An unlikely pirate.

[Himura Suzume]

An Unlikely Pirate

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.The alarm clock beeped, Suzume flung her hand to the side, knocking it off the bedside table, still beeping.
."Uugh, shut up" she grunted and pulled a pillow over her head, trying her best to ignore the sound.
."Suzu! Can you get that ting to shut up!?" a female voice yelled from outside the room, "besides, shouldn't you be at the academy by now? You do know I'm quite familiar at what time the theoreticals start, don't you?"
.Suzume pulled the pillow off her head and lazily swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat up. Using her toe she pressed the off button on the alarm clock as she stretched her arms out. She hated Mondays. After grabbing a hot shower and getting dressed in the academy uniform she walked into the kitchen. She was immediately handed a brown paper bag. The woman handing it to her was a few years older than herself, but judging by the looks, clearly related.
."I made you breakfast, you can eat it while I drive you to campus. I need to help out with the planning of the graduation party anyway." she said.
.Suzume grabbed the bag. "Thanks, nechan" she said as she followed her sister out of the appartment.

."Good morning Kotori, and you Suzume" an old lady in the hallway said. "Off to school are we?"
."Good morning Ms Kiwagami" Kotori replied with a smile. "Yes, trying to make sure she doesn't miss class."
."You graduate the academy this year, don't you, Kotori?" the old lady continued. "I still remember when you moved in, has it really been five years?"
."Yes, Ms Kiwagami, five years. But Suzume here is on her second year and still has allot to learn, which is why I need to get her to class. Have a good day!"

.The two sisters stepped into the elevator and Kotori pressed the roof access button.
."So, have you decided if you're going back to Kyushu for summer break or if you're staying on New Tokyo?" she asked.
.Suzume, swallowing a bite from a sandwich she had fished out of the bag, replied. "I'm staying. I don't want to spend another summer working for dad."
."He makes you work so you can learn, you know that right?" her older sister said with a reprimanding look. "And he overpays." she continued with a smile.
.The elevator reached its destination and the doors parted to reveal a roof with a handful of landing pads with shuttles on them. The two girls walked up to a sleek, white shuttle looking as expensive as the other four put together.
."I still can't believe dad bought you this." Suzume said as she climbed in. "They cost a fortune and a half."
.Kotori laughed as she jumped into the pilot seat and started quickly flipping switches, bringing the shuttle to life.
."He'll buy you one too, you know." she said as the shuttle slowly started to lift off. "But you'll need top notch grades, which you don't get from sleeping in. Now fasten your seat belt."

.Suzume barely had time to strap in before the shuttle fell over the edge of the tall building, plummeting towards the ground. With a quick jerk on the stick, Kotori rolled it around and leveled out.
."Nothing saves on gas money like letting gravity do your accelerating!" She said with a laugh.
."I'll be pulling out my coffee now, so try to fight gravity a while, will you?" Suzume said while silently trying to tell whether her heart was still beating. "How about you?"
."How about me what?" Kotori asked.
."Will you be going to work for father when you graduate?" Suzume took a zip from her coffee, feeling it sear her tongue. "Shiong mao niao!" she exclaimed.
."Hey! Language!" Kotori said sternly.
."But, hot!" Suzume whined. "And you didn't answer my question."
.Kotori sighed. "I don't think I will. I do love flying, but to be stuck in a freighter transporting rice for the rest of my life?" she shook her head. "I don't think that would satisfy my urges, you know?" she said with a mischievous grin that Suzume didn't interpret fast enough. Her gut threatened to migrate through her throat as the shuttle rolled 270 degrees to the right and then banked hard left. Luckily the shuttle handled so well the g-forces kept the coffee in its mug.
.Suzume glared at her sister once the shuttle leveled out again. "Can you stop that?" she asked.
."You know what?" Kotori replied. "Sometimes I can't."
."What will you do then, if you won't work for father?" Suzume continued the conversation.
."I don't know" Kotori said, biting her lip slightly.
.Suzume looked over at her sister and noticed. "You're biting your lip." She said. "You always bite your lip when you're lying." she said accusingly.
."No I don't!" Kotori said and then sighed. "But you're right, I am lying. A recruiter came to talk to the graduates a couple of weeks back."
."A recruiter?" Suzume asked. "Like, for the navy?"
."Yeah, for the navy." Kotori answered. "Where else would I be able to fly the ships I want to fly? I want to swoop through an asteroid field in a Wyrm, not sit on a trade lane in a Drone."
."With your grades you'll get stuck on the bridge of a capital ship anyway" Suzume replied, taking another zip of coffee.

.The shuttle set down on a large landing space within the academy grounds. The two sisters hugged and went separate ways. As Suzume entered the main building she were immediatly set upon by two girls she only knew fleetingly.
."Hi Suzume!" one of them said. "There's going to be a party at my house this weekend and it would be, you know, soo fun if you would come!"
."Yeah!" continued the other one. "It's going to be great!"
.Suzume smiled at them. She was popular. It was part personality, part looks and part money. But she was smart enough to know that, and take advantage of it if she needed to. "I'd love to come!" she said. "Why don't you send me the details over the comm-net? I really have to get to class." She was being honest, she liked parties.
.As she turned the corner she was almost run into by Hiroshi, a guy from her class.
."Oh, erm" he said shyly. "Sorry." He moved around her and started running again.
."Whats the hurry!?" Suzume yelled after him.
."No theory!" he yelled back at her. "Liftoff from Delta in ten!"
."Shun sheng duh gao wahn" Suzume spit out, as she set off.

.Eleven minutes later she arrived at Delta Hangars, still fidgeting with her flight suit. She stopped, and stared open jawed. In front of her, her class was lined up in front of Itsuki, one of the flight trainers, and a man she didn't recognize. But behind them, where she was so used to see their training shuttles, sat sixteen Wyrms.
."Glad you could spare some of your valuable time and grace us with your presence, Miss Himura." Itsuki said sarcastically as she fell in line next to her classmates. He turned to address the entire class.
."Today, instead of our class on power cell waste products, we'll do some actual work." He held out his hand, indicating the man beside him. "This is Itto Kaisa Nakamura Tsubasa of the Kusari Naval Forces. I managed to convince him to let us do the quality assurance test flight of their latest acquired fighters." he paused for a while. "You will follow his order to the letter, or you will be grounded from flight for the rest of the semester." he let this sink in for a while. "Now, if you please, Itto Kaisa."
.The naval officer looked at them with his hands clasped behind his back. "What you see behind me is the J7P-34 Light Fighter, also called the Wyrm." He started pacing up and down the line of young students. "With a maximum thrust speed of two hundred meters per second and a maximum cruise speed of up to four hundred meters per second it's the fastest ship in the Kusari Navy." He stopped and slowly looked at each one of them. "You will be extremely careful when you fly these ships and you will not do anything I do not tell you to do."
.He waved at the ships behind him. "These ships haven't been fitted with any ordinance yet, but they are very sensitive to input and much faster than normal practice crafts."
.He started reciting more of the ship's performance data. Suzume zoned out, she knew them already. She admired the crafts, she could almost feel them pulling her towards them. She was itching to fly.
.After almost thirty minutes of lectures, of which she didn't listen to much, they were ordered to pick a ship and climb into the cockpit.

.Preflight checks were all green and Suzume couldn't stop grinning when the order to begin ignition cycles came over the radio. The fighter seemed to purr as it started up. One by one the ships took off from the ground and left the hangar. Their goal; the docking ring. The sixteen fighters traveled in procession out the docking ring of New Tokyo and into space. There, they all lined up, waiting for instructions.
.Suzume's radio cracked and Nakamura Tsubasa's voice came through.
."Listen up. You will now be doing test flights. You will fly in pairs, you will not travel more than three thousand meters away from this location. You may use your thrusters but you will not, I repeat, NOT engage your cruise engines. Stand by for pairing."
.The radio went silent and Suzume could see her classmates take off in pairs and start to fly around.
."C'mon, pair me up already so I can see what this thing can do!" she said out loud, frustrated. Her radio cracked to life.
."Himura Suzume and Yamada Hiroshi you're pair eight. Hiroshi is lead fighter, you follow his lead, Suzume."
.Suzume cursed under her breath. Hiroshi was a nice guy but a very nervous pilot. She'd be stuck at top impulse speed if she was lucky. Seeing Hiroshi start to move, she took position behind and to his left.

.The test flight lasted for almost an hour and Hiroshi never engaged his thrusters once. Suzume was tempted to test it on her own but she didn't want to get grounded. When her radio cracked to life and the Itto Kaisa ordered everyone to form up for a return to the academy she opened the direct link to Hiroshi.
."Hey, Hiro. We're over two klicks away, how about we burn our thrusters on our way back?" she asked impatiantly.
."I, I don't know" Hiroshi replied. "I'm not sure I can fly that fast."
."C'mon just for a little bit, we need to test it right? That's why we're here."
."I, I guess you're right." he said. "Allright, prepare to engage thrusters."
.Suzume had been prepared for an hour. What she was not prepared for however was the burst of flame coming from Hiroshi's Wyrm as his thrusters came to life, it looked strange. His ship took off and she engaged her thrusters, staying on his wing. After a couple of seconds Hiroshi's voice came over the radio.
."Suzume..." he said, with panic in his voice. "My control thrusters aren't responding to input."
.The voice of the Itto Kaisa came over the radio. "All pilots stop." he said, and Suzume complied. "What were you saying, Hiroshi?" he continued.
."My, my control thrusters aren't responding to input." Hiroshi said, now clearly frightened. "I've tried to restart them but they don't respond!"
."All right, calm down Hiroshi" the naval officer said. "Cut your thruster and let her drift. We'll have a ship come tow you back. Everyone else, return here and prepare to dock with the planetary ring."
.Suzume could see Hiroshi's thruster shut down and was just about to head back when her gut turned to ice. Slipping her ship to the right and up, to get precisely behind Hiroshi's Wyrm, her fears were confirmed. He was heading straight for a trade lane ring, and he was closing fast.

.Suzume didn't even think as her hands dropped down to cruise engine control and her Wyrm started to accellerate. Before her engines could charge her radio cracked.
."Himura Suzume, why is your cruise engines charging!?" the Itto Kaisa asked. "Answer me!"
."Not... now..." Suzume replied just in time for her cruise indicator to turn green and the fighter shot forward. "What the hell am I doing?" she thought to herself as she closed in on the drifting ship.
.That was about as much time as she had to think. The trade lane ring was close. As she caught up to Hiroshi's Wyrm she cut her cruise engines, moved underneath him and rolled. Painfully slowly she started closing the gap, proximity warnings blinking and sounding off in the cockpit. Five meters. She couldn't do this too fast or they'd both turn to dust and she couldn't be too slow or Hiroshi would crash into the lane ring. One meter, she crept closer. As slow as she was moving the ships still collided belly to belly with a teeth rattling jar. She could hear metal grinding against metal as she pushed towards her drifting classmate, slowly altering his course. She were closing on the trade lane ring fast and it was now straight in her path. At the last second she engaged her thruster and managed to alter her course enough to just miss colliding with it. She quickly spun her ship around to see Hiroshi still drifting, now heading into clear space. She let out her breath and started panting heavily, unsure of how long she had held it.
."Himura Suzume, you will return planetside and land the craft immediately!" the naval officer said over open comms. "You have disobeyed orders and engaged cruise engines. You have risked a ship worth over a million credits..."
.Suzume could see the comm indicator switching from open to direct as he continued. "And it was some damned nice flying."
.Suzume didn't reply, she was too focused on flying the ship back. Her hands were shaking and she had trouble concentrating as her body vere still recovering from an adrenaline overdose.

.As she climbed out of her cockpit after landing her ship in Delta Hangar she could see the rest of the class standing around, chattering among themselves. Itsuki and Tsubasa waited below her fighter as she came down.
."What were you thinking!?" Itsuki exclaimed. "Are you trying to get yourself killed!?" His face was red with anger. "You've risked a Kusari Navy ship with your stunt. I hope you realize you'll be grounded for this?"
."Calm down, Itsuki." said Tsubasa. "She just saved the life of one of your students and saved one of my ships." he said, smiling at Suzume. "I would very much appreciate if it did not result in a grounding."
."Well, I, that's not up to me." Itsuki said. "It's up to the dean."
."I have quite a few strings to pull, let me handle the dean." Tsubasa said, turning to Itsuki. "Now, I do believe Miss Himura has earned the rest of the day off."

To be continued