2: Received and Accepted
The destruction of the space elevator, vital in transferring supplies to space-borne craft that couldn't enter the atmosphere, remained in the news for three days. No investigation could take place; the cause was as obvious as the situation. The Earthsphere, believed peaceful but for a few minor movements, was at war, and at war against an entire race: the Divergents. The Mobile Defense Force, at first only a division of the armed forces of the Earthsphere, now had to draw on the Planetary Guardsmen to gain troops. The forges of mobile suit factories were kept hot as the war effort sped up to defend Earth from what amounted to an alien menace; NGEA was no laughing matter.
Over the course of the first few weeks of the war, the Mobile Defense Force sent out calls to anyone willing to aid in combat in any way, shape, or form. The call was heard by mercenary factions all throughout the Earthsphere and the colonies, and was answered by many, but none more so than by Tsunekazu Igarashi and Tahkruvas Incendor, who showed up to register only four days after the space elevator was destroyed.
"So only two of you do the suit to suit fighting?" the Mobile Defense Force officer at the registration office asked them.
"Yes," Tsunekazu replied, "but we use a pair of freshly developed mobile suits from Fortuna Weapons."
"Have they been tested?" the officer asked.
"One has. You probably remember Tahkruvas Incendor from the Amun-2 Rebellion."
"I wasn't at my current rank that long ago."
"Have you heard of the Gundams?"
"I saw something about the new line in an article about Fortuna."
"They are what we are using. Tahk, you have the readouts, right?"
"Sure do," Tahkruvas spoke up as he pulled out a few sheets of paper listing the Gundams' capabilities. The officer looked them over.
"These are some impressive mobile suits," he mused, leafing through the readouts. "Gundanium alloy, the new particle weapons, and--'high-performance operating systems utilizing mental fluctuations and better control'? What's that all about?"
"Fortuna calls it psicom," Tahkruvas explained. "They say it's a trade secret unless the Mobile Defense Force wants to buy some more information."
"I understand that you buy most of the mobile suits that aren't Vaughans from Io Standard Mobile, right?" asked Tsunekazu.
"That's partially true," the officer answered.
"Well, we're sort of their ad campaign," Tsunekazu continued. "Fortuna has an unbreakable license on the name, build, and overall look of 'Gundam', so you won't find MSs like these anywhere else."
"If memory serves me right," the officer began, "weren't the original Gundams created by the Jupiter runners to harvest Helium-3 in Jupiter's atmosphere?"
"They were," Tahkruvas replied. "But if memory serves me right, the Jupiter runners sold the rights to 'Gundam' after the equipment on the Sothis colony orbiting Jupiter rendered them obsolete as harvesters."
"And as the name suggests," Tsunekazu added, "they are built from Gundanium alloy, which carries a natural resistance to the new particle weaponry being employed. It's all right there."
The officer continued to regard the specs. He raised an eyebrow, pursed his lips, and nodded at something. Tahkruvas crossed his fingers.
"All right," the officer finally said. "Get your equipment out onto the range in Meteor Crater tomorrow and be ready to show us how well these Gundams can perform."
"Thank you, sir." Tsunekazu winked at Tahkruvas, who flashed two thumbs up.
"Here are your papers," said the officer as he handed Tsunekazu a stack of contracts and documents. "I won't waste your time having you sign them now, but make certain you have them as soon as you get to the Sonoran tomorrow."
"Yes, sir, yes sir, yessir," Tsunekazu said as he and Tahkruvas walked out of the registration office.
"Oh, and one more thing," the officer called after them. "What's the name of your faction?"
Tsunekazu thought for a moment, then remembered the name he had come up with on a whim the night before.
"The Leaf Squadron," he said simply, and then proceeded out with Tahkruvas.
Once outside, the two pilots/mechanics started celebrating exuberantly.
"Wouldn't you know it?!" Tahkruvas raved. "We got the job!"
"And in front of just about every merc force in the Northwestern Quadrant," Tsunekazu pointed out. "Your window of opportunity came at just the right time."
"See?" Tahkruvas said in an I-told-you-so voice. "See what happens when you get ahead of the competition??"
"Shut up and give me some fist!" Tsunekazu said as he and Tahkruvas pounded their fists together.
Neither Tsunekazu nor Tahkruvas lost any of their steam as they packed the Gundams up (with some help from the Fortuna mechanical crews, of course), got at most four hours of sleep, and rolled out of Fortuna's manufacturing facility in Phoenix, into the Painted Desert, and up to the testing grounds in Meteor Crater at the crack of dawn. The crater, more than two thirds of a kilometer wide, had been deepened and carved up to allow for the test facility, which had been in Meteor Crater pretty much ever since there had been mobile suits.
As the sun rose, a pair of huge trucks, silhouetted in the morning light, pulled to the crater's rim. Tahkruvas got out of one cab, and Tsunekazu climbed out of the other. Both were wearing their pilot suits. The Mobile Defense Force officer in charge of the grounds had been standing by the rim, anticipating their arrival. Tsunekazu and Tahkruvas walked in his direction.
"I trust you two are the Leaf Squadron?" the officer asked as the pair walked over to him.
"We are," Tsunekazu said, shaking the officer's hand. "Tsunekazu Igarashi, commander. This is Tahk Incendor." Tsunekazu indicated Tahkruvas, who shook the officer's hand.
"I am Colonel Alaric Samstag," the officer said. His voice was crisp and sharp, like any well-trained officer's. "I'll be overseeing your demonstration here at the Meteor Crater Mobile Suit Testing Ground. Our facilities are prepared for you, but I'd like to have a look at the mobile suits myself."
"You'll have that opportunity when the trailers open up," Tahkruvas replied. "Besides, it's kinda cramped in there; we didn't plan on anybody walking in."
"So when do the trailers open up?" Colonel Samstag asked.
"Now," said Tsunekazu, who then picked up a walkie-talkie. "Bring them out!" he said into it.
The trailers rumbled as giant mechanical forces were put to work. First, the long and top sections lifted, leaving the floors and smaller ends. The sections that lifted then moved over the cabs of the trucks. Visible now were two mobile suits: Black Gundam and Flaming Gundam, freshly painted and touched up. Colonel Samstag nodded, a look of impression on his face.
Perfect, Tsunekazu thought, he's interested. Now to put it together.
"Prepare to deploy," Tsunekazu said into the walkie-talkie. In response, a high-pitched whine exuded from rotators and sets of hydraulic rams on the trailers. These moved the beds and walls of the trailers so that when the trailers lifted the mobile suits were in a standing position. Once there, the sun hit just the right angle, and the two Gundams gleamed in the morning light, their colors matching the colors of Tsunekazu and Tahkruvas's pilot suits.
"Beautiful," Colonel Samstag marveled. "In terms of how you present yourselves, your performance so far is perfect."
"Thank you," replied Tsunekazu. He then grinned at Tahkruvas, who nodded back.
"All right, then," the colonel said, "let's see them move."
"Right away," nodded Tsunekazu. "Leaf Squadron, board mobile suits and deploy."
"Sir!" Tahkruvas exclaimed.
The two then ran to the trailers. The cockpits of the Gundams had opened, and a winch inside each had let down cables with footholds on both sides. Tsunekazu and Tahkruvas hopped onto these and pressed an indicator on the wrists of their power suits. The cables winched up, pulling the two pilots with them. They then climbed into the cockpits of their mobile suits, located in the chest area of both.
Tsunekazu, inside the cockpit of Black Gundam, slid into the pilot's seat.
"Launch sequence initiating," he muttered to himself. "Fusion reactor systems...go. Balancers: go. External thrusters, main and otherwise: go. AMBAC systems: still offline, but I don't need that until zero-g action, anyway. Psicom..." Tsunekazu reached behind him and plugged a few wires into a square of plugs on the back of his helmet. "...go. Right, then, startup complete, first-time operation diagnostic complete." He grabbed his walkie-talkie and spoke into it:
"Go ahead and release the MS. I'll be on vox."
"Roger," cracked a voice on the other end of the walkie-talkie. Then, after flipping off the walkie-talkie, Tsunekazu switched on the cockpit's vox unit.
"Everything check out over there, Tahk?" he asked.
"Yep," spoke Tahkruvas's voice from Flaming Gundam. "Whenever you're ready."
Tsunekazu flipped a switch on his console. The walls around him seemed to disappear as a bunch of screens turned on, representing the mobile suit's lines of sight. The main monitor with the targeting systems, ruler, and physical status was directly in front thanks to the mobile suit's eyes, but smaller cameras all around the head and body gave the illusion of peripheral vision. Additional targeting information and other notices appeared on the visor of Tsunekazu's helmet; this feature was optional, but some pilots, like Tsunekazu, liked to have it on in case of a main monitor failure.
There was a grinding noise as the restraints holding the mobile suits to their trailers were unlocked and drawn back. From outside, it looked as though the two Gundams were being released from a set of giant metal straps that were holding them down, and as the Gundams' eyes lit up when they activated, it gave those on the ground the sense that something immense had been unleashed.
Back inside the aptly named Black Gundam, Tsunekazu switched his vox channel to the open network. Now everyone in the area on open vox could hear him, namely Tahkruvas and Colonel Samstag.
"Advance to the crater rim," he ordered. "Walking speed, settings made ready for ground operations."
"Roger," replied Tahkruvas' voice, hissing over the vox.
Tsunekazu flipped a few more switches, and then grasped the movement controls mounted on the arms of the pilot's chair. He then pressed his left foot down a bit on one of a row of pedals at his feet. The Black Gundam hummed and took a step with its left foot. Tsunekazu pressed another pedal with his right and the Black Gundam stepped with its right foot. He continued to alternate pressing pedals in conjunction with a bit of movement on the chair controls, and this made the mobile suit walk.
The Black Gundam stepped over to the rim of the crater, the Flaming Gundam close behind. Tsunekazu leaned forward on the controls, bending the Black Gundam at the waist. The monitors displayed the interior of the crater—little more than a deep hole in the ground at this point, charred by blasts and shots that had stacked up over nearly two decades of mobile suit testing.
"How have you two tested these things so far?" Colonel Samstag asked.
"We haven't actually field tested them yet," Tsunekazu explained, "but Fortuna has these excellent simulation systems that plug right into the MS. We know the controls and how the internal systems respond as well as how the MSs will hold up in zero-g, but we don't know their gravitational performance yet."
"Hop into the crater," Samstag suggested. "There's a landing platform a ways down, see if you can safely land on it."
"Will do," said Tsunekazu. "Tahk, check the synchronization between Black and Flaming."
"One moment," Tahkruvas replied. "We're receiving fine both ways."
"Follow me, then." Tsunekazu slid his right foot over to another pedal along the row beneath his feet. He switched and pressed a few more controls around the cockpit, then twisted the two sticks into a horizontal position. He slid the right one backward, slammed his right foot down, then threw the right stick forward. In response, the Black Gundam squatted, then jumped. It plunged into the crater feet first, wing binders flung up. The Flaming Gundam followed behind, only jumping in after Tahkruvas could judge how much he had to fling the MS forward. The landing platform appeared beneath them, coming up fast as the Gundams fell. Tsunekazu flicked a couple of switches and slid his fingers into control devices on the console in front. He pulled up. The Black Gundam's wing binders swung down, a series of thrusters on them and the legs firing and slowing the fall just before impact. The Black Gundam landed in a squatting position on the platform, landing with enough force to shake the crater, but light enough to not crumple the platform under the MS's mass.
The Flaming Gundam's method of landing was much different. Tahkruvas had his MS bouncing off the walls and flipping through the air in the crater until he dropped below the landing platform, caught a pylon and swung upwards, vaulting onto the platform and sticking the landing.
Just like we planned, Tsunekazu thought. Milk every detail so that we can get this done as showy and quickly as possible.
"Bravo," Colonel Samstag's voice congratulated over vox. "You have met all of the necessary requirements for mercenary service."
"That's it?" Tahkruvas wondered.
"All we need to know is that you are capable of handling your mobile suits," Samstag explained. "Everything else is up to you, other than where we send you."
"So then," Tsunekazu began, "where's our first assignment?"