Tenchi Masaki and the other characters from Tenchi Muyo, etc... aren't my characters. I'm just using them for my own fun.
This story is essentially based in the OVA continuity, bringing Kiyone in as a former partner of Mihoshi's. It doesn't take much from GXP or the new OVA3 into account as I started writing it before I had any knowledge of those, but I did end up including a few small things that I learned about in the interim.
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Prologue: All In a Day's Work
The heavyset Galaxy Police officer sat behind a large wooden desk, one hand stroking the dark mustache on his face as his eyes scanned through the report in his other hand. After reading the last page, he handed the report to the other officer sitting in one of the chairs across from his desk. Then he turned his gaze on the detective seated in the last chair.
"Excellent work Detective Makibi. We couldn't have done it without your amazing efforts. How did you know that Luigi Rudolpho was going to be in that warehouse with the drugs and the cash?"
First Class Detective Kiyone Makibi of the Galaxy Police sat trying to keep the smile off of her face as she received her final debriefing. She knew she was one of the best field detectives in the force, but it had required a team effort to pull off her undercover operation as a drug dealer. Since she was facing not only her direct superior Section Chief Sakai, but also one of his superiors, Deputy Commander Watanabe, Kiyone did her best to keep any smugness out of her voice as she answered.
"It was nothing, sirs. Just doing my duty. The whole team spent a lot of time building my cover as a drug dealer. With that done it was just good fortune that Rudolpho lost his normal dealer and had to turn to me at the last minute. It was a scramble to set things up when he let me know where he wanted to meet. We managed to pull it off, though."
"Well, even so, great work detective. I smell a Sergeant Detective in the works, if I'm not mistaken. But you didn't hear that from me." Watanabe winked at Kiyone, making sure she understood.
"Thank you sir," Kiyone answered. As she watched his hand go back to stroking his mustache, Kiyone wondered if Watanabe thought it made him look intelligent. She put those thoughts aside she glanced at Sakai. He was also short and dark-haired, just like Watanabe, but without the mustache and still relatively fit.
"Yes, well done, detective." Sakai also smiled.
"Thank you sirs!"
Kiyone was playing the dutiful officer as best she could. She had to keep reminding herself she needed to be deferential as she waited patiently for the debriefing to end. It was just part of the job, sometimes you had to suck it up and take it. Some days were just harder than others. Sakai was not her superior from before the undercover assignment. She had hoped to return to duty underneath Section Chief Nobeyama after the assignment, but he was on vacation due to 'office-induced stress.' Sakai was temporarily acting as her commanding officer.
Watanabe nodded his approval. "Well then, have you given any thought to what you'd like to do now that the assignment is over? You've been on the job for what, over 3 years now? A few years devoted to one case, that's quite the dedication!"
Watanabe and Sakai glanced at each other, both obviously curious about what her response was going to be, and both thought they knew the answer. After an assignment like that, anyone would ask for a long vacation, of course.
Kiyone answered, "Well, sirs, if you don't mind, I'd just as soon get back on active duty. Patrolling the space lanes, protecting the public, I've never been one to just sit around doing nothing. It would be nice to see some normal duty again."
She could see the dumbfounded looks on both of their faces and again had to stifle her annoyance towards these two. Nobeyama wouldn't have been surprised by that request. He knew how important her career was to her. She was getting a vibe off of them she didn't like either. It was similar to what she'd gotten off of most of the scum she'd had to deal with during her undercover assignment.
Sakai was trying to catch Watanabe's eyes as the Deputy Commander answered, "Hmmm. You caught us by surprise with that request. We'll have to glance at the duty rosters and see where we might be able to fit you back into the rotation. Excuse us for a bit. Find someplace to relax and make yourself comfortable. We'll send for you when we've come up with something. Dismissed!"
Kiyone snapped to her feet and saluted the two officers before she left. She looked around outside the office, trying to get her bearings as she considered where to go to kill time while she waited. After deciding on the nearest cafeteria, Kiyone headed off to contemplate her future.
--
Sakai closed the door behind Kiyone, and sat back down to give worried looks to the Deputy Commander. They didn't immediately check with the secretarial staff as might have been expected of people who needed to read a report. He watched the commander's hand move to his mustache like usual, but his nerves finally got to him.
"We've got to do something about this sir. She just arrested Rudolpho's son, and you know what that's going to mean down the road, don't you?"
Watanabe closed his eyes and sighed. "Retribution." The section chief was in a near panic as usual. The man was a good lapdog, but tended to panic under severe stress. He'd been very useful to Watanabe during his climb through the ranks, though. "Settle down, Sakai. This bust went down way ahead of schedule, so I haven't had time to come up with any good ideas yet. I expected her to take a vacation afterwards, too. What is she, some kind of machine? Everyone takes vacations, especially after an assignment as tough as what she just had." The older officer sighed as he thought the problem over, "All right, I'm willing to take suggestions."
Watanabe almost never asked for advice from the Section Chief. Sakai just couldn't think creatively even though he followed orders well. Still, Watanabe knew he'd need Sakai as a Senior Section Chief at the least some day if he was going to go as far as he wanted. Not surprisingly, the personnel serving under Nobeyama generally performed better in their duties than Sakai's. He had managed to drag Sakai along so far, but moving up the ranks got harder with every step. Another promotion for Sakai would be a hard sell with Nobeyama as an alternative.
Sakai nervously asked, "Can we just have her killed? I'm sure we could find some assassin locked up that would agree to it if we fabricated something to get him sprung."
Watanabe's eyes widened in surprise. That was a novel idea, coming from the Section Chief. Then he hit on the missing piece in the Section Chief's idea. "Hmmm... Think about it for a second. That eliminates one of Nobeyama's officers, but it doesn't really set him back much, and doesn't help with the Rudolphos. Think bigger. Instead of getting some thug to do it, we leak the identities of Makibi's team to the Rudolphos and let them handle it. It keeps them off our back for not preventing Luigi's arrest, and it gets rid of a whole team of Nobeyama's best officers."
Sakai chewed on the suggestion momentarily, then went with his stock answer for these situations. "I like it sir! What do we do with Makibi in the meantime? She technically shouldn't be put back in the line of fire til after she's testified."
Just then one of the GP secretaries knocked on the door, waited the prerequisite five seconds, and then entered the office. The two officers composed themselves, and turned to the new entrant. Watanabe was about to yell at them to "get the hell out of my office" when he realized who it was. He calmed himself by taking a deep breath, and put on his best smile.
Ms. Sakumi had been working in the office for only a short time, but every unmarried man in the department had been trying to figure out how to convince the beautiful secretary to go out with them. Brushing back her aquamarine hair, Ms. Sakumi addressed Watanabe. "Sir, we have a fairly hefty bill that just arrived. I believe you're responsible for approving these expenses."
She bent forward to place the form on his desk, unwittingly showing the Deputy Commander more of her impressive bosom than she had intended. She then straightened to await his signature. Sakai was ogling her long legs from the side, which irked Watanabe a little bit, but neither Ms. Sakumi nor Sakai seemed to notice anything.
He glanced at the form, trying to fathom what it was for. Then he saw the name of the Detective involved. Like a lightning bolt to the head, Watanabe suddenly knew what to do about his problem. He smiled as he signed his name on the form and handed it back to Ms. Sakumi. He made sure their hands touched in the transfer, and he gave her his most charming smile.
"Thank you Ms. Sakumi, is that all?"
She took the form from him, and turned towards the door, noticing Sakai in the process. She grimaced slightly, but started walking briskly towards the door. She called back over her shoulder, "No, this was the only thing, Sir. Thank you."
Both men watched Ms. Sakumi retreating from the room, not noticing the haste with which she did so. The Deputy Commander felt himself getting warmer just looking at her moving figure. After the door closed, Watanabe sighed as she had obviously again missed the signs in his smile.
He turned to Sakai as a feeling of euphoria came over him. He'd known that resisting all of Nobeyama's plans to bring Mihoshi Kuramitsu back to Central Command was a good idea. He couldn't afford for Nobeyama to get in good with the Marshal and keeping the accident-prone detective out in the field seemed like the only way to hurt her usual section chief.
As an evil smile appeared on his face, Watanabe said, "It's perfect! I know exactly what we're going to do."
Sakai looked back at his commanding officer hopefully, waiting for him to spill it out. You couldn't pry anything out of Watanabe, he shared information at his own pace. It was a trait which had not won him any admirers with most of the people who'd served under him in the past. Sakai had learned to live with it, since his own fortunes had become tied to the Deputy Commander's fortunes a while back.
Watanabe finally spoke, "First Class Detective Mihoshi Kuramitsu, currently serving without a partner in the restricted Special Protected Zone of the Solar System. It's Jurai space! Not only that, it's the most out of the way place possible, nothing happens there. Nobody can argue the logic of letting Makibi serve active duty in a place like that. She should technically be invisible, and the Romartan syndicates wouldn't normally attempt anything in Jurai space. Oh, I just love it when I get these brilliant ideas." The Deputy Commander laughed evilly at his plan's wicked simplicity.
Sakai sat and listened to Watanabe's speech. It sounded like a good plan, but something was tickling the back of his mind. Something he couldn't quite grasp. Not coming up with anything, he again voiced his agreement, "I like it sir."
"Well then, I guess we should give the Detective her next 'important' assignment, shouldn't we?" Watanabe punched the button to buzz the secretarial pool. "Ms. Sakumi? Could you get Detective Makibi back in here, please? Thank you."
--
Kiyone had spent her break considering what she might like to do once she got back on active duty. She expected to have to spend a lot of time explaining how she had been undercover to her parents, especially her mother. All this time she had been listed as 'missing, presumed dead' in the official reports. She thought she might request assignment a little closer to home to make up for it.
Now that was a conversation she wasn't looking forward to. Her mother got so emotional over little things that Kiyone couldn't imagine what her reaction might be when she found out her daughter was actually alive after all this time. It had been tough for her to put her family through this, but she knew that it had been necessary. The outfit she'd been trying to crack had significant resources at its disposal, and they might have been able to figure out who she was, if she hadn't been listed as dead.
Just then she got the summons to return for her debriefing. She pushed her chair back up to the cafeteria table and walked back to the lift that would return her to Watanabe's floor.
Kiyone knocked on the Deputy Commander's door when she arrived and after receiving approval, entered the room. Watanabe nodded towards the empty chair, so she sat down with her back straight at attention.
As before, Watanabe did most of the talking. "Well, Detective, I think we've found the perfect assignment for you. It's one worthy of someone with your exemplary service record. We have a First Class Detective serving by herself on a Top Secret mission in a Special Protected Zone of Juraian space. We'd like you to join her there to support her on that mission. What do you think?"
Kiyone felt herself falling back into the old routine, getting the details up front. "Well sir, I guess if you think that's best, then I'll take it. It sounds a little more interesting than cruising around in space waiting for criminals to appear. Who's my new partner, and when do I start?"
Watanabe realized he hadn't let Sakai in on his plan to not reveal Mihoshi's identity as the new partner. Makibi might object, Mihoshi's reputation was pretty well-known. He quickly spoke up, "Ah, actually, Section Chief Sakai must not have read the full details of the report, he never mentioned who was assigned there. He did say it was a First Class Detective, though, so they should be fully qualified. And you can start right away actually, the sooner the better. I can have the Section Chief arrange a transport to take you there, if you'd like? The on-duty detective already has a cruiser, so I'm afraid we won't be able to assign you one of your own for now."
Sakai gave his commander strange looks, but he'd learned not to argue with Watanabe. He'd only done it once, and had almost seen his promotion to Section Chief wiped out as he tried out his new power. He'd learned a lesson from that little fiasco: Only flaunt your power with the lower ranks and always agree with the superiors.
Kiyone answered Watanabe's question, "That would be fine sir, I'd appreciate that. A GP cruiser will be welcome after some of the accommodations and ships I've been in recently. The budget for our operation was stretched pretty thin, considering we had to make a show of having enough money to be drug dealers. Behind closed doors, we only had the bare necessities to keep the operation running."
Sakai stood to leave the room as he saw Detective Kiyone nodding her head. With Watanabe's approval he disappeared. Once he was gone, Watanabe had another flash of inspiration. He barely managed to stifle the chuckle that tried to escape.
"Well, Detective, that's a very good attitude you've got there. You'll go far in the GP, mark my words. Now, as to some of the details of the assignment, which I'm sure you're no doubt interested in, why don't I leave that to the Detective already on duty. We'll send her a communication with the details of your new assignment, and let her fill you in with more information than we could possibly give you here. One thing, though, the stationed Detective will be left in charge since this was their assignment to start with. They'll have the final say when it comes to operating decisions."
Kiyone wasn't thrilled with the arrangement, but then, working for the GP was rarely fair to her. She'd gotten held back from her full potential ever since she joined. Top marks in her class at the academy hadn't helped her out once she was on active duty. "All right sir, I can understand that. They've got all the information relating to the assignment, so they'll be in a better position to judge what needs to be done."
Watanabe just smiled and leaned back in his chair. "Good, now we'll need you to sign this transfer document, so everything is official."
Watanabe pushed the paper across his desk to Kiyone, who leaned forward and scrawled a hasty signature on it. As she sat back again, he continued, "Well, then, if there's nothing else, I guess I'll let you start packing. That is... assuming you ever unpacked? I'll have the Section Chief leave the flight details with Ms. Sakumi, one of the secretaries. You can pick up your information from her when you're ready."
Kiyone stood up and saluted Watanabe, holding down her nervous feelings. It felt good to have a new assignment, finally, after all this time. Even if it turned out to be boring, at least she would be back doing the work she was trained to do. Acting like a drug dealer had been tough, and not really in her nature.
"Yes sir. Thank you sir."
Watanabe watched her leave, regretting he had to ruin the career of a good-looking officer like her. That thought motivated him to immediately turn in Detective Makibi's transfer document instead of just filing it in his out box. It was the perfect excuse to go flirt with Ms. Sakumi some more in hopes she would finally catch on to his advances.
Kiyone left the debriefing room and headed for the lockers, wondering where it was she was going to be serving and whom she would be working with. Her time with one of her former partners, Mihoshi Kuramitsu, had been a lesson in frustration. Mihoshi had been very competent, a good officer really, but prone to excitement under pressure. She had also struggled with organization, tending to pile things everywhere, which irritated an orderly person like Kiyone.
Together they'd accumulated an extremely high arrest record, earning Kiyone a promotion to First Class Detective. Mihoshi's occasional 'accidents' had caused their expenses to spiral out of control, however. Kiyone had come to realize that she might not get the next promotion she wanted after working with Mihoshi for a while. Arrests only went so far, you had to be efficient in all aspects of the job. Their budget crisis had probably prevented them both from making Sergeant Detective by now.
She glanced in a mirror, noting the changes. She was relieved to finally let her natural hair color and style reappear. The black dye had always managed to leave her scalp a little itchy, and it had been constantly falling in her eyes in its previous shaggy arrangement. Combing it back straight was a relief, and the orange headband felt strange but comforting as well.
She had jumped at the chance to do a serious undercover assignment, even if the methods had been a little extreme. The chances for promotion were huge if it had gone well. There had been one major drawback for Kiyone, however. It had galled her that the official reports read that she'd been killed by a pathetic slug like 'Big Tony' Cervantes. The Romartan criminal had been nothing more than a street thug trying to run a protection racket all by himself on a planet in hers and Mihoshi's assigned sector of space.
She was a little hopeful, after her conversation with the two officers. She couldn't shake that slimy feeling she got from the two, but they'd seemed to be impressed by her work. Watanabe had even hinted that she might be up for promotion after that assignment. With this top-secret assignment, she would almost be assured of that promotion, and it might even get her on track for more special assignments if it was important enough.
Since her things were still packed away neatly, she grabbed them and headed off to the secretarial pool to find this Ms. Sakumi and get started on her future. Things were looking up...
--
Grace Sakumi glanced up as the GP officer, a first-class detective by the looks of her uniform, walked up to her desk. She noticed the trim figure and alert stance of the officer, the teal hair framing a pretty face. The orange headband, however, brought a rush of childhood memories back to her, and she jumped to her feet to greet the newcomer.
"Kiyone? Kiyone Makibi? Is that you?" asked Grace.
Seeing the blink of surprise from the officer, Grace looked carefully to make sure it was her. She looked older now, hardened certainly, but there was no doubt it was her.
"Kiyone, it's me, Grace Sakumi. You dated my brother in high school, remember?"
Kiyone looked at the secretary carefully, and recognition slowly came to her. The woman before her certainly wasn't the skinny girl she remembered, but with the name to go with the face, it was easy to recognize her.
"Grace? Wow, it's... good to see you after all this time. How've you been?"
"Ah, fine I suppose. Come on, let's not talk here, let's go get a cup of coffee in the cafeteria so we can sit and chat."
Kiyone followed the quick moving Grace Sakumi out and down to the cafeteria, noticing a few of the men's heads turn to watch the unquestionably beautiful secretary as she walked along the hall. It would have been interesting to see who turned more heads between Grace and her old partner Mihoshi. Apparently Grace ignored the admirers just like Mihoshi always had.
Grace hurried over to get two cups of coffee from the goggle-eyed vendor, paying for them before Kiyone had a chance to try and pay for her own. As she sat down at the table Grace chose, Kiyone offered a bemused "Thanks."
"What? Oh, that's nothing compared to what you did for me growing up. I've still got a long ways to go to make up for that. Have you ever seen Courage since school?"
Kiyone shook her head. "No, I haven't. What's he doing now? If my last memories of him are any indication, he probably wouldn't want to meet me now, he'd get himself arrested."
Grace laughed. "My brother was a rascal, wasn't he? Courage and Grace, Dad probably didn't get either of our names right. I think he's currently staying out of trouble, but if he's not careful he's gonna end up like dad. I always wondered why you went out with him."
Kiyone thought back a bit, uncomfortable having this conversation with someone she'd never known all that well. Grace was a friend of sorts from her younger days, so she finally answered, "He was cute, you know that. We were all stupid back then, looks meant more than anything else. I sure regretted it afterwards, but at the time he seemed like he'd be fun. All the other girls were jealous, at least for a little while. You've certainly grown up, how'd you end up here, any way?"
Grace colored a little bit, then smiled sheepishly. "I followed you, of course. I didn't go to the academy like you, but I wanted to do something to try and follow in your footsteps. I might not be the one actually catching the criminals, but I'm helping in my own way."
Kiyone couldn't contain her surprise, so she was forced to close her mouth again. "You followed me to GP? Really? I wish I'd known, I'd have tried to look for you sooner, uh, well, I guess I've been out of touch for a few years. Undercover work, you know."
"Yeah, there's a buzz running around about someone who just pulled off a big operation against the Romartans. Was that you?"
Kiyone laughed as she felt herself blushing. "Yeah, I suppose that was me, though I certainly had some help. But it came out much better than we expected, and a lot sooner, too. Now I'm off to who-knows-where, to meet my new partner. That reminds me, I was supposed to get my transport information from you for my new assignment."
"Oh, that's what that bozo was bothering me about. Er, you didn't hear me say that, okay?"
Kiyone gave Grace a puzzled look before answering, "Don't care for the boss, then? No prob, he didn't impress me much, either."
"Thanks Kiyone. Those two are a pain for everyone in the pool. And they keep coming on to me all the time, like I'd be interested in a self-centered, arrogant jerk like the commander, or a yes-man riding the commander's coattails like Sakai. Ugh, they remind me of that slug you saved me from. I hope he's in jail now."
"You never should have been hanging out with him in the first place, you know. It was just a coincidence I was there that day. Uh, look Grace, I should really get going, can we go get my transport stuff, I'd hate to end up being late for something on my first day back."
Kiyone tried not to be too obvious about the fact that she didn't care to talk about saving the girl's life. It hadn't been a great experience for her, even though the results had been good. It was time for her to be going, any way.
"Yeah, sure, I suppose we should get going. My boss will be looking for me, I'm sure I'll end up working late to make up for this. It was great to see you Kiyone. Thanks, and keep in touch."
"Uh, yeah, I'll do that Grace. It was good to see you too."
--
Meanwhile, on a remote planet deep within the Romartan Republic...
Valentino Rudolpho, head of the largest crime syndicate in Romartan space, sank into his chair and faced his men. Until recently, he'd been relaxing with a few mistresses at a vacation home on Wasoonti since he loved the climate there. The news which had brought him back did not make him happy, and he intended to convey that to the underlings arrayed before him.
"Someone got my son Luigi arrested, and I want to know who. And then I want them dead!"
He looked at the men, and waited for a response. He had an inkling what was about to happen and he had prepped his bodyguard and assassin Marco on what he wanted done if it did happen. Sure enough, one of the younger men whom he barely even recognized was the one to speak up. He'd sensed a lack of respect in the new generation moving into the ranks, and he intended to make an example to everyone so that they remembered who they worked for.
The young man said, "We warned you it was a bad idea to try and expand our operations into Juraian space, boss. The Romartan government looks the other way, but the Juraians are harsh, and they cooperate with the GP. There's a reason why nobody's ever gotten a big organization going in their space, they don't mess around. We should've been happy to just run the largest crime syndicate in Romarta, and called it good. You got your son arrested Mr. Rudolpho, don't blame anyone else."
Valentino just paused for a few seconds after this speech, looking at his men. When he saw a few heads start nodding in agreement, he turned to Marco and nodded.
Marco Manetti was an enormous man, and he knew people frequently assumed that he would be slow and stupid. He relished opportunities like this to show them otherwise. Before anyone could react, Marco had pulled his long knife and jumped over to bury it in the heart of the man foolish enough to speak out against the boss. His victim managed only a brief move of his arms to grasp at the knife before collapsing. The rest of the men just stared in shock at the body on the floor with the knife still sticking from its chest.
A smile came to Marco's face as he watched the rest of them coming to grips with two facts: One, Mr. Rudolpho didn't tolerate anyone questioning him, and two, Marco was an extremely dangerous man. They probably should have known that already, but the boss had been letting his son Luigi run most of the business the last few years. He needed to see if his son had the knack for taking over for good some day. He'd been making suggestions of course, Luigi was still pretty green, but some of the new guys hadn't been witness to what it was like with Mr. Rudolpho running the whole show, and they were now finding out.
Valentino Rudolpho waited for everyone to calm down, and then signaled his butler. The man quietly instructed his son to remove the body while he himself started mopping up the mess on the floor. Valentino was glad that his butler's son was taking to the job since it was always risky to have to go outside and find new help for such a close position.
Some of the men moved back in horror as the process took place silently in front of them, others visibly relaxed into acceptance. Once it was done, Valentino looked out over his men. "All right, we'll try this again. I want to know who got my son arrested and where they are, and then I want them killed. Every single one of them. Understand?"
Valentino saw twenty heads, well nineteen now, nodding in approval. He smiled as he got the tingling sensation he always got when he knew he was going to do something big. Tracking down the Galaxy Police officers who'd been undercover and gotten his son arrested was no simple task, but it was all in a day's work...
--
Comments & Criticism definitely wanted. It's hard to improve without it.