The end of a story...

[Xing]

"He should be ex..."

Isabelle turned her eyes toward captain Kaito, her expression severe,
"Captain Kaito, while I understand I am only taisho of this fleet by interim, and am not officially part of this navy, I am now in charge, until we reach imperial space at least, of every soldiers and war machines of this fleet. This does include the life of this miserable -for I hold absolutely no compassion for such persons, trust me on this. However I am barely aware of any kusari military law, and executing him without a trial, even though we do have very convincing proofs, won't be enough. To me at least."

"But tai..."

Isabelle interrupted the man again, leaning forward. Maybe it was captain' Kaito' imagination, but her eyes turned from the warm cyan to a cold, icy blue...

"Captain Kaito. The other - and much more significant reason, why I am sparing his life. If an outsider like me gives the authorisation to end the life of one of your own people, will your men still obey me? Will the fleet still follow my command?"

Kaito remained silent and nodded once, seizing the gravity of the question. He then looked back at the woman, somewhat impressed,
"I understand, taisho Kaitlynn. I will take care of the matters as you order. Might I say, I've hardly seen any of my superior giving such a deep thinking at problems like you do."

"Thank you captain. Dismissed."

--

Isabelle didn't waited for the door of her office to slide shut to hug Jimmy. Not that it mattered much for the moment, there were no one in the corridor leading to her room, and beside, people around had a general idea that they were indeed, lovers. And didn't seemed to mind much about this.
They seemed more concerned about having a female (and an outsider!) taisho.
Well, it could have been worse, yes?

"You are alright?" Isabelle asked him, her eyes now back to the soft cyan, sparkling with youthful love.
"I'm so sorry for what hapenned... I have the captain locked away, but that's all I can do without making our situation even more unstable among these men..."
She chuckled slightly,
"we definitively looks like aliens to these men... they probably don't realise the feeling is reciprocal... their way of living, so different from what we are used to..."

She smiled more confidently, as she led her lover to a seat,
"though, I'm certain with enough time we will accept each others as human beings. And, the descendants of the Alliance. For the moment, we still have to gain their trust... which brings me to this."

She sat down in front of her computer as she tipped in commands. It took her some time to get used to an entirely japanese interface, but having lived nearly the third of her youth by interval in the home of a kusari taisho helped her much. She spoke the language without much accent, and could write decently enough (although, according to uncle Daite, she certainly lacked the "esthetism"... however letters are suposed to be physically attractive to the eye!).

"The captain under arrested seems to have been the captain per interim of the destroyer Ryujin, whose captain was killed in the last combat. It seems we are now completely out of qualified officers to command a ship... excluding us. Jimmy, you held command for both a gunboat and for a short amount of time, a battlecruiser. I trust you can take command of the Ryujin. I want the fleet at its maximal fighting capacity, and you are the best bet for the job, my love."
"I didn't told all the fleet what hapenned to you and captain Sasomoto. However, I thought the Ryujin' crew needed to know the facts. I've shown them the video, and captain Kaito seems confident. They saw your righteousness in the situation, and were impressed by how you handled the situation. You should be fine with these men, they already will have a certain respect for you at least. Now, just prove them you are a good ship commander. I trust you for this."
"If you do accept this task, you should be aware that we will probably run, again, in a corsair ambush soon enough. Maybe in the next 24 hours. It is unavoidable, from what I extracted from the prisonners. They seems to possess a base in the area and can launch massive amount of crafts. Those we defeated send out the words of a big prize -that is, us. They seems to have encircled a large area, spreading out their force on an immense scale and heading our way by diminishing their distance progressively, effectively closing the circle. I have targetted what I believe to be the weakest point of this trap, but no one can be certain of the exactitude of their affirmation, despite the use of truth serum. And I wont dare using it so soon on them again, this might prove too deadly to their body. We have no time, so I want you to prepare your men. Teach them everything you know of warfare. Learn from them about the destroyer, it has its own weakness but many advantages our libertonian ships never had. You'll have to adapt within a day to all this... and hopefully, we'll be able to break out of this trap and return home alive..."

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