'Get up you two!'
Kanesaki opened his eyes slightly, blinking slowly as he regained focus from his sleep. Hirabayashi yawned and realised that she was rested on Kanesaki's shoulder. She shot up, fully red and embarrassed. Nishihara stared at the two as Yasuko and Isao joked around behind him. Sakaguchi was helping to move cargo from the ship. Kanesaki got up and laughed a little nervously. 'Sorry, Nishihara. I guess we got a little tired.' He patted the officer's shoulder and walked past him to leave the ship as Nishihara scoffed before facing Hirabayashi with a slight grin. He seemed to take pleasure in her embarrassment.
'Hey, Nishii... Don't tell anyone!' Laughing a little, he replied. 'Secret's safe with me.'
Stepping out of the ship, Kanesaki glanced around, taking in the sight of the airbase. They were on one massive air strip leading towards the main station built into the small, rocky mountains. The base was surrounded by large cliffs and the only view of the surrounding area was from the base entrance. Essentially, it was a one-way entrance and exit. There were platforms of the base, leading up to the cliffs. It was dark and cold, multiple squads of soldiers were arriving too to aid the defense. They had a few artillery placements on the cliffs aiming onwards to hit the rebels the minute they arrived. Looking up, he could also see the large frigates flying overhead, a few were landing while others were leaving. The tallest structure was the watchtower standing over everything else. It had a perfect view of the base and the opening leading into it, it would prove valuable for the defense.
Nishihara got off the ship, followed by Hirabayashi. Looking off towards the base in the mountain, Sakaguchi smiled and turned to Nishihara. 'Hey, Nishihara. Looks like he's already here.' Running over, Nishihara smiled too. 'Son of a-'
'Who?' Kanesaki asked, just as confused as Isao and Yasuko. Hirabayashi stepped in front of him and spoke. 'That's lieutenant Kaminari Raiden, Nishihara and Akio's old friend from the academy.' Smiling too, she looked over to the lieutenant as he noticed the group and made his way over. The lieutenant was in a YNS and had along, bone-white hair, a light scar on his cheek and had light yellow eyes.
'Raiden, good to see you!' Nishihara went over and the two shared a hug of comraderie. 'It's good to see you too after all these years!'
Kanesaki grinned a little seeing Nishihara so happy. Happily, the tall lieutenant broke the hug to wave over at Sakaguchi and Hirabayashi, who also waved over. He looked back to to Nishihara and suddenly his expression changed to a serious one.
'I heard about Akio. It's a shame, he was like a brother.' Nishihara looked down and nodded solemnly. 'Yeah, I visited his family grave the other day to say goodbye.' The two stood in silence for a moment until an older man approached, roughly 45-50. 'Lieutenant, are these the other officers helping?' Turning back at the man, Raiden nodded, resuming his calm and positive demeanour. 'Yeah, they'll be helping out for the operation.'
Yasuko tilted her head to examine the old fellow, Isao did the same. 'You a Chimera, bub?' The old man faced Yasuko and nodded calmly with a warm smile. 'Of course, ma'am. Tsuji Takao, sixth generation Chimera.' As he bowed, Sakaguchi exclaimed, 'Sixth gen?' Raiden responded, 'Yeah, our purpose is already filled with good fighters so we requested for a sixth gen to help with the medical bay and supporting us in the field.' The group room note of this and all nodded before following the lieutenant to the main facility where they began to plan out the operation; it was to be initiated shortly, and Raiden was the leader to give orders to the officers.
A few miles from the airbase:
'Alright, guess we're leaving, huh?'
The Chimera, no longer drunk, wandered through the encampment to get on board a small frigate. Multiple armed personnel stood ready to go as the frigates took off into the night sky, a few smaller drop ships tailing it.
In the distance, the masked figure watched the ships advance and moved into the darkness to follow.
Takemoto airbase- operation initiated
The officers had began deploying troops in preparation for the defense. Hirabayashi was stationed with Sakaguchi and Kanesaki overlooking the supplies and resources, Nishihara was put up front with Takao to overlook the frontline, Isao and Yasuko were put together as a part of an elite special forces squad to hit the enemy flanks and Raiden was alone atop the watchtower, peering down at the base and the area through the opening.
Sakaguchi carried a few crates as Kanesaki and Hirabayashi looked over a few sheets for the stockpile and making sure everything was accounted for. Hirabayashi looked up to the night sky and stared at the large moon as it looked over the planet. 'Kanesaki... Do you ever wanna see what earth's like?' Pondering the question, he replied, 'I heard it's pretty big now, with all the megastructures and expansion to the surface. It sounds nice but I don't think I'd really fit in.' Scratching the back of his head, the Chimera looked away. The officer chuckled and walked in front of Kanesaki, moving a hand to gently grab his. She looked up at him, staring him in the eyes as her's glistened under the moonlight.
'Hirabayashi... What are you doing?' He stared down at her kind of confused, not understanding the situation.
'Kanesaki, I know you're a Chimera... And it's kinda weird to talk about feelings with a Chimera...'
She swallowed a little before continuing, clearly nervous. 'I was wondering, have you ever felt deep feelings for anyone? As in, liking someone?'
Kanesaki looked a little nervous as she asked. Given that he was a Chimera, love wasn't really much of a thing he had experience with. He quickly came to the conclusion of what she was asking for, relationship advice, of course! He densely thought.
'Well, It's kinda part of being a Chimera that I can't feel those emotions, y'know. But I can help with anything if you need it!'
The officer's eyes suddenly lit at as he proposed such an offer to her. She smiled brightly before looking down nervously, then back up to meet his gaze, tucking a bit of her hair behind her ear. 'Oh... Well, I'd like that. And I guess we could start when we visit my town, right.' Smiling back, Kanesaki nodded.
The two just stood happily together for a moment; one idiotically believed the other needed dating advice and the other seemed to have feelings for the Chimera. Taking a few steps closer, Hirabayashi leaned up onto her toes as she closed her eyes slightly. 'Kanesaki, I...'
'Hey, Get down!'
The ship ripped through the sky like an asteroid, bathed in fire. The ship appeared like an old drop ship with a design from a few years back. It was covered in a searing heat as it came crashing down onto the airstrip. The artillery attempted to shoot it, but instead ended up boosting it's blast radius as it slid across the airstrip, creating a trail of fire and steel. It plowed through vehicles, artillery and other ships, setting them off to explode too. It was quickly approaching Kanesaki and Hirabayashi as Sakaguchi came running over to save them. Hirabayashi, taking her chance, shoved Kanesaki back so that Sakaguchi could grab him as the flaming steel carcass rammed into the resource center and, along with it, Hirabayashi.
Everybody quickly rushed to give relief and diffuse the situation but two more ships crashed down along the airstrip, one reaching the main base in the mountain and setting off a massive chain reaction, destroying most of the better, newer ships and artillery, along with hundreds of personnel.
Sakaguchi stood alongside Kanesaki. They coughed heavily as the smoke entered their lungs. Fire erupted along the airstrip as a group of soldiers ran to help out. Nishihara looked back and shouted over to a few soldiers. 'Hey, What happened!?' The soldier looked back and shouted, 'A suprise attack, officer!' Nishihara looked up to the watchtower. How did Raiden miss that, were they that quick?
As the relief teams reached the crash sites to help, a few squads of around ten soldiers each went with them and took aim on both the injured and the relief teams before opening fire. Chaos erupted over the base as Raiden shouted over the Comms to all officers and commanders over the troops, 'Abandon operation! I repeat, abandon operation! There's traitors all over the base, revel spies, most likely. We must get rid of them quickly, I repeat, prepare for full engagement, no holding back!'
Chapter 15- end