She hadnt heard her mentors name for a long time now. It must have been nearly a year since she disappeared. Nobody really knew where she went, or what happened to her.
"That is not possible, nobody saw her since a year. She must have been killed in a fight with the Naval Forces, otherwise she would have returned to Ainu after her last mission."
Narrowing his eyes, an expression that he knew was not visible to the woman on the other side of the comm, he slowly repeated some of her words to himself,
"Over a year..."
But then tapping on the console quickly, he started searching for some of the files he had imported from his Roc computer. The file he was looking for was not hard to find, as he had already tagged the folder. He didn't need to check the files to be sure, but he just wanted to prove to himself that still had the sense of time.
"I first met her less than 10 months ago..."
The words slipped out of his mouth as he was still staring at the console.
Her thoughts circled around his words "10 months", that made no sense. Rin would have send a file to let the Chrysanthemums know about her and her plans. Something must have been wrong.
"Where did you meet her? And... did she still fly her Blossom? Was the ship damaged in any way?"
Without having to look at the logs, he could clearly remember that day. Although it was nothing but a fade memory now, something that felt more like a dream than anything real.
"She was in Tau-23 when I ran into her. Her ship was... fine, although my old Roc's console couldn't register some of the parts, but no scan data that showed any damage."
Then after a few seconds of silence, as he was going over the incidents of that day, he continued.
"We went to Tau-37, to a quiet place I used to go every once in a while. Had a drink together, talked for a bit, but then she had to leave, so I headed to Alpha from there..."
She remembered the strange behaviour of Rin, when she saw her the last time. Back then Rika thought that it was just too much work and not enough sleep, but maybe it could have had other reasons.
"That was -before- I asked for docking rights on Ainu."
Scrolling through the files in that folder without thinking, he saw a copy of the transmission he had sent the Chrysanthemums, but scrolled over it and reached another log file.
"And as I said, I met her only once after that..."
Opening the file, he remembered how short that second and last meeting was. So short that it had left him with the desire of wanting more ever since.
"I was in Tohoku... I usually go there when I want to be alone."
Then going silent again and reviewing what happened that day, he continued.
"But then she found me... Said the system is restricted to Dragons and I shouldn't be there. So we flew to Hokkaido, she noticed the spare cardamine in my cargo, she looked happy. I offered her a drink, but she said had to go... Don't know, I was sitting there for some 4 hours after that, looking at the direction she left..."
And now that he thought about it, it all felt really confusing...
He said in a cold voice and started marking the scanner logs he had in the folder. What annoyed him, was that he felt the woman didn't believe him, that she was asking for the scans to be sure it was Rin, not to be sure the ship wasn't damaged. The feeling it had for him, feeling that someone wasn't saying he's lying, but more sounding like he's been living a lie.
As he was finished marking the files, he tapped 'Send' and waited for transfer to be complete.
The console beeped as the files arrived, the scans showed a normal Blossom, undamaged. But while looking at it closer Rika realized the gun signatures, they were not fitting. They even seemed to be completely unknown. She was lacking the knowledge about weapons, so were most of the sisters.
"You were right, the ship is Rins. And it is undamaged, but these guns do have signatures that dont make sense. The Blood Dragons may be able to help you with this, but I... I cant. I will send these files to them, I hope that they are able to help you Saerieve."
After another beep the files were sent.
"I will return to Ainu, please tell me if you have any news... Sayonara my dear."
She launched the Cruise engines and headed straight to the Hokkaido jumphole.
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