Part 102: Mission 29 (Rand) - Prologue
Exceptionally, on account of my HD still being dangerously full, I’ll be posting another of Rand’s mission as I already had it set up and it’s taking a lot of room.After this, the main characters will once again alternate.
So, our team’s headed to the Emaanian nation to resupply, giving the Glomar crew their excuse to bring Kei over.
Kei, Maai and Riea are launching as one event squad but we still have 8 slots, so here’s how we’re going:
- Rand, Jiron, Dyke
- Gainer, Matthew, Adette (Rushrod)
- Baldios, Hilda, Roybea
- Getter, Tekkouki, Michiru
- Aquarion, Gauli, Rag
- Garrod, Jamil, Bello (Dobeck)
- Eureka, Witz, Holland
- Gain, Sara (Dobeck), Burume (Government
Mission 29 (Rand) – Outsiders
As Shaia expected, a large group of Chiram quickly intercepted us en-route and are bombarding our ships – they’re REALLY trying to stop our arrival in Emaan.
Holland knows our ships can’t take this much punishment for long and wants to fight back. Shaia agrees and both Iron Gear and Freeden teams also prepare to deploy but, as Kei moves to do the same, Mimsy stops him.
Kei asks why, considering the Chiram are coming after him anyway – he wants to distract them while we make a run for it. Mimsy won’t allow it, saying he needs to get to Emaan no matter what and, indeed, it’s because he’s a Singularity.
Their discussion is interrupted when Papty detects some battleships coming over.
Much to Shaia’s relief, it’s the Emaanian army and their concentrated fire leaves Henry and Robert no choice but to order all troops to retreat and reorganize.
Henry isn’t happy to see the Singularity slip through their fingers like this and Robert tells Kei not to forget: he is THEIR prey!
As they run off, Maneesha, Shaia’s younger sister, gets on the comm and says she can relax now.
Shaia’s surprised that she’s the one who helped them but Maneesha thinks it’s only natural: she always shows important customers in, so how could she not do the same for Shaia’s own return home. Mimsy tells Kei about the woman saying that, as the head of the Thoov family, she’s a powerful person in their country.
Kei finds it odd that the younger sister is the head of the family and all Mimsy says is that there are some special circumstances. Either way, Maneesha calls the Singularity and everyone else to come with her.
Kei’s starting to get sick of getting the run-around and wants Mimsy to tell him what a Singularity IS when they arrive at the city. She agrees, saying that she doesn’t want to ignore his own feelings about this.
Location: Central Galia – Emaan
Mel’s pretty excited to be here for the first time and Sirius tells of how the Emaanian nation was dropped into this Multi-Dimensional world some 20 years ahead of everyone else – in a way, they’re the original civilization.
Burume and Dyke don’t understand that “20 years ahead” bit, seeing how, from where they stand, the multi-dimensional world was created when the Break the World bunched everything together. Jun says that, when the dimensional walls broke down happened, it also caused time displacement across the worlds.
Garrod doesn’t understand, so he gives an example: suppose that there’s no such thing as a time difference and, following the Break the World, Jun, Garrod and Ryouma got together and their watches are showing 3 o’clock.
BUT, if you checked the watch of a Chiram or Emaanian, it’d show 5 o’clock: this means they were dumped into the world 2 hours ahead of us. That’s exactly what happened, only it was with a 20 year difference.
The Chiram and Emaanians have been living in this multi-dimensional world for all those years, and only recently have the Federation, Plants and all other nations and regions been effectively warped into it.
This all goes over Jiron’s head but he can understand that the Break the World messed with time itself, too.
Shaia’s taking off with Kei to head to Maneesha’s place and Matthew wonders why Kei gets special treatment but, from what he can tell, he’s a VIP around here…
Mimsy suggests everyone take this time to resupply and see the city, and Roybea wants Kei to join him and Pierre once he’s done with his business – Emaan is famous for being filled with hot chicks. Kei leaves them to “scout ahead” and, while this is all going on, Leeg has decided to do some work on the Orguss.
Gainer does wonder why Kei’s being treated like that and Rand figures it’s about that “Singularity” business that had the Chiram going after him. Hayato has heard of that term being used in math and physics and Mel’s surprised that Rand knows stuff like that.
He tells her that he’s also a Singularity but Gain quickly tells him to keep it down as, whatever that term means, it’s got both the Emaanians and Chiram up in arms because of Kei. So, if Rand doesn’t watch it, he’ll also get that sort of attention.
Rand sees his point and Holland also agrees, as something about this place has him on edge – Apollo is also on the ball, catching some bad, enemy-like scent in here.
An Emaanian soldier shows up right then, saying he was appointed by Maneesha to show us around town.
Adette apologizes but say our people don’t like being pampered like that and Jamil says we’d like to see the city by ourselves. The soldier expected these wanted men to be this clever but our suspicions came far too late – they already have the place surrounded!
There’s nowhere to escape and the Emaanian tells us to behave, lest we suffer the consequences. Gain fumes that we got careless because Shaia brought us over and Gauli can’t help but worry that she set us up…
Maneesha introduces herself as the leader of Emaan's Dimensional Repair Operation and, before anything, Kei wants an explanation about that Singularity business.
She agrees, on the basis that doing so would help things proceed as fast as possible. Kei quickly figures, from the operation’s name, that they’re trying to return the multi-dimensional world to how it was before.
To put it simply, yes, and they need a Singularity like him in order to do that. Kei figures she’s pulling his leg, thinking he’d be able to repair space-time like that but Maneesha insists it’s the truth and Shaia’s quite eager to hear of the results of the Emaanian’s research.
Maneesha wants her sister and Mimsy, as a representative of the Rath House (the only other Emaanian family to rival Maneesha and Shaia’s Thoov family in status), to listen closely. Before anything, she’ll give them an outline of how the destruction of the dimensional walls occurred.
By rights, the various parallel universes should have their own timelines, never intersecting. However, due to some phenomenon, a Great Singularity was created and that caused all the various worlds to get mixed together.
Mind, the Emaanians don’t know what was the phenomenon that caused that to happen – only that the Great Singularity’s outbreak took place around the Chiram’s Orbital Elevator. But, from what they’ve gathered, the people who were at the center of this region during the event became Singularities themselves.
Inwardly, Kei’s now positive that it was the Space-Time Oscillation Bomb that caused the Break the World and, even if unintentionally, he’s the one who pulled the trigger on the whole thing. Maneesha says that over one hundred worlds are currently fused into this multi-dimensional one and, even now, the constant space-time warps that occur worldwide prevent it from stabilizing.
The Emaanian’s research says this instability of the world’s space-time continuum is mostly due to the Great Singularity itself being unstable - so, once the Great Singularity is stabilized, the world will follow suit.
However, that does not guarantee that things will return to how they were before and there’s the added problem that Kei’s only ONE of the “Split Singularities”. He still doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do about all that and Maneesha says his job is to control the dimensional repair process by joining with the Great Singularity.
When the new world is formed, the thoughts of whoever’s at the core of the Great Singularity will exert great influence over the end result – in a way, Kei’s thoughts will dictate how this new world comes to be. As such, Maneesha asks for Kei to lend his strength to Emaan and to wish that the Emaanian world survives into the new one.
Kei’s confused and Maneesha says that, when the new world’s being constituted, it’s likely there’ll be a severe dimensional distortion – thus, it’s expected that several worlds will disappear between dimensions. She wants Kei to make sure the Emaanian world isn’t among those but this is all a whole lot for Kei to digest this quickly.
Maneesha understands and says she had a room prepared for him, so she suggests he take the time to rest and collect his thoughts – she asks Mimsy to escort him and the two of them leave.
Shaia’s rather surprised that the repair operation has advanced so much but, even so, Maneesha says they’ve little time left.
Shaia asks about the status of the Chiram’s own singularity as, from what she’s heard, he’s of the same magnitude as Kei but, unfortunately, Maneesha says they’ve been unable to capture him or any of the other smaller singularities.
Furthermore, the Emaanians have bigger problems than the Chiram’s actions right now: from what their researchers have observed, the dimensional walls are beginning to break down at an accelerated pace. Soon, space-time will be collapse for good and all of the worlds will be reduced to nothingness.
So, they MUST execute the dimensional repair before that happens and she hopes Shaia can guarantee that Kei’ll cooperate with them. Shaia isn’t so sure and Maneesha makes it clear that, in the event that he won’t play ball willingly, she’s ready to apply some mind-control on him.
Shaia doesn’t like her line of thought but Maneesha says all she’s doing is thinking about Emaan’s future. This world itself, not just theirs, will disappear if they don’t act quickly and she’ll use whatever means are needed to protect Emaan.
Furthermore, she won’t take any lip from Shaia after she decided to just run off and do whatever the hell she wanted.
Shaia concedes that she foisted the job of leading the family onto Maneesha and apologizes for it.
Still, it doesn’t change the fact that Kei’s a person just like them and she can’t just look the other way and let them trample over Kei’s mind and spirit like that. There isn’t much she can do about it, though, as Maneesha already had Kei and ZEUTH apprehended by her men.
She says there are plenty of people who are annoyed by our group, so we’ll make for some good transactions with them. Shaia asks if Maneesha lost all sense of human decency and she says she still has it – along with her much more important love for Emaan.
Back to our people, Bello is wondering what the Emaanians are planning to do with us and Gain figures, since we’re still alive, that they don’t see us as an enemy proper. Holland figures, considering what we did before, there’s sure to be a reward for our heads.
Gainer didn’t expect that but Jiron figures it’s only natural since we’ve been doing our thing all this time and stepping on more than a few toes - it's likely the Feds aren't pleased.
Hap is rather impressed at this nation of traders: they’re going to sell US over just like any other piece of merchandise.
Mel’s worried about being extradited and put on trial but Tsugumi still holds hope that Ken-goh and the others who remained behind will do something once we don’t return. Jamil isn’t that certain, though, and Ryouma agrees, thinking that it’s quite likely they also had the ships on lockdown when they moved to arrest us.
Rand says it’s too early for the kids to give up - plus, getting bummed out is a sure-fire way to get old.
: SO, LET’S! DO! THIIIIIIIIIIIS!!*Rand charges against the cell door!*
: What are you doing, Rand?!
: What’s it look like? Imma break this cell down!
: But that’s impossible...!: You don’t know ‘til you try! ONE MORE TIME!!*Bash!*
: Give it up, repairman. You’re just gonna get hurt.
: Come on, man. Weren't you the one who went ballistic at Zonder Epta? What's with that attitude now? 
: …
: It might be impossible and crazy, but once I’ve made up my mind, I keep going!
: Darling…: Getting hurt like this ain't nothing to me. I swore that I’d never let myself scream in pain again!
: I’ll help you out, Rand!: M-me too!
: Yo, stupid princess! Time for you to bust out your superstrength!
: B-but...even if we break out of this cell, there are also the guards…: We’ll worry about that when we get there! Before anything, let’s take this first step and make it a big one!*Someone approaches.*
: Hmm… You’re even more passionate than advertised…
: Who--?!*The cell door opens.*
: I really like that kind of vigor.: Who are you, miss? Ya don’t look Emaanian…: I’m Ziene Espio. And, as you can see, I’m here to help you. : You serious?!
: I knocked the guards out. Let’s go quickly.
: Why are you helping us?
: You’re not thinking of making us drop our guard and selling us off, are you?!: Well, aren’t you brash, little girl. Asakim isn’t very fond of that, you know. : Whoa, there! Miss, you know Asakim?!: Yes, I came here at his request. 
: Asakim Dowin… it’s that gentleman that’s friends with Rand, right?
: Asakim…!
: Oh, that guy… he really did us a solid here!
: Hurry. We have to leave before they come after us.
: Right on! Thanks a bunch, miss!: Hee, hee…that smile of yours is so sexy.First Adette, then Enil and now Ziene. Chicks dig THE HEAT.
Next part will be up around the middle of the week.
See you guys then!