2022-07-17: Thorns Catching The Sleeve
- Log: 2022-07-17: Thorns Catching The Sleeve
- Cast: Suberoa Zinnerman, Garencieres Team
- Where: The Garencieres
- Date: U.C. 0096 07 17
- Summary: A carefully-seeded message finds the ears of its target, and stokes an old wound to a searing flame.
Lieutenant Suberoa Zinnerman stares out of the Garencieres bridge into the glimmering void.
He knew something was wrong from the twist in his gut and the lump in his throat, ten minutes before Marida missed her scheduled check-in (a thing she never does even by accident) - and everyone else on the ship knew just from the change in their Captain's demeanour.
Now, merely hours later, the whole freighter is feeling the burn from being on high-alert for such a long time with nothing to show for it... But the Garencieres Team are veterans and prodigies from all walks of spacenoid life, and they hold firm, the Garencieres floating on silent running on a point where multiple communications satellites' datastreams intersect. It's the same trick they used to find the Unicorn and the young man who is currently a guest of their strange family, and it's a good trick for a guerilla ship.
Then: Alec tilts his head, touching the headpiece he's wearing. "Boss, I've got something. Interception from G-Hound transmissions containing the keywords we're looking for."
"Play it," Zinnerman orders, not looking at his helmsman but listening intently.
"Prisoner 666 is to be transferred to G-Hound Space Fortress Barge. The Winter Witch of Ravnui has given these orders the highest priority."
The bridge is silent for a long, long moment, then:
"It's a trap," says Flaste Schole, Zinnerman's oldest friend and second in command. Gilboa Sant, the team's Mobile Suit ace, nods in agreement. Zinnerman grunts.
"Of course it's a trap. That codename... She wanted us to hear this. But even so... Even so, we cannot abandon Marida."
"Not sayin' we should, Boss," Sant agrees in turn. "Just that if the Winter Witch is playin' tricks, we should be playin' tricks of our own."
Flaste nods. "We'll pull Kwani off the Nagoya assignment so he can call in favours from Junius Four. Maybe we can track down that black Qubeley from that DG incident, too." It had escaped no-one that Marida had formed (or remembered) some kind of bond with the mysterious Ghost of the Newtype Battalion, though she had spoken little of it to her 'Master'.
"And of course... There's one other ace in our hand that she probably doesn't know about." Schole looks down to the hangar and the white, horned mobile suit currently in the Garencieres' care. "I know you don't want to put the kid out if you don't have to, Boss, but the firepower on that thing might be just what we need without the Kshatriya."
Zinnerman grunts again. He swore, a long time ago, to never send a child into battle if he could help it, and even allowing Marida to deploy strains this oath (is it her youth or the fact that she reminds him oh-so-much of Marie? He can't say).
He lets out a long breath. "Call in what we can from Junius Four, and express this urgency to the Commander." Full Frontal may care little for the well-being of the sole(?) survivor of the Newtype Battalion Project, but he knows the tactical importance of the Garencieres in the hunt for Laplace's Box.
Flaste claps a hand on his old friend's shoulder. "We'll get her back, Suberoa."
Zinnerman looks at his second-in-command and nods grimly. "We will."