Legend Of The Jokers Wild Revised

by CSS Stravag

Set 1 of the Jokers Wild tale. A derelict patrol ship of an interdimensional Star Empire suffers a problem when jumping between dimensions, and lands in the L4 area of Cosmic Era Earth. How can one dysfunctional warship and its motley crew change the history of genocide in the lands of the SEEDs? (This Set of the Jokers Wild is completed, working on Set 2 now.)

2. Front Toward Enemy

(Chapter 02: Front Toward Enemy)

(Date: 1 June 2SL-12)

"Okay then, kids, looks like we still have the magic touch," Gerald replies to the other three training with him in simulation.

"That mean we're going to be busting chops on the greenhorns?" Wendy Barus asks. She was referring to the rest of the unit, since the four in the training cycle at this time were the best of the unit, and arguably the best in the Empire at their deadly art. Those that didn't call the Barus Twins 'the pranking bitches' usually called them 'Medusa Matriarchs', in honor of how lethal they were known to be.

"Now, now, Wendy, not all of the unit is completely green. Give them some credit."

"We can't win a sustained streak against the median of the AR-AB loyal units in simulation. If we can't do that, this pseudo-rebellion is fucked from the word 'go' and we both know it, old man."

"Thank you for the operational briefing, Mina. I'll keep that in mind while I grill your arse."

"What? Me?" Complete shock from Mina.

"By the numbers, you did the worst of us all in this one." Regardless of the sharp way of stating it, Mina had still managed an astounding 91.4 percent shot placement and no shortage of kills overall. Wendy was third with 93.8 percent, Kika at 95.7 percent, and Gerald at the insane amount of 98.7 percent. A bad day consisted of missing two or more shots in a row for these four pilots.

"Roger that," Mina replied. "Back to the hazard course firing range for me, I guess," she replies, which was an inside joke as well as a real training simulation. The Hazard Course Firing Range was an ace pilot simulation, few Elites could complete its rigorous regimen, and a veteran Mobile Armor pilot had no chance in hell of completing it and very little chance of surviving it. It was the ultimate skill-sharpening course, all the more that the course itself and the obstructions and traps were entirely random from one run to the next.

"All right, while Mina goes back to basics, we'll take on a theoretical against a covert, elite Gundam force under our tactics, as a defense for the Mjolnr rapid deploy scenario. If we coordinate right, this should take less than Mina will on the hazard course."

"Kiss my ass, old man," Mina replies.

"It is such a cute ass, regardless," Gerald replies.

"Ready, boss," Kika replies.

The alert system activated before the screens in the Neue Ziel came active. And it was not the alarm sound that was default for the sims, this was the ship's actual alarm of the Mjolnr, the song known as the Imperial March from an ancient movie called Star Wars. It was distinctive, there was no mistaking the song for anything but a call to combat, much as was the songs In the Shadows by The Rasmus, 10th Man Down by Nightwish, and Rip Out The Wings Of A Butterfly by HIM, among a long list of even louder and more powerful songs.

"Abort sim! Abort sim! Systems checks now!" Gerald orders as his left hand dances across his communications panel. "Bridge, Lightbringer, what the hell is going on?"

"We're at general quarters, sir, we have a force of unregistered Mobile suits coming out of the asteroid field we're parked nearby. No IFF we recognize, not even a subtype common to one of the Star Empires. This doesn't look good, sir," the Controller replies.

"How many?"

"If it's any indication, the computer is still estimating the enemy head count. And we've been watching them for a few minutes now."

"Good Gods, war of attrition," Kika notes on the same channel. "We have, what? Close to a thousand units? More?"

"More," Gerald replies. They were still counting coup, though the computer put the total at 150 Mobile Armors (mostly Dendrobium), 300 Mobile Suits and Gundams, 225 Aerofighters in the ship, plus the escort fighters and Mobile Suits in the monitors and carrier ships, there were literally over a thousand individual craft on the ship plus the ship itself. Which was about typical for one Phalanx-class operating alone. Larger formations tended to have less units per ship when compared to the lone wolves. Essentially, it boiled down to more firepower than the great Zeon Army could have mustered in the battles of Solomon and A Boa Qu, and by Magi tactics they could easily have taken both Zeon space fortresses.

"So now what?" Kika asks, staring forward at the vid-screens in her cockpit.

"We go to smoke them and enjoy it," Gerald replies. He tripped his message system that informed the bridge that he was ready to go.

"I'm in," Kika replies.

"Bridge, this is Lightbringer with three, ready to deploy, over."

"Lightbringer, you are on standby, " the controller notes. "We're still not sure if they are hostile or not," she adds.

"Roger that, but if we fuck around too long they'll crawl up our ass before we know it," Gerald notes coldly.

"How many people in this conversation you think doesn't know that, Century Commander?" Daisy (his assigned controller) replies immediately. The Mjolnr had a total of 20 controllers, one per fifty units as per the absolute maximum allowed under Magi combat protocols, and all twenty of them got one hellish workout for their paycheck when the operations began.

"How close until we can type their units?"

"One minute at their present close rate," Daisy replies. "The way it sounds from the dedicated radar controllers, if one of yous got a miracle stashed up your butts, best you pull it out and preheat it. We'll probably need it before this one is over."

-x-x-x-

"Conn, Sensors, beginning typing enemy formation now."

"Conn, Radio Room, tangos have refused contact on all frequencies and a whole slew of languages," the Radio personnel says.

"I'm getting nothing, Star Admiral," Calamira notes, looking toward their formation off the starboard bow.

"You won't get anything," one of the Sensors operators replies from two meters. She was holding a printout toward the Star Admiral.

"Jesus H. Christ himself," Wayne says. "Raid, scramble everything, scramble it NOW!" Wayne shouts as he wads the paper up and throws it down on the floor. "Commander Ward, you have the Conn, I'm joining the battle. Draw them into a running gun battle and don't stop maneuvering, keep the forces tight. Calamira, keep me informed of any changes in the situation. I'll command the fleet from Altron," he orders.

"Aff, sir!" Commander Ward was one of those who did have pilot qualifications, but did not have the veterancy that Wayne did.

As the Star Admiral exited the bridge he began his run toward the hangar where his personal Gundam was stored and ready for battle. When he came out on the gantries in the hangar, he had to take a ladder down to the mid-level gantries then into the pilot's room to get into his pilot's armor. Two last pilots in his assigned star were just finishing getting into their personal armor set.

"Admiral? You're joining us?" Misty asks as he strips his shirt and pants off in a hurry.

"If it flies and shoots, it's going out there, no questions asked." Wayne says before he kneels down and worms his way into the armor. Once in position it closes up and begins sealing, a process that took typically thirty seconds. After it was sealed, he could move it nominally by the anti-gravity systems that were built into the armor.

"Ready to go, sir?" his assigned mechanic asks as he steps out onto the gantry around his Gundam.

"Aff, warm her up," Wayne says as he steps over to the pilot's bridge and then climbs into the machine. Once inside he immediately begins connecting and locking down the tether cords that held him in place inside the cockpit.

"All right, sir, we got her warmed up, fueled up, precharged and magazines topped off. Hope you're ready to kick some ass, Star Admiral, 'cause your machine is straining for it."

"I am ready," Wayne replies before he nicks a switch on his radio console. After hitting it, a prompt box came up, in response to which he plugged his codex into the radio console, which authenticated him to the main server on the Mjolnr. After that, he activated the ship's intercom system and C3I retransmit.

"Ready on 1MC, sir," the Ship's AI notes for him, which did not go out over the speakers.

"Attention all hands, this is Star Admiral Centara. Though this fleet was formed with the intention of bringing down the Admiralty Review, today we face a challenge of unknown purpose but blatant scale. Incoming toward this battle group at this time is a total of six thousand varied Mobile Doll units, including omnifighters, mobile suits, small craft, and Gundams. Today we face six to one odds against the soulless killing machines of yore. All units will deploy and prepare to fight off the incoming enemies as per nominal combat procedures for facing down Mobile Dolls. And make damn sure you survive, people, I don't want to explain what went wrong to your families."

Through the frame of his Gundam he could hear the cheering of his ship's crew. They were more than willing to oblige the Star Admiral in that respect, as he was more than willing to sortie to help make it a reality.

"Control, Star Admiral Centara in Altron, requesting launch clearance."

"Aff, Star Admiral. Come back alive," his controller orders. "Be advised Hyperion is launching at this time, don't cat out just to fly into its side, sir," she entreats.

"Aye, Control, launching now," and Wayne launches through the double-chamber launch bay doors, that allowed the personnel to work on the fighters in atmosphere while still performing launches. Once outside the ship, he immediately moved to his star's designated guard area.

"Welcome to the firing line, Star Admiral," his winglady says. She was driving the Zephyranthes Full Vernian model, giving her a slight edge in maneuverability over the Altron, but not quite matching him in long range firepower and certainly not matching his machine in close quarters.

The one modification he made to his machine besides paint job (Royal purple over Magi Matte Gray with white highlights) was carrying a heavy launcher (1) and extra magazines, which gave him extra ballistic firepower that he would need when going against the enemy Mobile Dolls with planet defensers.

"All right, people, remember that with planet defensers, it takes a helluva lot of firepower to overcome the shield. Hammer on their shields or get up close and personal. And for Gods' sakes, do NOT slow down whatever you do," Wayne says, having off-and-on studied how to fight Mobile Dolls from wars past and common training regimens. The faster you moved, the less likely you would get hit.

"See, kids, this is what you get when you let the crack-smokers out on a day pass," Gerald notes on the command frequency. Wayne could distinctly recognize the white Neue Ziel Upgrade that he piloted as it closed up on his position with three Dendrobium Mobile Armors in tow.

"You know something about this one, Century Commander?" Wayne asks with a tone that suggested he was hiding something.

"Only thing I know right now, boss, our lives are about to get real hairy real fast," he replies. Wayne could not tell if he was lying or not, but suspected the Century Commander was not.

"Whoever these toys belong to, they ain't Magi," one of the pilots says on open frequency. "Only problem is, they got some of our equipment as well, like the MD Serpent and the Virgo III," the same pilot adds.

"It can't be the Admiralty Review, they'd be annihilated for using Mobile Dolls on another Mage formation," Wayne thinks aloud.

"It has to be an outside party," Gerald completes the thought, skipping over several steps in the process. "The only real problem is, who would be using our Mobile Doll designs against us?"

"No time to think, sir, it's about to start," one of the Dendrobium pilots asks.

"We will analyze later, Gerald. Let us start by winning this battle," Wayne orders.

"And once more unto the breach, for there is only one path to glory," Gerald begins the classic Magi lament...

"And only a thousand ways to Hell," Wayne completes the old lament; "well, maybe a few more of late," he appends after a moment.

"Wow, you're an optimist, Star Admiral?" One of the three Dendrobium pilots with Gerald asks. "I always thought we were approaching two thousand ways."

-x-x-x-

"Commander Ward, we are now in range on all capital missiles, Naval Gauss Rifles, Naval Particle Cannons, Larger Naval Lasers. We have solution," the Fire Control Officer, a Lieutenant, declares.

"Sensors, Conn, did we get anything out of the kill codes?" Commander Ward asks. The Kill Codes were what was deemed a final safety measure to prevent the Mobile Dolls from going rogue and being unable to be stopped. A friendly unit would put out a sensor sweep with an embedded code that would deactivate all receiving friendly Mobile Dolls, thereby preventing them from continuing whatever they were ordered to do. The enemies of the Empire never twigged to the code, since it had only been used once during the short lifespan of the Mobile Doll systems.

"Negative, nothing stopped, sir. They are completely off our net," the Sensors Lieutenant says.

Commander Ward sighed. This would be the first real battle of the Mjolnr's history in almost a thousand years, though to what end they were fighting, nobody knew. "All gunnery stations, fire at will," Commander Ward orders.

The hull of the ship echoed with the sounds of almost a hundred Capital Missiles being fired, mostly of the improved Teleoperated missile type that turned a hundred capital weapon stations up and down the ship into a veritable video game of demolition derby. These were joined by the sparse Capital PPC weapons, which provided even more firepower than the capital missiles per shot and cost only energy to use. Immediately there were explosions in the enemy ranks, though after the Mjolnr fired the matter was picked up by the escort monitors, each of which having their own arsenal capable to the task at hand.

Mjolnr may have carried more weapons than some Warships weighed in at fully loaded, but the escort Monitors carried more arsenal per ton than the Mjolnr's AI could dream of. After all, a third of the venerable Superdreadnought's weight was the massive Jump Core, which the Monitors did not have to suffer. The two Riga-class Missile Frigates each carried their own Capital Missiles, thirty of them that could be used at a tibe when facing broadside-on against the enemy, though the Riga existed more or less to do its dirty work at half the range it was firing at now, intercepting enemy Mobile Suits at closer ranges with standard weapons. The two Flame Eater destroyers carried far less capital missiles, but made up for it with long-range lasers and naval Autocannons. Again, the Flame Eater would be far better close-in than at range. Slightly better in a long range posture, the Sendai-class opened up with the Capital Particle Cannons, Capital Gauss Rifles, and Capital Lasers in volley, intending to completely erase quite a margin of enemy assets from the skies that were quickly becoming congested.

In this, the Mjolnr and its fleet had a significant advantage of range, for the upper bound of the capital weapons ranges were over double, almost triple that of the enemy Mobile Dolls, who had sparse ability to strike a target beyond twenty naval hexes range, whereas the ships could fire out as far as fifty hexes, or even farther if the Teleoperated Missile controllers were smart about accelerating their missiles. The only downside to their strategy was the Mobile Dolls themselves feel no pain, no fear, do not panic, and do not relent. In one volley the Mjolnr's forces trashed close to 150 of the enemy ranks, which amounted to 2.5 percent of their ranks in one stroke.

And still they came forward, unrelenting.

"Sir, Sensors final count shows enemy force strength six thousand Mobile Doll units of varying types, out of range still to subtype units," the Sensors Lieutenant says.

"Weps, continue fire. Controllers, send our forces in on them," Commander Ward orders.

"All right, you heard the boss, get the boys and girls to charge 'em down, keep the fire lanes open for the warships," the Flight Boss orders.

The word immediately went out on the command networks as the ship echoed to the sound of the next wave of capital missiles being fired. Even the Guild II-class cargo and transport Dropships were joining the fray, as each ship also carried its own trio of teleoperated capital missile launchers, making them very heavily armed transports for their size and duty profile. The Dropships were still locked into the docking collars, however, as they did not have the combat survivability to go toe-to-toe with enemy forces; though heavily armored, the Dropships really were not engineered as interceptors, and their extensive weapons grids were for point defense almost completely.

And in an instant, the just barely over a thousand strong Mjolnr mobile forces took off into the hideous void between the ship and its assailants. Hundreds of mobile armors, fighters, mobile suits of many different eras of the Empire's wars, even a leavening of the Gundams went into the fray at full speed. The force would be enough to turn the stomach of any human force they were charging down, and for certain would give any rational force commander second, third, and maybe even fourth thoughts about the evolving battle.

And still they came onward, unrelenting in their programmed objective.

"Fates protect the pilots, for we can do little now," Commander Ward notes. "Weps, continuous fire. I want their owners to know how much these kinds of campaigns cost."

"Continuous Fire, aye sir," the Lieutenant in command of the weapons stations replies immediately.

-x-

"I start to think loud about retiring, and this is what Existence shovels into my face," Gerald notes as his Neue Ziel Upgrade begins thrusting in random jinking patterns. The Mobile Dolls were now close enough to begin shooting at the mobile forces, and despite his sarcastic tone he was very thankful that his armor was established with four I-Field Generators. Their beam cannons were doing nothing to his unit except causing momentary drains on his I-Fields.

"And this is where I'm supposed to say 'you are too young to retire' or something like that," Kika replies.

"Why, I did not know you cared so much," Gerald says as he begins sighting up and firing on the forward ranks of Mobile Dolls. Unlike the original Neue Ziel used against the Federation, these Mobile Dolls did not succumb to one shot of the micromissiles, in fact they appeared to be of a more recent vintage. Specifically, he watched one take a pair of the large missiles and suffer no ill effects except a crater in its armor.

"Hardened Gundanium armor, looks like," Kika notes as her first two shots, a pair of micromissile canisters with over a hundred missiles in each canister, flew through several dense patches of enemies while spraying their death in every direction. Though the missiles ended up striking over sixty targets, the amount of kills from her stroke could be counted on one hand.

"They copied our armor composites as well?" Star Admiral Centara asks. He had given up on trying to stay with the Dendrobium forces, as his Gundam was certainly not capable to the thrust that a Dendrobium or Neue Ziel carried.

"Appears that way, sir," Mina Barus notes as she closed in on the enemy formation fast. The speed she was moving with threw many of the Mobile Dolls off, but not all, and the beams coming in at her were blanketed as if the Mobile Dolls knew the Dendrobium was one of the greater threats.

"These shits are not dying easy today," Mina's twin sister, Wendy, notes as she closed on a cell of them with her anti-ship beam sabers deployed. She got two of them after brute-forcing her way through their planet defensers (by sabering the defensers) though at the cost of several point-blank hits to her I-field.

"And this is where I'm supposed to say 'grit your teeth and charge them down' or something to that effect," Wayne notes dubiously. Cracking jokes about how the movies portrayed the antics of battle was a favored passtime of the warriors, since the dunderheads that made the movies (still collectively called 'Hollywood') could really fuck up a junkyard in management terms, much less accurate reporting.

"Yeah, yeah, been there, done that, got the stitches to prove it," Gerald notes just as dubiously. His Neue Ziel Upgrade was well set for this task, as the four Autocannons and the myriad of missile weapons he carried would be preferable to trying to brute force their way through the planet defense shields, and ballistic weapons were unstoppable by either the I-Field or the Planet Defenser.

As the two forces closed and began trading shots all along the lines, Wayne began to notice something odd about these Mobile Dolls. They were not forming the defensive clusters that the Virgo series were renown for, they were simply advancing on line, aiming toward the Mjolnr and firing at anything that acted hostile towards their ranks. This bespoke that the MD units they were facing were different from the standard production runs, they were the actual Magi rebuild Mobile Dolls that shook the Negaverse to its core until the Emperor had refused their usage in battle. To point, if he remembered Magi Mobile Doll programming correctly, they should begin a vertical envelopment of a numerically inferior force any minute now...

"Boss, they be shifting ventral and dorsal on our forces, sir," one of the Star Colonel under Gerald notes.

"What the hell? Only controlled Mobile Dolls do that—unless—"

"They are Magi Mobile Dolls, at least in construction and programming," Wayne notes.

"Now what?" Gerald asks in half-frustration.

"No wonder, these shitting things are actually shooting like they know how to shoot," an Alpha Azieru Pilot notes.

"Everyone change tactics, if they want to envelop us above and below, we squeeze out the sides and flank their own formation center," Wayne immediately orders, as it had been one of the few Negaverse tactics that worked. The other was for Negaverse units to replate with Reflective armor and the Blue Shield Systems, which significantly reduced the damage that Mobile Dolls could cause but made them supremely vulnerable to ballistic, missile and physical weapons. Since re-armoring his own formation in an armor plate that was damn near unheard of in the Magi ranks was not a possible solution, and Blue Shield had more problems associated with it than it solved, changing tactics was the way to go.

"Mobile Armor forces, I want a hundred forward, fifty top and bottom. We'll take the heat while the Fighters, Mobile Suits, and Gundams do the dirty deed on the flanks," Gerald orders.

"Galaxy Commander Rico, take a detachment of fighters and check out that damned asteroid field that these shits came from for a Warship or other carriers. If you find them, type them, identify nationality and sink the fuckers, clear?"

"Aff, Star Admiral," Rico replies immediately. "First Cluster on me, we're going hunting in an asteroid field! Second, third Clusters go left, fourth and fifth Clusters go right!"

Wayne joined the forces headed leftward while dodging through off-and-on fire directed at him. He even had to block two shots with his shield, the Mobile Dolls were that good in practice. Some carried the heavy mega particle cannons, others carried smaller beam rifles that were less powerful but had a higher fire rate. As he closed up on the enemy formation, he began with the twin beam cannon in the tail of the Altron he piloted, in such a fashion that while unlikely to cause casualties he was keeping them occupied defending from incoming firepower, which made things for the rest of the team easier overall. Altron was not meant for standoff combat, though he had added a Heavy Launcher to his arsenal to give him some range combat options so he did not have to chance getting close yet. If these Mobile Dolls really did follow the Magi standards of combat, they would have close quarters weapons and would definitely be able to use them as well as some of the Bladesmen could use swords of their own.

Wayne sighted up a pair of Virgo III Mobile Dolls and pulled the trigger on his Heavy Launcher, watching as first the one on the left took a dozen hits and lost both legs, then as the second hunched down its massive left shoulder plate and took the hits in what could veritably be considered its shield. The follow-up attack did not come from the Virgo III that Wayne had shot at, it came from a different vector and from a Serpent Mobile Doll variant, the twin machine gun scored several hits on his armor that failed to cause significant damage before he hammered out of its line of fire.

The Star Admiral could sense this was going to be a long, hard battle, as he immediately aimed to and targeted the Serpent with two of the missiles and beams from his tail cannon.

-x-

"This IS the Symphony of Destruction!" A Gundam X Divider pilot shouts as he closed up on the enemy formation in sync with the craziest-painted Altron he had ever seen (Royal Purple was not a normal Altron color). Where the Altron left off with the two Virgo III units, he picked up with the paired Raketen Bazookas he was carrying for his unit, an addition in firepower to the normal warship-grade Beam Machine Gun he carried and other assorted weapons. Both missiles connected on the surviving Virgo III, completing the job begun by the Altron.

"Excellent! More kills for my codex," one of the pilots from 3 Cluster, Rico's Marauders, says as he follows the X Divider in on the enemy. His Fireball G Variant had the prime weapon for taking down enemy Mobile Dolls, the much-feared Gauss Rifle that had the capability to bust through the chest armor and into the reactor compartment, where the slug could vent the plasma toroid to the outside world and render the machine inoperable. This he did as the X Divider broke off in pursuit of a Sabutai Mobile Doll, the Fireball pilot sighted up and snapped a shot off at a lone classic Virgo MD, and watched as the Gauss Slugs hammered it and penetrated enough to get the almighty MD Cookoff, which is what pilots often called a Virgo that had its reactor penetrated. The other slug had rather redundantly sheared the left arm completely off, sending it flying into another machine with minimal damage. "Hey, guys, they may have the hardened Gundanium armor, but the density's too low to be our latest revisions! These things are older machines!"

"No shitting way!" a Dom Funf pilot says as he enters the area that the Fireball had poached on. The pilot hot dogged around one group of beams, plowed through another group that were aimed at another target, and closed in on a three-pack of Virgo II MD units. As he passed through their Planet Defenser shields, he sighted up and fired on the right-side Virgo II, the massive giant bazooka rocket blowing the right arm and shoulder clean off the enemy suit, as his right arm reaches up to and pulls clear the heat saber that could chop clean through some Mobile Suits, and activated the thermal conductors within. As he closed up on the two remaining, one of them tracked in on him and pulled its own beam saber from under the shoulder plate, though it never had the chance to use it as the Dom pilot skewered the Virgo straight through the core computing area, causing the whole enemy unit to shut down in less than two seconds. The third enemy, facing directly away from him, died aborning as another giant bazooka round struck it in the rear and killed it off.

Unfortunately, it would be the last action of the pilot as a Kirghiz MD in variant B attacked it as the closest reasonable threat, firing into it the three ER PPC weapons it carried, followed by one of the LRM 20 missile packs it carried. Firing on the Dom Funf's rear right, the pilot was unaware that his doom was coming until the first PPCs hit, tearing into the woefully weak rear armor and connecting with the fuel bunker inside the back of the Dom. Though engineered for better survivability than had been built into the Zeon models, the internal protections were not engineered to handle a pair of ER PPC blasts at the same time. Instantly the fuel vaporized and then immediately thereafter cooked off inside the suit, blowing the suit in half. The LRMs were pro forma on the already mostly destroyed machine, but the control computer in the Kirghiz deemed them the most efficient follow-up attack until confirmed destroyed.

"Dude! That blows!" the same Fireball pilot half-shouts, having seen his comrade blown in half by the Kirghiz in question. It did not make it far, however, as the Kirghiz encountered and subsequently befell a Val Varo Mobile Armor, whose pilot slammed the venerable and thinly-armored Clan Omnifighter-become-Mobile Doll with the massive anti-shipping Mega Particle Cannon and the two anti-air beam guns all at once. The combination of hits was enough to penetrate the main body armor on the fighter, and in so doing found the ammo bunker for the five LRM 20 racks it carried. The fighter's CASE equipment blew out to protect most of the equipment inside, but in so doing the explosion channeled through the rear of the fighter also destroyed the engines, rendering the craft a mission kill. The Pilot's luck went dry fast, however, as a Mobile Doll fired on his MA while he was turning in on another cluster of enemies, and the shot seared through the cockpit and vaporized the pilot, armor and all. "Man, this is sucking bad! We're dying out here!"

"No shit, Sensei!" a Taurus pilot says as he flies crosswise to the Fireball in question, and sights up a smaller Visigoth fighter with a space laser. The heavy beam weapon, essentially a reskinned and easily maneuvered (and thus easily used) Medium Naval PPC scaled down to usable by a Mobile Suit, made very short work of the Visigoth as it blew the entire nose and part of the craft's wing off. The pilot maneuvered hard, as Mobile Dolls are programmed to react hard to the presence of such weapons and target them as priority, though the X Divider in the area threw the Taurus pilot an assist by cleaving the back out of two of the assailants with its heavy beam swords and a quick burst of naval-grade beam machine gun to a third to clear up the heat. A Kampfer MD that was tracking in on the X Divider was the next target for the Taurus, whose single shot missed it completely. "Fuck! X Divider, on your eight!"

"I see him—damn!" the X Divider takes a crippling hit from close range, the paired giant bazookas carried by the Kampfer MD made short work of its shield, left arm, and part of its left torso, though not before the pilot ripped into the enemy with a savage burst of beam machine gun. "Your ass, boy!" he shouts as he kicks the deceased remnant away from him. "Gundam Alpha-47 returning to base, heavy damage sustained," the pilot says as he turns and heads in for the Mjolnr.

"I got your six!" the Fireball G pilot says as he maneuvers to close up and pass under the X Divider. When under, he rotated his fighter so he was flying in one direction and looking in another, as he sighted up and fired the paired Gauss Rifles on another Virgo II machine. The slugs both struck the prodigious shoulder humps, neither penetrating far enough to get into vital internals, though the pair of shots rendered it impossible to use a beam weapon properly. "Aww, shit," the pilot notes as the same MD drew a beam saber with its left arm and immediately charge him down, the violet eye pulsing with mechanical rage as it tracked his fighter mercilessly. Only by the grace of the Taurus pilot hitting the target this time and blowing the Mobile Doll clean in half did he survive this time around.

"Hey, thanks ma—" the Fireball pilot never completed his thanks to the Taurus, as a pair of beams from older Virgo machines chopped into his mobile suit. A third beam contacted while it was spinning out of control, and blew through the cockpit. "Man, this shit is bogus! Who the fuck owns these toys?"

No answer came to him in time, before a Virgo II that had lost control slammed into his fighter, headed the opposite direction at an increasing pace. Both craft were destroyed in a flurry of sparks and vented engines, nevermore to be seen usable again.

-x-x-

"Mjolnr, Rico reporting, there ain't shit out here in these asteroids."

"Rico, Wayne, break off and bring it back to the melee, we need all the hands on deck we can get!" Star Admiral Centara orders.

"Conn, Sensors, our forces are getting chewed up out there! We've already lost a hundred units spread around all the formations!"

Commander Ward looks down to the deck on hearing that. Technically he was about to disobey the Star Admiral's orders, but he was not going to let his CO die out there. While that would inevitably make the Admiralty Review very happy, it would break far more hearts than were dying out here, today, and would die if the ship became heavily invested in close. He knew he had to do something, and this happened to be his best option.

Calamira beat him to the punch. "Getting ready to go in, Harald?" she asks, to which he simply nods. She nodded in kind, affirmation that he was not about to completely screw up the day. "Go for it, it is the best move," she says.

"Helm, set course to 1-7-0 against present, ahead one third. Comms, order all monitors and close escorts to follow suit. Systems, make sure our shields are ready for the shitstorm we're about to enter. Weps, you are authorized all weapons when in range. We're about to cut through their formation like a chainsaw, let's just make sure we don't screw this one up, people."

"Yes, sir!" the Lieutenants and Warrant Officers all shout. The Helmsman, Willy Jones, immediately enacted the turn request as the flight controllers began relaying the orders to the few units that remained close guard for the Mjolnr.

"Conn, helm, I show my course as 1-7-0 relative to prior bearing, engine at one third and accelerating. Estimate time on target zone is three minutes, sir," the helmsman notes.

"Helm, conn, aye. Weps, keep the pressure on, sensors track in on their heaviest concentrations, I want to know where to put our main assault at," Commander Ward notes.

"Conn, Weps, thirty seconds until we go live with our extreme-range point defense weps, fifty seconds and we go in long range weps," the Weapons Controller notes.

"Weps, Conn, aye," Ward replies. "Helm, cut forward thrust, turn broadside on," the Commander orders, since the greatest part of his arsenal was in the side arcs, turning broadside on would give him the best target profile. "Sensors, have the Mobile Forces begin sucking the enemy toward the ships. We'll have the Mobile Forces bring them to us, and we'll slam the door shut on their dicks."

"Roger that, sir," the Weapons Lieutenant replies.

"Conn, Sensors, all forces acknowledge pullback order. We should see them coming our way here in a few moments."

"Sensors, force status?"

"Us, 823, enemy, 3947."

"When this is over, we will find the bastards that did this to us. And when it is over, we will skewer their dicks on a pike and mount it forevermore in the courtyard of their Reichstag, as clear warning to the next ten iterations of their government that attacking Magi comes with far too high a price."

"What are they playing on the battle radio?" the Suborbital officer asks. Right now they were nowhere near a planet, so she was functioning as a sensor officer until she could do her job.

"Sounds like Metallica, For Whom The Bell Tolls, if I don't miss my guess," the Helmsman says.

"Conn, Sensors, enemy formation within range of our point defense grid...now!"

"All weapon stations fire at will!"

The colling systems that ran laterally down the sides of the ship suddenly kicked into high gear as the first of the point defense weapon sets began firing at the long and extreme range targets. Streak LRMs, Gauss Rifles, Large Lasers of both ER and Pulse variety, as the grid began firing heavily the enemy began falling in greater quantity. The Monitors had divided up and were now all on one side of the ship, screening the Mjolnr from a direct assault on the enemy's part, which put them even closer to the enemy and had more availability to fire on them with their point defense weapons. In one wave, the casualties immediately began mounting on the enemy side, again since their weapons systems and defensive systems were uneven at best, making them easy prey for the Magi forces they were trying to destroy.

The nature of their primary objective became manifest as they closed ever closer to the Warships, as wholly half of them began firing on the Mjolnr actively. This would prove to be their undoing, as the Mjolnr was equipped with a larger and far more powerful Light Shell Generator than the Monitors.

-x-x-x-

"Hell yes sir, looks like the Commander has a pair after all," Gerald notes as the Mjolnr began sweeping Mobile Dolls out of the skies by the dozen. Even failing half their shots, the Mjolnr could eradicate hundreds of Mobile Dolls a minute. And the escort Monitors only made things even easier for the forces.

"I told him to stay back for a reason, but the added support in close is a good thing," Wayne notes. He had given up on trying to stay at range once an enemy blew his heavy launcher in half, instead he had closed up with dual beam trident and claw arms, taking the battle to the enemy with all his dueling skill. Wayne actually held the status of elite Gundam pilot in his own right, and in reality was an undeclared ace of close-quarters combat. Though not quite as skilled as the original Altron pilot, Wufei Chang, the improvements made to the Altron made the battle against Mobile Dolls all that much easier for him.

"The help may just save our asses," one of the pilots notes as he passes over Hyperion, headed for another part of the enemy line to help out there.

"Mjolnr, what's our status?" Wayne asks in a rush, having just brought down another Mobile Doll by way of impaling it.

"781 to 3252, enemy favor, Star Admiral," the controller he was operating under immediately reports.

"Bring the warships in closer, keep the pressure on. We may not be able to break their morale, but enough concentrated firepower will break them to the last man," he orders. Immediately thereafter he was on the offensive again, Altron attacking outward and at close range against non-close-capable Mobile Dolls like the Serpent and Taurus.

"Sir, keep it moving!" Wayne's systems immediately identified the transmitting unit as a Big Zam unit that was moving perpendicular to his course. As it reached a position the unit's commander estimated to be optimal, he fired off all of the circumference anti-air beam guns, and though most of them befell the Planet Defensers in the area, the one Mobile Armor just smoked eight enemies in one salvo and damaged two more. Wayne moved in on one of the damaged units as the said Mobile Armor continued with the Large Mega Particle Gun, giving him another three kills as one blast annihilated a cluster of Virgo that were tracking the Mjolnr. For the other that it had damaged, the 105mm Vulcans dispatched it as it sputtered, attempting to regain balance.

"Big Zam Three, this is Hyperion, be advised we are entering your operations area, over."

"Hyperion, bring it in, I'll lock you out of my firing arcs," the CO of the Big Zam replies.

Wayne got a good showing of why the Sendai-class was considered the reborn destroyer of yore, as its main guns were good for sinking ships but the myriad of smaller armaments were enough to cause serious damage to the Virgo IIM and Virgo III units due to the fact that the lasers bypassed the planet defensers. Much like the UESA (2) high-output cutting lasers, the ER Large Laser blew its way clean through the enemy Mobile Doll, though it usually took two or three hits to cover all the necessary damage to get rid of the Mobile Dolls if fighting a 'fair' fight against them. The Damage to thrust ratio was superb, and of course the Magi would picked up a collection of the Mobile Suits and Gundams, to further their understanding of the enemy and increase their own production capacities with any processes they could infer from the machining processes used by the enemy.

"This doesn't seem right, their units are bipolar in practice."

"Huh?" Someone asks on his command network.

"The units, they hit like our latest revisions, but they are armored two steps backwards in some cases, less or more in others," Wayne notes as he gets inside a planet defenser grid and applies the beam cannons on his unit to all three enemy machines. Satisfied they were mission kills, he moves onward and takes the fight to a Visigoth MD variant with his trident and claw arm, not even relenting for an otherwise usable Omnifighter.

"Bipolar or not, we gotta kill 'em all, boss," the same person asks, and this time Wayne could tell the person was a lady significantly younger than he.

"Mjolnr from Centara for Calamira," Wayne prompts.

"Go, sir," she replies almost immediately.

"Anything?" Wayne asks, hoping she had some knowledge of enemy personnel controlling their fates.

The answer was seconds in the coming, which was more than answer enough for him before she confirmed it: "Nothing, sir. Not a damned thing."

"Blast!" Wayne shouts as his left fist comes down on the engine panel for his craft, causing a loud bending and creaking of the metal in question.

"We're winning, sir, or at least they are not winning, I'm not sure if you count that as a victory on our side," she appends to keep him from completely going apeshit.

"All right, all right, you win. Maintain the pressure, we'll eventually end up killing them all. Only question is, how many of us will be left to throw the victory party?"

-x-x-

If ever a case of a target rich environment, this was it as far as Argus was concerned. Thankfully, he piloted the right machine into the fray for this task. The Heavyarms Kai EW excelled at such a tasking, since the mostly-ballistic arsenal of the heavy fire support Gundam would readily bypass the infamous Planet Defensers, and when used right could even be used to intercept said shields just as well as they could intercept the controlling Mobile Dolls. Argus Deville needed only pull the trigger and wave it around in the general vicinity of the enemy, and he would get hits all over the enemy machines. As he hosed one group he changed target profiles and moved onward to the next target, maintaining a continuous presence of fire and just sweeping from target to target.

The fact that he was raking their formation also made him a prime target in their eyes, which was not something calculated to make him a happy shooter. He dodged several rounds aimed at him, but for his effort his Gundam's head and left shoulder were clipped by an errant beam from a Gundam Vayeate. There was no doubt about it, the focused beam of the Vayeate was as powerful as the original Wing Gundam's buster cannon, and a lot more focused for heavy-target penetration, and one shot from a friendly unit misplaced tore his Gundam practically in half. "Command, 3-Delta-27 is RTB, significant damaged sustained from blue-on-blue, over," Argus notes.

"Roger that, Deville, bring it home."

"I will cover," a Fighter pilot from Rico's Marauders swings by and begins applying the firepower to the enemy just as the Heavyarms Kai EW turns back toward the Mjolnr.

"3-Delta-27, this is Thornheart, bring it back along my port side for screening, over," despite the optimistic outlook of the Captain to the Thornheart, the ship in question had taken a beating and now would be paying for it out of his budget and the budget of the fleet.

"Roger that," Argus Deville replies immediately. Despite the leveraged cheery reply, Argus was still reluctant to quote odds on which of the ships would survive the day. It was a hard dictum, knowing that the maximum distances between one form of death and another were quite short, and often had the same causes when stacked against each other. Still and all, he had been born to defend the Empire (literally) and he had a job to do, which in this case was using his high-tech Gundam to get the hell out of dodge and get repaired.

As he flew down the side of the Thornheart, a Flame Eater-class Escort Destroyer, he could watch on the C3 systems as the Thornheart picked up where he left off with alacrity. Using its massive array of both short-range anti-fighter weapons and the far heavier naval weapons of autocannon, PPC and laser types, the single warship took no more than two minutes to clear out fifty enemy Mobile Dolls, though at the cost of having its shell knocked down again and taking hits from enemy beam cannons. As each beam cannon had the effective punch of an Autocannon 20 in an energy form, the ship would take literally hundreds of hits per facing to breach the armor, and the enemy was running out of suits to effect that kind of battle plan. In fact, they were running out of suits to do anything except aid in sharpening the skills of the remaining Magi pilots on the field.

"3-Delta-27 to Control, what's the butcher bill looking like right now? And the op time?"

"All forces, status update, we are at 646 active units still out there whooping ass, enemy has only 410 left, almost all the classic Virgo and Virgo II units," the Controller says by way of reply. "Battle time has been 45 minutes, some pilots have already sortied twice since the battle began," she concludes.

"Jesus, we lost a lot today," Argus' system registers the speaker as Galaxy Commander Rico. His fighter passes above the ventral surface of the Thornheart, following up on the monitor's wild success with his ER Medium Lasers. His craft had run out of ammo for the monster class-twenty Autocannon and the Streak LRMs long ago, making his fighter almost completely useless in terms of operational damage but anything was better than nothing in circumstances like this.

"Galaxy Commander Rico, pull your fighter back and refit, you're down to knife-fighting an armored opponent here," Century Commander Lightbringer says as Argus makes his final adjustments to land on the Mjolnr. The Century Commander was the boss of all the Gundams carried by the Warship, and not someone a person casually ignored. It was often said that Gerald's record was far more black than the hideous void of a dimension without stars, and Argus had nothing to deny such a claim. Despite the beatings the Neue Ziel Upgrade had taken in the evolving battle, it was still flying and still fighting with the best of them out there.

"Aff, Century Commander, Rico is RTB at this time," the Galaxy Commander notes as he loops around and through the deceased wreckage of enemy and foe alike. On his pass through he snagged two life pods with tow cables, dragging them along with his craft toward the waiting Mjolnr. Argus switched his main screen over to a view of Gerald's actions, since he could land his Gundam on reflex mostly. Argus hadf to admit that the old bastard Century Commander had a flair with the Neue Ziel Upgrade, as he used the powerful grappling claws to capture and squeeze enemy Mobile Dolls one at a time, while using the remaining Beam Guns he had on his machine to strike more distant machines and overpower their Planet Defensers. No hesitation, no mercy; this was just another battle to Gerald, like any other he had fought.

The crowning achievement, however, came from an Alpha Azieru Mobile Armor that technically poached in Gerald's kill zone, using its one remaining arm and the funnels it carried (9 funnels in the standard Alpha Azieru) to lay waste to a half-dozen Mobile Dolls by shooting through gaps in their defensive shields. The strategic kills garnered allowed a myriad of far smaller Mobile Suits to get in on the remainder and mop up.

"That's all this is any more, just a mop up operation," Argus notes to himself.

"But I'll be damned if it wasn't hairy there for a few. I hear the Marines even got some action, shooting from the hull of the Warships with their long-range guns."

"A few, sir?" Argus asks of Galaxy Commander Rico. "That whole thing was hairy."

"We won, at least," one of the controllers replies.

"If you want to call this a victory, that is," Gerald notes sourly.

-x-x-

Long after the shooting stopped, a staff meeting had been called. Calamira, having not been directly involved, was the first one in the conference room.

Second to enter was Galaxy Commander Rico. His Aerofighter had been docked, undergoing rearming and refueling, when the enemy force had finally been completely annihilated. Star Admiral Centara had vented on the hapless Aero commander, though it was just as a way to relieve stress on the Star Admiral's part. There was no denying that Rico had done his job in spades, and even Calamira could recognize it. What fighter pilot swagger and arrogance he had had the day prior was not echoed in his demeanor today, for he had suffered heavily in the battle now past. Everyone had suffered.

Third in was the Galaxy Commander of Marines, whom Calamira did not get along with on any level except a precise professional level. He was the picture of the Eugenics program writ into physical form: eight feet tall, 375 pounds of pure muscle, even had the distinctive facial tattooing of the Enhanced Imaging Implants. He had worked on the battle as well, though his Marines were ill-suited to intercepting Mobile Dolls, the enemy had deployed battle armor infantry to try and board the ships. They failed, miserably, as the Marines went to work on them without reserve. It was an aside of the battle that Calamira was better off not having known about until well after the fact, for professional reasons.

Commander Ward had entered third, his duties completed with the docking of the final monitor. The flight controllers were will recovering surviving pilots and any usable salvage, of which there would be a large amount. Whole parts of fighters downed by they battle were being brought in at an alarming rate by the Marines and any Mobile Suits that were functional enough to do salvage work. It would be the Century Commander of the Defensive Armor forces that had the final butcher bill, but Calamira already know that far too many persons had been lost in this one battle. Commander Ward simply reinforced her sinking feeling with a sour look.

Star Admiral Centara entered three minutes later and immediately moved to his normal spot, which was one seat immediately to the right of Calamira and at the head of the table. Immediately Calamira got a whiff of the Star Admiral, and it was not all that pleasant. He reeked of sweat, gun propellant and burning electronics, as during his battle the Star Admiral had taken several hits that caused some of the electronics in his machine to short out. Despite the Pilot's Armor he was wearing, some of the stench of friend computer processor had followed him into the conference room, though Calamira suspected part of that was creative on his part. So far, Wayne was a serious guy in general but he did have a flair for the dramatic, and smelling like the south end of a fried computer would strike him as 'appropriate' for the mood here, unless he had been operating without a set of Pilot's Armor (which would make him crazy, not dramatic).

The Chief Engineer and the Star Commodore of the Monitors both entered at the same time, likely having had their own side conversation before entering. The Chief Engineer was looking dazed; the Star Commodore, grim. The look he gave the Star Admiral was enough of an explanation why, of course. Even the Monitors had taken a beating during the deploy operations, which would make things even more sensitive and risky if they waited around for the enemy to come back for seconds. Calamira definitely was not on speaking terms with the Star Commodore, but she still had to deal with him on a professional level.

The persons around the room traded info nervously, waiting and eying the door with trepidation. Each of them had bad news to report, but the final butcher bill would be in Gerald's hands. It would be his forces' status that determined the fate of the fleet, and not necessarily the other parties.

When the Century Commander finally entered the room, it was with a startling hissing sound of the door opening and the other soldiers in the room immediately looking to him. There was little to no explanation needed, the look on his face was answer enough for most of them, though before the questions began he came to attention as was proper to acknowledge his superior in the room (Star Admiral Centara and Calamira), then took his seat at the table.

The question de rigeur came from the Marine, of all persons. "How bad we screwed, sir?"

A quick sigh from the Century Commander. "Per the Star Admiral's request, I ain't going to bullshit this one. We're fucked. Between all four branches of our mobile forces, the MS, the Gundams, the Mobile Armors, and the Fighters, we've lost a grand total of 41 percent of our mobile compliment. They hit us again, we won't last fifteen minutes."

"Ain't that a bitch," the Star Commodore notes.

"A cold, hard one," Star Admiral Centara closes down the grumbling in a hurry. "What did we get in return for losing close to five hundred of our units and innumerable pilots?"

"Final tally, slightly more than six thousand enemy Mobile Dolls," Calamira notes.

"Over a ten to one kill ratio," Rico says immediately thereafter, which thought made everyone happy. Getting kill stats like that always made people feel very happy, it meant that they were the baddest mo-fo's on the block and the competition just proved it.

"Did anyone find a command or control asset?" the Star Commodore asks.

"Neg," Rico says. "We got jack-shit in the asteroids."

"No assets around the enemy battle lines," Gerald says.

"No manned MS on the sensors," Calamira says.

"Huh, that is really weird," Wayne notes. "Normally Mobile Dolls do not operate autonomously, there is almost always some form of control asset in the area, even if it is just a MD carrier. Strange as hell."

"And we killed them all, but..." Calamira notes.

"All right, people, I want to hear your thoughts."

"We need to get lost. Literally," Calamira fronts.

"Concur," Gerald amplifies. "We hang around here for seconds, we're screwed without the obligatory reach-around." Calamira grimaced at his phrasing, but said nothing. She was not going to argue semantics with someone who was likely far, far older than she.

"Any dissenters?" Wayne asks. Nobody opined against. "Recommendations?"

"Class three jump, head backwards and repair, then back forward and alert the fleet that someone is out here sticking their crank in our business again," Galaxy Commander Michaels, the GC of Marines for the formation, replies.

"Ain't this the same way the first Star Empires Wars started?" Rico asks. History class was over two decades past for him, he had been flying for the Empire for that long.

"Aff, it is," Gerald says. "Someone sacked one of our Orbital fleets when it was out on maneuvers, and we know who that someone happened to be. Oops."

"It goes without saying who that someone was," Calamira says. "I concur with the fronted Oplan, sir, the only safe location right now is outside the normal paths."

"After pissing in the Admiralty Review's pool, we can't just put into dock and get repairs somewhere, regardless of what happened to us," Gerald notes. "They'd still take that time to try and kill us off or have us arrested."

"Very well," Wayne replies, having considered both possibles. "Calamira, please issue orders to the Jump Controllers to plan for getting us to the gone. I want us so far off the beaten path that God himself would be hard-pressed to find us."

"Aff, sir," Calamira replies as she stands up. She knew what she had to order them to do, even though she absolutely detested it.

"As to the rest of the personnel, I want this ship locked down for jumping by the book, but I also want as many hands as possible out there bringing material in for salvage. We just slagged down six thousand plus Mobile Dolls, averaging 60 tons apiece, that is a helluva lot of salvage. Get as much of it in here as possible, if we even get a fraction of that we are doing good. Also, prioritize recovering our lost armor units and fighters. We may need them sooner rather than later, and we have a lot of ejected pilots with no machines. We need to get them flying again ASAP."

"Aff, sir," Gerald says as he stands.

"Get to it, gentlemen," he says as the door slides shut from Calamira's exiting the room. "We don't have all day here."

"Aff, sir," Star Commodore Michael replies. He was not the first or the last to leave the room.

Wayne waited until the doors closed automatically again, sealing him into the conference room alone...or not alone, depending on one's point of view. "Out with it, comrade."

The Warship's Artificial Intelligence Entity finally broke her silence. "We took a hellish beating for our efforts, sir. I'm already receiving detailed reports from the techs, the units and the other ships themselves, and the repair costs are rapidly approaching one billion C-bills, not including replacement of destroyed units or salvage being brought in."

"That much, is it? Impressive, for bipolar MD units they did very good for themselves. What did we kill of theirs?"

"Close to 8 billion C-bills, maybe more," the AI replies.

"We really counted coup on this one, but the price is too high for what we got. Too high," he echoes.

"It cannot be helped, sir. They hit us too hard, too fast to call for reinforcements."

"And what is your opinion on my decision?" Wayne asks.

"It is the only viable solution, sir," she replies. "We stay, they kill us off, we dock for repairs at one of our stations, the Admiralty kills us off. Screwed if we do, screwed if we do not. At least jumping backwards in time as well as off the normal area rotations gives us a chance to fix ourselves up, especially if we can raid an asteroid field for extra material. In theory, if we work long enough we can rebuild and upgrade our entire mobile compliment."

"Pilots would be the problem, though," Wayne replies. Not that there was a lack of personnel on his ship, but having personnel on the ship and having pilots in the craft were two grossly different things. The other side of that thought was that he had one possible child trainee on the ship for that, but she definitely would not be ready for the duty for another few months. Where other Phalanx-class ships had as many as 200 children on board riding along with parents, the Mjolnr only had six and a partial (a weapons technician that was pregnant).

"Aff," the AI replies simply.

"All right, opinion time," Wayne notes after a brief silence. He did not consider it strange that he would ask the opinion of the ship on matters, especially pertaining to the fact that the ship itself was going to be in harm's way a helluva lot more in coming months, if he did not miss his guess. Some other ship's captains were grossly unwilling to deal with their ship's AI in such a fashion, and some were somewhat indifferent on the matter. "Why did they do it?"

"Simple. No appreciation of history, like usual," the AI replies.

"Explain that, please," Wayne requests.

"Basically, it comes down to two possible military issues, one political, and one historical. First, the enemy may have misgauged the power of our fleet and just debauched over sixteen galaxies of Mobile Dolls on us, with very limited gains." The AI fronts as a possible.

"In that case, the enemy CO is likely already dead from a self-inflicted gunshot or knife wound," Wayne replies, knowing that he would not go back to the Empire after incurring that kind of grievous loss on the touman.

"Second possible, they were playing a very one sided war of attrition, with a total ratio of 12.76 units on their side per kill on our side. That's really not an efficient way to win a war, all things considered."

"No fooling, comrade. Of those two, I think I like the former as a military solution, I don't think anyone would readily pay such a price to win a war against us, we're actually fairly low on the fighting charts for the Empire's fleets, their cost is going to get a helluva lot higher if they start attacking more fleets."

"Worse, the cost is going to get astronomical if they start attacking ground forces like that, they can expect 30-to-1 or 40-to-1 kill ratios if they start attacking our planets." Wayne knew her calculations were predicated on the fact that there is nowhere to hide in space, but on the ground a force can be dug in and concealed, making it very hard to knock out. "And, this brings us to the point that someone is now at war with the Empire again. We don't know who, but after this stunt, it will become a full-blown interdimensional war soon enough," the AI concludes.

"Casus Belli, a reason for war far more direct than an outright declaration," Wayne notes. The Star Admiral had an appreciation of history like few others, since knowing what had transpired in wars past often helped gauge the wars to come. In this case, the circumstances replicate the depredations of Germany in WWI on Terra during the 20th Century, sinking neutral and uninvolved shipping eventually precipitated America's involvement in the war. It could also be considered close to the incident at Pearl Harbor some years later, where the Japnese assaulted the naval base and ships there, in an attempt to cripple America's navy and force them to accede to Japan's demands. They failed grossly, and within four years the war was resolved on America's terms.

"It is a classic scenario, Star Admiral, that also blends well with the historical point in question. Taking as example Japan in AD 1940s Terran History, they assaulted the American naval base at Pearl Harbor in an attempt to force America out of the naval running in the Pacific so they would have a free hand of their own on the western Pacific rim. They failed miserably by not sinking the American carriers, but they failed on another level entirely. Their leadership did not realize that they did not have the manpower or technical savvy to face off against the United States in any fashion. America in the 1940s was a very patriotic nation, equally the rival of the Star Empires in that respect, and a surprise blitz against Pearl simply pissed off the whole country. It is not unlike the Quarter War was for us: one great affront is all it took to begin a cascade of events that ended up cripling the imperial ambitions of our foes."

"And whoever just jumped us does not pay attention to the history books," Wayne replies in kind. "If I remember correctly, there is a dictum that my Military History professor once told me that applies to this: 'every war started since the industrial revolution on Terra has been started by the party that ultimately lost the war' if I remember correctly."

"Aff, Star Admiral, there is a whole litany of evidence to support your claim. World War 1, started by Austria, said country ended up hamburger. World War II, Nazi Germany starts it, flattened by Soviet Russia. Afghanistan in the 80's of the same century, started by Russia, the Soviets bled for ten years before they gave up and their empire collapsed. Persian Gulf war, same century, started by Iraq, they got their whole military flattened. The One Year War between the Zeon and the Earth Federal Forces, Zeon started it with a colony drop, they lost it all in the last weeks of the year. Stefan Amaris started a war to usurp the Star League throne in the Inner Sphere timelines, he lost when General Kerensky came by and kicked his arse hard enough to break his back. Same timeline 200 plus years later, the Clans invade the Inner Sphere on the bleatings of the Jade Falcons and the Smoke Jaguar, the Clans lose when the Federated Suns in particular and the other nations in general counter-invade the Clan homeworlds. And I don't think I need to mention the Star Empire Wars, for we know who started that and who ended it and how bloody it was."

"Message received, comrade," Wayne replies. "So, in essence, starting a war is a great way to lose a chunk of your army."

"More than that, sir. Modern practices of warfare, even our 'clean' fighting, lends itself well to collateral casualty. Start a war nowadays, expect economies and industries to get blown to hell, much less the political and militaristic ramifications."

"Well, that leaves only one question," Wayne notes wistfully.

"Two, sir. Who, and how badly did we just inflict damage on their touman," the AI replies.

"Someday we will know," Wayne notes as he stands up. "Some day."

"For today, we will rest," the AI replies.

The jump Klaxon sounds. "Attention all personnel, begin lockdown for non-standard jump. One hour until jump at this time. That is all," Commander Ward orders over the intercom.

---

Author's Chapter Afterword:

And here is where the revision meets the original. On the original, I did not show the battle except in passing briefing. This time around, since I am a lot more confident writing mobile forces battles (and even pretty good at doing random result battles, like you see several times here) so you get to see the totality of the engagement that sent the Mjolnr packing...right into the thick of someone else's war.

For those of you who are new to the Jokers Wild series, I will state that this does actually belong in the Gundam SEED section for very good reason. Personally, I advise you don't spoil the action to come by reading through the original Jokers Wild, but if you then heed my warning: As I have shown here, a lot will change as I do the full rewrite, and the action of those battles prior will only get more frenetic, more bloody as my writing goes on. If you want to see what I mean by the terms 'serious bloodletting' then when you get to chapter eleven of the Flight of the Jokers Wild series, then read through The Inferno That Is Chicago, which is basically a straight battle fic. I have been accused of being really bloody in that story, and for good reason.

On a writing note, I am planning on cramming one or two (or more) chapters of the original fic into a single chapter of the revision, which will give me more room to expand on the original concepts, introduce greater detail and plot than I was able to show at that time. With each original chapter registering in at 4000 words or so, doing that should be fairly simple and with a net improvement in plot flow. Keep in mind that while I will be following the original flow, I will not be copying the old chapters word for word. That would just be wrong. Expect a lot of change in what was versus what shall be.

Also, expect much improvement on the original, but expect much extension over the original as well. I stopped the original more or less at Phase 50 of GS, and I had much more in the way of ideas to go, so now I am going to execute those ideas. I am not entirely sure where all I shall be going with the post-war section, but I will be staying fairly true to my original set in Legend and Flight. Also be advised that the third section of the Jokers Wild, Fury, is in the works at this time, and once I clean off some of the stories on my plate at this time i will begin the final write-ups on those chapters and begin posting.

As always, if you have any suggestions, questions, comments, flames, etcetera, feel free to drop me a review. I take criticism well and I listen to the readers.

Next up: the ship jumps, and finds itself in a less-than-pleasant corner of space. What's a poor sod and his fleet to do on days like these?

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Review Replies: Three reviews for the pilot, that's helluva cool! Thanks guys!

One-village-idiot: Thank you for the compliment, comrade. I aim for plot, the pointless drabble is not what I write. As with this chapter, there will be TRO sections after each chapter, with full fluff and all that. However, the Mjolnr's stats are a bit of a ways off, as the ship does not factor hugely into the battles until much later, sort of as the big surprise for the OpFor when they least expect it. Rest assured when they really factor in they will get their due props, and you guys will get your hard numbers and history.

Deathzealot: Thank you for the review, comrade, and a pleasure to be back and kicking (major portions of arse, of course). The class of Warship called monitors are basically Warships without jump engines. As FraserMage pointed out, they are semi-official and level three, there are no tournament-legal Monitors whatsoever. I prefer Monitors for applications where I need a warship's firepower but don't need a full-size Warship doing the job. As shown here, they also make excellent escorts for other ships, providing another ship for stalking the enemy, a helluva lot of firepower, and their own mobile forces compliments. The one major downside to a Monitor is their prohibitive cost. See the TRO below for the Flame Eater ships for full details. And for the record, I always intended six monitors for the Mjolnr, but I never properly stated that or showed the Flame Eaters in action.

FraserMage: Thanks for the review and the compliment. And below in the Logic section is the main differences between the Technical Revision levels R3 and R5, and an example how they would affect Battletech play. Note that under the best of circumstances, the distance between revisions is very significant and requires a lot of scientific research, though like technology in Battletech progress is uneven at best. There will be far more progress as the story continues, however.

Once more, thank you for the reviews. The nightmare continues unabated, the Mjolnr is headed well into harm's way and will definitely suffer some ass-kicking in the battles to come. Stay tuned, and keep those reviews coming. Your dreams are but drops of fuel for the ongoing nightmares.

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The Gripe Sheet:

No gripes outstanding right now. It is always a refreshing feeling to do it right the first time.

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Footnotes:

(1): Heavy Launcher is a combination weapon with a four-barrel machine gun (65mm) and four missiles built into it. Used by one of the Gundams from the UC Era, I can't remember which offhand. Typically carried by close-range combat machines as a stopgap fashion to give them some medium-range combat efficiency.

(2): United Earth Sphere Alliance, primary planetary government of the AC Era (Gundam Wing) until the Romafeller Foundation usurps power.

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Logic And Reason:

Today's discussion centers around the Technology Revision system and standards, and how they affect the battles and story. Thanks to One-Village-Idiot and FraserMage for the question, I should have realized this would be one of the first on the chopping block. I will warn my readers on this one, this information gets very technical very quickly. Not for the weak of stomach on such subjects.

When looked at from a distance the Tech Revision (TR or just plain R) standards are fairly simple, but how they are derived is not. Over the flow of time, technology will improve drastically, so long as the means by which it advances is not slowed down by outside factors. On the flip side, it is that advancement that creates disparity between older technologies and newer ones, even inside a fairly homogeneous group like a Star Empire, and invariably somewhere devices will get left behind without being upgraded. A drastic show of this was the recharge station that was two revisions behind the present standard.

The revisions basically boil down to materials sciences, electronics, computing power, engine or motive systems, and extended features. Classifying the Revisions is actually fairly simple and direct, though the gap between revision standards increases geometrically. Revision 1 devices are pre-Nuclear Age devices on Terra, the cutoff is generally considered 1960 AD. Revision one material sciences are of the oldest nature, mostly relying on carbon-laced steel as an armor composite and construction material. Electronics were of the bare minimum in and around this time frame, where computers were whole-room affairs to calculate simple formula. Computing power was minimal or less, and extended features were nonexistent. Motive sciences were somewhat ahead of their times, with the ICE engine prevalent and some strides in jet or rocket engines, though these first models were highly inefficient. In particular, the Infantry, being one of the major gauge of the advancing eras, operated almost completely unprotected from enemy fire and more often than not carried a single-shot non-automatic weapon, or prior to that sometimes relied on close-quarters blade combat.

Revision 2 covers everything from 1960 up to about 2040, and while a reasonable person would say that there is a huge disparity between 1970 and 2005, just for example, when looked at from the sands of time the differences are minor compared to some of the stellar jumps of the next eras. Material Sciences took a major improvement, where the armor composite moved away from solely steel to composites and laminated armor systems capable of stopping trauma-based penetrations. Electronics became preeminent in everyday life, computer systems shrunk down to handheld units capable of doing massive complex equations on their own (though slowly). Trans-global and short-range planetary communications became a simple matter of satellite routing for the communicating parties. Engine sciences took drastic improvements as the first alternative engines began seeing use as well as vastly improved efficiency for aerial engines, with the ability to use reusable space flight craft having come into its own during this era. The value-adding extra features of the day are automated systems that take much of the manual burden out of the hands of the workers or operators and allow them to focus more on the larger picture, and this is even evident in some ways in military applications. The hallmark of the revisions, the Infantry, became a force to be truly reckoned with as their survivability increased dramatically and their firepower even more so. The average in Infantry carry enough firepower to be a threat to ten or more soldiers of prior days, and even can be outfitted with weapons capable of threatening low-flying aircraft and hardened targets on the ground.

Revision 3 is the first major drastic improvement over its forefathers. Material Sciences took a huge leap forward, as emergent technologies in weapons rendered even the composite armor systems of yore to be practically useless as a defensive measure. The introduction of combat-scaled laser systems and reloading missile weapons in particular changed the focus in combat from single-hit single-kill to having to really hammer on a target before it folds, since the improvement in armor allows for ever-increasing protection to armored units. Electronics power and simplicity increased a bit, to the point of what would otherwise be done with a manual method having an automatic counterpart. Computing power and flexibility has taken several leaps forward as of the third revision, and is in part the main reason why JumpShips and interstellar travel are possible technologically. Though ICE Engines are still in use, the fusion engine, one of the major hallmarks of this era of technology, has come into its own and is commercially available for a hefty price. The major added bonuses of Revision Three technology are space and interplanetary travel, though the first Jumpships capable of interdimensional travel were Revision Three machines. The first Battlemechs and Mobile Suits were built under this standard, and have steadily improved over the years.

Revision 4 became a standard during the Star Empire Wars, and highlighted the disparities between the six Star Empires to a tee. With the advancing of technologies over the intervening thousands of years, improvements rocked both the battlefields of the blossoming war and the civilian markets, as materials and resources became cheaper, easier to manufacture, and mostly more common for any given task. New alloys were prepared, synthetic materials advanced as forms of zero-G processing and forging allowed for increased material densities and zero-G mining became truly prevalent for both ensuring the safety of a planet and as a resource base. It is often said that a one-meter steel bulwark manufactured under Revision Four could withstand the main cannons of the best tanks manufactured on Terra before space travel became possible. With the advent of multi-directional processing and mass-scale distributed processing, the ability for computers to literally out-think the tasks they were assigned became a reality, making the battlefields even deadlier than ever before and the civilian fields even more productive and straightforward. In terms of engineering, the engines that run the Empires really took their first major leaps forward in this era, due to increases in material sciences and superconductivity that better transferred waste heat out of the machine and allowed increased transmission of power. The ability for a compact car to make several transits around a planet non-stop on a few grams of water made headlines on planets that it was done on. In these troubled yet advanced times is where the Gravitic Lattice came into first use, allowing for artificial gravity throughout space ships and reductions in the apparent weight of objects, reducing the necessities of carrying larger and more powerful myomer systems to cover the additional weight. In this fashion, the heaviest Infantry armor became the de facto standard, capable of withstanding sustained direct fire from Battlemech weapons, something that armor engineers had been struggling with for hundreds of years, let alone the arsenal restrictions brought upon by weight restrictions.

Revision 5 systems and architecture took its first form mere years before the end of the first Star Empire Wars, and the advantages proved decisive in ending the war on the terms of the Magi. The first forays into nanotechnology allowed for increasing material density and structure that created materials so hardened that even the best weapons engineered before the Star Empire Wars were veritably useless against it, as the energy throughout necessary to damage it could not be produced by techniques of that time. It is often said that a Successor State class-20 autocannon had less striking and penetration power than the humble autocannon class five of the post Star Empire Wars era. This was also made possible by the advent of true quantum computing standards, and computer architecture allowing for such powerful computing requirements that it became possible to both time and execute Jumpship jumps to land with a margin of error of 1 meter across 500 light years jump distance, and five meters across dimension jumping. Such precision and accuracy itself reduced the Jumpship fatality rate significantly, to where jump collisions and cross-magnetic ship destruction became a veritable thing of the past. Power production also became a veritable moot point with the advent of dual-stage fusion reactions, increasing engine efficiency so thoroughly that the power-to-weight ratio of fusion engines became a six-figure number, and engines of the size that powered warships before the Star Empire Wars could now power whole planets on their own. The hallmark of the era, nanotechnology and its intendant bonuses, would forever drastically alter all of society that it came into contact with. The benefits to medical, industrial, military, and even commercial sciences would forever warp the processes that had led to its creation to begin with and rewrite many of the rulebooks that Existence had lived by for years to come. The downside to this is that not all equipment possessed by even the most technological of the Star Empires, the Magi, is at this standard. There are many notable delays in rolling out these standards due to the implied scale of the upgrades, and though the Magi are behind, the other Star Empires are even farther behind than that.

Revision Six architecture is the blossoming standard of technology as of the beginning years of the Second Star League, and actually some would claim it to be founded in the year 2SL-11 with the first forays into Quantum Object Manipulation and Quantum Energy Manipulation. Though still incredibly theoretical, the believed possibilities of these states of matter and energy may themselves herald the answers to resource consumption, energy transfer, physical aging and deterioration, and a host of other issues still plaguing Existence. Due to its infancy, these sciences have not yet migrated to the military sectors, though the promises they hold are already stacking up to make the superweapons of tomorrow.

As this affects all aspects of a subject in question, there is a rather simple equation to determine the effects of technology. When comparing one base to another, first the distance between the two bases is determined, and the direction. If the base is higher, the base unit is going to be better in every aspect than its older counterpart, and vice versa if the base is older than the compared unit. The distance is the major factor, however, in such comparisons, as one level increase or decrease will increase or decrease effectiveness by half respectively, though the scaling changes after that. With two revisions, the difference is double on the increase and reduction to a quarter effectiveness on the decrease. On three revisions, the difference is quadruple on the increase and reduction to an eighth on the decrease, and four revisions nets a eight times modifier on an increase and zero effectiveness on a decrease. Further increases will result in doubling the increase in power over the original, and still a net zero effectiveness from the older technology.

Using the example of the Successor States (the Inner Sphere of the early 3050s), which are universally considered to be at Revision Three for most applications and revision two for some others, there will be a significant change in its effectiveness when applied to different standards of combat. A Successor State Atlas can be expected to take some damage from an American M1A1 Abrams when fired on (a revision two unit), but will be able to take down the MBT with laser fire at close range and missiles at longer range without issue. However, the same Atlas when wagered against a Magi Atlas produced during the Star Empire Wars (R4) would only cause half damage per strike, and would take a fifty percent increase in damage from all return fire. The disparity for the Successor State Atlas becomes even worse when wagered against an enemy 'mech constructed after the Star Empire Wars, as the Successor State Atlas would deal only quarter damage to the target and would receive double damage from the enemy. This also applies to the enemy's relative speed compared to the Successor State units, though the weapons ranges are affected differently they are still severely increased. The Medium Lasers on a R5 Atlas (Inner Sphere lasers) would easily be able to out-range the LRM pack on a Successor State Atlas by almost half, and Kerensky help the poor Inner Sphere sod if the same R5 Atlas decided to take it out of him using the LRM rack it carried.

I hope this more clearly explains the issues between the technical revisions. Gundam is a strange one in these terms, especially Gundam SEED, since different parts of all the sides' technology would conform to different levels of standards, such as the beam weapons would fall more along the lines of R4, while armor composites are more along the lines of R2 (Phase Shift would be closer to R6, maybe R7). The disparities are rather amusing, and interesting to write into story.

Remember, if you are not thoroughly confused, you have not been thoroughly informed.

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TRO Section: Today I have the Thornheart's TRO, the Flame Eater class of warship. Not a ship to sneeze at.

AeroTech 2 Vessel Technical Readout

Class/Model/Name: Flame Eater Destroyer

Tech: Mixed Tech / 3067

Vessel Type: Monitor (WarShip Transportable)

Rules: Level 3, Standard design

Mass: 400,000 tons

Length: 660 meters

Power Plant: Standard (C)

Safe Thrust: 5

Maximum Thrust: 8

Armor Type: Clan Lamellor Ferro-carbide

Armament:
5 NAC/35 (C)
2 NAC/25 (C)
6 Medium N-Gauss (C)
3 Heavy NPPC (C)
12 Light NPPC (C)
4 NL55 (C)
20 NL45 (C)
35 AR10 Launcher (C)
30 ER Large Laser (C)
10 ER PPC (C)
10 Large Pulse Laser (C)
20 LB 10-X AC (C)
10 LB 5-X AC (C)
10 LB 20-X AC (C)
30 Ultra AC/5 (C)
40 LRM 15 (C)
30 ATM 9 (C)
30 Streak SRM 6 (C)
1 Angel ECM Suite (C)
1 Bloodhound Probe (IS)
40 Laser AMS (C)
5 Heavy Small Laser (C)

Overview:

The Flame Eater class of Monitors was designed purely as a heavy jumpship-transportable gunboat to add to the striking power of a fleet. No frills, no bull, nothing. Just plain and simple masses of firepower, capable of bringing down anything in its weight class or smaller.

Like any Monitor, this ship does not have a jump core. Instead, it relies on the transport of other jump-capable ships to get around from system to system. This is a bonus for the ship, since the 45 mass a Jump Core would have can be dedicated to extra armor, weapons, and systems. This makes the unit incredibly lethal, though dependant on other ships for mobility.

Capabilities:

The Flame Eater carries an immense spread of weapons, ranging from NAC/35 all the way to Heavy Small Lasers, and many in between. In addition to offensive capabilities, these ships also carry a spread of point-defense weapons capable of intercepting missiles before they hit the ship or nearby friendlies.

The Primary guns of these ships are 35cm Naval Guns, of which one is in the bow centerline, and two are on each forward side. Not far behind in potential are six Medium Naval Gauss Rifles, two in each forward arc and a single 25cm Naval Autocannon in the broadsides on each side of the ship. Of distant third are a small array of Naval Laser 55 and Heavy NPPC weapons, though in small quantity. For defense to the sides and rear against capital assets, 20 NL 45 weapons are available as well as 12 Light NPPC weapons.

Another plus brought with the ship is the large quantity of AR-10 Launchers, a total of 35 spread around the circumfrence of the ship gives it frightening missile power to being to a foe. These missiles are capable of causing massive damage to any foe targeted, even as small as a fighter craft or Mobile Suit. These launchers carry several different forms of missiles, and can be used for any purpose except suborbital bombardment.

The bulk of the arsenal in terms of numbers are smaller weapons more commonly considered anti-fighter guns, though this is a misnomer. Though it may seem fairly pithy to use something as 'weak' as a LB-10X AC on another capital ship, the exigency of using all available firepower when in close quarters can often turn the tide of a battle, especially when in the given firing arc the probable damage caused by those small weapons would exceed the damage of available capital weapons. This is especially true of the rear and rear-sides of the Flame Eater, where 4 Light NPPC are wagered against 10 LRM-15, 10 ATM9, 10 Ultra-5 AC, and 10 Streak SRM-6.

As a consequence, the Flame Eater can also be used as an anti-aircraft platform due to the volume of its arsenal, and as escort to more traditional warships that are thin or lacking in anti-aircraft arsenal. It however does not match the Riga-class in this context, for more of its arsenal for its size is geared toward anti-naval operations. This has not stopped resourceful Admirals from using the combination of Sendai-Class and Riga-Class to completely swamp enemy fighter forces before they could become a major threat.

Defensively, the Flame Eater has over three times the armor of its norm for a 400,000 ton ship, translating into protection equivalent to a normal 1-megaton Warship. These ships are reknown for being able to take an immense beating from any capital assets, and that is without the other defensive capabilities of the ship. For missile defense, this ship carries 40 Laser AMS and 5 heavy Small lasers, which can dent or destroy even the largest of capital missiles. Smaller missiles fired in salvo are just as easily intercepted with these arms.

The most innovative feature of this class of ships is called the 'Light Shell Generator'. These equipment features are standard on all Flame Eater units, and are almost alwatys active except when docked with a ship or station. The Shell Generator produces a polarized spatial distortion barrier that can deflect a certain amount of incoming ordinance below a given threshold, per turn. This capability has tripled the expected combat life of these monitors, and given more than a few foes one hell of a rude shock. This shell system has only a minor bearing on targeting foes outside the shell, and that only with PPCs and Lasers, not with missiles or ballistic arms.

Battle History:

The battle history of the Flame Eater is a long and impressive history of ships that can turn whole enemy battalions of Mobile Suits into smouldering chunks.

The first battle the Flame Eater took part in was actually not one against the Negaverse, but against their allies in the Dark Moon Empire. A Dark Moon fleet of capital ships and some ground assets had been assigned the task of taking Bensinger 410, a world long claimed to have been Dark Moon and rebuffed by both the citizenry and the Magi. In orbit around the planet was the Magi Phalanx-class Brick Wall, which had been issued four of the new Flame Eater destroyers to compensate for having part of its aerofighters drawn off for replacements to another unit. Thinking one Superdreadnought would be an easy kill, the Dark Moon fleet continued its operations and advanced on the Magi, heedless of the nightmare really waiting for them. As the fighter battle began outside the ship's engagement bubble, the four Flame Eaters took off and surged forward, right into the middle of the furball, where they could do the most damage possible. With armor well exceeding that of the average 400,000 ton ship and a Light Shell Generator, the Flame Eaters were able to abosorb a massive amount of damage from the fighters, thereby distracting them from taking down the Magi fighters. Combined with the Brick Wall's fighter compliment, the Flame Eaters were able to create four kill zones that the Magi fighters drove the enemy aerofighter screen into and the Flame Eaters proceeded to annihilate them in groups of as many as seven a minute. With the fighters destroyed, the Brick Wall surged out of its orbit and forward toward the enemy ships while launching the ten Mobile Armors it carried. Though the Dark Moon fleet attempted to retreat, they were overtaken by the Brick Wall and her escorts, and in the ensuing running naval battle the Brick Wall accounted for three McKenna-class warships and the Flame Eaters accounted for two Texas-class, four Nightlord-class and over a dozen assorted DropShips. Those few ships that surrendered were ransomed back to the Dark Moon at a significant markup over book value.

Variants:

Variants of the Flame Eater class are rare. For their size and mission, they are almost overequipped to their tasks. The most common variants revolve around stripping out some of the standard-scale autocannons and replacing with NL-25 weapons and extra heat sinks, to increase anti-capital firepower, though this is exceedinly rare. The ship was designed with modular components under the Universal Maintenance Initiative, though modification was not really part of that plan as originally drafted.

Notable Vessels & Crews:

FDE-18899 Glasgow (Captain Tania Weste)
The Glasgow was something of an unevenly lucky ship, not for its crew or even for the captain, but in terms of things it found. On the firtst duty assignment of the ship, the Glasgow and its intendant fleet had encountered a Negaverse invasion force after the official end of the Quarter War, which brought out the realization that even after being beat down the Negaverse was not through fighting. The Glasgow was later assigned to an EEC Jumpship, and during that tour was able to record the birth of a new star during the exploration tour, a record that earned the Glasgow and the EEC Jumpship major accolades from the scientific community. The Ship has been credited with finding numerous Brian Caches in old Star League territory, it has found two planetary human civilizations with no explanation to how they got where they were found, and even discovered a planet with monumental ruins of an ancient civilization and no inhabitants or any trace of them.

FDE-28558 Powerbomb (Captain Markus)
The Powerbomb has something of a distinction all its own, being a ship staffed entirely by Eugenics and captained by an Abtahka Snow Raven Warship Captain. Nevertheless, the ship served with distinction as escort to more than a few Warships, starting with the Leviathan II-class and working its way up to the Nirvana-class Ultradreadnought Nirvana Celeste, a warship captured by the Magi and purchased off the Magi by the Star League. The original captain of the ship, Markus (Raven), had participated in over a dozen space skirmishes with Negaverse naval forces, and each time his ship acquitted itself with stunning success, taking down ships twice, thrice its size and suffering very little damage in its own right. At his time of death, Captain Markus chose to upload his consciousness to the ship, and to this date his mind serves as the Ship's AI system.

Deployment

Flame Eater ships are often deployed as escort to Jumpships or inside a system as guard ships for important space facilities. Pirates would think more than twice about attacking a space station that is guarded by one of these monsters, let alone any other assets.

When used in an attack or siege fleet, Flame Eater units are typically deployed as a forward screening force to blunt the nose of an enemy attack, draw fire away from the heavier assets, and harass enemy capital assets with standoff fire. They typically also add their anti-aircraft capabilities to the first and second rings of a fleet defensive bubble to prevent enemy aerofighters from getting in close on the heavier warships and Dropships. When conducting siege work, these ships have limited capability for use attacking ground stations and targets. More often than not, an enterprising Admiral will 'bait' a ground Space Defense Station into firing at a rapidly-moving Flame Eater, then have the ship relay the enemy firing axis to other assets that will slag down the enemy guns into a pile of rubble.

The only known weakness this ship has is a lack of self-carried fighter assets. It has an array of Marines, four stars to be exact, though it carries no fighters of its own. In practice this is not a massive problem, as the defensive and anti-fighter capabilities of the ship are enough to stave most small fighter attacks, though in larger engagements the ship may fall prey to concentrated fighter strikes if for no other reason than volume of fire.

BATTLETECH SPECIAL RULES:

The Shell Generator can stop 40 Capital Points of damage at the beginning of a turn. For each attack the shell stops, half the attack value is subtracted from this total (round fractions down), giving a new maximum block value. If at any time an attack hits the ship that exceeds the present maximum block, the shield is torn down for the remainder of the turn and all subsequent attacks strike the ship normally. The shield will be active at full strength next turn, regardless of its status at the end of the prior turn. The protection of this shield is all-encompassing, including any DropShips carried by the Monitor and from all directions. The bubble has a side effect, however, that it is a complete sphere of protection, and some shots that would have missed the ship by a fair margin may still strike the shell.

Note that if an attack missies the ship by a Margin of Error of 1, the shell still takes the damage, though if the shell is breached the attack still misses the ship.

Standard scale wepaons with a Capital AV of below 1 (IE a standard-scale damage of 9 or below), and any missile weapons (excluding the Kraken-T) have no effect whatsoever on the shield. Their damage effect is completely turned aside with no ill effect on the shell generator. No reduction from the shell's threshold is made when such an attack hits it.

For outgoing weapons, due to the nature of the shield, energy weapons have a reduced hit chance. There is a random error firing through a mostly-polarized spatial distortion (the variance is 98 polarization for safety's purpose, since 100 polarization can instantly destroy a ship encompassed within and create a small black hole. The system is designed to fry out at 99.75 polarization as a final safety measure.). This variance translates only to photon, ion, and plasma weapons; solid objects are unaffected passing out the polarization. Any energy weapon, capital or standard, firing from inside the shell to a target outside recieves a +1 to-hit penalty due to possible minor random deflection when transiting the polarization. This penalty does not apply when the shield is down for any reason.

If an attack strikes the shell at the beginning of a turn with a single-shot Capital AV of 41 or higher, the controlling player rolls 2D6. on a roll of 4 or lower, the Shell Generator is overloaded and rendered inoperable until repairs can be made. A Competent crew can do this while still under fire, since the Shell Generator was engineered for just such a happenstance. The controlling player will then roll 2D6 and add 5 to the result, which will be the amount of turns after the shell was disabled that it takes an engineer to replace blown components and recharge the system. This presupposes such components are available (usually three sets are carried in spare parts, though sometimes more can be carried in stores). After the time has elapsed and a standard piloting roll has been made successfully, the shell is working again. If the piloting roll is failed, the player can attempt to reactivate the shell on the next turn with another piloting roll. If the roll is fumbled (result of 2) the replacement components are fried out and must be replaced anew, following the same process as above.

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Class/Model/Name:

Flame Eater Destroyer

Mass: 400,000 tons

Equipment: (Mass)

Power Plant: Standard (120,000.00)

Structural Integrity: 240 (96,000.00)

Safe Thrust: 5

Maximum Thrust: 8

Heat Sinks: 3,522 Double (2,988.00)

Fuel & Fuel Pumps: 5,000.00

Bridge & Controls: 1,000.00

Fire Control Computers: 15,460.00

Food & Water: (200 days supply) (375.00)

Armor Factor: 2,256 Lamellor Ferro-carbide (C) (1,920.00)

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Armor Value

(Capital Scale)

Fore: 414

Fore Left / Right: 376 / 376

Aft Left / Right: 376 / 376

Aft: 338

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Equipment & Options:

Cargo:

Bay 1: Cargo (1) with 5 doors (1,547.00)

DropShip Capacity: 8 Docking Hardpoints (8,000)

Life Boats: 35 (7 tons each) (245)

Escape Pods: 35 (7 tons each) (245)

Crew and Passengers:

50 Officers (47 minimum)

85 Crew (75 minimum)

135 Gunners (132 minimum)

5 1st Class Passengers

100 Marine Battle Armor Troopers/Elementals

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Weapons & Equipment:
Loc, SRV, MRV, LRV, ERV,
Heat, Mass

1 NAC/35 (C)(30 rounds)
Nose, 35, 35, --, --
120, 4,030.00

2 Medium N-Gauss (C)(60 rounds)
Nose, 50, 50, 50, 50
30, 11,024.00

3 Heavy NPPC (C)
Nose, 45, 45, 45, 45
675, 9,000.00

4 NL55 (C)
Nose, 22, 22, 22, 22
340, 4,400.00

10 ER Large Laser (C)
Nose, 10(100), 10(100), 10(100), 10(100)
120, 40.00

10 LRM 15 (C)(160 rounds)
Nose, 9(90), 9(90), 9(90), --
50, 55.00

2 NAC/35 (C)(60 rounds)
FL/R, 70, 70, --, --,
480, 16,120.00

2 Medium N-Gauss (C)(60 rounds)
FL/R, 50, 50, 50, 50
60, 22,048.00

6 NL45 (C)
FL/R, 27, 27, 27, 27
840, 10,800.00

5 AR10 (20 KW, 20 WS, 20 B)
FL/R, (Damage dependent on missile used)
200, 7,300.00

10 ER Large Laser (C)
FL/R, 10(100), 10(100), 10(100), 10(100)
240, 80.00

10 Laser AMS (C)
FL/R, --, --, --, --
240, 30.00

1 NAC/25 (C)(30 rounds)
L/RBS, 25, 25, 25, --
170, 6,036.00

4 NL45 (C)
L/RBS, 18, 18, 18, 18
560, 7,200.00

5 AR10 (20 KW, 20 WS, 20 B)
L/RBS, (damage dependent on missile used)
200, 7,300.00

10 ATM 9 (C)(140 rounds)
L/RBS, 14(140), 14(140), --, --
120, 140.00

5 ER PPC (C)
L/RBS, 8(75), 8(75), 8(75), --
150, 60.00

5 Large Pulse Laser (C)
L/RBS, 5(50), 5(50), 5(50), --
100, 60.00

10 LB 10-X AC (C)(160 rounds)
40, 232.00
5 LB 5-X AC (C)
10, 80.00
5 LB 20-X AC (C)
60, 152.00
L/RBS, 14(135), 14(135), 2(15), -- (Note that this is a composite bay with three classes of weapons)

4 Light NPPC (C)
AL/R, 28, 28, 28, --
840, 11,200.00

5 AR10 (20 KW, 20 WS, 20 B)
AL/R,
200, 7,300.00

10 LRM 15 (C)(160 rounds)
AL/R, 9(90), 9(90), 9(90), --
100, 110.00

10 Laser AMS (C)
AL/R, --, --, --, --
240, 30.00

10 Ultra AC/5 (C)(200 rounds)
AL/R, 7(70), 7(70), 7(70), --
40, 160.00

10 Streak SRM 6 (C)(210 rounds)
AL/R, 12(120), 12(120), --, --
80, 88.00

4 Light NPPC (C)
Aft, 28, 28, 28, --
420, 5,600.00

5 AR10 (15 KW, 20 WS, 20 B)
Aft, (damage is dependent on missile used)
100, 3,400.00

10 LRM 15 (C)(160 rounds)
Aft, 9(90), 9(90), 9(90), --
50, 55.00

10 ATM 9 (C)(140 rounds)
Aft, 14(140), 14(140), --, --
60, 70.00

10 Ultra AC/5 (C)(200 rounds)
Aft, 7(70), 7(70), 7(70), --
20, 80.00

10 Streak SRM 6 (C)(210 rounds)
Aft, 12(120), 12(120), --, --
40, 44.00

1 Angel ECM Suite (C)
Aft, 0, 1.50
1 Bloodhound Probe (IS)
0, 2.00
5 Heavy Small Laser (C)
15, 2.50
3(30), --, --, -- (Note that this is a composite bay with 3 types of equipment)

1 Lot Spare Parts (1.00)
4,000.00

1 Gravitic Lattice
4,000.00

1 Light Shell Generator
2,000.00

TOTALS:

7,010 Heat

400,000.00 Tons

Tons Left: .00

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Calculated Factors:

Total Cost: 1,700,000,000 C-Bills

Battle Value: 261,054

Cost per BV: 6,512.06

Weapon Value: 158,788 (Ratio .61)

Damage Factors: SRDmg 9,136; MRDmg 8,517; LRDmg 5,803; ERDmg 1,666

Maintenance Point Value: MPV 752,790 (195,735 Structure, 258,750 Life Support, 298,305 Weapons)

Support Points: SP 765,025 (102 of MPV)

BattleForce2: (Not applicable)