Aki sat at the desk in her quarters staring at the holoscreen, going over patrol reports from the scout fighters that had just returned to the Bastet. The Nomad Lair in Omicron 92 was still dormant without it's power cell, but numerous Nomad patrols had been spotted in the area, likely trying to restore the Lair back to a functioning state. The console beeped, and a small circle in the top corner flickered; Aki reached up and touched the spot, pulling down a communications screen from the bridge.
"What is it, Commander?"
"Private Communique incoming for you, Admiral... it's from Captain Mikhailovich, he says it's urgent." the commander responded.
"Patch it through."
The screen flickered and switched from a view of the bridge to the face of Captain Mikhailovich.
"Aki, I have bad news for you... High Command just sent out a general order for you to be detained and brought in for court martial, something to do with instigating hostilities towards the Corsairs. What's going on, Aki?" He questioned in a concerned tone.
'damnit'... she muttered under her breath. Aki looked back towards the holoscreen, "Ask for one lousy ship and this is the thanks I get, I'm too close to finding the eye to give up now... thanks for the heads up Captain, good to know I still have friends out there. I dont know if you'll hear from me again after this... I need to disappear, and I'm taking the Bastet with me."
"You're a good officer, Aki, but I hope you know what you're doing. Disregarding direct orders from the High Command, even if you're a member yourself, is likely to have bad consequences..." Mikhailovich responded, saluting out of habit.
"If I dont finish what I've been working on for the past month, there may not be a High Command to go back to. I never thought I'd be disregarding orders, but I dont have much choice right now. There's about to be a mutiny on my ship, I need to see to it... goodbye Mik."
The Holoscreen went blank, cutting of the transmission. Aki opened a channel back to the bridge, "Commander, meet me in my quarters ASAP"
Mathews entered Aki's quarters at a brisk walk, obviously aware that there were urgent matters at hand, "Admiral, you wanted to see me in private?"
"Sit down John..." She replied, barely whispering.
Matthews sat across the table from the Admiral, "What's going on, Aki?" First names were rarely used between officers, unless the conversation was off the record or dire.
Aki looked up at him, a mixture of anger and depression in her eyes, "High Command has put out a warrant for my arrest and court martial, apparently for causing disturbances with the Corsair alliance."
"Disturbances? All we asked them for was a handful of light fighters to use for testbeds... why the hell would High Command see that as a disturbance?"
"Beats me... listen, you know what we've been searching for out here, and you know what will happen if we dont find it. I tried bringing this matter to the attention of the other High Command members, but it was ignored."
"Right, something about superstitious nonsense if I remember their response. Odd that our own people dont believe us when we tell them Sirius could be ripped away from us..."
"John, you know what's at stake, I cant allow myself, or the Bastet, to be taken in by HC. Luckily this system has blocked standard communications, nobody else on the ship knows about the court martial yet. I need you to find out who is loyal to me and who isnt."
"With all due respect, Ma'am, we cant just steal a ship from The Order... it's suicide..."
"We have to, they've left me with no other choice, and I wont see the entirety of humanity wind up extinct if I have even the slightest chance of preventing it. If it means losing my rank or even my life, that's a sacrafice I'm willing to make, and any true member of The Order would understand as much."
"Understood, Ma'am. I'll speak with the crew."
Matthews stood, saluted, and left the room as quickly as he had come in. Aki sighed and slumped over, forehead to the table... this was not turning out to be as good a week as she had hoped.
...Ten Hours Later...
Matthews sat down across from Aki, once again in her quarters. He slid two datapads across the table to her.
"That's what we've got. More than half of the crew are likely to resist if we try to go against orders, but nearly all of the command crew and most of the pilots are with us. With the robots onboard for maintenance, we'd be running with a skeleton crew, but just enough to operate."
Aki looked over the datapads. Almost all of the support crew - marines, mechanics, dockworkers, a few of the medical assistants, and a handful of pilots - were going to be lost... all of the Officers, most of the fighter pilots, and the core operational crew ranging from engineers to medical officers, were willing to follow her.
"Alright, send word to the loyal crew to ignore any emergency situations in the next hour. Sound an abandon ship, those who wont follow us will be jettisoned in escape pods."
"We're just going to leave them out here? They deserve better than that, Admiral..."
"Those pods can hold them all, and will keep them alive for forty-eight hours. We'll drop a distress beacon before we depart, there will be a patrol through this area in around six hours that can get them returned to Toledo."
"Alright, I'll get on it."
Matthews left for the bridge, and only minutes later the alarms went off.
"All hands, abandon ship! This is not a drill, the Bastet has suffered critical damage and is losing hull integrity. I repeat, all hands abandon ship!"
Slight thud-like noises could be heard echoing from the sides of the Bastet as the escape pods launched, sending her crew out into space.
Aki entered the bridge and scanned the officers left to right. All of her command crew were still here, and as she took her seat at the center of the room they all turned to salute her. She afforded a small smile, relieved that despite her transgressions these people were still loyal to her, and to humanity.
She turned to her right, where Lieutenant Sarah Morris sat at the logistics station. "Morris, do a full scan of the ship and account for any crew remaining onboard."
"Aye-Aye Ma'am."
"Con, drop a distress beacon for the pods, and plot a course for Tohoku."
"Affirmative, Admiral. Beacon dropped, charging jump drive and setting course for Tohoku. Jump in T minus thirty seconds."
Aki looked to her left at Commander Matthews as he spoke up, "We'll never be able to return to the Order, you realize that dont you Aki?"
"I know, and I regret that this is what has to be done. I just hope that we can find the eye, perhaps then the High Command will forgive me for this..."
Lt. Morris looked back to her, "Admiral, all loyal crew are accounted for, everyone else made it out with the escape pods. We're good to go."
Aki touched a button on her chair's console, opening a communications channel to all speakers on the ship, "Crew, this is your Admiral speaking. High Command wants to bring us in, bring me in, for disturbing our diplomatic relations with the Corsairs. These disturbances are lies, forged by those among our enemies who wish to see The Order fall, out of greed, bloodthirst, or whatever other motives may drive them. As much as I respect the High Command's decisions, we have a task that must be finished... the consequences of failing would wipe humanity from all of Sirius. we cannot fail, and to that end I have refused to return to Order space for trial. We are, from this point on, a renegade craft, and even those who were once our allies are likely to fire on us if they find us."
She paused for a moment, letting the weight of the situation sink in. "I promise you, once we complete our mission and ensure the safety of Sirius, I will relenquish my command and answer for my actions, all of you will be absolved of charges, I will willingly take the blame for what we have done here today, and what we may have to do in the future. We're running with a skeleton crew, and this will not be easy on anyone; for that I apologize, but we must succeed, and to that end I expect the full determination and effort of everyone on this ship."
Aki hit the button again, cutting the transmission. She sighed heavily and looked ahead out the viewport.
"Jumping in 5...4...3...2...1..."
A silent spark light up in front of the ship, rapidly expanding into a tunnel that pulled the Bastet into it, accelerating the massive Carrier from a sit-still to multitudes past the lightspeed barrier in mere seconds.
Aki sat forward in her command chair, gazing out the viewport as the tiny shadow of Ryuku base emerged from the hazy clouds of the nebula surrounding it.
"Con, open a comm channel to Ryuku."
Static flickered across the forward holoscreen display, and after a moment the face of an old, but gaunt looking Kusari man faded into view.
"Order Vessel, this is the sovereign territory of the Blood Dragons, what are you doing here""
Aki smiled and stood in front of the holoscreen, bowing in a show of respect, "Konnichiwa, Taiga-San."
"Aki? Is that you? I thought you were dead, you could have sent a message!"
"I've been... busy... lately. I need help, old friend... The Order has declared me a renegade, and now I'm commanding a stolen warship and on the run."
"Eh, not a good situation, why are you always getting yourself into trouble, Aki?" The old man chuckled to himself, "Well I take it you need supplies then? We dont have much here, and I cant just go giving out valuable materials to bypassers, my masters will have me hung."
Aki nodded, "I understand, luckily we were well stocked before all of this happened. What we're low on is fuel... I only need enough to hold us over until we can get across Kusari and over to the Tau systems, after that we can use the freeports."
"I suppose I could part with a small amount of fuel... I'm guessing that monstrosity runs on MOX doesnt it? Have anything you could trade, we're low on weapons here..."
"We had to leave most of our marines behind, I can have my people send over most of what's left in the ship's armory."
"Sounds good Aki, send it over, I'll have Ryuku hook up the fuel lines." Taiga began to turn away from the holoscreen, but paused and looked back momentarily, "Oh, and Aki... it's good to hear from you again. Your stepmother misses you."
The Bastet shook slightly as it moored with freeport 6. Aki stood at the airlock with Commander Matthews and several of the ship's remaining marines. The airlock doors slid open, and a blast of stale air, smelling like a mixture of alchohol and fuel, rushed into the ship as the two atmospheres collided. Aki motioned with one hand to the guards, sending them through the airlock to secure the other side.
"I want four marines posted at this airlock at all times. The rest of you are with the Commander." She turned towards Matthews, "Find someone to barter with here, we need to exchange any cargo and equipment we dont need for fuel, air, food, and water. We're working on our own now, credits are going to be a bit more important than they were before... see if anyone here has cargo they need moved, our bay is almost empty."
"Aye aye, Ma'am." Matthew turned to the marines waiting behind him, "Move out!"
As they left the ship Aki sighed heavily. She was an Order Admiral, not a trader or smuggler... and this ship wasnt built for this kind of work. Nonetheless, they needed credits and this was the quickest way. She made her way back down the hall towards the bridge.
..... Sius stepped out of the auditorium where he had just given his speech on the court martialling of Aki Kimura. Angry at himself, he speedwalked back to his office. Half way through Sasha, Sius's apprentice, caught up with him and walked besides him.
"You know this is going to be a big mess... so why did you do it?"
"Because I had to. I didn't want to and I'm not happy about it. Being in my position also means having to do some things you don't want to and I had no choice. I recieved notes and visits from hundreds of officers and our relations with the Corsairs have become instable."
.....They walked silently until they reached the doors of Sius's office and stepped in. Chip, Sius's Personnal Assidtance Drone (PDA-62) hovered infront of them and projected an image.
"Sir, Admiral Kimura's Bastet has recieved word of the court-martialling. I fear basing on her history that she might do something rather... radical."
"Damnit Aki, don't be a fool...
Chip, link me to the Bastet, get me Kimura on the line!"
.....As Chip went about his business, Sasha activated on the alrge viewscreen the projection from the auditorium, where various Order and Corsair members spoke their thoughts on this matter. Sius and Sasha just watched.
"So what are you going to do now?" asked Sasha.
"Sir, I have found the message sent to Kimura, I think you should have a look at it."
.....Sius and Sasha looked at each other.
"Patch it through Chip."
.....The viewscreen went from the auditorium to the message in word, sent to Kimura. Sius, Sasha, and Chip all read it, Chip keeping it in his memory.
"Arrest warrent?! What? I'm not arresting anyone, Sasha, find out who issued that! I want to know who wrote that message and what the hell is going on! Chip, copy any more messages sent to or from the Bastet and find that ship!"
Ten Hours Later
"Sir, we have found the Bastet. Scanners show she has made her way to... Kusari."
.....Sius stood by the large viewport out to the Toledoan sea of snow. By now they knew there would have been some sort of mutiny onboard that ship, and knowing Kimura's nature they expected her to do something radical.
"Chip, contact Seith. Tell him to move to Kimura's last known locations. If there indeed was a mutiny then there would have been a little fight onboard the Bastet and those on... "our" side would have jumped in pods. Kimura wouldn't have killed them. Let's get those men back and figure out what happened. Chip, record every finding.
Sasha... contact Captain Guisan onboard the Orillion, tell him to prepare the ship for a nice long trip and to get here a soon as possible."
.....Chip moved about the door while Sasha just looked with an open mouth at Sius.
"You can't be serious..."
"I'm not letting go of her this easily Sash. I'm not going to let anything go down here, nothing is going to tear this place apart. Now go, I have some things to do before the Orillion gets here."
.....Sasha stood there for a minute then walked out the door. Sius then took his seat behing the large desk and began a testimony to be sent to all high ranking Order Officers.
Fellow Agents,
as we know, recent events have befallen on us that have caused Admiral Aki Kimura to go... AWOL. Frankly, this has all gotten out of hand. We have not sent out any warrent for the arrest for Kimura, nor are we going to permanently remove her from her seat. Don't get me wrong, something may have to be done to resolve this issue with the Corsairs, but we're not letting to of Kimura this easily. She's helped the Order a great deal and is vital in it's well-being. Although rought and with a big mouth, I'm sure we can all asset to times when she's helped all of us out. As it stands, I've ordered the Orillion to prepare to go after Kimura. The last we heard from the Bastet was her location near Kusari and that's where I intend to go and find her. Let's just hope this will work out...
-Malacos out
...Sius closed the file and sent it out. He then stood up, turned towards the viewscreen and waited for the Orillion to arrive.
.....Damnit Aki, don't do anything stupid... you're better than this...
Admiral Aki Kimura, along with the remaining command and operation crew of the Order Carrier Bastet, have gone rogue. The Bastet has been sighted destroying vessels in several locations around Sirius, and is to be considered extremely dangerous. All contact with this craft should be reported to the High Command immediately, avoid engaging in hostile action with the Carrier at all costs.
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