Into the Eternal Darkness; Into Fire and Into Ice

[Enigma]

The trip had been short, not giving Alfimi much time to get further acquainted with her new wingman for this unfortunate soiree. Giving some degree of respect to the ex-Chancellor's concern, the Hexenhammer operative led her right back the way she had come and down the ladder to where she had docked her ship. It was a simple matter of Alfimi hopping into the Neo Gundam and sliding it into the rear bay of the woman's sleek, high speed transport. She did manage to get a name when they were headed out, however:

"Suffice to say I'm not your standard masked secret agent. You can call me Formicarius, if it makes things easier for you."

The transport was like an oversized jet, and it traveled with the celerity Alfimi could surely appreciate in a moment like this. From one shoal to another the pair traveled, Formicarius sitting patiently at her one-man helm as they began to decelerate on entry to the dangerous debris field. She idly flipped a few toggles, setting the turrets to automated targeting on any flotsam that ran the risk of getting too close. Spinning in her chair, Formicarius sprung to her feet and dusted her hands off.

"There's a ship a few clicks out. Already hailed them. We should have visual in a minute, Chancellor."

Despite Alfimi's earlier request for her to not call her that, Formicarius didn't seem to care. She didn't care about a whole lot of things, really - she carried herself funny, had strange mannerisms that one would never expect of a professional intelligence agent, and had a propensity to hum to herself. At the very least, it helped make her seem warm, easier to attach to than a normal agent. Her ship itself was spartan but converted to be habitable for periods of time - automated systems and a living quarters that was more akin to an old boat than the creature comforts of standard space travel. It helped that most of the craft's space was engines and hangar space. The only suit in the long bay was a cloaked and hooded suit that only clearly revealed its Gundam-esque lower legs when she had docked her Neo Gundam inside.

[GEAR]

Alfimi sat aboard the transport in uncharacteristic tight-lipped silence as it hurtled towards an unknown conclusion. The Hexenhammer agent's unusual proclivities seemed none of her concern, despite her intense distrust of them only a short time earlier.

Crisis has a way of sharpening the mind, and Alfimi Elwren, great manufacturer of catastrophe that she were, was only alive because she had adapted to thrive in it. While normally plagued by self-doubt and indecision, she now went about her work with laser-like focus.

Her hair was done up in practical ponytail, and she was stripped to her waist save a jet black bra, surrounded by a cloud of tools, and a small, portable electric battery she had acquired from the ship's maintenance compartment. The scent of ozone and burning plastic and metal filled the air, making the ship's ventilation system whine with the surprise effort.

While it was ordinarily something she went about with barely concealed distaste, she worked switly and efficiently with knife, screwdriver, torch, and iron - making incisions across her artificial skin where necessary to reach what had to be reached, making what repairs she could. By the time they arrived, a small pile of broken and damaged parts had been acquired, stuffed into a little plastic baggie, which she then deposited into the ship's disposal unit, watching it hurtle out to space on its own lonely journey.

As she worked, an in-depth systems diagnostic tool hummed away in her cranium, probing the depths of her consciousness for any changes that could serve as clues towards Waldo’s surprise use of her source code against her. Fortunately, it was a tool she had some familiarity with, and she hoped with its results... She could find out what was done before it was too late.

To an ordinary human being, it would have been something of a jaw-dropping display, at once both intimate and grotesque, the thin layer of flesh that concealed the machine partially stripped away. Who could say what it might mean to the masked woman?

She was thinking of only one thing: Sara Janovsky.

Sara had vaulted heroically into action to save her more than once, and by nature of their unusual relationship (where only one of them was causing the trouble) she rarely had the chance to return the favor. Today, perhaps, she thought, would be one of those times.

As the agent rose, so to did she, zipping up the dark-colored pilot suit taken from the ship's spares, as the Commonwealth one had been damaged beyond repair by the assassin's freezing strike.

"Let's hear what they have to say." Said the gynoid smoothly, floating forward to hover over Formicarius' shoulder to listen in.

[Jadzi]

The ship wasn't appreciably different in size than the one they currently occupied. Scarcely a tug compared to most of the operational craft used by Ambra Sestinas. In fact, being barely 80 meters from nose to tail, and thinner in its circumference, it could have fit comfortably inside some of them. The tip was a pointy beak which peeled up to a modest bridge, and then back along a lazy curvature to a boxy, three-petal bloom of an engine block. It was a stout little thing, onto whose back, it seemed, someone had abruptly wedged an even wider shipping container. At least until one noticed the 'container' was simply a series of bulkheads on hinges firmly rooted to the hull.

This factor was on display at the moment, as the hold sat wide open with a number of worker pods casually gliding in and out. There was a chunk of rock scarely a hundred meters to its port, on which a couple of pods were sitting. Their pilots had left their ambulatory snowglobes for a stroll along the surface, though with their lifelines trailing behind them one could have mistaken them for small pets the worker pods were walking. More of the Torohachis were milling amongst detritus further out, scouring over a chunk of skyscraper wall. One was free-floating with is pilot out in zero-gee entirely, his arms and legs stretched out, drifting after an errant screw.

It took a little longer than was probably necessary for anyone to actually respond to the hail. And if the two women were watching carefully enough they'd have seen why. As the hail sat in the the little freighter's craw, a notification about it chirped at one of the crew's ear. That crewman just so happened to be outside in the hold, at the end of her tether - and thus had to look around a few moments, figure out what was going on, and then reel herself back in and scuffle her way up to the bridge.

This involved actually twisting her way into the airlock, tapping her foot in irritation as she waited ON the airlock, and then hurriedly wrestling the spacious helmet off her EMU on her way to swat the comms panel to life. With the link opening, a pop-up box would appear to the pair, the visual panel simply reading -AUDIO ONLY-.

"Yeah? Who is this?"

[GEAR]

Alfimi recognized the voice - not quite well enough to put a name to a face, but enough to know it belonged to someone on the Falcon. That was a small relief, at least - if the ship was intact, there was a greater chance that all was well after all.

“It’s Elwren, just on my way back from my assignment. Glad to hear you’re alright.” She said into the receiver, leaning slightly over Malleus to do so.

“Direct us to the Falcon, if you could? I need to check on Sara.”

[Jadzi]

There was a pause on the line. And the soft creaking of the person gingerly pushing themselves into a chair, and fastening the tether.

Her name was Anicia Byrd. A stocky, rugged woman with olive skin, and hands worn rougher than she really cared for them to be. The years had been kind to them all - generous, in fact, considering how how they'd come out of the cataclysm into the hands of the world's best doctors, and aged like fine wines. She could remember a time when she serviced machines that split the sky, and ships that looped the solar system in mere hours. She could remember the time when the whole world was unified in peace. And now, here she sat, on a ruddy little scow. Tasked with chasing scraps of metal in a storm-tossed sector overlooking a dying planet.

Alfimi's seeming ignorance was irksome. But she was tired. She was worn out emotionally after a long day. She was worn out physically from the tedium of her tasks, and from managing others to tend the excess. She wanted to chew the woman out, on some level. But at the moment she just didn't have the fire left in her belly to fuel it, and with all she'd seen in that other era? It was easy to push such recent slights aside with the breadth of perspective.

It was just a few seconds. Enough to perch, and to take a breath.

"It's in port right now. Dock 12. Need an escort?"

[GEAR]

“Please, and thank you.” Said Alfimi over the communicator in response, raising herself back up to give Formicarius a nod. She remained where she was, at the front of the craft, evidently eager to catch sight of the Falcon as soon as possible.

Her internal locator still showed no sign of Sara, even though she should have been well within the maximum range... What the Hell was going on?

[Jadzi]

She sat up a bit and started tossing switches to wake the scow from its nap. There was more work to be done. There always was, always would be. But at some point you just had to call it and deal with whatever else came up. Being a mechanic had always been a thankless and unglamorous thing, but in an age where you couldn't kick two stones over in succession without one of them being something's shoulder or nosecone it was particularly fraught. Pulling up the comms for the rest of the squad, she shifted her headset mic a little closer.

"Alright everyone, wrap up your sector and pack it in. We'll pick it back up after refueling, okay?"

It took a few minutes for the scattering of worker pods to round out their tasks and meander back toward the little ship. A set of docking frames extended from the floor of the hold, onto which the pods latched themselves. One by one they came, until they were stacked three high and five deep. Like a pack of globe ornaments they sat, and gingerly the box closed up around them. The longest side pairing up with the walls at either end, and then tossing its other half overtop, sealing them inside.

Apogees flared, the ship righting itself to the proper angle, and then flaring its stout engine block to life, leading the sleek transit carrier along like a tug indeed. Silently they cruised, all the way back to Hyperlight. All the way to an open port, already arranged by Anicia's request, its perimeter lighting up in a neon halo. A path of incandescent breadcrumbs unfurled itself in offering to each of the vessels, beckoning them to ease inside Dock 13 in parallel.

The scow took the inside track, settling itself into the berth nearest to 12. Once they were stopped, and moored, and cleared to disembark, Anicia and her crew began to drift out. Most of them started heading for the internal areas to get some grub. The rest made for Dock 12, carrying along the bits of debris they'd been snagging, be it by hand or in tidy bags. It was a scrum the two visitors would find themselves amongst, as they passed through the airlock between the bays.


The entirety of Dock 12 had been given over to repairs of the ship and her contents. It was a needed step, as the ship herself was tight and the level of repairs it could transact at any given time limited. To do everything at once effectively meant pulling all the pieces out and arranging them each as their own projects. It was this that would greet the women as they entered.Mobile suits on stands, in varying stages of disassembly. Ruined parts being removed and fresh ones staged for addition. Worker pods perched on the vessel beyond.

The TR-6 was wonderful in that regard, its modularity making for readier un- and re-building. Three of the four sat between the door and the ship. Each was precious little more than its seperated head, chest, and drum sections right now, an intact limb or two sitting just to their sides. Further on, across the bay, they could easily see the captain's Delta Kai standing relatively intact. The remaining units were blocked from view by the ship's prow, sitting open with its nosecone raised.

Whole, the Gyrfalcon was. Hale or hearty, not so much.

Viewing it from the port side, it wasn't so bad. It had scarring. Its main naval gun was missing from its mount. But it was nothing the plucky little birdcage couldn't shoulder for a while. It was on crossing the berth, rounding to see her head on, and nearer, that the damage became more obvious. To what had once been a simple, bullet-like curvature of the latter half of the hull, it looked as if someone had taken a megalithic hatchet. Or perhaps Leo itself had reached down from the stars, and raked a massive claw across the bird's wing. A yawning chasm - deep, raw, and gaping - ran from midship to aft, straight through portions of the residential block and into the starboard engine assembly. The dorsal intake was gone in its entirety.

As she might gaze into that ragged wound, Alfimi would be able to discern certain familiar features from the corridor inside. It was a hall she knew well - the one that had been allotted for the ship's female contingent. At the forward extremity she could spy a glimpse of the shower room, the stalls sitting bare. The locker where Lina had hidden her stash was open and empty. The bench they had sat on was reduced to the twisted scraps of its feet. The only blessing here was that since there were so few female members of the crew, most of the ruined rooms there were vacant. And the the few female crewmen would all have been on duty in a combat situation - on the bridge, on the mobile suit deck, or out in the suits themselves.

From up here, too, the formerly obscured units were visible. Another TR-6 beside the Delta Kai. And at the far end, Alfimi's own Phoenix Zero Two, in enough singular pieces to require lashing them seperately to the repair frame. Jagged scars littered the chest, the arms, the leg armor, as if it had been mauled repeatedly and barely survived. Some of the warped armor pieces had been detached already, the underlying frame seeing parts replacement first.

All around the room, wounds loomed, and parts floated quietly awaiting removal or utilization. What there was not, however, was any sign of Sara, or her machine.

[Enigma]

Formicarius was mostly quiet for the interim. Well, discounting the humming at least, as she directed the transport to follow the similarly sized craft towards Hyperlight. But she let Alfimi do all the talking. It made sense that the masked operative that functioned as an avatar of the Union's deep state was okay with minimizing her necessary interactions, but she didn't even have much to say to Alfimi when the comm was off. She just transmitted IFFs, disabled weapons systems, checked their course, and kept an eye open for any errant trash that could barrel into them whenever God decided to stick it in their craw.

When they finally docked the transport, and the large containment hatch sealed them into the hangar, Formicarius got up and got around Alfimi so she could grab a pilot suit. It only took her a couple minutes, stepping out with helmet on and all. It was a look that totally hid everything about her to the observer: her already slender, androgynous form just turned into a cipher beneath the padding of the space suit, and her visor was tinted to completely conceal her face behind a black reflection. She gave a knowing thumbs up to Alfimi before popping open the side door hatch, allowing them to leave the craft and drift through the hangar towards Dock 13. It was just an airlock away, and the Hexenhammer agent let Alfimi hurriedly lead the way. She was more than happy not to bring any attention to herself, even quitting with the humming as they moved through the small corridor from one ship bay to another.

"Well, that's some impressive handiwork," she finally said, giving a whistle when they finally got a full sight of the Gyrfalcon and its state of disrepair. She kicked off the catwalk they stepped in on to vault slowly towards the ceiling, giving her a better overhead view of the ship in general. For the moment she was happy to disconnect from Alfimi entirely, taking it all in and leaving the android to her own devices with the crew.

[GEAR]

They docked without incident, Alfimi trotting ahead of Formicarius urgently. As she did, and the true result of her little expedition was coming into view, a thought occurred, as her eyes widened with surprise.

How many times had she been here?

Walking into the hangar in the aftermath of a battle... She must have viewed this very scene countless times over the course of her life. When she was fortunate, they were the victors, and the air was full of shouts and cheers. More of then than not, if she had been called in? It was in the aftermath of a slaughter. Picking through the bodies amidst the wails of the wounded, and figuring out what could be salvaged for a turnaround victory was just part of her job, and it was those instincts now that elbowed their way to the forefront of her mind, professionalism temporarily forming a dam for the rising tides of emotion that were welling within her soul.

Her eyes scanned each item in turn as she floated forward, slowly. She began to compose a sequence of events of what had happened in her mind... of combatants scrambling, exchanging fire with something monstrous... But, there was something missing. Something that made the entire exercise pointless, because the star - the key factor - was missing. No matter how much she cast about, there was still no sign - Not wreckage, not debris, nothing! NOTHING!

Her.

"These markings... It's just like at Mecca." She said under her breath to Formicarius, as they moved forward among the repair work.

She stopped as they passed the maintenance bay holding her own machine, pushing herself closer to its surface. She ran her fingers across the shorn metal of the Zero-Two's chest armor as she scrutinized the brutal cuts closer... her expression somehow managing to darken further as her head bowed, the horrible realization of what must have transpired in her absence starting to come together in nightmarish clarity.

"It was him. I'm sure of it." She said quietly, eyes flicking up with a certain, mechanical gleam to them.

"Jacobin was here."

[Jadzi]

"Is that what that machine was called? Or is that the pilot?"

The Captain's voice rang from the ship's prow, the flamboyant blonde just now grabbing hold of the end of the bulkhead to halt his forward float. As his legs swung out under the waning inertia, he twisted slightly, snapping off a cursory salute in reply to those of the other personnel Alfimi and her plus-one had entered with. Anicia and her workers floated past him into the ship, toting their cargo with them.

Aside from these few figures in sight, right at the moment, not many people were hanging about the ship or the bay it sat in. Work had clearly been done on staunching the mechanical wounds where possible, and even some on brushing away the soil littering the scars. But apart from that, and the staged pieces taken from the ship's surviving supplies, there was little sign of repairs commencing in earnest just yet.

Captain Hawkwood waited until the last of them had vanished into the ship's prow, and he and the two women were alone. Turning his grip, he pushed off from the prow, floating toward their errant songbird. His long platinum-blonde ponytail fluttered freely in the pressurized air, the ends of his frock coat billowing round his legs. As he landed alongside Alfimi, the look on his face was about as pleasant as it always was. There was just a hint of a smirk, as usual, but if anything could be sensed of it at all, it was one of smugness and smarm. The nihilistic levity that usually gleamed in his boyish face seemed... absent.

"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at how readily you recognize the brushstrokes. Miss Janovsky was rather insistent on welcoming our guest artist herself."

Turning his eyes from her to the suit, and upward, he drew his lips in a hollow half-smile. Partly mirthless, partly forced. Partly a conscious maintenance of poise.

"It's wonderful work, wouldn't you say? Quite minimalist. Few strokes, but bold ones."

His head tilted slightly, keeping his merry gag going.

"And the control, I mean... just enough to get the depth of color, but keeping it restrained enough that it doesn't overwhelm the canvas. Quite remarkable."

[GEAR]

"Captain Hawkwood."

Alfimi turned to look at the Gyrfalcon's resident master as he arrived - for once, genuinely grateful to see him. His passion for prose and general airiness had often caused her to grind her teeth as she waited for him to get the point, but this time, she was happy to let him talk as much as he needed. Perhaps it would give her a chance to cool down, and absorb the information she had already gathered. Formicarius, fortunately, seemed to have wandered off on their lonesome, sparing her from having to give any awkward explanations for now.

"I'm glad to see you're alright." She said, the relief in her voice sounding genuine, at least, as she floated up to meet him, expression full of concern.

"You said Sara-"

She didn't get any further, another voice calling out from behind Hawkwood, interrupting her.



"Something the matter, Captain?"

Another woman approached, floating towards them with the practiced ease of someone well used to life in vacuum.

Alfimi was at first struck by her appearance. Compared to those around her, everything was... Sharp. Prim and proper, full of contrast, her short, jet-black hair and dark brown eyes contrasting sharply with porcelain skin, reminiscent of a sheltered aristocrat - yet her close-cut designer suit singled her out as not one of the idle rich, but a fierce contender in the world of business, where that dress was as good as a knight's finest armor.

There was a sense that she was the kind of person born to lead - who had been engineered as such - and to whom the tedious cat-herding of the masses that Alfimi had so loathed came as naturally and effortlessly as breathing. Her voice carried a tenor that betrayed a cool confidence, the kind that made one unconsciously sit up straighter, and Alfimi herself, unbidden, found her usual slouch absent.

"Hm." Said the new arrival, quietly, bringing a hand up under her chin as she gave Alfimi a cursory glance, studying her features, causing the ex-Chancellor to scowl as they locked eyes.

"You look familiar."

Without breaking eye contact, she said:

"Captain, who is this?"

"Don't answer that." Alfimi quipped instantly, giving Hawkwood a warning glance, before locking eyes with the newcomer, who, raising an eyebrow, responded with careful slowness:

"Excuse me?"

"Yeah, excuse you." Said Alfimi flatly, not in the mood to endure any more tribulations today from any stuck up Colonists.

"Who do you think you are, butting in all of a sudde-"

The gynoid was interrupted suddenly as the woman's hand lashed out, seized her roughly by the collar of her spacesuit, and pulled her in close, so that the two saw eye to eye. The sheer audacity caught her off guard, and she instantly reached up to close her own wrist about the woman's - but did nothing save glare back, perhaps afraid of causing an even bigger scene.



"I am Faustine Blanchefleur, Chief Executive Officer of Hyperlight Industries. I own this Colony."

Blanchefleur's grip tightened as Alfimi's eyes widened with surprise, and she somehow managed to lean just a little closer, voice dropping into a threatening whisper as she did.

"And if you show me that level of disrespect again, the whole lot of you will have to free-float your way back to Archaeon. Got it, bluebell?"

A snarl died in Alfimi's throat at the sudden, unusual mention of the nickname that the crew had occasionally tossed her way, causing her to blink, unable to muster a proper response. Blanchefleur waited a moment more, to see if the woman would press her luck further... but when no response came, she released her, reaching down to smooth out a phantom crease on her lapel, leaving Alfimi's scowl to deepen, no doubt spitting venom in the confines of her mind.

"Now as I was saying - Captain?" Said Blanchefleur, turning to Hawkwood as she did with a polite smile.

[Jadzi]

The captain held steady while the two women snarled at each other. Not unlike certain other female creatures with distinct ideas on regional borders and their authority therein, he mused. He did so quietly of course, knowing far better than to get in their way and make himself a handy proxy target. Elwren and Blanchefleur puffed themselves up and bared their fangs, hissed and circled in the clash of territorial will. And he merely floated there with a pleasant, passive smile bolted to his lips, waiting for the inevitable lull and its cue.

"Ah, yes. This is Miss Alfimi Elwren, the assigned pilot of this unit. As she's been away, I was just about to offer my condolences for the damage her vehicle sustained in our little fender bender."

Turning his eyes up to the Zero Two's face, he mused further in that silky sing-song tenor of his.

"I perhaps should have kept it in holding after all, but my wife was most adamant to assist in our defense. And I'd wager she's as good a pilot, so I didn't want it said we suffered just because Ms. Elwren was called away. I doubt her performance would have fared any better than Kyra's or Ms. Janovsky's."

There. There it was. He was baiting her. That subtle comment, as he turned his white-gloved palms upward and rolled his shoulders in a theatrical shrug. Anyone who knew him knew his penchant for this sort of smirking pantomime. It wasn't so much that he was making fun of them either. It was just a manner of spoken footwork, as often artful as not. A coating of sickly-sweetness, the better to soften blows and dance around issues until ready to strike.

"These things happen, I suppose. There's always a bigger fish. Apparently, not unlike an over-ripe pumpkin after Halloween, this fish is named the Jack 'o Bin."

[GEAR]

"Alfimi Elwren." Repeated Blanchefleur, with a look of mock surprise, putting her hands on her hips as she turned her sights on the steaming gynoid once more. She gave a satisfied smirk.

"There, see? That wasn't so hard, was it?"

Still smirking, she kicked away from the group, giving a polite wave and calling back to them as she did, departing as quickly as she came

"Thank you Captain. And, please leave the repair expenses to us. Consider it my apology for being unable to get to you in time to avoid this mess."

Faustine turned and began to make her way back down a corridor at the bottom level, deep in thought. As she did, she reached out to touch the shoulder of an armed guard, who had been witnessing their conversation from afar, leaning in close to say, quietly:

"Run her face, will you?"

The guard gave a nod as she passed him, tapping away at a handheld PDA as he did, which brought up a security camera image of the blue-haired woman...

***

Alfimi seethed, staring after Blanchefleur before rounding on the Captain. Under normal circumstances, she would have bitten his head off, and he knew it, even standing there with that saccharine smile plastered across his face. She was even more infuriated that someone else had touched her Phoenix in her absence, likely undoing all her fine tuning in the process, if its mutilated appearance was any indication.

At the moment, all she could was quietly resolve to deal with those issues later, and focus on her immediate concern. Hawkwood may have been surprised when she instead seemed to exhale (or some manner of mechanical equivalent), and took a moment to calm herself before continuing, saying earnestly:

"Captain... What happened here? Where's Sara?"

[Jadzi]

The captain waved after Ms. Blanchefleur as she departed. And then, in turning to his remaining company, rested his hands in his trouser pockets, quite at ease in the lack of gravity. His eyes fixed on Elwren, his laissez-faire mask firmly affixed.

"The latter I honestly do not know, for reasons that should become obvious presently. Perhaps as obvious as the explanation for the former?"

He gave a toss of his head toward the split hull, and the ruined engine block. Now that they were fully on the port side of the ship, the extent of the devastation to the propulsion systems was more evident. The starboard engine loomed on the other side, still whole and pristine. It was highlighted all the more by both the gaps in the port engine's housing, and that the remainder were blackened with soot and slag.

"We were attacked while on patrol. As a result, I'm afraid we won't be going much of anywhere anytime soon. Even with a rush on the parts required, we're looking at the better portion of a month before our cage is seaworthy again. Both to rebuild the engine from scratch, and to repair the damage to the ship's frame. Probably going to have to refit the entire residential block at this rate. I'll have to see if there are any improvements we can squeeze in... if you have any suggestions I'm all ears. Oh!"

Then, as if he had abruptly remembered something, a hand leapt from his pocket and snapped its fingers. It promptly dove inside his coat to a hidden breast pocket, nimbly drawing out a smaller tablet, and sending it gliding over to his guest in a deft flick of the wrist. The immediate display it bore was the readout on the herald that had approached them in the first place. Like gazing into a dark mirror, Alfimi would find herself staring at her own ghost - at a shot of the Raven, in flight form, suspended before the backdrop of Hyperlight Sector. Next to it, a reverse-engineered schematic of the unknown now known only to her.

"Out of curiosity, does that machine mean anything to you?"

[GEAR]

"She's... Missing?"

Alfimi hazarded, blinking slowly, uncertainly.

Missing in action...? That wasn't like her. Sara would crawl back on stumps if she had to. So... What did it mean, then? She would have to see a recording of the battle, perhaps, to see how it played out. For now, she opted to wait for Hawkwood to explain at his own leisurely pace, taking the tablet gingerly, and observing its contents, ashen-faced.

"Yes... This one, the Raven... Was once my machine." She said, boiling it down to the simplest explanation possible for the Captain, pointing to it on the surface. No need to bore the man with the finer details.

"The other one... is Jacobin's machine, the Yatagarasu. It's... unspeakably powerful." She grimaced, turning her eyes downcast.

"...There was nothing you could have done."

[Jadzi]

The captain broke into a gentle laugh. A decided contrast to the paling of Alfimi's features.

"Well yes, I know that now. Unfortunately we were not exactly aware of that to begin with. That, you see, approached our ship and was unresponsive to hails. Being on a patrol for unauthorized machines, our task would have been to remove or destroy it. But Ms. Janovsky insisted on doing so herself. That it was here for her. And for you, by proxy I suppose."

His arms crossed over his chest, kicking back once more against the gentle caress of anti-gravity. His lengthy ponytail wafted behind him as he floated.

"Hence she went out to do her duty alone, there was no convincing her otherwise. Which was about the last I saw of her, personally. There's no particular telling where she is right now, but I do have my estimates. You see..."

It was here his head tilted. His eyes narrowing in a piercing gaze, locked squarely on Alfimi. A gaze reminiscent of a hunter carefully drawing his string.

"She sent a flare out a few minutes later, when she was leaving our effective sensor range. One to continue holding steady, even though I'd made myself known about our responsibilities. How we're a team and support each other because of the sheer vulnerabilities presented otherwise. How we don't just run off on our own because it suits us or because we think it our prerogative to shoulder it alone, or how no one else would be able to handle it. Having to repeat herself in that assertion just told me she was getting out on a limb, so at that point I ordered ahead, one quarter. At least until we detected weapons fire, at which point we deployed in earnest."

Unfurling an arm, he leaned himself over to tap at the device's screen, navigating through the file menu to draw another shot from another folder.

"Which is how we ended up in the sorry state you see. We ran headlong into the thing with forty eyes. Honestly, I'm not entirely sure what happened, just that all of a sudden, the entire squadron was under attack from multiple vectors at once. And while I tried desperately to keep an eye on everyone, Ms. Janovsky was rather hard to see in the confusion."

Finally reaching the picture after a series of taps, which he seemed to be making at his own leisurely pace, he finally queued up the image he sought. It was a fuzzy, distorted, and hard to make out thing. A still from his suit's flight recorder, with blurs of motion as half a dozen Bugs whizzed past, and debris milled in the distance. His fingers flicked apart, trying to instruct the device to zoom in. Pouting as it failed to respond, he tried again, pressing more firmly through the thin material on his fingertips. And then at last, simply tugging the garment off, extending his porcelain pale, slender, and impeccably manicured fingers to finally execute the task.

There, now, was a shaky image of the Yatagarasu, half-obscured by intervening detritus. One arm was extended, the end of it lost in a dot of white. A dot made up both of a luminous ball, and a series of spindly strings extending out of it. As she gazed at the image, he mused in a more subdued tone. The whisper of the arrow loosed, and whistling toward its target.

"As I said. I honestly don't know for certain where she is, but I have my estimates. The ship you followed was working on recovery, in the area where we estimate her remains could have ended up."

[GEAR]

BGM:
youtu.be/bJsh9KyeV90

"Her... remains..."

As Alfimi Elwren beheld the images presented to her, her head bowed, rendering her expression unreadable as she pored over them, barely managing to mouth the aforementioned phrase. Finally, there it was before her... the nightmare scenario she had never wanted to see, to believe. Jacobin, with his claws curled around one of the few, indispensable people in her life.

...

That little ball of light... Was all that remained of Sara Janovsky.

...

She... Was too late.

...

In that moment, who could say what thoughts ran through the mind of the tyrant, the executioner, one of the fiercest and most wanted women in the Earth Sphere?

To Captain Hawkwood, and his familiarity with how unpleasant she usually had been to his crew, it must have been a tense moment. Would she lash out? Would she cry and scream and deny, deny, deny what she had seen? Would she turn the blame on him and his crew, for letting the woman she was intimately entwined with perish? Would she wring his neck, and not rest until every single one of them was dead?

"...I see."

...No explosion seemed forthcoming, as she finally spoke, quietly. Solemnly, she handed the tablet back to Hawkwood, her expression... surprisingly neutral, betraying little. Perhaps she had simply seen so much death, been through these paces so many times, that to lose even the one closest to her was nothing more than procedure?

Or... perhaps she had never meant anything to her at all? At that time... There was no trace of expression beyond a gentle sorrow on her fair features, still marred with the cuts of battle.

"Thank you, Captain." She said, evenly, eyes downcast.

"I know you did everything you could."

[Jadzi]

He lingered where he was while she took it in. Letting the arrow sit where it had embedded, confident in its accuracy. And then, once further assured it had reached its mark, he drew back, as the archer lowering his arm. He drew a breath, simply and neatly. And then continued.

"I did. I still am. We all are in fact. If you'll follow me, I do need to show you one other thing."

He cocked his head, nodding toward the ship. And proceeded to lead the way down to the open prow, into the empty launch catapult. The familiar flood of red light rained down on them from the perpetually-burning running lamps. Down the line, past the enormous hatches the other suits typically slid in sideways from, each stenciled in a giant block of a number. From there, to the small hatch alongside berth 4, the suit bay assigned to Sara's Phoenix Zero. And up onto the gantry at the very back, where an open door leading to the interior rested. A portal of white light in the crimson gloom.

His heels lit upon the floor in order to spring through the opening properly, a soft click before the swish of his coat tail. Silently, solmenly he led her down the hall, to the internal access to the berth. Waiting until she had come to rest outside it as well, he gave a slight, mirthless smile, and spoke again.

"Mind your head. We're trying to keep this bay sealed as much as possible, so in quickly, if you will."

He took another breath. Hesitating only a moment. And finally punching the last digit of the entry code in, the door whisking aside to allow passage. As soon as it was open, he rested a gentle hand on her back to both help ease her inside, and to follow as close on her heels as was comfortable. The door whisking closed again, as soon as they were through, leaving them on the gantry overlooking the suit bay.

The reason for the care came the moment the door had opened - pieces. The bay was not exactly occupied, but nor was it exactly empty. Lashed to the roof of the bay were the pieces of one of the Zero One's cannons. The rear portion of the rifle that normally fit into it was similarly lashed, just to one side. And then, in sequence, the distinctively shaped pair of sabers both units kept in the sides of their calves. And most of a forearm, the rear portion chipped away and chewed on until it looked as if it had been sand-blasted off.

The rest of the bay was filled with so many tiny pieces the mind railed at how they might be put back together. Pieces of every sort, at the finest level. The contents of the bags the workers she'd passed had been carrying. Screws. Pistons. Individual wires. As if the entire machine had been carefully disassembled to the most atomic level short of actual atoms. Or perhaps it had, and these were merely the ones that had slipped away before that mystical force had latched onto them securely enough.

"We are... still looking. We do seem to have the time, after all. So while I cannot vouch for Ms. Janovsky's safety, I am as yet hopeful to find..."

As he said the last of those words, he carefully shifted himself from where he was behind her, a few steps just to her left. Whereupon he took gentle hold of the gantry railing, putting himself somewhat purposely between her and a container further down the gantry's length.

"... well, something. Her black-box perhaps?"

[Enigma]

A whole lot of talking was going on, and Formicarius was happily staying out of it. Instead she just moseyed around the dock, floating here and there. She mostly stayed near the ceiling, doing a good job of looking like she kind of belonged there. For a solid few minutes even she vanished from view entirely, only to appear again at some point during Captain Hawkwood's suggestion to come along to the other storage area. The woman had a way about her that probably went unnoticed considering the gravity of the situation: she didn't just move unassumedly, she also did so with absolute confidence. In a way that if the colony didn't have keycards or some other entry system deeper in, she might have managed to just weasel in who knows where all while looking like she belonged exactly where she was.

But just like that she was landing down behind Alfimi when they entered the doors to the other room, giving a whistle of sheer awe at the pile of trash before them.

"Wow," she uttered, placing a reassuring hand on Alfimi's shoulder at the gravity of the scene pressing down on them all. "Chancellor, I'm so sorry. But wait! Captain, have you found any sign of Sara at all? If there is no body then there is still a chance... did she usually wear a pilot suit? Did her body require oxygen at standard human rates?"

[GEAR]

Alfimi walked, dreamlike, with Captain Hawkwood, her footfalls seeming... heavier than usual. As they entered the storage area, a hand came up to cover her mouth in shock, as she witnessed the Lemniscate's awesome handiwork up close. The thought that Sara's components could be scattered in among those being carted around... Would have been enough to make her retch, if she were still capable of such things, and she pushed down the mental picture forcefully.

When the Captain mentioned the search effort, she simply nodded in silence, keeping her thoughts to herself for the time being regarding any such possibility.

When Formicarius elected to speak up and put a hand on her shoulder, she looked back at them with no small amount of surprise in her eyes, certainly not expecting that kind of reaction from an agent of Malleus Maleficarum. She grateful, however, to allow them to step into the conversation, for now simply... Lowering her gaze, arms folded, keeping her lips tightly closed.