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( ;p i only did it so people could get the true feeling of how insane Vynn can get. heh. but hey, may as well :3)

arrow Deep Space Battleground; Optional BGM: Insecurity - Xenosaga Episode I OST, Disc 2

The deckplates beneath Vynn's feet stopped ringing as the turbolasers ceased fire. All that remained of the last Zilart ship now was an unidentifiable mass of blackened debris and organic material. That was just one more thing he disliked about that race; a fully-mechanical ship's debris sometimes seemed like a work of art to him, a memorable photograph of a battleground. But the half-organic, half-machine amalgams that were the Zilart ships looked to him like space litter.

With a sigh, he turned away from the bridge viewports and walked back to the communication station, where William was apparently in dialogue with another craft. During his brief bouts of insanity, Vynn frequently lost all regard for everything except the destruction unfolding before him, which was why William was his second-in-command. Whenever these situations occurred, William was able to quickly and flawlessly take over the command duties.

"You need not fret over the Zilart battle, Captain Eyanami," William was explaining. "As we speak, our vessel has just finished mopping up the last of their convoy. The threat they pose has been removed. As mentioned, we have deployed a number of Ession mines in this area to interdict any Zilart fleets. You should be able to detect them on your sensors as you near them, and they will ignore you unless you attempt to enter hyperspace, or pass them while in hyperspace."

Stepping up beside his XO, Vynn laid a hand on William's shoulder, that touch indicating that he was back in his right mind and could take over. With a nod, William stepped out of the holocomm transmission field, allowing Vynn to take his place.

"I apologize for any inconvenience we may be causing you, Captain," he said. "I am Captain Hano of the Assault Star Cruiser Intrepid. Might we be of any assistance to you today?"

arrow Deep Space, Former Battleground

He waved off the comment of being owed a favor. "Think nothing of it, Captain. We would be happy to escort you to Second Miltia."

He turned to the side for a moment and called out, "Peewo, transmit the deactivation code for all the Ession mines that are in the path of a direct hyerspace jump between here and Second..." He then paused, realizing that the Eldridge was probably not equipped with an independent hyperdrive the way that the Intrepid was, that allowed the craft to jump into hyperspace without the use of a column gate.

That's not to say, of course, that his ship still couldn't use them. "Sorry, transmit the deactivation code for all the mines in the path of a column jump between the nearest gate and Second Miltia."

"Aye, Captain," answered the principal weapons officer, abbreviated PWO or 'Peewo.'

Despite the fact that he knew he wouldn't be told, Vynn was almost tempted to ask what cargo the Eldridge was carrying. He quickly shook off that thought, however, and gave the other captain a game smile. "At your leisure then, Captain Eyanami."

(and i probably should've mentioned this earlier, but William is actually older than Vynn. William's going on 50. rofl )

arrow Assault Star Cruiser Intrepid, Bridge

Vynn nodded again. "Of course. We'd be happy to lend you some of our technical crew." He turned toward a nearby crewman. "Lieutenant, get word down to engineering to assemble a specialist team to assist with repairs to the Eldridge's hyperdrive, then scramble AMWS squads four and six to provide sentry duty in case we get any more visitors."

As the lieutenant nodded and left, Vynn turned back toward the holotransmission. "We'll be over in just a few minutes, Captain. Intrepid out." He then nodded to the comms officer, who cut the transmission.

With that done, he turned toward William and scratched the back of his head. "Well, what do you think?"

William regarded the captain smoothly and looked at a datapad in his hand. "Our records indicate that the Eldridge is aligned with the Kukai Foundation, but currently on loan to Vector for a cargo transport assignment."

Vynn nodded. "So their story checks out, since Vector runs most of their show out of the division headquarters on Second Miltia now." He smirked. "Vector. It's been a while. I wonder if anyone would recognize me. That doesn't matter. Take over here. I'll head over with the engineering crew and see what's going on. I doubt they'll let me see their secret cargo, but I may learn something if I keep my ears open."

"Understood. Good luck."

arrow Deep Space, Traveling to Eldridge

A few minutes later found Vynn in the passenger cabin of a Theta-class shuttle making the transit between the Intrepid's ventral hangar bay and the main hangar on the Eldridge.

arrow Theta-class Shuttle, Nearing Eldridge Main Hangar; Your Musical Selection Works Just Fine Here, Too biggrin

Vynn sat in the farthest seat, in the farthest corner of the passenger bay that he could find. He had settled into that seat at the outset of the journey and not moved since, not looked around, or spoken to anyone.

It was another of his personality traits that his crew was used to. In battle against the Gnosis and Zilart, he tended to temporarily lose touch with his sanity, and after the battles, he would withdraw into himself, becoming unresponsive and picking up a forlorn expression.

Most of the crew reasoned that his frequent and violent mood shifts were a result of something the Gnosis had done to someone or something he had strongly cared about in his past. That would explain why he took such pleasure from their destruction; a desire for revenge. It also explained his post-battle attitude; no matter how many Gnosis he killed, it would never bring back what he had lost.

They all sympathized with him; there was no one in the galaxy who hadn't lost friends or loved ones to the Gnosis. None of them ever tried to comfort him, though; not only was it against ship's etiquette for a crewman to try and comfort the ship's captain, but they were all familiar with the kind of pain he had to deal with, and they knew that pain like that just couldn't be put aside with a kind word or gesture. It was something their captain had to come to terms with on his own. And in the meantime, he was still an exceptional commander the rest of the time.

"Beginning landing cycle," the pilot reported from the cockpit of the craft.

Like a light switch being turned on, Vynn came out of whatever hell his mind put him through, and returned to commanding officer mode. He glanced around the bay at all the technicians, some of whom were securing their harnesses, others actually connecting them for the first time in the trip.

"Okay, gents, you'll probably be looking at an old-school column-dependent hyperdrive." This earned some snickers from the technicians. "So just keep that in mind, and be on your best behavior. Just because our ship could fly circles around theirs doesn't mean we get to act superior."

Outside, the downward-sweeping wings of the shuttle had folded up into their landed configuration as the landing gear deployed. With a grace born of years of practice, the pilot expertly guided the shuttle into the hangar and down on a cleared patch of hangar deck big enough for the shuttle, then lowered the ramp and began the power-down sequence.

As protocol dictated, Vynn was the first one to come down the ramp of the shuttle, but he paused at the end of it, not yet stepping onto the Eldridge's deck.

"Permission to come aboard?"

arrow Eldridge, Main Hangar Bay

At the mention of their hyperdrive not being column-dependent, the technicians exchanged glances with one another, then burst out laughing. "Can we fix an independent hyperdrive?" one of them asked. "Our ship's the very one they field-tested the independent hyperdrives on!"

Vynn turned around and booted the loudmouth right in the stomach, knocking the man down. "Shut your traps and get to work. You're not getting paid by the hour."

Shaking his head, he turned back toward the ship's captain. "Techs. No matters at all. Well then, Captain Eyanami, lead the way."

arrow Ship's Corridors

Vynn really didn't care for zero gravity. He was perfectly capable of functioning at one hundred percent while freefloating, but that didn't mean he had to enjoy it.

With a practiced grace, he pulled himself along at an appreciable speed by gripping various protrusions along the corridor. Once into the room, he pushed off the doorframe with his feet, grabbing onto an empty chair and vaulting in midair before pulling himself down into it, and idly wondering if it came with a seatbelt.

arrow Briefing Room

Leaning forward to rest his right elbow on the table, Vynn cupped his hand and stared into the holoimage of the ship, studying the indicated damage areas. He leaned back after a moment, and gave the other captain a wry smile.

"There wasn't much to interrupt us from. We've had a dead trail for our primary mission for months now, and we can accomplish our secondary mission, wiping out the Gnosis and Zilart, anywhere."

He glanced to one of the red zones, what he assumed would be a good spot to store live cargo, but made no comment about how little stock he placed in the kind of biotechnicians who thought it was a brilliant idea to capture those little bastards alive for study. As far as he was concerned, the only thing about them that needed studying was how to kill them, and he got plenty of that kind of education on the battlefield.

"I'm not too terribly worried about an ambush. We've got this region of space literally webbed by Ession mines, so they'd be dragged out of hyperspace before they even got close to us, and we'd have plenty of time to react. We've also got a Hilbert device on the Intrepid capable of projecting the Effect out almost an entire parsec."

He didn't bother to mention that he'd managed to get that kind of range by utilizing the specs of KOS-MOS' Hilbert amplifier.

"And if they do get in close, with a real battle fleet and not a little dinky convoy that you saw us playing with, then I'd get serious and take my own ES out after them. I personally designed it using live battle data against the Gnosis that I've been collecting for twelve years now. Simulated tests suggest I could wipe out a quarter of a fleet the size that ambushed the Woglinde on my own with that ES, and real battles have shown those numbers to be not that far off-base."

It was a very serious business he ran, making Gnosis and anything related to them one with the universal afterlife, or "one with the Force" as some of his crew joked.

"Rest assured, Captain, any threat the Gnosis and Zilart pose is minimal. As for payment from Vector? Well, I'm sure they'd have some information we would find useful."

Oh, yes. That was without a doubt a given. If anybody knew anything that would help Vynn find her, then Vector knew. He almost, almost regretted having quit the company ten years ago, when word was handed down that the KOS-MOS project was being scrapped.

arrow Eldridge, Ship's Corridors; Optional BGM: Here He Comes, Xenosaga Episode II OST - Disc 1

Whistling a little ditty, Vynn idly pulled himself along the corridor, looking for the nearest lift/shuttle toward the bridge. As he did so, he occupied his mind by taking in details of the ship, and trying to determine who had been responsible for designing and building her.

He got about as far as figure out that she wasn't a Federation design before his own Connection Gear began to demand his attention. Nonchalantly, he pulled the device out and glanced at it, wondering just what required his attention.

What he saw shocked him so completely that he missed a turn in the corridor and smacked headlong into the opposite wall. But even through that, his eyes never left the Connection Gear screen. It was displaying a program that hadn't seen use in ten years.

The special program he had secretly installed in a functional OS twelve years ago was online, and it displayed only two words, in red, against a black background: "SYSTEM START"

He turned his head away from the screen and rubbed his eyes, thinking that perhaps all the stress had finally made him snap. But when he looked back again, the words were still there.

"I don't believe it..." he muttered. "You are still alive." He grinned widely as he opened up another program in the Connection Gear, shooting a call to his XO back on the Intrepid.

In a second, another window popped up, displaying William's face. "Yes, sir?"

The grin on his face was now as wide as the drive units at the rear of the Intrepid. "William, we've got business." Then he transmitted the display of the special program.

Shock registered on William's face as he saw what Vynn had been seeing, but he quickly managed to school his features back to neutrality. "Is this for real?"

"Very much for real. Operation Broken Angel is still on track. Alert the specialists."

"Yes, sir."

With that, Vynn turned off the Connection Gear and returned it to his pocket. He then stared off through the near bulkhead toward space. "Found you," he whispered. "This time, I won't lose track of you. I swear it, KOS-MOS."

His resolve strengthened, Vynn continued pulling himself along toward the bridge.