Author's notes: This tale, penned by me, Nachtsider, is based on the seminal anime known as 'Vandread', which is the brainchild of Takeshi Mori. Set after the original series' Second Stage, it chronicles Hibiki and Dita's duel to the death against a most formidable foe. Bearing in mind that all original concepts, characters, their distinctive likenesses and related elements featured in this publication are my property and may not be used without my express permission, enjoy the story, and feel free to drop this author a line at the relevant electronic mail address (nachtsider at yahoo dot com)!
ANGEL OF DEATH
The eerie light of twelve multicolored moons shone down from a mottled and banded amber sky that looked like the eye of an angry tiger. Hibiki and Dita sat on a divan in the Nirvana's observation deck and watched the evolutions of a scarlet, claw-like Dread high overhead with puzzled interest, wondering what the pilot was trying to do.
"Isn't that Jura?" asked Dita.
"It sure is. What's the matter with her?" groused Hibiki. "I always thought she was off her rocker - just look at that dumb blond, she'll wreck her vehicle in a minute."
The aerobatics of the streamlined fighter were certainly sufficiently unusual to call for comment. Jura appeared to be trying to accomplish something between a half-roll and a vertical bank. Over and over she repeated the same maneuver, sometimes falling out of it into a spin and sometimes into a stall. At last the vessel glided down to land. Hibiki and Dita strolled across the hangar to meet their friend.
"Hey, guys, how did that look from the ground?" grinned Jura as she clambered out of her cockpit.
"It looked to me that if you were attempting to strip the appendages off that craft you must have damn nearly succeeded," replied Hibiki. "Are you tired of life or something?"
"Come over to the mess and I'll explain," answered Jura, and the trio made their way towards the anteroom.
"Now," she continued when they had called for refreshments and made themselves comfortable, "have you two ever bumped into that squad of German gray, stingray-like Harvester fighters that are active in the Dyne Star Cloud area?"
"Um-hmm," said Dita. "We've tangled with them a few times. What about them?"
"Have you seen them lately?"
"Nah. Come on, Jura; cough it up. Are they now pink with green spots or what?" said Hibiki impatiently.
"Nope, they're still German gray, but they've got a new leader - a human pilot, rumor says - and if you place any value on your young life, keep out of his way, that's all."
"Hot stuff, eh?"
"He's hotter than hell at high noon on Midsummer's Day. He flies a dark green fighter with a dihedral wing - that marks him out for you - and has been giving our chums in the Taraakian and Mejerrian military units a hard time. They've nicknamed him the Angel of Death, for he's bagged thirty of their Vanguards and Dreads over the last month - every opponent he's tackled - and gotten away unscathed every time."
"Wow, that's very good going! He must be pretty smart," commented Dita, goggle-eyed.
"The Angel, I hear, owes his success to a weird new stunt," clarified Jura. "Nobody knows precisely what it is or how he does it - except his comrades, of course, who aren't likely to tell, and those who've fought him, perhaps, but they're all dead. I've tried to perform it without success; you saw me just now. It's a new sort of turn; just as you get on his tail and kid yourself that you've got him cold, he positions himself below you in the blink of an eye and creams you. It seems anyone who gets on the Angel's tail is cold meat - dead before they know what's hit them. I know it sounds like baloney, yet... Well, that's the story, and now you know as much about it as I do. The point is this - what are we going to do about it?"
"The thing seems for us to find him and see how he does it," observed Hibiki in a flash of inspiration.
"I thought you'd get a rush of blood to the brain," sneered Jura. "You get on his tail and I'll do the watching."
"Funny, aren't you? If I run into him I'll do my own watching and then come back to tell you all about it. Maybe you'll be able to earn your pay and get a frag or two occasionally. Angels of Death go pop at the end, if I remember my pyrotechnics."
"Sooner or later we shall meet him," Dita pondered with a sense of foreboding as she and Hibiki made their way back to their quarters.
"That's true," said Hibiki, "so we might as well decide how we're going to act when we do. When the Angel pulls this patent stunt he must reckon on his adversaries doing the usual thing, making a certain move at a certain time, and up to the present they've always obliged him; but if an opponent happened to do something else, something unorthodox, it might put him off his stroke."
"But it's difficult to know what to do if you've no idea what the other guy's going to do."
"Yeah. If we could see his trick once we should know, but apparently he takes care that no one gets a second chance."
Hibiki's curiosity prompted him to spend a good deal of time in the Dyne Star Cloud area - always dragging a somewhat reluctant Dita along with him - but his vigilance was not rewarded; of the Harvesters he saw no sign. The pair met Jura several times, and each time they learned that the Angel of Death had claimed another victim, but the knowledge only sharpened Hibiki's curiosity and deepened Dita's trepidation.
By the perversity of fate it so happened that the encounter occurred at a moment when no thought of it was in their minds. They were returning from a routine patrol - Hibiki thinking of his upcoming poker game with Gascogne and Dita fantasizing about unidentified flying objects and extraterrestrial entities - when they detected a blip on their sensor grids. The readouts indicated a lone craft of unknown origin that was some distance away but heading for them at high speed.
"Time to merge, Dita," said Hibiki. "This new arrival might be a hostile."
"Roger that."
Dita climbed in a sharp angle, following Hibiki's vector and trajectory. Their control consoles were abuzz with conversion data and other related statistics, lights flickering and displays flashing. Hibiki moved his Vanguard over Dita's Dread and the duo began the combination countdown.
"Three... two... one... initiate!"
A brilliant flash of light illuminated the gloom of deep space as Hibiki's Vanguard descended to meet Dita's Dread. Gears whirred and panels shifted as the two machines merged. The end result of the process was the fearsome, heavily armed and armored humanoid fighting machine dubbed Vandread Dita, which Earth's Harvester fleet had so come to fear.
Positioning themselves suitably within the snug nacelle, Hibiki and Dita whirled the Vandread round and flung the controls over hard as the rattle of guns struck their ears. A Harvester fighter screamed past them, almost close enough to touch.
"It's a hostile alright," grated Hibiki as they swung Vandread Dita in the wake of the enemy machine.
"Oh, my God!" gasped Dita, noticing their foe's color and design as they gave chase. "It's him!"
"So it is." Hibiki's lips parted in a mirthless smile as he saw that the fighter had a dihedral wing and was painted dark green. He shouted a challenge: "Well, Angel of Death, let's see your trick!"
The twosome were as cold as ice, with nerves braced taught as pieces of elastic, for unless rumor lied, they were up against a foeman of outstanding ability, a man who had downed thirty-plus machines in as many battles without once having his own mount touched. Hibiki and Dita knew that they were about to fight the battle of their lives, where one false move would spell the end. Neither they nor their enemy had ever been beaten, but now someone must taste defeat. In a few minutes either a Vandread or a Harvester would be hurtling downwards on its way to oblivion.
Both machines were banking vertically now, one each side of a circle. Round and round they raced as if on an invisible pivot, the circle slowly decreasing in size. Tighter and tighter became the spiral as the combatants tried to see each other through their rangefinders.
"I'm getting dizzy," moaned Dita, who was lightheaded with the strain; she had lost all count of time, space and the perpendicular.
"Come on, Dita," rasped Hibiki, sweat dampening his brow, "if this clown can take the punishment, so can we!"
"R... right..."
Hibiki and Dita strove to cut across a chord of the circle and place themselves in a position for a shot. Always just in front of them was the dark green tail, just out of range, just far enough to make shooting a waste of effort. Another few meters would do it; the ring of their sight cut across the dark green tail now - God - just for a little more - just another meter.
"Come on, you skunk, where's your trick?" snarled Hibiki, feeling that he was blacking out.
He was prepared for it when it happened, although just how it came about he could never afterwards tell. At one moment his sights were within range of the dark green cockpit; he saw the enemy pilot - clad in a khaki flight suit and face-concealing breath mask - turn his head slowly, and the next instant the dark green nose was pointing at the Vandread from twelve o' clock low, a quadruple jet of orange flame pouring from four guns.
"What do we do now?" Dita screamed at the top of her voice, the sound of ordnance ripping through their craft seeming to send her mad.
"The unorthodox!" yelled Hibiki, equally on the edge of sanity.
Instead of trying to get out of that blasting stream, thereby giving Dita and himself over to certain death, Hibiki savagely shoved the controls downwards and tried to ram the Angel, Dita opening fire with the Vandread's twin energy beam projectors as their vessel came in line with their enemy's. For perhaps a second the two machines faced each other thus, the deadly payloads of their armaments making a glittering line between them. Hibiki and Dita had a fleeting glimpse of the Angel jerking desperately sideways, at that same instant a hammer-like blow smashed across the side of Hibiki's face; the Vandread side-slipped and spun.
Though half-dazed, Dita swiftly righted the machine and helped Hibiki upright, wiping the blood from his face and frantically looking around for the Harvester fighter, whom she knew must now be coming in for the coup-de-grace. It was nowhere in sight. Some seconds elapsed before she picked it out, halfway to the surface of an asteroid, trailing black smoke and spinning viciously. Dita leaned back in her seat for a moment, faint from shock. When she looked again, the dark green fighter had plastered itself on the asteroid and gone to pieces. There was no sign of life within its blazing cockpit. Gently, she and Hibiki turned the torn and tattered Vandread for the Nirvana and home.
"Hibiki, are you all right?" asked Dita, greatly concerned.
"Yes, thank you," replied Hibiki. "Don't worry your head over me - my injury's just a flesh wound."
"Can't say the same for the Angel."
"Um. That was a very close call back there - we shall have to be more careful. Did you see how he did that unbelievable stunt?"
"Me? I was too woozy to notice!"
"Rats. Pity Jura wasn't watching."
THE END