on Stasis energy. I've seen her lick the piloting computer and tell me how much salt should I add! Please think twice about putting the universe's most destructive person in a stressful environment, yeah?"

"What about separation anxiety, though?" Kendra asked, genuinely curious, "You can't keep him away from her for too long, it sounds like."

"You two go work out a solution with Phelps and Shiraki." The Overseer interrupted before Fabrik could reply, "He has a point, she will remain on ship to intstruct the new pilots. Anyway, keep the squadron useful."

"Thanks, sir."

////

There were too many coffins floating in the orbit of Tau Volantis. Specimen containers, freezers, sealed chunks of spaceship debris, actual coffins with names written on them, dissected aliens - plus an entire residential section of the Roanoke station filled with a sterilized soul-like homogenate that was suspected to be reduced from its inhabitants by an organic disinfectant chemical.

Finding dead things was much luckier than finding angry reanimations. On the fourth day of the expedition, three Honokas out of the eight assigned to Mizuki required medical attention, one of them was sent back for a robotic leg to be custom built. Even Tsumugi volunteering to use her secondary head to explore the station's air duct system didn't push the progress too much, until she fought a massive biomass growth at its reactor cores in what Teruru described as a "battle of the tentacles".

"Ren found this thing, she thinks it counts as an animal." By the side of the Chimera cabin's Ena recovery pool, Yuhata gave herself a moment to relax as she used a wall paint roller to apply cosmetics on the secondary head, "A mechanical animal!"

"Awww! I want to clean off its rust!" Tsumugi rubbed her hand-tentacles together, "No, I could be too heavy handed. Izana should be the one to keep it."

"Resource collector online. Hello, sir or madam, or - cloned entity." The collector bot beeped and wagged its tail as Teruru poked at it, dermal armor disengaged.

"I'm an AI like you, see?" she waved in front of its camera, "I think you should call the Honokas 'madam'. Neutral people aren't just cloned entities either."

"I wish I can speak English..." Tsumugi settled for crawling next to the bot and chilling next to it, waiting for her industrial-portioned cosmetics to dry.

"Japanese vocal input detected. Hello, madam in balloon mascot outfit."

"Awwwwwwww!"

Seeing her friends entertained for what it's worth, Yuhata went back to her phone to address the thing on her mind: Coffins. Heavy, industrial-looking ones marked with Toha and Kunato trademarks everywhere.

"Shijimi." She called the expedition's head mechanic, "What are those about? Did the Captain just send us coffins the first thing she heard we saw hostile aliens here?"

"No, Commander, Miss Hiyama requested this special package for us."

"What?"

"They're Max Security Containment Boxes..."

"She wants live specimens? I thought we told Sidonia these things look infectious!" She angrily whispered, "I even left a note saying if Kou suddenly dies there, do not recycle her, disintegrate ASAP!"

"Uh, Commander. Please hear my explanation." Shijimi took a tired long breath, "Each MXCB contains a member of the Kagaku Teishintai, Science Martyr Brigade, or parts to rebuild one. They're ancient cyborgs highly specialized for combat, at a performance level similar to Ichigaya Teruru. Most of them only have an organic brain left, because they're deranged transhuman cultists who keep 'upgrading' their body parts and follow Ochiai's teachings. Some of them even wore components he replaced. After the Ochiai Disaster, the Captain couldn't find a sure fire way to kill them, but they agreed to surrender and spent the last century frozen. Miss Hiyama heard about infectious aliens, so she went to the Captain and asked to send over these soulless, bloodless monsters."

"Thanks, old timer wisdom..."

Yuhata has gotten used to the density of information in her hangar officer's typical monologues. She shrugged, and looked at the direction of the Chimera cabin door - Izana has arrived after a hacking assignment. Wait a second, did Izumo's ghost just open that door for her?

"Flesh is weak, gravity is eternal!" Shijimi unlocked the first cyborg container, and the metallic man inside greeted his new colleagues.