Paved With Daggers

[Zapp]

[color=white]Seiran Dust Cloud, Kyushu system
Present Day

...something appeared out of the mist. A flash, like a serpent flickering across your peripheral vision for the briefest moment. Sachiko flinched in surprise, and ordered all stop. It, whatever it was, rippled across the blue fog again. Murmurs from the crew, some shocked, others mystified, some cautious, filled the bridge. She called for silence but no one listened.

"Scanners see nothing?" Sachiko asked. The sensor operator's face flushed red.

"No sir, I umm... turned them off. They were not working with all the disturbance anyways."

"Well turn them back on and try again!" she said, anger breaking through her usually placid manner. The berated man's back straightened, and he turned to do what she said with a curt "yes sir."

As he tapped a few buttons, his countenance changed to one of shock. "Sensor's are working! Reading... a Chimera, sir. Readings are a bit funny, but it's one of ours."

As if by summons, the ship appeared in front of them and stopped. It had a weird aura, as if it was glowing blue, but that was probably just the Seiran Dust Cloud.

"Sachiko, it has been a long time."

The familiar voice of her brother made her smile, but then she realized something. All comm channels were closed, and they had received no transmissions. The Chimera moved still closer, and she noticed that the strange aura she had seen was indeed emanating from the ship itself, not the nebula. Something wasn't right here.

"Indeed Ouya, a long time..." she replied, curious of the response. None of the bridge crew looked at her as if she had just grown a third arm, so they must have heard the original sending as well.

"Join me, my sister. It is so much better here. I want you to know what I know, to see the universe on a different level." He sounded completely normal, calm and collected. But the words he spoke made no sense.

"What is wrong? Where have you..." As she spoke, the world spun out from underneath her. Lurching across systems and intermediate space where nothing lived or moved except our hopes and dreams, she found herself floating in space in the Tohoku system. Her brother was next to her, in his Naval Forces uniform. The lack of air did not cause trouble, nor did the total vacuum affect them. All was right in the world. There was Heaven's Gate, the most amazing wonder of Kusari. Ouya smiled at her, and she felt her heart skip.

Without speaking, his eyes conveyed so much to her. And she knew that things would be better here. All she had to do was reach out and be with her brother.

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