Author's Note:
This story follows on the heels of Blue Drop: Angel's Partner which I wrote as a sequel to the anime series. It told of the events from Hagino's self-sacrifice in a last ditch defense of Kaihou Academy and Mari through a miraculous journey from Blue's explosion to her sharing consciousnesses with Mari as the two live together in Mari's body. Mari and her friends have joined the resistance against the invading Arume where Mari and Ekaril's experience is called upon to help and they are able to take control of a captured Arume frigate under the name ``Commander Mari'il.''

Mari and Hagino/Ekaril were too interesting as characters to just leave there, and I was also curious about the Arume. So this story was born. I have decided to call Hagino by her Arume name, Ekaril, here to emphasize the Arume setting of this tale. I've also tried to make sure this matches not only the anime and my Angel's Partner, but also with Yoshitomi-sensei's manga, or at least doesn't violently contradict it. Hopefully I've been able to, though I've also had to invent quite a bit of Arume from whole cloth.

I hope you enjoy this story. Please let me know, your reviews are the fuel for my imagination.

Blue Drop: Angel's Home: Chapter 1

A Homecoming and A Beginning

Mari'il bid a tearful farewell to Micchi and Tsubael, her two best friends on Earth, and boarded the captured Arume frigate Myrdal. Taking her seat in the commander's chair, she ordered Myrdal to take off and begin an evasive set of Leminov shifts through several different brane-worlds. These would hide their tracks and keep anyone from following their trail back to the resistance on Earth.

Once their trail was suitably obscured, Myrdal stopped in an out-of-the-way brane-world to prepare for their arrival at Arume. Mari'il took a moment to admire the nebula and stars which the view-screen showed surrounding the ship, then headed back to her cabin to change from her earth clothes into an Arume uniform. After putting on the white sleeveless leotard, boots and gloves, she adjusted her cape in a view-screen configured as a mirror. Her face and body were still those of Wakatake Mari, but the uniform was more familiar to Commander Ekaril, who now shared her consciousness with Mari. Ekaril was also familiar with these earth clothes, for she too had worn that school uniform when she attended Kaihou Academy as Senkouji Hagino. She and Mari had come to know and love each other there.

[[ You look good in that uniform, ]] Ekaril silently told Mari, [[ and just like an Arume captain. ]]

[[ Oh, Ekaril, ]] responded Mari. [[ You're just saying that. Besides you look way better in it. Anyway, it really should be you standing here, not me. I'll try to be worthy of the uniform and not disappoint you. ]]

[[ You will be; you won't. And you're right, I agree that wearing this should raise fewer questions than our outfit from earth. ]]

They continued their ``talk,'' while Mari'il folded and put away Mari's old school uniform, reminiscing about the events that brought them here: how they met, became friends, then fell in love; how that time was cut short by Ekaril's sacrifice to save Mari, but how she was saved, and how they ended up with both their consciousnesses together Mari's head. Their deep love and trust of each other, together with a good deal of practice allow them to present a combined ``Mari'il'' to the outside world.

Mari wondered what it would be like on Arume, a world of only women. She'd gone to an all-girls school, but this would be a bit more extreme. Ekaril had told her much of Arume, but there was always a difference between being told—no matter how intimate the telling—and experiencing it first hand. The total lack of men had to have some impact, as it was the loss of their men and declining population that pushed the Arume to come to Earth. Even though that resulted in the invasion and occupation of earth, Mari couldn't fully condemn it. After all, it was what brought her and Ekaril together.

[[ When we get to Arume, what name do you want to go by? ]] Ekaril asked. [[ We can change from the cover-name of Mari'il if you'd like. ]]

[[ Anything, ]] answered Mari. [[ Don't you want to go back to being Ekaril? ]]

[[ But I don't want to deny that you're in here with me. ]] Ekaril explained, emphasizing the fact their two consciousnesses shared Mari's body.

[[ I don't mind. But if you really mean that, then we could stick with Mari'il. ]] Mari laughed at suggesting the name Ekaril had quickly picked to interface with Myrdal's systems. [[ If you look at it one way, it's a combination of both our names. ]] She grew more serious. [[ Because I also don't want to deny you're in here with me. ]]

[[ Mari! ]]

[[ But what will make life easiest when we return? ]] Mari turned practical.

[[ I don't think it matters much, ]] Ekaril answered. [[ We'll pose enough problems that the choice of a name won't really matter, I figure. ]]

[[ Then let's be Mari'il. ]] Mari smiled at the decision. [[ Especially because you picked it. ]]

Ekaril agreed, both because it seemed practical, but most of all, because this made Mari happy.

.

Mari'il returned to the bridge and ordered the final series of Leminov shifts. These ended with them appearing on the ocean of Arume where the sun shown down from a clear, blue, sky.

[[ Welcome home, Ekaril, ]] said Mari. [[ Now all we need now is a flock of terns to come greet us. ]]

Ekaril laughed happily in silent agreement.

After Myrdal confirmed their location on Arume, Mari'il called naval headquarters. ``Frigate Myrdal to Fleet Central. This is Frigate Myrdal calling Fleet Central. We are returning from a long off-world deployment and request docking instructions and a meeting with Admiral Loriel.''

Fleet Central responded with a request to stand by while they contacted the responsible people. During these exchanges, Mari'il also added, ``Please tell Admiral Loriel that I have the answer to the question she asked over the bluefish dinner at Bayside Seafood.''

[[ I wonder if they will let us see her? ]] mused Mari. [[ Hopefully that special message from you gets through and lets her know who we are. ]]

[[ Yes, ]] agreed Ekaril, [[ And I hope that Admiral Loriel still remembers me and our friendship back when I served under her years ago, before our expedition to your world. If she's taken to eating bluefish at Bayside Seafood with anyone else while I've been gone, that could prove a bit confusing. ]]

.

Loriel leaned back from her desk and turned to look out her window over the harbor, busy with the coming and going of the fleet's ships and small-craft. Today was turning out to be very ...interesting. First, Myrdal returned unexpectedly from the expeditionary force to Forime. Then an unknown ``Mari'il'' contacted Fleet Central as her captain. A search through the fleet database found no record of a Commander Mari'il in the expeditionary force, nor anywhere else for that matter. Finally, this Mari'il asked to speak to her personally, by name. That was not so surprising, given her position as Grand Admiral, but what was surprising were the specific words used—referring to a private conversation she had with Ekaril years ago. Those words had to be a message from Ekaril meant to get her attention and establish the bona-fides of this unknown Mari'il.

Loriel rubbed her temples, as if that gesture would somehow push these mysteries into some clear order. It didn't, so she leaned forward, deciding: she would meet with this Mari'il and hear what she had to say. That seemed the only hope of answering the questions Myrdal brought back from the distant planet known as Earth.

.

A larger warship shifted in beside Myrdal and identified itself as the System Defense Cruiser Fortol. Her captain came to escort Myrdal in to port. Mari'il's appearance and message were sufficiently out of the ordinary that Fleet Central took this extra precaution instead of simply giving them navigation vectors to a berth there.

Myrdal followed Fortol's watchful lead to the main fleet port and docked at the indicated slip. Mari'il emerged from the ship and walked down the gangway to the pier and party who were there to meet her. Thankfully, naval traditions hearkened back to the days before Arume had any control of gravity, so for this formal moment everyone, including Mari'il, walked on solid ground as opposed to using their ability to float above it.

ooo OOO ooo

A ground skimmer took Mari'il and her escort to Admiralty House where, after waiting in an ante-room for quite a while, she was ushered into Loriel's office. Loriel stood up from behind her large desk to greet Mari'il. She wore a similar white uniform to Mari'il, though her cape was larger and her insignia were those of a Grand Admiral. Her face and shoulders showed a strength of both body and character which left Mari no doubt that she had earned her rank. Thankfully, her eyes still showed the same fairness and care that Ekaril remembered from her friend long ago. Her desktop was kept immaculately clean, save for a small decorative piece of sculpture. The window behind her overlooked the port where Myrdal docked.

``Please have a seat, Commander Mari'il,'' said Loriel, gesturing to the chairs across from her desk. ``I assume you realize something of the conundrum you pose here.'' Mari'il nodded. ``You show up in a ship from the expedition to Forime, which we weren't expecting back for a while, and moreover you are not the commander we have on record for her. In fact, you don't even appear in our personnel database at all. Piracy might be an explanation, but Myrdal's computer indicates an orderly assumption of command authenticated with Ekaril's full unique code sequence, and there is also no evidence of tampering, so you're either very good or there's more going on here than appears. Then there is your reference to Bayside Seafood, which I assume you included that to catch my attention.'' Loriel paused and looked directly at Mari'il. ``Now that you have my attention, can you help elucidate this conundrum?'' Sitting back in her chair, Loriel prepared to listen to what should be an interesting story.

[[ Could you take care of this explanation? ]] Mari silently asked Ekaril.

[[ Of course, dear, ]] she answered, then began using Mari's voice. ``Grand Admiral Loriel, I'm sorry that I was cryptic, but hopefully you will understand by the end of this explanation. First, thank you for seeing us and remembering our conversation over that dinner of grilled bluefish and rice.'' Loriel raised and eyebrow at Mari'il's use of ``us'' but said nothing. Mari'il gathered her courage about her and continued, ``Things happened far differently on Forime than we planned for. To answer your first question, it seems that touch telepathy does work—in fact, even with some specific Forime. For I am, in part, your old friend Ekaril. I wish I could have come to see you in the body you remember, but that perished in the fighting on Forime. This body is actually that of Mari, Wakatake Mari, a truly exceptional Forime. It's a long story, but both of us have ended up living in her head.'' Ekaril asked Mari, [[ could you introduce yourself, please? ]]

Mari bowed in greeting, saying, ``I'm pleased to meet you Grand Admiral Loriel.'' Loriel's eyes widened fractionally at the change in tone and timbre of Mari'il's voice. Mari continued, ``I am also Wakatake Mari. Ekaril and I met when I was a student at the school she attended under cover while she was investigating our society. Please believe Commander Ekaril. She's telling the truth, even though it's hard to believe—at times I have trouble believing it myself. She can explain better than I can, so if you wouldn't mind, Ekaril.''

Ekaril continued the report from here, using Mari's voice. She and Mari gave Loriel full credit for how little surprise she showed at these changes. She also gave Loriel three data chips: one holding Blue's log, which Tsubael had saved in her escape capsule; one with her subsequent entries and extra data she'd acquired; and one holding Myrdal's log. She then told the significant points of their time on Forime, starting with Blue's arrival on Earth and the incident where the Emil Force drive went unstable then exploded, killing their landing party along with most of the islanders they were investigating. She continued telling of their time at Kaihou Academy, pointing out that Mari was the only surviving islander. This ended with the Arume invasion and Shivariel's attack on Mari and Blue, and their mutual destruction.

During this report, she was able to refer to many more shared experiences. These, along some of Ekaril's mannerisms helped convince Loriel that this really is Ekaril, or at least her consciousness, sitting in front of her.

The revelation that Shivariel engineered the explosion on Blue, and her subsequent targeting of both Mari and Blue, surprised Loriel. ``Disabling one of the ships under her command by sabotaging its engines and then attacking it certainly wasn't in Shivariel's original mission plan, nor is it part of any standing orders, as you well know. And if her sabotaging the Emil-Force drive killed the landing party...'' Letting that train of thought trail off, she asked. ``Are you sure ...no, you have to be sure or you wouldn't have said this. Do you have any more evidence of this or ideas why Master Commander Shivariel did this? You do realize how serious a charge your making?''

``Everything we have is on these data chips,'' replied Mari'il. ``Hopefully the information Azanael discovered while she was aboard Novaal will help as well.'' A shadow of pain clouded her face. ``I wish there was more, but so much was destroyed with Blue and Novaal, not to mention their crews. And yes, I do realize how serious this is.''

``I'll need to review these logs fully, and we'll need to talk more after that.''

``Of course.''

``But now,'' said Loriel, continuing in a lighter tone of voice. ``Let's talk of what I find even more curious. How can you be Ekaril as well as this Forime, Mari. You obviously don't have Ekaril's body, in fact sensors don't register you as fully Arume, yet you seem to know things that only Ekaril would, and often say things just the way she did.''

``That's something that we're not fully sure of ourselves,'' answered Mari'il. ``We've talked between ourselves and guess that it started with to the touch telepathy we had, and has to be somehow related to that.'' She smiled. ``Of course, we have no idea how we were able to do that.''

Mari'il tried to explain their touch telepathy as well as she could, and continued with the whole story ending with Ekaril sharing her head. Their conversation trailed off from this to more mundane topics that two friends would share after not having seen each other for a long time.

ooo OOO ooo

When the interview was over, one of Loriel's aides took Mari'il from her office to the fleet hospital. They had decided this was the most convenient spot for now, since Mari'il didn't currently have quarters and her lack of nanomachines did mimic certain Arume illnesses. It would also be more convenient for some of the tests to find what was special about her.

The aide had arranged for Mari'il's bags to be brought here from Myrdal, and after showing Mari'il to her new room, she left her and her bags there to settle in. Mari'il thanked her for her help, then turned to look over her room.

The room closely resembled the standard crew cabin aboard Arume ships. The half one entered first held a desk with typing pads and display and a chair to sit at while working. The other half was occupied by a conventional circular Arume bed. Mari'il figured that the screens surrounding the bed here were more commonly used for entertainment and patient monitoring rather than displaying current ship status, but anyone in the Fleet would certainly feel at home here, having spent countless nights in a similar cabin aboard ship.

Mari'il set her bags on the desk and began to unpack the few things she'd brought with her. As she put them away in the lockers in the room, Ekaril asked, [[ Will you be able to relax and feel comfortable in this room? ]]

[[ I think so. After all, I didn't have any trouble sleeping aboard Myrdal in a cabin like this. ]] She laughed. [[ I do like this style of bed: it lets me sprawl out all over while sleeping. ]]

Ekaril laughed and agreed that was true. She was also happy that Mari was feeling comfortable adapting to Arume ways. She remembered how it had taken her a bit to get used to the way things were done on Earth.

While Mari'il was putting away her clothes, she mused that it turned out to be rather convenient that Myrdal's captain was pretty much her size, and that she had also kept a small wardrobe of civilian clothes aboard. This way she'd have something other than just a commander's uniform to wear.

Last of all, she unpacked the keepsakes she brought with her, and carefully put them away in a locker by themselves. She was thankful that she could still keep those few reminders of Earth.

ooo OOO ooo

Mari'il changed back into her Arume uniform and waited for Loriel's aide to come pick her up. Right on time, the aide arrived and brought her to Loriel's office.

``Thank you for coming to talk over these details, Commander Mari'il,'' said Loriel as she rose to greet Mari'il.

``You're welcome,'' said Mari'il as they sat down facing each other across Loriel's Desk. Mari'il thought to herself that she didn't have much choice in this, but at least Loriel was being courteous about it.

``I've had a chance to look more at Blue's and Myrdal's logs,'' began Loriel. ``I must say, you had quite the adventure there on Forime. And as incredible as what you told me earlier sounded, the logs confirm it. Like you, I wish we had the data—and especially the people—that we lost with Blue and Novaal. Allow me to extend the Fleet's condolences, as well as my own, to you for the loss of your crew.'' Saying this, she gave Mari'il a small bow.

``Thank you, Grand Admiral Loriel,'' replied Mari'il with a bow of her own. ``I also wish it could have happened otherwise, but that is now just a past regret.''

``I do have a couple questions,'' continued Loriel, ``but I figure I should start by telling you a few things first.'' Mari'il raised an eyebrow in curiosity. ``First, your assuming command of Myrdal and bringing her back here has been fully authorized. The covert mission that Commander Kalgol was on when she was killed was not consistent with the objectives of the overall mission to Forime. For that matter, neither were many other of her orders. So your assuming command and bringing Myrdal back are what we would have wanted.'' Mari'il's eyes widened in surprise. ``I really need to look deeper into the orders and command structure of the Forime mission. They seem to have deviated considerably from what we intended at the start of this. On the other hand, they were given a lot of autonomy, so we can't call those deviations a direct violation of their orders. Also, Master Commander Shivariel's methods are similarly questionable. I've already spoken some of her actions toward Blue, but her methods of targeting you, Mari the Forime, were similarly questionable. She shouldn't have sent a probe after you with those mission parameters. Regardless of how interested she was in Mari's resistance to the Emil-Force wave from Blue's drive, allowing deadly force was not warranted.''

``Thank you for saying that, Grand Admiral. I also wonder if that was why Master Commander Shivariel sent the probe to capture Mari-san. I think that resistance may be why she survived when nobody else did. That was the only significant data I gave her on Mari.''

``I also find it hard to condemn your destroying the probe to prevent it from performing a potentially destructive test on Mari,'' continued Loriel. ``While I don't encourage thwarting a superior officer's plans like that or destroying Fleet equipment, you did the only thing you could to save this special Forime.''

ooo OOO ooo

Back in her room Mari'il sat down on her bed and pondered her most recent interview with Loriel. Starting with the battle with Kelbil, Loriel had gone over all of Blue's battles with the other ships in Shivariel's squadron. She wanted to confirm that Blue was attacked first in all of these cases. The only questionable case was the final battle where Tsubael was fighting to protect Kaihou Academy during the invasion. Even that was arguably self-defense, and the history of previous attacks made that argument stronger. On the down side, these were also the only cases where Blue actually destroyed ships instead of merely disabling them.

Thankfully, Blue's logs showed that these attacks on Blue were unprovoked by anything Blue did. The only possible motivation was Ekaril's destruction of the probe sent after Mari. Loriel found it interesting—and not completely unreasonable—that Ekaril didn't report that she herself destroyed a ``malfunctioning'' probe. Shivariel never gave any indication that Ekaril was under suspicion or was acting inappropriately, nor did Loriel, but Ekaril knew that Loriel long ago learned to school her face to show only what she wished.

The extra report that Azanael gave about Shivariel's being responsible for Blue's Emil-Force drive explosion was especially interesting. Mari'il was thankful that Azanael was able to give her full copies of the data she found about Shivariel's sabotage of Blue's drive before they left Earth. This certainly was better than trying to remember it all. While these copies did not have the full amount of integrity verification that a ship's log would, they were as good as they could get—Novaal's log, along with the rest of the evidence, had been destroyed along with the ship, and no escape capsules had survived. The logs from Azanael's fighter also confirmed that Shivariel was going to use genocide mode against the the Forime. Only Blue's appearance and destruction of Novaal stopped her. This corroborated Ekaril's report as the copy of Blue's log from Tsubael ended when she was ejected.

Shivariel's subsequent attacks on Blue seemed to follow from this, as it seemed she kept trying to destroy that evidence of her original sabotage. [[ Grand Admiral Loriel also seemed suspicious about Master Commander's continuing attacks on you and Blue, ]] commented Ekaril.

[[ Yes, ]] agreed Mari. [[ I really wish I knew why Shivariel was coming after us. I also wish I could have gotten to know Blue better. She seemed to be a wonderful partner and ship. I'm sorry I only met her that one time you brought me aboard. ]]

Ekaril agreed that, yes, Blue was both, and that she also wished she knew more of Shivariel's motives.

.

They both wondered about Loriel's abrupt departure after the interviews for a Fleet Exercise. Such exercises were common enough, Ekaril explained, and they were always planned well in advance, so Loriel wouldn't have been able to postpone things just to talk longer with her about the events on Forime. On the other hand, this would also be a perfect excuse to stop the cordial interactions they were having if Loriel had decided to abandon her old friendship or even worse. Ekaril knew that Loriel was good at hiding her intentions when she wished, so she couldn't fully rule this possibility out.

Though Ekaril tried, she wasn't able to fully hide her worry from Mari. Ekaril worried that she might be prosecuted for her actions on Earth, since those actions could easily be interpreted as mutinous. And if Loriel had decided that they looked that way, then it would be her duty to turn the questioning of Ekaril over to the judicial branch, and they were not known for compassion.